She talked about losing names and places, although how could you lose a place? Althea’s irritation almost made her put it down, just as she had with the book about the dog. She didn’t, because Jack was watching her, and perhaps, she thought after a moment, the loss of a place could mean losing a memory, like forgetting. Though it was such a peculiar way to say it, and anyway, Althea had a very good memory and certainly couldn’t relate to the idea. She kept on:
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
She read it all the way through twice, and then turned to Jack. “You called it a poem?”
Jack nodded. “My mother—Inga-296—she loved it. She found it in the Tunnels and wrote it down so she could keep it with her.” He waited patiently for her to say something. This was a gift he was giving her, a sort of thank-you. He wanted her to like it, to understand it, but she didn’t.
“In the words, there’s a pattern,” she said, struggling for something to say.
“It rhymes.”
“I guess so.” She studied it further. Althea saw a mathematical rhythm to the words beyond the rhyming Jack meant. “There’s a pattern, like math.” She wasn’t explaining it well, but it was the best she could do.
Jack seemed to grasp what she was saying, however. “Sam could never see the patterns,” he said. “So you don’t want to throw it across the room?” He was teasing her now, but she didn’t mind because the smile was back again.
“Is it real?” she asked.
“It was real for the woman who wrote it. And real for my mother. It’s more than real. It’s true.”
Althea had no idea what he meant when he talked about something being more than real. If something was real, of course it was true. The idea of what was true seemed important to him, though. Was that why he’d given her this poem? Was it true for him?
Althea’s gaze followed the walls of the room. It was small, made smaller for being cluttered with the remnants of a world that no longer existed. Jack had spent his childhood here, with no brothers, no Gen. For the first time, Althea considered that the Council had made a mistake when they created Jack. A poster on the wall and a stack of books wasn’t enough. In the end, it must be wrong to bring someone into being who had nothing to connect him to the world he was thrust into.
The poem was about loss, and it occurred to her that he had lost so much. The people he came from had lost everything—like the poem said, realms and continents, a whole civilization. And he had lost them, too. Not in the sense that he’d had them to lose, but that he’d never been given the chance to know them, to know others like him and the world they’d built. It must have made him sad. He would always be alone, the only one of his kind. That was why Inga-296 had tried to give him a human existence, so he would have something that was his, something to connect to. Even tonight, a sense of loss lingered over him like the night circling the glow of the candle.
Looking back at the last few words of the poem, she wondered also if something in it had spoken to the Inga because she’d already started to fracture. With fracturing, you would lose everything.
Althea stood and pulled the window curtain aside. Jack didn’t notice her shivering in wet clothes.
Like Sam had said, Jack was here, living with them now. He might not be one of them, but they’d made him, and whether they wanted it or not, he was their responsibility. The Council would have to see that.
“Will you go back down, then?” she asked, watching the rivulets of water run down the hill where they would pour into Blue River. The rain would cause the river to swell, changing the character of the channel like a living thing.
“I don’t know,” he said.
She regretted asking the question when his eyes darkened. He was remembering whatever had made him run up to the cottage to begin with. He leaned back against the wall, staring at the ceiling and closing himself off from her again.
“Neither of us can go anywhere if the rain keeps up,” he said. “Sleep downstairs if you want. I’d rather be alone.”
He lay on the bed, turning away from her with his hands tucked under his arms.
Jack’s face was still strange to her, and his mannerisms unfamiliar, but that night, even if he was trying to hide his feelings from her, he was failing. He said he wanted to be alone, but everything in his eyes, his whole being, made it a painfully obvious lie.
Althea sat next to Jack on the edge of the bed. Without being able to commune with him, she didn’t know what would comfort him, so she touched his hair. It was what her sisters did when one of them was upset. They touched each other, seeking that calm they felt when they were all together, the soothing brush of fingers in their curls.
He didn’t pull away from her this time, but his back stiffened. “I don’t want to do anything,” he said. “I don’t want to Pair.”
“Okay.” She didn’t lift her hand, but her face reddened thinking about how badly she’d wanted to touch him only moments ago. “I wasn’t offering,” she added with a slight scowl.
The room was quiet except for the rain and their breath, and she watched his chest rise and fall as the lines in his forehead faded with sleep. She stayed, brushing the hair from his closed eyes until it had dried, smooth and pale as corn silk, under her hand.
Chapter Ten
Jack
Jack awoke to a low resonant crack followed by what seemed to be a rumble of thunder. He lay quietly for a few moments, remembering he was no longer in his bed in the labs; remembering that he’d planned to leave last night but had fallen asleep instead. The blanket at the foot of the bed was spread over him, and his muddy shoes had been removed. It must have been Althea, though he didn’t remember her doing it. He remembered her weight on the bed next to him and her hand in his hair. Then the memory of what had happened with Nyla flooded over him, and he groaned softly.
Althea, standing by the window, glanced in his direction. He covered his face with his arm.
