Strange New World

by Rachel Vincent

  Julienne smiles, for the first time I can remember. It’s a small smile. Shy. And she stares at the table the whole time. But I silently celebrate the victory.

  “Eat,” I say as I cut my next bite. “That’s an order.” But she doesn’t take the first bite until I turn my attention to the e-glass. So I watch Dahlia on-screen and settle for studying Julienne out of the corner of my eye, which seems to make her more comfortable.

  By the time I finish my fish, the toasts are over, and I notice tension on the dais. I can’t tell exactly what’s going on. Someone hands the microphone to Hennessy, clearly intending for him to hand it to Dahlia. Instead, he keeps it and begins to speak.

  I really wish I could hear what he’s saying, because though he’s saying it to her, I know he means it—whatever it is—for me.

  Then he kisses her, and I feel like my heart just cracked open and fell apart.

  It’s an act. It’s a necessary part of the act. A dozen people just toasted to our marriage. Of course he kissed her. But he was really kissing me.

  Yet he kissed her.

  I stand and swipe the viewing window closed; then I drop my fork on my plate with a clatter. Julienne looks up, startled.

  “Sorry. Finish your dinner. It’s fine,” I tell her. But it’s not fine. If it’s this hard to watch my fiancé kiss someone else, how am I ever going to watch him recite vows to her in our wedding?

  Julienne chews her last cherry tomato as she stands and gathers the silverware and napkin onto the plate. She sweeps crumbs from the table onto the plate with her hand, then disappears into the hallway before I can remind her to bring her breakfast with mine tomorrow.

  And honestly, right now I don’t even care.

  I pace across the room, and from the corner of my eye, the pink holographic tulip in a projector pot next to my bed withers and dies. In its place a stem emerges, growing rapidly until a bud at the top unfolds, reflecting my anger in the form of a single black iris with delicate, wavy edges.

  Frustrated, I spin to face the screen again and reopen the video just in time to see Dahlia take the microphone from Lorna. She begins to speak, and the entire crowd goes still.

  What is she saying?

  Desperate, I turn back to the public feeds and scroll through until I find a video posted in the search column I’ve set up for the party. Though it’s been forbidden, someone is shooting a livecast from the Precipice Ballroom. I tap on the video to play it, then enlarge the screen until the shaky view of the dais takes up a quarter of my wall. I’ve missed the first part of Dahlia’s speech, but her closing statement makes it easy to fill in the blanks.

  “…citizenship for clones!”

  What?

  Noooooo…

  Waverly storms out the front door of her house as our car pulls to a stop in the driveway. “What the hell did you do?” she demands.

  “You did the right thing,” Trigger assures me from the front seat as he opens his door.

  Hennessy hasn’t said a word since he shuffled me through the crowd, out of the building, and into the car on Lorna’s orders, leaving Waverly’s parents to do “damage control.” He looks angry. But he also looks worried.

  Trigger opens my door.

  “Dahlia!” Waverly snaps as I climb out of the car. “How— Why—” Finally she just stares at me, as if no more words will come.

  Behind us, the front gate squeals open and another car pulls into the driveway. Waverly’s parents get out. “Inside. All of you,” her mother orders in a low, angry voice.

  Dane Whitmore marches past us into the house without a word.

  Trigger takes my hand on the way up the front steps. “They’re mad now, but they’ll understand soon,” he whispers as we climb the curving staircase together.

  “I doubt that.”

  Half an hour ago, I’d felt invincible, buoyed by champagne and emboldened by the microphone in my hand. By the hundreds of people waiting to hear what I had to say. But now…

  After spending a week learning to be Waverly, I understand enough of her world to know that I’ve embarrassed and angered the Whitmores in a very public way. Which, in terms that Trigger would understand, is like stabbing them where they’re most vulnerable.

  I don’t really care about the anger and embarrassment of a family that doesn’t even notice the servants who make their meals, wash their clothes, or clean their house. But I do care about how they’ll react to this.

  Lorna still has all the power in the world over my identicals.

  “Waverly’s a clone. What you said is in her best interest,” Trigger insists, too low for anyone else to hear as we head down the second-floor hallway. “She’ll see that eventually.”

  But I don’t think she will. I think she’ll always believe that hiding the truth is what’s in her best interest. Even if that doesn’t benefit anyone else.

  We follow Waverly and Hennessy past the blue room, headed for the family wing, but Lorna stops in front of the gray room.

  “Trigger isn’t involved in this.” She waves the door open and gestures for him to enter.

  “I’ll stay with Dahlia,” he says.

  “No.”

  “It’s okay,” I tell him. “I’ll be fine.” And I’m afraid that if he comes with me, Lorna will use him against me. That she’ll threaten him like she’s threatening the rest of my identicals, to get me to do whatever she wants.

  Reluctantly, Trigger steps into the gray room, and the door slides shut between us. Suddenly I feel like I’ve just severed a lifeline. Like I’m stacking mistake on top of mistake, and soon the pile will bury me.

  I follow Waverly and Hennessy into her room, but Lorna remains in the hall, tapping on her tablet.

