Emergent (A Beta Novel) Read online

  I had to get out of there. “STOP!” I yelled, invoking the FantaSphere safe word. Instantly, fake Demesne vanished, just like my fake, momentary happiness. The air was once again normal, sterile, as boring as the plain glass walls that moments ago were splashed in gorgeous violets. “I’m leaving.”

  “I’ll hover you home,” Xander said, hastily putting his swim trunks back on.

  “I don’t need a ride from you,” I said, invoking the most hateful tone I could muster for the man I loved the most and now hated the most.

  “Don’t be like that,” Xander pleaded. “I didn’t say let’s never see each other again. I said we shouldn’t be together right now.”

  He might as well have said we should be together never.

  He offered me his hand, but I refused it. “I’ll find my own way home.”

  “That’s how you want to leave it, hellbeast?” he asked, now sounding as angry as I felt.

  “That’s how I want to leave it!” I stormed out of the FantaSphere and re-entered the world of stupid, mean reality.

  I was still Zhara Kehm, the promising diver who failed the Olympic trials. I was no longer a virgin; that was the only change. I re-evaluated my mission and considered my new future.

  He thought I was a hellbeast?

  Alexander Blackburn had no idea of the hellbeast I was capable of becoming.

  HE DID LOVE HER. He couldn’t have transferred his feelings for her to me if the feelings weren’t deep, and real.

  That’s Alex and Zhara’s problem to figure out. I have bigger problems.

  The unwanted thing in my belly. The bounty on my head if the humans were to capture me. The Beta curse: death by Awful.

  Also, I have an Insurrection to lead, apparently.

  “Aidan is our general, our tactician,” Catra explains to me after I’ve told her that I don’t want to be the Emergents’ leader. “You’re our symbolic hope. Don’t worry. I don’t think you’d be expected to actually lead the army into battle.” She sounds as relieved as I feel. My shooting skills are not so impressive, so far. I’m duplicated from a high diver—not a marksman on the ground. “Now, try again.”

  I try to balance the missile rifle on my shoulder again, struggling with its awkward size, although it should be easy to hold. The rifle is lightweight because the “missile” weapon inside it is weightless: smog. On Demesne, one of the primary jobs of the oxygen-leveler clones was to destroy the pollution that was the cost of Demesne’s perfect environment. Out of sight, out of mind, the humans wanted it. Problem solved. Instead of completely destroying the smog, the Defects captured and stored samples of it, and crafted chemical compounds from it to be used in missile rifles.

  “The trick is to hold your core strong,” says Catra. “Don’t slouch like a teenager. That’s what’s causing the rifle to slip from your shoulder.”

  You know what else is causing the rifle to slip from my shoulder? I’m cold. I can’t stop shivering. I come from a place with premium air and perfect weather. This Heathen atmosphere is harsh. One day the sun blisters you, the next day it freezes you. And the missile practice is causing my lungs to fill up with pollution, which makes me cough.

  “Fire!” says Catra.

  I tighten my core and finally secure the rifle on my shoulder. I aim, and shoot. A gray plume bursts out of the rifle and lands on the palm trees in the distance, turning their green leaves to pink frost. It’s pollution, but it sure is pretty.

  I cough again, but Catra is unfazed, acclimated to the emission.

  After missile practice, Catra and I head to an unscheduled Emergent meeting in the Rave Caves. There, I discover a new Emergent has arrived on Heathen. She’s the worst kind of Defect, in my opinion—a traitor. She was the Governor’s luxisstant on Demesne—a fancy word for a provider of a property owner’s luxury requirements, like having a mistress. Because of her, I lost my one real friend, besides Tahir.

  The Emergents have gathered around Tawny at the mess hall. I watch from the corner of the room, not yet ready to announce my presence to her.

  Tawny is bringing the group up to date on the happenings on Demesne. “The property owners have brought in ReplicaPharm to oversee the clone labor force,” she announces. “Since the murder of the Governor’s son, the Demesne landowners are running scared. They don’t trust their own workers. So they’ve decided to outsource their problem to a corporation that will surely expire us.”

