Replication

by Jill Williamson

  What was a Silverado? “I-I do not know.”

  “Just how do you know my dad?”

  “Dr. Goyer works at the Farm. I met him the day he wore his orange necktie. I touched it.”

  The daughter wrinkled her lips. Martyr must have said something incorrect. Perhaps neckties were forbidden in this facility too.

  She took a deep breath and exhaled. “How did you get to the Farm?”

  Martyr cocked his head to the side. He did not understand the question.

  She asked another. “When did you first go there?”

  “I have always lived on the Farm.”

  “No!” The daughter jumped up and strode across the room. The dog leapt from her arms, arched its back in the air, then hopped onto the bed. When the daughter reached the door, she turned and strode back to face him.

  Martyr shrank back into the corner. He had somehow upset her again. He did not want her to be upset. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why are you sorry?”

  “I angered you. I shouldn’t have ridden in the pocket of Dr. Goyer’s car and come into his facility, but the snow was freezing my feet. The door was open, and I wanted to get warm.”

  Tears flooded the daughter’s eyes. She walked back to the door, leaned against it, and slid down against the picture of the frizzy-haired man until she sat on the floor, staring at Martyr, her eyes out of focus like Hummer’s.

  “JD forgot his books and he had some homework due tomorrow, so he called …”

  Martyr could not look away from the daughter’s face. It made his heart race. Round cheeks, creamy skin peppered with dots, glossy lips, and her hair—bright and wild, it swung soft and long and curly around her face when she moved. He wanted very badly to touch it.

  Something pounded softly outside the door. The daughter scrambled to her knees and poked a button on the doorknob. She stood and whispered, “Get over here. It’s my dad.” She lunged forward, grabbed his hand, and pulled. “Come on.”

  Her touch inflicted a pleasant nausea. He was much taller than she was. The top of her head reached his chin. How was it she had such power over his senses?

  “Abby, honey? Can I come in?” Dr. Goyer’s voice came from the other side of the door.

  The daughter herded Martyr into a tiny closet filled with clothing. He stood in awe of so many colors and textures. She pushed the door shut, closing him in darkness, but the door swung slowly back open, letting in a stripe of light. Martyr could see the daughter scramble to her bed and find the noisy red device. She opened it and began to push on it with her thumbs.

  Something pounded on the door again, the doorknob rattled, and Dr. Goyer said, “Honey, open the door. We need to talk.”

  The daughter opened her mouth like she was about to respond, but instead started pushing buttons on her red device again.

  Dr. Goyer’s voice carried from outside the room. “Because I said so.”

  She pushed more buttons.

  “That wasn’t a fortune cookie answer! Listen, I know I’m gone a lot, but that doesn’t mean you can do whatever you like.”

  The daughter rolled her eyes, and began hitting buttons again.

  “True,” Dr. Goyer said, even though the daughter hadn’t spoken, “but you’re not old enough to have a boyfriend over without supervision either.”

  The daughter gasped. “He’s not my boyfriend!” she yelled. “We’re doing a project together. And he invited himself over!”

  Dr. Goyer’s voice softened. “What’s the project?”

  She heaved a sigh and began pushing buttons on the device again.

  “I do care,” Dr. Goyer said. “Tell me more about it.”

  The daughter ignored him and kept on hitting buttons. Martyr was amazed. Clearly she was communicating to Dr. Goyer through that thing in her hands. He wanted to see how it worked.

  “Sounds interesting,” Dr. Goyer said slowly, “but why lupus? And is there any way for you to get a different partner? Perhaps a female? I would feel better about it.”

  The daughter looked like she had just received an injection of EEZ. “I chose lupus, Dad!” She threw the device on the bed and flopped down. “If you care that much about keeping me away from boys, maybe you should go down to the school and talk to the principal.” She snorted. “But guess what, Dad? The principal is JD’s mom. So that should go over really well.”

  It was quiet for a moment, and Martyr wondered if Dr. Goyer had left. But then he heard Dr. Goyer clear his throat and say, “Abby, honey, I’m sure JD is not a bad kid. I just—his being in the house surprised me.”

