Your One & Only

by Adrianne Finlay

  No, his mother wouldn’t want that. She’d fought the Council, fought the clones. She wanted him to be human, not another one of them.

  Whatever the Council may once have planned, Jack found he was glad he’d failed their audition. There was something wrong with the clones. Maybe they didn’t have things like bad eyesight, or deformities and diseases, things like his asthma, but three centuries ago they had murdered 120 humans they’d promised to keep safe.

  They’d killed his mother for no reason he would ever understand.

  Jack drew himself upright on the wall, listening harder for the night’s music. The clones would say the night was silent, and perhaps it really was. Perhaps he was still dreaming, and it was only a human dream.

  Jack’s leg brushed something at his side. The parcel, the one Carson threw into the cage; it was next to him now, several feet closer than where it had landed. Beside that was the water bottle, full and glistening, cool condensation dripping down its side. Jack lifted it, held it in his trembling hands as he pulled the top. He drank until the liquid dripped down his chin, his neck, his chest. He tore his mouth away from the opening, knowing he shouldn’t drink it all at once, but relishing the cold sweetness. He put it down, breathing deeply, then searched through the parcel. In it he found a pair of drawstring pants like the scrubs the Samuels wore in the clinic, some bandages, an inhaler, and a long iron key. The key opened the cuffs around his wrists. His numb fingers fumbled with it until it turned and the manacles released. He clenched his teeth to stifle a sob as they dropped, the pain and stiffness stabbing into his joints.

  After searching the bag, Jack listened intently to the noises from outside. Someone had been here. They’d filled the water bottle and reached from outside the bars while he slept and pushed the parcel to where he could reach it. Maybe Sam, though surely Sam would have woken him, talked to him. Was it Althea? She would try to help him, he knew, even if it got her in trouble. The thought of her being close gave him the first sense of warmth he’d felt in days.

  There was a rustle, and a hint of movement outside. Jack narrowed his eyes into the night, staring at the moonlit shadows through the thin crack between the wooden boards of the barn.

  Hidden in the fields of corn, on the edge of the wavering stalks, he saw motion, then stillness. The crack darkened, and his view of the field was blocked by something—​a body, and then a face.

  And then, mere inches away on the other side of the wall, Jack saw his own pale eyes, glimmering and laughing in the darkness.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Althea

  There’d been no Council meetings since the disaster of the last one, and Althea hadn’t once been able to corner Samuel-299. She’d resorted to planting herself outside the clinic for the past three days, watching the Samuels come and go, the Gen-300s, Gen-290s, 280s, 270s, all of them, including those from Gen-310, but Samuel-299 never appeared. He was avoiding her. Though she knew, when he saw her, he wouldn’t be able to hide his reaction. He would know what she wanted. They’d taken Jack away, and she had no idea where he was or what was happening to him. The only other person who would care was Samuel-299. She’d seen his face when the Council had used the word elimination. So she waited.

  The nights had been cold, but the day was warm, and the space outside the clinic wasn’t shaded. In the weed-filled ditch near the path, flowering amaranth drooped low in bright bursts of rosy color, drying in the heat. The red dirt in the clearing seemed to have absorbed the air, and it crunched hot under her feet. She would rather be with her sisters in the cool shade of the wide-leafed trees, chasing the tetras that flickered in Blue River, but she felt helpless. She had to do something.

  Nyla-313 came up the path. The hem of her blue dress floated in the hot breeze, brushing the tops of her sandals.

  “I thought you might be here again,” Nyla said. “You’re still trying to find Samuel-299?”

  “He knows where they took Jack,” Althea said, squinting up at Nyla, a dark silhouette against the sun.

  “Why do you care so much?” Nyla said, sitting down.

  “The Carsons were lying. It’s not right.”

  “Do you think I’m lying?”

  Althea took Nyla’s hand, and in touching her for the first time since everything had happened, she felt a stir of doubt in Nyla.

  “No, not lying,” Althea said. “But I don’t think you know what happened, not really.”

  “He did lock me in the lab that night,” Nyla said.

