So you’ve got a clone! Congratulations! Whether you created them on purpose, made a horrible mistake with a cursed talisman, or woke up next to your duplicate with no recollection of how you even got to the verdant island where you both seem to be stranded with no hope of rescue, your life is about to change forever.
Figuring out what kind of relationship to develop with a person who is identical to you in every superficial way might feel overwhelming, but never fear! No matter what kind of relationship you and your clone end up having—and no matter how long the two of you survive existing in the same world—remember to cherish every moment. It’s not every person out there who gets to meet an exact replica of themself!
For every dilemma you might face in life, there’s a listicle, and this is no exception. You and your new clone could be in for a long and fruitful future of…
Friendship! Sure, it can be unnerving to have a sudden new friend who is identical to you but has no past to speak of, but nothing can stop the power of friendship, especially when that friendship involves genetic mirroring. Borrow each other’s clothes, enjoy a perfectly-balanced tandem bike ride, and examine the true relationship between nature and nurture as you discover the deep, immutable differences between your personalities!
Crime! Nobody can provide a better alibi than your true double! You can always count on your clone to grab the attention of eyewitnesses. Even the increasing omnipresence of advanced facial recognition software won’t be able to incontrivertibly place you at the scene of a jewel heist—not when your clone was busy causing a scene at the local farmer’s market by getting into a loud fight with a mushroom vendor about whether oysters are superior to lion’s manes!
Buy the Book
The Echo Wife
Rivalry! Are you losing motivation at work? Are you struggling to keep your marriage alive? Are you at risk of losing the big MMA tournament because your complacency is preventing you from giving it your all? Thank goodness all your problems can be solved now that you have a clone! Just drop a few hints about your great life and open the door for your clone to start trying to replace you. You’ll have no choice but to start fighting for that big promotion, your happy home life, and the title belt—unless, that is, you want to disappear forever, unbeknownst to those who know and love you best!
Intimacy! …it isn’t a good idea, but I can’t stop you two.
Bloodsport! Even the most dangerous game gets boring after a while. After all, you can only lure so many unsuspecting young upstarts to the secluded peninsula where you hunt them for sport, and soon, you’ve learned all their tricks! But of course, in all your years of pursuing human trophies for the bloodstained walls of your trophy room, you’ve never really taken the time to get to know the wiliest prey of all: yourself. Hunting your clone for sport couldn’t possibly go wrong, unless your clone decided to turn the tables and start hunting you. And that would never happen… right?
You might wind up developing a lifelong friendship with your clone, or you might find yourself killing them and devouring their flesh in a ritualistic fervor, you can be sure that life will never be the same! Meeting your double can be destabilizing and even scary, but just remember: everything will be fine. You’re the same person you were before you met this new, familiar person! You’re the original. That’s indisputable. You’re definitely the original. No doubt about it, no reason to double-check.
Now get out there and have a great time getting to know the other you!
Hugo award winner Sarah Gailey lives and works in California. Their nonfiction has been published by Mashable and the Boston Globe, and their fiction has been published internationally. Their novel, Magic for Liars, was an LA Times bestseller. You can find links to their work at their website. They tweet @gaileyfrey.
Family! You’re just identical twins born six years apart. Pay no attention to alarming body choices intended to make sure your new sibling can never be mistaken for you again. If you’re lucky you can even give them a name! Just show them it’s better to be their own person instead of just an imitation
@1, If your name is Miles Vorkosigan and you live in a universe where clones are routine. Especially on your Mom’s weird home planet.
Not something that I would personally do, but keeping your clone in perfect health in case you need spare body parts might be a good idea. Imprisoning Isolating them from society, providing them regular exercise and good food may be a cheap alternative to black market kidney. Again, not something I would recommend unless it turns out you are the evil clone, in which case it would probably be Plan A.
@3- I don’t know, feeding and housing a human enough to keep them in good health can add up, as most parents should be able to attest. And you’ll still have to spring for a shady doctor who won’t ask too many questions.
If my clone is their own person who just happens to share my DNA, well, that is just a new family member that I will be okay with. If the clone is like in Farscape’s duplicator arc, or that one episode of Star Trek TNG with Riker, and they are me in body and mind, well I know myself well enough to know the first thing we’ll do is explore whether making out is masturbation or incest, or fun. Of course, once we’ve got that out of our system then it will probably end like Red Dwarf’s Me2. So, that isn’t so good. Hopefully the makeout sex will be fun.
William Tenn’s story about the Bild a Man kit kind of kicked off the How to Relate to Your Clone thing.
@3, I would guess that any technology able to clone you would also be able to grow a new kidney in a jar for when you need it.
RED DWARF did the intimacy thing with a parallel universe female version of Lister who ended up sleeping with him and producing him. The baby was then taken back into the past to grow up to be Lister. The episode is correctly titled as “Ouroboros.”
@@@@@ 8. MByerly
The Heinlein short story, “All You Zombies” is one of the weirder examples of sleeping with yourself. But that was time travel not clones
My clone would be genetically identical but I have an added wrinkle to the mad scientist plot. I was born with cerebral palsy. Even if my clone was born two months early at 2lbs 12 oz. If they lived, and had cp it could manifest in different ways. No ones condition is identical or they could have gone full term and be “normal” . They could be extroverted, like the color green, be good at math and enjoy spicy food . Identical twins who grow up together aren’t completely identical to each other why would clones? I myself would go for friends and hope we’re aren’t in a horror movie, those are never good for relationships.
@8: Actually, the baby conceived by the Listers was sent back to Female!Lister’s reality between season 2 and 3. The baby!future!Lister from Ouroboros was conceived in vitro with an alternate reality version of Kochanski.
I’m actually wondering how the Ghost Brigades from Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series would fit into this. Officially, the Brigade’s members never get to meet their progenitors (progies) because said progies died, but at the same time, they exist because their progies died before they could transfer into their shiny new bodies.
@3 & 4, I don’t know how expensive Hailsham is, but you can always send your clones there.
Although there is no chance of a direct relationship, science fiction characters have often been cloned as a replacement. In that case, on discovering that you are a clone, you have to decide how far you are going to follow the model of your original and what to do about the enemies that they acquired. Examples include Ariane Emory https://www.tor.com/2008/11/18/who-killed-ariane-emory-cj-cherryhs-cyteen/ and Etienne Steward https://www.tor.com/2020/10/20/five-sff-books-built-around-dead-people-or-mostly-dead-people/.
I can’t believe you missed “fight with him then help him escape” (the incomparable Sam Rockwell in Moon).