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Waverly demands the moment the door closes.

  “I know you’re angry, but—”

  “You have no idea. I’m going to have to own this now. The only way I’m going to be able to convince the world that I’m not insane is to take what you said and run with it.”

  I exhale in relief. “Good. I think that’s the best thing.” While I hadn’t given my speech much forethought, I had assumed that anything I said on camera, she’d have to stand by. Which was why I’d said it.

  “This is not good,” Waverly screeches.

  Hennessy drops onto the white leather couch without even attempting to calm her down. He seems to be deep in his own thoughts.

  “Mom!” Waverly stomps toward her door, but it opens before she reaches it and Lorna walks inside, sliding her tablet into her pocket. “Have you looked at the optics? Obviously we’re going to have to own this. Call my publicist. I have to make a statement, and I need options for how best to approach this.”

  Lorna crosses her arms over the bodice of her dress. “Slow down, Waverly. The Administrator will never let you take on clone citizenship as a public platform.”

  “The Administrator.” Waverly sinks onto the couch like a deflating balloon. Then she groans.

  I glance from mother to daughter, confused. “What does the Administrator have to do with it?”

  “She’s agreed not to tell the world that Waverly is a clone and we’ve agreed not to press charges against her for putting DNA she didn’t own into production. We’ll all get hurt, should either of those things be made public. But there’s only so far we can push her before she’s willing to break that truce, because the truth is that we stand to lose more than she does from all this. And she’s a vengeful woman.”

  “What does that mean?” I understand the words, but the conclusion still feels fuzzy.

  “It means you may have just gotten us both killed!” Waverly explodes off the couch, fear and fury warring behind her eyes. “If I’m a clone, she owns me, and she can have me euthanized anytime she wants. Just like the rest of your identicals.”
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br />   I turn to Lorna, my heart thumping so hard my chest aches. “I thought you bought them. Don’t they belong to you now?”

  “She hasn’t accepted my offer yet. They’re still in her possession, both physically and legally.”

  “This is why you can’t just go out in public and say whatever you want!” Waverly says. “Words have consequences!”

  “So do actions,” I say softly.

  “What?” Waverly turns on me, and suddenly the righteous indignation shining in her eyes—as if I’m the problem—makes me so mad.

  “I said actions have consequences too.” I raise my voice until all three are looking at me, and this time, instead of shrinking away from the attention, I power through. “Buying human beings, producing human beings to be bought—those have always had life-or-death consequences for clones. The only thing my speech changed is that now those consequences could affect you.”

  “She’s right,” Hennessy says, and we all turn to him in surprise. “And all that goes for me as well. I didn’t really care about any of this until it started affecting Waverly. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have cared.”

  “Okay. Yes.” Waverly drops onto the cushion next to him, more moved by his admission than by anything I’ve said so far. “The world is a terrible place. Big surprise.” She turns to me, brows dipped low over eyes reflecting my own kaleidoscope of emotions back at me. “But you can’t fix it like this. You can’t fix it at all. No one even knows you exist.”

  “But they know you exist. You’re the people’s princess—the most famous face in the world. People listen to you. You’ve spent the past week teaching me that. If anyone can change things, it’s you.”

  “You don’t get it!” Waverly stands again, and now she’s pacing.

  “When you couldn’t make yourself look like other women, you convinced the world that other women should look like you. You changed the way people think, Waverly, and if you can do it once, you can do it again.”

  She gapes at me. “Dahlia, I don’t think you understand the nature of my influence. I’m famous for cutting ribbons and donating clothes to the homeless. For visiting sick kids in hospitals. I can sell out designer purse lines and raise stock values on lip gloss, but I don’t make laws. I don’t work miracles.”

  “Well, you better learn how fast.” I claim the chair by the window and watch her pace. “There were a lot of cameras in that room.”

  Something beeps, and Lorna pulls her tablet from her pocket. She reads with narrowed eyes and a clenched jaw, but she offers no input on the discussion.

  “Okay. Let’s think about this.” Hennessy waves an arm to wake up the wall screen. “What’s already out there can’t be taken back. So our options are to say that Waverly suffered a stress breakdown—”

  “No,” Waverly says. “My brand would never recover.”

  “—or develop the new platform Dahlia announced and find some way to leverage the Administrator.”

  “Not possible. The Administrator will fight ‘citizenship for clones’ with every credit she has in the bank. And every politician who’s ever bought one will be on her side, because if the law decides that clones are citizens, they’ll have been guilty of buying people.”

  “They’re already guilty of that,” I point out.

  “Not legally,” Waverly shoots back. But I can see the conflict eating away at her. “This is so messed up. I’m a clone. I can’t go out there and tell people that clones shouldn’t have any rights. I shouldn’t want to do that. But this will ruin me. This could get me killed.”

  “It could always have gotten you killed,” I say quietly. “Even if none of this had happened, next year my identicals and I would have gone to market, and you’d be facing the same problem. At least this way, you found out before the rest of the world did.”

