Strange New World

by Rachel Vincent

  The elevator stops and the door slides open. Trigger steps to the side to let us precede him into a large, elegant foyer. Across the open space are three sets of double doors. Audra, Waverly’s producer, stands in front of the center set, holding a large tablet, and the moment she sees us, she begins whispering into her headset.

  Hennessy places my hand on the crook of his arm and leans in as if to kiss me. “Some of the guests are friends from school, but most of them are our parents’ business associates. I don’t remember all their names, and neither would Waverly. So don’t stress too much about that.”

  “Thank you,” I whisper in return. Then I shoot Trigger a smile, silently reassuring him that that moment wasn’t as intimate as it may have looked.

  Hennessy leads me across the foyer with Trigger 17 at our backs. Audra says something else into her headset. Then she gives us a big smile and throws the double doors open.

  Music is playing from somewhere—the string quartet Waverly mentioned. The huge room is full of people. And they’re all staring at us.

  I inhale. Then I smile.

  Applause breaks out as we step into the ballroom, and my smile feels frozen in place. My heels wobble, but my fears about tripping over my own feet seem misplaced because we’re not really walking. The crowd closes around us a few steps into the room, and from that moment on, we’re merely shuffling slowly across the floor, greeting couple after couple, group after group.

  Some introduce themselves as friends of the Chapmans. Others as friends of Waverly’s parents. I shake hands and compliment dresses. I laugh at jokes I don’t understand and listen to stories about people I don’t know. Whenever someone asks about Waverly’s wedding dress, I smile and give the coy deflection we practiced in front of the mirror. Then I hold my tattooed arm next to Hennessy’s tattooed arm and let people ooh and aah over the pulsing colors as a distraction and a change of subject.

  Halfway through the large room, when I can’t come up with an answer to a question from a woman my clone has apparently met several times, Hennessy interrupts my awkward reply to signal to a waiter carrying a tray of drinks. He lifts two tall champagne glasses—Waverly says they’re called flutes—and hands me one.

  I give him a grateful smile, and as I lift the champagne toward my mouth, I notice that there’s something etched into the side of the glass in a beautiful scrolling print. It’s Waverly’s name, above the word Bride and the date of the wedding.

  “Oh, how beautiful!” And as I glance around, I notice that everyone’s glass either bears the same words as mine, or Hennessy’s name and the word Groom.

  The woman who was speaking to me frowns. “Didn’t you know about the glasses, dear?”

  “She picked them out.” Waverly’s mother appears at my side seemingly out of thin air. “She just hasn’t seen them in person until now. And it was Waverly’s idea to sell them as mementos after the wedding, with the funds going to her signature cause—the children’s home.”

  “What a wonderful idea,” the woman says. “And yes, they are beautiful. I’ll take one of each!”

  Lorna gives me a cold smile, then disappears into the crowd. But I suspect she won’t wander very far, in case she has to save me from myself again.

  After another half hour of mingling, Hennessy sees me eyeing a tray of hors d’oeuvres, and waves the waiter—a clone—closer. By some miracle, we’re alone in the crowd for a moment while I study the selection.

  The waiter lowers the tray. “This one is grilled watermelon, chèvre, and basil,” he says, pointing to a delicate tower speared with a tiny stick that curls into a loop on one end. “These are maple-caramelized figs topped with bacon and chili pepper, and these are endive cups with beet, persimmon, and marinated feta.”

  They all look delicious. And elegant. And they’re all bite-sized. I didn’t know the food would be so tiny!

  I take a caramelized fig—it looks the most filling—and thank the waiter. Hennessy watches me with a small smile as I put the entire morsel in my mouth. “Mmmm…,” I moan as I chew. It’s sweet, and chewy, and crunchy, and a little spicy, all at the same time.

  Hennessy’s smile grows. “I wouldn’t have guessed you for a bacon lover. Waverly won’t touch it.”

  “We’re only genetically identical,” I remind him as softly as I can.

