The Pretenders

by Rebecca Hanover

  “What’s wrong with everyone?” I shout to Ollie.

  “Starvation, or nearly. Lack of water, fresh air. And the portal,” he explains. “Every day, for hours on end. No one’s been spared. I’ve gotten the least of it, since I’m his biological son. Everyone else…” he trails off, looking pained, like it physically hurts him to talk about it.

  I finally spot my father, restrained in cuffs across the pen. When his eyes land on mine, I feel a rush of adrenaline and relief. I have to get him out of here.

  “Dad,” I shout, my heart raging in my throat. I run to his side, ripping the tape off his mouth.

  Suddenly, the alarm stops its blaring, plunging the room into unexpected silence. The absence of that noise scares me. What now? Is this the end of the road? Are the guards going to lock me and Levi in this cage along with my dad and the others? My friends are streaming in, wielding guns—not to use, but to threaten—and shouting orders at each other to rip away the cuffs and drag the originals out of here. I spot Jane now, finally. She doesn’t look as weak as the others, probably because she hasn’t been here as long. My heart surges at the sight of her. She’s alive.

  “Get everyone to the perimeter of the building, using any means necessary!” Maude screams. “Then find the boats. We have to get off this island!”

  I cry out for someone, anyone, to help my dad. Ansel moves up and swiftly yanks my father’s cuffs, ripping him free, though the shackles still dangle from his wrists.

  “Thank you,” he mouths to Ansel, his voice raspy and weak.

  “Lean on me,” I say, and he complies. I half drag, half carry my father to the edge of the cage, where Pippa and Pru are holding the door open. Guards swarm in, and I try to count them. There are at least ten, maybe eleven, but I can’t stop to check. I am singularly focused on getting my dad out of this hole. Ollie’s next to me in an instant, lending a hand, and we manage to carry my dad outside the room and into the hallway. We prop him up behind some pipes that run the length of the corridor.

  I hear shots being fired in the caged room, and my friends struggling, but I tune it out. I have to focus on my father. Right now, he is all that matters.

  “Emma,” my dad croaks, his voice sounding scratchy and raw. At least it’s more audible now. I hope that means he’s gaining strength.

  “Save your energy,” I beg him. “We need to get you out of this place. Gravelle has replaced you, but it’s not too late to return you both to your lives—”

  “So it’s true then,” Ollie says, recognition dawning on his face. “He installed Duplicates in our place.”

  I nod. “Yes. They’ve been given all your thoughts and memories. You were probably both implanted, without your knowledge, with a device that continuously transmits those memories straight to their brains—”

  I’m distracted by Ansel and Madison Huxley hurrying past. She’s in the regulation uniform, yelling something muffled about being completely traumatized, though she looks more robust than some of the others. Ansel must have freed her. Which reminds me. We haven’t rescued everyone yet. There are still more people in that pen.

  “We should go back,” I tell Ollie. “The others—”

  “Wait,” my dad says, weakly. “Emma, I have to tell you something.” Now’s not the time—there are literally shots being fired around the corner—but something about the intensity in his eyes gives me pause. “Please,” he croaks. “I know you’re angry at me, Emma. You have every right to be. But you have to understand. When I lost you—when I lost her—I’d already lost your mother. I experienced more pain in that year than I thought was humanly possible. It nearly did me in. I didn’t want to accept that Gravelle had copied her, because I worried that I’d never love you as much as I should. It turned out to be quite the opposite, Emma. I fell in love with you instantly and completely.”

  “Dad—” I say at the same time that Ollie says, “Mr. Chance—”

  But he doesn’t let us speak. “I was terrified that one day I’d lose you too, and that when that happened, I wouldn’t ever recover.”

  “But why would you lose me?” I see Theodora and Maude marching past us, carrying two compromised DNA parents on their backs—Frederica Leroy and Zeke Choate.

  “I wanted to tell you the truth, but who tells their three-year-old that she’s a replacement for another girl? You don’t put that kind of burden on a child. I told myself I’d confess it all to you once you were old enough to understand. But don’t you see the impossible position I was in? Once you were old enough to handle the truth, you were also old enough—are old enough—to choose to leave me.”

