Two Girls Book 2: One Nation

by Justin Sirois

  Along the periphery, closer to the treeline, tents of every color were pitched only feet apart. Two were baby blue and stood next to each other. Teal vinyl shined in the sun like kites. Army greens wrinkled, muted, shadowed by leaves. Two families shared a portable yurt with yellow stripes. Bikes leaned against the poles a few with training wheels. A red tent had two cute nineteen years old guys staying in it. They came all the way from Portland to show support. Sam waited for them to emerge in the morning after being up late with them—laughing and sneaking beers.

  Clint stood at the open gate, not far from her. He was tan now. The bandage on his shoulder gone. It seemed like Prince had touched each and every person she knew. An impression that hung heavy.

  “Gonna miss this place?” he asked.

  Sam turned to him. “Hell no.”

  He chuckled and removed his Patriots ball cap. Bent the oily brim the color of rust. “Yeah.”

  Sam thought back on the past weeks. How much had changed. Even the baby was different—wide-eyed and inventing sounds—the most famous baby in the world. Government officials had come and gone. The President came and spoke by her side at a portable podium to the sound of a million digital shutters snapping. He promised commissions and absolute reform of the private military industrial complex. Sam wasn’t sure what to believe. The cure would be on the market in weeks, free and optional for anytwo or anyone, worldwide. Generation 2, the Sets who redefined what it meant to be an individual, were now faced with with an even stranger path: choice.

  Sam found it fitting.

  She picked up an apple and bit into the tough skin. She tried not to get juice on her laptop’s keyboard. Everything tasted a little bit better now that she had literally gotten the independence she always longed for.

  Some Sets had a problem with it, calling the optional vaccination not a cure at all, but something that went against nature. It would take an entire generation or more for those twins to accept newly born Singulars as part of their culture. Luckily, most people embraced the cure as a necessary perversion of nature. A strange antidote to an even stranger anomaly.

  Refreshing her inbox, Sam saw no new email from Penny.

  Her sister was probably busy with her new people.

  She glanced up to check if the boys in the red tent had woken. And now that they were showing real interest in Sam, Dixon was coming around to talking to her more often. Sam smiled as he kept looking over after every few catches of the baseball.

  “Y’all need new gloves!” Clint called. “When we move, I’m getting you new gloves.”

  Mason waved.

  Dixon couldn’t help but eye Sam again.

  Clicking on emails, she opened one from Okinawa. One from Alpine, Texas. Some cities in some countries that she had to look up to know where they were.

  Complete strangers wanted to know personal details about her and her alone. She cut and pasted her typical thank you and introduction and typed: Yes, Penny and I knew we were different from the very beginning. I kinda selfishly embraced it while she… had a hard time.

  People asked about her life. Her interests. Her artwork. What she was painting or drawing and when she might post pictures. People asked about Mason and Dixon and her mom and the baby, but mostly they asked about Penny—always elusive Penny. There was little to say. Her sister was out there. Hiding, but not hiding among trusted One Nation operatives. Revered as an idol. A savior even to the twos who didn’t believe in the cure.

  Safe with sympathizers, Penny was taking her time coming back. One Nation made sure she was alright, even monitored her for a few days. All she wanted was space. That was okay. She deserved it.

  “Your superfans have arrived,” Clint joked, nodding at the red tent.

  Sam snickered and shook her head, hiding that she was making sure there was no apple juice on her shirt.

  Both guys held up waveless hands as they stumbled outside. Their hair was uncombed and faces unshaven. It seemed like they had rehearsed this exit for her. Sam couldn’t see Dixon roll his eyes, but he definitely did.

  “They gonna follow you back to New Hampshire?” Clint asked.

  Sam looked up. “I think they’re fighting over me.”

  Clint sighed. “Oh god.”

  Sam’s laptop pinged with new emails. She watched one of the guys take dried laundry off a line in the woods. Watched the volley of Mason and Dixon’s arcing ball. The hard slap of leather. Over and over. Dixon throwing harder now.

  Another ping made Sam look down at her laptop. Just like clockwork, Penny’s email appeared. Sam had to squint and look closer to believe what the subject line read.

  Look up.

  Her stomach felt like someone skipped a stone across it’s surface

  She did look up. Turned right then left.

  Everytwo was looking the same way, to a figure emerging from the treeline.

  “Oh my Gods!” a young girl yelled.

  Sam shot up to stand. And there, among the bright greenness, was her twin—her two and only sister.