Strange New World

by Rachel Vincent

  “This is crazy,” Hennessy says with another look through the window.

  “I know. You can stay here if you want. I can broadcast it myself.”

  He smiles and takes my hand. “This isn’t how I pictured our honeymoon. But I’m with you.”

  “Thank you.” I hand him my tablet, which is already cued up to start the livecast on my public feed. “There are already nearly a quarter of a million people signed in, waiting for the stream.”

  “Just tell me when you’re ready.”

  I reach up and jab the plastic fixture overhead, and the back of the car fills with light. “One more thing.” I scoot closer and pull him in for a kiss. A good, long one. Because if we get caught, it may be our last. “I love you,” I whisper when I finally pull away.

  “I love you too. Waverly and Hennessy forever,” he says. “Even if forever ends tonight.”

  I can’t resist a sad smile. “That’s not much of a pep talk.”

  “You’re the talker in this relationship.” He lifts my tablet and points it at me. “Time’s running out,” he says with a smile.

  I take a deep breath. “Okay. Go.”

  He taps the Record icon. The outline of an old-fashioned camera appears on the side of the tablet facing me. Through it, I can see him watching me. He gives me a wink.

  I smile at him through the tablet. Then I start talking. “Hey, guys, it’s Waverly Whitmore with an exclusive for you, and this cannot be missed. So if your friends aren’t tuning in yet, send them the link already! I’ll wait!” I pause for a second and blow a strand of hair away from my face. “Never mind. I can’t wait because I’m coming to you live today from inside Lakeview. In my wedding dress, because it turns out there’s no official dress code for a groundbreaking exposé.

  “What’s that? You don’t believe me because there’s a network blackout in Lakeview? Well, we’ve punched right through the block, but I don’t know how long it’ll be before the Administrator and her thugs figure that out and cut us off, so pay attention. Tap Record and get ready to share this with everyone you know. I’m about to take you inside the secondary dormitory tower here in Lakeview, where thousands of teenage clones are gathered in nearly two dozen cafeterias having dinner. And you’re not going to believe what you see.

  “Ready?” I ask Hennessy through the tablet, and he nods. “What’s our viewership up to?”

  “Four hundred thousand and growing.”

  I whistle as I open the car door. “Seriously, spread the word, guys. I want one million people watching this before they cut us off.” I climb out of the car, careful not to trip over my skirt, and glance around the courtyard, which Dahlia calls the “common lawn.” There are a few classes of clones outside playing soccer in teams or heading toward the dorm—toward us—for dinner, and I give Hennessy a spinning gesture with my index finger. He turns to get a shot of the lawn, and I can only imagine what my viewers are thinking.

  No one’s seen the inside of the training ward. Hennessy’s been to Lakeview a dozen times, but he’s never been past the mansion.

  He turns the camera on me again as I walk backward down the sidewalk toward the building, my satin and organza skirt swishing around my legs.

  “As you can see, the building at my back is huge. Like, twenty stories or more.” I aim a gesture upward, and Hennessy follows it with the camera, then refocuses on me. “We’re going to head through the front door to the right, where I’m told the first-floor cafeteria is currently filled with manual-labor students—clones being taught to clean, launder, and perform other ‘unskilled’ jobs in our homes and businesses. Think you know what you’re going to see inside? I guarantee you that you’re wrong.”

  I turn when I get to the front door and spare a second to hope that Trigger’s ping worked. That the adults have all gathered elsewhere for a made-up meeting. Then I pull the door open and step into a shallow, light gray–tiled lobby, sandwiched by a bank of four elevators on each side. Straight ahead, a wide hallway leads to the left and the right, already echoing with voices from what must be the cafeteria.

  “Can you hear that?” I ask the camera, and Hennessy nods at me through the tablet. “That’s the sound of a couple hundred conversations going on at once. Is that what you thought you’d hear from a clone cafeteria?”

  “We’re at more than half a million now,” my groom says as he follows me into the hallway.

  “Thanks, Hennessy.” I turn to the right, and see that the hallway ends in a large glass-walled room full of long tables with built-in stools. There are easily hundreds of kids my age sitting at the tables, eating, drinking, and talking. But at a glance, I can only see six different faces.

  Six.

  I know that clones have identicals, obviously. And I’ve even seen groups of up to six identicals working together. But I’ve never in my life seen this many people walking around with the same face, and knowing that this place exists is nothing like seeing it for myself.

  This is surreal.

  “Can you zoom in on that?”

  Hennessy uses his thumb and forefinger to get a closer shot of the cafeteria through the glass walls, one portion of which appears to be an open glass door. “Comments are pouring in,” he says, and when I squint, I can see them scrolling across the left side of my tablet, in print too small for me to read in reverse.

  He follows me as I head slowly down the hall, watching and listening to the manual-labor students, who haven’t noticed us yet.

  The clones are all kind of slim and not very tall, probably from the genetic hormone deficiency, and the girls are all pretty flat-chested, just like I am. The youngest girls are shorter, with a pouf of dark hair and amber-toned skin, while the older two genomes are paler, one with brunette waves, the other with long, straight blond hair.

