The Pretenders

by Rebecca Hanover

  “She’ll come to. By the time you get her home,” the man advises.

  I get a full view of the man’s face. The chunky tortoise-shell glasses resting on his nose. The unkempt hair.

  He meets my eyes for a split second, and I freeze, feeling like I’ve seen him somewhere before.

  “Ollie,” I call out. He’s at my side; he hasn’t left it this entire time.

  “Yeah?” he answers.

  “Isn’t that…” I point to the man in the back seat. Within moments, the door has slammed shut in my face, cutting off my view of this person, whoever he is.

  I turn to look at Ollie.

  “Albert Seymour,” he says quietly. “That was my uncle. Gravelle’s half brother. The creator of the Similars.”

  It’s what I suspected. I only have a second to process this development before I turn back to the car, running to the rear and rapping on the window. I bang as hard as I can, hoping Seymour will open it.

  He does.

  “Mr. Seymour,” I say, my eyes darting from the man’s careworn face to Ollie and back again. “What are you doing here? Who are these—these copies?” I ask him, praying that he won’t brush me off.

  Ollie runs up next to me to address his uncle directly. “We’re not letting you leave until we get answers,” Ollie says with conviction. “So go ahead. Enlighten us.”

  Seymour sighs like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I can’t. Not now. Meet me at Fillmore Park tonight. Eight o’clock. I’ll tell you everything you need to know.” He puts his window back up, and the SUV takes off seconds later.

  “Mr. Ward! Ms. Chance!” a voice barks at us. We turn to see Principal Fleischer standing in front of us, arms crossed over her chest, irate. “You have three seconds to hightail it to your respective dorms, or—”

  “We’re going!” I shout, grabbing Ollie by the arm and rushing out of there.

  “Look at this label on her jacket,” I say, as we follow the last of the students who are moving in a group toward the dorms. “It says ‘Duplicate.’ What do you think that means?”

  “No clue.”

  “When I asked her who she was, she said, ‘Tessa Leroy.’ Like it was obvious. I think she believed it too.” We approach Nightshade, Ollie’s dorm. “We’ll bring Pru with us tonight to meet Seymour. And Maude. Not everyone. I don’t want to scare him off.”

  At lunch, I fill in my friends about Seymour and our plan, asking Pru and Maude to come with us to Fillmore Park. It’ll mean sneaking out, and given the chaos caused today by the three newcomers, I’m wary of breaking curfew and angering Fleischer. But we have no choice, not if we want to know who those kids are and why they came here.

  From what we can tell, most of the student body has no clue that the Tessa, Archer, and Jake copies weren’t actually Tessa, Archer, and Jake. Quite a few people saw the guards, of course, and those who didn’t certainly heard about them. Rumors abound about the new Darkwood security measures that include uniformed guards. I overhear a group of students in the dining hall saying they’re glad they weren’t on the other side of Fleischer’s wrath, especially now that discipline at Darkwood is getting taken up a notch. I certainly don’t try to correct them or explain that those guards had nothing to do with Darkwood at all. If the student body’s in the dark about the guards—and the clones—all the better. Right now, we have one priority: getting our questions answered. And only one person can do that. Seymour.

  • • •

  After the thirty-minute walk to the main road, followed by fifteen minutes of trudging down a dark country lane, Pru, Ollie, Maude, and I arrive at Fillmore Park a few minutes before eight o’clock. It’s dark out, and silent, and this park is deserted. Probably has been for hours.

  Albert Seymour is standing still as a statue by a park bench. He looks scholarly in a camel-colored coat, corduroy slacks, and Adidas. Like an absentminded professor. I think of that memory of Gravelle’s I watched when I was held captive on Castor Island, remembering how disheveled Seymour looked as a teenager at Darkwood. I guess that hasn’t changed. We approach him nervously. We’re all on edge.

  I briefly tell Seymour what we witnessed over the weekend, starting with Archer’s memorable speech at the dance and ending with the lit joint that set fire to one of the dorms. “I assume you knew all this was happening, and that’s why you sent the guards? Who are those clones? The Tessa clone’s jacket was labeled Duplicate. What does that mean? Why were they here? Where did they come from?” I spit out the questions like bullets, barely taking time for a breath.

