“Where are you in your cycle? Oh, WHO CARES? Let’s get you two BUMPING right away. We don’t want another trimester to go by with a FLAT TUMMY. And not to put any pressure on you or anything, but it would be just BREEDY if you could deliver the goods by next March. The Jaydens have an interest in zodiacology. Remember how I negotiated that bonus for delivering a Pisces? Another stroke of BRILLLLLLIANCE!”
I clear my throat. “Excuse me,” I say more firmly, but he talks right over me.
“Let me put you in the mood! I’ve got his most recent Tocin ad right here! Prepare to be dazzled! Are you ready to be dazzled?”
“But I’m not Mel—”
“I mean it! You must prepare yourself right now!”
Lib disappears and in the very next moment . . .
“Behold the most BEAUTIFUL sight you have ever seen!”
“But—ohhhhh . . .”
This is a transcendent understatement.
“That flowing, golden hair . . .” Lib raves from a reduced screen in the corner. “Those soulful brown eyes . . .”
I am basking in the true light of the Alpha and Omega.
“No need for a dose of Tocin to OPEN YOU UP to this one! Look at him!”
I do.
And
I
am
reborn.
I THINK HARMONY MISSES GOODSIDE ALREADY. SHE’S BEYOND wanked this morning. I mean, for her. Yesterday she couldn’t wait to go out and faith hard in the face of nonbelievers at the Mallplex. But today she’s content to stay in while I’m at school.
When Harmony first told me that she’d changed her mind about tagging along, I was for seriously relieved because I didn’t know how I was going to break the news that she could in no way come with me to school today. We’re all supposed to stop stressing about opposing belief systems because we’re more, like, mature now and stuff. But guess what? The Churchies still freak everyone out. Not too long ago some Churchies from a local settlement took over Palmer Square and asked me, Malia, and Shoko if we had God when all we wanted to do was buy retro froyo. Then we all joked about how their godfreakiness could infect us and turn us from totally normal to totally not. And for days, even weeks afterward, the three of us laughed about it, like, “Ha. I’m going to burn in hell. Ha. Ha. Ha.” But the jokes are never really all that funny.
Letting Harmony come to school with me on a regular day would be bad enough, but today it would be terminal. It’s a big day for me with the Pro/Am vote and all. Ventura Vida poses enough of a challenge as it is. I don’t need my secret identical twin stalking around the halls asking everyone if they have God.
Harmony was so calm and focused yesterday, remarkably so considering how jarring it must have been to leave Goodside behind. Since I found her on her knees in the common room this morning, however, she’s been acting kind of blinky. It’s possible she always wakes up like this. Maybe she’s got undiagnosed ADHD and she needs to self-medicate by, like, milking a cow or something to calm down. But I have a feeling she’s unnerved by something, or rather, someone else entirely.
“Hey. Did Zen say something . . . ?”
For all I know, he could’ve brought up our ridiculous “contract” and tried to persuade Harmony to proxy pregg on my behalf. When she doesn’t answer I repeat the question, assuming she can’t hear me over the cracklesnap of bubbling batter in a frying pan I didn’t even know we owned.
“Who?” Harmony asks, without turning away from the stove.
“Zen.”
“Zen?”
“Yes, Zen,” I say, growing impatient, “The boy you met yesterday . . .”
She turns, a flicker of recognition crossing her face as she comes toward me with a steaming pancake balanced on a spatula. “Oh, Zen,” she says in an airy, distracted way.
“Yes, Zen,” I say in a tone that matches hers note for note. “Did he say or do something . . . um, inappropriate yesterday?”
“What?” Harmony clumsily flips the pancake half on, half off my plate. When she boosts it back onto the plate with the spatula, it breaks in half. “Oops. Sorry.”
I’m trying not to lose it, but she is not making it easy. “Did Zen say or do something inappropriate yesterday?”
“Ohhhh . . .” she says, as if checking in to the conversation for the first time. “No.”
