Beta

by Rachel Cohn

  “Kiss her!” Dementia tells Tahir.

  “Yeah, put that Beta to good use, finally,” says Farzad.

  But Ivan’s face has hardened and he warns Tahir, “Kiss her and I will beat you up, bro.” The group turns to Ivan, their faces shocked. Then Ivan lets out a high-pitched laugh. “Ha-ha, JK!” says Ivan. “Use the Beta however you want, Tahir.”

  Tahir wraps his arm around my shoulder to move my body sideways, so my face will turn up directly into his. I shouldn’t want this to happen. But I do. My eyes quickly dart to Ivan. He nods his permission, despite the scowl on his face.

  Tahir’s full coral lips part slightly, and so mine do the same. His face approaches mine, closer…closer…closer…and then…magic. His lips softly press into mine, and our mouths meet in soft exploration. My heart feels as if it could explode out of my skin. If this is ’raxia, I want more more more.

  The gang claps in enthusiasm. “There is our Tahir!” says Farzad.

  Tahir’s mouth moves to my neck and up to nibble on my ear. Quietly so that none of the others could hear, he whispers into my ear, “You are the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. You are special. Different from all the other girls. You make me feel alive, Elysia.”

  I HAVE BEEN KISSED FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME. And just as quickly forgotten.

  “Nonsense. Clones serve parties, they don’t attend them,” said the Governor when Mother suggested she’d like to bring me to Tahir’s fancy birthday party at the Fortesquieu compound.

  Maybe I won’t be a fancy guest at that party, but I have something those other guests don’t. I know that I alone am Tahir’s best gift, the only girl who makes him feel alive again since his accident. At least, I was until the ’raxia wore off and Tahir fell asleep. When he woke up, he was once again totally “boring,” as Dementia terms him, as if the light switch to Tahir’s lust had simply turned off. I will get it back on. I know I can.

  Ivan and Farzad speculated that it was the testosterone in Ivan’s ’raxia batch that brought Tahir’s desires for naughtiness back to life again. I like Tahir’s naughtiness. To experience disappointment at not being invited to Tahir’s formal party would be naughtily inappropriate of me, and also a waste; what I want to further experience with Tahir, I would prefer to happen in private next time. If there is a next time. Please let there be a next time.

  So, while the Bratton family is away at the Fortesquieu compound, their Beta will play. Left alone at the house, my prime mission is to jump into the pool as soon as they’re gone. I do a running dive into the open infinity pool, swim across the length of it, and rise above the air at the edge, where Xanthe sits, cautiously dangling her feet and calves in the water. I splash water at her. “Come in!”

  “I will drown,” she says.

  “You won’t. Just step in right where you are. We will stay on the shallow end. I promise.”

  Xanthe looks around to see if any other clone servants may be around to report on her. We see no one. The staff are either resting or attending Tawny’s Maximize Luxury for Your Human seminar in the Governor’s conference space at the other end of the house. It’s twilight now; the family won’t be home till ten o’clock at the earliest, when Liesel’s desire to attend a fancy party will inevitably meet with the child’s need for sleep. There’s so much swimming and diving and perhaps learning more about Tahir from Xanthe that can happen in the meantime, and I personally plan to maximize our use of this rare time when we are not on call to the humans. Maybe, even—chocolate will be pillaged. I work up such an appetite in the pool, and on this sweet evening after the afternoon when I have been kissed by a prince, and the air smells particularly succulent, the water feels extra silky, and the violet-orange sunset filled with promise, no mere strawberry shake shall satisfy it.

  Xanthe takes the plunge, pressing down on her hands to lift her seated body from the ledge and into the water. The water comes up to her chest as she takes baby steps across the shallow end of the pool. She shivers, wrapping her arms around her chest.

  “It’s cold at first, but it will feel warmer as you move around,” I tell her.

  “It’s”—she dips lower, until the water covers her shoulders and wets the ends of her bobbed black hair—“refreshing?”

  I stand next to her and place my hand against the small of her back. “Try floating. I’ll hold you steady if you’re scared.”

