by Rachel Cohn
“I was the fastest female swimmer back at the Aquatics Club,” I say defensively.
“I know,” says Elysia. “Alex told me that when you were a child, you were the fastest girl in your district. But then your mother left, and your father said you lost focus, and he redirected your training exclusively to diving instead of swimming.”
I’m here to learn more about her, not hear regurgitated facts about me. “Where did you dive on Demesne?” I ask her.
“On Demesne there were only cliffs for practicing high dives. I was never invited to practice in the FantaSpheres, where I could have tried diving with proper equipment.”
True, Elysia’s very existence grates deep on my nerves; what grates even more is how she was treated like dirt by the humans on Demesne. This Me is enraged, imagining Other Me as their toy.
“What was Demesne like?” I ask her. “I was only awake there for a few minutes before Aidan took me away from it. Was it total paradise?” My ambitions are always Olympic-size, even if my ability to execute isn’t quite on par, and I do aspire to one day be Queen of Demesne if and when Insurrection occurs. I’d like to know more about it from someone who has, basically, seen it with my own eyes, fuchsia version.
“It’s tranquil and luxurious, as it’s supposed to be. The few teens that lived there were bored all the time. I don’t think they considered it paradise, even with the beautiful scenery, relaxing oxygenation, and FantaSpheres in their houses.”
“They have FantaSpheres in their houses?”
“Of course. Didn’t you have one?”
“We had one at the Aquatics Club, but that’s only because the Uni-Mil donated it. Most normal people can’t afford one of those things for their personal use. They can buy time in one at, like, the mall. That’s about it.”
“Do Aquines have FantaSpheres in their homes?” Elysia asks.
“Hardly! Aquines are technologically advanced but refrain from using technology except as necessary. That’s part of their belief system. Simplicity.”
“Perhaps you could tell me more about the background of the Aquines. I have limited information, besides what’s programmed on my chip.”
“Why don’t you just ask Xander?”
“Alex doesn’t like to talk about his background.”
He does to me, I think.
“Do you have ‘Amish’ on your chip?” I ask her. “The sect from pre–Water Wars times when religion was, like, really important, I guess?”
Her eyes blink as her chip accesses the data. “Yes,” she says. “Ancient Christian group of Swiss extraction, who settled in Old America, wore plain dress, and utilized their land in Old Country ways rather than adopt modern technology. What do they have to do with the Aquines?”
My explanation will be easier because she already has this background information, yet I’m agitated. Her chip is filled with so much useless clutter and nothing that could actually help her! Her engineering isn’t flawed. It’s mean. “The Aquines are like superhuman versions of what Amish people used to be. They are peaceful people who live in cloistered communities and cut themselves off from the rest of the world as much as possible.”
“Because of a religion?”
“No, more like an ethic.”
“Alex says the humans on Demesne have no ethics.”
“Ethics are a matter of opinion, not fact.”
“I’m going to become an Aquine,” Elysia pronounces.
Does her chip also have a special setting for profoundly ignorant? “You can’t become Aquine. You’re born as one.”
“I can mimic,” she says. “I like their value system. I would like the baby to have it. I’ve been meditating at sunset with Alex, reflecting on gratitude and humility.”
She meditates like an Aquine now? My blood boils.
Every time I try to like or help her, she fails me.
“Maybe you should consider who you should be most loyal to: him, or your First, who made you?”
“Maybe you should consider that your loyalty should be to me, and not to him,” she retorts. Something else she got from me. Sass.
Elysia stands up and runs back into the water to resume her swim.
I remain on shore. Sassed.
Elysia swims beneath the water for a long time, zigzagging across the lagoon as schools of colorful reef fish follow her as if they know she’s the power source on this island now. She’s a regular swordfish down there. After a few minutes, she swims to shore and rejoins me on the sand.
Elysia squeezes the water from the ends of her hair just as I am about to do the same. She says, “I heard music beneath the water! I’m sure of it! How is that possible?”
“Your precious chip doesn’t tell you why?”
