The Similars

by Rebecca Hanover

  “You’re okay,” I choke out as I meet Levi’s eyes. I’m surprised by how emotional I sound.

  “So are you,” Levi points out defensively.

  “Wow, even being locked up by a tyrant hasn’t stripped you of your need to argue.”

  Levi smiles. “Never.”

  I let out a little laugh. It feels good to joke. I was beginning to think I might never see Levi, or leave that room, again.

  I spot two guards standing by the door, a reminder that we aren’t alone. “Did Gravelle make you watch them too?” I ask Levi.

  “The memories? Naturally,” Levi says.

  “He’s an outsider.” I’m anxious to fill Levi in on what I learned. “Gravelle—he was an outsider his entire life. At Darkwood, he hoped he’d find a place to fit in. But then they betrayed him.” I recount what I saw—the discipline hearing, the expulsion.

  “What I saw was later, then,” Levi says. “Gravelle graduated from a local high school. Never made it to Harvard like he wanted, but he married Jane. It was the one dream he couldn’t let die. Jane stayed true to him, even when everyone else cast him off as a liar and a cheat. But then his personal life fell apart.”

  I listen as Levi fills me in on the rest of Gravelle’s life story. How he made billions investing in an early version of the virtual reality technology he used to show us his memories.

  “He and Jane were happy,” Levi explains, “for a time. But Underwood was cold, cynical. Perhaps he never felt loved enough, so he sabotaged the one good relationship in his life. I don’t know. Whatever the reason, Jane began to long for someone who didn’t take her for granted. Someone like Booker.

  “When they had trouble conceiving a child, they sought fertility treatments, which eventually worked. But Underwood was already losing her. They grew further apart until she did seek out Booker. He had never stopped loving her.

  “Jane and Underwood divorced when Oliver was two. Underwood had become hardened, angry even. She had seen outbursts of this anger; he’d even directed it at Oliver. She was worried about her son’s safety, so she petitioned for full custody, and she won. Later on, after Underwood faked his own death, he watched as Booker Ward legally adopted his son. He was never the same again.”

  “How did he do it? Fake his death like that?”

  “I don’t know all the details—that memory was hazier than the others. The car accident wasn’t planned. He was driving too fast, too recklessly. His face was nearly destroyed by the fire. That’s when he decided to reinvent himself. To change his name from John Underwood to Augustus Gravelle and make everyone believe that Underwood had died.”

  I’m about to ask a thousand questions when Gravelle’s voice booms through a sound system.

  “It’s remarkable technology, isn’t it?” says Gravelle. “Amazing how easily I could introduce you to my thoughts, my memories, my world?”

  I respond icily. “If that’s your most advanced virtual reality simulation, I wasn’t all that impressed.” Levi’s eyes widen, but before he can jump in to apologize for my impertinence, Gravelle walks into the room.

  “Oh dear, Emmaline,” Gravelle shakes his head, leaning on his cane. “I’m afraid I’ve given you the wrong impression. That is not my most advanced technology. No, no. We’ve improved the system light-years since we created the demo you saw. That was the first iteration, my dear. But since you asked…” He punches a code into a virtual panel. “Please. Take the latest model for a spin.”

  A guard strides toward me holding a syringe, and I prepare myself for the inevitable haze brought on by the injective.

  * * *

  I’m back at my house in San Francisco. Light streams in through twelve-foot-tall windows. I recognize my room, though it looks different from how it is now. An intricate dollhouse with gables and turrets and period furniture inside sits in the corner. There’s a child-size desk with crayons and construction paper strewn over it. Everything in the room is pink.

  I’m in the corner, facing the ornate, wrought-iron bed. A child lies in it, her small frame nearly swallowed by white pillows and a puffy pink comforter. The child’s eyes are closed, her face pale. It’s me as a little girl. I’m witnessing a scene from my past. But this isn’t like earlier, when I watched Gravelle’s memories. That felt like I was observing from afar. This feels different. Immersive. When I reach out to touch the dollhouse, I can feel it. I see its every vivid detail. And I see her in vivid detail too.

