by Kristen Pham
He nods, and his eyes travel from my face down my body. “You clean up nice. The headmaster’s creepy clients will go nuts for you. It’ll make for some great footage.”
“Exactly.”
“But I hope you know you’re even more beautiful without all that crap on,” Nic says.
Is he being sarcastic, or was that a real compliment? An unwelcome blush crawls up my neck at the open admiration in his eyes.
“Next!” Lady Cleo shouts, interrupting our moment.
“You’re up,” Nic says.
I saunter to the spotlight at the center of the stage. Slowly, I turn, showing off my body. I tuck my hair behind my ear, the way I’ve seen Sparkle do, and give the audience my most sultry pout.
It’s impossible to see anything past the spotlight, and Lady Cleo doesn’t make a sound. I’m about to say something to explain my costume, when she finally speaks.
“A plus.”
I’ve been holding my breath, and I release it with a whoosh, letting my body relax. I want to ask her why she didn’t grill me like she did Rob, but instead I keep my mouth shut, grateful for her approval.
“Thank you, Lady Cleo. Your class has been surprisingly helpful.”
When she replies, her voice isn’t her usual booming, dramatic tone. “Break a leg, Joan, in whatever scheme you’re hatching. Now get off my stage.”
Chapter 36
Harriet meets me outside the theater, and my phone pings to alert me that my parents have sent the autonomous car to pick me up. Harriet and I both hurry to our dorm rooms to grab our bags, and when we make it back outside, the car is waiting for us.
Inside, it smells like Mom’s lotion and Dad’s chewing gum, and I admit to myself that I’m excited to go home. It’s possible that I miss my parents almost as much as Addie.
“Don’t you need to call your parents and let them know I’m coming?” Harriet asks, and I can tell by the way her foot is tapping that she’s nervous.
“No need. They think you’re a good influence on me. Besides, they love company.”
“Okay. Then tell me why you look like you just walked off the red carpet,” Harriet says, gesturing to my fancy dress.
I fill Harriet in on my midterm exam with Lady Cleo as I take out the gold contacts. We both try to analyze what Lady Cleo meant by her cryptic farewell, but neither of us has any guesses.
We pull up to my house, and it seems smaller than it was a few weeks ago. My parents are standing in the doorway with huge smiles on their faces.
“Your home . . . it’s incredible,” Harriet says softly.
For the first time, I consider all this from her perspective. A nice house in a good neighborhood with two parents eagerly waiting for their beloved daughter to return home.
My dad opens the car door and wraps me up in a bear hug.
“Welcome!” Mom exclaims, giving Harriet and me each a tight hug. “Joan, you’re positively transformed. You’re a goddess, like I always knew you would be! You’ve embraced your destiny.”
“No, Mom,” I tell her. “I’m the same. This is a costume, one that I intend to take off as soon as possible.”
“Of course, sweetie,” Mom says, but her wide smile remains. I’ve finally turned into the girlie daughter she’s always wanted. “I hope you’re in the mood for some homemade chocolate chip cookies.”
“Addie’s here?” I ask, excited, and brush aside a pang of guilt as the smile on Mom’s face slips.
“She’s in the kitchen,” Dad says.
I run inside and crash into Addie on my way to the kitchen. We’re still hugging when my parents and Harriet join us inside.
The rest of the day plays out like a scene from a Christmas vid, as we eat dinner, demolish Addie’s cookies, and play with the new interior decorating software Dad installed in our walls so that we can instantly change their color and pattern.
Addie leaves in our autonomous car before curfew, and Harriet and I finally head upstairs. Harriet stops short when she sees my bedroom, and for the first time, it doesn’t seem tiny to me. It smells like clean sheets and a hint of Addie’s perfume.
Harriet walks to my window and gently touches the lace on the curtains. “Your life is straight out of a storybook.”
“It’s more complicated than that. Everything is picture-perfect now, but my parents were Amp addicts for most of my childhood.”
