The Pretenders

by Rebecca Hanover

  “Please,” I whisper. “Trust me. You don’t want this. You don’t have to be this.”

  One of the Duplicates—a clone of Pru—steps toward me, and I think she might be about to say something to me. I reach out my hand. Maybe I really can do this. Bridge the divide. Show them another way—

  “Enough!” Seymour shouts. His voice cuts into the silence, breaking the spell that I’ve cast. The Pru Duplicate steps back from me. She lowers her hand. Her brow furrows. Then she turns back to the others.

  I let out a choked cry.

  Seymour has broken my link to them. He’s cut the cord between me and them, severing our connection. For one moment, I thought I’d gotten through to them, gotten them on our side.

  But if I did, the connection’s gone.

  They turn away from me, resuming their fight with fresh purpose. I feel empty, as though I’ve utterly failed everyone.

  “Impressive speech, Eden, but you didn’t fact-check it before delivery.”

  Gravelle stands over me and my father, holding on to his cane like a lifeline. He looks shaky but intact. I scan his body for bullet wounds but don’t find any.

  Didn’t Maude shoot him? What happened? Why is this bastard okay?

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t care,” I answer, watching my dad’s face grow paler. His eyes are closed now, and his face looks ashen. His hand feels clammy in mine. Is this the end? I don’t know if I can bear it.

  “You aren’t a Similar,” Gravelle replies. “That’s the part you got wrong.”

  “We’ve been over this,” I say, resigned. “I know I am. And my dad confirmed it. Right, Dad?”

  He nods, and I imagine that simple gesture is taking all the energy he has left. I feel bile in my throat, watching him slip away like this. Unable to do anything for him. I’m so furious and devastated that I can barely hold up my end of this conversation. I wish Gravelle would go away. What does he want from me? What fresh torture is he trying to inflict? In my peripheral vision, I see that the Similars have stormed out the blasted door and are successfully carrying DNA parents to safety. Guards line the floor, some injured, others dead. I know my friends had to use those guns. I know they hated every minute of it. But what choice did they have?

  Then I see her.

  She’s standing there, amid the action and chaos, looking so much like me. Same brown hair. Same brown eyes. She walks into the room, right through the center of the fray, and faces me.

  She is my exact copy. Another Emma.

  She is me.

  “You made a Duplicate of me?” I exclaim, reluctantly letting go of my father’s hand so I can stand and get a better look at this girl. Her features mirror my own exactly, down to the last freckle and smile line. I’m drawn to her, feeling an instant connection. But of course I do; she’s my copy. “But why? I’m a Similar, not an original. You copied the originals, not us.” I’m reeling, not understanding this at all. I feel like I’m in the bottom of one of those holiday snow globes, looking up at a world I can’t make sense of. Is this how my friends felt when they faced their DNA twins? Because this Emma feels oddly like a part of me.

  The other Emma takes a step toward me, and I brace myself, defensive.

  She doesn’t come any closer. She pauses where she is, five or six feet away from me, sensing my distress.

  “I’m not here to fight you,” she says, with a kind of fierceness I wonder if I possess too.

  I hold up my hands in a gesture of surrender. “That’s the last thing I want,” I tell her.

  “Good,” she answers. “Because the only thing I care about is getting Ollie and Levi and my dad and my friends off this island. Where are they? Are they okay? Because if they aren’t, I might seriously lose it—”

  She stops midsentence, and I know exactly why. She’s seen him now. She’s noticed the heap at my feet. My father’s body, lying there, barely breathing.

  She crumples to her knees, a silent “no” trying to escape her lips, but all that comes out is a muffled, strained cry.

  I feel her pain with every atom of my being, because it’s the same pain as mine. This Emma—whoever she is—she has all my memories and thoughts and feelings. She is bearing this pain as acutely as I am.

  I scan the room for my friends, for someone who can help me make sense of this. Who is this girl? What is she doing here? My eyes land on Maude, who’s carrying a wounded Archer on her back, and I snag her.

  “I need the infrared light.” Maude has it in her pocket and hands it to me, no questions asked. Then she moves off, full of purpose.

