Emergent (A Beta Novel) (3 page)

Aidan turns around to look out over the treetops toward the middle of the island, where Emergent workers are cultivating the fields of produce and plants that support the island. “The
field laborers are wrapping up the morning’s chores,” says Aidan. “Must be lunchtime. Your stomach is like a clock. Shall we go?”

I turn around, too, see the rows of bright red torchflowers, and remind myself that I am hungry for food, and not the empty kind of nourishing those flowers could potentially offer me. The
cuvée seeds that ’raxia is made from come from those plants. I could have as much ’raxia as I want on Heathen. The bright red cuvée torchflowers are a constant reminder of
my failures, but also of my willpower. If I were strung out on ’raxia, I would never survive here. One must be constantly alert and able to adapt on Heathen. Sheer willpower—the same
willpower I could never conjure to reach the Olympic diving team—keeps me from indulging. I need to rebuild that willpower reserve. Heathen is my test.

It’s not such a bad life, actually. I
have
a life. I try to remember that and appreciate it, always. Every breath is precious after you’ve died and not gone to heaven.

Reggie and Holly weren’t so lucky. I try to remember that also. I might be stranded in the middle of nowhere, but at least I got a second chance. Will the guilt and grief of their loss
ever go away?

“Let’s go eat. Unless you want to do some ’raxia first,” I jokingly say to Aidan.

“I don’t,” he says, taking my comment literally, as he always does. “Once was enough.”

Like me, the Emergents experimented with ’raxia pills when they were clone workers on Demesne. In Cerulea, I used ’raxia to numb the pain of the guy who broke my heart. ’Raxia
was my way to give up on living. For the Emergents, ’raxia was their way to come alive. For humans, ’raxia induces a sweet elation followed by a beautiful calm. (I try not to think of
that beautiful calm so I don’t miss it.) For clones, ’raxia unblocks the brain inhibitors that were supposed to make them emotionless worker bees. One hit of ’raxia was all it
took, and the Demesne clones were instantly changed. Those who took it then dared to question their involuntary servitude. They discovered they were clever—by choice, not by design. Once
these clones were labeled Defects on Demesne, they were returned to the laboratory to be expired. No refunds or exchanges on these purchases were given, but no worries, the Defects would be put out
of commission—permanently. Or so the humans thought. The Mortician back in the lab was marking the Defects’ cases as expired, but he was actually sending the very much alive Defects to
Heathen, to start new lives as Emergents and to prepare for Insurrection.

“Let’s eat,” I tell Aidan. I walk over to the rope ladder that leads down to the ground, and Aidan extends his hand to help me hold steady as I step onto it for the climb down.
His pinkie finger, flesh-colored once again, is still warm from the surge of electricity he sent to the flame cloud, sending my body a pleasant jolt, the kind I used to feel only when Xander was
near me.

The same finger touch that Aidan, who was known as the Mortician on Demesne, once used to bring me back to life sometimes has the added effect of making me feel weak in the knees now.

“What happened?” I asked the clone called the Mortician.

His pinkie finger was blue, as if there was a light beneath the skin, but within seconds, his finger returned to flesh color.

The Mortician regarded his finger with
surprise.
“It was just an experiment. I didn’t think it would actually work.”

“I wasn’t all the way dead,” I whispered. “I did too much ’raxia. I think that’s what made it seem like my heart stopped beating.”

“Maybe that’s why it worked.”

“What worked?”

His face turned to
concerned.
“The electric current in my finger. There’s no time to explain. If the chip beneath my finger works, I won’t be able to conceal the blue
light from the humans. I’ll have to join the others ahead of schedule. Like, now.”

I had no idea what he was talking about and didn’t care. There was only one important question I wanted answered. “Was I cloned?”

