No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race of simple mortals, it is the same tyrannical principle.

  ~Abraham Lincoln

  One hour out from New Orleans, Sarah set aside her Louis L'Amour western and rose from her seat in the first-class cabin of the airplane to use the restroom. When gaming wasn’t an option, she liked to read, and she’d been going through a western kick lately.

  She needed something to distract her during the flight. The closer she approached the city and Tomas, the more her nervous excitement grew. She was eager to land, to escape the stale cabin air, even for the humidity of the deep south.

  The last three days had passed in a blur of growing anticipation. Three more daily quests finished, each incorporating slightly different routines.

  She got 12 more free points, but no new tutorial options in the System Store. It had continued to populate with a few more random items every day, though, and some of them were wild.

  In addition to a bunch of new knife offerings, she could buy an actual small explosive, supposedly ideal for breaching doors and walls. Where had that come from? When would she ever use an actual explosive? More intriguing was a sweet knife.

  Sun Tzu Spirit Blade. This deceptively simple knife embodies the genius of Sun Tzu, the famous Chinese general renowned for breaking the spirit of his enemies. Surprise attacks will deal triple damage, and every strike will drain a percentage of a target’s Spirit. The 6-inch, single-edged blade is extremely durable. Rare quality. Cost: 8.

  It was way more expensive than the other blades, although the quality sounded much better, and that spirit drain effect sounded like something out of a fantasy novel. The bit about channeling the famous Sun Tzu was pretty boss. She’d heard about his book, The Art of War, but had never read it.

  She’d never understood when some people gushed over knives, but now she was starting to understand. Would buying the blade help her learn more about how to start using her Spirit rank? Maybe, and when she unlocked a second tutorial, maybe she’d buy it just to test the theory, assuming she had enough free points available.

  She had resisted the urge to dump all the free points into her stats until she met up with Tomas again. She even decided to pass on all the weapons and explosives, but could not help picking up a different item that was just too wild n0t to check out.

  Adaptive Wardrobe. The perfect choice for the on-the-go traveler, this wardrobe provides an ever-growing selection of changeable outfits, including all necessary accessories. Every piece of clothing you put on adds to the selection. Cost: 8.

  That was just too cool not to try, so she’d paid the high price. She was getting ready for a trip, after all, and Sarah did not like traveling light. Jill might waste insane amounts of money on expensive cars, but Sarah had a weakness for nice clothes.

  Shopping was just so much fun, and the second bedroom in her apartment was perfect as an extended walk-in closet.

  The Adaptive Wardrobe appeared in the mostly-empty room of her inventory, looking like a medium-sized old-fashioned leather suitcase, and she immediately started testing.

  It was simply awesome. All she had to do was focus on it, and a menu appeared, listing all available articles of clothing, including shoes, jackets, bags, jewelry, and more. At first, it only contained a basic pair of jeans and a white t-shirt, but then her current outfit had appeared too, along with options to choose different colors.

  She’d been wearing a royal blue blouse, but selected the same one in red, just to see what happened. She’d expected the blouse to appear in her hands, but instead, the new red blouse had simply appeared on her body, replacing her previous one.

  It was like a fairy tale, and the best part of the path so far after her physical stats. She’d spent half the afternoon switching from one outfit to the next, working through almost all of her collection, and the Adaptive Wardrobe options kept growing and growing.

  She’d been about to add all of her swimsuits, but ran out of time and had to head out for another news conference. All of the senior leadership of Alterego, plus all of the top-twenty male and female donors were in attendance, and it proved a super interesting meeting.

  The real Mr. Fleischer was back, and he had been furious. He claimed that someone had stolen his body and pretended to be him ever since the explosion. None of the decisions or actions supposedly done by him in recent days were valid. He had been set up to take the fall for someone else’s crimes. He reinstated the senior executive team and tried to blame Dr. Maerwynn for everything.

  It did not go well.

  No one believed him, and the attempt to dodge responsibility was interpreted by most as a last-minute scramble to avoid jail time and losing the rest of his fortune. The more he’d insisted he was a victim, the more credibility he lost, especially since he could not explain how he’d been restored to his body when all of the machines had been lost.

