Emergent (A Beta Novel) (11 page)

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 protectively 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.