I don’t understand the strange new world I’ve stepped into. But suddenly I am grateful for Hennessy’s hand and his apparent willingness to let me hold on to it.
Finally the crowd around us starts to disperse. Couples return to the center of the room to “dance” to the music. Groups return to their seated conversations centered around topics I can’t even begin to understand. But one boy is still making his way across the floor toward Hennessy and me, carrying two tall, delicate stemmed glasses. His suit is the color of the night sky, the darkest blue I can imagine, with shiny black lapels and matching shoes.
“Waverly!” He leans forward to kiss me on the cheek, and I suck in a surprised breath. “I hear you pulled out all the stops to sneak into the enigmatic Lakeview compound, just to come wish me a happy birthday!”
Compound?
I give him a smile. “Happy birthday, Seren.” I am so thrilled and relieved to have figured out his name that I don’t even hesitate to speak to him, despite a lifetime of training to the contrary.
Smiling, he holds one empty stemmed glass into the stream of a pale golden liquid flowing from the fountain in the center of the nearest table full of food. The liquid fizzes in the glass. He hands it to me, and though I know he intends for me to drink, I can do nothing but stare at his right wrist, where it is extended from the cuff of his shirt.
He has no bar code.
How can he function in life with no bar code? How can he sign in for an appointment or check out recreational equipment without one? How can he get a lunch tray or be issued a fresh set of clothes? How does he gain access to his tablet? How will he someday start a CitiCar?
Surely in his native city not every meal is served on crystal plates, from tables piled high with food. Surely not every drink pours from a fountain.
I glance around the room again as I slowly lift the glass to my mouth. The boys’ wrists are covered by their shirt cuffs and jacket sleeves, but most of the girls’ wrists are exposed by sleeveless dresses. Not one of them has a bar code.
Who are these people?
“Waverly?” Hennessy has noticed me hesitating with the glass inches from my lips. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Thank you,” I say, but the common courtesy seems to confuse him even more. So I drink, and the bubbles pop in my nose and mouth.
I laugh at the strange sensation. Then I take a longer sip.
“Your favorite, right?” Seren says as he fills his own glass.
I can only nod. I have no idea what Waverly’s favorite is, or what I’m drinking. It’s sweet, yet the undertone is a bit bitter. It’s not unpleasant, but it will take some getting used to. The best part is the bubbles.
As I lift the glass for another sip, the jeweled cuff slides up my arm, revealing a thin slice of my bar code. Terrified that I’ve exposed myself, I hastily transfer the glass into my opposite hand and shake the cuff down to cover my right wrist. Just in case, I keep that arm pressed against my side.
As I stare off into the room, glancing from face to face—dizzied by the variety of features and the lack of any unifying color, clothing, or mark—the reality of this strange world finally hits me.
These people belong to no bureau. They aren’t gardeners, soldiers, seamstresses, or cooks. In fact, they seem to serve no purpose whatsoever.
Was I, like Waverly’s friends, created to serve no purpose? For no other reason than to eat extravagant food while we say nice things to one another aloud, then whisper angrily into one another’s ears?
If that is so, why was I ever given life?
Why were any of the partygoers in this room ever designed in the first place?
“What is this?” I hold my glass up for Hennessy to see when we’re alone in the crowd again.
“The champagne? I don’t know what vintage Seren is serving, but knowing the Administrator, it’s expensive.”
I have no idea what champagne is, but I’m even more confused by what the Administrator might have to do with a party thrown for a boy—an individual—from another city. At first I assumed that she was simply hosting a diplomatic event, but the guests are all my age, and they seem to represent no one but themselves.
While Hennessy fills his own glass, Margo returns with another girl and they each take one of my arms. I feel as trapped as I was in my cell at the Management Bureau. And a lot less safe.
“Doesn’t Waverly look beautiful tonight, Sofia?” Margo says, and relief floods me. Evidently she’s no longer angry about the dress.
Then I get a good look at her friend’s long dark hair and olive-toned skin. She looks different, with her face painted, but I recognize her anyway.
Sofia is the girl I saw arguing with two soldiers on a sidewalk in the training ward the day several thousand of Trigger’s identicals graduated. The bold girl wearing strange clothes, who kept refusing to get into the patrol car.
She didn’t even glance at me or my identicals that day. If she’d noticed our faces, Waverly’s secret would already have been exposed.
My act wouldn’t be working.
“She does look beautiful,” Sofia says, squeezing my arm while I try to piece together facts and events that don’t seem to fit. I deduce from her resemblance to Seren—how can she look so much like him yet still be a girl?—that she is his “sister.” They must share some strange genetic connection, but I can’t understand how.
“Where did you have that dress made?” she asks. But her too-wide eyes and pursed lips make me think she isn’t really interested in the answer. Which is fortunate, because I don’t have one.
“I love what you’ve done with your hair tonight, Waverly,” Margo says. “It’s so I-don’t-give-a-shit. That must feel liberating.”
“I…” Her statement sounds like a compliment, but it feels like biting into an apple that has gone bad on the inside. Maybe she’s still angry after all.
“It’s not like she could go get her hair done,” Sofia says. “No one would have believed her as a trade laborer when she was sneaking in through the service entrance.”
“Of course. And I guess that explains this au naturel thing you have going on with your face.” Margo makes a gesture vaguely encompassing my head, and I can feel my cheeks flame. I don’t understand everything they’re saying, but I’m clearly being made fun of. I’m the only girl here whose face isn’t painted.
“Don’t worry about these hyenas.” Hennessy plucks his sister’s hand from my arm. “They’re just jealous because it takes them hours in a salon chair to look half as beautiful as you do when you roll out of bed in the morning.”
Salon chair?
“You’re laying it on thick this evening, brother,” Margo says. But she actually looks a little contrite. I don’t think she intended for him to hear her.
“Waverly can handle herself,” Sofia adds. “And anyway, we’re not throwing any muck she hasn’t thrown at us a thousand times.”
“Thank you,” I whisper to Hennessy as both girls head onto the dance floor, where two boys are obviously waiting for them.