  The girl’s face—my face—is sickly. The stuffed monkey I used to take with me everywhere is cuddled beside me. My throat catches at the sight of him.

  A woman comes and sits gingerly at the edge of the girl’s bed. She places her hand on the girl’s forehead. She’s startlingly thin, with straight brown hair pulled back into a tidy ponytail. I watch as she fusses with the pink comforter and moves the stuffed monkey closer to the girl. The woman is obviously my mother. I know she’s isn’t real—this is virtual reality, after all—but it’s the first time I’ve ever seen her like this, full of life and not a photograph. It knocks the wind out of me.

  “Mama?” The girl—me—has woken up.

  My mother clasps the girl’s hand. She is memorizing every detail of her face.

  “Yes, sweetheart?”

  “I don’t like that place. It smells yucky. I missed my room.”

  “I know, sweetheart.”

  “Can I stay here? I don’t want to go to the hospital.”

  “Yes,” says my mother, her words coming out breathy, strained. “Yes, you can stay.”

  “I go to sleep now, Mommy. I’m tired.”

  “Of course, baby. Sleep tight.”

  My mother presses her cheek to the girl’s—to mine—then begins to sing.

  “Hush, little Emmaline, don’t say a word. Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird…”

  Just as my breath catches in my throat, I’m transported to Oliver’s room, at his house.

  He’s on his bed. He isn’t moving, isn’t breathing.

  I stand over Oliver’s body. I’m not just observing a scene; I am the scene. And I know with certainty, I’m about to relive every excruciating moment of what happened. There is no way out of it. I can’t extricate myself from the memory or stop the feed from playing.

  “Oliver?” I hesitate, as I lean over him. “Oliver?”

  I shake him a little, willing him to wake up.

  “Ollie!” I shout. I lean over him, profoundly helpless.

  “Emmaline?”

  I spin. It’s Jane.

  “Oliver! It’s Oliver! He isn’t breathing!”

  The look on Jane’s face is one of horror, but also of accusation and blame.

  “He told you how he felt about you,” says Jane. “He told you he loved you. You crushed him.”

  “That’s not what happened. It wasn’t like that! I loved him! That’s why I couldn’t risk it. Why I could never…”

  My words fall on deaf ears, because Jane has turned and walked out the door, urgently calling the paramedics on her plum. I feel my insides twisting, as though a hand grabbed my organs and won’t let go.

  Suddenly I’m back in my house again, in the living room this time, watching as my father, dressed in a dark suit, speaks with other somber adults. They mill about, nibbling on tea sandwiches and scones. Their faces are bleak.

  “We’re so sorry for your loss,” says one of the men.

  “Katharine was…” says the woman next to the man. Her voice breaks. “We’re heartbroken for you and your little girl.”

  My father thanks the couple and excuses himself. He walks away, steadying himself on a table. His eyes meet mine. It’s clear what’s written there. Recrimination.

  I shake my head. No. This isn’t real. It didn’t happen like this. I was only three when my mother died. I wasn’t in this room. I was sick. Too sick to atte
nd her funeral. Too young to understand.

  Breaking my father’s gaze, I sprint to my room. I know I wasn’t there. I find the little girl—me—lying in a hospital bed, not the wrought-iron bed I saw before. Hospital-grade machines surround her, swallowing her up. The girl’s eyes are closed, and she looks thinner than before. The stuffed monkey lies beside her, his fur matted where she—where I—loved him.

  A nurse walks briskly into the room and presses a compress to my forehead. Another nurse follows.

  “I put in an urgent call to the doctor,” says the first nurse. “I’d give her two days. Three at most before she’s on her way to join her mother.”

  My throat tightens.

  “I think it was selfish,” says the second nurse as she fiddles with the machines. “Taking her own life because she couldn’t bear to watch her daughter die? Leaving that man to bury his wife and then his child?” The second nurse shakes her head. “Poor man.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call him poor,” says the first nurse as she repositions the compress.

