by Kristen Pham
My freedom to move to another state, or even vacation in another part of the world, will be denied. There will be no traveling across the country this summer on my motorcycle without a work-approved permit.
I’ll have to use separate restaurants, bathrooms, trains. Police can stop me for no reason and demand to see my identification to make sure I’m legally employed. If I’m unemployed a year after my training ends, I’ll be thrown in jail.
I’ve always pitied the plight of Throwbacks like Justus and Brie in an abstract way. I’ve even marched in rallies to give them equal voting rights. But it was never a possibility that I would share that fate. Almost all Throwbacks have cloned parents who applied to be their surrogates, since Throwbacks are genetically engineered to be infertile. Supposedly clones having biological kids would set our species’ gene pool back a few hundred years or some bullshit argument like that.
My hand is released from the band, and I pull it toward me. Three black lines ring my wrist, and on the underside is a picture of a comedy and tragedy mask. A hysterical need to laugh makes me bite my lip. I don’t want Jayne to know how unhinged I feel. The symbol represents the trade I’ll be forced into. This one means I’ll be involved in the entertainment industry. About as far from medicine as you can get. Instead of saving people like I always dreamed I would do, I’ll be amusing them like a trained monkey.
Jayne swiftly wraps my sore wrist in a bandage, and when her eyes meet mine, they are bright with curiosity, like she’s logging all of my reactions into her mental records. “Most people want to know whose DNA they share.”
I do laugh now. “Does it matter?”
Jayne’s face remains neutral. Maybe she’s seen this reaction before. She taps my tablet with her briefcase. “I’ve wirelessly transferred files to your tablet. You’ll find information on your DNA, a list of training academies you are eligible to enroll in, and rules and regulations for Genetic Replicants under Seattle law.”
It’s too much at once, and the rest of her words are gibberish. My parents nod along with Jayne and then escort her out of our house. My body is leaden, and I’m dimly aware that my breathing is coming faster.
“Now, sweetheart, before you say anything, listen to us,” my dad says, kneeling in front of me. “You’re cloned from Joan of Arc! You’ll be a movie star. Everyone will come to watch the real Joan in an epic film about her life.”
They kept my clone type name . . .
“I knew you were destined for greatness from the moment I became your surrogate,” Mom adds, kneeling next to my dad. “I’ve pictured your face on movie posters since you were a baby.”
“You lied to me,” I say, my tone robotic.
“There’s that dramatic flair that will make you famous,” Dad says with a nervous laugh.
His words break through my shock, and a brief burst of pain shoots through my skull. “How could you let me dream of a real future when you knew it would be ripped away from me? You’ve had eighteen years to tell me I’m a Throwback, that my life will be prescribed for me, that I’ll be a second-class citizen!”
“Don’t overreact. It’s not like you’re some Molly, destined for a life as a docile housekeeper.” My dad lowers his voice, but Addie is standing in the doorway, and I know she heard his words about her clone type. Her face is still, and for once, I can’t read her emotions.
“You’re practically a princess,” my mom says, her expressive hands almost begging.
“You make me sick,” I whisper. “The only thing that’s good about not being Confirmed as Evolved is that it means I’m not genetically related to either of you.”
Mom and Dad draw back like I hit them. Mom’s face crumples. Before either of them can say anything more, the doorbell rings. Mom sucks in a breath and dashes away the tears in her eyes. Then she and Dad hurry to the door to greet the first of the party guests.
Addie sits beside me and squeezes my hand with her calloused one. She’s the only one who understands the magnitude of what my Status means, and her warmth awakens a well of grief inside me for the version of my life I’d imagined for so many years. I have to turn away from her to stuff my sadness down until later. I won’t let any of these people see that I’m suffering.
What are we even celebrating? My parents knew I wouldn’t be Confirmed! Aside from my best friend Ava and her boyfriend, the guests my mom invited will be a bunch of my parents’ buddies from rehab and a few family members who have always treated me like I had a contagious disease. Now I know why.
I bet they threw this party so that I would be forced to keep my rage on a leash. They think I’ll behave in front of all these guests.