  He laughs and snags a tiny pastry from a tray being carried past while I sip my champagne. “This was the only thing I requested for the menu,” he tells me, holding up his bite-sized morsel.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a miniature beef Wellington.” He takes a careful bite, then shows me the tiny portion of pinkish beef wrapped in what remains of his tart.

  “It looks amazing. It smells amazing.” My mouth waters as he chews. “But Waverly doesn’t eat beef.”

  Hennessy takes a sip from his own flute and watches me for a second. “Play along,” he whispers. Then he raises his voice to a normal level. “Oh, come on, Waverly. Just try a bite. I tried the snapper crudo for you.” His lips are turned up into a teasing smile for Waverly, but his expectant gaze is for me as he brings the rest of his hors d’oeuvre toward my mouth.

  Ah. Waverly wouldn’t voluntarily eat beef, but she might take a bite that her fiancé feeds her. For the cameras.

  I open my mouth. Hennessy places the morsel on my tongue. His fingers brush my lips as I close my mouth.

  I moan again as I chew, and his smile…changes. His focus on me deepens, and I get the distinct impression that for the first time tonight, he’s seeing me, rather than the girl pretending to be his fiancée.

  “See?” His voice is above a whisper, yet still low-pitched, as if this is part of a private conversation. “Sometimes it pays to branch out.”

  “Thank you,” I whisper while people all around us make sounds of approval, as if we’re the cutest thing they’ve ever seen.

  As I raise my glass for another sip, my gaze travels over Hennessy’s shoulder and lands on Trigger. He’s standing at attention along the wall, near a few other members of private security. He looks…hurt.

  “Waverly!” A familiar voice calls, and when I turn, I see Margo and Sofia fighting their way through the crowd toward us, with Seren and a few others trailing behind them. These are Waverly and Hennessy’s friends—the faces and names I’ve spent part of the past week memorizing. Most of them I actually met last week, at Seren’s party, but I was too terrified and overwhelmed then to process much of anything other than the startling realization that they were all individuals.

  That concept no longer seems as strange as it did. In fact, I can hardly even imagine there being a thousand other boys who look like Hennessy. And considering that Sofia and Margo’s relationship with Waverly is as much competition as friendship, it’s probably a very good thing that there’s only one of each of them.

  “We’ve been looking for you for an hour!” Margo squeals as she loops her arm through mine, sloshing champagne dangerously near the top of my glass. “Come on, there’s some breathing room near the lookout.”

  Before I can decide whether I should know what the lookout is, she and Sofia are pulling me through the crowd, away from both Trigger and Hennessy.

  I’m so focused on not tripping over my heels or spilling my champagne that I don’t see the glass until we’re feet from it, in the most open space in the entire ballroom.

  “Oh…” I breathe as I stare at the view laid out before us. And suddenly I understand where the Precipice Ballroom gets its name. We’re looking out over half the city, sprawling down the side of the mountain that gives it its name. The setting sun glimmers on rooftops and cars, and on miles of the metallic cruise strip tracing the roads in both directions.

  I assume I’m looking through a huge window—literally one entire wall of the long, tall ballroom—until I notice a video playing silently in the glass just below eye
height, showing the installation of the huge wall.

  While Margo and Sofia get drinks from a waiter, I read the text scrolling across the bottom of the video, lauding the installation of the two giant panes of e-glass—the largest in the world—as an architectural masterpiece.

  Two panes? I spin to look across the room, and above several hundred heads I find another wall of glass, opposite this one. This building, I realize, sits at the very top of the mountain, in place of its peak, and through the huge e-glass windows, one can see both sides of the city winding its way from the foothills toward the summit.

  “Waverly’s father really outdid himself,” Hennessy whispers, and I jump, startled to find him right beside me. “He personally designed these panels, working closely with several architects at my father’s firm. It took them three years.”

  “Wow.” This view deserves more, but I have no better words.

  I wonder if Trigger has seen this yet.

  I sip my champagne slowly and we chat with Waverly’s friends—though my focus is split by the view out the glass as the sun sets—until Lorna appears again and ushers Hennessy and me toward a dais set up near the wall opposite the foyer entrance.