  “Money can’t buy health, now can it?” asks the second nurse.

  I close my eyes, tuning them out. This isn’t real, Emmaline, I remind myself. It’s only a memory, and not even that. This is clearly a fabricated memory made up of the bits and pieces of stories I’d heard from my childhood. I don’t remember this conversation.

  I breathe slowly, trying to calm myself. This vision will end. This, too, shall pass.

  Suddenly the steady beeping from the monitor turns to a long continuous beep. My eyes fly open to see the nurses urgently leaning over the girl’s bed.

  “She’s flatlining,” says the first nurse.

  I focus on the little girl’s face, willing this moment to end.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and try to banish the image of the dying child from my mind.

  The doctor in Sweden saved you, Emmaline. You didn’t die. You lived. You’re still alive.

  When I open my eyes, I’m not in my room at home anymore. I’m standing at the edge of Hades Point. The wind is howling, and my face feels frozen, as though I’ve been standing out in this desolate spot for ages.

  I look at my feet planted mere inches from the edge, and peer down at the sheer cliff below me. I can’t get those images out of my head. My father’s blame. Jane’s reproach. Logically, I know Gravelle distorted those moments and used them to manipulate me. I know my dad and Jane don’t blame me for my mother’s death, for Oliver’s death. But still.

  The wind slaps at my face, and I begin to sob. I stare off Hades Point, knowing it would only take a second for me to stop the noise and calm myself forever.

  The toe of my right foot skims the edge of the rock. I scoot forward. I’m about to leap. To my death? But I don’t actively wish to die. Not now. Not at all.

  I don’t want to plummet to the rocks below. I don’t want the earth to close in on me like a giant fist, crushing every bone in my body. I don’t want my life to be over. I may be without my mother and Ollie, but everything I still strive, love, and hope for…

  And yet, I can’t stop. Some force greater than myself pushes me forward. I take in a deep breath and air fills my lungs for what might be the last time. I resign myself to my fate.

  I am free-falling. As my body hurtles toward the rocks below, I wonder how long it will take for the pain to cease, for my body to break. I close my eyes, bracing for impact.

  It doesn’t have to be like this, a voice—my voice?—says.

  I open my eyes, confused. The rocky crags are below me. I’m still falling. Time has slowed, but the rocks grow closer. Surely they will devour me.

  You don’t have to do this. You can live. You will live.

  I can’t tell if this voice is mine or someone else’s, or something else entirely—but it gives me pause.

  You are in control. You can stop this, Emma. You can change your fate. You can change the course of your life.

  Without warning, without knowing how, I stop, hovering in midair. Inexplicably, I’m no longer careening toward my imminent demise. I’m floating. I’m flying.

  It’s impossible to understand, but somehow my body is being carried upward. I’m rushing toward the sky, toward the clouds—away from death.

  I stretch out my arms, hesitant at first, then with more confidence. I raise my face to the wind and let it carry me up. Up to safety, to something otherworldly. I am flying. Flying.

  I’m not a bird; I’m still me, and yet I’m soaring through clouds. I look down at Hades Point, taking in its majesty. From this angle, it’s not ominous. It’s beautiful. I see trees, Darkwood. I can see the whole world from here, and it is glorious. I’m not afraid. I close my eyes, and this time, I feel powerful. I feel free…

  I wake with a start. I’m back in the chair in the compound. My heart is racing. I’m panting, bowled over by an acute pain in my chest.

  I take a minute to catch my breath, and when I do, I try to catch Levi’s gaze. It is such a relief to see his face. But he looks ineffably sad.

  “That is our latest technology, Emmaline,” Gravelle says, coming up beside me. I don’t like how he’s looking at me. It’s different from when I first arrived. Goose bumps flush over my arms. I’m shivering.

  “Congratulations,” Gravelle continues. “Only a handful of select and very lucky candidates have had a chance to demo the VR Obsidian.”

  “Did he do this to you, Levi? When you lived here? Was this part of your…education?”

