The last band played late into the night, and afterwards Jo’s mind buzzed with a strange mix of giddiness and agitation. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do, but neither going home to bed nor smoking herself into oblivion seemed appealing at the moment. She packed up her guitar and pedals and wondered what the Brzezinskis’ plans were.

Seated at a table nearby, Aaron was reassuring his dad over the phone that he hadn’t been dismembered but had simply gotten confused, while at the same time voraciously polishing off the last of two large orders of nachos his family had been sharing while the Bukowskis played. Jaymie sat precariously balanced on the back legs of his chair holding on to Aaron’s shoulder to keep from tipping backwards, animatedly relating to his mother and aunts the entire story of their botched tour the previous month. Rex perched lankily on the corner of Leonora’s seat. They’d allowed their mother to wrap her arm around their waist; in return Leonora was pretending not to notice Rex taking disgusted but determined sips of her bourbon-based drink every few seconds.

Jo had forgotten her bandmates were in the midst of family festivities. She went to the bar for another drink, exchanging a greeting with Sasha, who was on her way back.

Michaud slunk up beside her. “Good show,” he said. “Too bad you have to tone it down so much for this band, hope your wrist isn’t getting bored—”

“You still owe me from Friday,” she reminded him.

“Friday?”

“Yeah, Vendredi. Our show?” She tried to stare down at him and immediately remembered he was half an inch taller and oblivious to intimidation tactics.

“Don’t look at me,” he said. “Jake organized that show! Didn’t he pay you? I must’ve caught him before he was too trashed. We made two hundred each—little Hannah, too! Pretty good, eh? For what it was.”

“Sure, retired bass player Jake put together a secret show in between med school lectures for all the nostalgic hipster-punks and the kids who were too young to see us when we were actually good,” said Jo caustically. “You’re the one trying so hard to keep your foot in the scene. Jake’s moved on!”

“Keep my foot in the scene?” Michaud gave a surprised bark of laughter. “Ok, I know you haven’t kept up much with the outside world, so let me fill you in. Not to sound arrogant, but I am the scene. I have a sold-out album release next month. I’m touring with Daffodile. I get paid by the government to help other bands learn to do what I’m doing—that’s my literal day job.” Jo opened her mouth to interject, but he raised a hand indicating he meant to speak his mind.

“It fucking sucks about Alexandre, and we didn’t see that coming, and I know you feel it too, but that show was supposed to be fun—forgive me for thinking it might be nice to hang out with you guys like we used to. And you! —Ok, 3BFB aren’t really my cup of tea, but Jaymie’s, like, the next big thing in this city! And you want to act like we’re has-beens? We’re not even thirty! I’m sorry Jo, but get over the fucking Ballet Llama. It was great. Now it’s done.”

Jo stood speechless for a moment. “Sorry, Mich,” she said reluctantly. “I was out of line. It’s not your fault Al’s gone. I had a weird day.”

“You’re telling me! I just had dinner with your band’s family—it was tense, dude! Those guys are fucking odd—I mean, they’re great, I know you love them, but like, weird dudes.”

Jo felt an unexpected pang she wasn’t sure the meaning of, and gave a small laugh that she wasn’t sure was the response she meant to give. “Another Standard,” she told the bartender. “Hey, congrats on… all that stuff. I’m glad you played the show with us. Sorry for being a…” She trailed off.

“Pas de problèmes, Jo. If you ever get tired of the ‘Bukowski’ gimmick, I might have some room for you my backing band.” He smiled slyly.

Jo ignored this last remark and said, “Hang on, did you call it ‘3BFB?’”

“That’s what the kids are calling you guys—bet you didn’t realize you joined a boyband,” he teased.

“We are not a—”

“Stick with it, Jo! You’ll be even more famous than I am!”

By the time she’d finished rolling her eyes, he’d beckoned Sasha over, looped an arm around her, and vanished. Jo forgot about her beer, leaving the bartender shaking his head, and wandered to the stage to gather her things.

“Need a ride home?” asked Lucas, who’d been greeting friends in the other bands. It seemed he knew everyone.

“What are you doing after this?” she asked hopefully.

“I’m interviewing someone tomorrow morning. Need a good sleep,” he said apologetically. “Or as good as possible, at this point.”

“A ride would be great. I’m, uh, I guess I’m ready.” She glanced regretfully toward the Brzezinskis and picked up her guitar.

“Great! Let me take that pedalboard.”

After Lucas had dropped her off and given her a lingering kiss goodbye, she shoved her gear in the door, put her one hitter in her pocket, and went back out into the night. It felt balmy compared to the last two days; the sky had quit its brawling, hacked up the last of its precipitation, and passed out, leaving the temperature unsupervised at a perfectly neutral zero degrees Celsius. She pocketed her toque, ran a hand through her sweaty hair, and drifted down Westminster Avenue.