  The daughter sighed and grabbed the device off the bed, causing the dog to dart out of the way and settle near the wall. She communicated one more time, and Dr. Goyer said, “Okay, honey. Come downstairs when you’re ready.”

  The daughter sank onto the edge of her bed and dropped the device beside her. She sat quiet and still, pet her dog, then turned her head slowly toward where Martyr stood in the closet. The angry expression on her face sent Martyr stepping back until colorful fabrics fell over his head. He crouched onto the floor to escape them, and when he looked back out the door, the daughter stood right above him.

  She held out her hand. He leaned forward to look, but there was nothing in it. Her fingernails were long and glossy red except for one jagged thumbnail. He reached a finger out to touch one and found it smooth. Her lips twisted a bit. She took his hand in her small, warm one, and drew him back into her cell.

  Again her touch wiped away all reasonable thought. Martyr’s hand began to shake. He dragged in a long, deep breath and stumbled after her.

  “Sit there.” She pointed to the edge of her bed, climbed onto the other end, took the pillow in her lap, and sat against the white wooden bars by the wall.

  The dog got up and moved to her side—settling into a ball of white fluff beside her. It closed its eyes and a gentle noise came from it, like the hum of a furnace.

  For a while the daughter did nothing but watch Martyr, so he stared back. A strange tension bound them somehow, like an invisible string from her eyes to his. Like when she had touched him, her attention mesmerized him, spinning his stomach like a ceiling fan.

  “My name is Abby.”

  “Abby.” He felt taller just knowing her name.

  “How old are you?” she asked, so calm and confident, like she spoke to Jasons every day.

  She probably did.

  “I am seventeen years, eleven months, and twelve days old.”

  One of her eyebrows arched up, wrinkling part of her forehead. He grinned and tried to mimic her expression.

  “That’s pretty accurate.” She scowled. “Stop that.”

  He relaxed his face immediately and waited for her next words.

  “You lived all those years on the Farm? Even as a baby?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you look like JD Kane?”

  Dr. Kane? The question was so ridiculous, Martyr laughed. “Dr. Kane is in charge of the Farm. I don’t look like him.”

  They sat silently again, looking into each other’s eyes. Martyr did not mind. He could look at Daughter Abby all day long.

  She broke the silence. “What about your parents?”

  “What are parents?”

  She breathed out a laugh. “Are you for real?”

  Martyr did not know what this question meant either.

  “You know, a mom and a dad? Did they die? Are you an orphan?”

  Ah. Mom and dad were slang for mother and father. Children who lived outside had these special adults to care for them. “Only children who live outside have mothers and fathers.”

  “Everyone has a mother and a father—at some point, anyway.”

  “We don’t.”

  “We? How many, um … are there?”

  “There are fifty-five of us.”

  She sucked in a short breath. “Are you all boys?”

  “Yes. There are no woman at the Farm.”

  “Women.”

&n
bsp; “Women.” Of course. Like man and men. Singular and plural. How obvious. Martyr’s face warmed at the simplicity of his mistake. She must think him ignorant.

  But Daughter Abby only looked pale. Her next question came so softly, Martyr almost couldn’t hear it. “Then how were you born?”

  He did not understand. “Born?”

  “Produced. Made. Created.” Her voice rose with each word.

  Martyr hoped she was not frightened. Did she think he would hurt her? He hoped his answers would bring her comfort. “We were created at the Gunnolf Lab and brought to Jason Farms as infants.”

  She scowled again.

  Martyr couldn’t help but copy her expression. This scowling look was by far his favorite Daughter Abby face, and mimicking her only made her scowl more.

  “Why are you called Martyr?”

  “Because I protect Baby and the other Brokens. My official identification is J:3:3.” He pushed up the right sleeve of the lab coat and turned his wrist over to show her the numbers inked into his skin.

  Her eyes swelled. “What does that mean?”

  “Product Jason: batch three: number three.”

