Three Word Wednesday is a once-weekly 3-word writing prompt.

dailyprompt is a once-daily writing prompt. Today’s prompt was not a secret any more

Reunion

It’s not a secret anymore, so I suppose it won’t hurt to tell you the whole story. They can’t reclassify stuff, spilt milk and all that, but sometimes they try to contain the mess or mop it up, so if they come after you for me telling you this, well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Still want to know? Okay. I’m not Karla Velazquez. I’m not even Hispanic, no, not even on my father’s mother’s father’s side. I’m, man, it’s been so long I’ve forgotten, but I think mostly Greek, with a good dose of French thrown in for good measure.

I couldn’t tell you what my real name was, even if I wanted to. I went so far beyond dual identities that I lost track back before I entered college – although I know, that freshman year, I was not seventeen. I think I was twenty-four.

What? I don’t look thirty-five now, either. I’m small and I hide my age well, what can I say?

I mean, that’s only part of the story. I was in deep cover in college, which, I’ll admit, is weird. But They had their goals – you have to have heard some of it, even if only on the Daily Show – and they’d already owned me for six years, so I went where I was sent and I did what I was told.

The day I managed to buy my contract back was the happiest day of my life. Our lives, our contracts.

What? You didn’t expect this was going to be a one-volley game, did you? I told you it was complicated.

I’m not only not Karla Velazquez, about a third of the time you were talking to Karla, you weren’t talking to me, either.

They spit out five of us, as far as I know, that year. Identical clones, quintuplets I suppose, and we were raised together and everything, so we were pretty much sisters. We split roles between us, usually only two of us on a role, so it was sister-Beta and I being Karla, Beta covering for me while I was also being, oh, man, usually Jennifer Torqueta, I think. Yeah, that Jennifer Torqueta, I know, you always said she looked like me.

Why? Damned if I know. We’re just the grunts. Like I said, we go where we’re sent. Anyway, I wanted to tell you about buying off our contracts.

That’s the dream they sold us. We were bought and paid for before we were ever implanted, but if we did a good job, we could earn enough money to be free agents. Pick a life and live it, just one life, one face, you know, normal people. Well, as normal as you can be when you’re a clone.

I thought it would work, more than that, I thought it’s what I wanted, what all five of us wanted. So we saved our pennies and we did everything we were told, and when we turned thirty-three, we bought off our contracts.

Problem was, we’d gotten used to it, you know? The money, the personas, changing who we were, sharing identities between us. Even in school, we’d traded places all the time. Being pinned down to day jobs that didn’t change, to one name each… it was maddening. We went back to Them.

You asked why we were in deep cover in college. I think you know why, Tammy.

But I lied a little bit about that, too. Gamma was the one who roomed with you most the time, and she and Beta kind of liked you. So this one’s on me – and I’ve never been Karla Velazquez.

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