by Melissa Faye
Breck looked as tired and messy as Etta. He hadn’t shaved all week, and his chin was covered with a scruff of blonde hair. He had bags under his eyes, but maintained his composure as if he hadn’t been kept awake for a week straight.
“Nice to meet you.” He shook their hands, politely smiling at Teo as if Teo was an adult, too.
Teo whispered something to Etta 2. “Yes,” she whispered back. “Exactly.”
“So there’s two Ettas, and they both had children,” Charlie announced. “What’s next?”
“I have so many questions for you!” Etta said to her clone. “I’ve always wondered what you would be like. I never thought...” Her voice trailed off. No one in the country ever got to meet their own clones. I used to think about mine a lot, too.
“I’ll have someone find some food for us and set up an extra tent,” said Matana. “Then, Etta, you can tell us where you and Teo have been all these years.” She snuck away. The nervous tension in the room grew. Teo seemed to be the only one numb to it. He was excited now, and couldn’t stop staring at our Etta. She gave him a wink.
“How did you end up here?” Breck asked with a low voice. He cradled the baby in his arms, and every so often I could hear her sigh or yawn in her sleep. “I don’t think this could just be a coincidence. How do we know you aren’t here on behalf of...someone else?”
Etta 2’s face darkened, and once again she took Teo’s hand in her own. “We heard someone had a baby and that they’d had to run from their community,” she said with a sneer. She looked Breck right in the eye, as if daring him to fight. She sucked in her breath, and when she spoke again, it was with malice. “We’ve been on the run, just like you. I thought we could help each other out. I’ve heard a lot about kids being born around the country, and families on the run. We aren’t here to make any trouble.” She moved as if to leave, and Charlie jumped forward.
“No, please stay!” he said. He pleaded with those big, bright eyes. “Forgive Breck. We’ve been hurt before. We have enemies. I’m sure you do too. But Breck doesn’t mean anything...”
“Maybe he did,” I said softly. “You both seem like nice enough people, but there isn’t any harm in hearing more about where you’re from, is there?” I still wasn’t convinced. Was Etta 2 here as a trap? Was Teo even really her son? Then again, the resemblance was unbelievable. I couldn’t imagine how someone would train a boy his age to pretend so well. But I couldn’t put it past our Chancellor.
“I’d like to hear more,” my Etta said. “Please don’t take offense. We’ve been through a lot. Breck and I were arrested and...we worry about our child, just like I’m sure you worry about Teo.”
Etta 2 pursed her lips. Torrice stood awkwardly to the side; I could see she was no longer organizing, but just moving things around.
“Why don’t you just share your story?” Charlie prompted. “That might help.”
Matana returned with a loaf of bread and a bowl of fruit from the kitchen and we sat down together to compare stories. Etta told Etta 2 and Teo about finding out she was pregnant and escaping from Young Woods with us.
“We had to run too!” Teo warmed up to Etta quickly. It must have been like finding out your mother was actually just a kid like you. He directed most of his questions and ideas directly to her. “I was a baby, and my mom had me in the community, but then some people had to help get her away. We were at a few different camps. People came for us –“
“Not exactly,” Etta 2 jumped in. She smiled apologetically. I couldn’t help laughing; Teo’s excitement was contagious. We had all been through a lot since we found out our Etta was pregnant. For someone Teo’s age, all of it would have been like an adventure. “We lived in a community far west of here called Middle Creek. Teo’s father, Teddy, helped me hide the pregnancy. No one was used to seeing one, and I think that helped. I had a friend in medicine who lived near us in the Gold neighborhood, and she helped me deliver Teo.”
“Just one person? How did you have the supplies you needed?” I asked. I had gone to great lengths to prepare for Etta’s delivery. Without all the research and Matana’s help, I wasn’t sure I could have done it.
“It was just Pam,” Etta 2 said. “She’d been a doctor for a long time, and she was part of the Underground. They helped her sneak out some basic medical supplies like blankets and gauze, but that was it. Pam saved our lives.”
