by Kristen Pham
“Why—”
My question is interrupted by the police officer, who bangs his fist on the wall so hard that he rattles the glass shelves.
“I should have known it would be one of you filthy little rats who were up to no good,” the officer says.
The churning in my gut turns to a cramp. It’s Officer Boer, and this time, his levelheaded partner isn’t here to keep him in check.
“I’m so glad you’re here, officer,” Justus says, his voice low and clear.
Officer Boer’s face contorts into a scowl. “Get out of this shop. Now. I told you if you meddled again, I’d put you in jail.”
“Wait a moment,” says the woman who owns the bakery. “This boy was trying to help. He’s committed no crime.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Kelley,” Justus says.
Mrs. Kelley blushes. She must not be immune to his eyes, either.
Officer Boer visibly grits his teeth, but he holds his tongue. It’s hard to remember a time when I, like Mrs. Kelley, thought that laws were made to be followed. Now, I know that’s Evolved thinking.
“You called because your dispenser was hacked,” Officer Boer says, his piggy eyes focusing on the two young Macs huddling near Justus. They can’t be more than ten years old.
“Young Justus was just explaining—” Mrs. Kelley begins.
“I’ll take it from here. These little brats need to learn to follow the rules. An incident like this won’t happen again.”
“No!”
The words are yanked from somewhere deep inside me. I am not letting this sadistic bastard be alone with those two children.
Officer Boer spins around, noticing me and Harriet for the first time. I wait for him to recognize me from the night of the raid, but when his eyes flick to my lavaliere, I understand that I’m thinking like an Evolved again. The tattoo is my camouflage. With it, I’m another faceless Throwback girl whose tits aren’t big enough to stand out in his memory.
“Who are you?” Officer Boer’s voice is low, and he fingers the whip at his side.
“Someone who knows the law.”
“Joan, shut up,” Justus hisses. “I’ve got this.”
I ignore him. “I’m also someone with a lot of Evolved friends in high places.”
“Insubordination,” Officer Boer hisses.
The anger drains from his face, and it’s replaced with another emotion. Anticipation. I’m stunned when he yanks the baton from his belt and brings it crashing down on my skull. In the nanosecond before I lose consciousness, I know that I’ve learned another important lesson about what it means to be a Throwback. I can’t borrow power from my association with the Evolved. I must forge my own.
I wake up with a sense of déjà vu as my head aches from the blow Officer Boer delivered. But the pain doesn’t compare to the whipping the headmaster inflicted, so I decide to be grateful for my current situation.
Someone holds a cup of water to my dry lips, and I drink greedily. My eyes focus. I’m sitting on the makeshift table in the Lab, and, judging by the lack of light, it’s close to curfew.
“You were lucky,” Harriet says.
My head is bandaged. Harriet peeks underneath to check the bruises on my skull.
“My hero,” I croak. “You carried me here?”
“I had help,” Harriet says.
“What happened?”
“Justus convinced Mrs. Kelley not to press charges. The kids are safe for now.”
“I’m an idiot.”
“Yeah, you are. But it might have helped Justus’s case that Mrs. Kelley was horrified by that police officer’s brutality. She didn’t want to see it turned on the kids.”
“Glad this headache isn’t for nothing,” I reply with a grin.
“Go back to the part where you admit you’re an idiot,” Justus says, and I wince as I jerk my head to see him standing on the other side of the table.
His eyes are narrowed, and his face is flushed. I hate how hot he is when he’s angry.
“Why are you here? Doesn’t your daddy have a job to keep you busy?”
“He stole medicine from the clinic he’s volunteering at,” Harriet says. “Without him, everyone who sees you would know you’d been beaten. You wouldn’t be able to go to rehearsals at Strand. If the headmaster didn’t kill you, Crew would have. Now we can keep all this a secret. He also rescued your motorcycle and parked it at the dorm.”
For that alone I’m grateful, but before I can thank him, he explodes.
