This story is set in an technological advanced future where it is possible to restore a person from a backup into a new body. However, there are strict rules to this technology - prohibiting the existence of more than one copy of a single person. This is a well-trodden theme of the genre, like the award winning Think Like a Dinosaur by James Patrick Kelly.

Analog June 2013

Here we follow the police officer Zeke as he is assigned a case about a woman with an unknown identity. Something doesn’t add up and Zeke suspects that she may an illegal copy.

The narrative goes where most readers would expect it to go, with a difficult dilemma of who has the right to exist, what defines personhood and where the moral limits of the law is. It is well written, set in a believable future with interesting nuanced characters.

Read in Analog June 2013
Rating: 3