Your One & Only(69)

I can’t bring myself to talk to Carson and Mei about how this will all end. They have so little time, and so little left to them, so I say nothing. I know, whatever happens, all of us will be gone soon anyway.

I’ll destroy the samples tomorrow, and that should end it. The sooner they’re wiped out, the better.

Let the earth start again. Let it be something new.

Eden.

The word is a drop of poison on my tongue.




The remaining pages of the journal were blank. With unsteady hands, Althea turned the last page, where she found a separate note, in different handwriting. It was written by Inga-296.




Althea Lane’s death was recorded as the day after her last entry, but the record says she died from the Plague. She didn’t, of course. She killed herself. I don’t know exactly when Carson and Mei died, but I think it was at the same time as Althea Lane. Perhaps they were killed when the others learned what Althea did, but I prefer to think they died in the Tunnels, trying to help her.

Through my research, I learned that Althea Lane did manage to destroy the original samples. When the clones discovered this, they came looking for her. She hid in the Tunnels, which back then were so vast it would have taken a long time to find her. They trapped her inside, intending to starve her to death, but they didn’t know about the explosives the Original Carson had secretly stored.

The caverns collapsed with the detonation. It wasn’t an earthquake after all—that was just the story we’ve been told. Althea Lane died, buried under a mile of rubble. She thought she would destroy the clones’ ability to produce more clones, but that was three hundred years ago, and we’ve successfully reproduced using the copied, previously cloned genes, mostly with no trouble. At least until now. She did succeed in destroying us, it just took three hundred years to come to fruition. Once we began cloning from our own cells, we deteriorated further with each generation. Without fresh genetic samples, we’ll continue to deteriorate.

The clones back then made two more generations of Elans before they finally gave up and stopped making the model entirely. It wasn’t just the music; it was that they fractured all the time too, and caused conflicts. Maybe they were right to blame the music. I can hear it now, as I write—Jack is in the other room with his guitar—and I’ve fractured.

The clones back then never could isolate the gene that allowed the Elans to understand music. I can’t isolate it in Jack’s cells either, and music comes so naturally to him, like an instinct. It’s the most human thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve looked, I’ve seen the ribbons of protein and molecules. Music doesn’t live there any more than my love for Jack does. They think we’re all contained in strings of code, but we’re so much more than what can be seen through the lens of a microscope.

I understand now that we’re not what the Originals wanted. We were supposed to start reproducing the way they did, keep humanity alive, but we didn’t do that.

I’ve heard other stories, about people leaving Vispera, leaving the communities. They slip away in the night like the Elans wanted to do. There’s a place—the humans called it Merida. It’s north, on the old maps in the Tunnels. That’s where I’ll go.

I see how you look at him, Sam. You love him, and I think perhaps you love me, too. I hope you’ll find this, and if you do, I want to say I’m sorry. I can’t risk telling you where I’m going. You’re not ready to understand what it means to love someone, or to even recognize it, and you don’t want to leave Vispera. It’s your home; it’s where you belong. But it’s not my home, not anymore.

It might be a long time from now, but if I make it out, I think there will come a day when you’ll want to find me and then we can be together.

Until then, I hope you’ll think of me as not just another Inga, but as the person I’ve become . . .

Your one and only,

Inga-296




Althea clutched the discolored book to her breast, her heart beating wildly. The poem Jack had shown her popped into her mind, the one that called loss an art. Even losing you, the poem said. Had Inga-296 thought of Samuel-299 when she read it? Was that why she kept it, because she knew she would lose him? She loved him, that was clear, even if the letter didn’t say it outright.

What Althea had just read, it went against everything she was taught about her purpose, her people’s existence. The Original Althea had hated them all. She’d sought to destroy them. Althea felt dizzy as suddenly every belief she’d ever held became a maelstrom of questions and doubt.

Feeling lost, she looked down at the two books in her trembling hands. She smoothed the cover of The Ark Project. She had to find Jack. The Ark was not a book, of course. She knew now what Jonah was looking for. She just didn’t know what he wanted with it.



The night air had cooled. Althea could still smell the smoldering remnants of the boats. Even if Jack was asleep, or if he was still upset about what had happened between them, this was vastly more important.

She hadn’t walked far when she saw him standing in the shadows on the path to the clinic.

“Althea,” he said, keeping his distance. He was still mad.

“I’m sorry about what happened earlier,” she said.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”