Emergent Read online

  “Knew what?”

  “About Elysia.”

  “Yes.”

  I wait, expecting an explanation, but he offers none. It’s so like a clone to just state the obvious, with no context. “Yes? That’s all you have to say? You don’t think you should have told me about Elysia?”

  “You couldn’t have handled it.” He sounds so matter-of-fact, but he’s right. He had me figured out so quickly. “And I didn’t know, at first. When I was sent to dispose of your body at the lab on Demesne, I was told your clone had been a Fail. It was only later that I found out otherwise.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “Catra. She knew Elysia at the Governor’s house. She recognized that you must be Elysia’s First. We agreed it was best to keep that information private. The other Emergents hadn’t known Elysia on Demesne, so they never made the connection. I didn’t want them—or you—distracted by the true mission. Insurrection.”

  “So I’m a distraction?”

  “Yes,” he says unapologetically. “You are liked here. You serve adequately. But you are a distraction.” I feel like he’s just slapped me in the face, but I understand that he’s right. I’ve been Aidan’s platonic companion here, but I’ve had no real mission of my own on Heathen, other than to escape the pain I left behind in Cerulea and the memory of the death party where two kids lost their lives because of my invitation. I wanted to be the cool girl hanging out with clones in the jungle. But I was just a distraction to them, apparently. I just can’t get anything right. Not even being an outlaw runaway. Aidan adds, “You never mentioned you already knew the Aquine.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Does it?”

  Really. There’s no talking to clones.

  I can’t discuss Xander with Aidan. I can only process one emotional crisis at a time. “Why’s Elysia here? Why now?”

  “She escaped Demesne.”

  “I know that already. Why is she here with him?”

  “He found her, and took her to safety.”

  That’s so like Xander. Stupid hero complex.

  “Where’s she now?”

  “With the Aquine in the Rave Caves. They’re determining what training exercises she’ll participate in.”

  They. Xander and Elysia are a they. My insides curdle and I want to throw something, anything.

  “Which cave are they staying in?”

  “I gave them our cave last night, the crystal cave,” says Aidan. “I made the weather system mild so you could sleep off your ’raxia indulgence in the privacy of the tree house. Does it matter which cave they have?”

  It matters. They basically got the honeymoon suite, which in darkness glimmers with thousands of pink crystals, a chandelier of cave walls.

  I want the free-floating emptiness back. Give me my ’raxia back!

  I know what Aidan wants, and I know how to get what I want. I don’t even care how much I hate him right now. I want my ’raxia more.

  I turn my lips up into my former Z-Dev smile. I reach across the divide to touch Aidan’s hand. We’ve slept next to each other for months, but this is the first time we’ve touched so intimately. His hand clasps mine, letting me know he desires this connection.

  It’s so long since I touched, truly touched a guy. Since before Xander went away. It’s so long, and my need for more ’raxia is so strong, I don’t care how mad I am at Aidan for his unforgiveable sin of omission. The anger I feel burns me even hotter for him, actually. I lean into him, close enough so that I can feel Aidan’s breath on my neck. His chest heaves slightly, with hope.

  I bet Aidan’s never been kissed before. I bet I have to teach him how. I bet if it wasn’t a chore right now, it would also be kind of fun.

  Let’s go! I grab my hands behind his neck and pull his mouth toward mine, stopping just close enough so that our lips almost touch, but don’t. I give him a few breaths to feel the anticipation before placing my lips directly on his mouth. I press my lips together and graze his at first, letting him experience that initial thrill of Wow, this is really happening. He lets the gentle grazes happen, but then he gets it, and presses his mouth harder against mine, ready to examine this electrifying new territory, and I am amazed how quickly my mouth opens, craving more of him. But he pulls away and presses his hands against my cheeks for a moment, staring intently into my eyes, as if to ask, Are you sure?

  That was no chore. That was amazing. My mouth returns to his, greedy this time, hungry for deeper exploration. I rub my chest against his, letting him feel the thrill of the kiss above and the rub below. Holding his neck close, I drop back to the ground, pulling him down with me.

