My name is Victoria Fisher, and I am not alone.

  Not in the way that other people mean when they say they feel lonely. Not in the way that can be fixed by attending another party, making another connection, accepting another invitation from someone who wants something from me. I am alone in the way that matters: no one in this city knows who I actually am. No one in this city ever will.

  I suppose I should describe myself, since this is my story and you are presumably reading it. I am tall, taller than most women, taller than some men, with the kind of sharp features that photograph well and intimidate in person. My hair is brown, cut into a sharp wavy bob that requires more maintenance than I care to admit. My skin is pale, deliberately so; I avoid the sun the way I avoid most things that might leave a mark. My eyes are brown and cold, or so I have been told. I do not spend much time examining them.

  My clothing is expensive. Dior, mostly, from their 1998 spring collection, pieces I acquired through methods I will not detail here. I favor their sculpted lines and elegant silhouettes. They create distance. They announce wealth without announcing me. My makeup follows the same philosophy: Bold colors in dark blues, deep reds, and muted yellows. A mask I put on each morning and remove each night, assuming I have the energy to remove it before collapsing into bed.

  Personality is harder to summarize. I am adaptable, I have to be. I am ambitious, though my ambitions have narrowed over the years to something very simple: survive. I am assertive when necessary, charming when useful, intelligent enough to know when both are liabilities. People who meet me at parties describe me as cold, reserved, and blunt. They are not wrong. Introversion is not a flaw I have ever tried to correct.

  My beliefs, such as they are, I keep to myself. On the surface, I support the separation of Originals and Clones. I attend fundraisers for organizations that promote genetic purity. I nod along when my dinner companions discuss the necessity of population control, the economic stability provided by manufactured labor, the convenience of never having to worry about where the next organ donor will come from. I have made these arguments myself, with a straight face and a steady voice.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  In private, I think differently.

  The clones bother me. Not in the way they bother other Originals, as a potential threat, as an inconvenient reminder of mortality, as faces that are too similar to our own to be comfortable. They bother me because they are people. Sentient. Aware. Capable of suffering in exactly the same way I am capable of suffering, and yet condemned to lives of servitude simply because of how they entered this world.

  I want clone production to stop. Not because I fear uprising, not because I worry about resource allocation, not because I have any strategic objection to the practice. I want it to stop because it is wrong. Because treating a person as property is wrong. Because manufacturing beings for the sole purpose of exploitation is wrong.

  I cannot say this, of course. To question the system is to mark myself as defective. To mark as defective is to invite death.

  So I let the clones live their lives. I let them suffer and die and be replaced by more of themselves, identical and interchangeable and invisible. I attend my parties and perform my beliefs and return to my empty apartment where I can finally stop pretending.

  I am alone because I have to be. Because connection is risk. Because the moment I let someone close, they might see what I cannot afford to show.

  My name is Victoria Fisher. I am wealthy. I am respected. I am, by all outward measures, successful.

  And every night, I lie awake in the dark and wonder if there is anyone else in this world who feels as wrong as I do.