Before I can decide, a boy about my age steps around the end of a rack of coats, wearing the strangest suit I’ve ever seen.
His eyes widen. His mouth falls open. Then he smiles. “Hey, Waverly. What are you doing here?”
“I thought you couldn’t come tonight,” the strangely dressed boy says.
“I…um…” I have no idea what to say. He isn’t on the run like Trigger and Wexler, nor trying to arrest me like the soldiers are. Which means he has no reason to say anything to me, beyond telling me that my work honors us all. Not that I would know how to respond. I can’t tell for sure from how he’s dressed what bureau he belongs to.
He’s obviously mistaken me for one of my identicals, and the moment I realize that, a fresh ache seizes hold of my chest. Waverly, whoever she was, is now dead. Because she looked like me.
Yet the boy doesn’t seem to know that.
How could he recognize my face yet not know that it isn’t supposed to exist anymore? There was a citywide bulletin about the recall. Little else will be discussed among the various bureaus for months. Maybe for years.
I glance over my shoulder at the door to the hall. This strange reprieve can’t possibly last long. Any minute Trigger will burst into the room looking for me. Or, if he’s lost the fight, the soldiers will come to drag me away.
“Waverly?” the boy repeats. And even though he seems concerned about the girl he thinks I am, he hasn’t come to the obvious conclusion—mistaken identity—despite the name embroidered on my borrowed jacket.
What union would a girl named Waverly belong to? I can’t place the name, but that’s not particularly unusual. I don’t know all five thousand female trade labor names. But what bewilders me even more is how Waverly, regardless of what union she belongs to, could possibly know this unfamiliar, oddly dressed boy. She shouldn’t know any boys, other than those in our bureau, and none of the trade labor boys anywhere near my age bear this brown-eyed, fair-skinned, freckle-free, straight-nosed face.
Yet the boy’s gaze travels over me with a familiar manner that sets off alarms in my head. No boy other than Trigger 17 has ever looked at me like that. As if he finds pleasure in the view alone, beyond what service I have to offer the city. But this boy isn’t looking at me. He’s looking at the poor, doomed Waverly.
Have she and he broken the same rules Trigger and I broke?
My heart beats harder at that thought. Maybe I’m not the only anomaly. Maybe this Waverly and I share the same genetic flaws.
However, that doesn’t fit with what Wexler 42 told me about the origin of my genome. Could he have been lying? He betrayed Trigger and me to aid his own escape. A man with that little honor could certainly have been lying about everything he told us.
I don’t know what to think. Who to believe. How to respond to this unfamiliar boy who seems to think I should know who he is.
Finally, his gaze snags on the name embroidered low on my left shoulder. “Violet,” he reads, and his brows dip in confusion. “Where on earth did you get that uniform?”
That’s not what I expected him to ask. Why would he assume the uniform doesn’t belong to me, rather than assuming he’s mistaken Violet 16 for Waverly 16?
My answer is the same either way. “I stole it.”
His laugh is loud and joy-filled, as if I’ve just told him the funniest joke ever. As if he’s not afraid of being caught in the closet with a girl he shouldn’t even be speaking to. A girl who should be dead. “If only the world could see you now,” he says. “How the hell did you plan to sneak into Seren’s birthday party in a laborer’s uniform?”
Seren? I don’t know that name either. But with the mention of a birthday, suddenly I understand. It’s just like Trigger said. Like I learned about once in history. Someone’s—Seren’s—birth is being celebrated in the archaic tradition, presumably with the ceremonial presentation of a cake lit on fire.
The bygone festival is a celebration of excess and waste all squandered on a single person. It fell out of fashion long ago, when technological advancements allowed the production of people en masse, with much greater efficiency.
So who could this Seren be, and why is his birth being celebrated?
Why did he have a birth? Was he not removed from incubation on the same day as everyone else in his division?
Is this the party Aida 22 was referring to?
