Joan the Made

by Kristen Pham

  There is no way I’m letting this tap-dancing flake know he’s getting to me, so I “embody” a moment when I was completely confident—before my horrible whipping, when I danced with Justus for the first time.

  I rock back on the heels of my boots, hooking my thumbs in my belt hoops. “Professor Kelly, you think I’m a saint? I’m touched.”

  Gene glowers, and the class laughs, and I make my way out of the spotlight before my mask slips. Nic was right. I’m a novice when it comes to acting, and I’m going to fail in my mission without help.

  Chapter 26

  After the day’s classes are finished, I go straight back to my dorm room. I need to know my lines cold before Blake’s next rehearsal. I’ll be damned if I let Nic find another excuse to have me kicked off this assignment.

  Sparkle is in our room, her slim legs propped against the wall. It’s unusual to see her at this time of day. Usually, she disappears and is gone so late that I’m asleep when she returns. Her beauty is incomparable, as usual, but her hair is a little limp, and her skin doesn’t glow the way it did when I first met her.

  “Hey, roomie,” I say, and her eyes meet mine.

  “Didn’t think you’d be back yet,” she mumbles.

  “I’m glad you’re here. I could use help with my acting, and you’re the best actress I know.”

  Sparkle’s posture subtly straightens. “Are you kissing my ass?”

  “Why would I do that? This is purely selfish. I need help. Humility and all that.”

  Sparkle releases a surprised bark of laughter. It’s good to hear that sound. Even if we aren’t close, it’s hard to see her upset and be unable to help.

  “The acting I might be able to help with,” Sparkle says. “The humility is a lost cause.”

  It’s my turn to laugh. “You’re right. It’s like getting blood from a stone.”

  “You’re lucky,” Sparkle says. “When you try, you’re a good actress. But when you get distracted, it shows. You’re smart, and I know there’re a lot of things you’d rather be thinking about than whatever acting lesson we’re learning.”

  I’m surprised by Sparkle’s insight. She’s been watching me.

  “How do you focus? Surely you must get bored with this crap sometimes, too.”

  “I make it not boring by reliving the best and worst moments of my life through acting. How can I be distracted when I’m reliving the time I won the dance competition in third grade, in order to embody childlike glee? What could possibly steal my attention when I remember my sisters’ faces on the nights there was no dinner, in order to embody sorrow and shame?”

  “Why shame?” I ask quietly.

  “See? You’re getting distracted,” she replies instead of answering my question. “Let’s try an easy emotion. Rage.”

  I take a breath and try to follow Sparkle’s advice. An image of Officer Boer on the night of the raid with his hands all over Sparkle comes to mind.

  “Yes!” Sparkle says, breaking me out of my memory.

  My hands are clenched into tight fists, and my cheeks are flushed.

  “Just as important, now you have to let that emotion go. That’s the hard part,” Sparkle says.

  She’s right. I take a slow, deep breath and count to ten, but leftover rage simmers in my veins.

  “You’re good at this,” I say to Sparkle. “You’re going to be one of the actresses who makes it.”

  My words don’t have their intended effect. Instead of smiling, Sparkle’s face goes blank.

  I lean forward and squeeze her shoulder, and she flinches away from my touch. “Tell me what’s going on with you. I can help.”

  “You’d only make it worse,” Sparkle says, her voice rough.

  “Let me—”

  “You can thank me for helping you by leaving me alone,” Sparkle snaps.

  I concentrate on memorizing my lines, which doesn’t require much effort. Once I have them down, I sneak a glance at Sparkle. She’s asleep in her chair, but the worried wrinkle between her eyes is still there. What’s torturing her so much that she can’t even escape it when she sleeps?

  I put a blanket over her before I slip out of the room. I’m edgy, anxious about so many things, and I can think of only one way to redirect my energy somewhere positive.

  Once I’m outside, I pull my phone out of my pocket and send Justus a message. Meet me in the Lab?

  My heart pounds as I wait for his reply. It takes a couple of minutes. Not tonight.

  I wait, but he doesn’t send anything else. I barely resist chucking my phone against the wall of the dorm.