The lights of the Osborne Bridge blinked merrily ahead, as though celebrating with her for playing a show where nobody was murdered. She decided to walk as far as the middle of the bridge and take in the view of the white-frozen river. She couldn’t decide if she was glad to be admiring it alone, or if she’d prefer someone there with her. It was a strange feeling.

She was fiercely glad that Aaron was back, and happy they’d had a good crowd—cover acts were always a hit—but she felt as though something significant had just ended very abruptly.

She was broken from her reverie by a small voice that hailed her just before the bridge, chirruping shrilly out of the darkness like the distant horn of a long awaited steam train, finally breaking through the ice after many months to bring supplies and medicines to a lonely winter-locked pioneer woman who’d thought herself long forgotten by civilization.

“Huh?” said Jo, looking for the source of the sound.

The demon faerie-child emerged from the depths of the under-bridge realm with her coat-full of wares and squinted at Jo from the slit in her balaclava.

“Twi?” she asked.

***

The next week, Cassie 2.3 was welcomed home by her Original. Cassie’s payment plan had spent weeks sitting on the wrong desk under someone’s Emergency travel mug, and was finally approved on the day they forgot their Favourite travel mug at home.

Cassie 2.3 decided to give herself a new name. She tossed around the idea of “Cassandra” or “Callie” or “Khaleesi,” and then called herself Maddison, because she was her own person. She rented an apartment and obtained both a home phone and a cell phone, just because she could, and used them daily for long chats with the other Cassies.

Cloning became strictly prohibited, but Maddison would appear soon after in a courtroom where the new legislation regarding the status of existing clones was to be drafted.

In her powder blue suit and smart blue shoes, with her sleek black braids coiled elegantly behind her head, she would present a moving argument for clones to be considered real people, to be recognized for the unique challenges their circumstances presented them, and to be provided government support to get their lives underway, rather than end them.

She strengthened her case with heartbreaking examples, including the story of a scientist who’d passed away tragically in captivity after his Original had replaced him with an updated version, and a young man who suffered serious anxiety problems because of (the way she spun it) the negligence of his Original and the uncertainty of his life situation, having been cloned as a musician through no fault of his own.

She captured the imaginations and empathy of all those who attended or watched the speech on YouTube afterwards. She charmed her way into decision-makers’ and policy-writers’ hearts even faster than she’d charmed her way into Aaron Brzezinski’s pants (which were actually Jaymie Brzezinski’s pants, come to think of it).

The province’s premier, a known sociopath who spent approximately four quarters of the year at his vacation home in Costa Rica, had installed the Dismantling program as a way to cut costs, similarly to how he was dismantling the city’s hospitals, labour boards and education system in order to give some friends of his—who by coincidence were among the richest people in the country—a few tax breaks, and thus enable them to become slightly richer. He was not swayed by Maddison’s argument.

Fortunately, the federal government intervened. The legislation passed in early 2020; dismantling became an obsolete practice and all clones were provided social insurance numbers, set up with weekly support groups, and given a modest Basic Minimum Income for the first year of their existence.

Many benefited from the new program—including Aaron, whose official clone registration had been accepted a few weeks earlier, and who had been in between jobs for a little while.

He maintained a friendship with Maddison as she went on to join a good law firm, launch a career, and occasionally get flack from her bosses for taking on too many pro-bono cases. She was at a no-nonsense point in her life and keen to find a serious relationship and adopt children, so she could have some semblance of the home she remembered. These ambitions didn’t stop her from phoning her drummer friend for the occasional enthusiastically accepted booty call.

Other relationships did not end on such happy terms. Erica, created by Eric—a scientist with incredible knowledge of mechanical and chemical engineering and a passion for sci-fi anime—and then tweaked to have two X chromosomes, did not retain the level of fondness for her Original that her predecessor Derek had.

She initially delighted in her existence. She was happy to help out in the lab as well as the kitchen, not to mention the bedroom, and the two lived contentedly for the first months of her life.

Unfortunately for Eric, the clone began to desire her own possessions, projects, and general autonomy. As soon as she turned her vast scientific research skills toward the world around her and realized all this was possible and more, she left. She discovered a city full of humans who were not her creator—potential friends, collaborators, and romantic candidates whom she could date or not date as she (and they) pleased.

She held a funeral for Derek, whom she’d never met, found an esoteric job in the field of scientific ethics, and returned to Eric’s lab only once to collect a few materials she felt she was entitled to and confidently inform him he was “a sick fuck.” So, at least one villain got his comeuppance!

Meanwhile, 50117 had bribed his way out of captivity. A few more bribes gained him custody of the two toddler clones he’d created to supply spare organs and enable him to live to one hundred fifty. Seeing the benefit of having a business partner, he won—through bribery—the freedom of his counterpart, 50119, and then he adopted the teenager (who was numbered 80258 but called himself White Scorpion) just in case one of the babies didn’t make it for whatever reason.