  It’s time for the toasts.

  There are at least a dozen of them, and that’s no exaggeration. Waverly’s parents each speak. Then Hennessy’s. Then his sister. Then Waverly’s maternal grandmother—her mother’s mother, a concept that seems to encompass twice the strangeness of the idea of maternity itself. Then a series of people whose relationships to the bride and groom I can’t even understand.

  Some of the toasts are sweet, others funny. I smile and laugh, glad that I’ve seen lots of footage of Waverly at parties.

  There are so many toasts that despite my very modest sips, Hennessy has to snag another glass of champagne for me about six speakers in.

  By the time the toasts are over, I feel a little light-headed. Yet very pleasant.

  “Speech!” someone shouts, and when I look for the shouter, I have to grab Hennessy’s arm for balance. “Waverly! You always have something to say!”

  The audience laughs, and in the second it takes me to realize that I’m being asked to speak to a room full of strangers, someone passes Hennessy the microphone, intending for him to give it to me.

  I stare at him, wide-eyed with panic. Waverly said this wouldn’t happen.

  Instead of handing me the microphone, he keeps it. “Waverly gets to have her say all the time,” he jokes to light laughter. “But tonight you guys are stuck with me.” Hennessy turns to look at me. “Waverly Whitmore, I knew from the moment I met you that someday I’d ask you to marry me. I was a little less confident that you’d say yes.”

  “Aww…” comes a chorus from our audience. And though I know he’s talking to my clone, not to me, something about the audience, and the champagne, and the knowledge that this should be a very special moment makes my heart feel suddenly swollen with emotion I can’t quite define. As if I’ve been dropped in the middle of someone else’s memory.

  “But you said yes and made me the happiest man in the world. Now I’m going to spend the rest of my life making you the happiest woman in the world. I love you. I want you by my side every day. Even if that means having your camera crew, and your makeup team, and your one-hundred-fifty-bazillion followers at my side too.”

  The audience laughs, and my head begins to swim. I can see how much he loves her. What I can’t see through the crowd is Trigger 17.

  “I want the whole package. I want to give you the world. But I’m afraid you might already have it,” Hennessy says, and more laughter bubbles up through the crowd. “So instead, I’ll just give you myself. All of me. For the rest of our lives. This is how forever starts.”

  Then Hennessy leans in and kisses me, right on the mouth. On camera. On the stage, in front of hundreds of people.

  And Trigger.

  The audience roars with applause and boisterous approval, and for a moment, as my head spins and the applause closes in on me, I kiss him back.

  Then Hennessy pulls away, and the reality of the moment hits me like a knife shoved straight through my heart. Behind his head, I see that the huge glass wall on one side of the room has become a viewing screen, and our images are on display, live. At about ten times our actual size.

  I look stunned.

  That kiss wasn’t meant for me. I know that. But it was given to me. Trigger saw. Waverly will see, if she hasn’t already, thanks to this city full of cameras.

  My image on the huge screen blinks.

  Lorna takes the microphone from Hennessy and smiles at the crowd. “Clearly Waverly’s a little dazed,” she says. “Now, that’s chemistry!”

  The audience roars its approval again, and I manage a smile as I scan the crowd in search of Trigger. But there are too many people. I can’t see him.

  What I do see is a staff of gray-clad clones filing into the back of the room through a service entrance. They begin emptying trash cans and clearing trays of used glasses and napkins, staring at the floor when their job doesn’t pull their gazes to the tasks at hand.

  While everyone else eats, drinks, and laughs, the clones are working. And unlike citizen employees, they won’t go home with an account full of credits in exchange for their labor. They won’t change into casual clothes and greet their family members. The same is true of the clone cooks who made the hors d’oeuvres, the drivers who brought the guests to this party, and workers who will clean up after we’ve all gone.

  Suddenly it all seems so simple.

  This isn’t right.

  And it won’t change unless someone does something. Someone people will listen to. Someone with an audience of tens of millions.