“Why would you do something so stupid? Taunting any police officer is insane. But Officer Boer? He’s a sadist!”
I hate that he has a point, but damn if I let him know that. “Thanks for the meds, but skip the lecture.”
“Why do I care what happens to someone so impulsive, so crazy, so oblivious?” Justus shouts, dragging his fingers through his hair.
“Because your daddy told you to?”
A nagging itch at the back of my mind tells me I should be thanking him instead of needling him.
“He told me to ask you to help us, Joan,” Justus replies, his voice tired. “I’m not faking anything, including how much I care about you.”
All of the air leaves my lungs as his words weave their way through the circuits of my mind. “You care about me?”
“Quite a lot, considering you’re an oblivious nutcase with a huge ego,” Justus says, but the venom has left his voice. “I told my dad that I’m not going to be his recruiter. I still think Crew and his rebellion are trouble, but you and Harriet have to make your own decisions.”
“Justus tried to get you to join his dad’s group, too?” I ask Harriet.
She releases a little sigh. “Since the day I got my lavaliere and discovered my clone type. I told him to lay off, too.”
A ray of sunshine breaks through the clouds in my heart. Maybe there is a way to let go of my hurt and resentment. Especially since Justus cares.
“We need to be home before curfew so we don’t draw any attention to ourselves,” Harriet says.
“Who cares?” I say without breaking eye contact with Justus.
“I do,” he says, stepping away.
He helps me stand up, and we both suck in identical breaths at the electricity when we touch. That feeling is still there. And now I know that he feels it, too.
Harriet gives me a little shove, bringing me back to reality. But as we race home, my feet barely touch the ground.
Chapter 25
It’s another rehearsal day at Strand, but my mood is sky-high from my conversation with Justus yesterday. The light pouring in the window seems brighter, the food from the dispenser tastes as good as Addie’s, and the world is full of a million possibilities this morning. As I pull on my boots, I start to whistle.
“Stop whistling, or I’ll cut you in half,” Nic barks when we’re inside Strand’s car.
“Good morning, sunshine!” I chirp to get on his nerves.
Nic bites his lip, but I can’t tell if it’s so he doesn’t snap at me or to hide a smile. Today, I’ll choose to believe it’s a smile.
“Do you want to run lines?” Nic asks.
“Translation?”
Nic’s face darkens. “Have you memorized the script yet? The director will expect you to be ready today.”
“We’ve only just begun rehearsals.”
“You act like this is the first time you’ve been on a set!” Nic barks at me.
“It is.”
Nic releases a slow breath. “Open your tablet and start memorizing. Now.”
Part of me wants to argue with him, but for the sake of the rebellion, I decide not to take any risks. I flip to my scenes and notice that my role has been expanded since the read-through.
“They gave me a couple of new monologues.”
Nic nods once. “You should have been working the script every night. All changes are flagged. You’ll be expected to hit every beat and roll with any changes.”
The dialogue is all the same. It’s pure
, syrupy Strand propaganda. Memorizing formulas was easy for me at school because there was logic; they meant something. But all of these empty sentences blur together, meaningless. Maybe I can wing it.
On set, Blake Greene is showing a Molly her blocking for a scene inside a nursery. His tablet lies on his director chair, temporarily abandoned. Nic grabs my arm.
“Focus on your lines,” he commands, and I shake him off.
“Scene thirty-four!” Blake calls.
“That’s us,” Nic says, yanking me toward the restaurant set.
“You’ll both stand at the table. When the camera turns on, smile as though a guest has entered the restaurant and take it from there,” Blake directs.
He snaps his fingers, and a camera rises off a nearby table, hovering in the air. It responds to Blake’s hand gestures.
A flutter of panic rises in my chest, but I shove it down. The light above the camera turns red, signaling that it’s recording, and I flash my biggest smile.
“Welcome to Historia!” Nic says.
“Step back in time with us,” I continue.