When she doesn’t elaborate, I do. “Because you’re acting kind of . . .” I choose the next word carefully. “Different today.”
“I am?” she asks, a note of worry in her voice. “I guess I’m worn out from yesterday. It’s a lot to take in all at once.”
I imagine that this is true. I barely know her, and yet I can’t let go of the feeling that there’s something off about her behavior this morning. But I don’t think I’ll get much out of her with repeated prodding.
“Well,” I reply, deciding to keep it light. “You already make your way around this kitchen better than I do.”
It’s actually pretty funny seeing Harmony bustle around our kitchen. Ash and Ty know I’ll never be bothered to nuke a freezerful of instant meals, so they provide me with a per diem for takeout whenever they’re away. Watching Harmony put together a fine breakfast out of some eggs and left-behinds in our pantry, I get a glimpse of an alternate destiny. I see what I would’ve looked like if I were the one trained in the domestic arts to make a good wife at sixteen. (Or, as Harmony’s starter engagement would have had it, thirteen.)
She brushes a strand of hair out of her clear blue eyes. They’re pretty, I think, before remembering, Oh, yeah. They’re just like mine.
“If you didn’t buy a new veil, what did you and Zen do alone together for three hours?”
Funny how Zen has had zero time for me, and yet had all afternoon for Harmony.
“We went to Plain & Simple to shop for a new veil, but I didn’t buy one,” she says as she briskly mixes more batter. “They were all too expensive and . . .” Her voice trails off and her hand spins even more vigorously around the inside of the bowl.
“And what?” I ask.
“And then we got some dinner at the U.S. Buff-A. Have you been there?”
I try not to shoot her a condescending look. I remind myself that the U.S. Buff-A has yet to open a franchise in Goodside. I smile and nod instead.
“Zen warned me that the Maine lobster-roll appetizer wouldn’t go well with the Pennsylvania cheesesteak,” she says, clutching her stomach and sticking out her tongue. “But I didn’t listen. . . .”
I take the final bite from my first pancake before reaching for my second. Harmony hasn’t eaten a thing.
“Did you meet anyone else while you were there?”
Harmony doesn’t stop stirring. “No. Zen blinded his MiNet so we could have some privacy.”
Of course he did. How gentlemanly of him.
“So what did you talk about?”
“You.” She stops mixing and levels her gaze at me. “Zen cares about you.”
“Zen cares about everyone. It’s, like, his thing.”
It’s almost pathological, really, his need to help people. This is why he’s the go-to guy for driving home a bunch of wasted Cheerclones after their orgy. Gah.
“Maybe,” Harmony says. “But he really cares about you. It’s too bad about his insufficient verticality.”
I choke on my pancake, coughing a puff of flour across the countertop.
“Then you wouldn’t have to share yourself with someone you’ve never even met.”
Then she picks up a sponge and cleans up the mess I just made.
I’m still thwacking my chest with the heel of my palm, trying to dislodge a wad of unchewed dough. I have no time to offer my rebuttal because I’m interrupted by an all-too-familiar annoyance coming from the MiVu.
“Wake up, Pell-Mel! Wakey-wakey!”
“Oh!” Harmony jumps, splattering a spoonful of batter across her nightgown.
“It’s just Ash and Ty,” I croak. “Right on time for their a.m. stalking.”
Every school day at seven a.m., my parents shout at me until I turn on the 2Vu to confirm I’m keeping myself alive in their absence.
“PELL-MEL. PELL-MEL. PELL-MEL.” So goes the chant in the other room.
“If I don’t respond within two minutes, they call 911.”
“It’s nice that they care,” Harmony says.
“Yeah,” I snort. “That’s one way of looking at it.”
Between the wake-up calls, the 24/7 stalk app, and the GUARDIAN (Guaranteed Under-Age Remote Detection of Illegal Alcohol and Narcotics) monitor, my parents are far more oppressive when they’re on the other side of the world than when they’re right down the hall.