  Aidan agrees. “ReplicaPharm will want to replace the Demesne clones with their own product line—clones not replicated from Firsts.” He looks in the direction of Alex, sitting at the opposite end of the group. Zhara is not present, probably because she doesn’t like the sight of me any more than I like the sight of her. “What do you think, Alexander? You know what’s allowed by the treaty with the Replicant Rights Commission.”

  Alex nods. “Unfortunately, money will prevail. At the right price, the treaty will be discarded. Our window of opportunity narrows once ReplicaPharm becomes entrenched on Demesne. Are they there yet?”

  “No,” says Tawny. “They’ve sent a few representatives to investigate the situation, but they haven’t yet set up operations there, as far as I could tell. But I overheard the Governor say that in anticipation of ReplicaPharm taking over the clone labor force, some Demesne owners are secretly exporting their clones back to the real world. So they can show off to their friends who will now never be able to have their clone from the soon-to-be extinct Demesne caste.”

  “That’s illegal,” says Alex. “Exporting clones from Demesne is a direct violation of the treaty with the Replicant Rights Commission. The owners’ audacity and contempt for the law is just unbelievable.”

  Tawny says, “We’re just a profit sport to them!” She says this like it’s new information to her. She’s so late to finally wake up. Why’d she finally turn? “The Governor told me that most of the property owners illegally exporting Demesne clones won’t even keep them for their own households. They’ll sell our brethren to collectors. The owners want to profit from their special breed of clones before they’re forced to leave the island.”

  “Before who leaves the island?” asks Aidan.

  “The clones and the owners,” Tawny answers, surprising me. “There’s been a dire financial crisis in the outside world. Many of the Demesne owners have suffered huge losses. Since so many clones have gone Defect, to the point that one actually committed murder, the Governor believes the Demesne property owners will vote to pull up stakes and sell the entire island to ReplicaPharm, not just outsource the clone labor force to it.”

  Finally, I have to speak up. My inner rage won’t let me be silent any longer. “And how is the Governor?” I ask Tawny, stepping forward through the sea of Emergents, who still touch my arm as I walk through.

  Tawny’s face lights up at the sight of me. “Elysia! We were told you were dead! But I believed you would survive! I knew you were special.”

  She’s still a master at sucking up. I’m not interested. “I asked, how is the Governor?”

  Tawny says, “Wrecked, but surviving. He fears losing his job—he has nothing to go back to in the outside world. He cannot even grieve, because what you did caused total chaos on the island—which is his responsibility.”

  There’s more I find I want to know—what’s happened to Mother? How is innocent Liesel, my former charge, who discovered her brother’s stabbed body and her Beta holding the bloody knife? Young Liesel didn’t deserve the suffering I caused her. What about the Fortesquieus? And Ivan’s friends, like Dementia and…

  Aidan has more pressing matters to discuss. “We can’t wait for ReplicaPharm to become entrenched on Demesne. Insurrection must come now!” Aidan calls to the group.

  The Emergents cheer him loudly: “Yes!” “Death to Demesne!” “Now!”

  Once the group quiets, Alex says, “I recommend that Insurrection wait. We put the clones still living on Demesne in danger if we act too hurriedly.” He comes to my side and wraps his arm pr
otectively around my waist. “And we put the hybrid clone at too much risk.”

  “What hybrid clone?” asks Tawny.

  Aidan points to me. “The Beta’s. She is pregnant by the human whom she killed. Her child will be the first clone-human hybrid.”

  Tawny’s fuchsia eyes go wide with shock. “You’re pregnant?” she asks me with a gasp. I nod.

  Suddenly, tears stream down Tawny’s face, and her face contorts into a mixture of happiness and sadness. “It’s not supposed to be possible!” Tawny exclaims. “It’s so unfair! I wanted a child. I asked the Governor for one. Why do you get to have this blessing?”

  “I didn’t ask for it!” I snap, shrugging out of Alex’s hold on me. “And what are you doing here anyway, Tawny? On Demesne, you were the consort of the Governor. How can we trust you? How do we know you’re not a spy?”