  “But you’re my dad. My family.” I gasp when I hear another shot behind me. I’m so torn. I have to get my dad out of here. But the others—we can’t leave them…

  “But what about the Similars? You’re almost eighteen now, Emma. You could choose to live with them and leave me behind.” This is more vulnerability than I’ve seen in my dad my entire life. Of course he’s emotional. He’s been locked up in this cage for months.

  Before I can formulate a response, I hear a commotion behind me in the hallway. “Theodora!” a voice screams. Ollie, my dad, and I turn to survey the hectic scene, and that’s when we see Theodora on the concrete floor, convulsing.

  Maude’s at her friend’s side within seconds. The rest of us follow. I meet Maude’s eyes, knowing it as fully as she does. It’s the stealth virus. Gravelle keyed in those commands an hour ago, and now it’s taking full effect. I watch, horrified, as Theodora’s arms and legs thrash, her limbs flailing like they’re moving independently from her body. Then she goes completely still.

  “Theodora. Wake up. Please.” It’s a voice I don’t recognize. I scan the group until I see who’s run up to lean over Theodora’s prone body. The girl’s long hair, unwashed and hanging in greasy clumps from months of confinement, shades her face. It’s Tessa, freed from the cage, looking stronger than my dad and some of the others. “Help her,” she cries out. “Somebody help her! She’s not waking up,” she pleads, accusing the guards who stand nearby. “What’s wrong with her? What did you do?”

  “I’m afraid it was what she did.” Gravelle appears in the doorway, shielded by his own personal guards, looking like a parent forced to tame a wayward child. “I warned her. Defying me would force my hand. A deadly stealth virus has been activated in her DNA, Tessa. I hated to do it, but your Similar gave me little choice in the matter. Guards? Handle this.”

  Two guards march over to Tessa and yank her by her ponytail to standing. I can tell it hurts her, but she only grimaces. “You are going to be sorry,” she snarls at Gravelle. Then she bites one of the guard’s hands. He yelps in pain. As punishment, the second guard ruthlessly jerks Tessa’s head back by her hair. I hear a crack in her neck, and she cries out. “She’s dying,” Tessa sobs. “Isn’t she?” The bitten guard holds a gun to her temple. “Is that it? Is she going to die?” Tessa rails at Gravelle.

  “Yes and no,” says another voice. I pivot my gaze to the end of the hallway to see who’s approaching and pray it’s someone from the Quarry.

  But it’s not.

  I can finally see who’s joining us, though it takes me a second to place him, here on Pollux, out of context. I’ve only ever seen him in person that evening in the park, back when the Duplicates first came to campus.

  It’s Albert Seymour. Ollie’s uncle. Gravelle’s half brother.

  “What do you mean?” Tessa chokes, tears streaming down her face. “Yes and no?”

  “I mean yes, the activation is fatal,” Seymour answers, his voice even-tempered, showing little emotion. “But no, she’s not going to die, because she is already dead. Guards, please take Theodora away. Her body is creating a distraction.” The guards hoist Theodora unceremoniously onto their shoulders. Tessa screams, and the other Similars hold back strangled cries for their—for our—friend. Theodora. Who only e
ver wanted to be loved by the Leroys. Who came to Darkwood in search of a life, a real identity, and who was shortchanged every step of the way. I bite back a sob. Ollie’s hand is on my shoulder. I feel it and the comfort it provides, but I don’t turn in his direction. This is all too much. If I look at his face, at the tenderness and shock written there, I will permanently crack.

  Two guards drag a protesting Tessa away. Before they clear the door, Ansel delivers a kick to one guard’s head, and Pippa knees the second forcefully in the groin. The guards release Tessa long enough for Ansel to grab her arm and drag her, wailing, down the hallway, in the opposite direction of where the other guards are taking Theodora. Tessa’s cries can be heard the length of the corridor. It only takes a moment for one of the guards to right himself, closing in on Tessa and Ansel. Maude tackles him and wrestles for his gun.