  “I know. He shouldn’t have done that.”

  They both fell silent for a moment, sitting in the remorseless sun. Then Nyla grinned and dug into the bag on her shoulder. “I have something for you.” She pulled out a pear, and when she turned it to Althea, Althea saw her own face looking back, molded into the round base of the fruit.

  Althea laughed, as much at the pear as the pleased look on Nyla’s face.

  “The Kates are hosting the next Pairing, and they’re making these for each model. What do you think?”

  The pear cupped in her palm felt cool, the skin coarse and freckled. The Kates had captured the Altheas’ features. The wide eyes, straight mouth, and arched brows. It looks just like us, Althea thought, her smile fading.

  Still studying the pear, Althea said, “Nyla?”

  “Hmm?”

  Althea considered what she wanted to ask about the night of the fire, the same night she had been with Jack in the cottage while he slept. Images had nagged her, muddling her thoughts. She kept thinking about how the air between them that night had seemed alive, like it had weight and shape. It had compelled her to want to touch him. Nyla already had touched him, and if Althea knew more, perhaps the images of him, and of him and Nyla together, would stop keeping her up at night.

  “What was it like?” she finally said.

  Nyla laughed. “Being stuck in the lab while it burned to the ground? Not great.”

  “No, not that. What was it like Pairing with him?”

  Nyla bit her lip. Part of Althea didn’t want to hear what she would say, but another part of her needed to know.

  “You know what it’s like with the others,” Nyla said. “It’s fun, and nice. They know what they’re doing, right? They follow the rituals, and you can predict how they’ll touch you, where and when, all that. But sometimes, well . . . you know how sometimes it feels like the Hassans are distracted during the Pairing, like by their new red bean hybrid or something?”

  Althea smiled. “Maybe we should let the boys choose us sometimes.”

  “Right.” Nyla laughed. “Why do we have to choose a boy at all?”

  It had always been the girls choosing the boys, and the Pairings were always one female and one male. The traditions never changed. Just like the rituals of the actual Pairing itself, it was always the same. The customs went all the way back to the Original Nine, or at least that’s what they learned in their history lessons. The first Gens had designed all the males to be sterile, so Pairing was more civilized than what had come before, but it still connected them all to their human ancestry, and reminded them where they’d come from. Also, as Nyla said, it was fun.

  “So it was different with Jack?” Althea said, trying to steer the conversation back.

  Nyla considered. “It was different. Samuel-299 gave us a pill, like a little candy, beforehand. Isn’t that strange?” Watching Althea’s reaction, Nyla’s eyes widened as if something had just occurred to her. “Do you suppose, because he’s human, he can . . .” She shook her head. “Ugh, never mind.”

  “He can what?”

  Nyla leaned close and whispered, “Reproduce.”

  “Oh,” Althea said. “You mean like the humans did?”

  “I can’t think about that.” Nyla shuddered dramatically. “Anyway, he really had no idea what he was doing. Nyla-314 was the first one with him, and she said it was like he didn’t even think about the protocols of the Ceremonies. She said he just kind of . . . took over. By the time I was with hi
m, he knew the routines, but . . .” Nyla made a frustrated noise in her throat.

  “But what?” Althea asked, wondering if she thought it had been horrible.

  “I don’t know. It was . . . surprising, I guess.” Nyla giggled, covering her mouth.

  “Was it nice?” Althea asked.

  “Yes,” Nyla said. “And now, ever since, being with the others . . . it’s not the same. I don’t know. I keep thinking about Jack and how . . . unexpected it was.”

  Althea propped her chin in her hands and stared into the yellow grass.

  “I’m sorry, is that what you wanted to hear?” Nyla asked.

  “It’s okay,” Althea said. “I just need to talk to Samuel-299.”

  Nyla stood, taking Althea’s hand again and squeezing it. She grinned. “Only six of us Paired with him, you know. The others are pretty mad about it.”

  “Really?” Althea said.

  “Really. You should Pair with him, if you want to. You and your sisters. It’s just too bad there’s only one of him.”