It wasn’t the time to be boastful, but I knew I had the right aesthetic for Demesne’s couture clone class. As an athlete, I had narrow hips rounding out a tiny waist, with long,
muscled legs, and perfect breasts. My sunflower-blond hair, tipped in blue and black at the ends, fell in waves past my shoulders and had been the envy of the other girls at school, along with my
peach-toned skin and smooth, acne-free face. I knew I had the desirable aesthetic, because I could see the Mortician blatantly admiring it as I lay naked beneath a white sheet on the metal slab
table.

He said, “Dr. Lusardi tried to clone you. It didn’t work. You must be a teenager.”

Usually, adults say the word
teenager
likes it’s an accusation, but the Mortician said it as an observation, perhaps because his human age didn’t appear to be that much
past teenage years himself.

“I’m almost seventeen,” I said, realizing the gift the Mortician had just given me: I’d reach my next birthday, probably.

“Dr. Lusardi hasn’t mastered replicating teenagers yet,” he said. “Your clone was a Fail.”

“Good,” I said, almost as relieved by that as I was just to be alive again.

Before I could ask him
What next?
the Mortician lifted me from the table and into his strong arms, making sure to wrap the sheet tightly to cover my body. I felt protected. I breathed
in the succulent air again. I wanted more of it. “Where will you take me?” I asked him. I didn’t want to leave Demesne—I’d only just gotten there. But I knew the only
way I could stay was if I voluntarily decided to die for real.

The Mortician said, “There’s a hidden beach in the coves nearby. Pirates who deliver bodies take shelter from outer ring storms there, and sometimes help those of us seeking
Insurrection to escape.”

Insurr-WHAT? Was he programmed to speak Nonsense? I had no idea what he was talking about besides the word “pirates.”

I said, “Pirates sold our bodies here. They won’t help us escape!”

“They will in exchange for the cuvée torchflower seeds that the escaped clones give them to sell on the open market back on the Mainland.”

“So, the pirates make money delivering First bodies, then again by helping the cloned bodies escape? That’s crazy. I refuse to go. I won’t—”

The Mortician cut me off. “You have no choice.” He walked toward a window that looked out to a mass of jungle. I peeked at the ground beneath the tangle of trees and saw that
wherever we were, we were several stories in the air.

The Mortician looked like he was about to jump out of the window while holding me. So I was going to wake up from death just to commit double suicide with this cloned muscle man? Not so fast,
pal. I started to kick free, but the Mortician was quicker than me, and in a flash, he grabbed a syringe from an exam table next to the window. He plunged it into my arm.

When I woke up, I was on Heathen.

I WAS NEVER VERY GOOD AT SCHOOL,
except in history, which Dad relentlessly drilled me in, but in human behavior class I learned about the syndrome I
probably have now, when prisoners or hostages start to sympathize with their captors. I’m not exactly a prisoner or hostage here, but I was brought here when a syringe into my arm knocked me
out and eliminated my ability to make the choice to come to Heathen. Law enforcement officials would term that kidnapping.

Still, I stay. I’ve gotten used to it here. Plus, I have nowhere else to go—at least, nowhere better, besides Demesne, which is the ultimate better. I ache to go back to Demesne, but
next time as a winner, with the Emergents. The rich people on Demesne claim their couture clones were created to be servants, but that’s just a polite word for “slaves.” I never
cared much about clones’ rights before—the clones I saw back on the Mainland were manufactured in labs and seemed like generic drones—but these Emergent clones were copied from
actual people who lost their lives way too young. They look like people I knew. They look like me: real. It’s hard not to feel like these duplicates deserve a better second chance than their
Firsts’ premature fates.

On a weirder level, I might also stay on Heathen because my personal captor is not at all hard to look at. At first glance, he appears threatening, but Aidan’s stern jaw-line and buff
muscles are softened by the black rose branded into his temple and the sweetness of his fuchsia eyes rising above his full, ruby-colored lips.

The Mortician on Demesne evolved instantly into a natural leader on Heathen. And I like power.

