Walking alone was the only time she was able to think, even if it meant breaking curfew, which meant breaking the rules.

Khloe Lincoln walked along the sidewalk, her steps the sole sound, interrupting the silence of the quickly approaching morning. The streetlights were off, but they always were now. Most had shattered after the Burning. Those that hadn’t, no longer worked. But she didn’t mind the darkness, despite only being able to see a few feet ahead. It was a comforting escape from the heat, which controlled everything now.

She glanced down at her wrist.

121°/0535.

It was thirty-five minutes passed the start of the forbidden time.

This was the latest Khloe had stayed out before. In less than half an hour, she was supposed to be asleep in her bed. Safe from the sun.

Khloe had not meant to evade curfew. The first time was by mistake. She had been inside her own head again, a skill she had a talent for, and hadn’t heard her alarm go off. Two minutes had gone by before she heard the angry blare of her watch, reminding her to return to her residence. But, when nothing bad happened, she decided to test her courage again the next night.

At first, Khloe increased the length she stayed out by one-minute increments, each passing second an act of rebellion that could cost her freedom or her life. Eventually, as she grew braver, she raised the time to five-minute increments. She could even see the first signs of a sunrise, a phenomenon not witnessed since being made illegal by the AIEA—a declaration that even she wasn’t willing to challenge.

Besides, that was how most of them had died.

As the sky slowly changed to a hazy gray, Khloe could now see the outlines of two or three trees and a few bushes. Skeletal reminders of a forgotten past. Those had also died in the Burning. The only vegetation she saw now was inside the fortified greenhouse, which she harvested with the others on the weekends.

She turned onto the street leading back to her residence, then stopped. Something had moved behind her in the fading darkness. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone else out here, but Khloe knew she had seen something. She prayed it wasn’t the AIEA, finally noticing she had not been returning to her residence before the forbidden time began. Coming to take her away at last. Maybe even kill her. She suddenly felt a sense of dread for challenging the curfew.

She briefly wondered if what she saw was perhaps an animal, making its way back to the place it called home during the day, trying to escape the coming heat. But it was rare to see animals outside the containment farms, and the ones that were still outside never lasted long. The few that survived mutated beyond recognition.

Khloe could hear her heart, almost too loudly, as she turned to see what had caught her attention. Then she froze. Something, or someone, was crawling out of the storm drain across the street from where she was standing. Khloe watched as it rose up on two legs and then began to make its way toward her, slowly at first, then quickly. Walking in her direction.

Every fiber of Khloe screamed, telling her to run, but she stood as if held in a trance. She knew it had been foolish to break curfew, to challenge the rules, but she thought she was different. Special, somehow.

“What are you doing out here?” the person, a woman, asked Khloe.

Khloe was silent. She just stared at the woman, examining her, confused. Khloe began to tremble. She had never seen someone outside at night before. Except it was almost morning now, and the sun would soon be rising.

“You’re going to ruin everything.” The woman glanced side to side, also panicked. She put her hands on Khloe’s shoulders, pleading, “You need to go home. Now!”

She turned Khloe around and then pushed her in the direction of her home.

“Go! Before they see you. Do you want the AIEA to find you?”

No, she didn’t. Khloe ran.

As she looked over her shoulder, just for a moment, she saw the woman crawl back into the sewer drain and disappear.

Back at home, Khloe bolted her door and drew the shades. She felt nauseous, though she wasn’t sure if it was from the excitement of seeing another person out after curfew or if it was from the heat of the rising sun.

She looked at her watch.

125°/0545.

It was the latest she had ever stayed out before. In fifteen minutes, the AIEA would be checking to see if she was asleep.

Khloe turned on the faucet and splashed cool water onto her face. She was shaking. She clenched the sides of the sink, trying to stop her head from spinning, then threw up. She stared at herself in the mirror for a long time, too long, and began to scream.

It was her.

It was the woman.

Khloe was staring at the woman from the storm drain.