  Althea nodded without looking up. Was that what she wanted? The idea of him with one of her sisters made her stomach twist in knots, though it shouldn’t. She was her sisters, and they were her. She felt more confused than ever.

  “By the way,” Nyla said, “Samuel-299 isn’t in the clinic. He’s sick.”

  “What do you mean?” He’d been fine the other day at the Council Meeting. And anyway, no one ever got sick.

  “I heard he was sent to work in the nursery.”

  Althea glanced in the direction of the building where the youngest Gen would be.

  “They won’t like it if you go there,” Nyla said, following Althea’s gaze.

  “They don’t have to know.”

  Samuel-299 sat on a bench on the nursery playground with little Gen-320s running around him. His feet were planted flat, and his eyes were far away despite the bedlam of the bright outdoors, alive with the chatter of rambunctious seven-year-olds.

  Samuel was a doctor, not one of the caretakers. Usually the nursery was staffed with the Gens who had retired from their jobs in the community. It was unusual to see a Gen-290 Samuel there. He looked ill at ease and out of place.

  The nursery sat alongside the school in the south part of town. Inside, it had nine different stations. Every child could play in any station they chose, as they often did, but they’d been designed specifically to hone the inborn skills of the individual models. In one corner, paints and easels had been set up, and the Ingas liked to play there. Samuels chose the dolls and toy doctors’ kits. Althea remembered the nursery as a child, and she could still clearly recall the smell of old books and records, and the brittle paper of faded maps.

  She briefly considered turning around, walking away from the playground, and leaving Samuel-299 be. But she needed to see Jack. She needed to know he was still alive.

  She sat on the bench next to Samuel and touched his hand. It was cold, even in the bright sun. His skin had a grayish pallor.

  “Althea,” he said, unsurprised at seeing her. “You want to know where they took Jack.”

  “You know, don’t you?”

  He nodded, but didn’t tell her. “I’m off the Council.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  His hand clutched hers, pressing her fingers together. His eyes sharpened. “Go to him! He needs help.”

  When she’d first touched Samuel, she’d felt only a dim sense of anxiety, something faded and weak. When he mentioned Jack, however, the feeling that had been no more troubling to her than a slight headache burst forward, a sharp, stabbing pain directly between her eyes.

  He’s fracturing, she thought. He was losing control of his emotions, and his ability to commune with others had become erratic, weak at times but then sudden and strong. This was why the other Samuels in his Gen had sent him off to the nursery. They either felt nothing from him or they felt too much. Althea pulled her hand free of his, not wanting to feel his pain again.

  The children played in the yard. It was some game where they raced after each other, one group of siblings chasing another. One of the little Ingas tripped and fell, scraping her knees on the gravel. She cried as blood oozed from the broken skin. Samuel’s gaze flickered toward the commotion, but he didn’t react. The Inga’s sisters had already converged around her, their red-ribboned braids hanging in their faces as they comforted the girl on the ground.

  “Samuel, where’s Jack?” Althea asked.

  His eyes drifted away from her. She saw the struggle in them, and then watched a light die inside him as all his calculations failed him. Pain was etched clearly on his face.

  “He’s locked up, in the yellow barn by the east field,” he said. “But, Althea, you should leave it, let the Council do what’s best.” He seemed at war with himself, and she’d disrupted whatever intense concentration it was taking him to forget. “He’ll only bring you heartbreak. And then you’ll fracture, too.”

  It had occurred to Althea that she was courting trouble. By helping Jack, what if she ended up fracturing, like Samuel-299? She would have to be careful.

  Samuel’s gaze bore into her. “I’m weak,” he said. “I’ve been so weak. He needed me, and what have I done? Let the others be cruel to him. That’s what Inga-296 said would happen, and I didn’t listen. After Copan, I thought I could protect him. But he needed protection from us. What’s wrong with us?”

  “Copan?” Althea asked. But he wasn’t looking at her anymore.

  His words, gravelly and low, rumbled in his chest. “There’s something wrong with us, Althea.”