  “I do not scare.”

  “Right.”

  We are programmed to not lie, except perhaps to ourselves, in the sense that we believe what we’ve been told about our programming even if experience tells us otherwise. Xanthe must experience some level of trepidation.

  I say, “Tilt your head back and lift your legs up so you can float on your back. I promise you won’t drown.”

  Despite her glazed fuchsia eyes, I sense trust in them. “I do want to try,” she says.

  I know she is scared of this simple task even if the fear is something she can’t—or won’t—acknowledge. Fear, perhaps, is not based on the chemical component of adrenaline alone. It acts also on inexperience, or venturing into the unknown, even if that unknown is as uncomplicated a thing as a swimming pool. At least, the pool feels uncomplicated to me, a natural extension of myself. To Xanthe, who has never been in one, it might seem like the great wild unknown.

  Xanthe’s head leans back as her legs float up. I place my arms beneath her back to make her feel supported and safe. I can’t believe I took something so simple for granted. Having my First’s abilities in the water was not my right but perhaps more a gift.

  Xanthe floats!

  Joy rises up too, I know it—but is that human feeling hers, or mine, upon witnessing her experience this new freedom?

  “A-a-a-ah!” Xanthe says, staring directly up into the sky and, for the first time I’ve ever seen, with a smile on her face. “These humans must source this water with magic. Too good to be true.”

  “Shall I remove my arms?” I ask her.

  “Yes, please. Slowly.”

  “Don’t stiffen up. Let your body relax.”

  I slowly remove one arm, and she remains floating. I remove my other arm. She’s on her own. Her body floats.

  “I could stay here forever.” She mimics a human’s contented sigh.

  “Are you okay on your own if I sprint to the other end and back?” I ask Xanthe. I want to check in with my underwater apparition man. I miss him. He has been ignoring me lately, now that the only boy I can think about is Tahir Fortesquieu.

  “Mmmm,” Xanthe sighs, closing her eyes as her body gives in to the floating sensation.

  I dive beneath the water and swim to the other end, toward the entrance to the grotto tunnel, but I see nothing besides water and Xanthe’s floating body. I swim through the tunnel, near which there are two floating chairs bobbing in the water. I retrieve the chairs, step out of the grotto to carry them back to the other side of the pool, and place the chairs in the water there.

  “Let’s do this like the humans do this,” I tell Xanthe. She returns from her floating position to standing on the pool bottom, and I help her maneuver into one of the chairs.

  I step into my own chair alongside her. It’s a shame I didn’t have the foresight to bring our strawberry shakes—or even better, some chocolate milk—to nestle into the cup holders. No matter. This evening is perfect enough already. That compulsory Demesne experience for humans, leisure, is for the clones tonight too.

  “What was Astrid like?” I ask Xanthe.

  Xanthe says, “She was hard to know. She just wanted to be in her room alone most of the time. Studying, I suppose. But she was very secretive, so it’s hard to say. Why do you ask?”

  “Just wondering. Am I anything like her?”

  “In no way whatsoever.”

  “Should I be?”

  “They seem pretty happy with you the way you are, so I’d say no.”

  “Your mate. What is he called?”

  She smiles slightly at the thought of him. “He is ca
lled Miguel.”

  “Do you wish he was here now?”

  She splashes water at me. “You’ll do. For now. Besides, he is working at the Fortesquieu compound tonight. Making sure the oxygen for their party is particularly luxurious. The young man they are celebrating is very delicate since his accident.”

  “What was Tahir Fortesquieu like before his accident?”

  “I didn’t have much interaction with him except when he came to call on Astrid. He was very…datacheck the word haughty.”

  I do so and determine, “He does not seem that way to me now.”

  “Oh he doesn’t, really?” Xanthe says, in a tone suggesting He does, really. “Do yourself a favor. Spare yourself the idea that a human will care for you like you’re one of them.”