  Nearly shrieking, Tawny shouts at me, “I was the Governor’s consort by job. Not by choice. I escaped to help bring Insurrection now.”

  Aidan addresses the group. “There should be a vote. Do we act now, as I suggest? Or do we wait, as the Aquine suggests?”

  Interestingly, the Emergents do not call out their opinions. Instead, their gazes all turn to me.

  I pause, digesting their stares. Finally, I say, “So I’m to make the decision?”

  They nod their heads. Right, I’m their symbolic hope. I must choose.

  I look to Aidan, then to Alex, and decide. I have no experience. How could I possibly know the right course of action? All I know is there is only one person on this island whom I implicitly trust, even if he really should not trust me in return, because I would leave him in a heartbeat if Tahir ever came back into my life. I say, “Alexander believes we should wait. So, we wait.”

  I am selfish, like a real teenager. Like Zhara.

  I chose for us to wait because I don’t want to go back to Demesne. Ever. I chose the course that Alex must understand is best for me personally, but not for the group as a whole. He cares about me that much.

  “Then we wait,” says Aidan reluctantly. “But you should know that the bodies of two Uni-Mil soldiers washed ashore this morning.”

  “They’ve come for me,” I assume.

  “No,” says Alex. “The Uni-Mil doesn’t care about Demesne and its clones unless it’s paid enough to care. If the Demesne property owners are in financial trouble, they’re probably not making their payments to the Uni-Mil.”

  Aidan says, “But the Uni-Mil always takes back its own, isn’t that right? Dead or alive. Preferably, dead.”

  “Correct,” says Alex. “The soldiers came looking for me.”

  “IT’S A MISTAKE, THIS WAITING,” Aidan says to me in our tree house that night, after the campfire meeting where Elysia issued the executive order that Insurrection should be delayed a bit longer.

  “It’s a mistake letting Elysia make the decision,” I say. I’m not even being jealous or mean. It’s just fact. “She has zero tactical experience and no investment of time and resources in the preparation for Insurrection so far. She doesn’t know what she doing.” Gross. I sound like my dad.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” Aidan asks me, facing me across the bamboo floor of our tree house. There’s no moonlight tonight, so Aidan has lit the tree house with candles, giving an enticing glow to his stark facial features and fuchsia eyes. We make our quarters up here permanently now that Prince Xander and Princess Elysia have taken over our former crystal cave quarters. I refuse to live in that area of the Rave Caves again now that their couple-ness has contaminated it. To pacify me, Aidan programmed a customized weather sphere around our tree house—warm, balmy, relaxing—so we could sleep here at night. It’s almost romantic: the candles, the soft sound of swishing trees, the summerlike air, the ridiculously hot, buff body lying opposite me.

  I answer, “No, I don’t know what I’m doing. But I’m also not making decisions that affect all the Emergents. Plus, I don’t think you should be letting Elysia make such big decisions when clearly you’re the leader here.”

  “There was never an official vote by the Emergents as to who leads. It could easily be me, or Elysia, or any number of us.”

  “Just because there was never an official vote doesn’t mean it’s not true. You’re the leader because you stepped up, and the group naturally looked up to you because you’re so capable. You’re a leader because it is your instinct to be so, and it’s been the Emergents’ instinct to recognize that. Elysia is a red herring.”

  Aidan’s eyes blink, trying to access the reference. His face set to confused, he replies, “Elysia is neither red, nor a species of fish.”

  I resist the urge to laugh. Sometimes his cluelessness is almost cute. “Elysia’s a distraction, a false promise. She murdered a human and escaped Demesne, yes. But that doesn’t mean she’s qualified to lead an Insurrection.”

  “What would qualify her?”

  I sigh. Sometimes it’s amusing being the consort of a clone with a knowledge chip for basic information but no years of experience to guide that knowledge into viable decision-making. Sometimes it’s just exasperating. Aidan makes me understand why parents can get frustrated with their children, who make pronouncements of what they want but have no idea what the consequences of that want could be, simply because they don’t yet have the years of experience to inform their desires.

