The Pretenders

by Rebecca Hanover

  That’s it; the rally is officially over. Kids get up from their chairs, some looking stunned, others shaking their heads. I catch Maude’s eyes as we filter out the door. Something glinting there makes me realize—she did this. She must have hacked the system and somehow pinned it on Harlowe and the others.

  “Well done,” I tell her.

  “I couldn’t let them antagonize us anymore,” she admits. “It was necessary, but I didn’t enjoy it.”

  “You did a little,” I whisper back. Maude doesn’t answer, but I know I’m right.

  I file out of the gym with my friends, feeling victorious—but it’s a hollow victory. Maybe Harlowe really will leave us alone from here on out. But what does that matter, when Gravelle is wreaking havoc on our lives? Who cares what Harlowe or anyone at this school thinks when Ollie and my dad and Jane are still gone?

  “Guys?” Pru says, snagging me as we exit the gym. We all crowd around her, worried she has bad news.

  “What’s wrong?” I press, feeling my heart sink. What now?

  “It’s a buzz from my dad. He says Bianca’s going to be appearing at a large-scale, public political rally in April. In New York City,” Pru explains, checking her plum to get the details right. “It’s her first big appearance, where she’ll be officially declaring her candidacy for president.”

  I’m sure everyone else realizes it too, but I’m the only one to say it out loud.

  “It’s where she’s going to be replaced,” I whisper. “Isn’t it?”

  • • •

  We conclude that we have to go to the political rally. If we don’t, if we stay here and allow Bianca to be replaced…Jaeger too…we’ll never forgive ourselves. Luckily, the event falls over spring break. At least we can leave campus without raising too much suspicion. Of course, we have little idea what we’re getting ourselves into. But we have to try.

  Pru tells Jaeger about our plans. He doesn’t even try to talk us out of going, which scares me. If he’s willing to let us help, he must be as desperate—and worried—as we are. We ask him if Bianca would consider canceling the rally, but he knows she won’t; without this high-profile public event, she’ll lose her chance of making it to the primaries. Jaeger sets up a place for us to stay—an apartment in the East Village that’s part of the Quarry’s safe network—and we plan to leave the first Saturday of spring break, the day after midterm exams wrap up. The rally will be held on Monday, which gives us a day in New York to prepare.

  On the last day of March, I finish my tests, turn in my papers, and return to my room, where Dash alerts me to a bunch of incoming emails. Official emails—my responses from the colleges. Admission, or rejection, letters. I don’t open the messages. I leave them unread in my inbox, telling myself I’ll open them once I’ve found Ollie and my dad. Without them, I’m not going to college. Either I find them, or I keep looking. Those are my two options. The third one—that they are dead—is not an idea I can entertain. But first: saving Bianca and Jaeger. Nothing else can happen if we don’t do that.

  I’m only bringing my backpack with me to New York City. I toss in a change of clothes, my wallet, my tablet, a water bottle, and a selfie of me and Ollie that’s been taped to the corner of my mirror since I started at Darkwood as a first year. The morning of April 1, I wake up at five o’clock. I stay in bed for a good thirty minutes, and for half a second I let myself believe that Ollie is as safe and sound as I am here, under my covers. I’ve sent Duplicate Ollie a hasty buzz—a lie telling him I’m flying to meet my dad on a business trip in Chicago, since I know he and Duplicate Jane are heading home to California over the break. I’ll be gone before he even reads my note.

  “Pru,” I finally whisper when the numerals on my plum hit 5:30. “Wake up. It’s time.”

  She stirs and opens her eyes. “Are you ready?” she asks me, her dark eyes meeting mine. I feel such strong affection for her in this moment, it’s almost too much to bear. We’ve been through hell and back, Pru and I. I can read all of it on her face, in her expression.

