You cut my hair. I never thought I’d look good with short hair, but your little pixie-punk style actually looks good on my face.
(Yeah, I get it. This situation is literally life and death, and I should be thinking about other things besides my hair right now. I can’t help myself. Good hair is so important, and I’ve let mine become an entangled monster.)
Really, the shock is too great. There’s nothing to say to her. So that’s what I say, my mouth agape, my jaw clenched into stunned submission, my heart pounding in horror. I say nothing.
Instead, I run.
I run down the beach and into the trees, past a sapphire-blue lagoon lodged in the middle of this island atoll. My clone just came from swimming in this lagoon with him. I know it; I feel it. The lagoon looks like a perfect little paradise and I hate her for sharing it with him. It should have been me there with him.
I run and run until my breath finally gives out and I slump down under the shade of a palm tree. I am: Exhausted. Confused. Horrified. My heart might give out right now and I wouldn’t begrudge it doing so.
I wish I could die.
But I already have.
All death got me the first time was a clone who stole the man who stole my heart.
Xander follows me to my resting spot in the palm-tree shade. At least he has the decency not to bring her along.
So much has happened since the last time I saw Xander. There’s too much to say to him. The best that comes out of my mouth is, “What’s her name?”
“Elysia.” Hearing Xander’s familiar gravelly voice, I want to die again, but this time from unbearable pain in my heart—beating too hard for someone I loved, and who loved me back, just not enough.
Faithfulness is supposed to be Xander’s genetic imperative. He’s an Aquine. When they mate, it’s supposed to be for life. I counted on that when I gave myself to him—mind, body, and soul. Even more than Aquines value their superior looks and bodies, they value loyalty. They have a divorce rate of zero, because they cultivate their people to choose forever mates over casual dalliances. Why was I the exception? Or is his relationship with Elysia a really sick extension of the “loyalty” he was supposed to feel exclusively for me?
Elysia. Even her name is better than mine.
I can’t look at him. Sitting beneath the tree, I cover my head with my arms. I don’t want him to see me, either. I don’t want him to know I’m crying, even though I can’t stop the shake of my body or the sound of sobs coming from my mouth. I won’t share the sight of my tears.
“Zhara.” He says my name gently. Xander places his hand on my back to comfort me, but his touch feels like poison. I flinch, and he removes his hand. “I thought you were dead. Then I discovered Elysia on Demesne, and I realized the mistake I’d made when things ended between us. I still had the same feelings for you—and they transferred to her. She was like a second chance with you.” His voice is filled with pain and compassion, and not the mimicked kind I’ve gotten used to from clones. It’s real.
My sobs abate, but not my fury. “You’ve got a strange way of acting out your grief. Did anyone even come looking for me?”
“I was training on the Base at the time, not allowed contact with the outside world. Your father sent a search party after your disappearance. I offered to go, but he wouldn’t allow it. You were presumed dead. Your father was devastated. I was devastated.”
I’m too dumbfounded to speak. Gently, Xander says, “The bodies of your two friends washed ashore. I’m so sorry. Did you know they died?”
“Of course I knew that. And they weren’t my friends,” I snap. Why am I being mean even to the dead now? What’s wrong with me? “I disappeared so close to Demesne. Didn’t anyone even worry that I’d been cloned if they never found a body?”
“The pirates who harvest Firsts could have taken the other two bodies to Dr. Lusardi, but they didn’t, so no one made that assumption about you. The investigators assumed you drowned.”
“But pirates did find my body. They sold it to Dr. Lusardi’s laboratory on Demesne. Only I wasn’t dead. I woke up.”
“Indeed. I can see that you’re very much alive.”
“Why did no one search for me on Demesne?”
“Come on, Z. You know that practically nobody can get on that island except the people who own property there. And nobody thought Dr. Lusardi was working on teenagers. She publicly stated before the Replicant Rights Commission that she’d never attempt to clone teenagers, because their hormones would screw up her science. She said it was impossible to transition teen clones to adulthood so they were therefore invalid as subjects for her work. I know. I had to study all her statements before I took the Uni-Mil assignment on Demesne.”
