Carrie hadn’t a clue that ‘Evelyn’ wasn’t who she said she was.

The woman playing the part was a perfect copy. To all intents and purposes, she was Evelyn. Even her fingerprints matched; she proved that by unlocking her phone. All the time the programming was in place, she behaved like Evelyn, exactly. There was literally no knowledge missing; Carl and Veronica had been ‘recording’ Evelyn right up to her death. The only problem was that they had somehow recorded her death as well…

Evelyn started having nightmares. Bad ones. She put them all down to the fact that someone had tried to convince Carrie that she was dead. The nightmares went up to and including the pain of the heart attack that had ‘killed’ her…

Evelyn kept waking up screaming in pain…

Carrie came flying into her room and hugged her, holding her until the screaming turned into sobs, then stopped.

“Whoever played that horrible trick on you wasn’t counting on how much it’s affected me!”, she cried. “I keep dreaming about that day in the cabin; I was just going downstairs to get breakfast when this horrendous pain hit me in the chest; it was so bad I couldn’t even breathe or cry out. I started falling forward, and everything just goes black…”

Carrie gasped.

“The person that found ‘you’ after said they found you at the bottom of the stairs”, she said. “What actually killed you was you’d broken your neck in the fall…!”

“How is this possible?”, cried Evelyn. “How can I feel a death that never happened?”

“Because it did!”, said Carrie. “The problem is, who did it happen to?”

For that question, neither of them had the answer…

Evelyn, still very shaken, tried to get back to her normal life.

Her friends were surprised to see her back at work; HR had already been notified of her ‘death’…

“As you can see, reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated”, she said, with a giggle, doing a twirl in the office. Her friends were really relieved…

It was when she went out for lunch at a café with one of them that something slightly out of the ordinary happened. When walking to the café they walked past one of the clubs that her ‘previous life’ had been working at…

Evelyn smiled and waved to one of the other ‘working girls’. The woman walked over.

“Hi!”, she said. “I don’t believe we’ve met…?”

To the woman and her friend’s amazement, Evelyn wrapped an arm round the other woman’s waist, pulled her to her and kissed her.

“You’re gorgeous as ever”, she said. She then carried on to the café with her friend, leaving the other woman staring after her in amazement, with a very big smile on her face.

“Wow. I’ve never been kissed like that…!”, she said, quietly…

“I didn’t know you were into women?”, said her friend.

“Thought it was time for a change”, said Evelyn.

“You’ve changed since you came back from holiday”, her friend said.

“Yes; the rest did me good”, said Evelyn. “I feel like a new woman…”

Apart from that change, though, ‘Evelyn’ was still Evelyn. She was just a little more extroverted than she used to be, a bit livelier. People put it down to the rest she’d had from the holiday. Now, if she could only get rid of the nightmares…

They did gradually fade; her next ‘doctors visit’ helped, where Veronica and Carl edited out the last few minutes of the previous Evelyn’s life from her memories and replaced it with a proper blend to her current memories, turning the nightmares into just another bad dream.

Carrie loved having her sister in her life; then another problem started to surface…

Carrie herself was the same ‘type’ as the woman that had attracted Evelyn at the club. This meant that Evelyn was attracted to Carrie, and definitely not in a sisterly way…

Carrie woke up one night to find Evelyn in bed with her.

“I love watching you sleeping”, Evelyn said, propped up on one elbow.

Carrie blushed.

“I’ve always fancied you”, she said. “That’s another reason why it hurt so much when I thought you’d died. I’d never had the chance to tell you…”

“What’s stopping you now?”, said Evelyn, with a smile…

Carrie, unable to control herself, leant over and kissed Evelyn. She reciprocated…

The sisters had an enjoyable night together. Evelyn never did get back into her own bed.

“Whoops! I’ve got to hurry, I’ve got a presentation to give this morning!”, she said, flying out of Carrie’s bed and shooting back into her own room to dress.

“See you for lunch?”, she called.

“Sure!”, Carrie called back. “Usual place?”

“Yep!”

Carrie heard Evelyn shoot out the door and slam it behind her. She stayed in bed for a while, looking up at the ceiling and smiling. Since when had her sister been ‘into’ women? She was so affectionate, it was unbelievable…

Apart from this one ‘quirk’ that had bled over from her ‘host’, Evelyn was still Evelyn, so nobody’s suspicions were raised. Still, Carrie nearly had heart failure herself when Evelyn sneaked up behind her in the café and kissed her, in full view of everyone.

“What?”, she said. “Aren’t I allowed to be affectionate towards my own sister?”

“Well… yes!”, said Carrie. “It’s just a bit of a surprise. You never seemed to be before.”