  Sarah had enjoyed every minute of the circus. Tomas had set up Mr. Fleischer too well for him to worm his way out that easily. He even tried to protest that the generous gifts from his personal fortune to victimized renters, convicts, and to Sarah and Jill were illegal.

  When that backfired, he made the final, fatal mistake. He grew so enraged that he had pointed at Sarah and shouted, “She’s the one you should be questioning. She was in league with the traitors who blew up my company!”

  That was too much, and Sarah had lost her temper. In the angry exchange that followed, the truth came out that the sale of Sarah's original body to Marilyn was forced.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Ryan had nearly attacked Mr. Fleischer right there, and several of the other guys had lined up for their turn too. It was a total circus that sealed Mr. Fleischer’s doom. By that afternoon, clips of Mr Fleischer calling her a terrorist played everywhere, along with the video footage of Sarah and Jill pushing the gurney with his unconscious body out of the building seconds before it exploded.

  Sarah’s schedule had gotten insanely busy after that, and she’d done several interviews. In them, she had no choice but to explain that she’d found a way to avoid losing her body by finding a very similar body for Marilyn, one the company had illegally taken from a convict, who had died in the explosion.

  That only got Alterego and Mr. Fleischer in more hot water. Sarah managed to meet with poor Marilyn after that. One of the news networks wanted to arrange the face to face live, but Sarah had refused, although she was happy to spend a few minutes with the sweet old lady.

  Marilyn had been horrified that she’d nearly purchased Sarah’s body illegally. The fact that she got the dead convict’s body only horrified her more.

  “They promised us eternal youth, but gave us unprecedented evil,” Marily had moaned. Sarah had comforted her the best he could, but Marilyn looked shell-shocked. Hopefully she’d find a way to move forward.

  Sarah was lauded as even more of a hero for helping to save Mr Fleischer from the explosion, even though he had treated her so badly. In the many interviews packed into the past couple days, Sarah had tried to downplay her involvement, but it was hard since she also helped stop the gunmen during that restaurant attack.

  She was used to a certain level of fame, but things had gotten insane. At least, she’d had opportunities to publicly announce that she was taking some time off for emotional healing, and that she hoped people would respect her privacy for a while. It had been tough, but she’d managed to finally slip away from all the insanity.

  Now she was on her way to maybe finding answers. Sarah took a deep breath as she pushed the past few days out of her mind. Seeing Tomas again would be great, and she was cautiously optimistic that seeing Eirene was a good idea.

  If anyone could help her make sense of the path, it had to be her. All Sarah had to do was navigate the meeting without getting her soul ripped out. And of course, she planned to push Eirene to uphold her promise of returning Christine’s body.

  No pressure.

  The airplane’s first-class bathroom was occupied, and a heavyset woman in seat 2A proclaimed that she was next in line, so Sarah headed aft. As she slipped through the coach cabin, she thought about how she’d survive the coming visit.

  First, Eirene. The powerful and mysterious facetaker was terrifying, but seemed to like her. Hopefully she could shed light on what was happening to Sarah without deciding to just get rid of her.

  Then there was Tomas. Sarah’s emotions were all twisted around regarding him. The romantic angle was a good idea, and might be fun, but how far did she want to let things go? She honestly wasn’t sure.

  A man seated in an aisle seat interrupted her musings by touched her arm as she passed. “Excuse me, miss, but didn’t you work for Alterego?”

  The man looked young, somewhere in his twenties, but dressed like he had accidentally left home with his grandfather’s suitcase instead of his own.

  “I did. I was a model there,” Sarah said, forcing a smile.

  She hadn’t even landed, and already someone was bugging her about Alterego?

  “I knew it,” the man said with a smile. He turned to the elderly woman sitting beside him and took her hand. “Gladys, dear, it’s her. It’s Sarah.”

  The old woman squinted through thick glasses. She reached out and Sarah took her gnarled, quaking hand. Gladys leaned toward her and scanned her head to toe. “It is such a shame what they did to you and to poor Marilyn both.”

  “It was,” she said, trying to keep a straight face. Just her luck, getting stuck on a plane with friends of Marilyn.

  “You look lovely, dear,” Gladys said. “You could be sisters.”

  “I was very lucky,” Sarah said. “And Marilyn will have a good life in the body they found for her, despite the deception.

