One Door From Heaven

into a new Fleetwood American Heritage, which is cooler than any coach drawn by enchanted vermin.
        The instant the door is opened, the dog leaps up the steps and into the motor home, as though she has always belonged here. At the suggestion of his hostess, Curtis follows Old Yeller.
        Entry is directly into the cockpit. As he steps between the well-separated passenger's and driver's seats, into a lounge with flanking sofas, he hears the door shut behind him.
        Suddenly this fairy tale becomes a horror story. Looking across the lounge, into the open kitchen, Curtis sees at the sink the last person that he might expect to find there. Cinderella.
        He turns in shock, looking behind him, and Cinderella is there, as well, standing between the driver's and passenger's seats, smiling and even more dramatic-looking in this confined space than she had been out in the sun.
        The Cinderella at the sink is identical to the first Cinderella, from the silky honey-gold hair to the opal-blue eyes, to the opal in the navel, to the long legs in low-rider white toreador pants, to the sandals with acrylic heels, to the azure toenails.
        Clones.
        Oh, Lord, clones.
        Clones are usually trouble, and there's no prejudice in this opinion, because most clones are born to be bad.
        "Clones," Curtis mutters.
        The first Cinderella smiles. "What'd you say, sweetie?"
        The second Cinderella turns away from the sink and takes a step toward Curtis. She's also smiling. And she's holding a large knife.

Chapter 41
        
        SITTING IN THE fluorescent-flooded brick-and-mortar library but also outbound through cyberspace with its infinite avenues of radiant circuitry and light pipes, traveling the world on the swift wheels of electric current and microwaves, exploring virtual libraries that are always open, ever bright, poring through paperless books of glowing data, Micky found the primitive self-interest and darkest materialism of humanity everywhere in these palaces of technological genius.
        Bioethicists reject the existence of objective truths. Preston Mad-doc had written, "There is no right or wrong, no moral or immoral conduct. Bioethics is about efficiency, about establishing a set of rules that will do the most good for the most people."
        For one thing, this efficiency means assisting suicide in every case where a suffering person considers it, not merely assisting the suicides of the terminally ill, not just of the chronically ill, but assisting even those who could be cured but are at times depressed.
        In fact, Preston and many others considered depressed people as candidates not only for suicide assistance but also for "positive suicide counseling" to ensure they self-destructed. After all, a depressed person has an inadequate quality of life, and even if his depression can be alleviated with drugs, he isn't "normal" when on mood-altering medication and therefore is incapable of leading a life of quality.
        An increase in the suicide rate is, they believe, a benefit to society, for in a well-managed medical system, the organs of assisted suicides should be harvested for transplantation. Micky read many bioethicists who were gleeful at the prospect of alleviating organ shortages through managed-care suicide programs; in their enthusiasm, it was clear they would work aggressively to increase the number of suicides if given all the laws for which they relentlessly pressed.
        If we are all just meat, having no soul, then why shouldn't some of us join together to butcher others for our benefit? There will be an immediate gain and no long-term consequences.
        Micky snatched her right hand away from the mouse, her left hand off the keyboard. To save electricity, the library was almost as warm as the day outside, but a chill slithered into her from the Internet, as though someone at a computer in Dr. Frankenstein's castle had crossed paths with her in cyberspace, reaching out of the ether to trace her spine with a virtual finger colder than ice.
        She looked around at the other library patrons, wondering how many of them would be as shocked as she was by what she'd read, how many would be indifferent-and how many would agree with Preston Maddoc and his colleagues. She had often brooded about the fragility of life, but for the first time, she realized with sobering acuity that civilization itself was as fragile