  Her eyebrows scrunched together like she was thinking very hard. “But you’re … normal. How could they have kept you hidden all this time? Why?”

  “We’re created to save the world. That’s our purpose. The world is toxic and we are the cure.” According to Dr. Kane, the program at the Farm was famous, and the Jasons were worldwide heroes for their sacrifice. Why did Daughter Abby not know this already? “You haven’t heard of our sacrifice?”

  “No, JD—Martyr. Is that what you want me to call you?”

  “Martyr is my name, but you may call me whatever you like.”

  She smirked and Martyr fought the urge to try this expression on his face as well. “Then I’ll call you Marty. It’s more of a normal name. Why do you think the world is toxic, Marty?”

  Her words chilled him. “Your question implies the world is not toxic.”

  “It’s not. A little polluted, maybe, but no one needs to be cured from simply breathing the air.”

  “But …” Martyr’s chest burned, like the EEZ side effects had come upon him again. “If the world is not toxic …” He squeezed his knees. Dr. Kane’s words flashed over him like a bucket of water on grooming day. His deep, smooth chuckle followed by, Well, I don’t need anyone’s brain, just a pair of kidneys.

  “Aaaaah …” Martyr clutched his temples and doubled forward, propping his elbows on his knees. There had to be a logical explanation.

  He felt a pressure on his back—a hand—then Daughter Abby’s worried voice. “Are you okay?”

  Martyr closed his eyes. “When I came outside to see the sky and didn’t die from breathing the air, I knew something was wrong.” Still hunched over, he turned his head toward Daughter Abby. “They lied to us. But if our purpose is not to save the world, why do we expire? For kidneys?”

  Her forehead wrinkled. “I don’t understand. Expire? Who expires?”

  “Me. In sixteen days. On April twenty-eight.”

  “You said you were seventeen years and eleven …” She scoffed. “People don’t just die on their eighteenth birthday.”

  Martyr’s throat was dry. He licked his lips and glanced at the soft fibers on the floor. “We do.”

  Daughter Abby slid off the bed and stood in front of him. Her feet were bare and he saw her toenails were also red. The oddness of it flushed the confusion from his mind. He smirked and looked up to find her hands on her hips. The confident, in-control Daughter Abby had returned.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “We never eat at night. Only during meal times.”

  “That’s not what I asked, Marty. Are. You. Hungry?”

  “Yes.” Martyr was always hungry.

  “I’ll get you something.” She walked to the door. “Lock this behind me—push the button.” She touched a tiny circle on the doorknob. “I’ll knock three times, like this.” She softly tapped her knuckles against the door, taking a long pause between each knock. “I don’t want my dad to know you’re here … yet.”

  She slipped past the door and closed it behind her.

  Martyr jumped up and pressed the little button with a click. He hoped she would not be gone long.

  [CHAPTER TEN]

  ABBY TOOK HER TIME GOING DOWNSTAIRS, a hand pressed over her pounding heart. There had to be another explanation for the gorgeous guy in her room. No one could have successfully cloned humans almost eighteen years ago and kept it secret. Someone would have talked by now … right? In her experience, scientists tended to have pretty big egos when it came to breakthrough discoveries. How was it no one knew?

  And why did Marty look like JD’s identical twin? Marty said Dr. Kane was in charge at Jason Farms. Since Helen Kane was the high school principal, Dr. Kane must be JD’s dad, which explained a lot about JD’s extremist views and his claim of having an eccentric scientific father. It did not explain why a man would clone his own son. How weird was that?

  And intelligent! From what little interaction they’d had, Marty was healthy and perfectly cognizant. A little odd from living in an underground lab all his life, but other than that … it was beyond amazing. At some point, she would have to ask her dad why they educated them.

  Abby reached the bottom of the stairs, thankful her dad had gone to bed, and crept across the wooden floor into the kitchen. She took a large plate from the cupboard and set it on the counter. What would a guy want to eat at quarter to ten at night? She pulled the peanut butter out from the pantry then put it back. What if he’s allergic to something?