“What did you do once you had Teo?” Etta asked. “You couldn’t risk him being seen or heard.”
“No, of course not,” Etta 2 continued. “Teddy figured it out. He worked with the Underground leader, Joseph, to find an ACer camp close enough for us to get to. I had Teo...earlier than we expected.”
The way she said it made me shiver. Her eyes were wet with tears.
“A month before Teo was due, Teddy helped the Underground plan a demonstration. A gun misfired.”
A gun? I’d never seen one before. Even the security guards in Young Woods just wore special uniforms and sometimes carried a club – though I had never heard of someone using one. Communities were so peaceful; I heard there were ones with weapon storage but never considered people using them.
Etta 2 sniffled and Torrice handed her a tissue from the counter. “Thank you,” she said. “I was devastated when I lost Teddy. I went into early labor. Teo was born in Pam’s bathtub.”
Etta was in tears now, too. She looked at Breck, who gave her a weak smile. “I’m so sorry,” Etta said. “That’s...awful.” She shook her head back and forth.
Etta 2 nodded and gripped Teo more tightly. There was a crack in her voice. “I called in sick for two days straight, but any more than that and someone from the Med would have come looking. Pam and a man from the Underground helped us sneak out. I ran to an ACer camp and never went back.”
Matana looked on. “That must have been terrible,” she said.
Etta 2 continued. “We lived in that camp for five years until it was attacked. After that, we moved camps more often. Most people have helped us. Teo recently started working at camps. He can build and repair buildings. He can run errands for people. We try to make ourselves useful, and we try not to stay too long.”
I had never thought about what would happen to Etta’s baby as she grew until that moment. We talked as if we assumed we could always stay at the camp, but now I saw how naïve that was. Camps don’t last forever. Nothing does. We would always be on the run. As the baby grew, she would be as noticeable as Teo was.
“What do you know about other kids being born?” Breck asked. “Do you think there’s more than just you and Etta?”
Teo bobbed his head up and down. He was taking a liking to Breck, too. “Yes, there’s loads.” Etta 2 shook her head and snickered, but Teo couldn’t be stopped. “No really, there’s a lot. But we never saw any. But people we met, they told us. We never found another one before you. This is the first time.”
“It was just rumors,” Etta 2 said. “No one had ever seen a baby – it was just their friend who had seen one. That’s why we came here. We had to see if, for once, a rumor was true.”
For once? I thought. What other rumors does Etta 2 know about?
“Well this is her,” Etta said. She took the baby from Breck’s arms. “We haven’t named her yet. Teo, I think she’s sort of...your sister.” She knelt in front of Teo so he could see the baby better. His eyes grew wide and the corners of his mouth turned up. He leaned so far off the edge of his seat that I thought he might fall off completely. His mom noticed, too. She grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him back on his chair.
“We’re glad you’re here, Etta,” Matana jumped in. She had mostly been watching the conversation with interest. I had noticed her eyebrows raise the smallest amount when Etta 2 mentioned that there were other children. Perhaps she’s heard that before, too, I thought. “It’s getting late. Why don’t I show you where Sven set up your tents, and we can talk more about your stay with us tomorrow?”
When Matana lifted the tent flap, I c
ould see a crowd forming around the building. Matana led Etta 2 and Teo out, shooing people away. Teo clung to his mother’s arm again. People peered into the tent after the newcomers left, but when they saw it was just us, they went on their way.
Chapter 2 - Yami
Later that evening, Breck pushed me back over the brink towards paranoia. “We don’t know who they are, Yami,” he said. Etta tried to break in, but he spoke over her. “That’s Etta’s clone, I’m sure of it, but isn’t it a little suspicious that out of all the places in the world, she found us here?”
“Someone must have told her,” I said. “It’s too big of a coincidence. Let’s keep an eye on her. I’d be interested to find out who she talks to on her TekCast while we’re not around.”
“No, it’s not suspicious,” said Etta. “If she’s me, then she wouldn’t be used like that. Teo is definitely her son. That’s Hope’s brother, I think! We should be nicer to them. There’s so much we could learn...” She trailed off.