“No!” Blake says. “Step back in time with me, not us! The wording makes it personal, so the audience will feel as though you are inviting them to join you in a new world. Try it again.”
I struggle not to roll my eyes as we start the scene over. I make it farther this time, until I act as a waitress to a table that will be full of Evolved actors ordering food from me during filming.
“Don’t be a martyr. Tell me what you’re in the mood to eat!” I toss out, trying to hide my distaste for the joke in Blake’s script.
“Sloppy!” Blake says. “You’ve missed words in almost every one of your lines. In my script, every syllable has a purpose. To miss one is to disfigure my art. You’re as replaceable as any Molly on this set. Every Historical Throwback in this country would leap at the chance to be on camera in front of an audience of millions of captive viewers.”
Blake turns his attention to Nic, who smoothly executes his scenes inside the restaurant without a mistake. His acting is even more impressive now that he’s not high, and Blake loudly praises him, probably so I’ll overhear and feel crappy about it. But I’m not here to further my acting career. I’m here for information.
Again, Blake’s tablet is unguarded, and I inch closer as Nic engages him in conversation. I’m about to turn the screen on to see if the tablet requires a retinal scan or just a thumbprint, when I overhear what Nic is saying to Blake.
“She didn’t review the script until the car ride over, sir,” Nic says in a low voice. “She’s not committed.”
That rat bastard! To think I held his head while he puked!
“Thank you for telling me, young man,” the director says. “Recommended by your headmaster or not, one more mistake and Joan is out.”
“Generous of you to give her another chance. I wouldn’t,” Nic replies.
“It is not your choice, of course,” Blake retorts, his lip curling in distaste.
Nic ducks his head apologetically. “You’re right, sir. My apologies for overstepping.”
The furrow in Blake’s brow relaxes. “You are forgiven.”
No, he’s not.
Inside the car, I have to sit on my hands to keep myself from strangling Nic while Strand is monitoring us. As soon as the car stops, I leap out and wait until Nic joins me. When the car is out of sight, I shove him as hard as I can. Nic staggers backward.
“What was that?” I shout at him.
Nic doesn’t pretend to be confused. “I’ll get the information faster without you.”
“You would have been kicked out by now without me!”
“Debatable,” Nic says. “You’re a liability. It’s not your fault; you’re a novice.”
“At acting, maybe. But that’s not what we’re there for. Or did you forget while you were delivering your flawless performance?”
“While delivering my ‘flawless performance,’ I noticed that the Macs who clean the set have mini-tablets they use to track anything that needs repairs. I saw that those tablets are old and cheap, so no one keeps a close eye on them. I also verified that they only require a pin number to open when Blake was reaming you out,” Nic says without losing his cool.
I stare at him, floored, and he turns and walks away. It’s time to drown my sorrows in ice cream, so I stomp over to the cafeteria. Inside, it’s crowded, but Harriet spots me right away. She’s sitting with Sun and the girl cloned from Marie Curie. My face must give away how pissed I am because Harriet goes straight to the food and drink dispenser and fills a big bowl of ice cream for me.
I plop down beside her and dig in, letting the conversation that started before I got here continue.
“I understand we want to avoid violence, but why are you also opposed to kidnapping?” Sun asks Harriet.
“If we need to fight back against those who attack us, we will,” Harriet replies. “But our first move shouldn’t be an aggressive one. We’re a minority in this country. We won’t make true progress until we win over the support of the Evolved majority.”
“The problem is getting our message to the ears of any Evolved sympathizers,” Marie jumps in. “Strand is one of the biggest advertisers on all the major media outlets. The reputable online channels won’t risk angering them by reporting stories that show them in a negative light.”
“What about independent bloggers? Or smaller indie news sources?” I ask, my earlier anger at Nic already evaporating as I leap into the conversation.
“Most Evolved won’t trust those sources,” Sun says, staring at the ceiling like he’s trying to calculate the square root of thirteen in his head.
“We only need to convince one major media outlet to carry our message,” Harriet says. “Then it will go viral.”
