"Good, because if you had another recommendation I would start to wonder."
    "It's... if you're going to accept the fact that your previous life ended, and get on with it, he is a tie to that life, and a constant touchstone to that confusion," Trent explained.
    "Trust me, talking to him was...." I searched for a word.
    "He remembers you as someone else," he suggested.
    "And I remember him as someone else."
    "Which he sees as a role, right?"
    "Yes. He seems like a nice guy," I added out of fairness.
    "But unless he is so deluded as to want to carry that role on ad infinitum, he will never be who you remember."
    "Right." I sighed. "It's kind of weird, but.... I don't know. He's the least of my worries at this point in time."
    "I'm merely concerned that he is a touchstone for confusion."
    "Yes." That, I can hardly argue with, the end of our second conversation was all I needed.
    "As I said, eventually you will have to learn to deal with it in toto, but for right now.... the step of grief is the best way for you to move. As long as it is not self-delusion."
    "I try to avoid that." Not, admittedly, with a whole lot of success.
    He was quiet for a moment, just looking at me.
    "You're probably right," I admitted eventually. "It was just easier not to deal with it, and then things got kind of busy.... Then things were taken out of my hands." I smiled coldly.
    "If you need to seek vengeance upon anyone, seek vengeance upon them for what they are continuing to do to you," was his quiet advice. "Not for what they started. Do not be mad at them for making you."
    I stared at him. "Why not?"
    "Because you are here, you are now, you are breathing," he said intensely. "Be mad at them for what they want to do to you."
    "I'm actually more mad about what they've done to everyone else." If I was the only person in the world affected by their plans, it would be easier to move past it, I think. Maybe not doable, still, but easier to even consider it.
    "And that is fine, because there are eight more living women out there."
    "And God only knows how many dead," I murmured, thinking of what we had found in those labs. "They're not very good at this science."
    "You can—believe me, I understand dealing with the creations of geneticists," he told me. A pause. "But if you continue to be mad at them for your creation you will never be able to accept that. Does that make any sense?"
    "Kind of," I said reluctantly. It's a short train of thought from hating them to hating myself, and I'm very familiar with the tracks. "I don't know if I can disentangle things that far." I can't separate the fact of my existence from the reason for my existence. Can I? "I wouldn't be here if they weren't evil sons of bitches." I sighed. "There's no scale that can figure out what's worth what."
    "If nothing else, stop them because you're a hero, and they're criminals. Hunt them because you are a white hat, and they aren't."
    "Even though the only reason I'm wearing the hat is because of them?" I questioned searchingly.
    "You're wearing the hat because you are who you are. You received a series of formative impulses, it doesn't matter whether they came from an injection into your spine or a lifetime of diligent toil."
    Doesn't it? I can't, still, feel that it doesn't matter.
    "You have them now," he went on. "If you continue to look over your shoulder to see where every impulse is coming from, then you are letting them control who you are."
    "Don't they?" I asked, meeting his eyes. The sky had started to get lighter.
    "No. Believe me, no one controls who you are. You could, if you wanted to, get up and walk away from this," he reminded me.
    "I thought about it."
    "You could move to Oklahoma and start raising horses. Just as an example. You could become a brush pilot in Canada. Do any number of things that would take you out of contact with this entire scheme forever. You choose not to do so. And it's not because of any programming that is currently in you, I took all of that out."
    "I know that," I sighed. "Seems like a more subtle form, though." Could I really walk away? The only way to know would be to do it, and I'm not going to.
    "The memory of responsibility?"
    "Yeah. I mean, everything that makes me who I am, is because of them. I don't know what to do with that fact. It just sits there, staring at me." I stared back at it helplessly.
    "Who would you like to be responsible for everything that you are?"
    "Ideally, myself," I replied dryly.
    "So your parents weren't involved at all? Don't sigh and roll your eyes at me," he added at my response.
    "I've had this argument with myself," I told him tiredly. "There's influence, and... this seems to go past that, I don't know." Influence is one thing. Absolute control is another. I get angry, still, whenever I think about all the choices that were never mine to make. I'm not exactly unhappy with who I am. I just wish I'd had some small say in becoming her.
    "Maybe you were traumatized. Which you were. At least you don't seem to be suffering from Stockholm syndrome."
    "No, I don't think anyone needs to worry about me taking their side anytime soon," I said carefully. "I did occasionally used to wonder if may be we could talk this whole thing out over a cup of coffee at some point, but after what just happened I don't think that's really going to happen. Oh well." Remembering red lights disappearing in the darkness.
    "Yeah. I have a couple of books you might want to read that are vaguely applicable to your situation," he mentioned.
    "Oh?"
    "Both biographies, and semi-critical, semi-professional analyses of survivor stories."
    "Why not." I shrugged.
    "There's a certain connection here, children who are abused, who desperately try to not become their parents, or not live their lives in fear of the fact that their parents are hanging over them. There are certain echoes to your situation."
    "I suppose I can see that."
    "They might help you clarify your thoughts on this issue."
    "Any clarity would be a help." After a moment I added, "Thank you. I don't find it really easy to talk to people."

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