“Your sister, she’s serial number one-hundred-forty-two?” the interviewer prods.

“Sure,” the filly replies.

“And yours?"

“One-hundred-forty-three.”

“Oh,” de Bellegarde goads, “so she's your older sister?”

“Sure,” the filly scoffs through whitened, carbon teeth. They’re real. Not semi-hollow, like the replacements that bounce around others’ jaws. “If that’s what you want to call it.”

“Do I detect that you both share a strained relationship, is that it?”

“No. I just wouldn’t call it a relationship. You don't get too much time to talk when you're in the tanks, that’s all."

Behind the studio’s explosive-proof tinted glass, a corpo in a puresilk pussy bow blouse and T-strap off-cream heels orders from between smoke billowing lips to cut to pictures. Viewers are treated with stills. Images of the same entity, the same mare, pasted over and over, cloned and replaced, repurposed and reused with the same careless breeding.

OGS-12 “Sunday - Astronavigatrix,” the monochromatic black-and-white photograph on loan from the Musée des Explorations Galactiques, Department XLIII, Port-Arago.

Her eyes are dimmed, pelt less pristine from the effects of primitive time-dilation travel. Beneath an arm, the pre-modern mare holds an antique, nearly tribal space helmet. It’s oblong and opaque. Hand-blown glass that resembles a diving bell, portholes and all, specially crafted for an equine anthropomorph’s head. Constructed with precision like the suit she wears—threaded armor cut into deep décolletage—skintight black pseudo-fabric etched like squamata scales. Her sharp collar wings are folded beneath the jawline, studded with iconography; flames and dagger-between-teeth death’s skulls.

Even faded, with etches of an ancient horizontal fold marring the picture, the photo’s muse is decidedly serious, winged eyeliner glaring, contrasting the celebratory laurel iconography that decorates the martial headshot’s base, its blocky fasciofont typeface proudly proclaiming CREDERE, OBBEDIRE, ESPLORARE.

“I assume you’re referring to the cloning facilities where you were bred, correct?”

“Yes,” she replies with glazed-over almond eyes.

Filly One-Four-Three sees the building, the island compound where all the fillies are bred. An ancient Saracen’s castle. Four-and-a-half stories tall, sandstone windswept, her domed chapel repurposed for progress. Inside, forgotten prayer spaces overflow with silver-plated terminals whose wires billow through tessellated jali stone screens. And inside the keep, scientists, white-clothed and disinfected—as if in thawb dresses at a distance—perform their godless sorcery. They ambulate between red-dyed tanks of organic mass, growing life from sequenced code. Sequenced for boutique sale, one imperfect copy at a time.

And in the early morning, the filly smells the saltwater at the end of the island’s single quay. The smell chips her nostrils, freshly released from the tank’s red ooze, ears perked at the unfamiliar sensation of crashing waves atop sand dunes. Sand that’s coarse like the mucus at the corners of her eyes, solidified in her first taste of true sunlight. Her jaw hangs open, catching flies, sucking in the air of a natural atmosphere.

The filly dips in a hoof at the sea’s edge.

Saltwater stings against soft skin. Stray fetlock hair sways beneath the clear water like tawny seaweed. Alongside her, memories. Of at least ninety-six other clones who dip in a hoof, testing the temperature over eons, their first foals’ steps leading them to the same olivewood dock’s terminus, unconscious minds yearning for freedom as white-robed figures watch from battlements, caretakers taking notes, marking files in response to each tiaras’ every move.

“How exotic, a tank-bred backstory,” the host advertises, “but many viewers may be under the impression that such cloning practices have banned through the Oxner Accords for quite a few generations now. And by such accords, if you don’t mind me mentioning, you’re liable for liquidation based on most sectors’ shoot-on-sight edicts, no?”

OGS-54 “Olive - Dancer,” a showgirl gaudy, makeup nearly shotgunned.