Hell no.
As the room fills, Addie checks that everything is in place and then makes her quiet exit. When the door shuts behind her, my heart beats fast, and my breathing becomes shallow. My last panic attack was years ago, when I was fourteen and found Mom unconscious on the bathroom floor. But I refuse to let these posers see me freak out, so I force myself to breathe slowly.
The living room walls are ablaze with shimmering gold inlays that subtly evolve into different shapes, thanks to the in-home laser projection system that Dad rented. The food and drinks are created by a top-of-the-line dispenser, so our guests can order almost anything they’re in the mood for. I enter the code for my comfort drink—hot chocolate—so that I have something warm to hold.
I force myself to sip slowly and assess the party. The first thing I notice is that the guests are not surprised by the bandage on my wrist. That means Mom and Dad already told them I’m a Throwback. How long have they been laughing behind my back? I clench my teeth at every condescending smile and pat on the back, already plotting my revenge.
“At last, we don’t have to pretend that she’s the same as the rest of us,” I overhear Aunt Bea telling one of Mom’s friends. “I shuddered seeing her play with my own children, both Confirmed, of course, but Adele and Blaise wouldn’t hear of reminding Joan of her proper place. They wanted to shield her from the knowledge that she’s not their real daughter. She’s another Knockoff.”
“Bea! Language,” Mom’s friend hisses at Aunt Bea’s use of the derogatory slang.
The thought of hacking the dispenser and pouring Bea a glass of piss crosses my mind, but I decide not to waste my energy on such an easy target. My aunt’s attitude is exactly what I expect. What really annoys me is that my parents have convinced their friends that they kept my Throwback identity a secret in order to protect me. What a joke. I learned long ago that they always make decisions in their own best interest.
“Joanie!” Ava’s musical voice carries over the crowd, and her nickname for me almost makes me smile. She’s the only one I let call me Joanie, because she’s known me since I was six. “Congratulations!”
Ava and her boyfriend, Fletch, make their way toward me, and I have the craziest urge to hide my hand behind my back. Instead I hold up my bandaged wrist. Ava has an expressive face, and I watch her confusion morph into horror. It would be comical if it weren’t my life that is making her turn so pale. Next to her, Fletch is stiff, frozen.
“You’re a Throwback?” Ava whispers.
“I’m cloned from Joan of freaking Arc. Go ahead and tell me how lucky I am.”
Ava shakes her head, and her arms reach for me like she’s about to pull me into a hug, but then she buries her face in Fletch’s chest instead. He strokes her hair, like she’s the one whose life is over.
“We’re surprised. We had no idea,” Fletch says.
Am I imagining the distance in his tone? We’ve been friends forever. I was the one who encouraged him to ask Ava out! Surely one tattoo won’t erase all our history.
“Me either,” I say, and swallow the emotion rising in my throat. “But it isn’t like I found out I’m dying in six months. Instead of medical school I’m going to acting classes. That’s all.”
Ava turns toward me, and her expression reminds me of how she looked at the fetal pig we had to dissect in b
iology class. “It’s not like we found out that you dye your hair. You’re a Throwback! This changes everything.”
Does she mean what she’s saying? She and Fletch marched beside me for Throwback voting rights. But before I can reply, Mom steps between us, and I know she overheard what Ava said.
“We’re so proud of our girl!” Mom says, her voice high and false. “She’s cloned from Joan of Arc, the only copy made in more than fifty years. She’ll be a famous actress, make buckets of money, and marry a movie star!”
“Is that why you had me?” I hiss, and Mom’s eyes flick around the room, noticing that everyone is staring at us. “So I’d earn lots of money for you and Dad to blow on drugs and cars and parties? You’re parasites.”
“Joan, you’re in public,” Dad reminds me, his voice low.
“Such trashy behavior,” Aunt Bea sniffs. “But what do you expect? Reared as Evolved, but the true nature always comes through.”
“How much did Strand pay you to be my surrogate?” I say, stepping closer to Mom.