“Hope?” Charlie asked. “Did you name her?”
Glowing, mischevious smiles erupted on Breck and Etta’s faces. “We didn’t want to tell anyone before we told you,” Etta said. “We’re naming her Hope. You know...We don’t want any other parents to go through what we went through. And now it seems like there are so many more than I thought possible...”
“At least we know that Etta’s clones can have children,” I said. “We don’t know if anyone else can.”
“But that’s a good start,” Breck said. “In the F-Lab that would be a leap forward. We have two Ettas, and if we had the right equipment, we could figure out how their genetic make-up differs from everyone else’s.”
“It would help if we had Teo’s father...” Charlie said. “That’s terrible what happened.”
“Yeah,” said Etta. “How awful! If anything happened to you, Breck...” He squeezed her shoulder.
“I won’t let anything happen, Etta,” he said. “And I won’t let anything happen to you either, Hope.” He took the baby from her mother’s arms and held her tightly. Hope opened her eyes, startled, and stared at Breck. Then she opened her mouth and screamed with all her might. Charlie and I snuck out. One of the benefits of not being parents.
THE NEXT MORNING, WE found Etta and Etta 2 chatting in the dining tent. Teo sat quietly, still nervous around all the new people. Breck appeared behind us with Hope.
“Breck!” Etta cried. “Etta and I were talking about Hope’s name.”
Charlie smirked as we sat down. “Already regretting it?”
“No, it’s not that,” Etta snapped. “It’s about giving her a second name.”
“What kind of second name?” I asked. “What would it be?”
Etta 2 pulled out her TekCast. “I’ve read about this before and was glad to have someone to share it with finally,” she said. “Back before cloning, people had two names. They had a first name, which everyone called them informally, and a last name, which they shared with their families. When communities were very small, like ours are now, there was rarely a need for them. But when communities and cities grew, they became necessary. Then they were passed down with each generation.”
“But we wouldn’t do that since we don’t have new generations,” Charlie said. “I wonder if they even keep those names on record. What was the original Charlie’s last name?”
Breck reached for the TekCast to read the text Etta 2 had open. I was vaguely familiar with the idea of second names, but no one used them anymore. Except for people like Mary Sue, one of our teachers at Young Woods. But I knew that wasn’t the same.
“Does Teo have a second name?” I asked. “Would you have one too, since you’re family?”
Teo looked up from his oatmeal. “Mom and I did some research years ago,” he told us. He sat up straighter in his chair, proud to know something adults didn’t. “There are lots of ways people hundreds of years ago ended up with last names. It could be their job, or their dad’s name, or where they were from. Or it could describe them.”
“It could also be their status,” said Etta 2. “But we weren’t going to name him Teo Gold. I don’t believe in any of that anymore. And Teo is named after his father, Theodore. We thought about the name coming from our career assignments. I was in cloning research, and Teddy was in fertility research.”
“But I got to choose!” Teo jumped in, leaning over the table to cut off his mother. “It took us a while. We couldn’t think of anything that I liked that came from the cloning or fertility labs. I wanted to use a name that described me.” He grinned. “So now my name is Teo Braveman.”
Etta smiled. “That’s perfect, Teo,” she said. “You have to be brave to stay on the run like this.”
“I wouldn’t mind a name like that,” Charlie said. “So what will Hope’s second name be?”
“I was thinking her last name could come from Breck’s name,” Etta said, looking at Breck. “What do you think? Hope Breckson.”
Breck cocked his head to the side. “I think that could work. Though I wish she had a name that came from you too.”
“You could give her a middle name!” Teo exclaimed. “I don’t have one. But we read about those too. They’re usually to honor someone.”
“That could work,” Charlie said. He and Teo were getting along well. Charlie seemed to have a way with kids. “Hope Etta Breckson.”
“That’s a long name for a little person,” I said. “A lot to live up to.”