An old-world entertainer—postcard fodder—false white pegasi wings attached to the back of her risqué outfit, sequined and flashy, shoulder-length puresilk gloves picking at the ruby-red hibiscus tied betwixt two silver-earring-strapped ears. The silver hoops dangle like coconuts from the treetops above the mare, near-cloudless sky popping with a single impressionist cumulous cloud like puff-pastry. Her almond eyes, ones highlighted with emerald eyeshadow of an archaic, unknown brand, are aloof. Disinterested with the viewer towards whom she contorts, sorrel pelt creasing at bare hip and propped-up white-diamond chest.

A single line of heavy-stroked text implores the reader to visit the newly settled planet of Alto Manzanillo, its sans-serif font enshrouded with a bouquet of auburn tobacco leaves and spiky palm fronds.

“The Oxner Accords only banned new lineages after the war,” the filly replies with a matter-of-fact growl. “Any new genetic sequencing. All existing production codes before its ratification were grandfathered in, my series included. So, my cloning process and sale wasn’t—isn’t—illegal in any way." She pauses. It’s a memorized declaration. A product’s disclaimer that, were her chest’s barcode scanned, would repeat nearly word-for-word in mountains of filed paperwork, clauses reaching up to digital cliffsides. She admits with flaring nostrils, “that’s one of the first things they implant into you.”

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“For liability’s sake?”

“Don’t know. I’m no avvo.”

OGS-101 “Girlie - Financier,” flanked by her corporate partners, her twin OMM slave barcodes like recently suffered black eyes atop both cheeks.

Surrounded, various colleagues offset the mare’s negative gravitational pull with well-oiled smiles and expensive haircuts. Predatory, the Girlie included, they leer towards the viewer. Salivating at the prospect of sell-off. Her designer suit is outdated. Vintage. A tight-fitting seafoam green with wide-set falseleather belt. Decidedly masculine, her suit’s broad shoulders on display with the oblong, frowning facial profile. Taking up room, naturally projecting power, like her thighs outwardly turned, for intimidation’s sake. She’s the same height as the other corporate stooges that flank her, as mandated by codified company guidelines.

The still captures the corporate privatization and collateralization of emergency water desalination facilities on Washington-in-the-Shapley—a policy retroactively believed to be “disastrously exploitative and environmentally destructive,” according to a report recently published by an unnamed, unelected, and overpaid Echelon bureaucrat.

“Judging by your pedigree, it seems you could be. Have you ever considered another career, avvocatessa being one of them?”

“No,” the filly sneers. As if she had a choice at all in the matter of her employment. Memories of disciplinary shock therapy instinctively tickles her hooves. “Doesn’t seem as interesting.”

“Not enough violence in the courtroom?” the interviewer giggles.

“Not the same kind of violence, no.”

OGS-140 “Samantha - Athlete,” Victory’s olive wreath affixed atop her focused head.

With expert posture, javelin in hand, chest puffed, wingspan immaculate in mid-withdrawal position—mid-throw. Nude, as all athletes are to be presented, chest artificially scarred and flat against pectorals. A look of determination; gritted teeth, furrowed eyebrows and shoulders mid-rotation. Figura surpentinata. Various sporting accolades cascading on display: Giavellotto Gold Medal, All-Mare’s Equine Second Quadrant 2XXX. Giavellotto Gold Medal, All-Women’s General Fourth Quadrant 2XXX.

A single notation: image from before a tragic illness robbed her of mobility. Later scrapped, resold. Piracy victim aboard slaving vessel Yuan Shih-Kai. Final resting place unknown. Donations, condolences to be forwarded to the Figlie di San Sebastiano, Nuovo Corneto, Aprilia.

“Now, how do they tell you all apart, you and your sisters? After all, you’re meant to be perfect copies.”

“Age. Scars. Build. Different names. Same way as anyone else.”

“Different names? You mean your legal designation? That seems like a mouthful.”

OGS-142 “Ottavia - Gladiatrix, Privateer.”