💀💀💀

Sometimes she would find herself stirring in her sleep, about to wake up, but that was also against the rules.

Sleep time was strictly enforced by the AIEA. Since the Burning, people were only allowed to be outside from 2100 until 0500. Not that anyone was foolish enough to go outside during the forbidden hours. Every person knew that venturing outside during the day was risking death or even imprisonment from the AIEA.

But Khloe had been foolish enough to go outside during this time, and so had she. The woman from the storm drain.

She often found her mind wandering to the woman, fascinated by the idea that there was someone else brave enough to go out during the forbidden hours. Yet Khloe was also terrified of the woman. It had been six days since she had gone out past the forbidden time, and six days since she had seen her.

Still, every time Khloe looked in the mirror, she saw the woman’s face staring back at her.

Four days ago, Khloe removed her mirror. That was after she started having strange dreams. The ones where she could see the woman living in her house, but it was during the day and not at night. Khloe knew it was the forbidden time because the light was overwhelming. The sky was dark red, and she could see the sun behind black clouds. The land was a scorched corpse. Everywhere, there was death, and everywhere, there were ripples of smoke, rising into the sky. But Khloe wasn’t just seeing the woman, she was seeing from the woman’s perspective too, as if looking through her eyes.

It was like Khloe and the woman were one, except the woman was controlling Khloe’s body.

After waking, she had screamed when she walked into her bathroom and saw the woman looking back at her. It was strange because she looked just like Khloe did, but Khloe somehow knew it was really the woman. Just like she knew that if someone saw how she was behaving, they would say that she was crazy, but she was willing to do whatever was necessary to make the dreams stop. Even with the absence of the mirror, though, Khloe continued to see the woman in her dreams.

And she knew the woman could see her, too.

The woman was watching her, even when she was awake.

Khloe could feel the woman inside of her.

💀💀💀

She was breaking curfew again, but if she didn’t do something soon, Khloe knew that she would eventually find herself breaking as well.

Sleep had become unbearable. Several times in the last week, Khloe had awakened during the middle of the day to find herself out of bed, past curfew. She would discover herself wandering around the house, relaxing in the living room while looking at a photo album, lounging in a chair while reading a book, or even sitting outside in the yard, just enjoying the sun.

And it was only getting worse.

Two days ago, Khloe awoke in an unfamiliar house. She was sitting on a couch, talking with a person she did not recognize. In fact, Khloe had no recollection of ever meeting this person before, but she was talking to them as if they’d been friends for ages.

Khloe felt like she was sleepwalking, except she was always there. The woman—and she was pretending to be Khloe. Then, whenever Khloe would wake, the woman would somehow overpower her, forcing her back into the deepest region of her own mind, trapped and helpless.

Khloe was now terrified to sleep because that’s when she took over.

When she became Khloe.

It was quiet as Khloe walked along the sidewalk, taking the same path she always did, and she knew if she stayed out long enough, the woman would come out again. Khloe felt it was long past time that she finally got some answers to what was happening. She looked down at her watch.

126°/0548.

The sun was now almost up and the sky was changing from gray to red.

She was nervous. She had thought about what she would say when she saw the woman, the different scenarios skipping through her mind like a broken record, but nothing seemed right.

“Hello Khloe,” came a voice from behind her.

She hadn’t seen the woman come out of the drain or even heard her approach. She had been caught off guard again, wandering in her own mind.

“Who are you?” Khloe asked, turning to look at the woman. In the growing morning light, Khloe felt like she was actually seeing her clearly for the first time. During their first encounter, it had still been dark, the sun only a faint glimmer. Khloe had also been confused and scared at their first meeting, barely able to comprehend the situation—but now, she wanted answers. She wanted to live her own life and for the woman to go away.

As the sun slowly crept above the horizon, she could see the woman did not just resemble her, she was identical to her—down to her height and weight.

“I thought you figured it out already,” the woman said. “I’m Khloe.”

“What? No.” Khloe’s voice trembled. “Who are you?”