  I kneel beside this other Emma, whose face is masked by tears. I don’t think she even registers me next to her, so focused is she on my father. So I gently take her wrist and shine the infrared light on it.

  No time stamp.

  I grab her other wrist and shine the light there too.

  Still no time stamp.

  I look from this other Emma to Gravelle, who’s still standing by, looking almost pleased at the total destruction and loss of life around him. How ironic that he stands here, unhurt, while the rest of us suffer. How ironic that Maude’s gunshot didn’t even wound him. How unfair.

  “There are no numbers,” I say to Gravelle, utterly bereft. I feel like he’s watching me, observing how I’m going to react. I’m a player in his game, one he’s orchestrated from the beginning. That’s all I am to him, and all I’ll ever be. “There’s no time stamp. No batch, no lot. Every Duplicate has one. She can’t be my Duplicate without it. And if she’s not my Duplicate, then who is she?”

  I stop short, suddenly understanding. Wishing I didn’t.

  You aren’t a Similar, Gravelle had said a minute ago. That’s the part you got wrong.

  Feeling the sudden terror of someone who is walking alone at night and knows she’s being followed, harboring that dread, I take the infrared light and shine it on my own wrist.

  It’s there, plain as day. The time stamp. On my arm.

  002.34.

  Batch two, lot 34. Which can only mean one thing.

  I’m not a Similar. I am not who I thought I was, but not because I’m not the original Emma. I’m not even the Eden cloned from her.

  I am a third version of myself. One grown on this island and implanted with all of Emma’s memories. I am not recognizable to myself. And yet, I know the time stamp doesn’t lie.

  I am a Duplicate. 002.34, to be precise.

  I am a number. A time stamp. A person created in a lab with no name, no parents, no family, no real life.

  Nothing about my world will ever be the same again.

  Reset

  “I’m a Duplicate? But how? That’s—that doesn’t make sense…”

  But it does make sense. And I know I’m fighting the truth. There’s a second Emma kneeling next to me, and I have the time stamp on my wrist. She doesn’t. There’s no other way to explain this. Is there?

  “Ah, recognition dawning,” Gravelle purrs. “No, 002.34, you are not a Similar. You’re a Duplicate.”

  I cringe at the term. 002.34. I am a nameless vessel with no identity. But how? How?

  I stare at this other Emma, the real Emma. Only now do I realize she’s not wearing the Duplicate uniform. How did I not see this five minutes ago? She’s wearing the same type of clothes I am. Jeans, a T-shirt, and a hoodie. My clothes. I try to wrap my brain around this. If I’m a Duplicate, why do I feel so very much like me?

  “But…but…” I begin, grasping at straws. “I remember every last detail about my life in Technicolor.”

  “So do the others.” Gravelle shrugs. “How do you think they so easily took on their roles? Ollie seemed almost exactly like your best friend, didn’t he?”

  I spin on Gravelle, feeling like I’ve lost my footing and I’m being pitched down a mountain. “But I can’t be a
Duplicate,” I say, my voice hollow.

  “And why not? You’re too special? You are special, 002.34, because the girl you were cloned from is extraordinarily so.”

  The scene around me is foggy. I can’t focus on anything; my mind is a whir of desperate, spinning thoughts. I watch my friends return for more of the parents, shouting at each other to get on the boats. The shouts sound far off, even though I’m mere feet from the action. The world is a blur.

  “You are special for a second reason, 002.34. You are my best Duplicate, my most perfect copy. Dare I say it: my pièce de résistance. Strong, brilliant, and able to read minds.”

  “But—but the activation,” I sputter. “When I saw Ollie reporting back to you. I don’t do that! I’ve never communicated with you—”

  “Of course you have. Your activation time’s in the dead of night. Three a.m. I had to be certain it was a time no one would run into you—you’re so unpredictable in your patterns, 002.34. But you absolutely communicated with me. I can show you the proof.”

  “But if I reported back everything I knew, I would have told you that I knew Ollie was a Duplicate!” The realization is horrifying.