  My heart hammers in my chest as Pru and I exit our dorm room and meet our friends at the edge of campus. It’s barely six thirty when everyone arrives—the rest of Darkwood is still asleep. That’s our plan, of course. To leave before anyone has a chance to question our whereabouts or contact my father or the other DNA parents who’ve been replaced. The rest of the Similars have told Duplicate Jane an airtight story about which kids they’re going to spend the break with.

  I’ve called a car to take us into town. It’s a stretch SUV, and we’re silent as we all pile in. Each of us carries no more than a small bag or backpack, and we’re all as tense as we could possibly be. It’s one thing to plan to show up at Bianca’s rally and potentially have to face Gravelle’s guards; it’s quite another to actually be on the cusp of doing it. After all, if we don’t save Bianca and Jaeger, we’ll have failed completely. And Bianca’s clone could become the next U.S. president. It’s too awful to consider. Who knows what Gravelle might program or brainwash her to do then, to further his twisted agendas? Sure, there’s the possibility that, over time, she would become less and less anti-clone—eventually even reversing her stance on cloning, under Gravelle’s influence. It’s tempting to think of having a clone supporter in the White House, and Gravelle is, in his own way, the most pro-clone of anyone.

  But we’ve talked about it at length. It would set a dangerous precedent if Gravelle got away with so directly influencing a major world leader. The potential dangers far outweigh any theoretical benefits. As much as we hate what Bianca stands for—the real Bianca—we can’t let Gravelle get away with this.

  After the SUV drops us off in Derby, we wait for the self-driving bus that will take us to Manhattan. We’re tense and silent, and it’s been so long since Levi and I talked directly that I feel the chasm between us acutely.

  “It’s here,” I call to my friends, waving at the others—and briefly catching Levi’s eyes. He’s wearing a soft blue sweater under a camel-colored coat. He squints in the sun, shielding his eyes with the flat of his palm. His hair is long again around the edges. Something about his stance makes me ache inside—for our bodies to touch again, head to toe, like they haven’t in ages.

  It’s time to board. I yank my eyes from Levi and focus on the tasks in front of me: sliding my bag into an overhead compartment, finding a seat next to Maude. Before I can do anything about it, Levi takes the seat across the aisle from me. Which means we’ll be a mere foot apart for the entire nine-hour trip. That is a hell of a long time to avoid him. But I can’t change seats, because he’d know why, and I don’t want him to think I’m obsessing about our proximity. Even though I am.

  We alternate between planning, strategizing about the rally, and gazing out the window at the budding New England landscape as we pass small towns and fields just starting to turn green. At some point, I doze off, and in my dream, Levi is right next to me, his fingers threaded through mine.

  I wake up and feel an instant loss, knowing he’s across the aisle from me. It wasn’t real. And Ollie is still missing. I don’t know which ache is sharper—for Levi or for Oliver. When an automated voice announces we’ve officially arrived at our destination, we disembark at the Port Authority Bus Terminal and enter the frenetic streets of New York.

  “It’s as crowded as everyone said it would be,” Pippa remarks.

  I turn to stare at her, confused. “You’ve never been to New York City before?”

  Pippa, Maude, and Levi shake their heads. “The Leroys live here,” Theodora reminds me. “Before I first came to Darkwood, I lived with them for two weeks. On Central Park West. That was my first time setting foot in New York.”

  “The Choates are in Manhattan too,” Jago adds. “And Ansel’s visited Archer at NYU.”

  “People live here?” Pippa asks, incredulous, as she gets jostled by a man in leather pants and a couple of boisterous
tourists.

  “Not exactly here, near Times Square,” I explain. “There are a lot of quieter neighborhoods. This one’s mostly for visitors,” I add as Pippa stares up at a couple of flashing billboards. “Hot dogs,” I say, switching gears and leading them toward a food truck with a sign boasting in vitro dogs. “Come on, we have to eat something.”