  But before I commit to this treachery with this traitor who lied to me about my clone, I place my hand on Aidan’s thigh, and rub my hand over the material of his pants, trying to determine if his pockets hold the shape of the pills I want.

  Immediately, Aidan pulls away from me. He stands up, and then looks down at me with equal measures of lust and disgust. “You are like the Demesne humans right now. Manipulative. Spoiled. Ungrateful. I won’t be an accessory to your addiction.” He walks over to the webbed ladder and as he steps down onto it, he adds, “You won’t find any more pills. They’re all destroyed, along with the cuvée fields. Now get up. Elysia exists. Go deal with her.”

  What a joke. It’s me who’s really the Defect.

  Unwanted. Unloved.

  Should have died the first time.

  ELYSIA COULD BE ANYWHERE ON Heathen right now. I should have no idea where to find her right at this moment. Yet I know exactly where she’ll be. The gnawing in my stomach lets me know it’s just about noon. My lunchtime hunger has always been my body’s most reliable clockwork, and it’s especially true today, after the sleeping hellbeast’s long ’raxia-induced nap.

  There’s no more checking out available to me. The ’raxia is gone. Elysia and Xander are here. I can’t escape anymore. I don’t want to. I want to be more than a “distraction.”

  Aidan leaves me in the tree house, hungrier than ever. I sprint to the mess hall for some chow, and there she is, right where I expect her. Elysia sits alone on a bench, sipping juice and nibbling almonds warmed in honey—the very pre-lunch snack that the cook usually prepares for me.

  “I always get hungry at this time of day,” Other Me tells me.

  Why am I so ignorant that I actually thought her first words to me would be more like, Thanks for my life, Goddess First.

  MY FACE! I face my own face, the version aestheticized for Demesne slavery. The weirdness of my mirrored face looking at me with fuchsia eyes and fleur-de-lis and floral tattoos tattooed to my—I mean, her—temples replaces my hunger pangs with nausea. Food suddenly looks so gross.

  “Hello, Zhara. Will you join me?” She’s only been on Heathen a day and already she’s acting like its queen. The hostess offers me a bowl of nuts, but I shake my head. The sight of Elysia’s face has killed my appetite. I want to deal, but this sucks. HARD. Elysia is real, not a figment of my imagination. I can’t wake up from this nightmare. I’m living it.

  I sit down opposite her. I’m going to tread safely before diving into the hard questions. “What was Demesne like?” I ask her. I think of my mother, whose lifelong dream was to swim in Io, the magical violet sea that surrounds Demesne. “Did you swim there?”

  “Of course. The water was very luxurious, as it was designed to be,” Elysia says.

  “How was the weather there?” This small talk is so lame and cowardly on my part. What I really want to know is, How did you manage to create a life in the short time since you stole mine?

  “We made sure it was perfect,” Elysia says, and I know that tone she mimics, because it’s my own. It’s called resentful.

  It’s weird. I want to hear her talk more. She looks so much like me, but her voice’s affect has a softness mine never will. She looks and sounds angelic. Not hellbeast. Not at all.

  I have so much to say to her, to ask her, but I feel mute. I just do
n’t know how to do this. Elysia breaks through the small talk. Did she steal my bravery, also? “There is so much about you I would like to know,” she says. “How are you alive? Alex explained to me that your heart had stopped, but then you awoke again hours later. But—”

  “Alex?” I sputter. “Who’s Alex?”

  “Alexander Blackburn. I call him Alex.”

  “I call him Xander. ’Cuz that’s his name. Where is he now, anyway?”

  “Scouting materials to make our quarters in the Rave Caves more comfortable so we don’t have to sleep on the ground.” She pauses. “The Rave Caves are a huge disappointment.”

  “Not comfortable enough for you?” And Aidan said I was spoiled. Ha. My clone is worse. “Those are my quarters you’re borrowing, by the way.”