  “Yes,” Levi says, his voice hollow. “He hoped to strengthen our minds the way he’d trained our bodies. Make us tough enough to withstand emotional torture.”

  I take that in, my mind reeling. “What did he show you just now?” I ask. “All the worst moments of your life?”

  “Not exactly,” Levi says.

  “What?”

  “The only way to explain is to show you,” Levi says. He looks so lost—so sad—I want to wrap my arms around him to reassure him. But I still can’t move.

  “Oliver?” Levi says, raising his voice. “We’re ready for you.”

  Oliver

  A teenage boy enters the room. He strides deliberately toward us. He looks exactly like my dead best friend. He looks like Levi too, of course, but he is more Oliver. He has Oliver’s hair, Oliver’s slightly thinner build.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I ask as I look from this Oliver look-alike to Levi, and then to Gravelle, who appears to be enjoying this.

  “Doing what, Emmaline?” Gravelle asks cordially.

  “Torturing me.”

  “Ah,” he answers. “I would call it entertainment. But semantics…”

  “First, you showed me all those horrible memories. And now you bring in another apparition to remind me that my best friend is dead?”

  “Emma,” Levi says quietly.

  “What kind of trick is this?” I struggle to get out of my chair, but I can’t.

  “It’s not a trick, Emma,” Levi offers.

  “No, Em,” says the boy, and I startle. Is he talking to me? I look at him. “Levi’s right,” he says in a voice that sounds completely Oliverian. “It’s really me.”

  I stare at this boy, certain I’m back in the virtual reality simulation again. I must be. The serrated knife slides into my chest.

  “You aren’t Oliver.” My voice cracks. “Oliver died. You died!” I turn to Gravelle. “And you! You brainwashed him or tortured him. You did this. You drove him to suicide. Why would you do that? To your own son? Are you that heartless, Underwood?”

  “Of course not,” Gravelle says. “I never would have wanted that, Emmaline. Which is why the dead boy in Oliver’s bed was not Oliver Ward—‘my son,’ as you call him. He was a clone, created for the sole purpose of assisting my grand plans. The real Oliver Ward is alive and well and standing in front of you.”


  I stare at Gravelle, not comprehending. I look to Levi. Why do his eyes look so…hollow? So weary?

  Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the Oliver-clone looking at me, taking me in. He closes the gap between us, kneeling so his face is level with mine.

  “I know it’s hard to believe,” he says quietly, smiling at me, his eyes crinkling the way they used to, exactly the way I remember them. “But it’s really me.”

  I stare at him, disbelieving. “No,” I say softly, shaking my head. Impossible. “The real Oliver would be yelling. Or fighting to get me out of this chair,” I insist. “You can’t be him. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Gravelle hobbles toward us. “I’ve given you the moon, Emmaline, and you’re complaining because it’s full of craters! Give Oliver a break. If he’s slightly more relaxed than usual, it’s because he’s on a low dose of pharmas. A few mood enhancers to guarantee that his time here at the compound is nothing short of delightful.”

  I whip my head around to glare at Gravelle. “So you’ve been drugging him?” I turn back to this Oliver and take in each detail of his face, his hands, his body. Tears of confusion, exhaustion, and flat-out fear pool in my eyes. Can it be?

  “My guess is the pharmas keep him docile,” Levi explains. “They make him more agreeable. Less prone to excitement. Without them, he might have attempted to escape.”

  “Why would he try to escape, Levi?” Gravelle purrs. “I’ve given your original everything he could ever want. A library stocked with books. A room full of the most hi-tech cameras and editing equipment available. All Oliver’s wanted is at his disposal.”

  “I’m sure Ollie’s really motivated to make films when he’s been practically lobotomized,” I mutter to myself.

  “So you believe me, then?” Oliver says, his voice eerily calm.

  “You died,” I insist. “You left me your key. That note…”

  “I did write that note,” Oliver says, his voice drifting off. “But from the compound. I’ve been here since last summer.”