“I think that the thought that I might have died, while being a cruel joke, has also been a wakeup call”, said Evelyn. “It’s a reminder that life’s too short…”

Carrie slid her arm round Evelyn’s waist and gently guided her to their favourite table in the window.

 “We can’t act on what we’re both thinking”, she said. “We’re sisters.”

“Would you be happy seeing me with someone else?”, Evelyn asked.

“No…”

Veronica, visiting later that week, instantly could tell something was different.

“What is it about you two?”, she asked.

“A fright like we’ve just had has brought us closer together”, said Carrie. “It’s made me thankful for my sister, and vice versa.”

“That reminds me”, said Veronica. “Uncle Carl sends his regards.”

To her amazement, Evelyn didn’t budge an inch. All she did was reach over to Carrie and put her arm round her.

Carrie picked up that there was something worrying Evelyn.

“Would you excuse us, Veronica?”, she said. “We’re meant to be somewhere. I completely forgot, and we’ve got to get ready…”

“Oh, of course”, said Veronica. “See you later…?”

With a glance at Evelyn, she left.

As soon as she was outside the flat, she was on the phone to Carl…

“The little brat is fighting the programming”, she said. “She’s also hooked onto Carrie in a very un-sisterlike way. I think they’re having sex together.”

“Damn!”, said Carl. “Is she still acting as Evelyn, though? Do we need to be worried?”

“She’s still in character”, said Veronica. “Some of her other life does seem to be bleeding over, however. She’s suddenly ‘into’ girls, from what I’ve seen. If I remember rightly, our candidate that we used was a lesbian as well.”

“Yes, she was”, Carl replied. “She worked as a waitress at one of the local adult clubs, as well as on the streets.”

“We’ll need to keep an eye on her”, Veronica said. “Talk to you later.”

She hung up, then heard something behind her. She turned round, and went white as a sheet…

Carrie was standing right behind her, a very angry expression on her face.

“Tell me what the hell is going on, right now”, she said. “Who is that sitting in my apartment?”

“As far as you’re concerned, it’s your sister”, Veronica said.

“Bullshit!”, Carrie cried. “My sister was never that good at sex. She also didn’t fancy girls, ever. Who is she, and what have you and Carl done to her. Programming her, I think you said?”

“How much of that did you hear?”, Veronica asked.

“Enough to know you’re putting that poor woman through hell”, said Carrie. “I think you’d better come back inside and tell both of us what’s going on…”

Veronica hung her head in shame as she came back in.

“You’re both going to find this hard to believe”, she said, “Especially you, Evelyn. Carl and I had worked out long ago that you, Carrie, would go to pieces if anything happened to Evelyn. As such, we put a ‘contingency plan’ in place…”

Veronica indicated Evelyn with her hand.

“I’m so sorry, sweetie, but this isn’t Evelyn. Her name is Sandy Baker, and she’s someone we picked up off of the street one night, more than a little worse for wear. She’d just been beaten up by her pimp for turning down a job. There’s no delicate way of putting it, love, she’s a prostitute.”

‘Evelyn’ started crying. Carrie immediately put her arms around her and hugged her.

“What have you done to her, though? She looks, sounds and even talks like Evelyn, and she knows everything about her.”

“We’ve had her for about three months before you met her. She’s had plastic surgery and her voice has been modified. She’s even got Evelyn’s fingerprints. Every time the real Evelyn did something it was programmed into her, as was Evelyn’s life history. She was just about up to date when the real Evelyn died whilst on holiday…”

“I am Evelyn…!”, said Sandy, weakly. Even she was beginning to doubt herself…

“Get out.”, said Carrie, to Veronica.

“What?”

“Get out. And if you even think about spreading these malicious lies about my sister, I’ll sue you for everything you’ve got. As far as I am concerned, my sister is sitting right next to me, do I make myself clear?”

Carrie was standing up for Sandy, the only way she knew how…

“But she’s not…”

“I said she was. All the physical evidence says she is, too. Got it?”

Shocked, Veronica left. She and Carl had copied Evelyn too well. Their own plan was now being used against them to protect the woman that they had forcibly changed against her will…

No-one would believe Veronica and Carl anyway. All the evidence said the woman sitting next to Carrie was her sister, Evelyn, and Carrie backed that up.

“Does this mean you’re not angry with me?”, asked Evelyn, when Veronica had left.

“Why on earth should I be angry with you?”, asked Carrie. “You didn’t have any say in what happened to you. At the same time, you’re in a lot better position now than you were on the street. As far as I’m concerned, you are Evelyn, and you can stay with me as long as you want…”

Sandy, now and forever Evelyn, threw her arms around Carrie and hugged her.

Life after that returned to relative normality.

Both sisters carried on with their lives; however, neither seemed in a rush to have any kind of romantic relationship with anyone else.

Behind closed doors at home, however, that was another matter…