  “The quarters are excellent,” she says. “I meant, the Rave Caves are a disappointment because I had been led to believe that human surfers lived there also. Why don’t they?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “There was a surfer I knew on Demesne. He disappeared suddenly. I thought perhaps he’d come here.”

  “If he did come here, he’s gone now. When the Emergents started escaping here, the human surfers left. Either the Emergents kicked them out, or the surfers left to find another island where they could live and only care about surfing, and not be bothered by a small army of clones training for Insurrection. Or both.”

  “Too bad,” says Elysia. “Please tell me about your family. What were your parents like? Would they be considered our parents?”

  Our parents? “My father is in the Uni-Mil. My mother is dead.”

  “How did she die?” Elysia pauses, and her facial expression resets from curious to sympathetic.

  “My mom left us when I was eight. She said she had become a mother too young and didn’t want a family. She went to Humanitas, to experience it the way generations of backpackers did when Humanitas was called Europe. She became obsessed with clone rights. I don’t know why. She was always a champion of lost causes. She went to Geneva to participate in a huge protest against ReplicaPharm. The protest turned violent. She was trampled to death.”

  I think this is the most I’ve spoken about my mother, ever.

  Elysia’s eyes blink the way Aidan’s eyes often do when trying to access information on his knowledge chip. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she says, her voice sincere.

  She says the right words. I don’t think she really feels them.

  She’s not sorry. My mother’s abandonment and death are just data to her.

  Elysia’s expression turns to quizzical. “ReplicaPharm? Who are they?”

  I’d be shocked at her ignorance, but I’ve already experienced it with the other Emergents. I answer patiently. “ReplicaPharm is one of the biggest companies on the planet. They make clones that are utilized throughout the rest of the world. The clones grown in laboratories, not made from Firsts.”

  She nods. “Alex had told me there were other brands of clones, but I didn’t realize they were produced by corporations, or without Firsts. I thought all clones came from Dr. Lusardi’s engineering.”

  I feel irritation mixed with a strange sense of outrage. How could she survive out in the real world with such limited information, with such willfully preprogrammed ignorance?

  Elysia asks, “Your father. He was your diving coach?”

  “Who told you that?” Suddenly I feel proprietary about the basic facts of my own life. Any public records could reveal the simple details she requests, yet I feel like she is prying into the darkest corners of my life.

  “Alex told me you were a diver,” Elysia says. “I felt that. From the moment I was near the water, I knew how to dive. It was like I sensed you when I was in the water. I…” She hesitates before continuing on. “I had memories of Alex, after I emerged. They were your memories. Perhaps because you never really died.”

  The thought of my clone having the instant ability to perform the same dives I spent years in training to perfect is upsetting enough. The sudden image my brain produces of her performing dives for Xander makes me insane. But the thought of her having my memories of Xander is like an off-the-charts intrusion into my mind, body, and soul. I’m so livid at this moment, I want to strangle my clone and suction every breath from her body. I struggle for speech. “You have all my memories?”

  Elysia looks taken aback by my angry response, then clarifies. “The only memories I had of yours were visions of Alex. They were the only ones that broke through. It always happened when I was in the water, swimming. In the way that I inherently understood how to swim and dive, I knew that I’d gotten it from you.” My face must still register shock. Perhaps she also inherently understands I can’t handle this subject any longer, because she redirects the conversation. “What’s your best dive?”

  Keep cool, Z. Keep cool. Safe topic. “Reverse three-and-a-half twist,” I lie. I never successfully made it past a reverse two. But I’d much rather talk dives with her than the memories of Xander that she stole from me. Is that why she’s with him now? Because she knows that he and I were together once? That’s not even outrageous. It’s beyond kinky. “What’s yours?” I fire back.

  “Backward two-and-a-half somersault with a half twist,” Elysia says. That’s my real best dive. “Alex says I shouldn’t dive anymore, in my current condition. But perhaps we could go swimming together? I’d so much like to spend time with you in the place you love most. The water, I mean. I’d like to study your technique. You must be a great swimmer. I’ve felt that about you when I’m in the water.”

