The volume wasn’t on high, but all the same it must have masked the swish of the door sliding open, because it was a few moments before one of the occupants of the chairs looked around.
He was a boy about Elissa’s age, so dark skinned that when he smiled his teeth seemed to glow in the dimness. “Hey,” he said, “new bodies!”
Blurs of other faces turned to look.
“Lights up,” said the boy, and Elissa blinked as the room brightened.
Behind her, Cadan’s father’s voice was simultaneously exasperated and resigned. “How late are you people awake?”
The boy grinned, but a second boy, this one maybe a year older, with light skin and longish brown hair, looked a little guilty. “We didn’t have the sound on loud.”
“Yeah,” said the first boy. “Ms. Thing seriously can’t complain this time.”
“But she so will, all the same,” said a pretty blond girl sitting next to him on the couch. “I keep saying, she completely thinks we’re students. If she didn’t think we were having wild sex-and-drugs parties, she’d be disappointed.” She wriggled around, rising onto her knees, and smiled at Elissa. “Hi. I’m Sofia. What’s your name?”
For a moment Elissa’s answer caught, unspoken, in a rush of shyness. Going through her last three years at school as the freak girl with the undiagnosed headaches and blackouts hadn’t accustomed her to expect welcome, or even courtesy, from anyone her own age.
“I’m Lissa. This is my sister, Lin.”
For an instant, Sofia stared at her across the back of the couch. And despite the background noise of the onscreen drama, silence seemed to fall into the room.
Elissa folded her arms, automatically defensive. “What?”
Sofia blinked, her gaze going from Elissa to Lin. “You’re twins, aren’t you? A Spare and a—”
“Yes, of course.” It must be the most obvious thing about them, surely. Just sisters—even sisters born at the same time, from two fertilized eggs rather than from one—would never look as freakishly identical as Elissa and Lin did.
“You . . .” Sofia was staring at Lin now. “But how did you both get names?”
Oh, so that was what was confusing her. Defensiveness melting into relief, Elissa almost broke out laughing. Except it was kind of horrific, too, the reminder that Spares, unlike their human counterparts, had been raised with numbers, not names.
“We made it ourselves,” said Lin. “When we first needed ID cards, we made up a name I liked—”
“Hang on,” the long-haired boy, the one with lighter skin, interrupted. He’d been staring too, but as he spoke it became obvious it was for a whole other reason. “Wait a minute. You said— You’re Elissa? Elissa and Lin?”
“No way,” said Sofia. Her voice rose, incredulous, and at least three people automatically said, “Shh.”
“That’s who you are?” said the boy who’d spoken first. He was wearing a yellow T-shirt, bright under the lights. “Seriously?”
“Yes,” Elissa said.
“Wow.” He grinned at her. “We were pretty much expecting new people—but we weren’t expecting them to be you. You’re famous, didn’t you know?”
“Famous?” Elissa’s throat closed.
“Absolutely famous,” the boy said cheerfully. Then he seemed to pick up the tone in which she’d spoken, and the smile slid from his face. “I mean, kind of. Not, like, actor famous—”
“They’re not famous,” Sofia said, interrupting him. She looked straight across the room at Elissa, her expression suddenly sober. “You are known, though. Not by everybody, but there’s enough information out there for people to piece IDs together if they want to. We’re not supposed to be able to get online here—all the networks are closed for official use only—but one of the Spares, she can hack into any network. And, I mean, obviously we were kind of invested in learning about the first twins that found each other. She turned up footage of you both, from security data at a mall?”
Her voice rose in a slight question. Elissa nodded, not yet able to speak. The mall that security guards had chased her and Lin through, the mall where they’d emerged onto the roof only to see police flyers screaming down toward them.
“Someone’s linked it all up,” said Sofia. “That footage—you’re in disguise, but they’ve cleaned up the images with false-ID software. And they’ve got it linked to your name, and that’s linked to your family connections, and the pilot whose ship you were on, and his name . . .”