  “Wait,” Hennessy says. “We don’t have to get the Administrator on board with Dahlia’s statement. She doesn’t have to support citizenship for clones. She just has to agree not to out Waverly.”

  Waverly frowns at him. “Why on earth would she agree…?”

  “Okay,” Lorna says, and with that one word, she’s taken over the room. She lifts her tablet and swipes something from it onto the e-glass.

  I gasp when I see Trigger staring up at me from the wall screen. He’s still wearing his security uniform, but he’s standing alone in a room containing only a single small cot and a door open to reveal a small restroom. He stares up at the camera and starts yelling angrily, but without audio, I can’t tell what he’s saying.

  “What is this?” I demand, my gaze glued to the screen.

  “Motivation.” Lorna pockets her tablet. “Trigger is in the basement, in the holding cell. That room has no connection to the household system, other than the security camera we’re seeing him through. I’m the only one authorized to open the door. Dahlia, if you don’t do exactly as I say from here on out, I will send him back to the Administrator in chains.”

  “But she’ll euthanize him for disobedience!” I cry, horrified.

  “With my full blessing,” Lorna confirms. Waverly stares at her feet in obvious discomfort. Hennessy puts his arm around her. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Do what you want, or you’ll kill Trigger.” My voice echoes with defeat.

  “Exactly. Now, what we’re going to hope is that when the Administrator sees that video, she believes that finding out about her own origin has given Waverly a change of heart. Because if she realizes that was you on camera, there will be no way to stop her from ruining all of us.” Lorna turns to Waverly. “Audra, the network, and your publicist have been fielding calls and interview requests for the past hour. I’ve told them all to say that you will be making a statement on camera soon, and everyone will have to wait for that.”

  Waverly nods.

  “And you’ll be making that statement yourself. Wearing long sleeves.” Lorna turns to Hennessy. “It’s very important that you refer all questions to the network and that you give no statements yourself. The same goes for your family, if you can manage that.”

  “I can. But what do I tell my parents and sister? They’ve been messaging me since we left the party.”

  “Tell them that Waverly’s been thinking long and hard about her official platform, and she’s sworn you to secrecy. For now, at least.”

  He doesn’t seem convinced that will work. Having met Margo, I suspect he’s right.

  Lorna heads for the hall with one more angry glance at me. “Now if you’ll all excuse me, I have to go deal with the Administrator.”

  When Julienne comes in with my breakfast tray, I close the document containing my prewritten, mother-approved interview answers and slide my tablet into my pocket, glad for the break. And for the distraction. In the week since the engagement party, damage control has become a full-time job. My public feed is overwhelmed with questions about my “clone citizenship” platform, whether or not Hennessy and I plan to staff our household with clones, and whether or not our parents will change the staffing arrangements in their houses and businesses.

  I’ve spent so much time putting out social media fires—without actually answering any questions—that our “princess prep” sessions have dwindled to an hour or so a day. I’ve seen more of Julienne 20 this week than I have of Dahlia. And I’m fine with that.

  Julienne hasn’t betrayed me.

  “Good morning,” I say as the door closes behind her.

  She doesn’t answer, but this time she looks up when I speak. I blink at her in surprise, and then she smiles right at me. Eye contact and everything. It only lasts for a moment, but I swear, that tiny smile sparks a sense of triumph in me unlike anything I’ve felt before.

  It’s working.

  I was right. Her prepackaged food isn’t just laced with hormone suppressors. It’s also full of some kind of sed
ative that lets her work but keeps her from truly engaging with the world. From really seeing anything beyond a job she can basically perform on autopilot.

  “What’s on the menu this morning?” I ask as she sets the tray on the table by the window.

  “Pear and honey crostini with candied walnuts.” Julienne pulls the domes from both plates. One contains my breakfast. The other holds hers—a paper bowl of instant oatmeal, labeled with the Lakeview city seal.

  As I’ve done three times a day for the past five days, I drop her food into my trash can, then slide half of my meal onto her plate; she still makes more than I can eat in a single sitting anyway. “You’ve outdone yourself,” I tell her. “It smells delicious!”

  This morning, Julienne sits across the table from me without being asked. She even drapes her napkin over her lap and picks up her fork. But she waits until I cut my first bite before cutting hers.

  “Is that blue cheese?” I ask as I cut another bite.

  “And ricotta,” she answers around a mouthful. I laugh, and she smiles as she chews. She’s staring at the table again, but this is real progress.

  Obviously Dahlia and Trigger themselves are proof that clones aren’t born mentally muddled. But seeing a clone emerge from that mental fog—knowing what causes it and that it’s reversible…

  Twice, I’ve started to tell Dahlia what I’m doing. She deserves to know, especially now that my theory has panned out. But after what she did at the engagement party…

  Julienne gives me another shy glance. For the past few days, I’ve been asking her small questions. Her favorite color. (It’s purple.) Her favorite food. (It’s chocolate ice cream.) But today, I think we’re both ready for something bigger.

  “May I ask you something?” I say while she sips from the glass of pomegranate juice I set in front of her, from my tray.