Criminal Destiny

by Gordon Korman

  As I’m climbing, I try not to think about where this strange skill set comes from. My dad used to be a rock climber, but of course he’s not really related to me. I’m probably cloned from a cat burglar—and a good one, too, to qualify for the Osiris experiment. (Which is obviously nothing to be proud of. Still, it could be a lot worse. One of the guys is a copy of the Crossword Killer.)

  I was right. The sash raises easily. I shoot the others a triumphant grin. They seem amazed. I’m the opposite. As unsure of myself as I can sometimes be, I had total confidence in the way up and the way in. Go figure.

  Once I crawl inside, it hits me: we are now officially criminals, just like the people who supplied our DNA. True, we’ve broken laws before in the course of our run for freedom. This feels different. We chose a house, and we busted in. I understand why we did it. It was even partly my idea. But I can’t escape the sense that a corner has been turned.

  You think too much, Torific. Do what you have to do.

  I switch on my flashlight and take a quick look around. I’m in the bedroom of a girl about my age, all frills and pastel colors. It’s a stab at my heart. This could have been my room before I traded dust ruffles and stuffed animals for art supplies and a studio in the attic. When I thought my parents were my real parents, and thanked my lucky stars that I lived in the town ranked number one in the country in almost every category. It’s not that long ago, but it might as well be a different century.

  I’d never go back to that ignorance. But I don’t doubt that I was happy.

  I shake myself, and hurry down to the back slider to let the others in. Our lights play over the living room. It’s a modest house, nowhere near the luxury we were accustomed to in Serenity. But after what we’ve suffered in the past few days, it’s like coming into port in a raging storm.

  Malik follows his flashlight into the kitchen, and is soon rummaging around the fridge.

  Eli is disapproving. “Bad enough we break into their house. We shouldn’t be stealing their food.”

  “Who are these people?” Malik demands. “Don’t they eat?”

  “They’re on vacation,” Amber supplies. “They’re not going to leave food to spoil while they’re away.”

  Malik has moved on to the freezer. “Jackpot!” he exclaims reverently. “Microwave pizza! Who’s hungry?”

  The simple answer—everybody. (Nearly getting killed gives you an appetite.)

  We stuff ourselves with pizza and a box of Fig Newtons we find in the pantry. Malik chugs an entire bottle of Dr Pepper and opens one of Coke. Eli looks like every bite is choking him.

  “Cheer up, boy scout,” Malik advises, mouth full. “Hating your pizza isn’t going to make it any less stolen.”

  “We’re just doing what we have to,” Amber argues, “to survive.”

  Malik takes a giant swig of his second drink. “How many chances did we ever get to eat as much junk food as we want without some hidden camera recording us, and Project Osiris making notes? Like pigging out makes you a criminal.” He utters a long, rolling belch.

  “There ought to be a law against that,” I say.

  Afterward, I stack up the plates and begin washing them off in the sink. Malik starts to say something, but I freeze him with a fierce look. “Bad enough we broke in and ate their food. I don’t want these poor people to come home and find a big mess in their house.”

  “You’re a saint,” he agrees. “You must have been cloned from Joan of Arc.”

  We learn a few things about our “hosts” from the mail on their kitchen counter. They are the Campanella family, and the Denver suburb they live in is called Mountain View. One of the parents seems to be a teacher, since there’s a bulletin from the Colorado Education Association. There’s a magazine called Sports Illustrated, so somebody must a sports fan. Another, TV Guide, lists every show you can watch on television that week. I can’t helping thinking how much thinner it would be if they published it for Serenity, where there’s only one channel.

  “Well, we know one thing about the Campanellas,” Malik crows, holding up a large envelope covered with printed messages and a lot of exclamation points. “They’re dumb. This says they might have won ten million dollars, and they didn’t even bother to open it.” He rips into the side with his index finger.

  Eli is horrified. “That’s somebody’s mail!”

  “And they’re welcome to it,” Malik agrees readily. “It’s the ten million bucks I want.” He sorts through the contents, his brow darkening. “There’s no money in here!”

