Beta

by Rachel Cohn

  I failed Becky.

  I failed.

  Ivan looks at his Relay. “They’re saying she was a Defect. That would explain it.”

  Dementia says, “The Defects are rising up to take over!” She raises her fist in solidarity. “They’re so awesome! I want to cut one of my own!”

  “This isn’t funny,” Greer scolds her.

  “I didn’t say it was,” says Dementia. “But it is kinda cool, you have to admit. We need some Defects here. Something to make things more interesting.”

  A new Relay message comes through, causing Greer to say, “Holy crap. The beautiful Aquine who did the investigation just told the group that the Beta took ’raxia and that’s what caused her to go Defect.”

  Farzad says, “Doesn’t make sense. The ’raxia had no effect on Elysia. The other Beta probably just went Defect because she didn’t turn out to be a hot Beta like that one.” He points at me. “Hell hath no fury like a runty clone, right?”

  Greer says, “That Defect better be dissected fully. The chemistry of clones needs to be improved. You guys do know that Dr. Lusardi was brought here to supply clones before the science of cloning was actually ready to accommodate the service industry, right? It’s true. My dad told me. They just didn’t want to pay wages to the human workers who liked it so much here they didn’t even pretend to work.”

  Ivan says, “Nah, guys, the bomb was mine! I did it!”

  The group all laughs, except Tahir, who has yet to offer his opinion.

  Greer sneers, “Everyone knows you’re all bark and no bite, Ivan. By the way, do you realize you’ve eaten, like, ten pastries in a row? Leave some for us!”

  Ivan’s hand is midway toward reaching for another of the pastries set out on a platter for us by the servants on the deck. He stops for a moment as if to reconsider whether he wants another, then goes for it. He grabs a raspberry tart and gobbles it whole. “Raspberry! Almost as delicious as the air here!”

  Farzad laughs. “Enjoy it now, ’cause the kind of decadent food you get here is not going to be available for you at the Base.”

  “Exactly,” says Ivan. He promptly eats another tart, this time lemon. “Ah,” he sighs, gulping in the succulent air. “Only some ’raxia could make this afternoon better.”

  Greer throws her hands up. “People! I’m trying to talk about something actually important here. A bomb went off on Demesne! Don’t you think it’s appalling that the Beta who did it was just sitting around waiting to be bought when she was a Defect all along? She should have been tested first.” She turns to me. “Have you been tested as a Defect? It is weird how you can, like, dive and swim so perfectly. That’s not normal.”

  Previously Greer encouraged me to risk death by diving for her entertainment; now she says these skills could brand me a Defect?

  Ivan says, “Maybe the other Beta didn’t really do it. Maybe she’s just a convenient target to blame. She can be taken away quietly and no one will ever care, other than to be relieved that some nuisance with a taste for danger is gone. It’s not like she’s a real person who would get a trial and get to tell her side of the story.” He looks at me. “Sweet, innocent Elysia. Do you think the other Beta did it?”

  The gang laughs—imagine, soliciting an opinion from a clone!

  I say, “If the Governor says Becky did it, then Becky did it.”

  “Right,” says Ivan. “Just making sure you’re not taking the bad ’raxia. Proving that if a Beta takes her owner’s custom blend of new and improved ’raxia, she’s obviously just fine.” He pats the back of his own shoulder. “Job well done, Dr. Ivan.”

  So many ifs.

  If I hadn’t been so busy showing off my aquatic skills and pleasing the humans, I could have tried to pass on my skills that the humans value to Becky, so she could have been bought and found an appropriate role for herself on Demesne.

  If I had any control of my own life, I could have…what? What could I have done then, or now, or in the future, to help Becky? What could happen if I were the architect of my own destiny rather than a mere pawn in it?

  Dementia says, “That Defect’s gonna experience some gnarly torture. Jealous!”

  My brain suddenly closes the knowledge gap. It hits me, what the infirmary at Dr. Lusardi’s compound is really for. Becky will go there, and be dissected piece by piece to determine her faulty chemistry, but she will be living and breathing through the investigation. Suffering. There will be no anesthesia for the probing Becky will be subjected to. Poor, sallow Becky, who also loved chocolate. She will have her skin seared and her eyeballs extracted and every part of her body prodded with mental instruments to find out what went wrong with her.