A montage. Promotional material from New Port Moresby, Red-Blue-Black colors running in the humidity. Wanted posters in several languages, of three-quarter views, some head-on, two mid-gunfight, gunpowder smoke and plasma rays edited away for clarity by the studio’s automated systems. The Cimarron, her privateering statistics used for extra-legal betting. A headshot—a deceased former owner in Windsor-glasses, black hair cut short, smiling upper-teeth-first with a Manchurian squint. Security footage of at least three hundred known murders, dismembered limbs and bite marks codified at crime scenes. An office on Nuovo Portolago in shambles as she embraces a previously unknown assailant. All interspliced with graphics advertising upcoming programs and interviews, sponsors hawking time-sensitive discounts on hand-propelled shrapnel devices.

Finally, the infamous mare—Your mare—but youthful. Years ago, before her gladiatrix training began. Uncommonly bright eyes hidden behind a natural frown, her registered bill-of-sale documentation in too high-definition, unable to ginger up the first documented fearful frowns of chattel.

Then a cut, to the other filly in the hot seat. An exact replica broadcast to each corner of the known galaxy. Scowling, like the rest.

OGS-143 “Ginevra - Bounty Hunter,” the banner below her reads to over fifty-four million viewers.

“Yes, my legal designation is ‘Our Girl Saturday CXLIII’. But, my name is ‘Ginevra’.”

“But your sister,” de Bellegarde pries, “she goes by Ø. Our information brokers agree—something of a slave name. Maybe a rejection of the written word in some spiteful capacity. Now, do you have any input for the viewers at home?”

“No,” Ginevra huffs. “I don’t know and doesn’t matter to me, her name, motivations. Don’t care why she’s riding with some no-name courier, either. I just care where they are, how long it’ll take to get there, and how much heat they’re packing.”

“But your close relationship… She’s your sister, after all. That doesn’t worry you?”

“No,” the filly braces, “because I always catch what I hunt.”

“Of course,” the corporate smiles at the prepackaged tagline. She pauses, sinking her teeth into the topic with a smile. “What a familiar turn of phrase! Come to think of it, aren’t you the apprentice of our station’s own Augo Laelaps? Now, what exactly is your relationship with our station’s founder and daytime host?” she brays, “Master and slave, perhaps?”

The interviewer has committed a fatal faux-pas.

Behind the studio’s one-way mirrors, pussy bow producers bare their teeth, whipping words at subordinates, preparing for the inevitable lawsuits and re-negotiations that come from such a venomous intentional mis-step of conversation. It’s simple, a shareholder hisses at a lowly stakeholder from the privacy of a velvet-walled office, decorated with his imported oak partner desk and personal barcoded secretary—one who looks away out of politeness as the outburst reaches crescendo—you never ask a bounty hunter about their family or their friends, their weak points. Never should you ask guests to reveal potential targets for retribution for obvious reasons.

It’s a dare directed towards the filly—a final chiding insult.

Reflexively, seven of twelve cameramen tentatively reach below. Towards ankle holsters, pawing at miniature single-shot holdout sidearms tucked in at waistbands, preparing their own self-defense. Avvocaticcio and producer alike brace themselves for violence, snarling orders to subordinates to keep filming at all costs, opening their briefcases containing disassembled rifles, half-praying for a gunfight to increase ratings.

But, luckily for both for the spiteful young women on camera, to the surprise of the producers behind their projectile-proof glass, wringing hands mid-tirade, whose secretaries in puresilk knee-length dresses shakily fit together submachine-pistol parts beneath desks, there’s nobody worth mentioning. Ginevra remains stoic at the question. After all, she’s alone in the galaxy.

It’s the best defense someone in her profession can achieve.

“Owner, at first,” she admits with an air of deadly professionalism, refusing to escalate the disagreement. “Then apprentice for quite some time. Now, I’m solo. No relationship deterioration to mention, just professional differences. Standard for our business,” she declares. Matter-of-fact. Spiteful but sincere. “But, I apologize, I’d rather discuss shop. Not just gossip.”

“Absolutely,” the reporter concedes with a forced shrug, genetically modified eyelash extensions hardened to near-solid beneath the overbearing lights. “Now, we’ve been told that for your most recent hunt you used a Kanapaha-4. A disintegration rifle for the kill, of all options. How does that compare with the rest of your arsenal, and under what circumstances would you recommend its use?”