  “And you did. But I wasn’t worried. You hadn’t discovered my ultimate plan, had you?”

  My heart sinks to my feet.

  “What about our plan to go to the political rally, to protect Bianca and Jaeger?”

  “I knew about that too.” Gravelle smiles. “I’m pleased with how well the activation feature operated. Smoothly. Seamlessly. No bugs. No issues.”

  So I told him everything. I gave it all away. Our plans to travel to New York City and protect Bianca. My skin crawls with the thought that I was betraying us all, without ever knowing it.

  I look down at Emma, who’s bending over my father like she’s in prayer. My dad’s face is sweat-soaked. His eyes still closed. His jaw slack.

  “But how…”

  “How did I switch you? That was simple. When Eden paid me a surprise visit at the end of last year, I implanted a device in her brain, just like I did with all the DNA parents and originals, though it was harder with them; I had to send my ground crew to do that. The device transmitted all of Eden’s thoughts and memories straight to you, like a wireless download. And it worked perfectly. While Eden was thrust into my portal, I simply switched out your body with hers, one for the other, allowing you to escape my island—all the while letting you believe you were her. Well, you are her, because what is identity, really? But semantics. She stayed on Castor Island with me for the summer and the entire school year, until she was transferred here to Pollux.”

  I look at Emma—not Eden, I’ll never use that name—the real Emma, the Similar, to gauge her reaction. Maybe she already knows all of this. She’s been here for nearly a year. That realization takes a chunk out of me. As much as I feel like I’ve been pushed off a cliff and can’t find purchase, I can’t imagine what it’s been like for her. Held captive all year while someone else lived her life. She’s rocking back and forth over her father, our father. If he dies, we’ll share a twin pain.

  I think I’m going to be sick to my stomach. I feel like I’ve been tricked out of everything I’ve ever relied on, fundamental truths like “the earth is round” and “the sky is blue.” If Colin is her father, can he also be mine? What does this mean for me? Are my memories not my own? Is my entire life a lie, an even bigger one than I thought when I learned about the original Emma who died as a three-year-old? Am I even a person? Or simply a collection of data and memories and cells?

  I’m snapped out of these despairing thoughts by Seymour. He’s striding over to Gravelle as he surveys Emma, then me.

  “She knows?” Seymour asks his brother quietly. Gravelle nods.

  Seymour studies me like I’m one of his specimens. “I hope you realize how perfect you are, 002.34.”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “You are my ideal clone. Strong and agile like a Similar, with an extra-special skill: mind control. Once we can make others exactly like you, and use this technique to copy some of the greatest and most powerful men and women in this country…”

  “You’ll have succeeded,” I say, the words tumbling out of me and tasting like poison on my tongue. “So what now?” I face Seymour, forcing him to look at me. To really see me. “You kill her? Because she’s my original, and therefore, she’s expendable?”

  I hear my father gasp.

  “Dad,” I croak. But when I search his face, there’s no response. Emma meets my eyes, silent, and I know what she’s not saying. He’s dead. That gasp was his last one.

  I look back up at Seymour, ready to rail at him, but he isn’t there. Maybe he left—too much of a coward to stand there and face me. Or maybe a Similar has grabbed him and shot him. I hope so.

  Staring back down at my dad’s lifeless face, I focus all my rage and pain on Gravelle. “You sick bastard,” I sob, letting myself open like a faucet, the tears for my father pouring out of me unchecked. “He was your roommate,” I shout. If I thought I wanted Gravelle dead before, there’s no contest now. I have never felt this much rage in my entire life. “He was kind to you.” I shake. “He cared about you. And this is how you repay him?”

  “I repaid him already, and then some,” Gravelle responds. “I delivered Eden to him. Didn’t I?”

  I charge at Gravelle, bearing down on him, knocking his cane from his hand. Maude’s at my side in an instant, pulling me off him.

  “Save your energy,” she tells me. “He’s an old, sick fool…”

  “I thought you shot him,” I say through gritted teeth.

  “I did,” she answers quietly as I step back from Gravelle, watching him shakily reaching for his cane.

  “Then where’s the wound?” I demand.

