I was just sitting at the bar, trying to forget this whole experiment, when I saw my face from across the room. I looked down into my glass, which still not empty enough for me to deal with this loser walking over to me now. I hunched my shoulders and looked deeper into my glass, trying to become just another unrecognizable drunk. Of course it could do no good. One can’t hide from them self, anyway.

"Hey."

The voice was loud, and gruff, and no-nonsense. It sounded a little hoarse.

Do I really sound like that?

"Get up. The Doctor’s waiting for us." It poked me hard, standing an inch behind me, more than a shadow.

"Leave me alone. What does he need me for? He’s got you."

"He’s not done with you. He needs an original copy."

"Oh? Is he planning on making another one of you? Maybe this time, he can copy me with my manners intact." I refused to look at him, instead, feigning a bored interest in a quarter glued to the bar top by a piece of gum, now cement.

"Get up. I’ll only ask this last time. He said he needs an original. He did not say he needs you alive."

This time, it poked me hard, and left its finger there. I looked down, and saw it was holding a gun discreetly in between my ribs, hiding it from the rest of the bar with its body, though no one was paying us any attention anyway.

"Pay for your drink, and turn around, or I’ll use this and take your body. Don’t worry — when I’m caught, it’s your face they’ll be looking for."

I stood, slowly, took some crumpled bills from my pocket, and walked toward the bar’s back door, My shadow following me just one step behind.

I pushed the bar of the heavy metal door, and felt a gust of cold wind blast my face, followed by the first few drops of a rain shower, and I looked up at the night sky on the surface of the dome, and felt my complete sobriety in that moment, followed by a third rude poke from my clone’s gun.

"Move."

The Doctor did not care if I lived or died. For all I could guess, he might need me dead for his next experiment…​ or worse. My steps crunched on the gravel outside as we proceeded down the alley. I was walking slow, relishing each step I took while still free and alive, giving myself as many seconds as possible, maybe to see an opportunity to escape, maybe just to enjoy another moment of rain on my face.

It jabbed me again with the gun, this time, harder. It was a long walk to the Doctor’s. It probably wanted to get there as soon as possible. It could be that its lifetime was running short. Maybe I could delay it somehow, get it to deteriorate — 

"-- If you keep walking so slow, I’ll have no problem with carrying your corpse."

Well that was all for that plan. I crunched faster on the gravel, reluctant, but still determined to resist somehow. We passed under an upstairs window, just as a woman opened it to let her cat out. It dashed across a telephone line onto the adjacent rooftop, sending a flock of crows flying in feathers and caws. It caught one, which thrashed violently to get free, but the cat tore out its neck and watched us pass under it as the crow died.

"You know something? You’re shit for a clone. A real copy wouldn’t be dumb enough to go kidnapping me, waving a gun around like some Han Solo wannabe. A real clone would have the balls to fucking knock me out and tie me up to eliminate any possibility of my escape." I was talking as I walked, a little faster now, with purpose, so my copy had to strut to match pace.

"Are you suggesting a change in plans?"

"You think I wanna just walk back there with you like this is a fucking garden stroll? I think we should have some fun first, if this is gonna be my last day with the living, after all!" I looked back as I talked, but didn’t stop walking.

"Hmm, I don’t think I was so reckless before the operation…​ The doctor will want to know about this."

"Oh, you think so? You think you remember my life before he made you? Well I’ll tell you! You’re nothing like me! You’re not even human! You’re barely a cretin, cosplaying in a naked ape fursona imitation of me!" We turned a corner at a fair pace now, headed deeper into the alleys and shanty shacks of the port side neighborhood. I was almost jogging, while my imitator kept pace at barely an arm’s length away, with the gun at the hip.

"I’m more you than you are! I found you drowning what humanity you still have in a glass of piss! I’m an improvement, I’m your ideal! You should be grateful to the Doctor for sending me out to retrieve you, so you can be redeemed."

I stopped short and half turned toward it. "Oh, I’m getting an upgrade, is it? Well why didn’t ya say so!?" It stopped short, so close it almost bumped into me, gun out into my side again, I twisted and trapped its arm under mine, grabbing the gun hand with my same-side hand, and turned to deliver my elbow into that dumb smug face it was wearing. It grunted and the gun went off as blood flew from its nose, but it recovered in an instant and trapped my arm in a half-nelson, wrestling my head and neck down with its left as I wrestled for the gun in its right. It tried to kick out my legs, but I locked them straight and pushed back into its chest, ramming it against a wall. The gun went off again. I grabbed the gun with both hands and twisted it round, but it grabbed me and pushed off the wall, and we both went down, as the gun fired a third time. I twisted it free at last and spun around to aim that barrel straight up and fired three shots right into its chest.

I looked as my dead stupid face stared back at me, seeing nothing, not really sure it had ever really been alive. I pushed it off, and stood, weakly, falling to my knees a second later. The two of us looked like a pair of beaten up pomegranates, and the rain finally broke now and started coming down in buckets, as I looked at myself and realized that some of this blood was mine. There was a hole in me right above my navel, and another on my left side, just above the hip. I’d been shot. Off in the distance, I suddenly became aware of police sirens baying like bloodhounds on the scent of blood. I still held the pistol, now empty in my right hand, and I looked down at my dead doppelganger.

"when I’m caught, it’s your face they’ll be looking for."

The words it had said, suddenly haunting, like an omen. I staggered to my feet, bracing myself against the wall as the sirens grew louder. I had to leave, but where? There was only one place that was safe now, only one person who could heal me, protect me.

The Doctor.