Satellites

Something inexplicable has happened. Maybe it was a strange radiation, or a relic you shouldn't have touched, or maybe the universe just picked you. Who knows? What matters is that you now have a power: when you touch another person, skin against skin, you can make a copy of them.

The moment your hand meets theirs, the original feels a warmth spread through their body, gathering in their mind and in the places they're most sensitive to touch. It can last up to fifteen seconds. Most people barely notice, like a stray hair falling away, while others might feel the smallest spike of adrenaline. In those seconds, everything they are is being copied: their mind, their personality, every memory.

Then light separates from the original and drifts toward you, dividing slowly like a cell, and when it finishes, it solidifies into a person. Like any birth, it is a bare one: no clothes, no jewelry, no tattoos or piercings. Just a human being, awake, with a lifetime of memories that feel entirely their own.

And they are devoted to you. Every clone is loyal, obedient, and eager to serve, and they love you, romantically and sexually if you want that, but it's only one part of what they can be. Give them any role and they take it up willingly: a confidant, an assistant, a bodyguard, a partner, a lover, a stranger to your enemies. Their will bends toward yours, and they have the original's skills, humor, fears, and habits to bring to the task. They remember who they were a minute ago. They just orbit you now.

Nothing about this is hidden, but it is easy to miss. The original sees everything you can: the warmth, the light dividing, and the person who steps out of it, someone with their face, their voice, and their memories, standing there without a stitch on. Their agency is untouched. They still think what they thought, feel what they feel, and choose what they choose.

The trouble is how little there is to notice. All it takes is the lightest tap or brush against bare skin, and the original feels so little that it's easy to write off. If you're behind them, they may never turn around. On a crowded beach, in bright sun, the glow slipping away from them and drifting toward you is barely visible, and by the time it solidifies, you can be gone. Nothing protects you from being caught except care, timing, and luck.

And when someone does find out, what they make of it is entirely up to them. One person might laugh it off, or find it fascinating, or feel oddly flattered or even aroused. Another might be shaken, embarrassed, or frightened, and the sight of their own naked double in front of strangers may be anything from thrilling to humiliating. Some will accept it, some will resent you, and some will change their minds more than once. The clone may be yours, but the original is still their own person, and their reactions are real.

There are rules, and you only learn them through experimentation. You can make as many clones of one person as you like, but never a clone of yourself. A clone cannot be cloned, and clones can't make clones on their own, since only you hold the power. They live and age like anyone else, and they die only when the original dies.

So who are you? Where do you start? And what do you do with a world where some people know exactly what you did to them, and the copies who orbit only you?