“What are you doing?” she said.
“Dance with me.”
Althea let him pull her up.
Jack was clumsy, with his broken arm and a stiffness that suggested the pain he was in. And the music didn’t transport Althea in the same way Jack’s guitar had. It plunked along with a repetitive, childish strain. Also, in the dances she knew, she and the Carsons, Hassans, or whoever, were generally side by side. Jack held her waist and her hand, pulling her close to him in a kind of dance Althea had never experienced.
As they moved together, his muscles eased and warmed around her. She breathed in, smelling the stale dusty air of the room but also his skin, like bamboo wood and rain. She lifted her eyes to him. This close, she had to look up to see his face, which was bent over hers. There were no bars between them, nothing keeping them apart. She hesitated. She wouldn’t kiss him again, not after he’d given back her ribbon in the barn. If he rejected her a second time, she didn’t think she could stand it.
Unexpectedly, however, something flickered in his eyes, and his hand slid down her back, past her hair cascading down, and he drew her close. The edge of his cast dug into her spine. And then, as if he could read her mind, he tipped his head down and his lips pressed to hers, not practiced and ceremonial like all the other boys, not bruising and forced like Jonah, but like a storm breaking in the jungle—sudden and torrential, walls of rain closing them in until they were the only two left in the world.
Jack pulled back from the kiss before she was ready for it to end, before she could focus enough to realize his lips were no longer on hers. His forehead touched hers, and her eyes remained closed, though she didn’t remember closing them. The last notes from the music box slowed and petered out.
“I . . .” Her tongue couldn’t find words.
“We have to keep looking,” he said softly. He hadn’t yet let go of her.
She breathed, and wondered if he could hear the shakiness in her breath. This was what Nyla had tried to tell her about being with him. Had it been like this with Nyla? The thought of them together broke Althea from her stupor. She stepped from his arms.
“Right,” she said.
He tilted his head at her. “You okay?”
“Like you said, we have to keep looking.”
Althea tried to collect herself. She skimmed through a box before realizing she’d already looked through it an hour ago. They were finding nothing, and didn’t even know what it was they were looking for. In the corner of her eye, she noticed Jack wasn’t moving, hadn’t opened another box. She looked over at him. His mouth was turned up in an amused smile.
“What’s funny?” she said.
He shook his head, still with that smile playing on his lips. “Nothing.”
“You’re laughing at me.”
“I’m not laughing at you.” He leaned toward her and touched her hand. His eyes held hers in a deliberate gaze. “I like kissing you. But there’s no hurry, Althea. We have time.”
She tried not to smile back at him, or let him know what a jumble her thoughts were from the lightest touch of his hand. She cleared her throat.
“There are so many boxes left. We’ll never get through them all.”
“We don’t have to. I found this.” Jack showed her a damp, dented cardboard box. Inside were two books. One was blank, but written on the other, in peeling gold letters, were the words The Ark Project.
“Is this what Jonah is looking for?”
“I don’t know. But if we know what the Ark Project is, then we’ll know what the Ark is.”
When Althea picked up the book, a paper fell out. It was a color photograph, faded yellow and soft in the crease from having been folded into the pages of the book for what appeared to be a very long time.
It was a picture of the Original Nine, the same representation displayed everywhere in Vispera. She’d seen it a million times. The figures were lined up in the same order, held the same stance, wore the same clothes. The difference was that this was a photograph, not a reproduction. Althea could scarcely believe her eyes.
It was so strange to see their faces unaltered by the lines of a brush. Changes had been made in the countless renderings. The faces were all familiar, of course, like those she’d seen her whole life. But the men were more broad-chested, like Jack, and some had the stubble of hair on their faces. Many of them wore glasses over their eyes, but those had been left out of the paintings. The women were mostly shorter than the men in the photo, so that had changed too. The Original Althea wore her hair short, like a boy, and the color was almost black, not the deep brown of Althea and her sisters. As in the painting, Althea recognized the hope in their eyes, as if they were looking toward a bright, promising future. The photo would have been taken in the early days of the Plague, when Vispera was new. The Original scientists were brilliant, forward thinkers, planning a beautiful new world. Someone had written, in a spidery script, in the white border, The Originals.
“I’ve never seen this before,” Althea said. “I didn’t know it existed. What’s it doing folded away in a book?”
Jack bent over her, studying the photograph. He was so close she thought he was going to rest a hand on her shoulder, or stroke her hair. Instead, he pointed to the picture.
“Who’s that?” he said.
Althea’s gaze followed to where his finger touched the image. The difference she’d missed, the one Jack pointed to, was another face behind the Original Samuel and Original Kate, a tenth face among the Nine, one she’d never seen before.
The face of a man, hidden behind the others and in slight shadow, looked back at Althea.
A chill ran down her back.