  I cannot believe her insolence. She’s just asked me to help her steal something else that’s precious to me.

  “Because you are a great swimmer? You got that from me.” All the skills she was given took me years of practice to cultivate.

  “Thank you,” says Elysia with sincerity. Why does she make it so hard to hate her? She makes me wonder if I had hidden likeability traits I never knew about in my former, friendless life in Cerulea. “Perhaps you’d like to know something about what I experienced when I swam on Demesne?” she asks, like I could somehow validate her existence by wanting information about it.

  I don’t want to discuss stupid water sports with her. What I really need to know is so much bigger than swimming and dives.

  Why did you escape Demesne? Was your life there…happy? Who got you pregnant?

  How do I even begin such a conversation with someone I wish never existed?

  Elysia takes a gulp from her pink drink. “What are you drinking?” I ask her. I’ve never seen this concoction in the mess hall.

  “Watermelon juice,” she says. “Alex found some watermelons and pressed this juice for me. He says I need to stay hydrated.”

  Bile actually regurgitates up from my stomach and shoots into my mouth. Xander never made refreshments for me back at the Cerulea Aquatics Club. The best I ever got from him was when he’d point to the water cooler during practice and say, “Drink up, Z.” I never got delivery of personally picked fruits followed by freshly squeezed juices from him.

  Elysia swallows the last sip of her drink and then delicately licks the sides of her mouth, which is exactly what I do when I take the last sip of a drink I’ve particularly enjoyed. To savor the…“I love those last drops,” Elysia says. Exactly.

  I remember after Mom left, I used to long for a sister. A best friend, a kindred spirit, someone who was my blood, who could share the pain of our abandonment, but also share a special bond of companionship. My sister and I would always be there for each other. Through thick and thin, as the saying goes. Friends and mothers might come and go, but a sister would be forever.

  Elysia will never be my forever, no matter how much she looks and acts like me. I reject her. I refuse her. I may have to live in proximity to her for the time being, but I will never, ever accept her. She stole me.

  Let’s just stop with small talk.

  “Who got you pregnant?” I ask her.

&nb
sp; Would her child be considered my child too?

  Her fuchsia eyes pierce directly into mine, challenging me as an equal. I’d appreciate her spunk more if she hadn’t stolen that from me too. “I was violated by the son of the Governor on Demesne.”

  What?!

  Holy crap. My blood boils into a rage so much bigger than when I discovered Elysia’s existence, worse even than knowing she carries my memories of Xander. I can’t help it. I imagine what happened to her happening to me, and my gut reaction is: I will kill whoever did that to me. I mean, her. KILL.

  For an instant, Elysia is that sister I used to long for. I want to touch her hand, hold her close to me, to comfort her, to promise her vengeance. I don’t. But I want to.

  A human boy on Demesne treated my clone like she was his property. She was his property. Fact. Another version of my face, my body—given no rights or choice, created to serve and have no wants or desires of her own—there for him to take, just because he wanted to.

  I ask, “Is that why you escaped Demesne? To get away from him?”

  “No,” says Elysia. “It was kill or be killed. So I killed him. And now I am here.”

  Wow. I thought I was the outlaw, living as a runaway on this feral island.

  Elysia is the real rebel. She is a murderer. How can a deed so awful make me want to respect her? She took no prisoners. She exacted her own vengeance.

  Xander and Aidan enter the mess hall. My eyes lock with Xander’s for a moment, and my heart burns. I still can’t believe he’s here. His look in my direction offers me no clues if he feels the same. His beautiful turquoise eyes are as blank as a clone’s.

  Elysia looks to him, and then to me. “I’m sorry Alexander hurt you so badly.”

  “How much do you know?” I ask her.

  “Jingjing,” she says, shocking me. “You had already been to Demesne once before, with Alex, hadn’t you?”

  IF I CAN’T HAVE HIM, I’ll die, I thought.

  Xander was about to leave for a whole new life in the military.

  His old life was better. Swimming. Surfing. Me.