  I’m taking on the parent role of the group, which feels ironic and strange considering I’ve been practically parentless for so long. Or maybe that’s exactly why I’m good at this. I remind the others to keep their backpacks close and not to lose sight of each other as we make our way through the thick, pulsing crowds. As smart as the Similars are, and well trained as fighters and thinkers, when it comes down to it, they lack some of the basic life experience and street smarts I learned at an early age. As a kid, I had no choice but to teach myself to read a Muni map—that’s San Francisco’s public transit. I often cooked up my own mac and cheese, with Genevieve’s help. I’ve never thought about it much before, but now I’m acutely aware of how well my father prepared me for adulthood. An adulthood without him.

  After we’ve eaten two hot dogs each, I direct everyone to the subway, where we catch an N train to the East Village. I’ve mapped the address of the apartment and lead our group toward that spot. When we finally find a ramshackle building on Avenue A, it’s so unassuming I almost wonder if I have the right address.

  But then again, a safe house would be discreet, wouldn’t it?

  I type the encrypted key code into the lock and am relieved when it works. If it hadn’t, I don’t know where we would have gone. I’m pretty sure minors can’t rent hotel rooms, even with my dad’s credit card. We’d be wandering the streets all night.

  The apartment is small—a cramped three-bedroom with a tiny living area, kitchen, and bathroom. We bolt the door, since it makes us feel a tiny bit safer. We work late into the night learning everything we can about the rally, which is being held on the lower western edge of Central Park. Someone orders pizza, and eventually we all find spots to fall asleep, in our clothes. Levi and I haven’t talked since we got here, but there hasn’t been a minute when I haven’t felt connected to him. Maybe it’s because of our close quarters; maybe it’s because I’ve missed him for so long now, in spite of our breathing the same air space.

  We spend Sunday visiting the rally site, where volunteers for Bianca’s campaign are already setting up seating, a temporary stage, lighting, and kiosks.

  “I bet he’ll do it right before she goes on stage,” Maude says, assessing the situation. “When she could be whisked off for hair and makeup, or to prep for her speech…”

  “And whoever Gravelle has planted to infiltrate her team will drug her and send Duplicate Bianca on stage instead,” Levi cuts in, grim.

  “We could still tell her,” I suggest, my fear mounting as I realize how complex this scheme of Gravelle’s really is. Are we any match for him?

  “That could be a disaster for us,” Theodora reminds me. “Even Jaeger agrees.”

  “Jaeger,” I say, remembering. “Is he being careful? Where’s he staying?”

  “Another Quarry-sanctioned apartment. Don’t have the address. No one does,” Pru answers.

  I nod, feeling only mildly confident that this will work out. But it has to. Otherwise… The idea of a presidential candidate being a stand-in clone is unimaginable.

  We regroup at our apartment for more pizza and agree we should go to bed early. The rally starts at noon, which means we need to show up at ten in the morning, giving us enough time to ensure we’re at the front, by the stage, where we’ll meet Jaeger.

  It’s only eight o’clock now, but I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open, so I sneak off to one of the bedrooms to rest. I shut the door, kick off my shoes, and lie down on top of the bed, not even bothering to climb underneath the covers.

  “Hey,” a voice says quietly.

  I tense.

  Levi’s here, in this room. I hadn’t even realized it.

  And now, we’re finally alone.

  Levi

  “Hey,” I say back, sitting up on the bed and staring at Levi’s form in the darkened room. He’s sitting in the corner, propped up with his back against the wall, reading one of his paperback books. I squint to see it, but I can’t make out what it is in the low light.

  “The Great Gatsby,” Levi says, supplying me with the title.

  “A little escapism?” I ask him.

  Levi nods. “That’s what reading’s best for, isn’t it? Being anywhere but in your own life?”

  I nod, not sure what he’s trying to say—something deep and profound about us? Or am I reading too much into a simple phrase?

  “Emma.”

  Hearing my name in his voice, like I’m someone to him, like he knows me… I want to sink into the feeling of right now and never let go.

  “I’m…” He pauses, running a hand through his long bangs.

  I nod, worried I can’t trust my voice.

  “You’re…” I finally say, dipping my toe in the water.

  “What—” we both say at the same time. A beat of silence.

