Emergent (A Beta Novel) (8 page)

I hear a voice. “What are you looking for?” asks Aidan. I look up. He’s standing at the tree house entrance.

I sniff, smelling a burning smell. “Are you playing fire tricks outside again?” I look, but his pinkie finger is not lit in blue.

“I ordered the cuvée fields destroyed.”

I cover my face with my hands. My heart pounds harder, with extra discomfort. It’s called
panic
. “Why? You don’t understand. I just need a little more to get through.
You
need the cuvée seeds to finance supplies for Insurrection.”

“Then Insurrection will just have to come sooner rather than later. We’ll do without. As will you. The Aquine told me you were an addict in your previous life. I won’t allow
that to happen to you again here.”

Who does this clone think he is, my sobriety sponsor? “
You
could use some ’raxia. Lighten up, already.” I hate Aidan so much right now.

Aidan shakes his head. “’Raxia affects us differently,” he responds, taking my comment literally. “We don’t develop the instant addiction to it that humans do.
It’s nothing to us except a potential profit source.” He looks out beyond the tree house, to the smoke rising from the fields. “Rather, it
was
.”

Aidan sits down on the ground next to me. He removes my hands from my face and stares intently at me, and I wish he would lean down and kiss me. I want to be held, comforted, stroked, loved. If
I can’t have more ’raxia, I need something—someone—to numb the pain. My desire to feel anything other than what I feel now—deep, abiding anger—temporarily
overrules my disgust with Aidan. Give me more. Please don’t make me beg!

I sit up and move farther from him. “You knew,” I accuse him.

“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 don’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.”