“Okay,” said Elissa. Her voice only just didn’t shake.
Sofia watched her anxiously. “But you must have known that, right? You must have known you couldn’t keep your identities secure from everyone?”
“Yes.” She had known that, of course she had. But it was one thing to know it in theory, from a safe place on Sanctuary or on board the Phoenix . . .
“What kind of famous?” Lin asked. Her voice didn’t sound as if it were anywhere near shaking. She sounded nothing but fascinated.
The yellow-T-shirted boy’s smile returned. “Urban-heroes famous,” he said, getting up to come around the end of the couch. “I mean, seriously, we’d put up a monument if we weren’t living in secret. The minute we’re relocated, though, I swear . . . I’m Samuel, by the way. That’s—”
“I’m Ady,” said the long-haired boy. He glanced down toward the end of the couch, where, Elissa saw now, someone else was sitting on the floor, mostly hidden by the couch. As the boy spoke his voice softened, became careful, as if he were speaking to an animal or a child. “Hey, Zee, come meet some heroes.”
Elissa followed his gaze as yet another boy appeared, standing up so they could see him. He was exactly Ady’s height, with a build identical to Ady’s and the same light skin, brown hair, and thin, bony face. His hair was much shorter, as if it had been cut very close and was growing out, and he moved as if he didn’t want to stand up straight, or as if he were continually afraid of being hit, shoulders hunched, head ducked forward.
A Spare. Another Spare. The first one, apart from Lin, whom Elissa had ever met.
“This is my . . . twin,” said Ady, stumbling just the tiniest bit over the word. “We call him Zee.” He stood, putting an arm over his twin’s shoulders. It should have been a friendly, companionable movement—Elissa had seen it a million times among boys her age—but with Ady, it came across as a gesture, not of easy companionship, but of protection.
“Isn’t Zee a name?” said Lin, speaking across Elissa as she opened her mouth to say hi.
Zee glanced toward her. The light caught the side of his face, and scars sprang into sudden shocking visibility. Not just bruises, like Lin had had when she escaped the facility, like Elissa had become used to seeing on her own face after each nightmare vision. Scars, the sort that might come from knife wounds or burns. Is that what the later procedures do to them? Is that what would have happened to Lin if she hadn’t gotten away in time?
His lip, too, was scarred, mangled-looking, as if it had been repeatedly bitten. “It’s a letter,” he said to Lin, his voice husky, deeper than Ady’s. “The first letter of my code.”
“Oh.” Lin looked at him, her face interested. “We only had numbers.”
Zee returned her gaze but didn’t seem to find it necessary to say anything in return. Elissa realized she was staring at him, then back at Lin. Probably way too obviously, but she couldn’t make herself look away.
They’re so similar. She hadn’t thought to wonder what other Spares would be like—God knew, Lin had been odd enough to get used to. But Zee, just like Lin, seemed to be lacking the social impulses Elissa had always thought came as automatically as breathing. Like responding out loud when someone told you something. Or like speaking in order to prevent a silence from stretching out and out . . .
Her eyes caught Ady’s, and he sent her a half grin that suggested he was aware of the very same thing.
“You can meet the rest of us in the morning,” Samuel said.
Elissa nodde
d. “Is everyone here with their Spares?”
“Well, Ady and Zee, obviously,” said Samuel. “And Sofia, and me. It’s been just us since we got here three weeks ago, so when we heard new people were coming we all kind of wanted to wait up to see, but mine and Sofia’s Spares, and Amaryllis—they all got too tired.”
“Amaryllis is a Spare,” added Ady, “but she’s the only one here without her twin.” A shadow crossed his face as he said it, and Elissa didn’t ask why the lone Spare seemed to have a real name. Or why her twin wasn’t with her. That was easy enough to guess. Her own first reaction to Lin had been shock more than anything else, and an instinctive revulsion she was ashamed, now, to remember.
