Author's Note- I wanted to write a futuristic clones in space AU. So here it is. My very first AU fanfiction. Wish me luck!
Dr. Cormier viewed her new subject first, before meeting her, through the shatter-resistant glass panels that made Huxley Station's medical wing so impressive looking. 300 people living their lives in the rotating sections of the space station. At least half of which were DYAD medical or research staff. She was lucky enough to be both. There were no windows here, nor in the lab - but out in the main station, or in the residential section, she could look out on the colony and the stars. Sometimes she looked for constellations to see if she could find the ones she knew from back home.
She was sitting on the table, swinging her legs like a child looking entirely too relaxed. She doesn't seem like the others: she wasn't angry or tense or even terrified. She seemed freer, more childish. Her hair was in some strange style. Dr. Cormier couldn't quite remember the name of it. And she was reading, seemingly unfazed by this turn of events. A pair of glasses sat beside her on the examination table. Dr. Cormier hadn't seen a real book in ages. And there's this clone, her new subject, reading one. This was going to be a very strange day.
Dr. Cormier grit her teeth as she swiped her card to enter the medical bay. Off-the-grid clones are always trouble. Always. Her superivsor and head of research, Aldous Leekie, prefers to watch these examinations from the safety of his office. Unless the clone has been sedated. She glances up at the camera, this is what she wanted. To practice medicine and conduct cutting-edge research. Though lately she was wondering if it was worth it. Last month they'd sent her one from some strange colony. That girl had been feral, animalistic, dangerous. She'd bitten her. She glanced down at her hand, the scar from the bite still reddish, but fading. She hadn't seen that clone again after that. A small voice in the back of her head told her that she never would.
This girl seemed somehow different, perhaps it was the way she was holding herself. And Dr. Cormier wasn't afraid this time. She ran through it again: examine, record, call security to escort her subject to the holding facility. She glanced at the guards standing outside of the examination room. Both completely stoic and unresponsive, until there was a problem.
"Hello." She greeted approaching her new subject. She glances at the locked metallic cabinent on the other side of the room. Hopefully it will not be dangerous to remove her equipment with this one.
"You're French." The girl stated, "You Earth-born?" She tilts her head
She's taken aback by the question, "Yes. Lived on the surface until I was fifteen."
"You've been in cryo then..." The girl trails off. Whatever assumptions she's making she's respectful enough to make them inwardly.
"Yes." Dr. Cormier answers curtly, "I will need to take a blood sample from you."
"Jeez, okay." The girl rolled up her sleeve revealing tattoos. Tattoos? Where could you get tattoos around here? Where was this girl from? She opens the metal drawer with a wave of her hand - microchip activated. But the girl displays no sense of surprise even as she preps the needle. The girl holds out her arm and remains silent as she draws several vials of blood. This is going to be much easier than last time. She finds herself breathing more easily. She discards the used needle in the hazards bin.
"I will need to take some information down - your history, where you've lived." She produces a small recording device from the pocket of her lab coat, it's already active of course. That is policy. And Dr. Cormier has always played by the rules.
The girl eyes the device, and reaches for her glasses, "We moved around a lot. I don't remember where I was born. You should be able to tracks us through my school files. They found me on Eos - I was working in a lab there. Science background, biology. Unfortunately I volunteered my own blood sample for a friend's project."
The girl looks down at her hand for a moment, observing the bite, but saying nothing.
"You didn't know you were a clone?" This has happened before. More times than her higher ups would like to admit. Sometimes she found herself wondering if letting a few experiments slip through the cracks was part of the research. Some sort of control group.
"No. I didn't. My parents raised me as their daughter. I never knew the difference. I got through post-graduate education before anyone realized." The girl falls silent for a moment, "What's going to happen to them?"
"I don't know." She answers honestly, "You've been booked for a full-body scan. The guards will escort you." She pulls a small roll of what looks like plastic from her pocket and unrolls it. The small screen displaying as she skims through the file with her fingers. She collects the vials of blood in her free hand - there will be time for that later.
"Don't you need a name for the file?" The girl asks looking down at her.
"Your blood sample will match your tag number." She follows the script given to her. She's not supposed to ask names. Sometimes she has. But they're probably watching her. They're always watching her. She does not wish to anger Dr. Leekie again.
The girl looks right through her, "Cosima Niehaus." She extends her hand for a handshake.
Despite herself, she reaches to clasp her hand, "Delphine Cormier."
The hand in hers feels warm and entirely human. They always feel human. Not so different from her patients in the "normal" medical bay. The girl, Cosima, smiles at her for the first time. Probably smiles for the first time since she arrived. In some other universe, Delphine theorizes, they might have been friends.