I follow Aidan back to the Rave Caves for lunch, feeling content to serve in his small militia. I also can’t stop admiring the movement of his tight glutes, or imagine what it would feel
like to trace my hand up the line of his olive-skinned spine, stopping to pull down at the black hair at the nape of his neck so I could kiss it like I’m a vampire. I almost let out a laugh,
thinking how lucky it is that clones aren’t able to procreate, because I’m trying to imagine explaining to our kids how Mommy met Daddy.

Aidan and I reach the mess hall inside the Rave Caves, where the kitchen team has laid out today’s lunch: wild turkey gizzards cooked in mango juice, with chard greens stir-fried in
garlic. I want to complain—
Gizzards, again? Healthy green vegetables, do we have to?
But any lunch here is still better than the meals served at my school in Cerulea—that is, no
meals at all. School lunch in Cerulea was strictly BYO, which meant students ate whatever leftover scraps the Base donated to Uni-Mil members from its own cafeterias, or whatever brittle fruits the
parched trees in our family gardens cared to let loose. Any meal on Heathen is an improvement. The fact that there’s even juice to sauce the meat, or chopped garlic in the greens, is a
hopeful sign for the Emergents, who emerged without taste buds—or so they were told. Their sense of taste is still new to them, unlocked by the ’raxia that once turned them into
Defects.

It’s like the sea parts as Aidan and I walk through the dining area, bringing our lunch to the communal table. Two Emergents immediately vacate their seats at the head of the table in
deference to the island’s unofficial king and queen. I like this deference. I like these Emergents. They’re way cooler than the cheerlords at school I associated with back in
Cerulea—“friends” who didn’t like each other, and especially didn’t like me because I was “too pretty” and therefore “distracting.” I
didn’t care much about having friends then—I was so fixated on Xander that I didn’t bother much with social politics. Maybe that’s what death cured me of—being
disaffected. I care now that these Emergents, while not necessarily being my friends, at least appreciate my company.

Generally, the Emergents don’t like humans—but they don’t consider me human in the same threatening way as their former owners on Demesne. I’m a teenager,
powerless—and allied with the most powerful Emergent on Heathen. His consort—but the celibate kind. So far.

Aidan and I take our seats at the head of the table, and as always, the Emergents begin peppering me with questions about the outside world. They never bother with small talk, and I for one am
glad that was never part of their programming. I like people who get directly to a point. I’m the only source of education about the outside world that the Emergents have. They were born, or
“emerged” as the clones say, as fully grown adult clones in a laboratory on Demesne. Their primary sources of information are data chips implanted in their heads, which contain only the
data the humans thought the clones needed to know—the data useful only to the clones’ service to humans.

Next to us sits Catra, an Emergent who was a chef back on Demesne but now has discovered her real niche: storyteller. She seeks to document the Emergents and their struggle. To that end, she
constantly pumps me for information not contained on her knowledge chip. As usual, she dives right in. “If there were so many lab-grown clones already available in the world, why did the
property owners on Demesne have their own line of clones, made from Firsts?”

I answer, “My dad always said Demesne clones were different because rich people are so vain. They always want something new, different, so they can always feel superior. Regular clones all
look the same, genderless—like an average twenty-five-year-old she-male. The rich people wanted a superior aesthetic to accentuate their little paradise. And also they thought they were being
eco, recycling dead people.”

Until they met me, the Emergents didn’t even know they were a rare strain of clones. Regular clones back in the world are grown in labs from cryogenic embryos. They’re not replicated
from Firsts, who each have distinctive appearances. Regular clones were designed to be functional but aesthetically boring, except for the blue-green mosaic skin patterns that distinguish them from
humans. They were created to help end the war. I never paid attention to clone history at school, but at home, Dad drilled me on the subject any chance he got. He said I could never have a future
until I understood the past. As if my long, exhausting days that started with early mornings of swimming followed by boring school and then hours of diving training weren’t enough, Dad capped
off my nights by quizzing me on history. Funnily enough, History was the only class I ever aced in school. At least there was one payoff to my nightly dinnertime torture ritual, courtesy of
Dad.