In gym, I’m a beast in the pool. The emotions I’m suppressing in every other part of my life are coming through in water polo. Luckily, I’ve got an excuse. I tell Mrs. Delaney I’m striving to make myself a counterbalance to Malik’s overpowering physical play.
“It’s fine to be aggressive,” she tells me. “But you’re swimming like you’re trying to hurt the water. You move better with the relaxed, measured stroke you always use.”
“I’ll try harder next time.”
The words come out so automatically that she can tell it’s lip service.
She’s quiet a moment, chewing this over. Then: “Remember what I said when I came to your house that time? That if you ever need someone to talk to, you can count on me?”
I do remember, and the truth is I like talking to Mrs. Delaney. I always sensed she was different from the other adults in town, and now I have proof. She must have been just a kid in the early days of Project Osiris. Does she know the whole truth about what’s going on here? It’s impossible to tell, but I hope not. I want to believe she’s the kind of person who’d never go along with the Serenity scam.
I realize something unexpected: When I’m gone from this nightmare town, I might feel sad about leaving my dad, mostly out of habit and brainwashing. But she’s the only one I’ll actually miss. “You’re awesome, Mrs. Delaney. I’ll never forget you.”
She looks puzzled. “Forget me? I’m not going anywhere. I just got here.” Her playful grin disappears as her eyes narrow. “Are you—going somewhere?”
My heart leaps up into my throat and I very nearly choke on it. How could I have said something so stupid? “Of course not,” I manage to rasp. “I never go anywhere.”
She studies me for what seems like a long time. At last, she says, “Sorry, I must have misunderstood. Now go and change. Maybe try a swim at home tonight. Take it nice and easy—get your regular stroke back.”
As soon as the locker room door shuts behind me, I slide down the wall to the floor and sit there, hyperventilating. After worrying so much about Tori, I almost gave it all away in a nothing conversation about water polo.
It begins to sink in that the longer we delay, the greater the likelihood that one of us will slip up and spill the beans. And then we can kiss any chance at freedom good-bye.
19
TORI PRITEL
Mom makes my favorite dinner tonight (mac and cheese with spicy bread crumb topping) and doesn’t give me a hard time until I start my fourth helping.
It’s love. It has to be. Nothing has changed. A few whiteboards and an old article on the internet can’t wipe out a family.
Steve looks up from the depths of my homework. “They’re simple equations, Torific. We went over this last week. And the week before.”
“I’m an artist, Steve,” I tell him. “I obviously don’t do math.”
“As long as it’s part of the curriculum,” Mom says, “you obviously do.”
I know they’re not my biological parents, but I refuse to believe I’m just an experiment to them. I mean every bit as much to them as a real daughter would.
How can I leave them?
On the other hand, I saw the conference room of the plastics factory, and I saw the Pax office where our bogus reality is crafted for our eyes only. I read the description of Project Osiris that could only be us—raised up to our ears in harmony and contentment in a hermetically sealed town. This can’t be a misunderstanding; there’s no way we got it wrong somehow. It’s awful, but it’s the (awful) truth.
Every time my parents had to work late (a vital shipment of traffic cones urgently needed somewhere!), that was a bald-faced lie. They were probably in that conference room reporting on me, making notes for my whiteboard. Worse, even before I was born, when Project Osiris was supposed to be canceled because it was immoral, my parents signed on anyway to raise the clone of some criminal mastermind (me).
Maybe they did it for the money. Serenity’s a pretty rich place. They had student loans to pay off. What choice did they have?
I want to believe that so much! But it still doesn’t explain everything.
So how can I stay?
Maybe it’s this: We artists are hopeless romantics, and there’s this romantic vision that I just can’t shake: infant Tori placed into the arms of the two researchers; it’s love at first sight!
It could have happened that way. It probably happened that way.
But is that enough?
I’m getting a lot of pressure from Malik and Hector to make up my mind once and for all. Eli’s being a lot cooler, but deep down, he’s more torn up than any of us. After all, Mr. Frieden is the head of Project Osiris.
Whoops. Not Mr. Frieden; Dr. Hammerstrom.
To make life even more difficult, Amber has gone from best friend to ex–best friend, and barely even talks to me. This is pretty awful because we’re still supposed to be doing our Serenity Day project together. So there she is, in my studio, painting the background of my mural.
They say silence can be deafening. Well, this is the opposite of that. Our silence is just silent. We might as well be in deep space.
We’re closer than sisters, and I know something that explains everything about her life and her world. And what do I tell her? Nothing.
Some friend I am.
It’s beyond weird—or maybe not. Maybe the criminals we’re cloned from are the strong, silent type.
My climbing wild roses have stopped climbing halfway up the trellis, looking like they could make it to the top if only someone would pay attention to them. That someone being me.
Along with everything else I’ve been neglecting, like my Serenity Day project and my best friend, I’ve been neglecting my plants too.
Steve says you can’t grow roses in the desert, and it’s turned into one of our classic no-you-can’t, yes-I-can things. So I’m determined to grow them, paint a picture of them, and present him with the finished product, nicely framed, on his next birthday.
