The Pretenders

by Rebecca Hanover

  “Go,” I say to Ollie, who hoists my father on his back and begins carrying him out. “Do whatever you have to do. Save my dad. Please.” Ollie isn’t nearly as strong as the Similars, and he’s been here, compromised and wasting away in that pen, for the last three months. But adrenaline must be kicking in, because he’s managing, and I’m grateful.

  I can see now what I’d been too distracted to notice before. All hell has broken loose. Similars are fighting guards. Shots are being fired in every direction. I notice Jane Ward dragging herself to an exit and say a silent prayer that she makes it out of here alive. I’m instantly reminded of the cage, and I race back to it to see if anyone’s still inside. We can’t leave anyone behind—even if we die trying to save them. I could never live with myself if I knew that someone’s parent or, God forbid, one of the originals was left here to die.

  I scan the room, taking stock, and spot only one figure in the corner, cowering there, still shackled to the metal bars.

  It’s Jake Choate.

  I am at his side in seconds. Summoning all my strength, I reach for his cuffs and yank them from the bars, not believing I can do it but knowing I have to try. I’m shocked to see that they come loose.

  Jake gasps, grabbing my hand and standing, insecurely, on his feet.

  “I owe you one,” he moans, meeting my eyes. Then he runs, shakily, out of the room and down the hallway. I follow.

  Maude has circled back and is advancing on Gravelle, murder in her eyes as she trains the gun on him.

  “Would you kill your guardian so easily, Maude?”

  “Would you kill your old classmates so easily? Your son, Oliver? And what about Levi? And Theodora…”

  “Theodora shouldn’t have defied me. I warned her, didn’t I? As for everyone else, you know the answer, Maude. Ollie and Levi will be spared, to live here with me. So will you, Jago, and the others. You don’t belong in the outside world, that’s clear.”

  “But the DNA parents,” she hisses.

  “You heard my brother. We’ll download every last thought to use in a future upgrade. They won’t be dying—far from it. They’ll be some of the first humans to achieve immortality!”

  Maude’s expression is one of pure rage. She looks driven. Focused. Like she’s never been more sure of anything in her life.

  “That’s a convenient way to justify murder. As for the Similars—we’ll never stay here. We’d rather die.”

  And she fires the gun.

  I watch, disbelieving, as Gravelle crumples. I don’t wait to find out what happens after that, to see how hurt he is, or if—dare I hope for it?—he’s dead. As I run at top speed down the hall to the stairs, I hear Seymour shouting at the guards to “unleash the Duplicates.”

  “Absolutely not,” Gravelle barks, his breathing slowing and his voice growing raspy. “The Duplicates are far too valuable to be used as veritable bullets.”

  “They’re blank slates,” I hear Seymour protest. “They’re entirely replaceable.”

  Their voices fade out as I push open the door to the stairwell, stepping over a fallen guard with blood pooled around his head to get past. I don’t have time to consider all the death around me or to wonder if Maude dealt Gravelle a fatal blow. I have to move, before it’s too late.

  I can’t wrap my mind around what Seymour meant. Unleash the Duplicates? The Duplicates aren’t here. They’re there, on the video screen, in their homes, posing as my friends and family.

  But when I exit the stairwell onto the first-floor hallway of the compound, I understand.

  It’s like an army has been dispatched.

  Bodies file into the hallway where several Similars are carrying DNA parents toward the library, aiming for that checkpoint, then the beach outside and the boats. But these aren’t just any bodies. Streaming into the hall is another Madison clone. Another Tessa. Another Archer. Another Pru. These clones are all dressed alike, in some kind of uniform that’s sleek and gray and built for fighting.

  And now I understand. These are the Duplicates Seymour was referring to. They look like they’re here for one reason, and one reason only.

  To destroy us.

  We’ve taken out enough guards to prove we’re a formidable force. Several of us have guns, reluctant as we are to use them. But it’s clear why Seymour wanted these clones unleashed. He needs soldiers. Ones who are soulless enough, with little to no concern for their own well-being, to follow his every order. And right now, his orders are to fight—even kill—us.

