Constance (Constance #1)(21)

“Are you a dupe?” It was Kala’s turn to take a step back, her hand reaching blindly for the door.

Dupe was far from the cruelest slang for clones, but it still landed hard. Especially from a friend.

“Yeah, but listen—”

“You should’ve said. What if you give me cystic fibrosis, or something worse?” Kala opened the door but lingered there on the porch, morbid curiosity overcoming revulsion for the moment. Most people had never seen a clone, not in person. Certainly not one of a friend, and it had clearly rattled Kala.

“Come on, Kala. You can’t catch cystic fibrosis.”

A conspiracy site had posted a study that claimed to link several spontaneous cases of genetic disease in children to contact with clones. Never mind that genetic disease wasn’t transmittable. The study had been debunked as junk science, but polls showed that 58 percent of Americans believed the threat to be real. Several states had laws forbidding clones from working around children.

“That’s not what I heard. And actually I need you to get off my porch.”

“Seriously?” Con said but retreated farther down the stairs, hands raised in a gesture of compliance.

Once Con was at a safe distance, Kala considered her again. “Does this mean Con is dead?” she asked, her voice quiet and mournful. “Did she die?”

Con knew what she meant, but still, it was hard to admit out loud. “Yeah, I think so.”

“How?” Kala might have been furious, but the realization that her friend was dead hit her hard. Death had a way of making old disagreements feel suddenly meaningless.

“I was hoping you knew.”

“Me? No, man. Ain’t talked to her in forever. Last I heard, she was living down around Richmond.”

“Richmond?” The idea that she’d left DC, for Richmond or anywhere else, stunned Con. She’d been trying to escape this city for so long that she’d all but given up on the idea. The gravity of the accident and all she’d lost had fixed her in Zhi’s lonely orbit. Depression doing its silent work, gaslighting every idea she had for her future. Go back to school—too much effort. Go home—there was nothing there for her. Start a new band—what kind of disloyal, callous bitch would do such a thing? Two more years had passed that way, in an inertia of self-loathing. And then sometime since her last refresh—the missing eighteen months—she’d moved to Richmond. She’d figured out how to get out of here.

“Yeah, with that guy you brought to Glass House with you on New Year’s Eve. Your boyfriend.”

“What boyfriend?” Con said, trying to digest the idea that not only had she moved to Richmond but that she’d done it for a boyfriend that hadn’t existed five days earlier. There was no way any of that should be true, except Kala’s tone told her it was. She had a thousand questions, although Kala clearly had no interest in answering them.

“What is it you actually want?” Kala demanded.

“A place to stay.”

“No. No chance.”

“Please, Kala. I don’t have any place to go. I slept in an alley last night. Please?”

Kala softened but didn’t relent. “Why don’t you just go back to Richmond?”

“I can’t.”

“How come?” Kala asked.

“I’ve never been to Richmond,” Con said reluctantly.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve got, like, an eighteen-month gap in my memory. Since the last time I did a refresh. I don’t remember moving to Richmond. I don’t remember whatever went down with your band. None of it.” She was on the edge of tears, as if she were finally coming clean and confessing to a heinous crime. It was as hard a thing as she’d ever had to say.

“See? You’re not her. Not really.”

“I am,” Con said but without conviction. She’d been feeling like an imposter, and this was the proof.

“No, you’re her shitty copy. You’re not even a person.” Kala paused then, seemingly shocked at the vehemence of her words, but it seemed to resolve something in her mind. She went back into her house and slammed the door, leaving Con alone in the yard, stunned and furious.

Growing up, Con had dealt with her share of racism, but generally people in her hometown knew how to dress it up as something else and rarely ever came out and said it. Life and experience had built armor to shield Con against it, but it was another thing entirely to have a friend look her in the eye and tell her she wasn’t a person. She wanted to march up the steps and hammer on the door until Kala came back out. Finish what they’d started, but she was rooted to the spot. As if Kala had sucker punched her and knocked the wind out of her.

The front door reopened. Con braced herself, but instead of Kala, it was the guy who’d answered the door in the Knicks jersey. He came halfway down the steps and stopped.

“You Con D’Arcy?”

“Yeah, why?” she said warily.

“Guy was here last night. Looking for you.”

The hair on Con’s shoulders shifted like a field of grass rippling in a changing wind. “Looking for me? What did you tell him?”

“That I don’t know any Con D’Arcy,” he said.

“What time was he here?”

Knicks shrugged uncertainly. “Around midnight? I don’t know. I was pretty toasty last night. Dude freaked me out.”