  The youngest third of the boys are redheaded and freckled, with pale skin. Of the other two genomes represented, one is tall with dark skin and the other has a medium skin tone with glossy, dark curls.

  I can’t help but stare. So many identical faces and heads of hair, though the girls have fixed theirs in dozens of styles. So many voices of the same pitch and timbre. So many identical uniforms.

  Some of them sit in clusters while they eat from identical portions on identical cafeteria trays. Some have already finished and are talking to their friends, or are drawing or playing games on sheets of actual, old-fashioned paper.

  Energized and more furious than I’ve ever been in my life, I turn back to the camera, hyperaware that I could be noticed at any moment. That if the adults come back, this is all over. “Do these look like the clones you see working on the street, or in your local bakery or dry cleaner? Do they sound like the clones who cook your food or clean your room? No? That’s because the clones who work for us are drugged with a substance the Administrator puts in their food, to keep them compliant and satisfied with the lives we force on them. They’re not quiet and subservient by nature, no matter what you’ve been taught. By nature, they’re just like we are. Let’s go talk to them.”

  I can hear Hennessy’s footsteps on the tile as he follows me.

  My heart thuds as I step into the cafeteria, but at first, no one seems to notice us or care that we’re there. Until I walk up to a group of three identical blond girls at the nearest table. Their talking ceases when they see me. One drops her spoon into a bowl of what looks like chicken soup. All three stare in awe at my poufy skirt. Then they notice my face.

  Conversations at the surrounding tables fade into uneasy whispers. The only words I can make out are dress and recalled.

  They recognize me. They think I should be dead, along with my identicals. They have no idea how wrong they are on both counts. And after they’re done staring at me, they turn to Hennessy. He’s taller and stouter than any other guy in the room, and they have no reason to recognize his face. Or the clear glass ta
blet he’s holding.

  Almost as one, they seem to realize that we do not belong here.

  “Hi,” I say as the localized patch of silence spreads through the room. As more and more faces turn to us. “What are your names?”

  The three blond girls glance at one another. Then at Hennessy. Then one meets my gaze. “Aida 17,” she says. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Waverly,” I tell her. “Who are the rest of you?”

  “I’m Bayley, and that’s Paige,” the girl who dropped her spoon said. “Weren’t you…?”

  “Weren’t I what?” I motion Hennessy closer with my tablet, to make sure he can hear.

  “We’re at seven hundred thousand viewers,” he says, reading from the counter on his side of the screen.

  “Weren’t you recalled?” Bayley 17 asks as more and more of the room descends into silence.

  “Can you tell me what you mean by that?” I ask her while Hennessy zooms in on her face.

  “I mean…your genome. I thought you and your identicals were all recalled last month.”

  “And by recalled, you mean…?”

  “Ended,” Paige 17 says. “Euthanized. Because you were all flawed. Right?”

  “My identicals,” I repeat for the camera. “How many of us were there, do you know?”

  “Five thousand,” Aida 17 says as the clones at the table behind her gather closer.

  I turn back to the camera. “Everyone in this room recognizes my face,” I tell my audience of nearly three-quarters of a million people. “Because I am a clone, just like they are. Though my parents and I were completely unaware of it, eighteen years ago, a Lakeview geneticist designed my genome for my mother, then cloned it and put it into production as a class of trade laborers. Until last month, I had five thousand identicals living here in Lakeview.” I pause for effect while the clones all around me stare in stunned silence. “That’s right. I am a clone. You’ve known me all my life, and you had no idea I was a clone. That’s because clones are just like you, until they’re sold into servitude and kept drugged. Let me show you a little more.”

  I turn back to the table. “Aida, what’s your favorite school subject?”

  “History,” she says, her eyes wide as she stares at my tablet. My question seems to be the only part of this she understands. “I like to read about the world, before it changed.”

  “Great. And you?”

  “I don’t like class,” Paige tells me. “I like recreation. Soccer and volleyball. And sometimes relays.”

  “Me too,” Bayley says. “Swimming relays.”

  “Tennis!” Someone shouts from the table behind her. Then the cafeteria breaks out in a good-natured argument over which team sport is the most fun.

  “Eight hundred thousand and climbing,” Hennessy tells me, a triumphant smile forming on his lips.

  “Okay. Thanks,” I say to the girls at the first table. “Now I have another question for you.” The argument begins to quiet down, because everyone wants to hear what I’m going to ask. “What would you say if I told you that the rest of the world is nothing like Lakeview. That everyone born in my hometown, Mountainside, is an individual.”

  “Individual?” Bayley frowns. “No one’s an individual, except the Administrator. Everyone knows that.”

  “Nine hundred thousand,” Hennessy whispers. “And the comments are still pouring in.”

  “Look at my friend Hennessy,” I tell them, and Hennessy obliges me by moving the camera away from his face. “Do any of you recognize him?”

  Heads shake all over the cafeteria.

  “That’s because he’s an individual. He has no identicals. He’s not a clone. In fact, his genome wasn’t created at all. He is the product of a mother and a father who conceived him the ‘archaic’ way. His mother carried him in her body. She gave birth to him. And to his sister. That’s how everyone in Mountainside is born.”