  Time to get out of here. I throw on my boots and decide to take my motorcycle out of the constrictive grip of this city. I’m about to turn on my bike when I hear a whimper that sounds familiar. I stick to the shadows and head toward the Little Theater. A tall, skeletal figure hulks over the shivering form of a child.

  “If I find you’ve been there again, I won’t let you visit her next week,” the headmaster snarls.

  “I won’t. I swear,” Maverick replies.

  In the lamplight, Mav seems small and pale, and his cheeks have tear tracks on them.

  “You little liar,” the headmaster spits, and I almost leap out of the shadows when he moves toward Mav.

  Mav sees me, and his eyes widen in terror. I freeze, obeying his unspoken plea.

  “I’ll go straight home,” he says to the headmaster.

  “You better. I’ll be checking with your Molly,” the headmaster replies, and then skulks back into the Little Theater through a back door.

  Mav runs to me, and I wrap my arms around him as he buries his face in my shoulder.

  “Did he hurt you?”

  If he did, I’m going after that son of a bitch.

  “No. He never touches me,” Mav says.

  “Why is he bothering you?”

  Mav pulls away from me. “Please don’t ask me that.”

  My heart hurts at the sight of his drawn face and empty eyes. I remember keeping secrets about my parents, lying to teachers and social workers so they wouldn’t have me removed from my home, where I’d never be able to help them get better.

  Instead of pushing Mav for answers, I stroke his head. “You only need to tell me if you want to.”

  “I have to go,” he replies.

  “I’m taking you home.”

  “It’s better if I go alone. I’m still going to help you get the addresses of those bad people at Strand. I need to help you. You have to let me!” he pleads, his voice high and desperate.

  “Okay, buddy. Okay,” I whisper as he runs away from me, swallowed by the shadows.

  The headmaster has been on my shit list since the day I arrived, but after seeing him intimidate Mav, I know it’s time to dig up some dirt on him. A man that mean must have some skeletons in his closet. If they’re exposed, he might be removed from his position at Seattle Secondary.

  If I’m going to follow him, there’s no sense in being sloppy. Might as well put some of my new skills to good use. Inside the Little Theater, I flick on the lights in Lady Cleo’s classroom and make my way to my makeup station. I consider which disguise will be most effective and opt for something simple.

  I comb a gel through my hair to coat it in gray. A fine-tip pencil lightly etches in the grooves of my face, so they look like the wrinkles I’ll have someday. I help myself to Lady Cleo’s closet, which is full of costumes, and opt for a drab, conservative dress to replace my ripped jeans. My final touch is illegal—I cover up my lavaliere with a thick coat of skin-tone makeup.

  The headmaster is getting off the elevator in the lobby when I’m heading out. I hurry after him, determined not to let all the effort of getting myself costumed go to waste.

  He pushes through the front doors of the theater and strides across the lawn. A girl in the second year of the acting program is waiting for him. Nic introduced us once; her name is Beth. She’s cloned from the actress Elizabeth Taylor, so she’s gorgeous, but she usually dresse
s frumpy and plays down her assets, like she doesn’t want to be noticed.

  Tonight, however, she’s wearing a tight, silver dress, and her hair is swept up to show off her perfect features. Her makeup highlights her nearly violet eyes, but I can see a sheen of gold in them. If the headmaster notices that she’s high on Amp, he doesn’t say anything. He holds out his arm, and Beth takes it, though she holds her body as far from his as she can.

  The headmaster jerks her closer, and they walk down the shadowy street. It’s past Throwback curfew now, but Beth is escorted by an Evolved, and I’ve hidden my lavaliere. I follow them, thankful that I chose flats from Lady Cleo’s closet so I don’t make much noise.

  In a couple of blocks, the pedestrian and street traffic picks up as we enter the heart of downtown Seattle. No one gives me a second glance, for which I am grateful, but lots of people stare at Beth. She holds her body stiffly, clearly uncomfortable with the attention.

  Beth and the headmaster go into a swanky restaurant with red carpeting, and I wait a couple of minutes before going in after them. Inside, it’s impossible to miss the circle of men surrounding Beth at the bar.

