Twinmaker

54

TWO FARMERS LIFTED Libby’s body and carried her through the Farmhouse. Clair stayed close, still holding Q’s hand. Q’s grip was getting limper by the moment. Her eyes were now completely closed. When they reached the booth—a big industrial machine shaped like a water tank with a curved, sliding door—they laid her on the floor inside and stepped back.

“Are you okay from here?” Clair asked, the last to leave.

Q’s head nodded fitfully. “It h-hurts, Clair. I j-just want it to s-stop.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

Q shook her head.

Clair lingered a second longer, still troubled by this broken vision of Libby’s body. Then she let Q go. The door slid shut behind her. The machine hummed and hissed, cycling matter and data in furious streams. It seemed an age since Clair had last been near a booth, let alone standing inside one.

“The dupes Improved Arabelle,” she said to the others, “and Theo, too. The dupes fixed the errors in their patterns before bringing them back. Gemma said that Improvement is like duping . . . and now we know it’s the other way around, too.”

“Is that how you knew they were dupes?” asked Jesse.

“That and the guns they pulled on me.”

Gemma was pale and staring at Clair in horror. Her fists were clenched.

“They won’t get a second chance,” said Arcady. “Not here. That I promise you.”

The booth chimed and the door began to slide open. Farmers and members of WHOLE alike raised their weapons. Clair stepped closer. Finally, she had a real shot at finding out who was behind all this. She tried to stand tall in her one-sleeved shirt and willed herself not to flinch, no matter what she saw.

Inside the booth stood a lone girl dressed all in black. It was as though d-mat had rolled back time. Libby’s body was uninjured and showed no signs of trauma. There was no sign of the birthmark, either.

“Hello . . . Mallory,” said Clair. The name felt strange on her tongue, directed at someone who looked exactly like Libby.

The woman tensed, but the pistol at her side stayed where it was. Her head tilted slightly to the right.

“So you know my name,” she said. “Don’t think that makes you special. It won’t change anything.”

The woman spoke with a voice that was neither Libby’s nor Q’s. The inflection was harder, more controlled. Confident, even when she was staring down a dozen angry men and women.

“Tell us about Improvement,” Clair said. “Tell us about the dupes.”

“Or else?”

Mallory raised the pistol and placed the barrel under her own throat. Before Clair could move, Mallory pulled the trigger and folded to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Arcady rushed into the booth, calling for a medical kit. Clair stared in shock. It was too late to do anything. She had more blood on her face and hands—Libby’s blood, this time, and the face of her best friend was ruined in her memory forever. No amount of effort was going to get Mallory to tell them her secrets now.

Jesse turned away, looking as though someone had punched him in the stomach.

Clair wondered why she didn’t feel more shocked. Mallory had been a living being, a person as vital as any other. Even if she was a dupe in a stolen body, even if other versions of her could be created a thousand times over, identical to the version that had been standing in front of Clair just moments ago, she had been alive. Now she was dead. She had thrown her counterfeit life away without a moment’s hesitation, as she would throw it away no matter how many times they tried to bring her back. That made the dupes seem only more formidable.

Yet Clair felt calm and focused. Clarified, like she had crossed some kind of emotional threshold—or saturation, perhaps, after too many shocks in a row—and emerged stronger on the other side.

Or else it would hit her later, when she could afford to let her guard down.

“Are you going to be okay?” she asked Jesse, putting a hand on his shoulder.

He nodded once, a bit too quickly, like he might be about to throw up.

“Secure the body,” said Arcady, giving up any thought of resuscitation. “It’s time to make plans.”