Strange New World

  At five thousand girls, my class at the training ward was among the largest commissioned. But Waverly has millions of fans. Millions. I can hardly even conceive of that many…followers. What I do understand is that even if her followers don’t truly know her, they probably know her well enough to spot an imposter after more than a few minutes on camera.

  I got lucky at Seren’s party, and again at the ink ceremony. But that luck can’t possibly last.

  I stand closer to the screen, scanning the messages. Trying not to feel completely overwhelmed. “I don’t think I can do this. Can’t you be yourself on camera and just…wear long sleeves?”

  “That’s what I’ll be doing for all of my appearances this week, as well as the recap interviews for the ink ceremony episode. But after the network airs the footage they shot this morning, people will expect to see the design. Union ink is something to be shown off, like an engagement ring. If I hide it, everyone will know something’s wrong.”

  I run the fingers of my right hand softly over the clear film covering my left forearm. “Waverly, we may look alike, but I can’t pass for you. I don’t understand your life. Or this place.”

  “That’s why you’re here.” Her voice has gone hard. “To learn how to be me.” I start to argue again, but she cuts me off. “I don’t want this any more than you do, but believe it or not, you’re getting the better end of the deal here. You’ve taken everything that’s supposed to be mine. My health. My show. My name and my fiancé, for all practical purposes. And now you get to be in my wedding, while I have to hide out in the house for the next two months.

  “You’ve pushed me out of my own life, Dahlia. The least you can do is see it through. And maybe stop acting like being rich and famous is such a hardship.”

  I don’t think I truly understand either of those concepts, but I do understand that Waverly’s asking me to make the best of the situation.

  “Fine.” I suck in a deep breath and sit straighter, trying to dig up some enthusiasm. “Show me how to be rich and famous.”

  “Good morning,” I say, sounding more cheerful than I feel. Julienne 20 sets a plate in front of me at the breakfast table, then disappears. “Lobster eggs Benedict. Yum.”

  “Morning,” my dad says, but neither he nor my mom looks up from their tablets.

  “Okay, I’m just going to take a guess,” I say as Julienne 20 returns with a steaming mug of coffee, doctored with sugar and cream until it’s the color of butter pecan ice cream. Just the way I like it. “This silent treatment is about Dahlia 16?”

  My dad sets down his tablet. “Honey, this has nothing to do with you.”

  My laughter sounds harsher than I intended.

  “Okay, this has everything to do with you,” he concedes. “But it’s not because of you. I just need a little while to process what’s happening. This whole thing was thrown at me out of nowhere.”

  “It was thrown at all of us out of nowhere,” my mother snaps.

  My father’s chair squeals against the floor as he scoots away from the table. “Yes, but at least one of us must have known it was a possibility when she enlisted the aid of a clone geneticist to design our daughter! How did you think he’d fit your little project into his schedule without letting the work do double duty?”

  “Dane, I swear I had no idea—”

  “Little project?” The words feel like ice on my tongue. “That’s what I am to you?”

  “No!” My father takes my hand. “Waverly, you are all your mother and I ever wanted. You are everything we could have hoped for, and I don’t care how you came to be here. I just wish I’d known the truth from the beginning.” He turns back to my mother without letting go of my hand. “We’ll deal with this like we deal with everything. Together. But I’m going to need some time to process.”

  “Of course.” She gives him a tense smile.

  He turns to me and clears his throat, as if maybe that’s enough to press the reset button on this entire day. “What’s on the schedule for the people’s princess this morning?”

  “We’re shooting at Bloom World in a couple of hours.”

  My dad gives me an amused look. “Didn’t you order flowers for the wedding last month?”

  “Yes, but they’re all custom, and footage of me staring at holographic blossoms with the shop owner in our dining room would be monumentally boring. So today we go in with the crew to look at the selection of real flowers in person, then pick out the arrangements we actually custom-ordered last month.” I shrug. “It’s good press for the florist, and it makes for a much more interesting episode.”

  “I see. Well, have fun fake flower shopping,” he says with a smile.

  “It’s not fake.” We’re actually buying flowers shown on camera, from the actual florist. “It’s just…scripted.”

  “Whatever you say, honey.” He slides his tablet into a large pocket inside his suit jacket, then offers his hand to my mother. “Lorna, I don’t want to fight.”

  “Neither do I.” She accepts his hand and stands to hug him.

  He turns to me, his arms still around my mother’s waist. “What’s done is done. Dahlia is your sister, Waverly. The one thing in the world we thought we’d never be able to give you. And I want her treated well while she’s here.”

  He heads out of the breakfast room toward the garage, where our driver is waiting to take him to work, his words echoing in my head long after his footsteps have faded from my ears. A sister.

  “She’s your real daughter.” The thought slips out before I even realize I’ve said it.

  “No!” My mother pulls her chair closer to me and sits. “You are our real daughter. And I know your father means well, but he and I see this issue very differently. Dahlia is not your sister. She’s a stranger. But she’s a stranger we need.”

  “She’s everything I was supposed to be.”

  “You are everything you were supposed to be.”