  “Please. Give me a moment. I’ll tell you everything,” Seymour says, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He’s awkward and uncomfortable in his own skin. I shoot a look at Ollie. Seymour fits the description Ollie gave of how he acted in Cambridge, when Ollie spent a few weeks with him the summer before last.

  “We’re listening,” Maude says, her voice steely.

  Seymour takes off his glasses, rubs them clean with a cloth kept in his shirt pocket, then slides them back on. “Those three were never supposed to be here. Not like this,” he explains. “In fact, I’m planning to have a word with my brother as soon as we’re done here.”

  “You mean Gravelle,” Pru cuts in. “Did he create them? Those…Duplicates?”

  “He and I did, together,” Seymour says. “They were created last year using my most advanced technology. Before that, I had only tested this technique with primates, never with human subjects.”

  “Advanced technology?” Maude asks. “You mean the same method used to clone us?”

  “Not exactly,” Seymour explains. “I have since iterated on the technology used to create you and the other Similars. The new technology creates fast-growing clones, who mature from infancy to adulthood in a matter of months. Because they have so few lived experiences, I downloaded thoughts, and even memories, into their brains.”

  “Memories?” I press. “Whose memories?”

  “Some borrowed from their originals. Others created specifically for them.”

  “Are there more of them?” Ollie asks.

  “No,” Seymour answers quickly and definitively. “Only the three you met. Clones of Tessa Leroy, Jake Choate, and Archer de Leon. Actually, that’s not entirely true. There was a fourth.” Seymour fiddles with his glasses again. “The clone who died in your place, Oliver,” he says, turning to address Ollie. “He was also a Duplicate. The very first one we created.”

  We take this in. It suddenly makes so much sense that I don’t know how I didn’t think about it before, or wonder who that boy was. I feel a deep pang of anguish for him as I consider how he was created—as a literal science experiment—and how little regard Gravelle had for his life, taking it just like that.

  “That boy’s death was unconscionable,” Seymour adds, clasping his hands together. “A cautionary tale, of how science can be so drastically, and dramatically, misused, in the name of progress. I will regret his death for the rest of my days.” Seymour is looking down at his shoes, and I wonder if it’s because he’s close to tears. “The only consolation of that entire debacle is the fact that he felt no pain when he died. And he had very few—if any—life experiences or memories.”

  “So that makes his life expendable?” Ollie speaks up. He’s agitated, I can tell. And angry. This is, after all, his biological uncle. The boy who died was Oliver’s clone. I reach out to grab his hand.

  “Absolutely not,” Seymour says, finally meeting his nephew’s eyes. “If anything, that tragedy taught us something we should have known already. That the technology is far too risky to use in any large-scale way. The Duplicates are like children. Inexperienced. Reckless. As you saw, the three who came here never should have been left unsupervised.”

  “Then why were they?” Pru asks.

  “I honestly don’t know.” Seymour sighs. “But I can assure yo
u, it must have been by mistake. My brother and I—”

  “Your brother, our guardian, has a warped view of the world,” Maude interjects. “Don’t tell me you agree with his methods. Or his madness.”

  “I absolutely do not,” Seymour says sternly. “But he is still my brother, and as you well know, blood is thicker than, well, almost anything. I remain in his life for one very important reason. I keep him from taking his schemes to the wild places they would go, if they were left unchecked. I remind him constantly of how tenuous this kind of scientific experimentation can be. The last thing I’d ever want is to put the students at Darkwood at risk. Or the Duplicates themselves.”

  “Except for Oliver’s Duplicate,” Pru reminds him.

  Seymour lets out a weary breath. “Except for Oliver’s Duplicate.” I’m happy he doesn’t try to deny it, that what happened to that boy—what Gravelle made happen—was unethical, and twisted, and wrong. It was murder. He goes on. “The only reasonable explanation is that the three Duplicates who came to Darkwood this weekend escaped their home on Pollux Island. Which is where they’re being returned, immediately.”