“Waverly?” The boy is frowning now. He looks worried by my silence. But I can hardly focus on that, because I’m still puzzling over his clothes. He’s not wearing a uniform. He’s wearing a suit. Like members of the Management Bureau wear—except rather than Management-black, this boy’s pants and jacket are a dignified shade of gray. His lapels are shiny, a subtle yet extravagant detail I’ve never seen before, and the pressed, button-down shirt beneath his jacket is a much paler shade of the same color.
Why is he wearing the wrong colors? Why is there no name tag pinned to his jacket? Why is he talking to me as if we know each other? As if there is no shame and no risk involved in speaking so casually to a member of another bureau?
Even Trigger 17, with his bold mannerisms in private, treats his infractions with the gravity they merit. But this boy is cavalier with his audacity. No citizen of Lakeview would…
My eyes widen as I take in his strange clothes and fearless curiosity, and suddenly I understand.
This boy is not a citizen of Lakeview.
If our Administrator sends delegations to other cities, might it not be possible that other cities would send delegations into Lakeview? Could this boy be in Lakeview on a diplomatic mission? Could this birthday party somehow be part of the diplomacy?
The only part of that theory that doesn’t fit is Waverly. How would a diplomat from another city know a sixteen-year-old trade laborer from Lakeview?
He wouldn’t. So how…?
And with a sudden jarring leap of intuition, I understand. This boy with odd mannerisms and a dangerously audacious speech pattern hasn’t mistaken me for another trade laborer. Waverly is the identical Wexler 42 accidentally sent to another city to fulfill his “special order.”
Waverly isn’t dead. She’s the girl I was meant to be. Hers is the life I was meant to live.
I stagger backward. The understanding that I’ve just come face to face with my diverted destiny—with what should have been—is enough to rock me off the foundation of my own existence.
If not for the mix-up, I would know this boy. I might wear the strange clothes that are evidently standard in his city. I might not have my name embroidered on all my jackets and aprons, though I can’t really make sense of that, because how would anyone know who I was if not for the embroidery?
If not for the mix-up, I might not be a trade laborer.
That idea shakes me like a mental aftershock. I’ve never thought about doing anything other than growing hydroponic vegetables. I’ve never wanted to do anything other than grow hydroponic vegetables.
If I hadn’t been incubated here in Lakeview as a member of the hydroponic gardening union, I would never have met Poppy. Or Trigger 17.
I would not be who I am now had that mistake not been made.
“What’s wrong?” the boy asks, and I realize my eyes have filled with tears. The only identical I have left is Waverly, wherever she is, and this boy believes I am her. That’s why he hasn’t raised an alarm and given me up to the soldiers.
“Is this about the uniform?” His confusion clears as he decides to believe his own theory about my tears. Before I can figure out how to answer, he ducks around a rack of strange and exotic outerwear. Mystified, I follow him to see that the coat closet is actually much bigger than I’d assumed. It’s bigger than my dorm room.
Behind the racks of coats, I find the boy kneeling in front of a trunk—one of dozens lined up around the perimeter of the room. “Margo always brings a spare dress. She can never make up her mind until she sees what everyone else is wearing. Don’t tell her I said this, but I think you’ll look even bet
ter in this one than she does.”
He stands holding a garment unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Rather than the knee-length narrow Management-style skirt I am expecting, the dress he holds out to me is the color of a ripe peach, its long, pleated skirt made of a strange smooth, shiny material. It’s sleeveless, and the bodice is trimmed with hundreds of small crystals that reflect the overhead lights back at me like a thousand tiny suns.
I’ve never seen anything so beautiful. Or so pointlessly extravagant. What kind of recreation could require such a garment? Why would the laborers in the tailor union even have occasion to produce such a thing?
“Oh, and look. There’s a jeweled cuff that goes with it too.” The boy pushes the dress and cuff at me, brown eyes flashing with satisfaction over his find, and I wish I knew his name so I could politely refuse what he obviously intends as a favor.
I’m supposed to be hiding, and no one wearing such a lavish arrangement of fabric and crystals could possibly blend into a crowd or fit into a tight space.