“No. Please, won’t you tell me? It was the most beautiful thing I ever heard!”
Immune to her deep wonder, I inform her, “It’s whale music. Whales make sounds to communicate with each other. The sounds can travel across thousands of miles. The music reaches this spot from the ocean through the tidal streams that feed into this lagoon.”
No. NO! A tear drops from her fuchsia eye and down her pink cheek. “Don’t cry!” I scoff. “It’s just whale music.”
“Just whale music? How can you not care about something so incredible? I never imagined I could experience such magic.”
“So go back in and listen more.”
“No. I hope I don’t hear it again. I don’t want a reminder of how beautiful life can be.”
“That makes no sense. Why?”
“When I experience moments the humans label as wondrous, then I understand the humans’ greed for it. The life I have known so far has been defined by servitude. Then, rape. Then, murder. I don’t appreciate being teased with beauty when my own dark life will end soon.”
“Why so morose? You’re the youngest Demesne clone alive. You have years before you expire.”
“That’s not true. Soon, I will go Awful, and die.”
Backflip. Say what?
“What do you mean? What’s Awful?” I ask.
“Dr. Lusardi’s intent was to make her Betas so Awful that they’d alienate their humans to the point that they couldn’t wait to get rid of us.”
“I don’t understand.” Only I do. My own dad couldn’t wait to send me off to juvenile delinquent camp rather than deal with all the messiness that I and my moods and my little drug problem caused in his house.
Elysia says, “Dr. Lusardi wanted to mimic ‘empty nest’ effect for human parents letting go of about-to-be-adult-age children. So she programmed her Betas to die off rather than just move out of their parents’ basements. She didn’t know how to make teen clones that could become adults. The Awfuls programming was built-in protection for her, not any potential human Beta buyers.”
“That’s crazy. It can’t be true. Who told you that?” Elysia’s going to die, so soon? This revelation should feel like good news—but instead it feels like another chance for me to die. My clone’s barely been alive. There’s still so much she could do or see. She’s carrying a child. And she’s marked for death not just by the humans on Demesne who will seek revenge on her, but by her own biology? That’s cruelty to an infinite degree.
“The other teen Beta on Demesne. Tahir. He was another Beta clone, created from the dead First of Tahir Fortesquieu.”
Excuse me? Prince Tahir was a clone? This information is scandalous, but not so depressing as her last revelation. I’d rather move the conversation in this direction—the one I intended it to go in all along. Innocently, I ask, “No way. Is he related to Tariq Fortesquieu?”
“Yes. Tariq’s son Tahir died in a surfing accident in the gigantes. They secretly had him cloned. Dr. Lusardi didn’t want the job, but she couldn’t refuse them. She never fully developed her teen cloning technique, which is why we are called Betas. She created the Awfuls so the teens would die off.”
Why was this Dr. Larissa Lusardi so revered? She was a monster, as far as I can tell. She created her B
etas so they’d be forever teens, exactly as she predicted for science’s reach: that clones could not transition from teens to adults. But what Dr. Lusardi meant was she didn’t have the capability to give her clones that ability. So she made it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“This Beta Tahir who told you this information…was he your friend?”
“Yes. He was the only being on the entire island who understood what it felt like to be a Beta. Supposedly empty, but not. Treated like a child, but not.”
“Sounds like you cared for him a lot.”
“He was the most beautiful creature I ever saw. Quiet, but charismatic, when he chose to be. He could be insolent, and then amazingly sweet and kind. He was endlessly fascinating to me. Tahir is the reason I cry at things like whale music; I want so much to share any rare, beautiful moment with him.”
“So where is he?”
“His parents took him away, back to Biome City, to retrain him to become more like his First. Just when Tahir was starting to realize who he was on his own. Just when we had vowed to try to escape Demesne, together.” She pauses, and then softly adds, “I loved him.”
So why did she have to steal Xander, then? Why did she have to be so greedy?
But I already know the answer. She hooked up with Xander to mend her broken heart—and because he was her best chance at survival.
I know, because I would have done the same.
“Is Tahir still in Biome City?” I ask her.