I scale the trellis with a handful of twist ties so I can train the tendrils to reach for the sky. The feeling of being off the ground against the stucco is eerily familiar—I can almost see myself clinging to the wall of the Plastics Works after the rope came loose. It was very nearly a real disaster. I’m lucky the factory had so many niches and handholds that let me scramble to the top.
Or maybe it wasn’t luck. I look at our wall and see just as many spots to hang on to. If I can climb a factory in the pitch-black, a regular house should be a breeze. Intrigued, I work my way past the roses, past the trellis, and up toward the second story. I can’t explain it, but it just seems obvious to me—like the handholds and footholds have been outlined in Magic Marker. I’m pretty high up, but I’m not afraid at all. My sneakers are established in the mortar course between adobe bricks, and my hands have a firm grip on the sill beneath my parents’ bedroom window.
I hear their voices from inside, and stifle an impulse to raise myself up and knock on the sash. They’d probably have a fit. I’m about to start down when a word from my mother reaches me, and it stops me cold: “Osiris 3.”
Osiris 3—that’s Malik!
I hang there, waiting for more.
“I don’t like it,” I hear my father say. “The kid’s not just a number. You’re talking about one of Tori’s best friends.”
“It’s always been in the protocols.” This from Mom again. “The older ones will be fourteen soon. Any toxic element has to be weeded out for the good of the group.”
“This isn’t what I signed up for.” Steve sounds stressed. “When does he go?”
“We don’t want to spoil Serenity Day,” Mom replies. “After that, he’s out.”
One of my feet comes loose, and I lurch, momentarily swinging from the sill. All at once, this climb isn’t so much fun, and growing roses in the desert seems like a pointless waste of time.
I ease myself down the wall, scratching my legs on the thorns. It probably stings, but I don’t even notice.
A few overheard words can hurt so much more.
We already know about our parents, but this is the first time one of us has heard it straight from their mouths.
Any toxic element has to be weeded out. First Malik. Who’s next?
Most important of all, what exactly does weeded out mean?
I suddenly realize that I’ll never know, because we can’t risk sticking around long enough to see it happen.
I head for the Frieden house. I feel like I’m going to throw up on the way over there, yet now that the decision is made, I won’t go back on it. Funny, I never considered myself a strong-willed person, but I suddenly understand that I must be cloned from one.
Eli opens the door. He looks nervous when he sees it’s me.
I swallow hard. “I’ve made up my mind.”
Malik tries to play it cool when I tell him about my parents’ conversation. We can tell he’s freaked out, though, because he’s breathing a little too hard, like he’s just come from water polo practice.
“Toxic element, huh?” His usual bored drawl doesn’t quite come off. “So what else is new?”
“The Pritels don’t understand you like we do!” Hector tries to cheer him up. “The things you say—we get that you don’t always mean them!”
Malik turns angry. “You think this is only the Pritels? They’re just who we heard it from. This is everybody—all the adults—” Suddenly, he’s deathly quiet. “My own parents. They want this too. They think I should be—weeded.”
“We have no way of knowing what ‘weeded’ means,” I remind him.
He’s bitter. “I doubt your folks were talking about gardening.”
“It doesn’t matter what it means,” Eli jumps in. “We won’t be here to find out. Now, let’s work on our plan.”
What we come up with is pretty simple. (It has to be, since we know nothing beyond our own borders.) We sneak out after everyone else has gone to sleep, jump on our bikes, and meet at the edge of town on Old County Six just beyond the surveillance cameras.
We’re obviously flying by the seat of our pants, hoping that what little information we have is right. Based on a map Eli saw on the factory’s internet, we think there’s a rail line passing not far to the south of us. The trouble is the rail map had no Serenity on it. So our starting point is just an educated guess, based on the location of Taos and Carson National Forest. We could be just a few miles from the tracks; we could be fifty or sixty.
“It’s not a big difference on a map,” Malik observes, “but I bet it’s pretty noticeable when you’re pedaling.”
The planning meeting is pretty tense, and not just because we’re short on details. We’re scared to death, and even more scared of what might happen if we stay. Malik is obviously the one in immediate crisis, but we’ll all turn fourteen eventually. Eli’s birthday comes even a few days before Malik’s. We’re all in danger of being weeded, whatever that is.
“Can I ask a practical question?” puts in Hector. “What do we do when the train comes?”
“Simple,” Malik replies. “We throw you onto the tracks, and while they’re picking up the pieces with a shrimp fork, the rest of us sneak aboard.”
“Be serious, Malik,” I scold.
“Who’s joking? I’m the toxic element, remember?”
“No more than the rest of us,” Hector soothes. “We’re cloned from the toxic hall of fame.”
“Then I guess I win,” Malik says with a mixture of acid and pride. “Rah, rah. It’s not easy to be worst when you’re raised with the scum of the earth.”
Eli steers the conversation back to the plan. “We won’t know how to handle the train until we’re there and it’s actually happening. I’m hoping for a really slow, heavy freight where we can climb onto a flat car. But we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“As long as we’re away from here,” intones Malik, his expression haunted.
“I wish I could see my parents’ reaction,” says Hector with a mixture of relish and dread, “when they wake up and realize their guinea pig is gone.”