  These Duplicates look singularly focused on their task—blocking us from leaving. Several move, swiftly and effortlessly, to the opposite entryway—the glass doors on the other side of the library that lead outside, to the shore—and plant their bodies in front of it. I wonder if that door has already been sealed on Seymour’s orders, and if we’ll ever get past the Duplicates who now stand guard.

  “They’re trapping us in,” I tell Maude as she races past me.

  “Then we’ll fight them,” she growls, just as a Madison Duplicate steps into our path. Even though she’s here to fight us, I find myself enthralled by her eerily familiar face, exactly like Maude’s and Madison’s, yet blank—a blank slate, as Seymour put it. My stomach wrenches at the thought of what her life must be like. So empty. So pointless, except to do Gravelle and Seymour’s bidding.

  “I’ll help,” a voice pipes up. It’s the real Madison Huxley, looking more resolved than I’ve ever seen her. She grabs Maude’s free hand, and mine, and together, the three of us encircle the Madison Duplicate in a human ring. There’s no way for her to escape. She’s blocked on all sides.

  Across from us, Ansel and Archer fight off an Archer Duplicate who’s wielding a blade of some kind. The Duplicate flings it at Archer’s chest, but Ansel manages to catch the weapon in midair.

  Seymour has armed them, I realize. These really are soldiers.

  “She’s got a knife!” I try to warn Maude and Madison, but too late. Our Duplicate, cornered as she is, slides a pocketknife from her boot and aims it straight at Madison’s chest. Maude flings her body in the path of the knife, where it gouges her arm, instead.

  “Maude!” I gasp at the sight of the handle sticking out of her upper arm, horrified.

  “You bitch,” Madison shrieks at the Duplicate as she jumps on top of her, clawing at the clone’s face and hair. Thank God Madison’s a track star. She actually has skills.

  “I’m okay,” Maude grimaces. Before I can stop her, she yanks the knife by the handle, straight out of her arm. Blood pours forth in a river, but Maude barely reacts. She rips a piece of cloth from her shirt and ties it around her arm in a makeshift tourniquet.

  Then she steels herself for battle. “I’ll help you,” she grunts as she leaps to Madison’s side and grabs the clone by the throat. The clone stops struggling—she can’t fight the two of them together—and Maude ties her wrists with an electrical cord she rips out of the wall. When the Duplicate is bound, unable to hurt us, Madison turns her attention to Maude.

  “You saved my life,” Madison acknowledges, sounding like she’s not quite sure she can stomach—or believe—those words. Yet she can’t deny they’re true.

  Maude stands over the Duplicate, surveying her. “Wouldn’t you have done the same for me?”

  Madison doesn’t have a chance to answer, and there’s no time to celebrate this small victory, because three figures block our path. It’s three Oliver clones, assuming a fighting stance and projecting an almost deadly vibe. My heart pounds in my rib cage, and I have to remind myself that these clones aren’t Ollie. They are soulless. They are empty vessels. They watch us with a harrowing venom in their eyes that sends chills up and down my spine. After a nerve-racking standstill, Maude rushes at one of them, delivering a swift kick to his jaw. The clone staggers backward, his mouth full of fresh blood; he must have bit his lip after the blow. The sec
ond Ollie Duplicate is fighting Madison, who’s grabbed him by the groin and is squeezing, hard. The third Oliver makes a move to pull a weapon from his shoe, but I don’t let him reach it. I throw my entire body at him, full force.

  He’s better trained than I am. Much better trained. He swiftly wrenches my arm behind my back and holds me in a painful headlock. I’m starting to see stars when someone whacks him on the head with a piece of electronics, and the clone releases me.

  I look up to see Levi taking on the Ollie clone.

  “Go,” he orders. “This one’s mine.” The three of us run, tearing across the library, where I see many of the DNA parents gathered. Most of them aren’t functional and lean against the wall, either injured or too drugged to be able to fight. I panic when I see my own dad attempting to fend off two clones of himself, both eerily still, their emotionless faces like masks.