“In the morning sounds like an excellent plan,” said Mr. Greythorn. His voice was deliberately patient, like Cadan’s got sometimes. “I understand we’re getting a visit from Commander Dacre then as well. I don’t imagine she wants to talk to everyone, but those she does talk to could do with an undisturbed night. So let’s get to bed, okay?” A second’s pause. “That means all of us, Samuel.”
“Yeah, I got you. C’mon, guys.” Samuel flashed a quick grin at Elissa and Lin. “See you in the morning, okay?”
Five minutes later, Elissa was climbing into the highest of the triple bunks in the room she, Lin, and Felicia were to share, and Lin was giving her face a hurried wash in the tiny corner basin. The seamless join of walls and floor and the bases of each bunk, the smooth roundedness of every corner, were other indicators of the nature of the accommodation they were in. The whole apartment had been molded in a single piece, then slotted into the shell of the tower block. Apartments made that way were cheap, characterless—and quick and easy to both empty and scour clean if the occupants were convicted of one of a whole host of possible anti-social crimes. Practically all of Elissa’s life she’d been aware that the lower your rung in Sekoian society, the more likely you were to be convicted of an ASC. For the first time it came home to her that this housing, created for the absolute lowest classes, had been built, not with the knowledge that the occupants might commit crimes, but with the expectation that they would. The people Mr. Greythorn had meant by “the criminally predisposed.”
That’s not okay. I never bothered to think about it before, but it’s not okay. It’s like declaring the Spares nonhuman, and then treating them in a way that does its best to get rid of their humanity. It’s assuming people are one way, and acting like they’re only ever going to be that one way. . . .
That’s how we thought. That’s how we all thought. Like Felicia said—most Sekoians think everyone’s divided into two groups: decent people and criminals. No wonder people are so angry that IPL’s treating everyone like criminals. Then, with a shock, something she hadn’t thought before: No wonder we fell into chaos so quickly.
At least, after all the blank walls in the rest of the building, it was a relief to see that this room did have a small window, set into the smooth surface of the wall opposite the bed. All it showed her right now was the bed’s reflection, three pale stripes of mattresses and covers, off-white against the off-white wall.
Lin scrubbed her face dry with a square of paper towel from the dispenser and clambered into the bunk below Elissa. “Shall I turn the lights off?” she asked, and the overhead light blinked out.
Despite fatigue and what felt like a million different things to worry about, Elissa laughed out loud at Lin’s cross, surprised exclamation of, “I didn’t mean— It was a question.”
“I think the programming must have just recognized that phrase anyway,” said Elissa. “Look at everything else—it’s all pretty basic.”
Lin huffed out an irritated breath. “Well, fine, it can stay like that now.” The last word disappeared in a yawn.
For a moment Elissa hesitated. They were sharing with Felicia—at some point she’d want to see where her bed was. But exhaustion dragged at her eyelids, and her thoughts came slowly, like treacle pouring. Felicia would work it out.
Below her, Lin said, “More twins.”
“Yeah, I know,” Elissa murmured, hearing her words slur.
“Is it weird?” asked Lin.
I don’t know yet. She might have said the words out loud, or she might not. Dark and endless, sleep swallowed her.
ELISSA WOKE to heat and light. She opened her eyes into sunlight flooding through the window, and familiar desert heat, concentrated in the tiny, unair-conditioned bedroom. Even for her, it was almost too hot. She wriggled, kicking the cover off. But the light was wonderful, and the bed just that bit bigger than the bunk she’d had on the Phoenix. She stretched, enjoying the unaccustomed space, and for a moment there was nothing but warmth and light and peace.
Then, like cold stones thunking one by one into her stomach, everything from the day before came back to her. Hearing what the Spares were being threatened with, what Lin had done, the way Cadan’s parents’ faces had changed . . . Other things too. Sofia’s voice saying, You must have known that, right? You must have known you couldn’t keep your identities secure from everyone? The marks on Zee’s face—on his lip. It’s been weeks since the takeover, and he looks worse than Lin did when she first escaped.