“Guess Dr. Lusardi lied.”
Aidan lied. That galls me more. Dr. Lusardi’s lie resulted in my clone. That sucks. Hard. But I have no relationship invested with Dr. Lusardi; I never met her. Aidan’s lie feels so much more personal. Unforgivable.
“Your hair is different,” Xander comments.
My head lifts up from hiding beneath my arms to stare at him in shock. “That’s what you have to say to me after all this? ‘Your hair is different’?” I shouldn’t feel a small measure of satisfaction, but I do. He noticed my hair.
“There’s too much to say. I don’t know where to begin.”
We both laugh softly, and for a moment, the tension is relieved. “Yeah. Feeling that too.” My fingers wrap strands of wild blond hair, streaked now in blue and black. “After you left, I cut off the pink tips. I was feeling pretty beat up, so I got black and blue streaks. The roots have grown out, but the streaks remain. They remind me of how I feel. Damaged.”
“Glad you haven’t lost your sense of melodrama, Z-Dev.” He’s teasing, trying to keep the moment light, using his old nickname for me, short for Zhara-Daredevil. But I’m not laughing anymore. Instead, I glare at him. He averts his turquoise eyes from my face to look at the late afternoon sun. “Let’s go. We need to get off this atoll before it gets dark. Elysia and I will return to the Rave Caves with you and the other Defects.”
“They don’t like to be called that. They’ve chosen the name Emergents for themselves.”
“Excellent. That’s what we hope for them. That they choose their own identities.”
“Who is we?”
“Those of us in the military who have been secretly supporting the Defects’—rather, Emergents’—quest for Insurrection. For freedom.”
It’s just too much to take in. Last year, at the urging of my father, Xander joined the elite wing of the Universal Military, which Xander’s peaceful Aquine people traditionally shun. His people also don’t believe in cloning, because it’s not “natural.” But now Xander has gone AWOL from the Uni-Mil in order to aid and abet Demesne clones? My head’s going to explode from confusion.
“Get up,” says Xander.
“Don’t rush me,” I snap again. “I’ll get up when I’m ready, not when you tell me to.” I actually do want to stand up, but I won’t do it now, because he demanded it.
“The sun will set soon. You know that’s the most important time of day to an Aquine, because you always begged me to forego that sacred time so we could swim longer.”
“So, wait. You can have sex with me and then decide after that we’re not ready to be mates—completely against the basic philosophy of Aquines: valuing loyalty above all else. Yet you can’t let go of your stupid Aquine twilight meditation ritual? You are the ultimate hypocrite!” It’s my curse that in the many months since I’ve last seen Xander, between his military training and whatever has happened to him since, his body has filled out into unholy appeal. His bronzed legs and arms are more muscular, his torso fuller, his face harder and more rugged, his turquoise eyes deeper and more intense. I’ve been to hell and back. Maybe he has too.
Softly, Xander repeats, “I’m so sorry. I’ll never be able to convey to you how deeply sorry I am. I was wrong. But what’s done is done. All we can do is
move forward.” He looks above to the setting sun. “Now, Zhara.”
I will reject him as he’s rejected me. I vow it.
“I’ll leave when I’m ready,” I repeat.
“We don’t have time for a Z-Dev temper tantrum,” says Xander. Instead of arguing with me, he simply lifts me into his arms and slings me over his shoulder. I beat his back with my fists and his chest with my feet. I try to squirm from beneath his arm holding me down. But I am nothing against the big man’s strength. He does not waver as he walks through the trees with me over his shoulder, as if he didn’t even notice that his clone girlfriend’s First is clawing her fingernails down his rock-hard back, drawing blood but not causing his stride to slow down one bit.
Finally, I give up and just let him carry me.
I’m so tired.
Into his shoulder, I murmur, “Why does she have to come back to the Rave Caves, too? She’s not even a real person. She’s a fake. She’s a—”
At last, I’ve drawn a response. Xander throws me from his shoulder to land me standing opposite him, so close I can feel the hiss of his breath on my neck. “She’s not a fake. Elysia is very real. Be kind to her.”