“But they love you a lot. When I was in trouble, they helped me for your sake without hesitation,” Harriet says. “You’re not alone.”
“I’m sorry, Harriet. You’re right. I ought to be more grateful.”
“Seeing all this abundance makes me hopeful,” Harriet says. “I want every Throwback to have a chance at this kind of life.”
“We’ll get there, eventually.”
When I take my clothes out of my bag, Jo’s tablet falls onto my bed.
“This is Jo’s tablet that you told me about?” Harriet asks, picking it up and turning it over.
“Yes, but I can’t get it open. Jo left a riddle that’s supposed to help me figure out her password, but it’s so vague. Even Crew is running out of ideas about what words to try next.”
“What’s the clue?” Harriet asks, her eyes sparking with interest.
“The most powerful word in the English language,” I tell her with a snort. “I get three guesses a day, and I bet any word you suggest I’ve already tried.”
“No,” Harriet says after a long pause.
“Okay, then lay it on me.”
“I mean, the most powerful word in the English language is ‘no.’” Harriet replies. “It’s the word that announces that you are not a victim. You say ‘no’ to those who would hold you down, ‘no’ to a life that you don’t choose, ‘no’ to those who tell you what you can’t do.”
I stare at her a long time, absorbing the passion in her voice as much as her logic. I remember all of the giant red “NOs” that flashed on Jo’s tablet screen every time I guessed wrong. Was that another clue?
I pick up Jo’s tablet. “No,” I say clearly.
The tablet lights up, unlocked at last.
Harriet releases a squeak that is the most girlish sound I’ve ever heard her make. “You did it!”
“No, you did. Even Crew—”
I’m interrupted by the sound of my own voice, a little distorted as it comes from the ancient speaker on Jo’s tablet. “Took you long enough to get this open.”
I almost drop Jo’s tablet when her face appears on screen. It’s an old tablet, the kind with 2-D video. But what’s even stranger than trying to use such ancient technology is watching an alternate version of myself staring into my eyes, almost like we’re live chatting.
Jo looks like me, if my flaws were polished away. I’m small and pale, with dark brown hair and gray eyes. Jo’s skin is luminous, and her hair hangs like silk. Her stormy eyes peer out of the screen as if she’s examining my soul. It’s hard to accept that this lithe goddess shares my DNA.
“If you’ve opened this tablet, then I’m guessing you’re stubborn, conceited, and somewhat angry at the universe. But I’m also hoping you want to create a better world, and that you’ll try not to make the mistakes I did. It also means that I’m not here to tell you what you need to know in person, so things have gone very wrong. It’s up to you to make them right.”
“Holy crap,” Harriet says, her eyes as wide as mine.
My eyes snap back to the screen, where Jo is pacing, exactly like I do when I’m anxious. “Now shut up and listen because there are some things you need to know.”
Jo launches into a comprehensive history lesson on everything that happened as she and Crew banded together to start a new, more effective campaign for Throwback rights.
She details every single person she worked with, listing their strengths, weaknesses, and any incidents that made her distrust them. The only two people in her long diatribe whom I’ve actually met myself are Crew and my Managing Celebrity instructor, Leo.
Leo
was the Throwback who convinced the embryologist at Strand to create a few classes of students for the Seattle Secondary theater program who were cloned from gifted leaders in history. Jo trusted Leo, which echoes my own instincts.
Her history with Crew is more complicated. They were in love. Their relationship was explosive and, at times, destructive. She extensively details all of the instances when he used brute force to extract information from his contacts and an instance when he beat up an Evolved so badly that he had to go to the emergency room.
It’s hard to tell if her uncertainty about his motives stems from their relationship or reality, but it leaves me with a queasy uneasiness. My complete faith that Crew knows what he’s doing is a rock I depend on.
“Know this,” Jo says, stopping her incessant pacing and facing the camera straight on. “Ultimately, there is only one person you can completely trust. Yourself.”
