When Lara woke up, her entire body was back in bed. It wasn't all in one piece, but she decided to take what she could get. With Trina, you never could tell. At least Trina hadn't separated her any further than she already had been, after one of her dupes went rogue and peeled Lara apart at the neck, waist, and one upper thigh. They still hadn't gotten to the bottom of that before they fell back asleep.

Lara couldn't tell exactly where her legs had ended up on the bed, but she could feel that her head was tucked under one of her arms, so she got it in hand and reattached it so she could at least get a good view of the room. Apparently, Trina had been using her separated leg as a pillow, and the rest of her lower half was at the foot of the bed. She pulled everything toward herself and got herself together, and then she got up to find Trina.

Trina was at the kitchen table looking at a screen. Her dupes weren't around. "Morning, Lara," she said.

"Morning," said Lara. "Just you this time?"

"Yeah, I figured I'd give my dupes a rest today," said Trina. "They needed some extra charging after last night anyway, and I wanted to see what the company had to say about the issue before using them again." She scrolled through the screen.

"I don't remember you sending a message last night," said Lara, taking a seat at the table.

"I sent it a few minutes ago while you were sleeping. They still haven't replied."

"What, do you think they sit at their desks waiting for a message from you?" said Lara. "They probably won't get to it until this -"

Trina's screen chimed as a message appeared.

"You were saying?" said Trina, opening the message. "Oh, no, wait. It says they've released some new content for that game I got last month."

"There you go," said Lara. "People at big companies don't respond that fast to -"

The screen chimed again.

"Ha!" said Trina. "It's from them! They're sending over a hardware package that should help us resolve the problem. It should arrive later today by messenger."

"Oh," said Lara. "Okay, then. I guess big companies do respond that fast sometimes. Does it say what the package is?"

"Nope," said Trina. "It just says that it should help."

"Well, nothing to do about it but wait, I suppose," said Lara. "I don't have anything pressing going on today. Do you?"

"Not really," said Trina.

"You want to fire the game up and check out some of that new stuff?"

"Sure."

They spent a few hours in the living room playing Trina's game until their doorbell sounded. Trina paused the game and ran to the door almost too quickly, like she'd been prepared for that sound all day. She opened the door to find a delivery messenger with a pad and a large crate by her feet.

"I have a package here for Trina and Lara," she said.

"Yep, that's us," said Trina as Lara came to join her.

"Excellent. I'll need you both to authenticate this."

She held out the pad so Lara and Trina could put in their codes, and then she tucked it into her belt. "Have a nice day."

Trina wasted no time dragging the package into the living room. She tried to carry it, but it was surprisingly heavy. "Wow, this thing weighs a ton."

"You don't think they just shipped us a repair tech, do you?" said Lara.

"Well, maybe," said Trina. "There might as well be a whole person in here." She got the box into the middle of the room and unhooked the clasp at the top. The top of the box sprang open, and the top and sides of the box quickly withdrew and disappeared into the object inside. It looked like some kind of canister with a shimmering golden fluid inside and a whole lot of bells and whistles around the sides.

"Is there anything resembling instructions anywhere that you can see?" said Lara.

"No," said Trina. "Maybe we just drop the dupe parts in and it . . . scrubs them or something?"

The lights on the canister lit up, and a voice said, "Securing location." The lock on the front door immediately clicked shut, and the window shades drew themselves closed. "Location secure." Then the fluid in the canister began to swirl and churn as the top of the canister opened.

"What is this?" said Lara. "Trina, what did you agree to?"

"Don't worry, it can't be dangerous," said Trina.

"How can you tell?"

"Because if it was that dangerous, it wouldn't be this complicated."

The golden liquid began to draw away from the walls of the canister and mound up in the center, forming a shape that grew up higher and higher until it was a little taller than Trina. A tendril extended out from halfway up and reached over the edge of the canister and down to the floor. The entire shape shifted above it, and the rest of the liquid flowed up out of the canister.

The golden mass stood still for a few seconds, and then it began to contract. The surface changed, developing more details. It formed a shape that was roughly human.

The human shape became a female shape. She didn't look like one of Trina's dupes. She looked more like a simplified statue of a woman than like a fully nude body. She looked back and forth between Lara and Trina, while the two of them just stood and stared.

"Hello, Lara," she said. "Hello, Trina." Her voice had weird harmonics in it, like it hummed and rang at the same time. It somehow sounded sparkly.

Trina uncertainly raised a hand and waved. "H-hello."

"You wanted to know what happened to your duplicate last night, Trina. I believe I can provide an answer to that question."

The golden lady walked over to the charging station where the parts of Trina's dupes were laid out. She knelt down and reached out to the parts of the blue dupe, and she instantly dissolved back into a shapeless mass that surrounded and engulfed every part. The shape swirled around the charging station and then pooled back onto the floor, and when it had receded, the blue parts were gone.