  “Dad!” I rush toward him, pulling him away from the Duplicates. But they yank back. And they’re strong. Maybe even stronger than me.

  I summon all my strength. You can do this, Emma. You might not be trained in fighting, but genetically, you’re still a Similar. I kick one Colin Duplicate in the gut with a satisfying jolt, then spin and throw my entire body weight at the other. Similars are fighting Duplicates all around me; the whole library is a mess of bodies and sweat and blood.

  “Emma, no,” my father cries. “Save yourself—”

  “No.” That’s the last thing I’d ever do. I claw at one of the Colin Duplicates’ faces, and Levi moves in to take on the other. When my father is finally free of their grasp, I beg him to run.

  “Get outside the library doors. Find a boat.” I grimace as a Duplicate yanks me back by my hair.

  But Levi delivers a hefty blow to that clone’s head, and he releases me. We share a look of triumph, but it’s short-lived. Two guards approach Levi from behind, out of his sight. I see one guard raise a gun. The other steps forward, his body poised to attack.

  “Levi!” I scream. His eyes widen and lock on mine for a split second before he spins, facing the guards. He assumes a fighting stance, but before he can attack, I hear a gunshot.

  No. No, no, no.

  I feel my heart leaving my body as I realize what’s transpired. The guard has shot a bullet straight at Levi.

  There’s a blur of bodies and shouts and the sickening sight of someone crumpling to the floor. I can’t look, I can’t face this, and yet my feet carry me independently, without instruction from my mind, across the sun-glinted room to the heap on the cool marble.

  It’s not Levi.

  It’s my father. He’s been shot.

  “Dad?” I cry out, my voice sounding divorced from my body. “Daddy…”

  I know what happened, now, even though I didn’t see it. My father leaped in front of that bullet to save Levi’s life. And he may have just ended his own.

  I am at his side, a bird with broken wings, flitting next to him, pathetic. I feel stricken. I feel like I’m missing my voice and my limbs. A red spot blooms at his chest, making its way outward over his burlap shirt and onto the floor. “No, no, no…” I keep whispering. No. No!

  My father tries to get up but is impossibly weak. So he stays where he is, on the floor, reaching for my hand. I grasp it with a muffled cry, tears pouring from my eyes, blurring my vision.

  “I’m okay, honey. I’m okay,” he finally says. I know he’s saying this entirely for my benefit because he’s my father, and parents always want to protect their children if they can, don’t they? But I have to be the adult now. He needs me to comfort him, not the other way around.

  A part of my brain reminds me the battle rages on around me, and we can’t stop, not now, but nothing matters to me except my father’s face and the hole at the center of him that I am helpless to fill. “I understand,” I tell him, choking out the words. “I know why you never told me who I was. You were protecting me. You loved me too much to lose me.”

  “Good,” he replies. I can tell it’s painful for him to talk. That realization cuts a new cleft in my heart, already ripped wide open.

  This is so sick. So wrong. Originals and clones shooting Duplicates who can’t help it, who never knew any better. All this fighting and suffering, and for what?

  “You’re not expendable,” I tell him, my voice sounding so raw and fierce I don’t recognize it. “I don’t care what they teach those other Duplicates, what memories they give them. They’ll never replace you, not for me.” I wish I had a pharma for him, for the pain. I wish I could rush him to the hospital. I wish I could do something—anything. But all I can do is hold his hand and watch as the world implodes around me.

  Similars are still battling Duplicates, who seem to fall and rise again to fight with renewed purpose. At the doorway that leads outside, my friends are charging at the soulless clones with knives and guns. More guards stream in from the hall, some of them wearing ripped and bloodstained clothing. But my friends are too busy to notice; they’re carrying an eight-foot table toward the exit, and I watch as it hovers midair. Then they charge forward, ramming the table straight into the doors, shattering the glass into a thousand pieces and climbing right over the felled Duplicates to get outside. Whatever was keeping those doors sealed couldn’t seal the glass.