Elysia shakes her head. “For all I know, he’s gone Awful by now, and died. Like I will, soon enough.” She sighs. “I would have liked to see the real world first.”
It’s hardly comforting news, but I feel compelled to tell her, “If it means anything to you, you should know that what you think you’re missing isn’t a party. The real world out there’s not that great. It’s desolate. Tarnished. Full of suffering.”
“Just like here,” Elysia pronounces. She takes a deep breath, then pats her stomach, just as I feel my own hunger gnawing at my stomach. “I have a more urgent concern. All this swimming and talking, and now I’m starving.” Lunchtime. Of course. Our identical hunger clocks.
We both swim toward the rope. Elysia is about to make the climb up when I tell her, “If you’re going to die, you should at least have some fun first.” I realize that I’m not totally faking the sincerity in my voice. My heart feels it a little bit while my mind feels betrayed, as though it’s saying, Don’t go weak on me now, heart. We’ve been through too much.
“There is fun here?” Elysia asks, her tone set to surprised.
“Meet me in the Mosh Cave tonight. You’ll see.”
I HAVE TO GIVE IT to the emergents. They know how to party.
Sweaty, fired-up clones, exhausted from toiling long days working and training, wreak havoc on designated play nights once, sometimes twice, a week. They call the venue for their havoc the Mosh Cave. It’s a limestone cavern at the far end of the Rave Caves. The underground hangout comes to life usually around midnight. Funnels of tornado lights sweep up the cave’s walls in flashes of yellows and reds. The music is loud. It throbs and burns, while the moshers do the same. The Mosh Cave is Heathen’s best antidote to island fever.
I climb down toward the cave entrance and hear the loud music thumping from behind the granite wall. Standing in the darkness at the precipice of the cave entrance, I see Xander and Elysia just outside the Mosh door, arguing.
She says, “My life on Demesne was so sheltered. I want new experiences. I want to learn this thing called ‘mosh.’”
Xander stifles a laugh and places a protective arm on her shoulder. “This isn’t the place for new experiences. A mosh is meant for going wild, for losing inhibitions. Not advisable in your condition.”
She brushes his arm aside. “I don’t care. And don’t tell me what to do.” She steps past Xander into the Mosh Cave, leaving him outside.
I’m trying so hard not to like my clone, but she’s making it difficult.
I emerge from the shadows. “Your girlfriend’s got spunk,” I say to Xander.
“Wonder where she got that from.” He gestures to the wall, which is reverberating the loud music. “Thanks for giving her this horrendously bad idea. Are you going in there?”
“I was planning to.” I step closer to him, almost bumping directly into him. “If you’ll get out of my way. Unless you want to come in?”
“Not my scene,” says Xander. “You invited her here, so you should keep watch on her. Make sure she isn’t harmed.”
“If you’re so worried, go in yourself. What’s the problem? Aquines don’t mosh?”
“I don’t mosh.”
“You should.”
“What’s the appeal? Loud music, hedonistic behavior.”
“Exactly! Plus, Defect Destruction is playing tonight.”
“Who?”
“Heathen’s biggest pop-punk stars. The only ones, in fact! Made up of Emergents who spend their days training for Insurrection and their nights practicing or performing. They used to be members of the Replicant Symphony Orchestra on Demesne.”
Xander says, “I heard that orchestra play when I was on Demesne! They were actually pretty good.”
“So go on in. I guarantee you they’re better here. They traded in their tuxes and violins for feral wear and amplified guitars.”
“No Mozart?” There’s a tiny little smile that wants to grow bigger on his face. I can tell that Xander wants to have fun. Why can’t he just let it happen?
“Not unless Mozart composed two-minute punk songs that are amplified and nutso.”
We can feel the music’s bass line thump through the wall. It’s probably not just the beat of my heart from Xander’s proximity.