When Harmony makes a move with me toward the common room, I suggest that she stay in the kitchen instead.
“Don’t you want them to meet me?” she asks, a wounded expression on her face.
“I do,” I say. “Just not right now.” This is true. I barely have the time or energy to deal with the standard-issue Ash and Ty interrogation. I know I can’t handle a grilling over the one girl in the world who could do the most damage to my uniqueness quotient.
“They know about me . . . right?” she asks in a fragile voice.
“Of course they know about you.”
From the look of relief on her face, it’s clear that she interprets the “of course” as proof of the value I place on our relationship.
I don’t have the heart to tell her that “of course” has nothing to do with me and everything to do with my parents’ “no secrets” policy, or that they came to find out about her as they discover most things: through high-tech surveillance. After they tracked my MiChat minutes and freaked out about all the incoming calls from Goodside, they jumped to ludicrous conclusions and confronted me with the “evidence” in their usual tag-teaming style.
“We won’t stand back and let you run off with a Church boy!” warned Ash.
“We didn’t prep you for all these years to lose you to a quiverfilling cult!” snapped Ty.
They were for seriously convinced that I’d fallen in with the evangelical crowd as an exercise in teen rebellion. Their accusations were so off-the-spring crazy that I hoped the truth—that I had been found by my identical twin sister raised by Churchies in Goodside—would strike them almost as anticlimactic by comparison. I was, of course, wrong. They didn’t ask a single question as to the impact such an astounding discovery would have on me emotionally, but immediately started debating the impact Harmony could have on me financially.
“You’re certain she’s not on the market,” Ash said.
“She’s engaged to be married,” I assured them.
“She could counterfeit and undercut you,” Ty coldly pointed out.
“It’s against her religion,” I told them.
My parents made me promise to limit my contact with Harmony until after I bumped, which, you know, should be any day now. And I did. Or I tried to anyway. Until she showed up on my doorstep.
Harmony’s very existence has the potential to raise too many questions about my family history, a mysterious mess that Lib has taken it upon himself, as my RePro Rep, to handle with the utmost skill. And only when absolutely necessary, sketchiness. Gah. If Lib knew Harmony was here he’d drop dead on the spot. And if he knew I’d taken her to the Meadowlands Mallplex yesterday and that she was flipping pancakes in my kitchen at this moment, he’d raise himself up from the grave just for the satisfaction of dropping dead again. He loves drama, but not when it gets in the way of business.
Meanwhile Harmony is unaware of the havoc she’s wreaked, first by contacting me, and again by coming to stay. She seems pretty much oblivious to just about everything right now, as she smiles into space and dreamily traces her fingers along the sticky batter spiderwebbing across her nightshirt. Why didn’t I blind her chats? Why didn’t I make her go back yesterday?
Unfortunately, my parents already know more about her than I’d like them to. So as I stride toward the MiVu, I decide that all I can do is try to keep their meddling to a minimum at the moment, just long enough to get me through this day.
Ash and Ty are now arguing to themselves about whether they’ve given me enough time to respond or should they just dial 911 right now. For all the money my parents have shelled out on the latest in teen-tracking technologies, they don’t seem to trust any of it.
“I’m alive,” I announce to my parents as I sweep into their 2Vu. “Just like the stalk app says I am.”
Ash and Ty are fit and attractive blue-eyed blonds, like me. From looks alone, I could totally pass as their own, but they’ve always gone out of their way to tell people I’m adopted. They knew the Virus would make this the likeliest parental model of the future, and have always held me up as the prime example of what could be achieved when nature’s gifts are nurtured to perfection.
Not too much pressure, right?
Ash speaks first. She usually does.
“How are you?”
I clench. My parents never, ever begin a conversation by asking such a question. No, they begin all conversations by offering constructive criticism and pointing out all ways I’m not living up to my file. A more typical greeting would have been:
“You almost let two balls slip past you yesterday, sweetie.”