Is this the biggest joke I’ve ever not laughed at? “You’re kidding me, right?”
“I’m not. Elysia will need your compassion, and your strength.”
“Excuse me, I’m the one who was left for dead, cloned against my will, and forced to escape to the Rave Caves with a posse of Defects.”
“Emergents. And she’s had it harder.”
“I don’t even believe you.”
“Believe me. Your clone is pregnant.”
I die again.
“Is it yours?” I ask him.
“No.”
Scientists say they don’t make clones from teenage Firsts. They say they only make clones that can’t replicate.
Adults lie and lie and lie.
“Why should I believe you?”
“If you know me at all,” says Xander, “you believe me.”
I do believe him. If Xander had murdered someone, he’d straight-up admit: Yes, I did it. He’d hold out his wrists to be cuffed and taken away, ready to accept his judgment. Did he knock up my clone? No. He said it; he means it.
If he didn’t do it, who did? Is my clone not just my worst nightmare, but also a slut?
“SLUT!” MOTHER SCREAMS FROM THE witness stand. I should be concentrating on more important matters—like my imminent sentencing—but I can’t help let out a little laugh at how funny Mother sounds, the shrillness of her exclamation completely at odds with her breathy, childlike voice. I was supposed to be an emotionless clone. Instead, I’m a victim of a terrible human oddity—a funny bone. Further enraged by my laughter, Mother points her bejeweled, burgundy-painted fingertip at me, and repeats her shrill accusation. “SLUT SLUT SLUT!”
The judge raps her gavel. “Order! Order! There’s no need for such shouting here. Such ugly words. Tsk, tsk. Compose yourself, Mrs. Bratton.”
Mother wipes her brow and takes a deep breath. “Sorry, Your Honor,” Mother says quietly in her babyish voice. It’s so obvious she’s not sorry. The only thing she’s sorry about is that rash purchase she made: me.
By Demesne standards, Mother’s family is poor. Mother’s husband, Governor Bratton, is the CEO of Demesne, the hired help to the rich property owners. Mother wanted to make a lavish, frivolous purchase like her richer friends, who looked down on her. She wanted to impress them by being the first to own a Beta—a teen test clone. Her older daughter, Astrid, had just left home for college, so Mother thought she could purchase a replacement companion to her other children, Ivan and Liesel.
Mother’s not sorry that she treated her Beta like dirt, or that her son violated and impregnated her Beta. I’m not even sure she’s sorry that her Beta killed her son before her son could kill her Beta. The only thing she’s really sorry about is that all her fancy friends know what a fool she was to impulsively purchase a Beta.
The judge turns to me. “How do you plead, Beta?”
“To which charge?” I ask, my voice filled with teenage disdain. The crowd in the courtroom audibly gasps.
Alexander, sitting in the front row, turns around and proudly tells the crowd, “They breed these Betas to be extra insouciant nowadays.”
I datacheck the unfamiliar word.
In·sou·ci·ant [in-SOO-see-uhnt]: Free from concern, worry, or anxiety; carefree; nonchalant.
Insouciant. Good word. I like it. That’s what I want to be, free from concern, no worries about my judgment day coming sooner rather than later, not a care in the world.
I look directly at Mother, pointing at her as she did me, and I insouciantly accuse her of the word that’s my hope for her future: “INDIGENT INDIGENT INDIGENT!”
In·di·gent [IN-di-juhnt]: Needy; poor; impoverished.
Mother faints from the harsh accusation and has to be carried away by the Governor’s clone henchmen. The crowd roars its disapproval—“Silence the Beta! Death to the Beta!”—in my direction as the judge struggles to get the room back under control.
“Order! Order!” the judge admonishes. The crowd quiets, and she turns to me again. “The murder charge! How do you plead? Don’t dare with further insouciance.”
“Guilty,” I admit. “But it was self-defense.”
“Don’t be absurd,” says the judge. “Clones have no rights to defend themselves.” She bangs down her gavel. “Guilty as charged. Next charge: inciting insurrection. How do you plead?”
“I didn’t start it,” I say, as if I’m stating the obvious, because I am. Why do these people have to pin everything on me? “I just picked up where the other Emergents left off.”