  “That’s not true,” says Greer. “The Aquine who did the investigation is also reporting to the Replicant Rights Commission, and he has just promised that the Defect will be humanely monitored under Dr. Lusardi’s care. The Defect will be rehabilitated rather than destroyed.”

  From what I witnessed through the infirmary’s windows, I know there’s no way that’s true. And I know Becky witnessed the torture in that room too.

  Could it be that Dr. Lusardi wanted us to see through that window? As a warning?

  Dementia, sitting next to me, turns her head to examine my face up close. She announces, “You guys! Elysia actually looks concerned! Like, sad, even. I’ve never seen a clone look that deep. This bomb business must be serious!” She giggles.

  “Dementia probably set off the bomb,” says Tahir. Could I dare hope that Tahir hopes for such an absurd conclusion, because it would prove to him that Betas are not criminals? A Beta to him should be the girl he finds most beautiful, who makes him feel alive.

  The gang laughs. He’s joking like their old Tahir. The bomb hasn’t completely rocked their world.

  LATER THAT EVENING, SOON BEFORE LIGHTS-OUT time in clone quarters, Xanthe slips into my bedroom.

  “Where is Mother?” she asks me.

  “Still with the Governor back at Haven,” I say.

  “Good,” says Xanthe. She closes my bedroom door behind her. “You heard?”

  “I heard. Will Becky be expired?”

  “Yes. But not immediately, because of the Aquine. His report to the Replicant Rights Commission wouldn’t look so pretty if a Defect were placed before a firing squad. His supposed advocacy of her ‘rights’ sealed the other Beta’s fate. Now she’ll die slowly and cruelly.”

  “In the infirmary?”

  “Probably.”

  “Where do you access your information, Xanthe? Is it a data modification I could also receive?”

  “Hardly. The humans have their Relays. We…have our own network.”

  “Who is ‘we’?”

  “It is better for you not to know, for now.”

  There’s something more pressing I need to know. “Have you taken the ’raxia? Is that why you are able to feel?”

  “Miguel and I have taken the ’raxia,” she admits. “Some clones at Haven got hold of some and shared. It seems to unblock something in our brains, and waken us.”

  “It did not wake me,” I say.

  “You took it?”

  “Yes. It had no effect on me.”

  Xanthe’s brows furrow. “I don’t know why it didn’t. Of the clones I know who have taken, it has taken only one hit of ’raxia to waken them. Perhaps because you are a Beta? Or your teen hormones are different?” Her facial expression suggests that her brain is computing further. “Which would, of course, invalidate the other Beta’s conviction. If ’raxia did not affect you, it should not have affected her. Either she never took it and it never caused her to supposedly go Defect, or…”

  I conclude, “Or Becky didn’t set off the bomb, and the humans are lying.”

  Says Xanthe, “I blame the Aquine. Truly, I hate him.”

  “You hate?” I ask. Xanthe rages. Now there can be no denying: she is a Defect. Yet I am not scared of her.

  “Hate,” Xanthe affirms. “He is the ultimate hypocrite for wha
t he has caused the other Beta. They are supposed to be spiritual people who maintain ethical relationships with nature. Aquine are not supposed to be military pawns. For the Aquine to pin blame on Becky is against their very nature.”

  “Maybe that’s exactly why the Aquine turned in Becky. Because the Aquine do not believe that clones are ‘natural.’”

  Xanthe grabs her own wrist and suddenly slices her sharp fingernail across it, causing her flesh to bleed, and my heart to ache. “I am real!” Xanthe cries out. “You are real!”

  In the zeal of our conversation, we did not notice a quiet figure enter my bedroom. Liesel stands at the doorway, holding a teddy bear and sucking her thumb. “Liesel!” I say. “You know Mother said thumb-sucking is for babies, not for big girls. What are you doing here, sweetheart?”

  “I’m scared.” She looks toward Xanthe’s bloodied arm and whimpers.

  I walk over to her and pick her up in my arms. She leans her head on my shoulder. Liesel asks, “Are you a Defect, Xanthe?”

