Emergent (A Beta Novel) (2 page)

I’ve been sent neither to heaven or hell, but to limbo. It’s some horrible halfway house of black space and blank space. I fight it. I can’t help myself. I scream even though
no one can hear me. I kick. I wail. I rage. Resisting being told what to do—
die, already
—is what I do best.

My mind feels awake, but I can’t move, I can’t
see
anything, and I can barely breathe. I know my body lies on the soaked boat’s deck, which I feel being pushed up and
down by the rise and fall of the ocean. The movement is calmer now—the worst of the storm is over—but the dial-down of the storm’s fury can’t save me. I’m already
dead, just like Reggie and Holly.

Aren’t I?

I hear a loud, gruff male voice call out, “Yo, there’s a body in the boat below! Looks like a real Tasty.” I’m doubting this is God’s voice announcing my passage
through the pearly gates. I’m pretty sure S/He’d word it better.

Another voice, also male, says, “Two other bodies floating by, starboard side.”

“Tasty?” asks the other man.

“Not Demesne-level aesthetic.”

I’m dead, but flattered.
Tasty
is the slang term often used to describe Demesne “workers,” because they’re ridiculously good-looking. Demesne is serviced by clones
replicated from recently deceased human bodies called Firsts. The Firsts are twentysomethings chosen specifically for their superior looks—hot bodies and gorgeous faces. Personality not
required: the Firsts’ souls are extracted so that the clones can be functioning workers on Demesne without the complications of human emotion. Rich people want their servants to have a
pleasing aesthetic—and not be troubled with free will.

“Pulse?”

I feel a hand press a finger against my wrist. “Negative.” It’s the ’raxia, I realize. Before the storm hit, I took too much, then baked in the sun too long. That has to
be what’s caused my heart to seem like it’s not beating. I’ve felt this before when taking too much ’raxia—the slowing down of the heart that’s taken many
’raxia users to their premature deaths. But my heart has never slowed this much—never enough to be mistaken for dead.

“Bring this one on board, then. Didn’t expect such a good haul today.”

I’d always heard that the bodies of Demesne clones came from pirates who stormed and pillaged naval carriers that were repurposed into refugee camps after the Water Wars, but I assumed
that was a myth. Now’s a sucky time to find out the myth is true.

My body is completely numb, and my heart is only a faint whisper of a beat that only I can feel—and just barely. I can’t move, I can’t speak, I can’t protest.

I hear Mom’s voice in my head:
I dream of Deh-mez-nay
.

Guess I’ll make it there after all, Mom. I just never thought it would be this way. As a First.

Please let me be all the way dead when it finally happens, when my soul is extracted and a clone is replicated from my body.

I’m sorry, Reggie. I’m sorry, Holly.

Xander, I’ll never stop loving you.

I feel my body being hoisted through the air, and my mind goes empty, mercifully returned to darkness.

And then, like a sudden jolt of electricity, I wake up.

This time I can move. I touch my index fingers to my thumbs and stretch my toes long and wide. I can feel. This might be real. My eyes flutter open, and I can see! This
is
real.

I’M NOT DEAD!

I’m in a white room that looks like a medical laboratory. I breathe in, tasting the air. Yes, I can actually
taste
it. The air tastes of honeysuckle and jasmine, of a sweetness so
beautiful I am immediately soothed. I made it to Demesne!

I couldn’t have been cloned. My soul is intact. I feel it now, raging in confusion and panic mixed with a sudden and profound sense of gratitude. Somehow, I cheated death. I make a silent
vow:
If I have truly been given this gift, I will never, ever do ’raxia again. I will appreciate this second chance, and not screw it up this time.

I bite down hard on my tongue, to make sure this is real, relieved and joyful when I taste blood. This isn’t a dream. I really am alive.

So now what am I supposed to do?

I don’t know where to go. I don’t think I’m capable of even standing up yet.

Then I realize I’m not alone. A male figure stands over me, dressed in a white lab coat. I can tell he is a Demesne clone, for he’s branded with a black rose aestheticized on his
left temple. I’ve seen images of these couture clones in news stories—who hasn’t?—but I’ve never seen a real one before. The human age of this guy’s First would
have probably been early twenties. He has olive-toned skin, jet-black hair, and a hard face softened by a Demesne clone’s signature fuchsia eyes. He’s very tall and obscenely buff, with
a body that looks like a professional bodybuilder’s—sturdy in its mass, yet strangely vulnerable.

“Who are you?” I ask him.

“I’m called the Mortician,” he says. His face mimics the human expression
curious
. “And I just resurrected you.”

A FUNNEL OF ORANGE AND
yellow flame clouds spins over the ocean in the distance, easily sending off enough heat to thaw the pink frost on the ledge of
our tree house in the jungle, hundreds of yards away.

“Looking good,” I tell Aidan, who stands next to me, his arm raised so that his hand points toward the funnel cloud.

“Getting stronger each time,” says Aidan, his face set to
pleased
. He crooks his pinkie finger, which temporarily shines in blue light, powered by the customized weather chip
beneath his skin. He beams a red current from his finger directly into the middle of the funnel cloud. Lightning cracks through the middle of it, which erupts into a final explosion. The cloud
expires into gray and black smoke, and its debris falls down into the sea, extinguishing within seconds.

I would never admit it to Aidan, but his weather terror skills kind of turn me on.

But it’s creepy to be hot for a clone. I need to be better than that. I can’t let my libido be directed by some clone’s weird abilities with weather.

