The Better Version
The man started screaming at Union Square. Nobody looked. His mouth was closed. Theo Cole talks for a living. Then his phone starts texting him from his own number, and whole....
The man started screaming at Union Square. Nobody looked. His mouth was closed. Theo Cole talks for a living. Then his phone starts texting him from his own number, and whole hours of his life go missing while someone else lives them for him. Someone with his face. Someone better. He isn't the only one. An ad executive meets a new client who looks exactly like her. A fantasy writer comes home after five lost days with frost on his boots. A sound expert hears that the voices on a dead man's tape don't breathe. A therapist finds the perfect man she invented ten years ago, waiting for her. The copies are polite. They smile. They know your passwords. And they are waiting for you to let them in. Five strangers have until noon on December 21 to learn what the copies want, and what it will cost to stay the real one.