  I nod, because my mother seems to need me to acknowledge what she’s saying. Whether it’s true or not.

  “You didn’t tell Dad about the identicals, did you?” He would never have called Dahlia my sister if he knew about my mother’s plans. “He’ll figure it out eventually.”

  She exhales slowly, as if she’s buying time to think of a response. “When this is all over and you’re safe because of the decisions I made, he’ll agree that I did the right thing. But he isn’t capable of making choices like that himself. And he shouldn’t have to be.” My mother’s eye contact deepens, taking on a heavy significance to make sure I truly understand. “Your father is a dreamer. A creator. A wonderful man. But he’s the kind of man who can’t know about decisions like this until they’ve already been made. By someone else.”

  And strangely, I do understand. We’re keeping this from my father not just to protect him from any legal liability, but to protect him from his own conscience.

  I wish we were doing the same for me.

  My mother stands. “I need to make sure Trigger 17 hasn’t taken over the security system again; then I have some work to do before I escort him to Dahlia’s room for lunch. Have fun at the florist, hon. And don’t forget the talking points.”

  “I know, I know. Support local businesses. Donate to Project Orphan. Watch Network 4.”

  As soon as my mother leaves, Julienne 20 comes to clear my parents’ plates from the table. She works in silence with her eyes on the task and never once looks at me, even when brushing crumbs from the table into her palm puts her hand less than an inch from my arm.

  She’s been our cook since I was sixteen, when our previous cook, Blanche 27, was retired. But I know nothing about her. I’ve never even spoken to her, other than to order something to eat or drink.

  I take another bite of my breakfast, kept warm by the heated plate, and when Julienne comes back from the kitchen to refill my
coffee, my curiosity gets the better of me.

  If not for a random twist of fate, I could be where she is right now. Working for someone else. Wearing a uniform. Staring at my shoes as if they were the most fascinating things I’ve ever seen.

  Why do clones always look like they don’t really know where they are or where they belong? And why don’t Dahlia and Trigger look like that?

  “Julienne?”

  She stands up straight, still holding the coffeepot. Staring at the floor. “How may I serve you?”

  “I—I just wanted to ask you something.”

  Confusion flickers across her face for a moment; then her features relax into her usual distant expression, as if in her mind, she’s somewhere else. She looks blank. Like how I feel first thing in the morning, before I’ve had food or caffeine. Only less cranky.

  “What do you like to eat?” I ask her.

  “Food.”

  Okay. “Yes, but what kind of food?”

  Her forehead wrinkles, her brows drawing low. She looks like she knows the answer to my question, but can’t quite remember the right word.

  Clearly I’m going about this all wrong.

  “Never mind. Here. Have a seat.” I nudge my father’s chair out for her with one bare foot, but she only stares at it with a deepening frown. “Put down the coffeepot.”

  Julienne sits. But she keeps holding the pot.

  “Tell me something about yourself. What do you like to cook the most?” I ask, but she still looks confused. “Wait, do you like to cook?” Maybe she wasn’t given any choice about that. Maybe she would have been happier as a seamstress, or a driver, or a gardener, like Dahlia.

  “I like to cook,” Julienne says.

  I’m encouraged to hear her say something other than “How may I serve you?” but her answer sounds more like an echo of the question than a true reply.

  Maybe I’m expecting too much of her. But if she’s smart enough to cook gourmet meals, how can she be having so much trouble with simple questions?

  “What’s your favorite part of cooking? Eating the leftovers?” That would be my favorite part.

  Her brows dip until I’m afraid they’re going to slide right into her eyes. “A man comes every day to take uneaten food to the homeless shelter.”

  Oh. “So then, what do you eat?”

  “My meals come in a…box.” She frowns, as if that’s not exactly the right word, but it’s the best she can come up with.

  Clone food comes in a box? Prepackaged? I had no idea.

  New subject. “So what was it like growing up in Lakeview? Did you have many identicals?”

  Julienne nods slowly, still staring at the floor. Her frown relaxes. “There were five thousand of us.”

  I lean forward, trying to catch her gaze, but it remains glued to her feet. “And they were friends? Like…sisters?”

  She nods again. She’s still holding the coffeepot.

  “Do you miss them?”

  Julienne’s eyes narrow until she seems to be frowning at her shoes, and for the first time since I’ve known her—at least that I’ve noticed—she looks frustrated. Then her expression clears again, like a pane of e-glass fogging over. “May I take your plate?”

  I glance at my breakfast. I’ve lost my appetite, but Julienne probably got up at five in the morning to cook, while I was sleeping in my big bed, alone in my huge room. And if not for that random twist of fate…

  “No, thanks. I’m going to finish it. It’s delicious.”

  * * *

  “Which ones am I supposed to like again?” Hennessy asks as our car rolls to a stop in front of the flower shop. The camera crew is already waiting to get a shot of us walking through the doors, and they’ve attracted the usual crowd of onlookers.