  She’s holding something in her fingers that I recognize as a cigarette only after she releases a lungful of smoke. It’s unbelievable that they still make those things, never mind let someone smoke one in a restaurant! Gone is Beth’s usual slump; now she sits like a queen, laughing at a joke one of the men made. But despite her act, her eyes are blank, like she’s on autopilot and her mind is somewhere far away. She says something, and though I can’t make out the words, I can hear the raucous laughter of the men.

  One of the men lightly touches Beth’s back. Instead of pulling away, she looks up at him through her thick, dark lashes and murmurs something that makes him grin. Where the hell is the headmaster? There is something predatory about these men that makes me uneasy.

  “Would you like a table, ma’am?” a host asks me.

  “I’ll seat myself,” I reply, and find a stool at the far end of the bar.

  I show the bartender the fake Evolved ID that Addie embedded in my phone and order vodka tonic. The liquid stings my throat as it goes down.

  The headmaster brushes past, not giving me a second glance. He joins the group surrounding Beth, and the men recognize him, slapping him on the back and shaking his hand.

  Beth, the headmaster, and the men talk, and I can only make out snatches of their conversation from where I’m sitting.

  “Hot commodity . . .”

  “Let’s not . . .”

  “Directly to me . . .”

  What the hell is going on here?

  “Good night, gentlemen,” Beth says in a low, sultry voice.

  Then she walks away with a man twice her age who puts his hand on her ass in front of the entire bar. They leave the restaurant, and I’m torn whether to stay with the headmaster or follow Beth. But she left of her own free will, so I decide to finish what I started out to do, and find out what our creepy headmaster is up to besides whipping students and making little boys cry.

  “Another night, she’s all yours,” he says to a plump blond man who’s red in the face from too much alcohol.

  “Bring me a Marilyn, and I’ll pay double the usual rate,” he says.

  The headmaster gives him a curt nod. “I’ll hold you to that.”

  The reality of what I’m witnessing hits me, and my dinner rises in my throat. I hurry out of the bar onto the street, hoping to catch sight of Beth in her silver dress.

  There’s a ton of people, but I don’t see her or the man she left with.

  “There was a girl in a silver dress who just left. I have to find her!” I say to the Mac who’s acting as valet for the restaurant.

  “She went that way,” he says, pointing north.

  Weaving through the crowds on the sidewalk, I race after Beth. I’m still running thirty minutes later, though I’m now out of the downtown area and alone on a dark street. I won’t find her tonight, but I still run like Evolved police are on my heels.

  No matter how fast my feet carry me, I can’t outrun the horrible truth about the skeleton in the headmaster’s closet. He’s pimping out his students, and, if he has his way, Sparkle will be next.

  It’s nearly midnight when I make my way into the Lab and follow the tunnel to the entrance of Crew’s classroom. Despite the late hour, voices filter through the trapdoor in the stage. Five heads jerk up in surprise when I enter. Crew must be conducting another one of his evil clone therapy sessions because Nic, Joseph, Sal, Rob, and a second-year cloned from Queen Mary I are all sprawled in the chairs beside the stage.

  “What is it?” Crew says, rising from his seat as he takes in the expression on my face. “Tell me.”

  It takes a full minute to slow my breathing enough to talk. “It’s not enough to go after the executives at Strand and bring them to justice for their crimes. We need to hunt down any Evolved who are exploiting Throwbacks.”

  “Of course,” Sal says with a snort. “They’ll all eventually—”

  “You mean someone specific,” Crew says, interrupting Sal.

  “Yes. Headmaster Hunter needs to be removed from power.”

  “Of course,” Nic says with a derisive shake of his head. “We’ve been trying to find ways to blackmail him for ages, and he’s clean. We don’t have anything on him.”

  “Leave it to me. He’s prostituting his students, and I can prove it.” Something in my expression makes Nic and Crew nod. “I’ll destroy him.”

  Chapter 27

  Back at my dorm, Sparkle is sound asleep. There is no way the headmaster is handing her over to that blond man at the bar.