  I get my answer in moments, as three other Gravelles stride into the room and surround this Gravelle.

  “I must have shot his Duplicate,” Maude explains, her voice tight.

  “You mean—”

  “These aren’t soulless, blank Duplicates. They’re…”

  Like me, I almost say out loud. Full of their original’s thoughts and memories. But I hold it in.

  I understand exactly who they are, what they are. They’re an insurance policy for him. If one dies, there are more.

  “It will be harder to eradicate me than you thought,” the Gravelle in the middle of the circle says. Our Gravelle—or is he? He’s got his cane back and is leaning on it. The ones who circle him don’t hold canes, I now realize.

  Which means he’s our original.

  “They can’t protect you forever,” I snarl as my friends arrive to flank me. “He’s the one we want,” I tell his copies. “So move out of the way.”

  My friends pounce. Jago thrusts a knife at one of the Gravelles. Ansel tackles a second clone. Levi approaches from behind, cutting another Gravelle off at the knees. But our Gravelle remains in the center, clumsily dodging the action with the help of his cane, protected by his copies.

  I feel so much anger at this man. For killing my father and Theodora. For causing all this suffering.

  I don’t care about anything right now except hurting him as much as he’s hurt all of us.

  So I charge. Straight toward the circle of Gravelles who’ve formed a human shield around their leader. My friends are chipping away at that shield as they take each Duplicate down, one by one.

  I find an opening. Crouching low, I push through the human barrier. Past the kicking and thrusting bodies to the real Gravelle—I’m certain it’s him, the way they’re protecting him at all costs—and knock the cane out of his hand. Then I tackle him, sending him to the ground.

  Maude’s at my side, handing me a knife. Sweating, tears springing from my eyes, I point the blade directly at his throat.

  “You’re afraid, aren’t you,” I whisper in Gravelle�
��s ear. A Gravelle Duplicate tries to grab me, but Maude kicks him off. “It’s not so fun being on this side of things,” I add. “Is it?”

  “Emma,” says a voice. I turn to see the other Emma—the original one—calling out to me.

  I give Gravelle’s scarred face one last look and hand the knife to Levi, who has taken down two of the Gravelles for good, knocking them out, and is standing next to me.

  “Throw him in the cage to rot,” I instruct him.

  It’s what seems fitting. I won’t kill him; I can’t. But he deserves to suffer.

  Just then, a shot rings out. I don’t see the bullet hit him, but I see what happens afterward. Blood is spreading out of Gravelle’s chest like a red-wine stain on the pristine floor.

  The bullet struck him right at the center, the heart of him—if he ever had one. But who did this?

  I scan the library, looking past the rows of vintage first editions, to see Jago holding a gun.

  “That was for Theodora,” he says quietly.

  I feel myself deflating, in relief, in utter fatigue.

  Gravelle is dead.

  You are a Duplicate.

  I walk past Gravelle’s bleeding form—abandoned now by his copies—to find Maude at the doorway, stepping on a guard’s chest and firing a gun at him. She hits his foot, aiming to impair but not kill him.

  “What’s going to happen when we leave here?” I ask her, a new realization dawning on me. “The Duplicates at home—they aren’t just going to hand their lives back to their originals. They believe they are who they are.” I know this more than anyone, but I don’t say it out loud. “Even if we get all the originals safely home…”

  Levi moves up, overhearing. “Who will ever believe that Bianca Huxley isn’t who she says she is? That Jane Ward is an imposter? How will we ever restore the real parents back to their lives? What if no one believes us about the time stamps? We won’t be able to force the Duplicates to submit to the infrared light. Everyone will think that these are the imposters. It will be nearly impossible to prove who they are.”

  Seeing Levi here, now, I want to acknowledge what just happened. My father jumped in front of that bullet to save the boy I love. But I’m in shock. I can’t confront it, or this bombshell that I’m a Duplicate. If I think about it for even a second, I’ll crack. If I’m not Emma, but 002.34, does that mean everything that happened with Levi was a lie? Does that mean the feelings he had weren’t really for me, but for the “real” Emma?