Her face goes red, and I know I’m right. For some reason, Strand Corporation, the company responsible for creating and implanting cloned embryos, wanted me raised by Evolved parents. They probably had to pay my parents a boatload of money to take on the responsibility and cost of rearing me. Strand must expect me to make some major cash in the career they’ve selected for me, because they collect 7 percent of all Throwbacks’ salaries as adults.
“It doesn’t matter why we did it,” Mom says, and she’s crying now, not seeming to care that everyone’s watching us, openmouthed. “Your dad and I loved you from the day you were born, and we love you now.”
“That was a lie then and a joke now,” I say.
“Let’s get out of here,” Ava whispers to Fletch.
I’m possessed by a manic energy, and I’m either going to start sobbing or screaming. I choose screaming.
“Get the hell out, all of you! You’re a bunch of rubberneckers, vultures! Leave!”
Mom and Dad don’t contradict me, and everyone begins funneling out the front door, ushered by my aunt Bea, who keeps shooting me disgusted glances.
“Fuck you!” I shout at her, and she slams the door shut behind her.
I see Mom and Dad staring at me, their eyes wide.
“Fuck you too,” I say to them, and release one sob before taking the stairs up to my bedroom two at a time.
Chapter 3
Mom or Dad knock softly on my door a few times, but I ignore them. At some point one of them—probably Dad—tries the handle, but I had a dead bolt installed after one of Dad’s friends wandered into my room one night when I was eleven and I had to hit him over the head with my first-place science fair trophy. The dead bolt has a tiny video camera, motion detector, and speaker that I control with my phone. No one ever got in my room again.
I sob into my pillow, hating myself for being so weak. It reminds me of the many other times I cried on this bed, when I was hungry and lonely. The memory makes me cry harder, but after a while, it starts to feel like self-pity, and the tears dry up.
When I’m empty, I blow my nose and unwrap the bandage on my wrist, which is swollen. The design of the lavaliere is supposed to be elegant, but to me, it looks like a shackle.
I can’t stay in my room for another minute, or I’ll go crazy. I pull on a sweatshirt to cover my bandage and use my dead-bolt camera to see if my parents are still out there. The hall is empty, which means they already gave up on trying to talk to me.
I open the door slowly, pausing at the little creak that one of the hinges always makes. Mom is asleep out of the range of my camera, her head leaned back against the wall. Finding her there melts a little of the frozen part of my heart. A strand of hair has fallen on her face, and I tuck it behind her ear. Her eyes are swollen, and I feel a little sick when I remember telling her that I didn’t believe she loved me.
Her eyes flutter open, and she leaps up and hugs me. Instead of pushing her away like I usually do, I let myself accept the comfort that her arms bring.
She leads me to the kitchen, where Dad is making pancakes, even though it’s almost midnight.
“We were worried that you might run away,” Dad says, his voice rough.
“Not tonight.”
I think of the many nights I sat at that kitchen table, wondering if Mom and Dad would return from their latest weekend bender. They aren’t perfect parents—maybe not even good ones—but they always came home.
“I’m still mad, but I’m also sorry. I know you love me,” I say.
Mom starts crying again, and Dad’s eyes well up, too. I can’t watch them fall apart—it’s a sight I’m too familiar with. I interrogate them instead.
“How much did Strand Corporation pay you to have me?” I ask.
“You have to see it like we did,” Mom pleads. “Your dad and I couldn’t have children of our own, so we were going to use a donor egg. When Strand asked us to choose a cloned embryo in return for a house, it was like all of our dreams were coming true at once.”
Our house isn’t a mansion, but Ballard is a neighborhood with an excellent school district in a safe part of town. And I bought it for us, it seems.
“Maybe I’ll charge you rent then,” I joke, and Mom’s face relaxes a little.
Dad drums his fingers on the table. “Without Strand’s offer, we would never have been able to live in a place like this. We’d have been holed up in our old roach-infested apartment for the rest of our lives. I admit, we wanted better for ourselves, but we wanted better for our child, too.”