Before I came to live on this feral island that the clones call Heathen, the only weather I’d experienced was the monotony of Cerulea, where there were long days of scorching heat followed
by hot, dry nights filled with the smoke of distant fires. A simple white cloud in the sky was enough to cause excitement, but those clouds were anomalies. In the short time since I was expelled
from Cerulea by my own father, I’ve witnessed amazing purple-magenta swirl clouds, pitch-black thunderclouds, and orange-red funnel clouds, just to name a few. I’m still getting used to
the jungle weather that’s mercilessly hot and humid one day, then brutally cold and icy the next. No big deal. Soon enough, Aidan will lead the escaped clones to Insurrection, and I’ll
be back on Demesne with them, where the weather is perfect and soothing all the time. Since I’m Aidan’s favored companion, obviously that means I’ll even become Queen of Demesne.
Not bad for a penniless drill sergeant’s runaway daughter from Cerulea.

I can be patient. Paradise will be mine, next time I get there.

“You’ve perfected the flame funnel,” I praise Aidan. “It’ll just be a short matter of time until you use it to bring the Insurrection back to Demesne,
right?”

“Ideally,” says Aidan. “We can’t hide out here too much longer, playing such visible war games.”

“Don’t destroy all of Demesne,” I request. “Leave the good parts. So we can have fun playing there.”

Aidan is a clone with no understanding of the concept called “fun.” He says, “Destruction is a certainty. Unless the humans surrender quickly.”

I’ll teach him about fun. I’ll just miss our feral homestead a little bit once we abandon it to return to Demesne.

I’ve lost track of time since I’ve been camped out in the middle of nowhere with these escaped clones. On Demesne, their human owners called these clones Defects, because they dared
to feel. They call themselves Emergents. It’s been several months since I woke up on Demesne and was promptly escorted away to live with the Emergents. The only real clue to the length of my
stay here is the length of my hair, now almost white-blond from the sun, the black and blue tips growing longer and more brittle with each passing day. Some of the Emergents were trained as expert
beauty stylists back on Demesne, but I don’t dare ask them to interrupt their warfare training on Heathen to give me a haircut or pluck my eyebrows. There will be plenty of time for
beautifying after Insurrection comes. Then, luxury skills will be utilized for their own purposes, if the clones choose—and not for servitude, which they didn’t choose.

My stomach grumbles and I wish one of the Emergents would bring lunch up to the unofficial office I share with Aidan. The weather fluctuates too wildly to live and sleep in this tree house, so
Aidan and I use it as the ideal lookout and planning point for various training exercises across the island. I like the tree house because it allows some privacy away from the constant stream of
activity in the Rave Caves, where the Emergents keep their quarters and I share a cave habitat with Aidan.

Typically for a clone, Aidan doesn’t care much one way or the other about privacy; that’s my human desire. Our tree house “office” hang-floats from a branch rising at
least twice the height of a ten-meter Olympic diving platform. It’s built to resemble birds’ nests, with a pyramid roof woven with thorns and bamboo, over a base made of plumed reeds,
moss, and twigs. Ten years of free-falling from platforms the height of a three-story building for sport more than prepared me for this altitude. I guess the draw of extreme heights is in my blood;
I can’t escape it. My bed back in Cerulea was a hammock attached to my bedroom ceiling. Dad thought the added height would prepare me better for high-diving. People pay millions of
Uni-dollars for views like mine—green trees! blue ocean! endless sky!—but those people usually require indoor plumbing and entry via elevator or stairs instead of climbing a webbed
rope, and more interior space. Who needs more space? I don’t own anything, except myself. Belongings don’t belong here.

A tree house has been a great place for a lost girl outlaw. I am a natural fit here, on this land born of disaster. I court disaster.

A few generations ago, an enormous volcano erupted beneath the ocean. After the chaos of that eruption, after the tsunamis and land quakes that devastated continents in its wake, only one in the
archipelago of tropical islands in the volcano’s perimeter was considered habitable by humans. That island became Demesne, and within a decade it was the world’s most exclusive real
estate. The other islands in the archipelago, teeming with wild jungle and dangerous caves, were considered useless. Only the savage could survive on those other islands.

We are those savages: me, plus the small militia of Emergents. Here, time and space are meaningless. Only survival matters. And the war to come. Insurrection, the Emergents call it.

I tease Aidan. “Will you keep me as a trophy when Insurrection happens?”

“Yes,” says Aidan, straight-faced. Clones have learned how to survive on this savage island, how to manipulate weather, how to think and even start to feel like humans. But they
totally don’t get sarcasm. The bottom of Aidan’s mouth loops up into a half smile, but I know the sexy look is a mimicked flirtation. I’m essentially his consort here, but that
means his companion and his assistant—nothing more. Luckily, it also means I’ll be the one human he allows to survive and thrive on Demesne, once Insurrection happens.

The Emergents plan to eliminate the human population on Demesne—the beautiful paradise created with the clones’ hard labor. They consider Demesne their native land, and they want it
back. It’s not even revenge they seek. Revenge will just be a bonus.

The Emergents on Heathen number about fifty. They’ve utilized the skills the humans gave them—engineering, architecture, cooking, construction, etc.—for themselves.
They’ve built tree houses and labyrinth underground dwellings. They’ve created irrigation tunnels in the subterranean caves to supply drinking water and to fertilize their crops. The
clones who formerly engineered the sublime atmosphere on Demesne now use their skills to control the environment around Heathen. They’ve created a weather force field, so that any unwanted
planes or boats that try to reach Heathen quickly become enshrouded in sudden storms that cause them to crash and sink. Eventually, the Emergents’ weather-force-field experiments will be used
to take back Demesne—and to shut it off from the rest of the world, so it can be theirs and theirs alone.