“You didn’t practice your guitar all week. You know the arts are the weakest part of your profile, and with a name like Melody . . .”
My parents were professors at the University until I signed my conception contract eighteen months ago. That’s when they reminded me that they were both in their forties, which put them, statistically speaking, more than halfway to their deaths. This was just totally unacceptable because there was just so much of life they hadn’t lived, so much stuff they had never gotten around to doing because they were too busy schooling, working, and, since they adopted me sixteen years earlier, prepping me to be the well-rounded and highly sought-after Surrogette they always knew I would become. Rarely were they themselves the ones instructing me in the fine art of gene splicing or eyeliner application, but all that expert outsourcing doesn’t just happen by itself, does it?
Their investment in me paid off. Literally. Thanks to the generous six-figure signing bonus Lib got out of the Jaydens, they’re now out there living life, which includes doing all that undone stuff like walking the Great Wall of China and learning the didgeridoo from Australian aborigines. They claim that it’s all material for some great research project in progress, but I highly doubt it.
“Any word from Lib lately, honey?” they ask now in unison.
“Um, no. Why?” I ask.
My parents grin and grip each other’s hands.
“Because we met an awesome couple on safari. They have a son your age,” says Ash.
I don’t like where this is headed.
“And they also have an older daughter who is desperate for a Surrogette,” she continues.
“You should be that Surrogette,” says Ty.
My parents are nothing if not direct. My mouth hangs open.
“Our friends are loaded, Melody,” adds Ty. “We can cut out the middleman and save ourselves fifteen percent.”
I’m beyond shocked. My deal with the Jaydens was their crowing achievement as parents. Why would they even consider messing it up?
“My contract . . .” I can barely speak.
“We’re afraid you’re wasting your reproductivity,” says Ash.
“With all this waiting around,” says Ty.
I’ve told them to lay off the Tocin. They are totally dosed. That’s the only explanation.
“Hahahahaha. You got me, guys.”
I’m the only one laughing. I can tell from their tight, downturned mouths that they are dead serious. They’re starting to scare me.
“Here’s the thing, Melody,” Ash begins.
And that’s when they tell me that it’s not about the money that they spent and don’t have anymore, it’s the money they spent that they never had.
; “We borrowed against the equity on your Eggs.”
I cannot believe what I’m hearing.
“YOU WHAT?”
Harmony yelps quietly. I surprise even myself with the outburst.
I barely hear what they say next, but what I do hear is bad enough.
My parents had my reproductive potential appraised when I was eleven, before I even signed on with Lib. Then they took out a five-year Egg Equity loan, which basically means that they borrowed against my projected future earnings as a Surrogette. They put that capital toward the strategic development of my most marketable traits and talents.
“How do you think we could afford to send you to that soccer training clinic in Brazil?”
“Or guitar lessons with a Grammy winner?”
“You think the Global U. summer camp comes cheap?”
This strategic reinvestment in my brand, they believed, would up my market value and put me well over the original appraisal. And when the Jaydens’ bid came in so strong, it looked like I would definitely earn back everything they had borrowed and more. There was just one problem with their plan.
“You should have delivered by now,” says Ash.
“You should be finishing up your second contract and considering a third,” says Ty.
They were banking that I’d deliver three times before my obsolescence?
“But you’re not.”
“And it’s time to pay that money back.”
How could they let this happen? How could they have turned their only daughter into a toxic asset in need of a quick bump bailout? I expected more from them. If not as parents, then as economists.
“You’re still young!” says Ash with an edge to her voice.
“You can pregg with our new friends,” says Ty, eerily matching her tone, “and still have time left to deliver for the Jaydens.”
I can’t listen for another microsecond. I wink and blink and make them vanish from the MiVu without a word.
Now I’m shaking from the inside out. I take a deep, calming breath and repeat the words my positive energist taught me to say when I’ve got a problem and don’t know how to solve it.
I am smart.
I am stunning.
I am strong.