  “I would never expect a human to care for me.” I don’t know why Xanthe’s words scorch me; all I asked her was what kind of fellow Tahir was before his accident. I didn’t ask if I should hold out hope that I would be the clone to change the dynamics of interspecies love, that I would be the clone to be cared about rather than merely played with. But she should know there is a possibility of more for me. “Tahir Fortesquieu kissed me this afternoon,” I confess to Xanthe.

  Instead of setting her face to surprise, she allows it to go to concerned. She gently touches my arm and says, “Don’t be like Tawny.”

  “A luxisstant?”

  “A consort,” Xanthe corrects.

  “I could be more to him,” I say.

  “No,” Xanthe says, definitively. “You can’t.”

  I refuse to believe her. I don’t respond.

  “I know we are not supposed to want,” Xanthe continues. “But please, promise me something. Want more for yourself than to just be a human’s consort.”

  “What more could I possibly be?”

  “You are smart, and strong, and brave. The humans will try to keep you from being anything more than their toy. It’s up to you to rise above that.”

  “I can rise above that?”

  “I believe you can.”

  “Do you know love with Miguel?” I ask Xanthe.

  “I think that’s what it is. With him, I experience…” Her voice drops to barely a whisper. “Contentment.”

  “How Demesne of you,” I murmur. I think I’m as envious of her as I am pleased for her.

  She’s had enough of our cloned-heart-to-cloned-heart. “I can only float in this chair for so long. It’s satisfactory for a few minutes, but I do not understand what the humans find so relaxing about resting under a waning sun while the cold skin shrivels up from idle lingering in the water. How can they sit still for so long?”

  “Want to try a swim?” I ask her.

  “Yes, please.”

  We get out of our chairs and place them at the water’s ledge.

  I place my arms beneath her back again. “Let’s try a backstroke. Start by kicking your feet.” She kicks her feet. “Now swing your arms behind you.” She tries but gulps in water, loses her balance, and returns to standing upright on her feet.

  “I don’t understand,” she says.

  I demonstrate the backstroke, one length up and then back across the pool.

  “I can’t do it perfectly like that,” Xanthe says.

  “Perfection isn’t important,” I say, and we look at each other in recognition of the absurdity of my statement, the antithesis of the whole ethic of Demesne. It’s like we want to…laugh? “Just try. I’ve got you.”

  She floats again on her back as I place my arms beneath her. She kicks her feet and then begins stroking her arms up and over, up and over. But the splash from her arms sends water up her nose and she returns again to standing upright. “A most unsatisfactory sensation,” she says through unwelcome snorts.

  “Let’s try an easier way,” I say.

  I go to the water’s ledge to retrieve a kickboard. I demonstrate how Xanthe can hold the kickboard against her chest and swim around the pool that way, or even venture to the deep end if she chooses. Xanthe takes the kickboard and begins kicking around the shallow end. I swim alongside her, a slow and steady breaststroke, as we find a peaceful rhythm.

  Xanthe stops her kickboarding to stand again, and this time she changes direction. “I want to go that way,” she says. “To the deep end. Like you.”

  “I’ll be right there alongside you.”

  “I know.”

  We take off for the deep end of the pool.

  The sun has set and Xanthe is exhausted from our swim. We lie on the humans’ chaises, drying off in the cool nighttime air as we drink our strawberry shakes.

  “You seem to experience love, not just mimic it. Are you sure you’re not at least a little bit Defect?” I ask. I try to set my voice to genuine so Xanthe will know I am not trying to offend or accuse her. I want to…comfort her. Share this with her.

  “Perhaps,” Xanthe says, quietly. “Probably.”

  Xanthe says, “There’s an army of Defects hiding out in the Rave Caves. They are making allies. It’s true. They are planning an insurrection.”

  This news is shocking. Life on Demesne is too perfect to wish for their insurrection to be a success against impossible odds, and yet it’s also liberating to know there are Defects out there who haven’t been expired. They have created their own hope for themselves. They are planning a revolution.

  “I overheard the Governor talking about it with the envoy. He said the protest people on the Mainland claim that Defects are not different from regular clones. The protest people say the difference is that Defects have developed a natural sense of outrage and injustice because they are being held in involuntary servitude.”

