Your One & Only(10)
They weren’t all like that, though.
Jack searched through the ten Altheas, looking for the 310. The Altheas were graceful as they danced. They moved with a fluid ease that left their dresses flowing behind their legs like birds’ wings. They were pretty, with their long dark hair and smooth limbs. He liked the way their mouths turned down in a flat, serious line when they were thinking hard about something.
He always remembered Althea-310 from that day at school. She’d been the only clone that whole day who’d looked at him and smiled. He’d search for her anytime he walked through town. He’d see her, sometimes with one of the Nylas, or he’d pick her out from her group of sisters by searching for the scar on her wrist. She never spoke to him. He’d tried a few times to talk to her, but she always scurried off or was pulled away by her sisters. There were times, though, he was sure of it, when he caught her staring at him, and there was something in her eyes. It wasn’t pity. It was something else, something better. Like maybe she understood him.
The Altheas’ long sleeves covered their arms and the scar that would be on her wrist, and as they swirled together in the dance, it was impossible to tell which one was her.
Jack kept watching, though, and as he did, his foot tapped to their movements. It was a struggle for them, learning these dances. It reminded Jack of Sam trying to figure out the rhythm of catching and throwing a baseball. None of it came naturally to them, and their only hope of learning the intricate moves was through rote practice, memorization, or careful counting in their heads. Dances for the clones were an exercise in mathematics as much as anything. Jack never let on how different it was for him, the way he could hear music in his head pulsing steadily in time to the steps.
He picked up his guitar, getting ready for the end of the dance and to speak to the Council. He was second-guessing whether he should actually play for them. They wouldn’t enjoy the music, after all. Maybe he would just show them the instrument and introduce the concept. He would Declare as a teacher, perhaps, rather than a musician, but he would teach them music.
His fingers brushed the strings absently as his eyes lingered on the dark hair of the Altheas all spinning with the other clones. The pad of his palm thumped lightly against the wood, and he strummed the strings again. Slowly, he picked up the movement of the dance, and without thinking about it at all, he plucked the strings in time until a soft melody only he could hear synced with the dance.
It was several moments before he realized a hush had spread across the crowd, and the dance he’d been lost in came to a confused, disjointed halt. A Mei bumped into a Carson, who had stopped suddenly. They all stared at him. Not just the Gen-310s onstage, but the entire audience of all the other Gens in Vispera. The 290s, 280s, the old 240s at the food table, even the little 320s. And the line of Council members, seated in the front row, who’d twisted around to see what was going on. And they weren’t just staring. They were glaring, their eyes cold and resentful. The last reverberations of the guitar faded away as his fingers stilled, and the echo was loud enough for him to understand that he’d been playing much louder than he intended. They’d heard him. He hadn’t meant to play at all. He’d assaulted their ears with a noise that to them sounded like no more than wasps droning in the roof of a barn, and he’d done it without thinking. He’d just ruined everything.
It was such a stupid mistake.
Jack saw Sam in the line of Council members. The man met Jack’s gaze, and the only thing Jack could see in his eyes was disappointment. Jack’s throat burned.
They could hear it if they tried.
The rebellious thought crept its way into his mind, and he forced it away. That kind of thinking wasn’t going to help.
His mother, at the end, had heard it. Her eyes had shone with the understanding. It was right before she’d run away, taking him with her, that she’d first heard it.
Carson-312 jumped down from the stage, a furious crease between his eyebrows. Jack could tell it was the 312 by the patch in his eyebrow where the hair had never grown back after Jack’s fist had split his skin. Before Jack could stop him, he’d wrenched the guitar away.
“What’s wrong with you? Why are you even here?” Carson said, raising the instrument out of Jack’s reach.
It stung that Carson’s questions were the same ones Jack asked himself every day.
“Give it back,” Jack said.
Adrenaline pulsed through him, but he tamped it down. The Council, and Sam, were watching. Jack refused to give them a reason to punish him. After that day in school, they’d locked him in the labs for a long time. He wouldn’t let them lock him away again. He knew they’d spent days back then discussing whether they were going to let their experiment continue. Jack had been too scared to ask Sam what terminating their de-extinction project would mean for him. He clenched his fists against his side and stayed seated, waiting.
“Give it back,” Jack repeated.
Carson’s eyebrows rose with Jack’s words, and Jack realized he’d made yet another mistake. He shouldn’t have let Carson see how much the guitar meant to him. Carson grinned and moved closer. Jack stood and backed away until his legs hit the chairs behind him. Maybe if he played nice, Carson would quit squeezing the neck of his guitar, knocking the strings out of tune.
The Declaration was in disarray. Most of the remaining Gen-310s were still onstage, though the dance had ended. The audience had begun to disperse, not really clear on what was happening and confused by the interruption caused by Jack. A small cluster nearby still watched the two boys, including the Council members. Jack was on display. They wanted to see how this confrontation would play out, and Jack would bear the brunt of anything that went wrong.