“Let’s research which outlet is most likely to risk Strand’s wrath,” Marie suggests.
“First, we need an irresistible scoop. One that a hungry publisher can’t resist,” I say, my mind scanning through the possibilities.
“If we need an exciting headline, something tells me you’ll be the one to come up with it,” Harriet says, and I meet her laughing eyes.
“Count on it.”
Another day, another Movement class. Ever since Gene Kelly reamed me out on my first day here, I hover in the back of the class to avoid notice. For the past few weeks, we’ve been studying the basics of jazz and ballet, and though I’m only an average dancer, I’m decent enough to escape being called out by the teachers on most days.
“Today, we start a new unit,” Anna says, her voice high and excited. “We will study how to use your body to inhabit an emotion. When you are acting, it is not enough to recite the correct lines in the right tone of voice. Your body must reflect the emotional turmoil within the character.”
“You mean, if I’m supposed to be an old geezer, I hunch over and hobble?” Ken asks.
“I expected better from you,” Gene says, peering down his nose at Ken.
It’s nice to see one of the non-Historical students getting the cold shoulder from him for once.
“Remember the last time you experienced the emotion the character is feeling. If the character is happy, tap into a moment of true joy in your own life. Elizabeth, come to the front of the room and demonstrate how your body expresses the emotion of joy,” Anna says.
Elizabeth makes her way to the front of the room. She’s Anna’s favorite. I think maybe the ballerina is a little awed to be in the presence of cloned royalty.
Elizabeth turns her back to us and pauses. When she turns around, her face is alight, and the slightest smile tugs at her lips. She bounces slightly on the balls of her feet.
“Excellent,” Gene says with a rare nod of approval. “Many students overact joy, choosing to jump or shout. But happiness is often quiet, though no less present in our bodies.”
“I did exactly like you told us and remembered a moment of joy in my own life—when I was accepted to this program,” Eliza
beth simpers.
Gene pats her back as she saunters back to her seat, throwing me a smirk on the way.
“Sparkle, you’re up next,” Anna says. “Disappointment.”
Sparkle takes her place at the front of the class, and in an instant, she transforms, without needing to pause or turn around, like Elizabeth did. Her muscles slump, and she snuffs out the focused energy that she usually radiates. Her eyes shine with a hint of unshed tears, and I wonder what time in her life she’s reliving right now.
“Beautiful,” Anna says. “You created an aura of deep disappointment and pulled me in.”
As each of the students parades to the front of the class to practice embodying emotion with varying success, I think about how this lesson might help my performance at Strand. I need to blow the director away at the next rehearsal to get back in his good graces, and that will take more than knowing my lines.
“Joan,” Gene says my name like it’s a curse word. “Humility.”
I know he picked this emotion on purpose to trip me up, and I want to deliver a hell of a performance to prove him wrong, but he’s stumped me.
I bow my head and clasp my hands, aiming for an appearance of shy sweetness.
“No,” Gene says, happy that I’ve failed his test. “You look like a prostitute seducing a passerby in his car.”
Ken snickers. “Who knows, maybe that will be good practice for her.”
Gene ignores him. “Remember the last time you experienced true humility.”
I search my memories and come up empty.
“She can’t think of one!” Alison shouts from the back with a laugh.
“You think you’re better than us, bitch?” snarls Sacajawea.
“An actress must always behave like a lady. No cursing. It’s unattractive,” Anna says to Sacajawea, but her tone is mild.
She’s enjoying seeing me struggle almost as much as Gene is.
“Perhaps at last, we have found a lesson that might be useful for you, Joan,” Gene says with a sly smile. “If you want to successfully embody an emotion, you must have experienced it. In eighteen years of life, you’ve never had an instant of humility? Either you’re a saint, like the original of your clone type, or you’re a cocky brat who needs to accept that instead of being a diamond in the rough, she’s another grimy smear of filth in a dirty world.”