Unless…
“Is this what everyone is wearing? At the party?” The word feels strange on my tongue. The question feels even stranger. But if all the girls at this diplomatic event are wearing the same ridiculous dress, maybe the soldiers won’t bother to look at their faces. They’ll never expect to find me in anything other than the trade labor athletic uniform I was arrested in.
He laughs again. “Wouldn’t that give Margo a fit! Can you imagine two girls wearing the same dress?” His eyes flash with mischievous mirth, and he leans closer, as if he’s about to tell me a secret. “The power of their fury and humiliation would cause a planetary collapse.” Suddenly his grin widens. “That would make the best prank. If you could bribe Margo’s seamstress to make you a dress identical to whatever she’ll be wearing next, then show up at the event in it before she does! She would have a total meltdown! They’d be talking about it for years!”
My confusion leaves only one thing clear: I will not blend in wearing that dress. Not even with the other party attendees.
“I’ve found what I came for.” He holds up a skinny metal bottle with a screw-on lid, then slides it into his jacket pocket. “Hurry up and change. You’ve already missed half the party.”
I accept the dress and the cuff, because I have no other choice. If I refuse he’ll realize I’m not Waverly. And maybe if he can mistake me for my identical, so will everyone else at this party.
He goes behind a rack of coats to give me privacy, and as I step out of my shoes, a bolt of fear spears me.
What happened to Trigger? Has he been captured? What will they do to him? I can only imagine that the punishment for trying to help me escape will be much more severe than simply losing a braid.
I drop Violet’s jacket onto the floor, and the sight of it lying there, stolen and discarded, makes me inexplicably sad.
“My sister’s going to have an aneurism when she sees you in her dress,” the boy calls through the rack of coats between us.
My hands freeze, my shirt only halfway over my head. “Your sister?”
How can a boy have a sister? In Lakeview, that term applies to one’s genetic identicals. The archaic definition refers to genetic siblings, which could be of different genders, but that concept hasn’t had relevance in centuries.
Evidently his native city uses the term as a colloquialism.
It’s never occurred to me before that other cities could be so different from Lakeview. But as I step out of my pants, I realize I’m not truly surprised. I’ve known my whole life that Lakeview is the greatest, strongest, most efficient and well-run city in the world, and now I understand why. The others indulge in wasteful, frivolous practices and events, all of which no doubt take time and resources away from their primary purpose: the effective function of the city itself, for the good of all its citizens.
Only once I’m wearing a dress belonging to a girl I’ve never met do I realize how unprepared I am for the charade I’m about to attempt. I don’t know what city this boy and his “sister” are from. I know nothing of its culture, beyond an overview of their wasteful practices. I don’t know the people who will be at this party. I don’t even know this boy’s name, and I can’t ask him without exposing my ignorance.
“Are you ready?” he calls.
“I’m dressed,” I reply, hoping he won’t notice that I haven’t actually answered the question.
He steps around the rack of coats, and when he sees me his eyebrows shoot halfway up his forehead. He seems to have run out of words. “Um…that dress is a perfect fit. Margo’s going to kill us both.”
I stare down at the dress, disoriented by the sight of myself, but he seems pleased with the look.
“What are the chances”—he kneels in front of the open trunk again—“that you and Margo wear the same size shoe?” He stands again with the footwear equivalent of the dress I’m wearing—a gem-studded pair of shoes made of straps that appear to be mounted on four-inch stilts.
“Are you sure those are shoes?” I ask, and he laughs as he holds them out to me.
“Right? I don’t see how you girls walk in those.” Yet he seems to expect me to do exactly that.
I prop myself against the wall with one hand while I step one at a time into the glittery, strappy footwear, and when I stand again, wobbling, I wonder why I even bothered. My skirt covers them entirely.
Either they’re a size too small or they were designed to double as instruments of torture.
I plan to ditch the shoes at the earliest opportunity.
The boy waves me forward, and I follow him around the rack of coats toward the exit. He pulls the door open and gestures for me to precede him into the hall, smiling, but I’ve forgotten how to move.