I wonder if they would have had enough money to buy Amp if Strand hadn’t given them a mortgage-free house, but I decide to keep my loud mouth shut for once.
“Why didn’t you tell me that I’m a Throwback?” I ask. “Did Strand forbid you?”
“No,” Mom whispers. “We were going to tell you when you were ten, but at that time, we were . . .”
“In no shape to tell you,” Dad finishes for her.
“You were drugged out of your minds, you mean,” I say. “Fine, then why didn’t you tell me two years ago when you were clean?”
“We had already put you through so much,” Mom said.
“We kept waiting for the right time, and it never came,” Dad added.
“So you chickened out and let that official tell me instead.”
“I’m sorry!” Mom pleads.
“We’re both sorry,” Dad says.
Our conversation is interrupted when a lightning bolt of pain shoots through my brain, starting at the base of my skull like it always does. I collapse into a chair with a moan, and Mom hurries behind me to hold my hair back while Dad grabs a dirty bowl out of the kitchen sink. He makes it back in time, and I throw up my dinner into the bowl instead of onto the carpet.
A ringing sound in my ears makes it impossible to hear anything when these headaches first come over me, but I know Mom left to get my medicine as Dad scoops me up like a baby and carries me upstairs to my bed. The pain started a few years ago, and my parents have taken me to a bunch of doctors. The pediatricians and neurologists never seem concerned, promising I’ll grow out of it.
I dutifully swallow the pill that Mom gives me, even though it never helps. The only thing that makes the headaches and the confusion that comes with them go away is time. After the initial shock, my head will throb for a few hours, and the pain gradually lessens over the course of a couple of days. It takes another week before my mind feels like my own again.
It’s hard to find the energy to get out of bed, never mind concentrate, when I’m experiencing one of these headaches. In the past, I forced myself to go to school because I knew the best medical schools would only accept me with a scholarship if I had top grades. But now that I know I’m a Throwback, none of that matters. Maybe I’ll spend tomorrow in bed nursing my head and eating ice cream.
Who am I kidding? I’ll be damned if I let Ava or Fletch or any of the kids at school think I’m ashamed of my
new Throwback status. Headache or not, I’m going to face them all. The medicine doesn’t ease the pain, but it does force me to sleep, and for once, I’m eager to embrace oblivion.
It’s a struggle to push through the fog of my fatigue and turn off my alarm the next morning. My head throbs when I move, and I almost throw up again.
I take a few deep breaths before getting out of bed. It’s part of my headache ritual. I let myself drown in the pain for a minute, and then I turn my focus away from it. I’ve learned to set it aside, to quarantine it so that I function around it instead of being consumed by it. Occasionally it breaks through the dam I’ve erected in my mind, but usually I can function.
Careful to move my head as minimally as possible, I get out of bed and head to my closet. I shove aside my long-sleeved shirts, even though the spring weather is still cool, and opt for a tank top. I unwrap my wrist, and my tattoo is still red. I decide to leave the bandage off anyway. If I’m going to show off my Throwback status, I might as well do it properly.
After today, my days of being “just Joan” are over. Everyone will compare me to her—to Joan of Arc. They’ll think they know me. But I remind myself that despite what everyone else thinks, I’ve never bought into that bullshit. Addie was never another Molly to me. She’s Addie, bighearted, high-handed, and smart as hell, even though Mollys are supposed to be methodical, sensitive, and compliant.
There’s no way I can drive my new motorcycle to school today like I planned because the barrier I’ve created against the pain in my head can only withstand so much. Instead, I let my parents’ autonomous car do the driving while I practice a technique I learned in a yoga class my parents made me take last summer. One by one, I relax each of my muscles. By the time I reach the wrought-iron gates at the entrance to my high school, my body feels looser, and my headache has dimmed.
Maybe it’s narcissistic, but some part of me thought everyone would stop and stare when I stepped out of my car, that the seismic shift in my life would send tremors across Seattle. In reality, everyone is going about their day as usual, absorbed in their own lives. I’m jumpy, waiting for someone to notice the elaborate design on my wrist.