  I say, “What would qualify her to lead? How about emerging as a fully realized adult clone who worked directly in the lab of Dr. Lusardi and therefore has all kinds of insider information that could be used against the humans on Demesne? How about that same clone, who used his role in Dr. Lusardi’s compound to subversively develop warfare technology that could directly lead to the Insurrection’s success? How about arriving on Heathen and immediately organizing the former Defects into training exercises? Motivating and inspiring them? Looking after them? Natural born leader. That’s you. Not Elysia.”

  “You sound irritated with me.”

  “I’m not irritated. I just want you to want more for yourself.”

  “I want the Emergents to achieve Insurrection and reclaim Demesne.”

  I want to strangle him! “But what do you want for you?”

  To lead! I want Aidan to say.

  Instead, abruptly, he says, “You. I want you.” His face turns to surprised. “I didn’t understand that until this very moment.”

  “Wanting is a complicated emotion,” I say. I should know. Every time I look at Xander I experience incalculable hurt mixed with unbearable want. I’ll never get over him. The only solution is that I must have him back. “It should be a surprise.” That Aidan wants me most of all is no surprise to me. My human instinct knew it all along, and leveraged it for my own survival.

  The biggest surprise: He doesn’t try to kiss me, like he should after such a pronouncement. Instead, he says, “Do I want in vain?”

  “You could kiss me,” I whisper to him. “And find out.”

  “I can’t kiss you so long as it’s the Aquine you’re thinking about,” Aidan says.

  How could he possibly know that? “I don’t care about Xander,” I lie. “He’s with Elysia now. I would never take him back.”

  “I don’t believe you,” says Aidan. He blows out the candles. Discussion over. His pinkie finger suddenly lights up in blue. The air outside the tree house is no longer warm and balmy. Thunder cracks above us, and a soft, cold rain falls into our space.

  “Are you punishing me because of Xander?”

  Aidan says, “I’m just showing you what a leader does. Makes unilateral decisions, sometimes for no good reason at all other than that he can.”

  “You’re jealous of Xander?”

  “I suppose that’s what it would be called. Jealousy. Yes. It’s another new emotion you’ve caused me to feel. I don’t like it.”

  “There’s no need to be jealous of Xander. He could never be the leader you are. The Emergents will never look up to him the way they do to you.”

  “
It’s not how the Emergents look at him that I don’t like. It’s how you look at him.”

  “I’ve hardly spent any time with him since he and Elysia got here.”

  “The amount of time you spend face-to-face with him is irrelevant. It’s the heaviness in your heart—a longing, I believe humans term it—that’s always visible on your face now.”

  “That heaviness is because of Elysia. Not him.”

  “Really? How well do you even know yourself?”

  Not as well as Aidan knows me, apparently.

  He’s right. The heaviness in my heart just from Aidan’s suggestion of it feels like a cruel, open wound. The rain falling on it is like salt on the wound. “Please make the rain stop,” I request of Aidan.

  Aidan points his finger again, and the rain ceases. But the air does not return to being warm and balmy. Instead, it’s frigid, and I can’t help but move closer to Aidan, to seek his warmth and comfort. Was that his plan all along?

  I roll over and press my backside against Aidan’s front. He doesn’t know what to do next, so I do it for him. I reach around and place his hand over my stomach, letting him clasp me close. But his breath does not quicken from desire caused by this closeness. I don’t get it.

  “You could totally have me if you want me,” I murmur. My body aches to be touched, held, stroked, wanted.

  “I only want you when I can have all of you.” Aidan places his hand over my heart, which is the one part of me that’s in no way ready to give itself to a clone.

  THE NEWLY ARRIVED EMERGENT LOOKS like a mermaid. She’s a voluptuous sort of skinny, with an hourglass figure and full bosom, porcelain-white skin and perfectly pink cheeks, and wide fuchsia eyes with thick black eyelashes. She has long, white-blond hair streaked in shades of ocean blues, flowing down to the sides of her curvy hips. She was a luxisstant on Demesne. No, really, the Demesne owners even have clones designed solely to take care of residents’ “luxury needs.” Luxury and needs—do those two words even go together? I guess that on Demesne, yes, they do. Luxury is not just a perk for humans residing there. It’s a requirement.