  I feel blood rushing to my extremities. Stop beating like a marching band, heart!

  “What if this is all a mistake, and we shouldn’t have come?” My words rush out in a torrent. “What if Gravelle’s on to us, and it’s a trap—”

  “Stop,” Levi says, standing up from his spot on the floor and sitting gingerly on the other end of the twin bed. I wipe the damp from my eyes and look at him. We’re less than an arm’s length away from each other, and every nerve in my body is standing at attention. This is the boy I’ve missed for months like a kind of homesickness. This is the boy I chose to be a keeper of my secret.

  In a flash of realization, I discover I’m not angry at him anymore. The frustration and betrayal I’ve felt toward him has somehow evaporated, vanished like Ollie and my father, and it’s an intense relief to know that, and to acknowledge that. I just miss him, plain and simple. But I’m also saddened when I think of us, the “us” we were. Because we’ll never be that again. Too much has happened, and his lie still hangs between us like a thick fog. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel as safe with him as I did that night we spent together in the seafront hotel, eating chocolate bars for dinner before traveling to Castor Island…

  I start to lose myself in the memory, but I force myself to shake it off. It feels like the worst kind of betrayal of Oliver to even think about my feelings when he’s still missing, and we’re here, stuck, unable to help him.

  “What if we never find them?” I voice my fears out loud.

  “Emma. I said stop,” Levi repeats. He sounds almost angry, which I guess we are. We all are. Gravelle has messed with all of our lives to an untenable degree. “Maybe it is a trap. So what? Would you really rather sit at home and not try?”

  “Of course not.” I stand up, making it clear with my body language that sitting so close to him, on this bed, isn’t a good idea. If he views that as some kind of rejection… I can’t think about it. Not now.

  “It was your idea to go to Castor Island last year, even when it meant risking everything. You’re the girl who did that. You,” Levi says. He frowns, and in spite of myself I gaze in his eyes, those eyes that reflect the depth of his suffering.

  Emma! Focus. On Ollie. On your dad. On Jane.

  “Last year we barely made it back alive,” I remind him. “You almost didn’t! I can’t face that again. I can’t.”

  All of a sudden, my knees are shaking so violently, from exhaustion and fear, I can’t hold my legs up, and my body sinks down on the bed, where I finally rest, grabbing my legs and hugging them to my chest.

  Levi moves closer to me, gingerly, on the bed. Not too close; there’s a handbreadth space between us. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, Emma. I can’t make you a
ny promises, because I’ve never lived in fantasies,” he says, raw and low and under his breath. “All the time I was growing up on Castor Island, all throughout my childhood, I knew there was this other life. This other way. And then, a few years ago, I found out about you. I hardly remembered anything about the three years we spent on the island as toddlers, growing up together. Gravelle showed me plenty of video footage, though. And I knew you were the one to escape our limited life on the island. Still, I didn’t dream that my life could be your life. It was impossible. I knew the life you were experiencing, with a real dad, and real friends, in the real world, would never be anything but a painful nightmare for me, since, as dreams go, it was wholly unattainable. It’s much harder to lose yourself in a dream and then be disappointed when it’s wrenched from you, than to never let yourself dream at all, isn’t it? That’s why it became my rule. No dreaming. Ever.”

  I stare at Levi’s face, taking in every last familiar section of it. The pain there. The soul, and wisdom, in someone so young, who only ever wanted a childhood. Who was denied that from birth.

  “What if he kills them?” I say, finally letting myself speak out loud the thought that’s haunted me every night since I realized Ollie was a Duplicate. “Or already has? What if he kills us too? Would he? Would he really do it?”

  Levi sighs. “I believe that Augustus Gravelle feels so alone and isolated and abandoned that he would not hesitate to terminate every single one of us. Once he’s gotten everything he needs from us.”

  He folds his arms over his chest, and I watch as he shifts his position, crossing one leg over the other. His strong, broad shoulders lean lightly against the headboard.