He wondered if they were all laughing at him. Sam, the Council, the Gen-310s, who’d probably heard all about it by now. Laughing at his ridiculous human response to their everyday rituals. To them it was nothing; it was just what they did. But maybe they weren’t laughing at all, maybe they were disgusted by his behavior the same as they were by his music.
“Jack,” Althea said, staring out the window toward town.
He sat up. The rain had stopped, and it was still dark, but the first light of dawn outlined the window in a gray veil, silhouetting Althea against it. He wondered if she’d slept.
“Jack,” Althea said. “There’s something down there.”
Jack got up and looked out. At first he didn’t see anything, only the light through the trees, and then he saw it. A plume of smoke rising snakelike into the sky, and a thin finger of gold.
“Fire,” Jack said.
“I think . . .” Althea said, trying to figure it out, “I think it’s near the labs.”
Jack’s unease turned to alarm. The noise that woke him hadn’t been thunder. It was an explosion. “Nyla,” he said. He pulled his shoes on, jerking the laces closed.
“What about Nyla?”
“She’s down there. She’s locked in my room.”
Jack raced down the stairs. Althea followed behind, calling his name, trying to figure out what he was talking about, but he couldn’t wait for her.
He barreled down the path, outstripping the branches and vines catching his clothes, misting him with dampness from the rai
n. The sting of a thorn caught his face, and a sharp stick scraped his arm. At the wall, he grasped the top in one jump and hauled himself over, then tossed the ladder to the other side for Althea. He couldn’t stop to help her.
The Commons was empty and still, the town unaware of the raging fire half a mile away, though someone must have heard the explosion. When Jack finally reached North Lab, flames had burst the windows on the far side and black smoke rose from within. The first door he tried was locked. The second was blocked by something. He backed up and smashed it in with a swift kick. Someone had barred the door with a wooden board from the inside, trying to keep people out.
He didn’t know this side of the building well. He tried to avoid the labs unless he was in his own small part of the complex. He ran up a stairwell, down a hallway filled with smoke, and then at last reached the door to his room. He unlocked it, opened it wide, and found it filled with smoke, black and choking. Nyla lay unconscious on the floor at the far end. A chair was tipped over next to her, as if she’d tried to use it to break through the glass in the door.
He rushed to her, swearing and searching frantically for the alarm. It should have gone off, everyone in Vispera should have been there putting out the fire, but there was nothing, only snapping flames punctuating the silence. Then he saw the alarm, wires dangling from the bottom. Someone had disabled it. He cursed again.
He lifted her from the floor. The smoke was thicker now, and the crashing sound of a ceiling caving in reached him from the hallway. His chest constricted. He couldn’t remember if he’d grabbed his inhaler before he left the cottage. It was too late to check his pockets.
Nyla stirred in his arms. At least she was still alive.
“Hang on to me,” he said, his voice choked. “Don’t let go.”
Dodging a row of doorways walled off by crackling flames, he finally reached one that hadn’t been blocked. He shifted Nyla, hauling her over his shoulder. With his free arm, he rammed his other shoulder into the door until it fell open. Outside, Jack laid Nyla on the ground, and Althea cried out the girl’s name, Nyla-313. He’d forgotten which one she was—he knew only that she wasn’t Nyla-314. Jack dropped to his knees, doubled over and coughing, unable to get the smoke out of his lungs. Even racked with coughs, he saw Althea’s hand seek out Nyla’s to hold. It was such a slight touch, both casual and needful, and Jack understood that they were friends.
His coughing grew worse. Althea glanced at him, her worry for Nyla clear on her face, though now it seemed focused on him too. He forced in a lungful of air, but then it felt trapped in his chest until every cough was like a dagger.
Althea bent over him. “Jack?”
He warded her off with his hand, feeling like everything near him was blocking the air, and also wishing she wasn’t seeing him like this. The edge of his vision darkened.
The clones had started to arrive. They ran toward Nyla and Althea, and called to each other for water and buckets. They paid no attention to Jack, who second by second was more sure he’d pass out. The Samuels descended on the two girls, and then a hand appeared in front of Jack’s face holding an inhaler. Jack grabbed at it, fumbled it to his mouth, and pressed, sucking in the acrid, chemical taste. He pressed again, and again, until finally the coughing eased and his lungs cleared. Jack sat back on his heels and looked up to see Sam standing over him.
“What happened?” Sam asked.
The Viktors shouted orders, sending people for hoses and buckets, telling them to go to the river.
“I don’t know.”
Jack watched sheets of flame leap from the building. It was fully engulfed, blazing orange. The North Lab was where the amniotic tanks were, where they grew the clones. It was all destroyed now. There hadn’t been any fetuses in the tanks, not this year, but what would happen if they couldn’t replace those tanks? They’d never be able to grow the next generation.
Jack realized that Sam wasn’t watching the building. He was watching Jack, studying him. His eyes felt like sandpaper, he was scratched up from running in the jungle, and he’d slept all night in wet clothes. His breathing was still ragged, and blood ran down his arm from a gash he didn’t remember getting.
“Are you okay?” Sam asked.
“I’m fine.”
“What was Nyla doing in the labs?”