  Althea leaned toward him. “What do you mean?”

  “We’re clones, Althea. I know we don’t like the word, but that’s what we are. We’re copies of copies of copies of manipulated genes. And those genes are degrading, eroding those parts of us we think we don’t need. The human parts. The Council thinks I’m exaggerating the problem. But we’re broken.”

  “I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

  He pointed to the children. “Look,” he said.

  Althea followed where his finger pointed to the little Ingas. They weren’t crying anymore. They were communing, their hands held in a circle, placid smiles on their faces as they waited for the last Inga sitting on the ground to join them. Althea stood to leave. The Samuel had become too confused to make sense, and she didn’t know anymore how to talk to him.

  Then she saw the blood.

  The girl on the ground had stood to join her sisters. Dropping a rock, she took hold of their hands. The rock fell to the ground, smeared in red from where she’d rubbed the skin of her knees raw until it matched the cuts of the first Ingas. It was impossible to tell which Inga was the one who fell, as now every one of their knees was scraped and bleeding. Red lines dripped down their shins in a garish reflection of the red ribbons in their hair.

  “You didn’t even notice, did you?” Samuel said. “Those girls passed that rock around, one by one, and you didn’t even notice.”

  “What are they doing?” Althea asked. She couldn’t comprehend what would make the Ingas act like that. They looked happy now, despite the blood seeping into their lace-trimmed socks.

  “Your generation is bad, but the 320s are worse.” The Samuel spoke in a detached monotone, like he’d been thinking about how to explain it for a long time. “We don’t feel things like sympathy. Not the way humans did. We feel what our brothers and sisters feel. It should be better, really, than relying on a flawed thing like imagination.” A bleak laugh hitched in his chest. “I tried to imagine being a father, and look what’s happened to me. But you see,” he said, nodding toward the Ingas, still holding hands. “Communing’s not enough anymore.”

  Samuel-299’s emotions shimmered in Althea as his eyes met hers. She winced with that sharp stab in her head again, and then she felt nothing at all. The Samuel was blank, and communing with him was suddenly like staring into a deep black chasm.

  “They need the b
lood,” he said.

  A chill went down Althea’s back, contrasting starkly with the heated air.

  “It will only get worse with each copy we make,” Samuel continued. “And what will happen? What does it mean if we can understand pain only by feeling it ourselves? Not all pain is as simple as a scraped knee. What does it mean for someone like Jack, whose pain we’ll never understand?”

  Althea had so many questions. She wanted to stop Samuel, to shake him until that glazed look left his eyes, and make him tell her what to do, but he turned away, retreating inside himself, empty and distant. When she realized she’d lost him, she wanted to get as far from the nursery as possible, from the Ingas bleeding serenely into their shoes, and from Samuel, who was beyond help. She reached out to stroke his arm, but then thought better of it. He was no longer aware of her. She backed slowly away.

  Althea was supposed to head back to the dorms and meet with her sisters. They were expecting her, and if she didn’t show up, they’d be angry, and also concerned. But she didn’t want to go back to her dorm right then. The things Samuel had said had scared her, but what she’d seen had scared her more. What other strange behaviors had she missed in her own people, things her eyes had passed over without even seeing? Her brothers and sisters were her entire world, and she was beginning to think she no longer understood them.

  The way to the dorms and her sisters lay to the left. Althea went right, down the path that led through the grove of banana trees, to where she could be alone and think.

  Bananas hung by the thousands above her. They’d been modified to be sweeter, to drip clear juice with flavors of oranges and strawberries, and to grow in bunches three times the size of early banana trees. The trunks were two feet thick to accommodate the extra weight. Shaggy bark peeled from them and fell, carpeting the ground in papery ribbons.

  The ranks of treetops created a cover from the dazzling sunlight, and the air quieted in the dense canopy. After several moments, however, the silence was broken by footsteps behind her. She turned to find Carson-312. He leaned against the trunk of a tree. He must have followed her from the nursery. The shadow of a bruise lingered on his jaw from where Jack had hit him, and his cut lip had scabbed over.