  “Pollux?” Maude asks. “What’s that?”

  “The twin island to Castor, where you grew up.”

  “Like the Gemini constellation. The twin brothers immortalized in the sky,” I say.

  “I know the myth,” Maude answers. “But I’ve never heard of this island, or seen it. And I lived on Castor for sixteen years. Where is this island? How could none of us know about it?”

  “Pollux is positioned in such a way that it’s not visible to the naked eye from Castor,” Seymour explains.

  Maude looks like she doesn’t fully believe that, but she doesn’t push it. I know she won’t drop this, though.

  “As I was saying,” Seymour continues. “The Duplicates need far more training on Pollux—more nurturing and education—before they’ll be ready to assimilate into mainstream society. That’s clear now more than ever.”

  “What will happen to them?” Ollie asks, his voice coming out in a near whisper.

  “Sounds like they’ll have the same happy childhood we had,” Maude mutters.

  “We’ll do our best to raise them with as much care as we gave you,” Seymour says thoughtfully, addressing Maude. “I know it wasn’t the perfect upbringing. But you can’t deny that we supplied you with everything you could want.”

  “Except parents,” Maude cuts in.

  “Fair enough,” Seymour says. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot to do to make sure these three clones are settled comfortably back in their home. I’ll be informing Principal Fleischer of what happened, so there’s no need to worry. The originals won’t be accused of any reprehensible behavior. One more thing, before we part ways,” Seymour adds. He looks over at Ollie. “I am sorry for what happened the summer before last, Oliver. You came to me for answers, and I stood in the way of helping you get them. Indeed, I regret that now. I had no idea you’d go seeking those answers on your own.”

  “And travel to see my maniacal father on his micronation island?” Ollie snaps. I take in a breath, feeling so much for Ollie right now that my heart’s racing in my chest.

  “You must understand,” Seymour says, his voice betraying his emotion. “I believed I was protecting you. Your father is who he is. It was my wish for you to never personally know him, or anything about him. It was far, far better for the world when Johnny Underwood was dead.”

  “His death was a lie,” Ollie counters. “You can’t protect someone with lies. I would have thought someone as brilliant as you would know that.”

  I grab Ollie by the arm, suddenly feeling like all I want to do is get out of this eerie park, and not subject Oliver to these painful truths any more than we have to.

  “Let’s go,” I say quickly, gently shoving Ollie behind me. The others follow my lead, turning to go.

  “Thank you,” Maude says to Seymour. We aren’t his biggest fans—not after how he treated Ollie, and what he allowed to happen to that Oliver Duplicate—but at least he’s told us the truth.

  “I hope we don’t see you again,” Pru tells him as we leave the park.

  We walk quickly, hoping we can return to campus before anyone realizes we’ve been gone. “I still can’t believe I’m related to him,” Ollie says as we make our way back up the country lane. “Seymour I’ve made my peace with. The guy’s a kook,” Ollie tells us. “He loves science so much, it blinds him to everything else. It’s Gravelle who makes me ashamed to be me sometimes.” Pru, Maude, and I don’t have a good response to that, so we don’t say anything at all. I reach out and squeeze Ollie’s hand, though. It’s all I can think to do.

  “I feel sad for them.” Pru’s voice rings out in the silence, wavering a little. “The Duplicates, not having a life. Wanting one so badly they came here to try and live someone else’s.”

  “I know the feeling,” Maude says quietly, as we begin the uphill walk back to campus, and our home.

  Jane Ward

  The rest of September passes by in a whirlwind of senior year syllabi, mountains of homework, and college application prep. I’ve downloaded the common application for the U.S. colleges and a separate one for Oxford, but my cursor blinks on my blank screen every time I sit down to work on the personal statement for the schools. What can I say about my life? That I miss Levi? That I’m worried he’s being held against his will? Or, almost as bad, that he just doesn’t want to see me? It’s not exactly appropriate college essay material.

