The system that made sure she will die in ten short years. Whether or not she has children to leave behind.
“Come on, girls, we’re going to be late for lunch!” The instructor rounds up her charges and herds them into the building with a grateful smile for us. We’ve become celebrities here just like Waverly and Hennessy are everywhere else. Even if their celebrity out there feels a bit more like notoriety now that the world is changing again.
The birth of a new world order can’t come without labor pains. A lot of people are angry at the loss of their servants. At the extra expense of hiring citizens for an actual salary and paying back-wages to the clones they’ve abused for years. But they’ll adjust. Eventually.
Right?
I have to believe that human decency will prevail. That the world is better than this. That faced with the evidence of injustice, deep down they will all want to make it right.
Waverly says I’m being naive. But I like to call it hope.
“There they are.” She stands, shading her eyes with one hand, and I follow her gaze to find a long line of troop transport trucks rolling down the street, following the cruise strip in the middle of the right-hand lane. They’re still small from this distance, but she’s right.
They’re here.
My heart leaps into my throat. Adrenaline races through my veins so suddenly that I feel like I have to run to burn energy or I’ll lose my mind.
So I run.
I take off down the sidewalk and veer toward the road bisecting the common lawn, heading toward the truck in the lead. I run until I’m breathing hard and I’m starting to sweat, in spite of the cold.
I run until I can see the face of the man next to the driver in that first vehicle.
The first truck pulls to a stop next to me and Trigger 17 gets out. He races around the front of the vehicle and pulls me into a hug, lifting me from the ground with the power of his greeting. “I missed you,” he says into my ear. But I can’t return the sentiment, because my mouth is busy kissing him.
He’s only been gone a few days, but it’s felt like a lifetime.
“You ready?” he asks as he finally puts me down, and I nod, my hands shaking. Trigger gives a signal to the man in the truck, and he says something to the dashboard.
A door at the back of the truck swings open. When the driver behind him sees that, he opens the back of his truck, and the message works its way down the long, long line of vehicles.
A girl climbs down from the inside of the first truck and stands in the road, blinking against the sun. She has long brown hair, pale, freckle-less skin, and brown eyes. Just like mine.
“I told you I’d bring them back to you.” Trigger lets go of me and gestures toward the girl as another climbs down from the truck behind her. Then another. And another. And another.
Girls are getting out of all the trucks and there are already hundreds of them in the road, milling slowly toward the grass. Toward the common lawn they’ve known since they were old enough to walk. They look stunned. Confused. Relieved.
Awake.
The first girl’s gaze finds me. She covers her mouth with both hands, her eyes going wide. Then she grabs the hand of the girl next to her. That girl grabs another hand, and they race toward me.
I meet them halfway, my eyes full of tears.
“Dahlia!”
Trigger made sure my roommates would be in the first truck.
I throw my arms open and nearly bowl Poppy over when I hug her. Sorrel and Violet pile onto the embrace until we’re a tangle of identical arms and sobbing, laughing faces. We’re stuck like that forever, saying nothing that any of us will remember in the first moments of this emotional reunion. But they’re things that need to be said. Things that need to be heard.
“Okay.” I wipe tears from my face when they finally let me go. “I want you to meet someone.” I turn to see that Margo, Hennessy, and Waverly have joined Trigger on the lawn. They’re watching us, and Waverly’s eyes are huge.
Now she understands. Now this is real for her.
I wave her forward, and she comes slowly. Staring.
“Guys, this is Waverly Whitmore, our long-lost identical. She helped me do all this. And she’s superweird because she has parents, and about a thousand pairs of shoes. But she’s one of us. So say hi.”
Instead, Poppy pulls her into a hug. The others pile on, and Waverly starts crying as she clings to them.
And for the first time in our lives, we are finally all together.
We are finally whole.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, I am thankful to my husband, my son, and my daughter, who put up with me during overlapping deadlines and answer all sorts of odd questions in the name of research.
Thanks to Rinda Elliott and Jennifer Lynn Barnes, for ideas at every stage of the process.
And thanks, of course, to my editor, Wendy Loggia, and to my agent, Merrilee Heifetz, who turn my passion into a career.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rachel Vincent is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous novels for teens, including Brave New Girl, 100 Hours, The Stars Never Rise, and The Flame Never Dies. She lives with her family in Oklahoma.
RachelVincent.com
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Rachel Vincent, Strange New World
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