  I need to move. I know this. But I’m frozen to the spot. My mind is stuck on Seymour, on how he ordered those guards to dispose of Theodora’s body. He called her a “distraction.” It feels like the guards are carrying away a little piece of me too, along with Theodora’s body. I think I know what that piece of me is: the hope Levi talked about last night. The kind that’s so dangerous because once you let yourself believe in it, you can only be disappointed.

  The scene around me turns frantic. My friends, enraged by Theodora’s apparent murder, begin to organize. I hear Maude shout to the other Similars that she’ll meet them downstairs at the library entrance. From there they’ll head to the docks and board boats that can take us to the mainland.

  A shot rings out. Maude’s fired a gun, and a guard across from her crumples. She must have successfully nabbed it from him and shot him. There’s a steel in her eyes I haven’t seen before. She is not taking Theodora’s death lightly. How could she? It’s why she’s willing to use the gun now. She’s been pushed past the breaking point. It’s now us or them. There is no other option.

  I watch Maude march past the fallen guard, feeling like everything’s happening around me in a dream. I’m rooted to the spot, unable to make my feet work. My brain can’t order my body to move, not until I understand it—how Seymour could say those things about Theodora.

  There can only be one explanation. He is not at all the man he has pretended to be.

  I turn to face him, finally registering that his unassuming voice and appearance belies a cold-hearted and cruel interior. He’s just as much of a monster as his half brother is. Maybe more. “You’re part of this, aren’t you?” I say. “You lied to us when you told us there were only three Duplicates. You knew about the others—of course you did. We were naive enough to believe you. But I should have known. You and Gravelle have been working together this whole time. Haven’t you?”

  Ollie grabs my hand, staring his uncle down. “It’s true. Isn’t it?”

  “Interesting theory, Eden,” Seymour answers, completely ignoring Ollie and focusing his steely eyes on me. He no longer seems like the slightly nutty professor I’d made him out to be in my mind. The person he wanted you to see, I tell myself. He’d projected a certain image, and we had fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker. Now, I can’t believe I ever saw him that way, when his true nature is so abominable and staring me in the face, his mask removed. “You’re as clever as they come, Eden, I’ll give you that much. Of course, I already knew that, empirically, because I’ve studied your DNA at length. You are correct. I don’t merely tolerate the Duplicates. They are the culmination of decades of hard work, research, and experimentation. They are, indeed, my crowning achievement.”

  Expendable

  “Emma, save yourself,” my father’s begging me over the shots that ring out. Ollie and I wordlessly hoist my dad to his feet.

  “Can you walk?” I ask him as Pippa rushes by with a zoned-out Bianca on her back.

  “Get everyone to the exits,” Maude barks, wielding that gun. Now that she’s shot a guard, the rest see her as a threat and avoid her path. “Most of the DNA parents can’t walk,” Maude tells me, pacing the floor with that weapon gripped in her hand. “Jaeger’s lost too much blood. We can’t waste any more time!”

  I spin and see Jago carrying an unconscious Jaeger on his back.

  “Jago’s okay?” I ask Maude.

  She nods, stepping in front of a guard to cut him off at the pass.

  Archer also moves in, and one of his dads—Luis—hobbles next to him, leaning on his son for support. I note that all the parents seem far more compromised than their kids. Gravelle blames them for his expulsion twenty years ago and probably tortured them the most. I shake off that thought. We have only one priority now. Getting to the boats and off this island.

  But first, Seymour. I feel an intense, boiling rage at this man who pretended to act ethically, but who deceived us all.

  “You’re a monster disguised as a scientist,” I seethe. “You claim to be furthering knowledge for good…and yet, you’re nothing more than a common thief. You’ve stolen lives that weren’t yours to take!”

  “I refer to it as bettering,” Seymour explains. “The Duplicates are living these lives a thousand times better than any of them ever could.”

  “What does that mean?” my father demands, weakly. He tries to stand on his own but falters. Ollie steadies him.

  “Dad,” I say, worried about how fragile he is. I need to get him out of here.

