Madison's eyes opened, and she awoke with a start. She blinked and tried to get it together, expecting to see the dormitory on the Laika.

That wasn't what she was seeing now.

Her visual receptors were a little snowy, but from what she could make out she was lying down on some kind of table or rack, and her efforts to move her arms and legs resulted in nothing more than the realization that she was clamped to the table-rack-thing by her neck, wrists and ankles.

Only her neck retained any kind of freedom to move, and so she tipped her head sideways to get a better look at things – and Madison found herself looking at... herself.

For half a second, Madison was convinced she was merely peering at a reflection, but no. She could feel the other's breath on her, smell her almost-living fur. She was clamped to a table, like Madison. More to the point, this face was smiling slightly, whereas Madison herself knew that that was the last thing she wanted to do right now. She let out a small cry of surprise. "Oh!"

Her double chortled shortly. "Well, hey, sleepyhead," she said in a quasi-Riloan accent just like Madison's. "Was wondering when you were gonna wake up. It's been a bit boring all on my lonesome."

"Who are you?" Madison blurted, keenly aware – and somewhat grateful – that her verbal functions were working again. "Where are we?"

The lookalike rolled her head to glance at the ceiling, which was low and metallic and lined with dim strip lighting. "OSA Robotics Division synthetic production plant on Hewlett Major." She rolled her muzzle back towards Madison. "And uh, my name is Isolde Struff. Salvage-B synthetic 87445387, Arctic Fox model." She eyed Madison. "Just like you."

Madison was at a loss. "Why are we here? Look, I don't know if you know, but I was on a ship, a, a salvage ship coming back from Pomatta, and I... I..."

"You were damaged, sweetie," Isolde chirped perkily. "Quite badly. They had to practically reassemble you, from what I heard off the personnel working on you." She laughed. "I mean, how in blue blazes did you get buckshot lodged in your joints?"

She went on about what had happened to her and how she'd got here, but Madison wasn't listening any more. Aside from the surfeit of system notifications updating her on the completion of various repairs and adjustments, memories and thoughts were emerging from the fog in her mind. It was all raw and uncompressed, filled with coders' reminders and various notes, the programming equivalent of jotting in the margins.

It was disconcerting.

Memories of Jeff and Taylor.

Thoughts on what had happened on Pomatta.

Something immediately caught her attention, however. She checked the time-code on her memories of Tigris Prime, of herself and the others playing on the garbage mound, and it was dated three years ago.

Three years ago?

That couldn't be right. Madison was certain it had occurred in 7062, seventeen years previously, but now it was clearly dated 09/08/7076. There was also a to-delete amendment tag attached to some of the data, something about a correction of data mislabelled during her last system reset.

Madison reeled. Two years ago? Only two years ago? No. No, that couldn't be right.

How old was she?

Her vision was clearing up, and her surroundings were more defined now. Madison's mouth dropped open at what she was seeing.

She was surrounded by hundreds of bed-rack-things like hers, all with a prone form on top. Some were like her, with Arctic Fox shells, but there were many others, all of differing species, with only one singular trait – the mint-green jumpsuit and slippers combo.

Like the one Madison was wearing.

Had it been like this last time, after Jeff?

Had there ever been a Jeff?

Isolde was still talking. "...But it doesn't matter now. For either of us."

Her interest piqued by that, Madison turned back to her. "What?"

Isolde sighed. "Look, I can lie here and sugarcoat it all day, sweetie, but the fact is, we're being replaced."

"Replaced," Madison breathed. "Then... then... we're..." The last word of that sentence was one of the worst words a synthetic could ever hear or utter. "Obsolete. But why?"

"One word," Isolde said drily. "Well, one word, a hyphen, a letter and a number. Salvage-B1."

Madison felt panic rise in her chest. "No, no, no! We can't be obsolete! We've only been around for a few years!" She felt an explosion of shock at that assertive declaration and knew it to be truth. The incident with Jeff had happened a few months after she, Jeff and Taylor had rolled off the assembly lines here.

Oh, well, at least I know that they existed.

Isolde shook her head wearily. "A few years is an eyeblink in synthetic innovation now. It's the end of the line for us as salvage models, love. But it's not the end."

"What do you mean?" Madison asked, finding a plateau of calm.

Isolde settled back on her table. "We're being reformatted and reassigned. You and me, we're only good for menial labour now."

Madison began to panic again. "But what about our teams? Our missions?"

"They'll be assigned Salvage-B1 models or other organics to replace us, and by the time that's happened we'll be mopping floors, with no recollection of any of what went before," Isolde said. "Settle in, sweetie. We'll get used to it, I'm sure." She closed her eyes.

Madison stared up at that blinking ceiling, her mind set in denial. No. I'm not gonna forget any of them. Jeff, Taylor, Henrik, Brewster.

It was some time after that that several blue-jacketed staffers entered the room, detaching some of the tables from their places and wheeling them out on castors, row by row.

After a while of witnessing this, Madison felt her own table vibrate as a staffer took it by a retractable handle and began to wheel her away. She kept her eyes closed.

She knew what was going to happen. What the orderlies were about to do to her.

I'm not letting go of them. Ever.

From the air temperature, she was in a different room now. She could hear the humming of computer banks, the soft chatter of technicians. There was a sharp sensation in her neck as something was plugged in, and an order was given.

Jeff. Jeff, I loved you. I still love you.

Then nothing.