“I am Khloe,” the woman, sympathetically, said again. The sun was now fully visible, and in a few minutes, the heat would overtake them both.

Khloe’s watch suddenly blared angrily and began to flash a bright strobing light. She looked down on instinct.

130°/0600.

Khloe stared in awe as she watched her first sunrise. The suggestion that this was all a dream briefly crossed her mind, then vanished.

No, she thought. This isn’t a dream. It’s a nightmare.

And then Khloe was overtaken by the AIEA.

💀💀💀

“This is the second one this week.”

“Third, actually.”

The voices, both sounding strained, were above Khloe. She tried to move, but something was holding her down.

“What do you think it is that’s making them break? You think it’s the heat?”

“Could be. I don’t know if anything is meant to withstand temps above 150°, and these bots are out there most of the day.”

Khloe opened her eyes. She tried to move again and saw the straps. She was lying on a metallic table, and the only light in the room was shining in her face.

“Where am I?”

“Oh, Christ!” shouted one of the men, dropping the scissors he was holding. They clanked onto the table beside Khloe. “I thought you said the damned thing was off, Marco!”

“It was off,” the other man said. He was holding an electrical saw in his hand. “Must have powered back on somehow. Or maybe you turned it back on by mistake, Frank. Maybe when you were cutting the blasted thing’s memory line.”

“Well, doesn’t matter now. Just turn it off already! I’m not going to disassemble it while it’s still on. I don’t want it looking at me.”

Khloe glanced around the room. Her eyes shifted from the man holding the electrical saw, to the straps that were holding her onto the table, back to the electrical saw.

“Please! Where am I? What are you doing? This is a mistake! Please, at least let me explain it to the AIEA. I’m Khloe Lincoln!”

The two men traded confused looks. Marco, the one holding the saw, leaned forward. He held the weapon inches from Khloe’s face.

“No, you’re not.” He pressed a button and the saw whirred to life. Khloe tried to flinch away, but the straps held her to the table. “We are the AIEA. You see? You’re just like this saw. Push a button and you come to life. Push the button again”—he pressed it again to demonstrate—”and you shut off.”

Khloe struggled, trying to free herself, but it was no use. “I don’t understand! Where is she? Where is the woman? The one who looked like me? This is a mistake! Let me talk to the AIEA. I’m Khloe. She’s trying to take my place!”

“Like I said, sweetheart, you’re not her. The real Khloe Lincoln is getting scanned right now, as we speak, for a new, better replica. One that hopefully won’t malfunction like you did. You’re just a machine, and a broken one at that. And the Artificial Intelligence Enforcement Agency? Just a scary story we made up to keep you bots in line.”

“Oh, why do you talk to them? Just turn it off already,” Frank said, losing patience. He looked down at his watch. “It’s already 0800. I’ve missed two hours of upload time because of this bot. I should be out there right now, enjoying the day.”

“What? You have a hot date?” Marco laughed, smacking Frank on the shoulder. “Get it? Hot date? Because of the sun.”

“Yeah, I get it.” Frank rubbed his shoulder where Marco had slapped him. “Let’s just disassemble it already.”

“You don’t do anything with your upload time anyways. You just use your ugly bot to sit inside all day and stream old reruns on TV—same thing you do down here in the gutters.”

“That may be true, but I happen to know several young ladies, and men, by the way, who find both me and Frankie, Jr. very attractive.”

Both men laughed. Marco pressed the button on the electrical saw and it buzzed back to life. Khloe started thrashing around on the table.

“Frankie, Jr., that’s good!” Marco held the saw next to Khloe’s face once more. She began to scream. “You know, let’s leave this one on. I’ve always wondered if bots could cry.”

Marco lowered the electrical saw and sparks began to spray throughout the dimly lit room as Khloe’s screams joined with the screeching of the saw.

The laughter of both men echoed loudly.

Khloe stared into the light above her, thinking of the sunrise she had seen just hours ago, and tears began to fall.