Counterpart (11 page)

“Some trick. There's only one of me.”
Or is there?

He snorts. “For now.”

“So let me get this straight. You're saying all of this is my fault, simply by virtue of the fact I didn't stop it?” I clutch the edge of the counter, my knuckles whitening to the same color as the porcelain sink, and shake my head. “That's insane. I'm not clairvoyant. I can't predict the future.”

“Predict? No. Plan for? Yes. You've done it before.”

He's referring to my cloning project again. What Lefevre doesn't understand is that the woman who organized her own resurrection is not the woman standing before him. Once, I thought I was, thought I had to be. Fundamentally, we share the same personality and appearance, but the original Rhona experienced events I have no memory of, and I've been through battles she never lived to fight. We're different now; separate but equal. Before and after. Twilight and the dawn. I'll always carry the responsibility for what she did, but I'll be damned if I'll be continually measured against her.

“No,” I say through my teeth. “You don't get to do that. You don't get to stand there and lay all of this at my feet. Don't you
dare
suggest this could've been avoided if I'd been more like my previous version. I'm the only Rhona that matters now”—
or at least the only one still on the side of right
—“and I've been through hell and back for this base, for the entire resistance. But I'm not perfect.”

“We all could do better,” he concedes. “We've grown too comfortable with the way things are here, and it's cost us. But to be a leader is to bear fault.”

I feel like splashing cold water on myself again. There has to be some way out of this nightmare. “Is that what you think of me, then? All this time we've been together, fought alongside one another. Am I just some
thing
—a pretty banner to rally behind?”

He hangs his head with a sigh, and when he speaks again, his tone is gentler. “It's not what I think, Commander. It's the image you've carved yourself into. This attack—it wasn't on McKinley.”

I almost snort. “Tell that to the command and military levels.”
Tell it to Rankin, who suffocated in a stairwell.

“The damage was substantial, but it wasn't only physical. This was a symbolic attack—on you. On what you represent to humanity. On everything this base stands for, and everyone who calls themselves your ally. You should be prepared for the consequences of this course. Rankin was…the latest. Not the last.”

I'm horrified and unable to keep it out of my expression. “How can you talk so callously? Like Rankin was just one more number to add to the statistic?”

“You mistake my tone for calm, Commander,” he answers. “It's not calm. It's fury.”

That's when I notice his hand on the door, as if he's holding himself back—or keeping himself upright. I don't understand anything about Lefevre's muted grief, or why he's choosing to express it in such cold logic, but I think he and Hanna share the same wound. He's just not letting himself feel it the same way she is.

Hmm.
On second thought, maybe I do know a little something about that. I remember someone else who once chose to hide their grief behind a hard wall of reason over teeth-gnashing and rending of garments.

I pinch the bridge of my nose, my head throbbing. I don't need this right now. “So—I should give up? Return all our heads to the sand? Cower and hide?”

“Too late for that,” Lefevre says, still not sounding angry. “They know where we are. There's no longer any other choice but to fight.”

“Damned if I do, damned if I don't.”

“That was always the case.”

He's not wrong.

“Well, then.” I straighten, trying to forget the image of the battered, burnt-out woman I saw in the mirror earlier. Trying to ignore the fresh sweat clinging to my forehead, and the slight tremor in my hands. “I have nothing to lose by trying. Do you know what that makes me, Orpheus?”

He waits.

“Dangerous,” I tell him.

Later, when Lefevre's checking in with Hawking on the walkie, I return to the bathroom. I find the toothbrush, snap off its head, and slip the sharp remnant into my pocket.

Four days after the attack, many of the same volunteers who put together our Concert of Voices in March organize a candlelight vigil in remembrance of the people we've lost. At last count, 139. Including one Lieutenant Rankin Moore, formerly of Texas.