Standing in the doorway, his dark eyes wide with shock, his hand still reaching for the doorknob the boy has unwittingly pulled out of his reach, is Trigger 17.
“Trigger!” There’s a spot of blood on his collar and his knuckles are bruised, but as far as I can see he’s alive and unharmed. I have no idea how many soldiers he disabled—or killed?—but I’m so relieved to see him in one piece that for a moment I forget that in the few minutes since we parted ways I’ve been transformed into the princess from a primary dorm nanny’s fanciful bedtime story.
His gaze travels over my borrowed dress and his surprise melts into a frown. “What are you wearing?” He hasn’t yet glanced at the boy still holding the door open, but I can tell from the tension in his arms and the tight line of his jaw that he’s already assessed the potential threat and is ready to dispatch it.
“It’s my sister’s dress,” the boy says, and Trigger’s hard gaze finally fully lands on him.
“Who are you?” Trigger’s voice sounds deeper than I’ve ever heard it. The sound gives me chills.
The boy’s brows rise, as if he’s startled to have heard Trigger speak. But then he regroups with a determined smile. “I am Hennessy Chapman.”
He has two names? I try not to let my surprise show. What use has a person for two names? What division would a boy named Hennessy Chapman belong to? And what is his number? How are we supposed to know what class he belongs to if we don’t know his age?
“You’re Waverly’s new man?” he continues, and Trigger’s frown deepens. “Her new security, I mean.” The boy’s face flushes slightly, as if he’s just embarrassed himself, but I don’t really understand how. Yet I understand enough to seize the opportunity.
“Yes.” I nod emphatically, eyeing Trigger, silently begging him to play along because I see no other choice at the moment. “He’s my new security.”
Comprehension washes over Trigger’s face; then his expression goes completely blank. He takes a formal step back from us and clasps his wrists at his back, and though he seems to be staring at nothing, I know he’s seeing everything.
He was made to play this role.
“This is Trigger 17,” I say. There’s no sense lying about his name. It’s embroidered over the l
eft side of his uniform jacket.
The boy throws his head back and laughs. “This is unbelievable, Waverly!” he says, and I can’t help but agree. “The costumes look so authentic! Your seamstress must have…” He shakes his head briefly, as if to clear it of cobwebs. “Wait, you said you stole them, right?”
Seamstress? Costumes? Like Wexler’s, his vocabulary leaves me mystified.
“I’m glad you brought him, for your own safety,” Hennessy Chapman says. “But does he have to come into the party with you? Most of the personal staff members are waiting at the wall—”
“My orders are to stay with her,” Trigger insists, and I glance at him in relief.
“Yes, I need him,” I say, and suddenly I’m blushing from the kernel of truth in this lie I’m telling.
“Of course,” the boy concedes with an almost formal nod. Then he takes my arm and bends his around it in an awkward interlocking motion.
When we step out of the closet, I notice for the first time, now that I’m not running for my life, how thick and plush the carpet in the hallway is. The walls are lined with some kind of silky fabric, which has an elaborate design stitched in a subtle gold color, just a shade lighter than the material itself.
I let Hennessy Chapman escort me down the strange hallway and around a corner, wishing desperately for a chance to explain to Trigger what he’s missed. And to apologize for the role I’ve unintentionally stuck him in. But he follows several steps behind us, just like the Administrator’s private security, and I wonder what Waverly has done to merit her own guard. She’s only sixteen. What could she possibly have accomplished in such a short life? Maybe she is being trained for something special….
I understand nothing about whatever city Waverly and Hennessy Chapman come from, or about the party I’m about to walk into, or about the girl I’m supposed to be.
They’re going to know I’m a fraud.
I must have tensed or done something else to betray my fear, because Hennessy Chapman pats my hand, sandwiching it between his arm and his fingers, and the gesture is obviously intended to be comforting. But in my entire life, Trigger 17 is the only other boy I’ve touched, and I would have been happy for that to remain true. I wish my arm were tucked into his right now. I wish he were close at my side rather than at my back.