Katarina Zarkova was enjoying an afternoon shopping.

She’d been in the country for six months, now, after leaving behind her town in Ukraine.

The willowy, petite blonde was wrapped up against the cold, wearing a polo neck and a knitted skirt, as well as a long puffer jacket.

She was looking forward to Christmas and letting her mind drift.

As such, she was completely unaware that she was being watched and tailed.

“Ms Zarkova”, the rough voice came. She looked up, not recognising the man who had spoken.

“Mr Zukov says its time to pay up”, the man said.

Katarina went white and started backing away. She bumped into the other man of the team, standing behind her, then felt a jab in her neck. Her limbs turned to jelly, and she slumped into the other man’s arms…

The two men took her back to a van, where a woman was waiting.

“Looks nice. She should do for the new placement. She’s small enough.”

The men lifted her into the back of the van and laid her out on the floor next to the woman, who started undressing her.

“Back to base, please”, she said. “It’s going to take a few days to programme and train her before we deliver her. After all, I’ve somehow got to knock 15-20 years off of her…”

For Katarina, the next few days were a blur of pain and confusion. The first days were spent rubbing out everything she knew; she was given a chemically induced Amnesia. Her skin was also treated to make it look younger, with her hair replaced with a long brunette wig that was treated to make it grow like normal hair. Her vaginal hair was also removed, with the area treated to stop it growing back for quite a while. She was then reprogrammed…

Katarina Zarkova was now Katya Zukov, high school student and Boss Zukov’s daughter. She was a replacement for the real Katya, who had died from an unknown illness a few weeks ago. Zukov’s wife had gone into decline without her, and had a psychotic break; she was so unstable that she easily accepted the replacement Katya as her own daughter.

When ‘Katya’ turned up on Boss Zukov’s doorstep a week after being taken, she was welcomed with open arms…

Katya made friends quickly at High School.

Very occasionally, Katarina’s arrogance would come through; she didn’t suffer fools gladly, anyway, and ‘Katya’ was brilliant enough to ace all the classes she went to.

Then the headaches started…

Katya kept getting ‘flashes’ of another life, where she was an adult; the erasing and programming had been rushed, and some of Katarina was bleeding through.

She asked her parents about it that evening; Zukov was straight on the phone to the ‘supplier’…

The woman who had initially programmed her came round, in the guise of a doctor; Katarina was given another ‘treatment’ at the Zukov’s residence.

She screamed in pain while it was being carried out; Her ‘mother’ came rushing in, grabbed the doctor and bodily threw her out.

She then gathered up her hysterical daughter and cuddled her…

It was this, more than anything the doctor had done, that set Katarina as Katya. She’d never been really loved as a child, and she was really enjoying the way her new mother was treating her. She decided there and then that she’d do anything for her…

Now, when Katya had visions of Katarina, she forced them down. She knew who she was! She was Katya Zukov! Katarina was a fiction, a fantasy!

Then a friend of hers saw her when she was out in town…

“Katarina? Is that you? It’s me, Anne. I haven’t seen you for ages!”

“I’m sorry, you must have me confused with someone else”, said Katya, stepping round her.

“No, I don’t think so”, said Anne. “I do admit your skin looks wonderful. And I like the hair. How come you are wearing that uniform, though? You’re way too old for high school.”

“Like I said, you’ve got the wrong person”, Katya said, now getting cross. “Now, would you please leave me alone? I’ve got a lot of things to get for college.”

She walked off, leaving Anne mystified.

Back at the Zukov residence, a small beeping came from a terminal.

Zukov checked it. Someone was making unauthorised enquiries about his daughter…

Anne hadn’t been able to leave things alone. She had been digging and found out that Katya had been off sick from college during the week Katarina had disappeared. She was a truancy officer, as well as a social worker, so she had access to the relevant databases. She was obviously putting two and two together.

A week later, she died in a car crash. After all, it’s very difficult trying to steer a car along a hilltop road at speed when you’re unconscious behind the wheel…

Anne had been the only person making any kind of enquiries about Katarina/Katya; once she had been removed as a threat, there was nothing stopping Katya being Katya. Zukov and his wife were both very impressed about her behaviour in her new role; Katya loved how much her ‘mother’ fussed over her. She’d never had a life as full as this one, and she was determined not to mess it up.

The slightest thing that went wrong, in any way, she reported it to Zukov. She became one of his most loyal supporters; she said she was going to enter the legal profession, as she wanted to be a solicitor, and her parents got her a day release placement at a local firm. It was there she met Anthony Clarke…

Anthony was a qualified solicitor; he was, in fact, the Zukov family solicitor, and a good friend of the family.

Zukov was very pleased that Anthony had taken Katya under his wing; he could see great things for both of them. Only problem was, as Katya was an adult under her ‘disguise’ she was having all the wrong feelings for Anthony…

Katya came in one evening in tears.

“I don’t know what’s happening, Papa!”, she said. “I feel that I love him, want him, but I can’t! I’m way too young.”

“Be patient, little one”, Zukov said. “If it’s meant to be, it will be. I suspect that Anthony will wait for you.”

Ironically, if Katarina had met Anthony, they would probably have ended up romantically involved. As things now were, they were just very good friends…

Katya enjoyed her ‘second childhood’, never realising why she loved it so much, apart from a sense of getting something that she had really missed out on.

Her new mother doted on her; always buying her things, making her want for nothing. Even her new father admitted that Katya was ‘growing on him’.

Memories of Katarina still occasionally resurfaced, but Katya just put it down to the stress of college. After all, why on earth should a college kid be worrying about a full-time job, or paying rent on a flat? She had time for all that later.

Smiling happily, she bounced out of college that Friday afternoon, to where mother was waiting with the car. They were going for ice creams on the seafront that evening…