I wasn't there when they finally freed Rankin from the stairwell, but when Hanna was asked to come down to the morgue and identify his body, I insisted on going in her stead. She was quiet for a long moment, but didn't fight me on it. We both know why. Hanna doesn't want to remember her husband like that, bathed in ash, stripped of humor and life, and I didn't want my friend to have that memory buried in her head for the rest of her life. Tonight, she'll get to say goodbye to him in a different way. A way that will let her begin to heal, I hope.

Hanna spends the whole afternoon before the vigil rummaging through people's closets to find me something appropriate to wear that doesn't smell like smoke. I dutifully try on every pilfered blouse and dress she throws at me, letting her fret and micromanage. First she thinks I should wear heels, then insists on flats. Heels are too sharp. Too hard. I try nailing her with a
That's what she said,
but no luck. Not even a smirk. Later, she spends half an hour painting my fingernails a fashionable burgundy, but before they even have a chance to dry, decides it's the wrong color and does them all over again in a soft nude.

I'm beginning to worry I'm making things worse by allowing her to go on like this, but in a private exchange with Camus around dinnertime, he assures me it's okay. Everyone has their own way of grieving. And he would know. For my own part, I make a separate trip to my now-ruined quarters while Hanna's busy negotiating for a cashmere sweater from some woman on the dormitory level, and once there I pry a long, red scarf from my wardrobe. The drawer sticks, and it's a fight to free the scarf, but once I do, I can't help taking a moment to hold the fabric against my cheek.

Rankin's voice floats back to me.
Found some nice scarves in a box…

He sounds slightly out of breath, his team having just been chased by machines into a manufacturing plant, but there's still a smile coded into that familiar drawl.
I was thinking of bringing one home for the missus. You want one?

I wrap the scarf around my neck, securing it with a simple knot at the base of my throat. Around me, the battered remnants of my life before strike me as belonging to a different person. Someone more whole.

I tighten the scarf a little more and head for the door without looking back. It's time to say goodbye.

The ceremony begins late as a matter of necessity. During the summer, Alaskan night often passes for day, with the sun refusing to disappear completely until well after 10 p.m., and for the first time in McKinley's troubled history, someone has the brilliant idea of gathering outside of the base for an event.

Who?

Oh, yeah. Me.

It's a nightmare trying to coordinate security, but somehow we manage to pull it off in time—with some help from our allies. Every ten minutes, the sonic boom of a Russian jet can be heard overhead, long seconds after it's already passed by. We've even set up antiaircraft equipment on the perimeter of Denali National Park, in case the machines choose tonight for another invasion.

Unlikely, but better safe than sorry.

The vigil is held in an open field near McKinley's hangar, some distance from the mountain. No one's set foot on this land in over five years, and it shows in the explosion of wildflowers and other flora. Ulrich, Hanna, and I trample bright purple alpine veronica, blue weasel snout, and cotton grass to join the hundreds of others waiting for darkness to fall. The air here is fresh and clean, like breathing the vapors off an ice cube. So different from the recirculated slush we're used to underground. I wish I could bottle it up and take it back inside with me, a small reminder of the world beyond McKinley's walls. The one we're trying to reclaim.

I take a deep breath, hold it, then another. If nothing else, the exercise helps settle my queasy stomach. Everyone here is expecting me to say a few words. Nothing I scribbled down on the paper crammed into my pocket even comes close to truth. I might have to wing it.

Hanna jerks to a stop, yanking me out of my worries.

“What is it?” I turn back. “What's wrong?”

She says nothing.

Ulrich looks between us, and I nod toward the crowd. He places a hand on Hanna's shoulder—a brief, unexpected gesture of solidarity—then tromps off, giving us privacy.

“Are you okay?” I ask her, though I already know the answer.

Hanna's eyes have filled with panic, locked on the ring of survivors just ahead of us. She bites down on her knuckle, gaze still fixed on the crowd. Even wearing a golden blush from the setting sun, she appears pale and deathly. Vampiric. Her platinum hair floats loosely around her face, occasionally tugged by a breeze. She never bothers to move the hair away from her mouth or nose or eyes. Lets the strands slap her all over. Lets them stick.