  Similars begin carrying the weak DNA parents on their backs. But the Duplicates who haven’t fallen are charging forward with an unwaning fervor. I see two Pru Duplicates rip Frederica Leroy off Ansel’s back, flinging her to the marble floor, her head hitting with a resounding thunk. I am sickened by the savagery all around me. So pointless. So unnecessary.

  “Stop,” I say, at first only to myself. I’m sure no one else can hear me. So I raise my voice. “Stop! Everyone. Stop fighting! Stop killing each other! It isn’t necessary! It doesn’t have to be!”

  A few Duplicates turn their heads to look at me. I feel myself gaining confidence, and intensity. If my father is going to die on the floor on Pollux Island, it can’t be for nothing. It can’t.

  “Please. Listen,” I hear myself saying. “We aren’t the enemy. Neither are you,” I tell the nearest Duplicate, a copy of Pru who looks at me, perplexed, like I’m one species and she’s another. But she isn’t. We’re all humans, aren’t we? We’re all teens, some of us brought into this world for the wrong reasons. But we’re here now, and we’re the same. “Stop it,” I cry out again, until the movement in the room slows. Some lower their weapons to stare at me. Levi holds a guard by the wrist but tears his eyes from the fighting to focus on me. So does Ollie. Pru watches me with tears streaming down her face, as a guard grips her by her hair. “When I first found out I was a Similar. A clone,” I add, emphasizing the word for the sake of the Duplicates, wanting them to understand. They’re watching me now. Listening intently. “I thought that word meant something. I thought being a clone was something I had to hide.” I’m choosing every word carefully. I have to get through to them. I must.

  I look around the library, at the spines of books glinting on the endless rows of shelves. I look from Similar to Duplicate and remind myself that we’re all just kids. High schoolers. We didn’t want this. We didn’t ask for this. We didn’t ask to fight and hurt and kill each other. My body floods with warmth, and it’s like I can somehow feel what the Duplicates are thinking. I’m not getting individual thoughts like in the past, when I read Harlowe’s and Ollie’s and Jane’s minds. This time, it’s like I’m tuning into a staticky radio station, with bits and pieces of thoughts streaming in and out of my head.

  The Duplicates’ thoughts.

  Fight them…

  They only want to destroy us…

  What we were built for…

  The reason we exist…

  No. That’s not right. This isn’t why they were created. Maybe it was the reason at first, but it shouldn’t have been. It’s all wrong.

  I summon all of my mental strength
to send my own thoughts back to them. I’ve never done this before. But it feels like if we’re going to have any shot at getting out of here, I have to do this. I have to find a way to get through to them.

  Focus, Emma.

  I can make that static louder and stronger if I focus on it enough.

  I block out everything that isn’t the Duplicates and their minds. I think of what I want to tell them. What I need them to know. And things begin to sharpen. To clarify. It’s like there’s a string that connects my mind to the Duplicates’, and without even understanding it, or how that could possibly be, I’m doing everything in my power to harness that connection and send the most positive, healing thoughts into their heads.

  You don’t have to do this. None of us do.

  I think maybe it’s working, because the Duplicates seem focused on me. Quiet. Even a little enthralled.

  “You have so much to look forward to,” I say to the nearest Duplicate, feeling myself smile even as tears streak down my face. I’m thinking of my dad, and how these might be the last words he ever hears me speak. I want him to know how much my life—hard as it’s been—has been filled with joy. “There’s so much wonder in the world you can still experience for the first time. And yes, there will be heartaches. And yes, there will be unbelievable highs. Like falling in love for the first time. And learning all the things about yourself, like what you love and what you hate. And most importantly, who you want to be. We’re individuals. People who can’t be molded and shaped and replaced and swapped like pieces on a giant chess board. I’m a Similar, but that doesn’t define me. Just like being a Duplicate isn’t the defining thing about you.”

  I look from one Duplicate to another, digging as deeply within myself as I can to try to influence their minds. Focusing on the positive thoughts I want to convey to them and praying those can supersede the destructive ones they’ve been programmed with.