  “They might have won ten million dollars,” Amber reminds him. “They also might not have.”

  “The outside world stinks. All they do is get people’s hopes up.” He crumples the envelope into a ball and tosses it back onto the counter. “I’m going to grab a shower.”

  There are two bathrooms upstairs. The boys take one, and Amber and I take the other. It’s only after we’re clean that we realize how much our clothes aren’t. We’re still in our Serenity Day outfits from the night of our escape, and they’re totally ripe. They’ve been wandering through the desert, riding in a boxcar, running from the Purples, and rolling in a Dumpster. And they’re sap-, leaf-, and blood-spotted from our ride in the tree service truck.

  “Well,” Amber reasons, “you can’t keep a low profile when you stink to high heaven.”

  Even Eli reluctantly agrees. Like it or not, we’re going to have to “borrow” some clothes.

  The Campanellas are a family of five and, between them, they have sweatshirts and jeans to fit everybody. The dad is a fair match for Malik, but the teenage son is quite a bit bigger than Eli, who looks skinny and lost in a baggy sweatshirt and jeans. I have the same problem with the younger daughter’s stuff (she’s at least a size and a half larger than me). Amber can make do with the older daughter’s, although the clothes are tight, which has her worrying about her goal weight for a change.

  “Right,” Malik says sarcastically. “Because being a fugitive is fattening.”

  We also take backpacks from the kids, and an extra outfit each. By the process of first dibs, Malik ends up with a sparkly pink princess knapsack.

  I can’t hold back a smirk, and Amber practically giggles, which doesn’t happen very often. “It looks good on you,” she manages. “Very manly.”

  He glares at her. “You’re talking to someone who’s out ten mil, so watch it.”

  Eli leaves a note for the Campanellas: We’re very sorry about taking your things. We’ll pay you back someday.

  “A little short on details,” I observe.

  “We can’t very well tell them who we are and where to find us. And we can’t leave them any money. We’re going to need every cent we’ve got and more.”

  Malik is sprawled out on the bed beside the princess backpack, flipping channels on the TV. Suddenly, he sits bolt upright. “Guys—get over here!”

  There on the screen is a picture of the rear façade of a four-story building and the alley below. It doesn’t take us long to realize that we’re looking at the Medical Arts building in downtown Denver—the window we climbed out of, and the Dumpster we landed in.

  “. . . the young girl, who appeared to be in a disturbed condition, was being taken for psychological evaluation when three other young people engineered her escape. They rappelled down the side of this building using a fire hose and disappeared into the city. Police are investigating the sighting of four youths in a municipal services yard in Mountain View, but caution that they have not yet confirmed that these two incidents are related.”

  Another photograph appears on the screen—Amber, seated in a chair, in a dingy office.

  “They took your picture!” I exclaim.

  She’s sheepish. “I guess I should have mentioned that.”

  “So everybody in Denver has seen the crazy girl who ran away from the cops?” Malik exclaims. “Yeah, that might be something we should know!”

  “. . . police released this photograph, but withheld t
he girl’s name. At a press conference early this evening, a spokesman was careful to point out that she has not been accused of any crime, and was never under arrest . . .”

  At that point, the screen shows a uniformed officer speaking to reporters. “We’re worried about this girl. She’s just a kid and, based on the story she told, we have reason to believe that she’s extremely troubled. Her so-called rescuers are no older than she is, and they seem to have no adult supervision. As you can see, they took some pretty crazy risks in order to get away. If anyone knows anything about these four kids, please call our tip line.”

  As the camera withdraws from him, we get a better view of the media and spectators gathered around. Standing in the background is a tall man in a plum-colored paramilitary uniform and beret. We recognize him immediately—Baron Vladimir von Horseteeth.

  It’s like the temperature in the bedroom drops thirty degrees. An icy shiver runs up and down my spine. None of us thought Project Osiris would give up the search, but we never expected the Purple People Eaters to be hot on our heels so quickly.