“Guilty!” says the judge. “Next charge: stealing my boyfriend. How do you plead?”
I look at Alexander, who shrugs, and then I look to the judge, who looks exactly like me, only with honey-colored human eyes, and unruly matted hair. Seriously, get a brush already. “I didn’t steal him,” I tell Judge Zhara. “I just borrowed him to help me get through a rough time. It’s Tahir I love. Tahir, who is a Beta clone like me; Tahir, who—”
Judge Zhara cuts me off, sounding as shrill as Mother. “GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY!” Zhara shrieks. The crowd goes wild, jumping to their feet, hooting and hollering as they clap their hands in approval.
The Governor, standing at the door, exults with joy. “SLUT SLUT SLUT!” he yells at me.
The bailiff—a clone, aestheticized with a black rose on the side of his face—comes to the stand to handcuff me. “Her sentence?” he asks Judge Zhara.
“Kill her, already!” Judge Zhara tells the bailiff. Then she turns to face me. “Once you die, I can finally get my soul back.”
It’s so dark here in the Rave Caves. I can’t stop sleeping. Maybe when I wake up, this nightmare will be over. Maybe when I wake up, I won’t be pregnant, I won’t be a fugitive, and I won’t be pretending to care for the Aquine who considers himself my protector.
I wanted to escape with Tahir, my true-love Beta, not with Alexander and the Emergents. That I managed to escape Demesne was itself a miracle, but Tahir faced the most formidable obstacle of all—his parents. After Tahir’s First died in a surfing accident, his parents’ grief was so great that they used their wealth and power to have his dead body cloned. My Tahir is a Beta like me. Unfortunately, his parents cling even harder to their First’s clone; I don’t know why. All they are doing is stalling their next wave of grief, when Beta Tahir finally escapes from them—or dies from Awfuls—or both.
In my sweetest fantasy for the future, I spend every moment of however many months I have left with my Tahir, before the Awfuls that Dr. Lusardi programmed into us cause us to burn out and die. I suppose if it’s my fantasy, I can be greedier. Hope for better. I wish for a future where Tahir and I don’t have to live our lives on the run, forced into being outlaws by the sins of our humans. Tahir and I live freely, wherever we want, however long we want. We won’t live in
paradise, and we won’t live in dark caves. We blend in like regular people, with no need to hide in remote corners of the world. We roam city streets and climb cathedrals and thrash through rivers, living our lives to the fullest, appreciating those lives more than the humans because we appreciate how precious each breath of freedom is.
When Tahir and I do finally die, we’re old, shriveled-up Betas, clasping our hands in one last clench of shared joy before we succumb to deaths earned by old age, and not violence or cruel programming.
Zhara, my First, lives. She died and then got a do-over. May I please have one, too?
“How long have I been asleep?” I ask Alexander, who’s lying next to me on a surprisingly cozy bed made of sticks and boughs. Thousands of tiny pink crystals glimmer from the cave walls, highlighting the sharp angle of his cheekbones. “It’s so dark in here. I feel like I could have been asleep for days and not known the difference.”
He removes a piece of hair covering my brow and places a soft kiss on my forehead. “You’ve been asleep for maybe fourteen hours. You needed the rest after everything that happened yesterday. It was a lot. For me too. Wish I could sleep it off as well as you do. I’ve barely slept since we got to the Rave Caves.”
“Everything is different now,” I say, acknowledging the invisible third party in the cave: Zhara.
“Everything is weird now,” says Alex. He pauses, and then adds, “Weirder. It was already pretty strange. But nothing is different in terms of my commitment to you and the baby.” His hand touches my belly, and I know, even if he doesn’t, that what he really cherishes is the unborn thing inside me. I will never cherish it. For some reason only he can understand, he’s chosen to love and protect the thing for me. That’s why I can’t return him to Zhara. Yet. The baby needs someone on its side. That someone won’t be its birth mother. As soon as it is emerged, I plan on giving it to Alex and letting him figure out what to do with it. I can give it life, but he can give it values. Loyalty. Strength. Kindness.