  She rummaged through the fridge and pantry looking for a decent hypoallergenic selection. Settling on a turkey sandwich, she added cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes, but spread the mayo and mustard thin, in case he didn’t like it. She grabbed the plate, a package of Oreos, and a bag of Doritos, and headed for the stairs. She paused and went back, set everything on the counter, shoved a bottle of blue Gatorade under her arm, and picked up everything again. She’d gathered all the food she could hold, but how in the world was she going to knock?

  She managed to kick the door three times with the side of her foot. Marty opened it, staring at her with those deep brown eyes. Gah, he was even cute bald, although technically, his head was covered in fine stubble. She edged past him, and he shadowed her as she set the food on her bed. She whispered, “Shut the door!” and he jumped to it.

  Obedient. A mark in the pro column. Add another pro for: looks like JD but doesn’t behave like JD.

  She nodded at the food. “Go ahead.”

  He sank onto his knees beside the bed and stared at the food like it had just spoken or something.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He drew a slice of tomato out of the sandwich. “What is this?”

  He didn’t know what a tomato was? O-kay. “It’s a tomato.”

  “Tomato. I’ve never had one before. They don’t let us eat tomatoes.”

  “Why not?”

  “Color causes fights. We all want to have it, but there’s never enough for everyone.”

  What was this, some sort of sterile Lord of the Flies?

  Marty brought the tomato slice to his tongue and tasted it. His eyebrows rose and he tucked the tomato back inside the sandwich. Well, he was certainly a tidy clone.

  She winced at the word clone, still not quite convinced he was for real. Maybe Dr. and Mrs. Kane had twins and gave one up for research? She shuddered. No matter how hard she tried to find a logical explanation, nothing seemed to make sense.

  Especially since Marty had said there were more than fifty like him.

  Marty ate slowly, savoring every morsel like a death-row inmate eating his last meal. Abby opened the Gatorade and set it beside his plate on the floor. He eyed the liquid as he chewed his sandwich and didn’t speak until he swallowed.

  “Is it water?”

  “It’s like juice. It’s sweet.”

&n
bsp; “What color is this?”

  “Blue.”

  His lips stretched into a slow smile. “Blue like the sky.”

  He set his sandwich down and scooted the plate closer to him, like he was afraid she might take it away before he finished. Then he lifted the Gatorade to his lips and drank.

  His eyes went wide again. What on earth did they feed them at the Farm? Then she remembered seeing the cans of cauliflower and the instant mashed potatoes. Bland colored—and tasting—food.

  Martyr set the Gatorade down. “When I came outside, the sky was black. Why was it not blue with white clouds and a massive star?”

  “Um, because it’s nighttime. And also because it’s Alaska. Trust me, I’m still getting used to the hours-of-daylight issue here.” But he probably didn’t know what that meant either. She reached for her bedside table, opened the small drawer, and pulled out a stack of postcards. Uncle Pete didn’t own a cell phone and hated email, but always kept in touch with Abby with short-and-sweet postcards. She had dozens from Philly, and dozens more from various places around the globe.

  She shuffled the stack until she found a card with a picture of Myrtle Beach. “This is what you were hoping to see, I bet.” She passed him the postcard. “Depending on the weather, the sky here could be blue in the morning. Well, by eight a.m. or so anyway.”

  His JD Kane eyes danced over the picture. It was so weird to be with him and not feel like she had to have a can of pepper spray ready.

  “It’s beautiful,” Marty said. “So much is beautiful in the outside.” He looked at her then, his expression so intense she had to look away. Too much of JD in that look.

  “Yeah … nature rocks.” She passed him a postcard of the Philadelphia skyline during the day. “But check this out.”

  His eyes shifted as he studied the postcard. “What’s this place?”

  “It’s a city. Alaska has a few cities, but they’re far from here and are nothing like that one. Not too many skyscrapers in Alaska.” She paused, then answered before he asked. “A skyscraper is a really, really tall building.”

  His eyes flickered back and forth between the postcards. She grabbed the Oreos and slid the tray out of the wrapper. “Have you ever had cookies?”