  The one light in my Levi-deficient existence is Ollie, who luckily hasn’t brought up his feelings for me. I hope he’s changed his mind, or realized that what he thought was “love” was simply affection for his oldest, and dearest, friend. Maybe he somehow sensed at the dance that I was trying to avoid being too close to him. Whatever the reason, I’m grateful. The only thing keeping me afloat these days is his consistent, unwavering optimism. He’s so relieved to be back where he belongs, it radiates off him.

  I still can’t wrap my head around what happened to me—how I “heard” his thoughts, and the others’—all three times unwillingly, and at random. I know what it all means. Of course I do. It’s proof that Gravelle wasn’t lying to me. That I’m a Similar. But I simply can’t face it yet. If I do, I’ll break apart. One day after world history, I snag Maude and ask her to meet me in the circular drive that afternoon, to talk.

  When we both arrive, I hand her a coffee from the dining hall.

  “I miss him,” I tell her. “Levi. I don’t, I can’t believe that this is it for us. I’m so worried about him,” I confess. “Every night, I—” I stop, not able to tell her how much he occupies my every waking and sleeping thought. Maude’s so tough. I don’t know if she’ll understand.

  “If it were Jago, I’d be crushed,” she explains simply. Maybe she does get it.

  “I need to know everything about him,” I say. “It’s the only thing that will make me feel like he’s not gone. Can you tell me more about what it was like when you discovered your capabilities?” I don’t tell her the real reason I’m asking, of course. I can’t. “We never talked about it, he and I.”

  “We trained on the island all the time,” Maude notes, taking a sip from her cup. “But you already know that. How Gravelle made us hold our breath and swim laps… We were strong and athletic, and we had unusual endurance, but that all stemmed from practice. It wasn’t until we were fifteen that we started noticing things. Our bruises healing quickly. Our scrapes scabbing over within a day, rather than several. It was gradual, though. I think puberty may have had something to do with it,” she remarks, blowing on her coffee. “The year before I came to Darkwood, when I was barely sixteen, my abilities exploded. I could suddenly lift enormously heavy weights and leap from trees easily, without worry that I’d sprain an ankle or even break a bone. Because if I did injure myself, I instantly healed.�
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  “So it didn’t happen until you were a teenager,” I say, processing. “Was it like that for all of you? For Levi?”

  “Yes. We all developed our abilities around that same time. But each in our own, unique way. We discussed them endlessly. Compared and contrasted.”

  “Are anyone’s abilities…mental?” I ask. Maude looks at me, her face taut.

  “Not that I know of,” she explains. “But Gravelle was always hoping one of us would display that kind of talent. Why?”

  “No reason,” I tell her, dismissing the whole idea.

  The rest of the day, all I can think about is the fact that the Similars’ properties are relatively new. Which means it could all be true.

  I’ve been putting it off for so long, confronting this truth that Gravelle insists is my past. I consider my options. I could ask my father. It’s not foolproof; he could easily lie to me, and then I’d be right back where I started. I could ask Gravelle to send proof—the birth certificate he mentioned in his original note—but again, I’d have no way of verifying if he forged it. I can’t think of a single option that would give me the irrefutable evidence I’m looking for, that I’m a clone. A DNA test won’t work, obviously, and I doubt I’d have much luck finding the original Emma’s death records—if she did, indeed, die. It’s beyond infuriating to think that this critical piece of my history, of my identity, is so far out of my grasp. And that Gravelle is probably enjoying making me squirm like this. Keeping me in the dark, indefinitely.

  I do some research on telepathy. I’m scared of what I’ll learn and how it may apply to me. When I do find some relevant reading material, I go deep into a rabbit hole about evolution, and how the tweaking of genetic code that Gravelle and Seymour must have done when they created the Similars—and me, if I’m one of them—could be extended to this kind of mental manipulation. According to a bunch of journals, people hooked up to sensors are already moving objects with their minds. I can’t do that—at least, I don’t think I can—but I’m able to access other’s thoughts. It’s not the same thing, but is it possibly related? Late one night, after hours of googling and reading, I instruct Dash to erase my search history. No one can know about this.