Jack paused, then said quietly, “You should know. You sent her.”
Sam nodded, confirming what Jack already knew.
Nyla lay on the ground surrounded by Sam’s brothers. They lifted her to a stretcher, and Althea covered her in a blanket. Nyla’s sisters appeared, crowding themselves around the throng of Samuels. Jack thought a few of the Nylas were glaring at him, though some looked with simple curiosity, probably wondering what had happened. He supposed they knew Nyla had been with him last night. It had been only a short time ago, though it felt like longer.
He tried to pick Nyla-314 out of the crowd of Nylas and found he couldn’t. In his mind, she’d looked so different from her sisters, sweeter somehow, more beautiful. Before, he thought they’d been sharing secret looks, but it’d all been in his mind. He shook his head, feeling deceived all over again.
Sam took in the scene. Althea and Nyla, the fire, Jack’s scratched face. Jack watched Sam, calm and deliberate, trying to figure out what had taken place.
“Did you do this?” Sam finally asked.
Jack reeled as if he’d been struck. “How can you ask me that?”
“If you did this, you should run, Jack. Go to the jungle, don’t come back.”
Jack almost laughed. Sam didn’t realize that was exactly what Jack had planned. “You said I’d die in the jungle.”
“If you did this, destroyed the lab, hurt one of our own . . . they’ll kill you, Jack.”
Althea left Nyla and came to Jack.
“How did this happen?” she asked. “Why were you at that house while Nyla was locked in your room?”
Sam’s head tipped toward Jack at this information. Jack swallowed, wishing he didn’t have to explain any of it, and certainly not with Althea listening. No doubt she wouldn’t care what Nyla was doing in his room. She was more familiar with the Pairing Ceremonies than he was, so she would think nothing of it. But he hated her hearing the details. Though perhaps the Nylas hadn’t just talked with each other about him. Maybe Althea had already heard every intimate detail of what he and Nyla had done together. Maybe they’d reported and catalogued to one another all his physical responses, things he’d done on instinct, driven by desire and an imagined sense of closeness. Jack squeezed his eyes shut to block out the feeling of exposure.
The Samuels carried away an unconscious Nyla. He hadn’t started a fire, but he had locked her in his room. He’d left her there. It shouldn’t have mattered. She should have been safe. He spent every night sleeping in that room in the labs. So why did this happen now? It had clearly been done on purpose. Someone had aimed to destroy the labs, or maybe to harm him, and they’d instead hurt the Nyla. Could the Council have done it, trying finally to get rid of him? But they didn’t need to sneak around to terminate their own project, and anyway, there were easier ways to get rid of him than destroying the whole lab. Maybe Carson-312—but then why would Carson start a fire in another part of the building rather than Jack’s own rooms? In any case, Carson could be vicious, but Jack didn’t think Carson would actually try to kill him.
Jack had no idea what it meant, but someone wanted to destroy the labs, and possibly kill him, and they’d very nearly succeeded.
“You should both head to the clinic, get yourselves looked at,” Sam said.
“I told you I’m fine,” Jack said, grateful Sam had distracted Althea from her questions.
Sam gave him a sideways glance, frowning. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s nothing.” He was being stubborn, but it’d been a long night.
The fire still blazed. A hose had been hauled all the way from the river. Shouts came from those fighting the fire, and pocket
s of clones stood in clusters of the nine models. They touched each other’s shoulders and backs in nervous, unconscious movements as they gazed unblinking at the destruction. When they weren’t watching the fire, their eyes veered toward Jack, and they huddled closer to their sisters or brothers.
“You don’t seem to understand, Jack,” Sam said. “You’ll take the blame for this. Go to the clinic. Take Althea-310 and go.”
Chapter Eleven
Althea
The clinic was cold, and Althea pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders and watched as the Samuels adjusted the machines Nyla-313 had been hooked up to. She hadn’t woken yet, but the constant beeps from the monitors told Althea the Samuels had done all they could, and now they simply had to wait.
“Will she be okay?” Althea asked.
One of them nodded. “I think she’ll wake up soon.”
Nyla’s sisters were outside the door, insisting that they had to get into the triage room. They needed to see Nyla, touch her, assure themselves she’d be okay. Althea knew how they must feel. It was like that with her sisters, too. They experienced the anxiety or pain of another sister like something lodged in their bones. But with Nyla still asleep, they wouldn’t be able to comfort her in the way they were used to.
Althea wanted to ask Jack again how the disaster at the labs had happened. He slouched tiredly next to her in one of the clinic’s stiff-backed chairs. He’d refused the blanket Samuel-299 had offered. His clothes, still damp and stained with ash, smelled bitterly of smoke, and a bandage wrapped his arm.
Nyla-313 had been locked in Jack’s room, and it must have been Jack who locked her in. What was she doing there? Growing up, she and Nyla had told each other everything, or at least she thought they had, but something was going on that Althea knew nothing about. She folded her arms in frustration. Jack obviously didn’t want to talk about it. She’d seen him last night. He’d been distraught. She was sure something had happened between him and Nyla.
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