Having used up his once-plentiful riches on bribes, and finding that his new business partner was similarly destitute, Five-O applied for the Basic Income Program for Clones. The plan backfired when his application brought attention upon him and his many illegal exploits, including extensive bribery and the murder of his Original.

But the murder case was tricky, considering the circumstances he’d been in. He was spared from prison, placed under house arrest, and forced to declare bankruptcy. The other Five-O scrounged enough to rent a home for them and then got a dull job at an office supply company.

The biggest inconvenience was that they couldn’t afford to get a nanny for the children and then ship them off to boarding school until their body parts were needed, as they’d previously planned. As a result, the two adult clones were forced to cultivate some semblance of a middle-class nuclear family, co-parent both the identical babes and the sardonic teenager and, like most parents, coach all three through surviving the humilities of public school.

So it turned out that two men, who were really the same man, and their teenage son, who was him as well, and their two young children, who were also that same guy, became as tight-knit a family unit as was ever known, sharing numerous tender moments, arguments-that-become-bonding-experiences, and tearful celebrations of accomplishment at graduations, sporting events, etc.

As one might expect, this unconventional domestic arrangement also nurtured a fair bit of light comedy, which didn’t go unnoticed. Netflix launched a Full House-style sitcom based on the clone family, which went on for many seasons and, due to good contract negotiation, would one day put all three children though college. Inspired, White Scorpion became a TV mogul himself, became filthy rich, and started a charity for underprivileged clones (but mostly just used up too much fossil fuel flying around the world all the time).

The younger clone-sons grew to be pretty nice guys. They conceived of several business start-ups, which failed, and then did other stuff. When Five-O suffered kidney failure much later on as a result of a poorly-healed blow he’d received from a drummer during a strange, unsettled period in his life, the boys argued over which of them should get the honour of donating one of their own kidneys to their beloved dad; in the end they flipped a coin for it.

Other clones preferred to remain out of the public eye, or even completely off the map. Jymmy took his cigarettes and merged with the night, melting into legend of the sort recounted on the darkest, coldest days in their wintery city, when the sun was suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder, decided, To Hell With It, and refused to get out of bed. The grinning freckled clone was never seen again.

Just kidding. He climbed through Jaymie’s bedroom window a week later with a messenger bag full of loose change and five-dollar bills; he’d found a synthesizer he wanted and he needed Jaymie to go on the website with his magical credit card and place the order for him.

***

With her post-performance adrenalin buzz finally depleted, Jo arrived home exhausted. She acknowledged to herself that it had been an unusually eventful weekend, and she felt relieved to be past both the drunken giddiness of her night with Lucas and the distress over Aaron’s disappearance. She was more than ready to settle back into her neutral passivity.

She hauled her gear out of the doorway and into the kitchen, tripping over some cardboard boxes and muttering irritably. She flicked the lights on and rinsed one of the two plates she’d been alternating eating off of. (She knew if she unpacked the rest of the dishes she’d use them all and never wash them, and the sight of them sitting greasy and abandoned on the counter would tip her mental scales from apathy into despondency.)

She opened the fridge in search of a snack and accidentally brushed her list of suspects to the floor, where she left it. Finding little worth eating, she instead carefully packed her pipe for her before-bed ritual. Her phone buzzed.

She saw with alarm that there were four missed calls and two messages from the Brzezinskis. She immediately thought of Aaron and of the possibly malevolent clone, and her tinnitus flared. She dialed her voicemail and heard Jaymie’s concerned voice: he’d called to check if she’d made it home and to warn her to stay inside.

A woman had been murdered one street from her building while walking home from a larger show in the West End with a mandolin on her back. The case was found clutched in her frozen fists; the mandolin had vanished from within it, replaced with the woman’s many, many bangles, which had been removed from her cold wrists and used to adorn those of two clawed hands sculpted out of ice, placed inside, and left slowly melting into the fabric of the case.

The body had been discovered within a few minutes of the attack; the police sent immediate warnings to the city’s venues, urging audiences to return home quickly and safely. It had all happened about half an hour after Jo had left the show; she calculated that she might have already been on her walk at the time.

She checked her texts: a handful of question marks and worried emojis from Aaron and Rex, and a message from Lucas that his interview was canceled and he’d like to take her for breakfast if she felt up for it tomorrow.

She called Jaymie, assured the band that she was safe, and said good show and goodnight. Then she sat down at her table, too tired to feel angry or afraid, poking at the bowl of her pipe, thinking.

She set the pipe on the counter, retrieved the paper with her two lists, and fastened it under its guitar magnet. She scanned the floor, spotted her sharpie lying where it had come to rest under the cupboards, and used it to write “Lucas” on the sheet, twice.