My mind reels with all the information Jo crammed into her vid, and I manually power the tablet off, unable to absorb any more.
“She’s wrong,” Harriet says. It’s the first word either of us has spoken in three hours. “Trust is necessary for this rebellion to succeed. No one can take on decades of entrenched subjugation and eradicate it alone.”
Up until lately, I’ve always lived by the philosophy Jo expressed. When you do things on your own, you have complete control. Bringing others in complicates things and introduces risks. But my views have changed in the weeks I’ve spent at Seattle Secondary.
I meet Harriet’s gaze. “I already trust you.”
Harriet returns my smile, but her eyelids droop. It’s after three in the morning, so it makes sense that she’s exhausted. So why do I feel like I’ve been zapped by a hundred volts of electricity?
“Take the bed,” I insist. “I got a new sleeping bag last Christmas with thermal heating technology. I’ve been waiting for an excuse to test it out.”
Harriet purses her lips. “Nice try. I’m not kicking you out of your own bed.”
“Fine. We’ll sleep in it together then. But you can have it to yourself for now. I’m going out for a run.”
“Now?” she asks, incredulous.
“I have so much to process.”
“Justus is usually up late, too. He could distract you.”
“The thought crossed my mind,” I admit, fighting a grin.
Outside, I text Justus to meet me at Liberty Bridge. He’s waiting for me by the time I get there.
“My knight in shining sneakers has arrived,” Justus teases.
I run to close the rest of the distance between us, a silent admission of how much I want to be near him. His smile grows bigger when I launch myself into his arms.
“I knew you missed me, even if you never mention it in your messages,” Justus says. His eyes travel over my face. “Did you change your hair or something?”
I flip my newly shiny hair over my shoulder. “Don’t let it intimidate you.”
Justus laughs. “It’s way too late for that.”
He tucks a strand behind my ear, and all my worries evaporate like fog dissolving in the daylight. We pull away from each other because we’re in public. If Justus is caught with me in his arms before he gets his lavaliere, he could be thrown in jail.
“I brought something,” Justus says, taking off his backpack and opening it to reveal brightly colored fireworks. “I hope you don’t mind doing something illegal.”
“You’re the rule follower, not me.”
Justus tosses me a lighter, and I grab one of the fireworks. They’re the old-fashioned kind that don’t have the electronic safeties in place to prevent accidents. But when I light it and hurl it over the side of the bridge, it explodes in a blaze of light that is far brighter than the newer models on the market.
Justus tosses some poppers against the roadway, and I jump in surprise at the loud bang.
I light another firework and another, and next to me, Justus does the same thing. The sparkling lights are reflected in the river flowing below the bridge, lighting up the night with bursts of color.
“I’ve never seen fireworks set off up close,” I tell him in between explosions. “They’re stunning, even if they are a little dangerous.”
Justus isn’t looking at the fireworks when he replies. He’s staring at me. “The best things in life always are.”
Chapter 37
During our car ride back to Seattle Secondary Sunday night, Harriet and I don’t talk. We’re too stuffed with good food cooked from scratch by Addie and hours of complex diatribes from Jo.
After listening to Jo for so long, I’m beginning to question her sanity. She sees conspiracies everywhere, and it’s hard to follow all of her logic, especially since I don’t know most of the people she’s talking about.
Harriet and I dutifully research each person she mentions, and many of the people Jo suspects are spying for Strand are now dead or missing. Even if they were aligned with Strand once upon a time, they’re no threat now. I’m beginning to wonder if there is anything useful to be mined from all of the hours of Jo’s ramblings.
“Thank you for taking me home with you,” Harriet says, breaking the silence as we pull up to our dorm.
“You’re my best friend. You never have to thank me because it’s not a favor.”
“It has to be said,” Harriet insists as we get onto the creaky old elevator. “I’m not thanking you for the food or for all the clothes I know you’ve secretly stuffed into my bag. I’m thanking you for opening your home and sharing your family with me without holding back. Your heart is wide open, and I’ve never known anyone like that in my whole life.”