“Sounds terrible,” says Xander. “That kind of pointless behavior is exactly one of the reasons the Aquines cloistered themselves from the rest of humanity.” I know he doesn’t mean it. But this is his quandary to figure out, not mine. To have fun, or not to have fun. The eternal Aquine question. Be a genetically engineered, perfect bore, or not be a genetically engineered, perfect bore. Sometimes I wonder what his holy appeal to me ever was. Then I look at his obscenely perfect body and face, and remember. Yes, I am that shallow. Want.
“Whatever, old man,” I say.
My chest bumps directly into his muscle-pecs, as I try to force him to step aside so I can go through the entranceway. For a moment, our hips touch, and his hands instinctively reach around my waist, sizzling the skin beneath my shirt. I look up to his face, and turn my mouth just so. Xander could kiss me if he wants. I know he wants. I can feel his heat pressing into me. I’m sending it back.
I shouldn’t want to kiss someone who has treated me so callously. Maybe I just want him to want me, so I can have a turn rejecting him. Or maybe I want him so she can’t have him.
“Z-Dev,” Xander murmurs, and my heart sings. His eyes close, his lips part. Can he, too, not resist the pull? But a push comes from the other side, and two Emergents burst through from the Mosh Cave, separating us. It’s Aidan, leading a drunken Emergent outside and away from the mosh, separating me from Xander. The Emergent punches his fist into the open air, and proclaims, “Defect Destruction!” He then pukes at Xander’s feet.
I ignore the barfer and walk past the men and into the Mosh Cave.
Xander can handle the situation himself. He made this mess. He can clean it up.
Alive within the mosh, there is loud, angry, pulsing music, along with a sea of bodies jumping together, exhilarated, free.
And there is a pregnant teen clone being crowd-surfed across a wave of thrashing Emergents while the punk-slam clone band Defect Destruction rages onstage. Their song of the moment is “Lusardi Must Die.” It’s a big hit here on Heathen.
“She’s amazing,” I hear a body-bearer call up to Elysia.
“Our miracle,” says another.
Elysia is one helluva trusting Emergent to let her fellow moshers pass her around on raised arms across the mos
h pit, but she seems to love it. She tips her head back, looking directly at me, and smiles. Her smile is so bright, so much more charismatic than I could ever achieve on my identical face. She flashes me a thumbs-up sign, and I flash a thumbs-up sign back to her. Party to your heart’s content, girl! Xander hates party girls. You know that, right?
If this is the beginning of Elysia’s Awfuls, I have to admit: I like this incarnation of Elysia. Not like we could be pals or anything, but she looks truly alive rather than resigned. She looks like the version of me I like the most. Open. Dangerous. Exhilarated.
Aidan returns inside the Mosh Cave, looking toward the stage and not like he’s looking for me. Last night, he held me through the night in our tree house. Tonight, will he dance with me in the mosh pit? Ha, doubt it. Like Xander, loud music and moshing is not Aidan’s scene. But I wouldn’t mind thrashing around the pit with him, sweaty and angsty and gross and full of energy and rage and heat. Wow. I don’t think I’d mind that at all. I start to approach Aidan, resolved: I am going to get Aidan to have some fun tonight! And then Aidan is going to do more than just hold me later tonight!
But I can only hope for such a time with Aidan. He doesn’t see my approach, and instead, he urgently walks to the stage, like he’s trying to stop the music. He stands before Defect Destruction’s drummer, gesturing the drummer to stop. The drummer ignores Aidan, who then grabs the drumsticks from the drummer’s hand. The drummer stands up and responds with a punch to Aidan’s jaw while the rest of Defect Destruction continue playing, and Elysia continues dancing, and I watch the scene in bewilderment and a bit of concern. Aidan recoils slightly from the punch, then returns a much harder jab to the drummer’s vined temple. The drummer falls to the ground. The bass player plays on, even as Aidan snatches the lead singer’s guitar from the singer’s hands. The skinny singer slams his body against Aidan’s in protest, but he is no match for Aidan’s brute abs of steel. Aidan takes the hit as if no hit came his way, then turns to the bassist, who gets the message and finally stops playing, drops his bass to the ground, and runs off the stage. Aidan takes center stage and addresses the moshers.