  I lie down, blink, and six hours have passed. I have to rush to get ready for rehearsal, and I am still pulling my hair into a messy ponytail when Nic joins me as I step out of the elevator.

  “I hope your acting is in better shape than your hair,” Nic quips, but I continue my policy of ignoring him.

  He sneaks glances at me as we silently walk out of the dorm.

  Finally, he lets out a breath. “I know you’re mad, but I was only trying to protect you by getting you kicked off Strand’s vid. If Strand finds you poking around, they’ll retire you.”

  “In your mind, you’re my knight in shining armor then?”

  “In a way,” he says, but he’s fidgeting.

  “Because I’m a little novice, in need of a strong, older man who’s wiser in the ways of the world to protect me,” I continue, enjoying how his eyes cut away from mine to hide his embarrassment.

  “You’re twisting my meaning.”

  I finally make eye contact with him. “I’ll talk slow so you can keep up. You can take your protection and shove it up your ass. I don’t need anyone to take care of me, but if I had to choose someone, you can bet it wouldn’t be a drug addict.”

  “That’s how you see me, even still.”

  A pang of guilt hits me in the gut, but I dismiss it. “Nice try, Machiavelli. You can’t use mind games to turn this around on me. I may be a novice, but I’m a novice who is going to get the information we need. Today.”

  “How?” he asks, a note of panic in his voice.

  Strand’s car arrives, and I get in without answering his question. I’ve done it now. I better get that tablet, or he’s going to hold this over my head forever. Luckily, I’m skilled at making plans on the fly, and I have an entire car ride to mull it over. By the time we reach Strand’s headquarters, a tentative plan has taken shape in my mind.

  “If you think you can steal a tablet from one of the janitors, you’re wrong,” Nic mutters as we make our way inside. “They’re harnessed to the carts they push around, and the lock is industrial grade.”

  “I figured as much,” I reply, giving him a grin that makes his face turn red with irritation.

  “Good, you’re here,” Blake bellows as we get closer to the set. “Let’s make this a more productive rehearsal than the last one, eh, Joan?”

  “O
h yes, sir. I’ve learned my lesson.”

  “Good girl,” he says, patting me on the head.

  I force myself to stay still and tolerate his touch, though Nic cracks his knuckles like he’s about to throw a punch. I step on his foot, hard, to remind him not to make a scene. He scowls, but his fists unclench.

  I’m yearning to search the room for any janitors or stage crew with tablets, but instead, I focus on Sparkle’s acting advice. How do I channel the bubbly, cheery version of Joan Fasces?

  I have the perfect memory. In the third grade, I took junior cheerleading. It was before my parents were out of control with their Amp addiction, and I thought twirling and shouting to psych up a crowd was the most fun thing in the universe. Now, I would love to destroy the vids of me wielding pom-poms, but the experience is coming in handy for this role.

  I remember how thrilled I’d be in the car rides to the gymnasium where I practiced and how much I wanted my teacher to praise my little cheers. When Blake turns the camera on us, I’m ready.

  “Welcome to Historia!” Nic says.

  “Step back in time with me,” I say, barely holding back a giggle.

  I walk through the blocking with an energy that almost makes me skip, though that would be overkill.

  Blake nods once, and the rest of the scene flows without a hitch. When I’m done, he puts an arm around me.

  “That’s the performance I knew you were capable of.”

  “It’s a brilliant script. I’m merely the vessel for it,” I simper, and Nic barely suppresses a smirk.

  “Nic, the blocking in your scene is clunky. Let’s work through it,” Blake says, turning his attention from me.

  As soon as his back is turned, I assess my surroundings. The janitor isn’t sweeping up today like he usually does. I head to the restroom, scanning the set the entire way.

  My search is rewarded when I find the janitor cleaning the sink in the men’s room. His tablet lies enticingly close on the cart of cleaning supplies he pushes around. He’ll be busy scrubbing the toilet and sink for at least another three minutes. I slide it off the cart and crouch down as far as the tablet’s harness will allow. Before I can try to hack in, someone puts her hand on my shoulder and spins me around. She replaces the tablet and pulls me out of the bathroom by my sleeve.