Now that she saw this new person, it seemed absurd that she’d missed him, but the painting was so familiar, so much a part of her everyday life, that she’d been blind to the glaring change. Her hand was shaking, so Jack took the picture from her and peered at it intently. The man was pale-haired, like Jack, but otherwise they looked nothing alike. He was slender, with a pointed chin and close-set eyes. His tie was askew, and his hair was mussed, as if he’d just run his fingers through it in quick preparation for the photo. His smile was cheerfully crooked, like he was laughing at something one of the others had said right before the picture was taken.
“He’s not in any of the paintings,” Jack said.
“No.” She blinked at the faces, trying to reconcile the history she’d been taught her entire life with the image in front of her. “Was there an Original Ten? You think they made him, too?”
“It would explain why they’ve wanted a tenth clone so badly. That’s how they started out. Haven’t you ever wondered why everything is in tens except the number of models?”
“No,” she said, annoyed at the question. “That’s how it’s always been.”
“Not according to this.”
“Maybe he died.” Althea took the picture back. “Maybe they never had a chance to make more of him.” She turned the picture over. “There’s writing on the back.”
They both leaned over to read. The words were in a tight, cursive script, a list down the page. The ink had faded to a pale gray with age.
Viktor
Inga
Samuel
Kate
Carson
Althea
Hassan
Mei
Elan
Nyla
“Elan,” Jack murmured, struck by the realization. “They didn’t just want a tenth clone. They wanted me as a replacement for him.”
If Elan was indeed one of the Originals, for whatever reason, they’d stopped making that model. It would have been centuries ago. And he’d been erased from the records and histories, erased from the painting, just as he’d been erased from the memory of Vispera. Was it possible?
“Jack . . . you were supposed to be a tenth model?” Althea said, imagining what he must be thinking.
“It doesn’t matter,” Jack said brusquely, hearing the pity in her voice. He too
k the picture from her and folded it back where it came from. “Let’s try to figure out what the Ark Project is.”
“Maybe Sam can help.”
“No, he’ll tell the Council.”
“I don’t think so. He’s fracturing. Jack, they’ll have a Binding Ceremony soon.”
Jack looked at her, his face a frustrating mask. The Inga that raised him had fractured, and now Samuel had too. And what would happen when it was her turn? Even now, she was supposed to be with her sisters, bonding with them, and instead she was here, helping Jack.
In one movement, Jack grabbed her, suddenly alert. He blew out the candle lighting the room.
“What is it?”
He shushed her, his hand covering her mouth, then peered out the window, straining to see in the dark. She was against the wall next to the window. His body was pressed into her, holding her still.
“Did you hear that?” he whispered.
“No, I—” And then she heard it. A sound outside, twigs breaking, hushed voices giving orders.
“Come on,” Jack said, grabbing her hand. “We have to go.”
Chapter Eighteen
Jack
The cottage was surrounded. There were at least five clones. Jack cursed himself for getting distracted. He should have heard them sooner.
He led Althea down the short hallway. She clutched the box with the books inside close to her chest. They would have to go out the back. The cottage was small, but it was dark outside, and Jack knew the jungle here better than the clones did.
A back window led into an alcove. He opened a window quietly and helped Althea climb through.
“There’s a clearing on the right, but to the left the trees are dense. It’ll be dark—you’ll be hidden there. I’m right behind you.”
“Hey!” a deep voice shouted. “Who’s there?” A flashlight swept the side of the house.
“Run,” Jack said.
Althea disappeared into the dark, the flashlight beam following after her. Jack ducked away, rolling painfully to his side to dodge the beam. He couldn’t see the Viktor, but the light flicked over the space where Jack had been.
The Viktor, hearing their scrabbling, yelled again. “Stop!”
Althea changed direction when a Viktor blocked her route to the trees. Jack followed her as she headed in the direction of town. He caught up, and she grabbed his shirt and pulled him into a cove of brush at the base of Vispera’s wall. He shielded her from the Viktor, squeezing her against the rough stones. She was breathing hard. The Viktor ran along the edge of the tall grass. They could hear him talking low-voiced to the others who had joined him. Jack waited several moments. He could feel Althea’s quick heartbeat against his chest. They were close, huddled together. If they moved, the Viktors would surely hear them.
Althea’s fingers settled on his uninjured arm like butterfly wings. They fluttered up and down in an anxious caress. Jack paused, realizing she was barely conscious of what she was doing. He’d seen that sort of thing enough times to know she was trying to commune with him the way she would with a clone. She looked confused as some distant part of her became aware that her touch wasn’t working. That it never would with him.
Althea stiffened. “They’re coming back,” she whispered, her lip against his ear.
Jack peered out. “Come on,” he said, giving Althea a boost over the six feet of stone. He followed, grasping the top and hauling himself up, something he’d done plenty of times as a kid.
On the other side, they worked their way through the trees parallel to the path that headed toward Vispera. At first they went slowly, and then Jack heard the grunts of a Viktor clambering over the wall after them.
He took Althea’s hand and veered them left, away from the path.
“Jack, the box!” Althea yelled.
He hardly slowed as he saw it tumbling to the ground.
“Leave it,” he said, but she wrenched away. “Althea, don’t!”
