I check them off.

Different from others. Is one yes out of five enough?

Lily says percentages and politicians can't define identity, but they've defined mine: illegal lab creation. The hand that I have been dealt. Is this what Allys meant?

Allys is so sure of herself. So confident. She calls Dane a decomposing turd without blinking. Without knowing it, she calls me a lab pet. Why am I so drawn to someone who could destroy me? Why do I need her to be my friend?

The dictionary says my identity should be all about being separate or distinct, and yet it feels like it is so wrapped up in others.

The Unknowable

Are there some things I will never know?

The unanswerable I will have to accept?

Have I changed the way everyone does, time and events molding me?

Or am I a new Jenna, the product of technology, changed by what was put in or maybe what was left out?

And if my original ten percent really is enough, what it it had been nine percent? Or eight?

Is one numeral that different from another?

When is a cell finally too small to hold our essence?

Even five hundred billion neurochips aren't telling me, and I'm not sure they ever will.

The question that twists inside me again and again — am I enough?— I realize for the first time, is not just my question, but was the old Jenna's question as well.

And I think about Ethan and Allys and even Dane,and I wonder has it ever been their own question, too?

Environment

"I'm leaving to pick up your father. I'll be back soon," Claire calls from the bottom of the stairs.

I hear her leave. The house is empty. Lily has gone to Sunday Mass. I have never been left home alone before. Are they beginning to trust me? I look out the window at the veranda below. The railings have all been replaced and the brick walls repaired. The Cotswold is beginning to look more like a house and less like a ruin. Claire's magic is working. Day by day, it improves. The upstairs rooms remain empty, but they are at least clean now, the spiderwebs all swiped away.

I've been cleaning my own room today. Claire does not employ housekeepers anymore, not like she did in Boston. She does not want prying eyes or ears. When a workman must come-inside, she follows him and hovers. Not a minute is given for free wandering.

There is not much to clean. My room is still sparse. "It is life near the bone where it is sweetest," I say to the walls. I amuse myself with my cleverness. I run a cloth over my desk and chair and I am done.

I pick up my copy of Walden, now uploaded word for word into my biochips, but there is still something different about opening a real book, the scent that emerges, seeing one word at a time and soaking in its shape and nuance. I wonder about things like the sounds and scents that surrounded Thoreau as he wrote each sentence and paragraph.

Turning pages, feeling the paper, I wonder if any of the trees from Thoreau's forest are still alive and wonder what Thoreau would think today if he could visit my small pond and eucalyptus grove. I wonder if, unlike Thoreau, two hundred years from now I might still be able to visit my pond and forest. When I turn the pages of the book and read the words and the spaces between, I have time to think about these things. Thoughts like these are not written down or uploaded into my Bio Gel. These thoughts are mine alone and no one else's. They exist nowhere else in the universe but within me.

I'm stopped by this new thought. What if I had never had the chance to collect and build new memories? Before I can think what I am saying, I hear myself whispering "thank you" to the air. I am thankful, grateful, in spite of the cost, to be here. Have I forgotten the hell I traveled, or are these new memories a cushion softening its sharpness?

I return Walden to the center of my desk and take my dust cloth to my closet to drop it in the laundry bin. Claire will probably be home soon. I glance at the corner of my closet. The key. Almost forgotten. I am chilled again, remembering Father's face when I mentioned it. I bend down and pull back the corner of carpet. It's still there and I snatch it into my fist like it might disappear. I walk to the top of the stairs and lean over the banister.

"Claire? Lily?"

Here! Jenna! I startle, almost dropping the key. I freeze on the landing. Listening. But the house is quiet. Was it only a voice I remember?

I grip the key, stepping on the first stair. I already know what is in Mother's closet. Only computers. But it was dark. Maybe there was something else I didn't notice. What would Father be afraid for me to see? Something pounds within me, something at my core, but I know it is not a heart. I take another step, and another, until I am standing at Mother's door.

After the strides we have made, the tender moments we have shared, is this betrayal? I look over my shoulder, back down the long empty hallway. "Mother?" My voice is strung tight. Hearing it deepens the pounding within. The walls of the hallway pulse with the stillness. I push open her door.

The room is bright, airy, nothing to be afraid of. I walk in, hearing the awkward shuffle of my feet on the floor. Jenna. I stop. My breath catches again, and my nails dig into my palm. I step closer to the closet. I remember the worried flash of Father's eyes again, and I thrust the key into the lock, turning the bolt, throwing the door open.

The table is still there.

And the computers.

And the faint green glow.

This time I find the light switch on the outside wall and I push it on. I walk in. The room is ordinary. The walls plain. I look at the floor, the ceiling, under the table. There is nothing else in here but the three computers. Mine is still in the middle, one of the bolts still loose. I step forward and almost touch it but pull back.