  “You want us to beg for our lives back,” my father gasps, addressing Gravelle, who’s been quiet up until now, silently observing. “Do you need us to say it? That we wronged you when we were kids? Is that what you want—an apology?”

  “It’s too late for that,” Gravelle answers.

  “Too late because you’ve replaced us. And you think your path to happiness is to watch us suffer, as our lives are taken over by imposters. How sad. And foolish.”

  “Nice words, coming from someone who never thanked me for gifting him with the impossible,” Gravelle answers, indicating me. “A second chance at being a father.”

  “But I’m right, aren’t I?” my father replies, his voice weak but his spirit intact.

  “Enough.” Seymour cuts in. “You’re entirely missing the point. My brother’s worldview is limited in scope. This isn’t about petty revenge.”

  “Excuse me?” Gravelle looks murderous. “There’s nothing petty about my agenda—”

  “I’ve allowed you to believe that your master plan was of the utmost importance,” Seymour interrupts, “and perhaps that was my first mistake. But we both know this is about far more than one-upping a bunch of influential families. The Duplicates—not the betas who first appeared at Darkwood, but these vastly improved models—are highly superior to their originals in every way. Thoughts and memories have been downloaded straight into their minds via receiver technology that I patented. Duplicates grow quickly, aging from birth to adulthood in as little as a year, bypassing the emotional messiness of childhood. They are free of disease, since they possess many of the capabilities that were built into your DNA, Eden. In the long run, they will actually improve humanity. If each and every person can be replaced with a more resilient, disease-free model, and all that’s required to preserve a person’s selfhood is to download the original’s ideas, thoughts, and memories in the newer version… Isn’t it obvious? Models can be periodically replaced and upgraded. Changes made, bad memories edited out and tweaked. And not only that. Duplicates will allow individual humans the ability to live forever by simply submitting themselves for upgrades at necessary checkpoints, with the new Duplicate seamlessly installed. It’s revolutionary, isn’t it?”

  “Revolutionary?” Ollie looks at his uncle, disgusted. “Are you out of your mind? We were replaced without our knowledge or consent!”

  “That’s how it had to be, this time,” Seymour explains. “Once the practice is widespread, everyone will request to be upgraded. I’ll admit, that may take time. In the meantime, by replaci
ng some very influential folks, I’ll be able to spread my ideas widely, and in the right circles—via my Duplicates—so that I may put in place the proper legislation to proceed seamlessly with my plans.”

  “Let me get this straight,” I say, still feeling like I’m in a dream. This can’t be real. “Both of you,” I indicate Gravelle and Seymour, “for different but complementary reasons, set out to replace all these people permanently with Duplicates. Oliver, my father, Bianca Huxley. Jane. Jaeger. You,” I turn to face Gravelle, “for your own vindictive agenda. So you could watch the people who mistreated you suffer and see them beg for their lives back. And you,” I turn to Seymour, “because you have some twisted authoritarian vision of replacing all of humanity with ‘newer models’ like software?”

  “Visionaries have to act on humanity’s behalf.” Seymour shrugs. “It’s never simple, but that is the only path to progress.” I’m so enraged by Seymour’s justification of his crimes, I could slap him. Of course, I don’t, and I won’t, not yet. We won’t strike until it’s the exact right moment.

  “So what about the originals, then? They live here, indefinitely? Doomed to grow old, watching their lives unfold with imposters as the major players? Is that their life sentence, that live feed of their lives being hijacked?”

  “My apologies, Eden. I can see I left out the most crucial detail of all,” Seymour answers. “They won’t live here indefinitely. That would cost us far too many resources. And what would be the point? The originals are entirely expendable. Once we confirm that we’ve permanently downloaded every last one of their thoughts, memories, and emotions, via their implants, we’ll store that information securely on our server. And then, after they’re no longer needed, we’ll dispose of them.”

  I feel sick, like the floor beneath me is shifting. He wants to kill them all.

  “Seal the perimeters,” I hear Seymour instructing his guards on a comm device. “No one leaves.” Panic rises in my chest. This is even worse than we thought. They’re going to trap us in here. In moments, this entire compound will become our cage.