  “I hope someone will,” the man muttered.

  Upon closer inspection, Sarah noted the small signs of misalignment along his jawline. The skin stretched too tight in a couple of places, but bunched in unusual wrinkles right under his chin. His face fit the skull very well, and at first even she hadn’t spotted the telltale signs that he was inhabiting a body that wasn’t his original birthday suit.

  If Sarah hadn’t noticed, no one else would. During her time as one of Alterego’s top female body donors, she’d developed a hobby of studying how her face and those of the other donors fit the many temporary bodies they’d used while their own were being rented.

  Sometimes the fit was nearly flawless, while other times the effect was rather grotesque, as if their faces were but barely attached. Now that she knew the truth of the facetaker powers that made the technology of Alterego possible, things finally did make sense.

  Well, kind of.

  “You were a renter, weren’t you?” Sarah asked.

  “Walter,” the man introduced himself, shaking her hand. “We both were.”

  “I had been renting ‘Every Man’s Dream’,” Gladys said with a wistful smile. “So lovely. But they restored me. Poor Walter lost his body in the fire and was stuck in this one.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Sarah said, crouching in the aisle beside him to keep the conversation a little more private. She didn’t remember them from the crazy night of the explosion, but it had bee pretty chaotic. ‘Every Man’s Dream’ was Jill’s body.

  “It’s a mess,” Walter said. “Still dealing with lawsuits from this guy’s family.” He poked himself in the chest. “And arguing with four separate government agencies about whether I’m me or if I’m him.”

  Sarah felt partially responsible for the difficult position the couple were stuck in. In her fight to save herself, she’d helped destroy the evil concealed in the vault, but Mai Luan had destroyed so many lives with that explosion.

  Walter and Gladys had paid obscene amounts of money to rent young bodies, then had their lives totally up-ended. Her heart went out to the old couple, now separated in time.

  Walter was stuck in a different generation, and in the near future he’d be forced to watch his beloved wife die of old age while he was still young. Sarah had heard many similar tales of lives shattered by the company, and every one enraged her more than the last.

  Sarah spoke softly, “Don’t lose hope. I’m tracking a lead that might be able to help.”

  “Help how?” Walter asked.

  She hesitated to say. She barely allows herself to hope it might be possible. Another reason she wanted to speak with Eirene was to beg her help in healing some of the broken lives. They were partially responsible for the mess, and although the technology was gone, Eirene was a facetaker. With her help, they could find a way to help.

  “Alterego was destroyed,” Sarah said. “But there’s a chance the secret to their work wasn’t completely erased.”

  “That would be wonderful, wouldn’t it, dear?” Gladys said.

  Walter looked less inclined to hope for a miracle. “I watch the news. The machines are all gone.”

  “Probably, but there’s a chance that some information might remain.”

  He grunted. “If you find it, let us know.”

  “I will,” Sarah promised.

  She took down their phone number, their need bolstering her determination. One more long-shot item to add to the list of her hopes for surviving a meeting with Eirene.

  As she waited for her turn in the restroom, her eyes scanned the rows of passengers. She noticed a muscular man whose face did not quite fit. With her thoughts now focused on her plan to help the victims of Alterego, her gaze locked onto the telltale signs of misalignment.

  He glanced up, saw her looking at him, and quickly ducked behind a magazine. Sarah turned the other way so he didn’t feel uncomfortable. Some people still resented what had happened, and she didn’t blame them.

  On the way back from the bathroom, she looked for the man but he wasn’t in his seat. Before passing back into the first class cabin, she glanced back and caught sight of him sitting in a different seat, watching her with a scowl. When their eyes crossed, he ducked down again.

  She wondered about his odd behavior. Unlike Walter, his face had fit poorly. Most people still wouldn’t notice the subtle mis-alignment, but she couldn’t miss it. Had he also lost his elderly body in the disaster? With lawsuits raging, a lot of people were angry. A hit squad had targeted all the donors, after all.

  Maybe the man’s wife had rented Sarah’s body? That might explain his reaction, especially if his wife had been restored to her aged self like Gladys.

  So many wrongs needed to be righted. First, she had to figure out her own path and how to survive it.