“What do you think, Hope Etta Breckson?” Etta 2 asked Hope, who looked at her mother’s clone, scrunched up her face, and blew little bubbles. “Can you manage that whole name?” Hope stared up at Breck now and furrowed her brows.
“She’s up for it,” Breck said. “She’s going to be a tough one. It’s inevitable.”
A WEEK LATER, I HAD just gotten back to the tent for the evening when I felt my TekCast vibrate. I had a message. I didn’t receive many; mostly I heard from Breck, Etta, or Charlie if they were on the other side of the camp. This one was from an unidentifiable TekCast. Usually the messages appeared with the person’s name and face. This was just a number: #19492-0008.
“Yami? Are you there?” I showed it to Charlie. He nodded – I should respond.
“Who is this?”
“It’s Vonna!”
My breath caught in my throat. I hadn’t heard from Vonna since we escaped Young Woods. She’d been banished, and we couldn’t find her. No one knew where she ended up. My heart leapt seeing her name on the screen. Charlie grasped my arm tightly. “She’s ok!” he whispered. “Go on!”
“Vonna? Are you ok?” I messaged.
“I’m ok! Just got a TekCast. I’m sorry I couldn’t get in touch sooner. Where are you?”
Charlie rested his chin on my shoulder.
“We’re at the ACer camp where we went when we first disappeared. Where are you? We’ll come get you.”
“I’m not sure where I am exactly. At one of the ACer camps. Not that far from Young Woods.”
“Are you ok? Where’s the camp?” I pulled open a map of the region to look at on my holoscreen alongside the messaging program. I zoomed in to a view that included Young Woods and our own location.
“Don’t worry about me, Yami. What about the baby?”
I exhaled slowly. I suddenly felt tears in my eyes. After a few weeks with no word, Vonna was magically found. And she had figured out how to message me. And how to snap at me for worrying about her as usual.
“The baby is fine. It’s a girl. They named her Hope.”
“That’s great!”
“That’s not all,” I said. I felt a rush of relief from all of my guilt. I was the one who got her involved with sneaking into the Chancellor’s office and breaking into his safe. She was back, and hopefully soon she could join us here. “There’s another Etta. Her clone. And she has a child too!”
“Really?”
“It’s a boy named Teo. He’s 10 or so. Everyone is excited.”
“What doe
s it mean?” Vonna asked.
“Not sure yet. I’ll keep you posted. Are you sure you’re ok?”
“Yes! I don’t know many people here yet. But they found me a TekCast finally so I can keep in touch with you now.”
“Send me your location,” I wrote. I raised my eyebrows towards Charlie. It was a simple request. How could she be so irritating to not let me help her?
“Someone said not to give our location away. It’s dangerous. Someone could read the message. No one’s found this camp yet and they don’t want me to give them away.”
I bit my lip. It made sense, but I didn’t have to like it.
“Fine,” I wrote. “But keep in touch. Tell me everything that happens, ok?”
“Fine, Yami.”
I grinned. Vonna was back, and she was as annoyed with me as ever. It was nice feeling like something was back to normal.
Chapter 3 – Charlie
Growing up in Young Woods, I spent the first fifteen years of my life enjoying all the comforts around me without giving them much thought. In middle school, I had a dorm room right next to my best friend Abe’s. We did everything together. We organized a kickball league with our classmates and, of course, our team won. We started dating girls at around the same time. I would never tell her, but I had a crush on Etta before she started dating Breck. She was pretty and sweet, and all the boys liked her. I never made any progress.
Abe and I were a force to be reckoned with. We were the loudest in class, but I was sneakier. Abe always got in trouble when we were out of line. I never got caught. He never seemed to mind.
I had some of the highest grades in our class, and I knew I’d end up with a Gold career assignment. I wasn’t sure which one I wanted, but I made Abe walk with me through the Gold neighborhoods. They had the nicest, biggest houses. Abe hated going there. His grades were terrible, no matter how hard he worked or how much of my homework he copied. I promised him we’d still be friends after career assignments. No matter what.