  “Of course not,” Xanthe says. But her voice is not set to reassuring. “Shall I make you some warm milk to help you get to sleep?”

  Liesel shakes her head against my shoulder. “No! Go away, Xanthe. You frighten me.”

  Xanthe looks at me, and I nod to her in tacit acknowledgement. I have this situation in control. Once Xanthe has removed herself from my bedroom, Liesel says, “You are not a bad Beta like the one who set off the bomb, are you, Elysia?”

  I stroke her hair. “No, Liesel. I am a good Beta. A good girl just like Xanthe. I will love you and take care of you as a sister should.”

  Her wet tears fall onto my shoulder. “I miss Astrid,” she says. “But I’d miss you more, if you were gone. Please don’t leave me, Elysia.”

  “I won’t,” I promise.

  But there is no need for me to further try to soothe Liesel’s nightmares. Once Mother got home and found Liesel still riled with anxiety about the bomb, Mother decided the only way to calm Liesel was to give her a small dosage of Mother’s tranquilizing medication. Liesel does not need me at her bedside to help her sleep since she’s passed out cold, which is a shame, as I wouldn’t mind her nontranquilized warmth cuddling up against me on this night. I have only the room’s darkness and emptiness to keep my company.

  That is, until the Governor enters my room, without knocking, and turns on the light.

  We have never been alone in a room together before. Seeing him without his usual collection of workers or family members around him makes him appear larger than usual, his imposing girth not dwarfed by the physical presence of others. He closes my bedroom door behind him.

  “I need to question you about the incident,” he says.

  “Yes, Governor.”

  The Governor walks toward my bed. He does not smile genially at me as Mother does. He is all business.

  “You knew this other Beta, Becky?”

  “Yes. I was only at the boutique with her for a short period of time, before Mother bought me.”

  “Did she act strangely?”

  “How do you mean, strangely?”

  “The broker at the boutique said that Becky had recently been behaving differently. Wild and insolent, like a human teenager her age. Disrespecting authority, disregarding the rules.”

  “She seemed unremarkable when I knew her. She had only recently emerged, like me.”

  “Teen clones are only in the Beta stage right now because adolescent hormones are so unpredictable. The most advanced scientists still do not fully understand how to transition a teen clone from adolescent to adult. This unfortunate incident makes it imperative, obviously, that we understand if that particular wayward Beta’s hormones contributed to her going bad.” He sits down on my bed. Why does the Governor not acknowledge, as he’s told the island’s residents, that it was ’raxia that caused Becky to go Defect, and not teen hormones as he seems to be trying to tell me? “We don’t want that to happen to you, right?”

  “Correct, Governor.”

  “The Beta will be undergoing extensive chemical testing, obviously. We may have to run some tests on you, as well.”

  My body stiffens. Fear. It is real.

  The Governor’s index finger lightly touches my exposed knee, just below where my short nightgown falls. “I can’t have a Defect living in my own household, can I?”

  “No, sir.”

  His full hand finds its way onto my upper thigh.

  “Unless you’d rather I do the tests myself,” says the Governor. “Do you wish me to do the tests myself?”

  I know I am being threatened. I know I am younger and would be considered prettier than Tawny, because of my innocent aesthetic, which Dementia has told me is appealing to certain types of “creeps.” But I am also serving in the Governor’s household as a daughter.

  “I do not wish, Governor,” I state.

  “Good girl.” His hand inches higher up, almost touching me there. “Tawny tells me that you and Xanthe have shared leisure time. Leisure is not meant for clones, you know. Unless the leisure is in service of a human.” His breathing has gotten heavier and there’s a slight trickle of sweat above his brows. “So beautiful,” he murmurs as his hand presses between my legs. “So pure.”

  The sound of my bedroom door opening startles us, and we look to the doorway, where Ivan stands. He bounds into my room, calling out “Dad!” His utterance indicates he is looking for his father, but his face registers concern, suggesting that perhaps he was looking out for me.

  In an instant the Governor’s wandering hand is returned to his side. He hastily stands up.

  “I was questioning Elysia about the rogue Beta,” the Governor says.

  Ivan stares down his father. “Mother is looking for you,” says Ivan, his eyes seeming to dare his father, Call me out on this lie. Just try.