“I wish I could claim that it’s all part of my sunny disposition, but it isn’t. You’re the only one I’m completely myself with.”
It’s a relief when the elevator door opens on Harriet’s floor and she steps out, squeezing my arm once. There’s something about baring my soul, even to Harriet, that makes me uncomfortable.
When I open the door to my room, the first thing I notice is the smell. It reeks of body odor and rotting food, and the source is sprawled out on her bed, staring at the ceiling.
Sparkle is wearing the same clothes I saw her in on the day I left. She must not have gone home for the weekend. Guilt roils my stomach. I should have taken her with me or made sure she had enough money for bus fare home.
I see the box of Amp kicked halfway under the bed, and my heart beats faster.
“Sparkle, look at me, please.”
She turns her head. Thank you, God, there’s no gold in her irises.
“Water,” she says, her voice dull.
I take a bottle from our chiller and take it to her, ignoring her stench as I help her sit up and drink.
“What happened?”
She reminds me of a mouse that might scurry into a corner to hide if I scare her.
“Headmaster came by,” she says in a monotone. “He has a client he owes a favor to, and I’m going to be the payment.”
“I’ll kill him.”
“You can’t. He’s Evolved. Invincible. You’re a Throwback. Disposable.”
“No one is invincible. I know where you can hide until this blows over.”
Her voice loses its lifelessness and turns sharp. “It won’t blow over! This is real life, Joan, not a vid with a happy ending! When are you going to see that?”
Sparkle gets out of bed and goes to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. I hear the shower running, and I hope that her burst of anger will be enough to shake her out of her stupor. It’s much scarier seeing her eyes dead than it is to see them flash with rage, even if it’s directed at me.
More than ever, I want to pull Sparkle into the rebellion, so that she can see that change isn’t just possible, it’s coming soon. If she can hide from the headmaster till Circe Night, he’ll never bother her again.
I put my shoes back on and head out the door to find Crew. I’ll make him understand. We can trust Sparkle with the truth, and she
needs a purpose so badly.
I march straight toward the theater, running my argument over in my mind.
Bony fingers latch onto my arm.
“It’s too late to tell me you’ve changed your mind,” the headmaster says as his empty eyes meet mine.
My fists clench as my body goes into high alert. “I haven’t. I’m not one of those romantic girls who wants to wait till marriage to give it away. I’m used to a secure life, and I want to keep living that way.”
I’ve hit the main point that Sun wanted me to mention when the headmaster finally cornered me, but I wish I’d rehearsed the speech he texted me over the weekend so that I’d make good use of the nuances he embedded into every word.
“Good. Be ready tomorrow night,” he replies and begins striding away.
I hurry after him, frantically trying to remember the rest of Sun’s text. “Sir, I would humbly like to propose Circe Night for this event, rather than tomorrow. After the debut of my film, I’ll be worth more. I want to maximize my profit. And yours.”
“You’re not the one making the decision,” the headmaster says, without breaking his stride.
How far can I push him? “I need time to prepare myself. It’s too soon.”
“You’ll never be prepared. It’s all arranged. I’ll send over the dress you are to wear. Don’t forget to take your Amp, if you want to survive your encounter.”
He keeps walking, but I stop following. Any more arguments will only raise his suspicions. I’m shaking so hard that I sit down on the nearest bench and force myself to take deep breaths, like I do when one of my monster headaches hits.
The oxygen clears my mind. I take the Lab entrance to Crew’s classroom so that the headmaster won’t know where I’ve gone. I travel through the tunnels to the space beneath the Little Theater, pausing beneath the trapdoor.
The floorboards creak as someone paces on the stage. His voice is muffled when he speaks, but I can still make out the words.
“A simple shot to the head is too sterile. It needs to be something that will shock everyone. Strike terror into the hearts of our enemy,” says a voice that I’m almost sure is Rob’s.