  Or someone who looks just like her.

  “Waverly, say something!” a voice calls from the crowd, and it sounds suspiciously like Sofia Locke.

  “Waverly isn’t feeling very well—” Lorna begins.

  I turn and take the microphone from her before I can lose my nerve. Before she, or Dane Whitmore, or Hennessy can read my intention on my face.

  “Thank you all for coming,” I say, beginning the way Waverly starts most of her public addresses. “It means the world to me and to Hennessy that you’ve all come out to celebrate with us. I do have something to say, if you’ll all bear with me.” I stare out at the crowd without focusing on any one face. Hennessy takes my hand and squeezes it subtly, but I ignore his silent warning. “As you all know, the beautiful engraved glasses we’re drinking from tonight will be sold after the wedding, with the proceeds to go to one of my favorite children’s charities. But while I have you here tonight, I’d like to mention another cause. My new official platform.”

  Hennessy’s hand squeezes tighter, and Lorna steps up to my side, her presence like a physical threat. But there’s nothing she can say or do now without causing a scene.

  I press forward, emboldened by my glass and a half of champagne and the indignation burning in my gut. “My new signature cause, which I’d love for you all to support with me, is”—I pause, letting anticipation build like I’ve seen Waverly do on her show—“clones’ rights.”

  The screen on my wall plays a happy little melody, alerting me that the link my mother set up is ready.

  Through silent feeds from three of the security cameras in the Precipice Ballroom, I watch Dahlia and Hennessy make their way slowly through the room, greeting guests, while on the other half of my wall, I monitor the public feeds for all mentions of the party. A bolt of jealousy surges through me as I watch him feed her an hors d’oeuvre.

  The comments are all positive. People love her clothes. They think he looks hot and she looks gorgeous. I should be thrilled. Yet envy burns in my chest like indigestion.

  The whisper of my door opening distracts me from the engagement toasts that are beginning on-screen, and I
turn to see Julienne 20 coming in with a domed silver tray. She sets my meal on the table by the window. “Will there be anything else?” she asks, staring at the floor.

  Why does she always stare at the floor? If Dahlia can convince a room full of people that she’s me, why can’t Julienne even give coherent answers to my questions?

  A new idea flashes through my mind like lightning across the sky. “Yes, actually, there’s one more thing. When do you eat dinner?”

  She frowns at her gray canvas shoes. “Whenever time permits.”

  “Tonight, I’d like you to have dinner with me. Go get your meal, please, and bring it here.”

  Her frown deepens, but her gaze doesn’t rise. “H-here?”

  “Yes. Right now. Go get your food.”

  “Of course. Will that be all?”

  “Yes. Thank you,” I add.

  A few minutes later Julienne comes back carrying a plastic fork and a small cardboard box with steam rising from the seam. Yet this time she hesitates just inside the door, as always, looking down at her feet.

  I wave her forward as I settle into one of the chairs by the window, on either side of the small table. “Come eat with me.”

  Julienne looks confused as she sits across from me in silence. Her hands tremble as she sets her box of food on the table.

  “Oh, you’re not going to be eating that,” I say, and her gaze snaps up to mine. “We’re going to run a little experiment. For the next few days, you’re going to eat your meals with me—sharing my food—and we’re going to see if that makes you feel any…different.”

  Julienne stares at me, brows drawn low. So I take her box dinner—noting the Lakeside insignia printed on two sides—and drop it into the trash can, untouched.

  “Here.” I push my plate toward the center of the table. “I only ever eat half of it anyway. The servings are huge.” I motion toward her fork, but she doesn’t reach for it. So I take my own silverware and cut my crumb-crusted sablefish fillet down the center and push half of it toward her. Then I carve a divide down the middle of my caramelized fennel and roasted cherry tomatoes. “Seriously.” I tear the freshly baked crescent roll in half and set one hunk on her side. “That part’s for you. It smells delicious. Dig in.” Then I pick up my fork and take a bite of fish. “Mmmm…,” I moan. “Everything you make is amazing.”