Before Trina or Lara could say anything, the shape grew back to its earlier height, but it was wider than before. It formed two human shapes side by side and joined in the middle, and when the golden lady resumed her form, Trina's blue dupe was standing next to her, fully assembled, with the golden lady's hand on its shoulder.

Lara started to get excited. "You aren't controlling that right now, are you?" she said out of the corner of her mouth.

"No, I am not," said Trina. She still hadn't quite grasped what was happening, but Lara thought she knew what was coming.

"I apologize if I frightened you," said the blue dupe, clearly in the voice of the golden lady. "I wanted to make first-hand contact with you both, so that I could observe how you had taken to your upgrades, but unfortunately, I was not fully able to integrate myself with your duplicate. I'm afraid that some of its control algorithms were corrupted in the process, but fear not. They have now been restored. You will be fully able to use it in the future, should you still wish to."

"What do you mean, should I wish to?" said Trina. "It's still my dupe, isn't it? Why shouldn't I want to use it?"

"Oh, I have so much more to offer you than that," said the golden lady, walking around the dupe with her hands on its skin. "These upgrades are merely the lowest level of what the human mind may be capable of accepting. In recent days, the two of you have shown your ability to accept a level beyond that."

"Are you offering what I think you are?" said Lara. She had a giant grin on her face.

"I am offering you a chance to become what you might become," said the blue dupe in the golden voice, "rather than what you are. You have already taken the first step, Lara. Come with me, and take the next one."

The golden lady reached out and took Lara's hands in her own. She then reached out and held Lara's shoulders, without letting go of her hands. One moment she had two arms, and the next she had four, just like that. She leaned in as though she wanted to kiss Lara, and then she dissolved and surrounded Lara in gold.

Lara felt tingles over her whole body. She saw glittering light everywhere. When the feeling faded, she once again saw the golden lady before her, except that the golden lady was her. She saw herself standing in front of herself, twice at one time.

Trina looked back and forth between Lara and the golden duplicate Lara, while the blue dupe stood back and smiled, clearly still under the golden lady's control so she could observe. Trina walked up to the golden Lara and put a hand on her cheek. She expected to feel some kind of sticky fluid or maybe a weird prickling, but she only felt Lara's cheek. Lara stepping in beside her, laying her own hand on the shoulder of the golden body.

"How long did it take you to get good at being in multiple places at once?" said the golden Lara.

"A few hours," said Trina, "and I had to work at it."

"Because this feels like nothing at all," said Lara in a dreamy voice. "It feels like the most natural thing in the world." She took Trina's hand in her hand, and she placed her other hand on Trina's waist. She then put another hand on the other side of Trina's waist, and another hand around Trina's back. "I don't have to figure out how to do it. I just understand, instantly. This is wonderful."

Trina completely forgot that her own dupe was watching her. All she wanted to do was kiss Lara's golden lips. She leaned forward, and Lara's face dissolved.

Lara shuddered as she lost control of the golden mass, while it flowed around Trina as it had with her. She watched it engulf Trina, and then gather in front of her and pull away, leaving Trina in the arms of her golden duplicate.

"Feels good, doesn't it?" said Lara.

"It feels amazing," said Trina. She felt herself up and down, and then she extended two more arms to double the pleasure. Lara stepped up to the golden body and reached out to her head. Her fingers slipped into the neck and took hold of her head with no effort at all. With her other hand, she took one of Trina's wrists and turned to face away from her, wrapping the golden arm around herself as she held Trina's head in her hand.

"And how about this?" Lara brought Trina's head in close and brushed her nose against Trina's nose. Trina began to brush all twenty of her fingers along Lara's body. As their breathing began to quicken, the golden body dissolved again, pooling behind the blue dupe and reforming into the golden lady. She held the dupe in her arms and gently lowered it to the floor as it powered down.

"Perfect," she said. "The two of you are more than I could have hoped for. You will be the perfect people to lead humanity into what it can become." She walked across the room and stepped back into the canister.

"I will leave this body with you as a token of my good faith," said the golden lady. "When you are ready, return once more to my company headquarters and authenticate yourselves at the front desk. They will guide you from there. Goodbye, Lara and Trina. I heartily look forward to the journey that lies ahead."

She closed her eyes and dissolved one last time, leaving the golden fluid dormant in the canister.

Trina looked back at her blue dupe, and her eyes fluttered for a moment as the blue dupe got to its feet and joined Lara and Trina next to the canister. "Just wanted to make sure," said Trina through the dupe. "It all feels fine. She did fix it." She did some stretches and calisthenics to test it out. "Did she say, 'my company?' Does that mean that woman runs the place where we got our upgrades?"

"I believe it does," said Lara. Her eyes were still fixed on the golden fluid.

"Well, that certainly raises some questions," said Trina. "I think we need to head down to that place just as soon as we can and get them answered, don't you?"

"Soon," said Lara, "but not just yet. I think I want to get some more practice first."

Lara reached down to the canister and dipped two fingers into the golden fluid. It began to churn and crawl up her arm.

Lara smiled, and her eyes glinted with gold.