She turned back. Jack almost went after her, but then the Viktor rushed forward. Althea backed away. The Viktor raised his flashlight.
“Who’s with you?” he said.
“No one. I’m by myself.”
The Viktor was a Gen-310, the same age as them. The others hadn’t caught up yet, and he wasn’t carrying a weapon. Jack wasn’t about to let a clone take Althea. He moved closer to them, ready to act, just as the ground shivered. A boom shook the trees. The air compressed around them. Birds squawked and scattered into the sky.
There was no time to react before a second distant roar followed, and a third. A mounting glow filtered through the leaves, casting vermillion shadows on the ground and foliage. The faces of Althea and Viktor reflected the glow before the light waned as quickly as it’d appeared. The chase forgotten, the Viktor sprinted for the clearing of the path. Althea glanced at Jack and then ran after, leaving Jack with no choice but to follow them both.
They stopped in a glade looking down toward Vispera, on a path that ended at the bank of Blue River. In the sky far above the trees, blooms of orange and red folded into the night air and merged, resolving in the end to thick black smoke. Watching the explosion, Althea’s expression was a mirror image of the Viktor’s next to her. It was as if they were concentrating intently, as if distant sounds called to them, voices Jack couldn’t hear.
The Viktor reached out his hand, and instinctively Althea took it. Their fingers wove together. Her eyes met the Viktor’s, and an understanding seemed to pass between them, a current of energy, fleeting and intense.
“They’re hurt,” the Viktor said, his tone dipping low as if saying something already understood.
Jack said nothing as Althea nodded. He watched their shoulders touch, their bodies connecting along the length of their arms. The Viktor’s thumb brushed the back of her hand, drawing a small circle on her skin. Without another word, they reached a silent agreement. Althea released the Viktor’s hand, and he hurried down the path toward the billowing midnight smoke. Althea leaned slightly, her body poised to follow, to race with him to the river’s edge.
The remaining security guards emerged from the trees and stared into the distance in a daze. They paid no attention to Jack, simply walked on toward the river. As if they’d materialized in the darkness, even more clones appeared. They came from the direction of town, and they met on the same path. They followed the Viktor, a steady stream of people, toward the explosions, the direction Althea was staring, her grip still tight on the box as though she needed something to hang on to. Althea took a step toward the stream of people before Jack grabbed her hand. He felt her draw away.
“It’s the boats, Jack. The ones going to Copan. People are hurt. I have to go to them.”
Jack was mindful of the silence of the crowd moving collectively toward the river. There were no shouts, no calls to gather or to wake those still sleeping. Hands reached to twine together and eyes met, but no words passed.
The clones didn’t need words.
“Come on, then.” He moved to join the line on the path.
“No,” she said. “Go back to the hospital. I’ll meet you there later.” When he shook his head, not understanding, she said, “Jonah did this. They won’t want your help.”
“You can’t know it was Jonah.”
“Who else? He’s the only one capable.”
To Jack, the profound silence of the moving crowd became heavy, almost tangible. The faraway look in Althea’s eyes was like cold water dashed against his skin.
“That’s not what you really mean, though. If he’s capable of it, then I am too, right?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. Jonah and I, we’re the same person, after all. That’s what the Council believes. I thought you were different.”
With a hoarse whisper, she said, “I am different.”
Jack put his hand into hers as she had done with the Viktor. He held the knot of their fingers in her line of sight and said, “What do you feel, Althea
?”
Confused, she searched his eyes. She cast her gaze back to the path. The clones’ steps had quickened. They moved as one, responding to some imperceptible impulse like a flock of birds, shifting flight instantaneously. She wanted to join them.
She looked back at Jack. “I don’t understand,” she said quietly.
“You felt something with the Viktor, didn’t you? Something you don’t feel with me.” They both knew it was true. “Is he one of the ones you—”
He didn’t need to see the way her mouth tightened to know he shouldn’t say it. He pressed his lips against his teeth, keeping himself from completing the question. He didn’t care whether she’d Paired with the Viktor, not really. But he’d seen what had passed between them. She had a connection with him, with all of them, that Jack could never share.
They stood on the path to Blue River, ignored by the clones, the distance between them growing with each moment.
“Never mind,” he said, releasing her hand. “They’re right, you know. I am capable of hurting them. But it’s no more than what they’ve done to me.”
“Jack . . .” She was listening to him, but she was far away. He imagined a girl who looked just like her, with the same serious mouth, her smell and voice, the fleeting line between her eyes. He imagined her on the ground, bleeding and alone.
“Go,” he said after a moment. “They’re your people. Help them.”
She hesitated, then joined the others and was enveloped by the crowd. Jack watched them go, keeping his eyes on her until he no longer knew which one she was.
Jack wandered through the trees, empty now, and then into the banana grove, where Jonah was waiting. He hadn’t known he’d see Jonah there, but when he did, sitting on a rock with an arm resting on one knee, for some reason Jack wasn’t surprised.
“They’ll be looking for you,” Jack said.
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