  “Crimson and white tulips for the church pews,” I say as fans rush at the car. Some of them knock on the windows. Others cup their hands on the glass, trying to see in, but it’s set to be opaque from the outside. “White tulips for the bridesmaids’ bouquets, to contrast with their crimson dresses. Red calla lilies for the groomsmen’s boutonnieres. And red calla lilies and white tulips for my bouquet.”

  He groans and lightly rubs his left arm through his sleeve, because his freshly inked skin itches. “I don’t even know what a calla lily looks like.”

  “That’s okay.” I give him a quick kiss as the driver gets out of the car and walks around to let us out, opening a path through the crowd. “You can like everything she shows us. The shopkeeper will love it.” As will the cameras. And the fans. They love everything he does.

  The driver opens the door, and Hennessy gets out first, smiling at the crowd. He holds one hand out for me, and I take it as I step onto the sidewalk and pause to let the breeze blow my hair back from my face. The cameraman by the door is already rolling; the network loves footage like that. Shots where nature itself seems to be celebrating our union.

  “Waverly!” someone shouts as our private security clears a path to the door. I turn to the crowd and wave with a big smile, letting my sleeve ride up a little to expose the bandage we’ve strategically applied on my arm. Then I smooth down my skirt.

  “I love you!” a voice shouts from the crowd.

  “Who designed your dress?”

  “What are your wedding colors?”

  “Can you say happy birthday to my cousin?”

  Hennessy and I just smile and nod on our way up the sidewalk while the camera tracks us. He pulls the door open for me, and we pause as we enter the shop, to take in the sight. And the scents.

  My look of astonishment is real. The florist has pulled out all the stops for us. There are flowers on every available surface—hundreds of arrangements, tulips in every color of the rainbow.

  The display isn’t just because we’ve already ordered thousands of credits’ worth of standing arrangements and pew flowers, when most people have to make do with holograms for everything except the bouquets they actually carry.

  It’s because her business will triple after being featured on my show.

  That’s the talking point. Waverly and Hennessy shop local. The Whitmores and Chapmans support Mountainside businesses. That’s what the world needs to see, to balance out headlines criticizing DigiCore for using automated and clone labor instead of hiring local citizens.

  I gaze slowly over the shop, giving the camera a chance to capture my amazement. “Wow, Mrs. Roberts, you’ve outdone yourself! These are all gorgeous!”

  “Stunning,” Hennessy agrees.

  “Thank you!” The shopkeeper loops her arm through mine and smiles for the camera. “We’re so honored that you’ve come to us for your wedding flower needs. I thought we’d start with roses, and work our way up to your favorite: tulips.”

  “That sounds perfect,” I tell her.

  “I love them all!” Hennessy proclaims, and she laughs, delighted. He plucks a champagne-colored tulip from the nearest display, pinches off the stem, and tucks the flower behind my ear. Then he caresses the side of my face and moves in for a kiss.

  An audible sigh rings out from the people staring in through the front window, and Audra, our producer, looks ready to melt into a puddle on the floor.

  I know how they feel. Hennessy is beautiful, and kind, and perfect. And he’s all mine.

  Even if he deserves a future I may never be able to give him.

  * * *

  “I think you’ve chosen very wisely,” Mrs. Roberts says as she finishes our mock order on her tablet. As if we haven’t already placed one and paid for it in full. “This is going to be the most beautiful wedding….”

  “My bride deserves nothing less,” Hennessy declares.

  “Still, you put so much work into all these sample arrangements!” I turn in a circle, inviting the cameras to pan the shop. “I think we’re going to have to take th
em all.”

  “You…what?” The owner frowns, as if she’s misheard me.

  “They’re all so beautiful, and I know just who’d appreciate them most. The patients at Mountainside Pediatric Hospital. Ring us up, please, Mrs. Roberts. Do you think your delivery van can handle them?”

  “Of course, but…all of them?”

  “Yes.” As she starts another order on her tablet and begins scanning the tags from the bouquets, I make a mental note to make sure that the camera crew follows the delivery van to the hospital, for some footage of the flowers being delivered to sick children.

  I would have sent them even if there were no camera crew, but since there is a camera crew…

  On our way out of the shop, I kneel next to an adorable little girl waiting in the crowd on the sidewalk with her mother, eager for a glimpse of us in person. I pluck the tulip from my hair and tuck it behind her ear. “A beautiful bloom for a beautiful girl.”

  “Thank you.” Her mother smooths the child’s hair over her shoulder. “It means the world to her to get to meet you.”

  “It means the world to me too,” I tell her. Then security ushers us toward our car, where the driver is already holding the door open.

  “You were great,” I tell Hennessy as he slides onto the seat next to me. I take his hand and drop a kiss at the back of his jaw, just below his ear. That’s my favorite spot, because it makes him shiver.

  “You are always great.” He squeezes my hand, then pulls his tablet from his pocket. “I assume you want to check the optics?”

  “We probably should.”

  He holds his tablet where I can see it as he scrolls through the feeds, scanning subject lines.

  “Damn it,” I breathe as one message catches my eye. I take his tablet and click on the story. “This one says Bloom World uses clone gardeners in its hothouse.” I turn to him, brows arched. “Is that true? I didn’t see any clones.”