Myself
There was a Dog on the other side of the park, selling ice creams out of a goofy wheeled cart. I didn't want him to get suspicious, so I kept my eyes to myself, but I was thinking, If we stole that thing we'd eat good for a week.
"Look, it's a good deal," my sister had been saying. She had a name back then, my sister did - a real name, I mean, not a number - but there's no point in drudging that sort of old shit up now. I don't think she even remembers it anymore, anyway. I think Gero realized he'd made some mistakes with me, and took a lot more of her old mind from her than he did me. Or maybe she just didn't fight back so hard. "The old guy just said that he needed some help around his lab. Just - like - yard work and cooking and cleaning. Stuff like that."
She brushed the hair out of her eyes. I'm the better looking half of the pair, but my sister ain't hard on the eyes either, usually. Right then she wasn't at her best. Her hair was greasy, and she needed a shower a clean change of clothes. We both did, point of fact. It had been a couple of months since we'd decided to take off from home, and mostly we'd been on the streets since.
Kids. What the hell did we know?
The way she told it, my sister had met the guy in the park a week earlier. He'd stopped to give her some money, and she'd spilled her guts, and by the time it was all said and done he'd offered her work for the two of us; we were supposed to meet him that day if we wanted to take him up on it. Looking back on it now, I think Gero probably watched us for weeks before he ever approached my sister. He liked having twins for his experiments; it was handy to have a spare copy around.
"To hell with that," I said. "I'm not going to fetch and carry for anyone, I don't care what he's paying." My sister ignored me, and as the silence dragged on I got bored and started to think about that ice cream cart again. "Where do you figure you fence something like that?" I asked, indicating the cart with a jerk of my chin.
"Get serious," my sister said.
"I am serious. I'm always serious. And we he gets here, I'm going to tell him just where he can stick it."
My sister said name sharply, then she said, "You've got to grow up now. I can't be the only adult here, okay? It's going to start getting cold out soon."
She was fifteen. I was seven minutes older, and I rolled my eyes at her. "Whatever. He's just after your body, you know." At the time I didn't know just how right I was.
"I'm not worried about it," my sister said, flippantly, brushing her limp hair back again. "Because I know that if he tries to pull that kind of shit on me, you'll kick his ass."
I sat up a little straighter on the park bench, told her, "Damn right. Nobody messes with me or my sister, and I'll kill anyone who tries."
It took a while, but that was one promise I kept.
.