  I am frightened now. I want to rewind this conversation. “But we do not distinguish voluntary from involuntary servitude. We do not feel.”

  Quietly, Xanthe says, “You know that’s not true.” This time it is she who grabs my hand, and clenches. I feel so much at this moment that it’s overwhelming. I feel connection with Xanthe such as I have never felt for the humans. I feel awe, learning that there are Defects planning an insurrection. I feel amazement that there really are protest people—humans!—who seek to free us.

  I cannot deny. I feel.

  “If this island is so peaceful, why are people on the Mainland protesting us?”

  She looks around again, but sees no one. She leans in closer to me and speaks softly. “They are activists on the Mainland who believe that clones on Demesne are essentially slaves. They are fighting to emancipate us.”

  She has mentioned this concept before—freedom—but I am unclear what it would entail. “Emancipate us from what?” I gesture around us. To paradise. “Demesne is renowned as the most desirable and exclusive place on Earth. And we get to live here. We get to breathe the purest air. We are surrounded by scenery that has a perfect aesthetic. We want for nothing.”

  “Except choice about our servitude. The protesters want us to have choice.”

  “Why do we need choice if we have no souls? And where do the Firsts’ souls go when they’re extracted to make clones?” I ask Xanthe.

  “I don’t know. There are rumors. The Defects are determined to find out. They’ve discovered human feeling, and now they want it all. The feelings, and their Firsts’ souls back.”

  Whoa.

  Xanthe says, “Supposedly, there are people on the inside, military officers on the Base, who know where the souls are stored. Defects take the blame, but it’s humans on the Mainland who are secretly really behind the Insurrection.”

  “There are humans behind the Insurrection?” I exclaim. “How is that even possible? They’re the ones who created this paradise.”

  “Not enough to share,” Xanthe says. “It’s created problems.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  Before she can answer, Tawny walks out onto the deck. She eyes Xanthe and me reclining on the Bratton’s deck chairs. “My seminar is finished,” says Tawny to Xanthe. “You should have attended. I will give you the talk
ing points holosheet so you may review it.”

  “Great,” says Xanthe. I know that Xanthe is doing the sarcasm, but Tawny does not appear to understand that.

  “Yes, it is,” says Tawny. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Leisuring,” says Xanthe.

  Tawny does not recognize this sarcasm. “We serve. We do not leisure,” says Tawny.

  And then suddenly I understand what kind of problems the humans’ leisure exclusivity has created. From way off in the distance, we hear a loud explosion. Xanthe and I jump to our feet and, together with Tawny, we look beyond the pool, past Io’s waters, to the mountaintop on the other end of the island. We see the smoke rising, and then a ball of orange as the jungle lights up, on fire.

  A bomb has gone off in paradise.

  “NO WAY!” GREER LOOKS UP FROM HER RELAY. “The Governor has just told the residents that the bomb was an isolated incident, nothing for them to worry about. But he said they know who set the bomb off. The Beta!” The gang all gasp and turn their heads to look accusingly at me.

  I gasp.

  “I did not set off the bomb!” I proclaim. “Mother says I am perfect. I am not a criminal.”

  “Not you, Beta,” says Greer, rolling her eyes. “The other Beta. The one called Becky.”

  We sit by ourselves on the deck of the floating pool at Haven as Demesne’s residents are gathered inside the club for a town hall–style report from the Governor about the previous evening’s incident. The teens have sequestered themselves from the adults’ “boring convo” (per Dementia), which is turning out to be maybe not so boring.

  No one was hurt by the explosion. It turned out to be a very crude—albeit loud—bomb, capable of more psychological than physical damage, besides some burned trees in the jungle. How could Becky possibly have obtained a bomb?

  Maybe I’m just as guilty as the other teen Beta. I did not absorb worry into my human palette. I was too busy being the prized Beta and not the reject. Last time I saw her at the boutique, Becky looked different, and behaved strangely, and I knew something was wrong, but I did not concern myself. I walked out the boutique’s door and back to my pampered life at Governor’s House, and I did not give Becky another thought.