Twenty-One #2
Nadiya jerked her arm free. “What are you talking about? What’s going on?”
But Professor Blanchard didn’t reply. Instead, he turned to face the audience, gave a beatific smile, and said into the mic, “Ms. Karam has been kind enough to volunteer herself to demonstrate my latest innovation. Thanks for being such a good sport, Nadiya—and a useful test subject.”
He stepped to the center of the arena. “The technological advances that have been made in the last few months at Valeran are
nothing short of groundbreaking. I’m sure you’ll all agree that Ms. Karam is leagues above her fellow students. So I thought—why
not give her real competition, and the audience a good show?”
The crowd murmured in bewilderment. Nadiya searched again for Dr. Iver’s face. He wasn’t even looking at her. He was speaking,
instead, to the rep from the Farm, who continued to look unmoved.
Professor Blanchard strolled back through the side door, giving her a wave before vanishing.
The nodes on Nadiya’s temples burned. There was the crackle of static in her ear. Briefly, her vision flashed black. And then
a figure materialized before her.
It had dark hair gathered into a high ponytail, bangs framing an oval face. Olive skin gleamed in the sunlight. Large, wide-set,
deep brown eyes were set over sharp cheekbones. Slender fingers curled around the hilt of a gun.
Nadiya stumbled back. “You—”
“Me,” the figure replied. She replied in Nadiya’s voice, wearing Nadiya’s skin. A perfect replica, down to how her nose flared in that cocksure way and
her brows arched with challenge.
Blood roared in Nadiya’s ears. She took another step back, and the replica followed. Mimicking her movements, like a mirror
image.
Fear choked her. Nadiya looked desperately up into the crowd. Dr. Iver was watching as the Farm rep etched a note onto his
pad.
He wouldn’t stop this, she realized. No one would. Dr. Iver had known what would happen all along—he knew her better than anyone. He had to have known she would volunteer. And now here was the profit of all Professor Blanchard’s secret, sinister work.
Nadiya’s gaze shifted briefly to Giselle. Her face had gone pale.
The replica advanced, pistol held aloft. It was still smirking, Nadiya’s dimple slicing its left cheek.
Nadiya drew her own gun, but the hand that held it was trembling.
“Stop it,” she bit out—as if such an aberrant creature could be reasoned with. As if she were not looking into her own pitiless
eyes.
The replica fired first, and Nadiya ducked as the bullet soared past her shoulder. Distantly, she heard it make impact with
the wall. It should have been impossible.
The bewilderment unbalanced her physically. She dropped to her knees in the dirt.
Before she could scramble to her feet, the replica approached and stood over her. It blocked out the sun, even though it had
no shadow.
“Weak little girl,” the replica sneered.
Until now, Nadiya’s heart had been racing too loudly and her mind had been too muddled to understand. Now the realization
hit her like a blow to the head.
The replica was speaking Arabic. She hadn’t heard the language in so long and she was surprised that she remembered it at
all. Memories came pouring back.
“Shut up,” Nadiya gasped. “Shut up—”
She launched herself at the replica, arms around its waist, pinning it to the ground. Or so she thought. There was nothing
substantial to hold. It was a hologram, even if it looked as real and solid as she did.
The replica smiled up at her. “You’re stronger than I thought you would be.”
Nadiya slammed her fist into its face. The hologram warped briefly, and her hand thudded emptily into the dirt.
The replica laughed. “But not as smart.”
That was when she realized something else: The replica spoke Arabic that she understood. It was impossible.
If it had been Modern Standard Arabic, that would have made enough sense to her. It would have been programmed in, a single,
simple line of code. But there was no explanation, absolutely none, for the replica to know the particular idiosyncratic,
undocumented dialect of a tiny second- and third-generation community of Lebanese Americans in New Jersey.
None except—
She couldn’t allow herself to think it.
Nadiya brought her fist down again. And again. Her knuckles made indentations in the dirt. She was panting, her shoulders
rising and falling. The crowd must have thought she’d gone mad.
She didn’t care. She pounded the replica’s false face, her face, over and over again. Shivering clouds snaked across the sky overhead. Even if the crowd had been roaring, she wouldn’t
have known it. All she could hear was the thudding of her fist on the ground, and the replica’s laugh, its voice.
Weak little girl. Weak little girl.
Her wrist shuddered with a tingly numbness, and fear descended bleakly. She couldn’t—she couldn’t—Nadiya slumped forward,
arms braced around her head, as if she could block out the sound. A high, desperate scream cut the air, and it took Nadiya
a moment to realize it was coming from her.
The earth shook as the crowd rushed down from their seats.
Stop, she thought. Please, don’t—
They were vultures, picking her over. Watching with both disgust and vague satisfaction as Nadiya Karam, Valeran’s princess,
the school’s greatest soldier, lost everything, her reputation, her sanity, bleeding out in the dirt.
Suddenly, a pair of arms closed over her head.
“Leave her alone!” cried a familiar voice. “Get away from her!”
Giselle.
She was kneeling on the ground beside her, drawing Nadiya protectively to her chest. Shielding her.
It was enough to keep Nadiya anchored, but only just. Her stomach heaved. The crowd pressed closer. Blood was in the air,
tangy, she could taste it. The dust they kicked up gathered in her throat and choked her.
The crowd seemed to speak in one voice, blurry as an echo from below water. What’s her problem? She’s lost it. She’s lost it. She’s—
Nadiya tried to penetrate the crowd with her gaze, searching for Dr. Iver’s face. She saw only a tangle of legs and the hazy
shimmer of heat from the ground. But she could imagine the disappointment in his expression, the slight curl of his lip. She
could imagine the scratch of the Farm rep’s pen against his notebook page as his brow furrowed in mirrored dismay.
She squeezed her eyes shut, hunching closer to the ground. Nadiya tried to focus on nothing except the sensation of Giselle’s
arms around her. But the crowd plucked at her entrails and the fear rained down on her without remorse.