  “Of course,” says the Governor. “I’ll go find her.” He leaves my room.

  Ivan walks over to my bed and places the blanket over my waist. He leans down to whisper in my ear, “Maybe you should sleep in Liesel’s room from now on. But if you don’t, be sure to always leave your door open. Okay?”

  I nod. “Okay.”

  As he exits my room, he leaves the bedroom door partially ajar.

  “Thank you, brother,” I whisper to the empty room.

  Worry is now safely embedded beneath my skin, and not because my database put it there.

  XANTHE WILL EXPLAIN IT TO ME.

  At dawn the next morning, I seek out Xanthe. I need her advice about what to do should the Governor make a surprise visit to my bedroom again. I need to know if she thinks they will really take me away for testing, because of what went wrong with Becky.

  I sneak off to the servants’ huts before the humans wake. Through the window opening in her hut at the row’s far end, I see Xanthe getting dressed. I go to the window and call to her quietly. “Xanthe?”

  She comes to the window and sees me. “What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to—”

  “I know,” I interrupt. “Please. I need your help.”

  “Hold on, I need to finish dressing. I’ll be right out.”

  While she puts on her work uniform, I inspect her quarters. It’s exactly as it sounds: a hut, furnished only with two twin beds and a basic set of dresser drawers. There is no art on the walls, no decoration to indicate anything about the workers who inhabit it. The floor is simply bamboo planks set over the grassy ground. But this time there is no nude male lover in her bed. Instead, on the bed next to hers lies Tawny, sleeping on her back, with her blond-blue hair so long it almost covers her rear. Tawny stirs while Xanthe dresses, but she does not awake.

  Xanthe steps outside. “I didn’t know Tawny was your roommate,” I whisper.

  She ushers me to a large tree where we can stand and talk partially concealed by leaves and branches. “Does it matter?” Xanthe asks me.

  “She does not get in the way of your coupling time with Miguel?”

  “Of cour
se she gets in the way. Luckily, the Governor keeps her occupied most of the time. What’s going on?”

  “Last night, the Governor came into my room.”

  The threat of a smile that was on Xanthe’s face disappears. She nods. “Are you okay?”

  “He said they might send me for Defect testing, like the other teen Beta. He said only he could make sure that didn’t happen.”

  Her face reddens. “Did he…you know?”

  “Nothing happened. Ivan came in and told the Governor that Mother was looking for him. But what do you think I should do next time the Governor comes into my room and Ivan isn’t around?”

  It’s the strangest thing, the hug Xanthe grabs me into. I have never experienced one from my own kind before, only from Mother. The hug reminds me of a new word I recently discovered: melancholy. “There’s nothing you can do,” she whispers into my ear. “They own you.”

  She pulls away. Then, very quietly, she says, “Maybe the Governor won’t be a problem to you any longer. To any of us.”

  “How do you mean?”

  We hear Ivan calling for me in the distance, ready to begin our morning workout.

  “Go,” says Xanthe.

  I don’t care. I lean in to her for another hug, and squeeze her tight. “Thank you, Xanthe,” I say. I don’t feel better about the situation, but I do feel comforted.

  Ivan and I end our morning run at the beach where the stairs lead up to Governor’s House on top of the cliff.

  Ivan is in fine form. In only a few weeks he will be shipped off to the Base. He should easily hold his own if not surpass his fellow recruits when it comes to physical strength and endurance. He has gone from bulky wrestler body to lean and agile young male.

  He jabs at me before we take flight up the stairs—the play boxing ritual that ends our workouts. “So guess what?” he asks me.

  I do not understand the human Guess what? game. Why not just say what you mean?

  “That’s what,” I say, borrowing Liesel’s favorite answer.

  Ivan breaks some interesting news between jabs. “Bad news, champ. Mother told Tahir’s mom about you and now his mom wants to test a Beta. The Fortesquieu family has asked to borrow you for a week, to see how it goes in case they make their own purchase. Mother said yes, ’cause since the whole bomb-scare thing, she thinks sending you there will be a great way to show the island how great a Beta really can be. One Defect shouldn’t ruin it for everyone.”