She sat up and leaned over the side of the bunk. Lin still slept, spread-eagled across the bed, her face buried in the pillow, a bare foot poking out from under the cover.
Elissa climbed carefully down the ladder, noticing that Felicia, too, was still asleep, and washed as quietly as she could. Cadan was an early riser, she knew. If she could just talk to him, find out what impression he’d gotten from his parents, maybe get reassurance that she was just being paranoid . . . It would only be one out of a whole list of anxieties in her head, but anything was better than this feeling of being buried in them so deeply that she felt as if she would smother.
The door whispered open, and she slid out into the windowless corridor. She couldn’t go looking for Cadan in his bedroom. Even if he weren’t sharing with other people, if his parents saw her doing that . . . But if he was up, maybe getting breakfast? The kitchen was that door, wasn’t it? The one Mrs. Greythorn had pointed out last night?
She got it right. The door opened on a long narrow room, complete with the familiar appliances. A window at the far end threw sunlight onto every shiny plastic surface.
Cadan stood by the window, coffee cup in hand, fair hair gleaming in the light. As he saw Elissa he broke into a smile, put down the cup, and strode toward her. “Hey, I hoped you’d be up soon. I’ve been hanging around in the kitchen waiting for you.”
“I’m sorry. I just woke up.”
“No, that’s okay. You must have been wrecked.” The smile lingered in his eyes as he put his arms around her waist, looking down at her. “I was missing you, that’s all.”
He kissed her, and she shut her eyes, aware of the scent of his skin, his lips warm against hers, the heat of the sunlight lingering in his hair when she slid her hands up into it. For a moment, again, there was nothing but warmth and light, and heat building like electricity where his body touched hers. After just a few weeks, the feel of his hands, his mouth, had become familiar—wonderfully familiar, like a safety she hadn’t known she wanted—but, too, every time he touched her it felt new, as if in between times her body didn’t know how to remember something so intense.
After several long, golden minutes he lifted his head, but only so he could pull her closer to him, his face against her hair, her cheek next to the smoothness of skin above his shirt collar. “Yesterday was all kinds of crazy,” he said. “How are you doing now?”
All kinds of crazy. Yeah, she thought that pretty much summed it up. She laughed a little, the sound mostly smothered in his shirt. After wishing desperately, last night, for just a tiny bit of time with him, here she was, and he’d just given her the perfect opening.
All at once, though, she didn’t want to ask. What did it really matter? Nothing had changed between them, nothing. Cadan had been out from under his parents’ roof for years—he di
dn’t need them to like everything he did. Elissa was way younger, and it wasn’t like she cared about getting approval of their relationship from her parents.
Yeah, like that’s the same.
Oh, whatever. She didn’t want to ask. Didn’t want to spoil this moment with being insecure and demanding—the needy schoolgirl he would have looked down on.
She might have left it, might have shrugged, said I’m okay, and reached up to kiss him again, if she hadn’t suddenly been struck by last night’s memory: the memory, not of the expression on the faces of Cadan’s parents, but of the expression on Cadan’s own.
She pulled back a little so she could see his face. The smile was still in his eyes, a smile that he gave only her, a smile that, like his touch, seemed new every time.
“Cadan?”
He ran a hand up her back, fingers spreading between her shoulder blades. “Yes?”
And now she didn’t even know how to say it. “Um, your parents . . .”
His face changed. The smile froze and disappeared. “What about them?”
Elissa pushed loose hair behind her ear. “They . . . Last night, I . . .”
“Look, Lis, like I said, last night was crazy. Give them a bit of time, okay?”
Frustration—and an edge of resentment, that he had known there was something wrong and that he’d made her ask—stiffened her spine, pulled her out of his arms. “Give them time for what? What is it?”
His eyes moved just a little so they no longer met hers. “They . . . Look, they weren’t expecting us—you and me—to be together, that’s all.”
She’d known it, but all the same she went cold. “They don’t like me.”
“No. No, Lissa. It’s not that. Not at all.”
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