  “I’m sorry, you guys,” Amber murmurs. “It’s all my fault.”

  “They would have figured it out anyway,” I tell her. “They know we ditched their SUV at the place with all the buses.”

  “But we’ve got to leave town,” Eli adds.

  “Now?” asks Amber.

  I feel my stomach tighten. I’m looking forward to the prospect of a night in a real bed in a real house.

  Eli thinks it over. “I think we’re better off lying low tonight. But tomorrow we have to move on.” He turns to Amber. “And you need a haircut.”

  Amber is mystified. “What’s my hair got to do with it?”

  Eli points at the TV. “The whole world just saw a picture of a girl with long blond hair. So you need to be a girl with short dark hair.”

  Malik’s hand shoots up. “Oh! Pick me! I want to do the haircut! I saw a Weedwacker in the shed!”

  Amber sighs. “Okay, fine. But Tori’s doing it, with real scissors!”

  “The big question is,” I say, quieting everybody down, “where are we going to go, and how are we going to get there?”

  “I’ve been poking around,” says Malik. “There’s a Jeep Wrangler in the garage. Those must be the keys on that hook in the kitchen.”

  We all look to Eli, expecting him to protest, but he surprises us. “We’ll take it. It’s too dangerous on buses now that the police know to look for four of us. And sooner or later, the Campanellas will get it back.”

  “Great,” I say. “It’s all settled except for one thing—where are we going to go?”

  “I’ve been thinking,” he says slowly. “Maybe Amber had the right idea about going to the police.”

  “Right.” Malik is bitter. “Because today was so fun.”

  Amber studies the carpet, her face flushed.

  “I’m being serious,” Eli tells her. “The cops didn’t believe you about Osiris, but what if we had proof?”

  “Our Clone Society of America membership cards?” Malik suggests.

  “A witness.”

  “A witness?” Amber echoes. “The only witnesses are our parents. Even the Purples don’t know everything.”

  “There’s one other person,” Eli insists. “My dad had a partner when he created Osiris. Tamara Dunleavy, the internet billionaire. She bailed out of the project before it got started, which means she isn’t necessarily on our parents’ side. She lives on a ranch near Jackson Hole, Wyoming.” His dark eyes burn with that crazy intensity he gets sometimes. “I vote we go there.”

  Amber and I have been styling each other’s hair since before kindergarten. But taking scissors to it obviously ratchets things to a new level. I clip slowly, a little at a time. You’d think I’m cutting off fingers for how dramatic she’s being.

  “I don’t want to look like a cactus!”

  “It’s hair, Amber. It grows back.”

  By the time I’m through, she’s got a short bob, kind of pixie-style, with bangs. It isn’t exactly salon quality, but I have to say it’s not awful.

  The next order of business is the color. Turns out Mrs. Campanella doesn’t dye her hair. It’s looking like we’re going to have to use boot polish when we find the dad’s supply of that Just For Men stuff you brush into your beard. Twenty minutes later, Amber’s own mother wouldn’t recognize her. (I mean the person who pretended to be her mother, obviously.)

  “Oh, wow,” Amber moans, glued to her reflection in the mirror. “Wow.”

  I struggle to find something positive to offer. “Well, the good news is you’re the total opposite of Amber Laska, which was the whole point, right?”

  She nods. “Wow.”

  When we emerge from the bathroom, I announce grandly, “Presenting someone who looks nothing like the girl on the news tonight!”

  It falls on deaf ears. Malik is passed out on the king-size bed. Eli is slumped over the computer on the desk. Both are fast asleep.

  I’ve never been so jealous of anyone in my whole life. Amber and I each choose a kid’s bedroom and crash.

  9

  ELI FRIEDEN

  Felix Frieden—Felix Hammerstrom—stands at the head of the table, his steely gray eyes every bit as cold as I remember them. He’s under tight rein, but I can tell how mad he is. They’re in the conference room of the Serenity Plastics Works, a factory that’s supposed to be making traffic cones, but is really the headquarters of Project Osiris. Eleven whiteboards stand in a semicircle, each one covered in notes and photographs, telling the life story so far of eleven clones.

