Replica

The Basement

I can’t move my legs.

No matter how hard I push or pull, nothing moves below my waist. It’s like my feet are encased in concrete. When I try to reach down, searching for the problem, I discover that my arms are frozen too.

My shoulders won’t flex. My fingers won’t bend. I can’t even turn my head.

Someone has glued me to the wall.

The shock of this, the panic crushing my throat, is so great that it takes me a moment to realize I don’t know who I am. Where there should be a name, a birthday, a childhood, instead I find an inky void, sucking me into it. I’m nothing.

I try to struggle free, but my limbs won’t move even a centimetre. I’m numb from the neck down. A hot ache compresses my temples. I can’t breathe.

Not glued, perhaps. Paralysed.

However I got into this situation, I don’t have long to get out. I’m already dizzy—in a minute or two, the lack of air will give me brain damage. Perhaps it already has. Maybe that’s why I can’t remember who I am.

The windowless walls are made from crisp new bricks, tinted blue by the lonely neon tube above. Box cutters, saws and pliers hang from rusty hooks. Timber is propped up in the corner, cut to varying lengths. This could be a garage, except that the machine lurking in the shadows isn’t a car.

It’s as big as a train engine, ribbed with plastic tubing. A network of pressurized canisters stands amongst the thick legs. Behind plexiglass panels, syringes are clamped to the ends of robotic arms. A standby light blinks beside the power switch.

My eyes roll wildly to the other side of the room, and I discover that I’m not alone.

‘You’re awake,’ the girl says, wiping her palms against her jeans.

She’s somewhere in her mid-teens, with a glittering nose stud and long, neatly clipped nails. Her mascara and foundation are slightly too thick, as though she hopes to be mistaken for an older woman. Her rosewood eyes reveal no fear.

‘Help me!’ My own voice is surprisingly clear, but completely alien to me.

The girl tucks a tightly knotted braid behind her ear. ‘Help you?’

‘Please,’ I say. ‘I can’t breathe!’

Her chair squeaks as she swivels on it. ‘You’re not supposed to be awake yet,’ she says, staring at a computer monitor.

Then I see the unconscious woman.

She’s sprawled on a bench under a wall of screwdrivers and soldering irons. A grey tank top clings to her chest. Boxer shorts hang from her hips. Her face is concealed by the girl at the computer, and I can’t move my head to get a better view.

‘What is this place?’ I ask.

The girl glances over, and almost smiles. ‘Your new home.’

As she moves in her chair, the rest of the woman on the bench is revealed. But I still can’t see her face, and then I realize it’s not there.

Her whole head has been removed.

My scream is shrill as a smoke alarm. The sound fills the room, leaving no space for anything else. The girl jumps up from her chair and grabs a torn, oil-stained T-shirt from the workbench before shoving it into my mouth. She pinches my nose shut.

My vision blurs, more from terror than from lack of air. It feels as though I’m plummeting down a well, with my head thudding against the stone as I fall.

I black out.

Awareness returns slowly, in glittering fragments, like the first few stars after sunset. I recover from my delirium to find the girl fiddling with her computer again. She has changed clothes—she’s wearing a sweater and cargo pants. How long was I unconscious?

She glances over at me, sees me staring, and turns back to the monitor.

The gag is gone, but still I smell the bitterness of the oil. When I try to scream again, only silence comes out. My vocal cords are frozen, like the rest of me.

‘Looks like you died of fright,’ the girl says, and sighs. ‘I didn’t know that could happen. This wasn’t supposed to be so hard.’

I’m surprised to see the decapitated corpse still on the workbench. Part of me had expected it to fade away, as nightmares usually do. No blood stains the neck. Somehow, the head has been detached as neatly as a Lego brick.

The girl turns to face me. ‘I’m going to give your voice back now. If you scream, I’ll take it away. Maybe permanently. Understand?’

I can’t say yes, or nod, so I blink. She turns back to her computer and clicks the mouse a few times. I feel something heat up inside my throat, like a sip of hot tea.

‘What are you doing?’ I ask. I’m startled by how suddenly my speech has returned to normal.

She ignores the question. Her eyes are fixed on mine. ‘Tell me your name.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Answer the question.’

‘I can’t,’ I say.

She frowns. ‘Can’t?’

‘I don’t know it.’

‘Tell me your name,’ she says again, as though the answer is going to be different.

‘I can’t remember!’

‘You’re supposed to know this,’ she says. Her eyebrows knot together. Her lower lip droops. I have the absurd urge to apologize.

‘I don’t remember my name. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know anything.’

‘Your name is Chloe,’ she says. ‘Your parents are Graeme and Kylie. You study at Scullin High School. You don’t recall any of this?’

I try to shake my head, but it still won’t move. Claustrophobia looms on all sides. ‘No.’

The girl curses, and goes back to her computer. ‘Why?’ she mutters. ‘Why isn’t this working?’

‘Whose body is that on the table?’ I ask.

She stares at me, as though the answer is obvious. ‘It’s yours,’ she says.

Before I have time to scream again, she types a command on the keyboard. My consciousness whirls away like storm water down a drain.