  Someone near the back of the crowd laughs.

  “What’s going on?” Aida 17 asks. “Is this some kind of game? A joke? What’s that thing he’s holding?”

  “It’s a tablet, like the ones you use in class, only it’s made from newer technology. It’s hooked up to a network that connects everyone in the world—except you guys here in Lakeview. Because the Administrator knows that if you had access, you’d know that the other cities aren’t like this.”

  “Waverly,” Hennessy says. “Time’s up.” He’s holding his own tablet in his free hand, reading a message that has popped up on it. “Trigger says soldiers are on the way.”

  I turn back to the cafeteria full of clones now staring at me as if I have two heads. I don’t have time to convince them that this isn’t a joke or a game. But with any luck, the people I do need to convince around the world are still with me. And starting to believe. “Is there a back way out of this place?” I ask.

  About a hundred arms point in unison to a door on the other side of the cafeteria.

  “Should I stop broadcasting?” Hennessy asks as he follows me through the path that opens up in the crowd.

  “No. If they’re going to arrest us”—or kill us—“they’re going to do it live on camera. To be clear,” I say to the tablet as I back toward the door. “The authorities here in Lakeview have no reason to let us out of here alive. We’re breaking the law by showing you this. But the Administrator is breaking the laws of human decency by creating an entire population for no purpose other than to serve. A population that is designed to be sterile and to die between the ages of twenty-eight and forty-five, depending upon the class they were created for.”

  Gasps go up in the crowd around me, and I realize that at least some of my new friends understand what I’m saying. And they didn’t know about their age cap.

  But they believe me.

  “Thanks, you guys!” I say to the entire room as I shove open the back door. Then Hennessy and I are outside, alone again, and the sun has fully set. “Okay,” I say to the camera. “We’re supposed to meet our friends Trigger 17 and Dahlia 16 at the genetics lab, but that’s a bit of a hike from here, especially in this ensemble.” I gesture at my dress and heels. “So we’re going to drive. But I have no idea if we’ll make it. We’ve been told soldiers are heading to the dorm, but I don’t know whether or not they know we’re here.”

  “Your mother’s calling,” Hennessy says, and through the glass tablet, I can see her face flashing in the bottom corner of the screen.

  “Okay, my mom’s calling, so they probably know,” I amend. “In fact, the Administrator’s probably watching our livecast right now.” I stop walking and look straight at the camera. “Administrator, if you’re watching, know this: if you want to take us out, you’re going to have to do it live, in front of nearly a million—”

  “One point two,” Hennessy corrects.

  “In front of one point two million viewers.” I turn to spot the car, then continue walking backward toward it, still addressing the camera. “Guys, if we don’t make it home tonight, it’s because the Administrator—Amelia Locke—sent her clone soldiers after us. If that happens, I want you to call your local police. Call all of them. Tell them what happened here tonight. Make your voices heard, like I’m making mine heard right now. I should have done this a month ago, when I first found out. Don’t wait like I did. Don’t be scared like I was. Speak out. There’s no change that can’t be accomplished if enough people demand it.”

  We’re at the car, so I open the door and climb in. Hennessy comes in after me, still filming. “Take us to the administration ward, please,” I tell the driver. He relays the command to the car, and it takes off along the metallic cruise strip in the middle of the lane.

  On the way, Hennessy aims my tablet out the window, giving the world its first look at the greater Lakeview grounds. At the small cluster of tall buildings, separated by acres of manicured lawns
, lit up at night by a series of picturesque, old-fashioned light poles.

  As we pull through the small gate dividing the training ward from the administration ward, we see soldiers jogging in formation toward the dormitory we’ve just left. “I wonder if they’re looking for us?” I say aloud for the camera. But I don’t wonder enough to ask them.

  What would have taken us twenty minutes to walk takes only a few to drive. “This must be it,” I say when the car pulls to a stop in front of a nondescript gray brick building. It’s only a single story tall—not what I expected from a building where tens of thousands of babies are made every year under factory-like conditions.

  “Thanks,” I say to the driver as we get out of the car. Hennessy and I run toward the west side of the building, where Trigger told us the least-used entrance is. “Okay,” I tell my viewers. “With any luck, you’re about to meet our friends Trigger 17 and Dahlia 16. Though truthfully, you’ve already met Dahlia. You just don’t know it yet—”

  “Waverly!” Dahlia calls out in a whisper, and I whirl around, squinting into the dark to find her. She and Trigger step out of deeper shadows around the corner of the small building. “How’d it go?” Her eyes widen when she sees Hennessy. “Are you still streaming?”

  “Yes. Everyone, this is Dahlia,” I whisper for the camera. “Does she look familiar?”

  “Hang on.” Hennessy taps something on his side of the screen, and enough light emanates from my tablet to light up our faces. “Now they can see you.”

  “Turn that off!” Trigger snaps.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “They’ve had a good look.” Hennessy turns off the light. “And you guys, what you’re seeing is real. No effects in play here. Dahlia and I are identical. And there are four thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine other girls who look just like us at a ‘transition’ facility in Valleybrook, waiting to be sold. But we’re not going to let that happen, are we?”