  He slaps the pointer against my picture. “We gave them everything,” he says with barely controlled fury. “The gift of Serenity—all the tools to overcome the criminality of their basic nature. And this is how they repay us.”

  Steve Pritel, Tori’s “father,” is almost in tears. “My Torific would never do this. She loves us, and I know we love her. It’s the evil influence of one of the others.” His eyes flash to Dr. Bruder, Malik’s “father.”

  Dr. Bruder cocks a brow. “Aren’t we getting a little emotional over something that is, after all, pure science? The whole purpose of the Osiris experiment is to determine if the subjects’ immoral natures will overcome their Serenity upbringing. Now we have our answer. They’ve broken into a house, taken what they needed without a second thought. They’re resourceful, ruthless, and fearless, with no loyalty to anyone but themselves. They have all the attributes of the DNA that created them, and they’ve shown that they won’t hesitate to use those talents in ruthless pursuit of their goals.”

  “Are you saying,” asks Mrs. Laska, “that the experiment is over?”

  Dr. Bruder nods. “We may not be getting the answer we were looking for, but it’s certainly an answer.”

  “You’re all missing the point,” comes a voice from the doorway. Everyone wheels. A tall, vitally energetic woman with piercing blue eyes and striking white hair enters the conference room and stands before them.

  I’ve never met her, but I know her from pictures. She’s Tamara Dunleavy, cofounder of and one-time partner in Project Osiris.

  “You’re not looking at the issues in the order of their importance,” she goes on, her authoritative voice resounding in the enclosed space of the conference room. “Who cares about your twisted little experiment? Don’t you see? You have duplicated four of the worst people in human history, and unleashed them on the world!”

  My numb hand slips out from under my chin, and I whack my face against the corner of the computer monitor—hard. I come awake with a start. Light floods the master bedroom through the venetian blinds. Morning. I must have spent the night hunched over the computer. My body feels it in every joint.

  Malik is still asleep on the bed. I don’t know where the girls are.

  I shudder as my dream comes back to me. I never want to think about Felix Hammerstrom again, but that doesn’t stop him from invading my head every night. I see his frozen fac
e, which is the closest thing to parental love I’ll ever know, and the photo of my dead mother, who never existed.

  This is the first time the nightmares have included Tamara Dunleavy, though. It’s already shaking my belief that going to find her is the right thing to do. How do we know that she won’t turn us over to the police or, worse, the Purple People Eaters? After all, she helped develop Project Osiris, which means at some point she must have believed that cloning criminal masterminds was a great idea.

  Just before she didn’t, that is.

  So how will she react to us? For all we know, she really will consider us a menace to society. But as I wake up a little more and my head clears, I’m still convinced that going to her is a risk worth taking. She’s the only person outside Serenity who can back up who and what we are.

  As I get to my feet, I jostle the mouse, bringing the computer out of screen-saver mode. What I see on the monitor nearly stops my heart.

  It’s a pop-up alert from the airline that the Campanellas’ flight from Honolulu arrived at Denver Airport six minutes early at 7:44 a.m. Checked luggage can be claimed on carousel 3.

  I stare at the clock on the screen. It’s 8:31. The Campanellas landed more than forty-five minutes ago! They could be home any minute!

  “Wake up!” I bark at Malik. I must be yelling pretty loud because he jumps eight inches off the bed.

  “What?”

  “They’re coming!” I babble.

  “The Purples?”

  “The Campanellas! The people who live here! Their plane landed forty-five minutes ago! We’ve got to get out of here!”

  Amber and Tori hear the yelling and come running in.

  My first sight of the new Amber with hair shorter and darker than Tori’s is so shocking that I momentarily forget the crisis that’s almost upon us.

  Malik is half-asleep and bleary-eyed. He stares at Amber. “Mrs. Campanella?”

  “It’s me, dummy!” Amber snaps. “What’s going on?”