That gives me a jolt. “I was kind of thinking of leaving my parents a note—you know, to tell them I still love them in spite of everything.”
Eli practically jumps down my throat. “No way! What if they wake up in the middle of the night and see it? They’ll be on the phone with the Purples in a heartbeat.”
My eyes fill with tears. “I just can’t stand the thought that this is forever. Maybe someday—I mean, a long time from now—down the line—we can, you know, visit . . .” My voice trails off.
“Yeah, sign me up for that,” Malik drawls. “I can’t wait to come back so they can weed me.”
The date is set: tomorrow night. With the clock ticking down on Malik, we have to act fast.
Also, if we delay too long, someone is bound to chicken out. (I’m sure the guys think it’ll be me.)
I sleepwalk through school the next day, retreating into my own thoughts because it’s the only way to keep from losing it. I register everything as “my last”—my last taste of Mom’s scrambled eggs; my last water polo practice; my last Meditation class; my last meal at the kitchen table in our house.
Steve picks up on something. “Is everything okay, Torific? You seem kind of distracted.”
“I was just thinking about art school at the Sorbonne,” I tell him. “Paris has the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, and a lot of other great museums.”
It’s a surefire way to get him off the topic of why I’m acting weird. Tomorrow, I know, an entire guided tour of the Louvre will be uploaded to my computer—anything to keep me from wanting to go there.
Poor Steve. He has no idea that I’m already on my way.
There’s just one thing left undone, and I have to take care of it. After dinner, I climb the stairs to my studio. There, stretched out on the big table, is the Serenity Day mural. Our project—Amber’s and mine. It’s finished. Not my best work, but I have to admit it looks pretty decent, maybe because it depicts a way of life that I’m never going to have again.
I roll it up and take it over to Amber’s house—a walk I’ve made a million times, although not lately and not feeling the way I do now.
It’s a good thing Mr. and Mrs. Laska are home, or Amber probably wouldn’t let me in. I’m grateful to her, though. She’s kept her promise. She never told anyone about the pictures of the whiteboards. All she did was stop talking to me, which was painful enough.
Eventually we’re up in her room, and I unroll our mural. “What do you think?”
“Good,” she says without even looking at it. “Why did you bring it here?”
“So you can take it to Serenity Day.”
“Why can’t you take it to Serenity Day?”
This is obviously a question I have no answer for. So I just remind her, “It’s your project too.”
She rolls it up again, looking exasperated and a little sad. “Fine. I’ll bring it in.”
“It was fun working on it together,” I blurt.
“Right. Fun.”
I’m floundering now. After being so close that our lives were practically merged together, it’s beyond terrible to leave things like this. “I’m sorry we’ve been fighting. If you think about it, we’ve been friends a lot longer than we’ve been, you know, not.”
She’s not answering anymore. She just wants me to go. And anyway, there’s no point in rambling on, because the one thing I really want to say is also the one thing I can’t:
Good-bye.
20
AMBER LASKA
THINGS TO DO TODAY
•?????
I concentrate on the paper, but for some reason, I can’t come up with a single item to put on it. All I can think of is Tori.
What’s up with her? I mean besides the fact that she’s turned on Serenity because of a note from Randy.
She’s my best friend and all we do is fight. I’m so upset. I don’t have time to be upset. I’m a busy person!
Th
is is stupid. I get things done by making lists and budgeting my time. Staring at a blank page doesn’t fit into my lifestyle.
•Ballet Practice (1.5 hours)
•Piano Practice (1 hour) . . .
It’s not rocket science. These are on the list every day. What else?
A flicker of blue catches my eye. It’s the corner of the rolled-up mural leaning against my desk. The sky—my sky. I’m the one who colored it in, even if I didn’t contribute much else from an artistic standpoint.
You’re doing it again, I check myself. Concentrate on the list . . .
But it bugs me: Why would she bring the project over to my house when it can just as easily sit in her studio? In my room, it’s more likely to get stepped on or tripped over.
Obviously, it was just an excuse to talk to me. But what did she really say?
“I’m sorry we’ve been fighting . . . We’ve been friends a lot longer than we’ve been, you know, not.”
Okay, she wants to make up and be friends again. I want that too. But there’s no way I’m going to stand by and listen to her conspiracy theories.
Get back to the list . . .
But what if she isn’t trying to make up? If you look at it another way, her words sound almost like something you’d say to a person you’re never going to see again. What if she brought the mural to me because she won’t be around to hand it in herself?
My heart begins to race. Could that be what this means? That Tori is planning to run away from home?
Impossible! Who would do something so drastic? Where could she go, and how would she get there?
I sit down on the edge of my bed, my heart racing. This is a crazy thing to do! There’s no way she can make it alone. A thought hits me. Could she have others going with her? Eli, maybe? Randy’s note was meant for him. Or Malik, who never shuts up for a second about his intention to “blow this Popsicle stand”?
In the end, it doesn’t matter. I tell myself, even if they do get away, so what? They’ll be kids, living by their wits in some filthy city. The idea of Tori, surrounded by crime and violence like I read about in that USA Today, makes my stomach clench.