“Hanna?”

She signs,
I can't do this.

Yes, you can,
I sign back, sidling closer. She takes my arm with both hands, and I feel her trembling, like a pipe rattled by pent-up steam. I look her in the eyes, enunciating every word so she can read my lips. “You don't have to say anything. Hey, I'll even light your candle, if you want. Not to brag, but I'm pretty good at striking matches…”

The whole time I'm speaking, Hanna's shaking her head. It's so violent, I'm not even sure she's watching closely enough to know what I'm saying. My jokes roll off her like water. I just want my friend to smile again.

“All right. All right.” I gesture for Hanna to stop, and rub her arm. She takes shuddering breaths, focusing her eyes on my scarf. “Do you want to go back inside? I'm sure I can find someone to escort you back to Medical.”

Hanna looks back at Denali, then at me. Signs,
Yes.

Then, almost immediately after,
No.
I don't know.

Only a fingernail of sun clings to the horizon, but it's still enough to make both of us squint. The long evening shadows are beginning to fade, and when I look up, I can almost make out the stars. White pinpricks against a vast gradient of blue and orange. It's almost midnight. Almost time for the vigil.

“Come on.” I snuggle closer, so we're standing shoulder to shoulder. The truth is, I need Hanna here tonight as much as she might need me. All these people are expecting me to voice their anguish, but like I told Camus this morning, I'm not good at loud, showy despair. I prefer to bottle everything up until it shatters me in private. You know, like a healthy person. “We'll do this together. You remember what you told me, that first time we lost people on an away operation?”

Hanna shakes her head.

“Me neither.” I wink.

For the first time since the attack, Hanna grins. Her deathlike grip on my arm lessens. It's a start.

“Commander Long.”

I repress the urge to roll my eyes at the sound of Renee Hawking's voice behind me. Her timing is impeccable. Like rainy weather on the Fourth of July.

I force a smile onto my lips and turn toward her, still keeping one hand in my pocket, pressing the tip of my finger against the sharp end of my toothbrush-turned-shiv.
Not safe.
Since the attack, those two words hum in the background of my thoughts.
Not safe not safe not safe.
Wrapping my hand around the handle of the shiv helps quiet the anxious feedback. Makes me feel more in control, even if that's only an illusion.

So far, I've managed to keep my little improvised weapon a secret from everyone, even Camus. I don't like keeping things from him, but he has enough on his plate without having to worry about me accidentally poking an eye out, either mine or someone else's. Still, I'd be lying if I said my heart didn't jump into my throat every time he went to fold a pair of my pants—neat freak that he is—wondering if I accidentally left the shiv inside one of the pockets. It'd be nice if the council would just give me back my freaking gun.

Speaking of the council…

The last slivers of sunlight are harsh on Councilwoman Hawking's black skin, highlighting every pockmark and scar from a long history of life. She's forgone any makeup for the occasion, and maybe it's the horizon's hard glow, but her eyes already look red, the skin around them puffy, like she's been crying.

“Councilwoman Hawking,” I greet her, a little gentler than I might have otherwise. “What can I do you for?”

Even with her poisonous suspicions, Hawking hasn't called me out publicly. She wouldn't dare. Lefevre was right about one thing, at least—I wield most of the base's political power. I'm the heavy hitter. For all the council's talk of treason, they can't sacrifice me without risking our alliances. It's my face everyone trusts, not theirs. Which means for everyone outside the council's shrinking circle of trust, it must look like business as usual within McKinley's halls of power. I find my political capital reassuring, like a safety net, but problematic at the same time, as if said net hung only an inch above concrete. By the time I start to fall, it'll already be too late.

Clasping her hands in front of her, Hawking asks me for a private word.

I hesitate to relinquish Hanna's arm. “I'm a little busy right now. Can it wait?”

She smiles without showing her teeth, eyes slanting toward Hanna then back to me. “It'll only take a moment.”

I'll find Ulrich,
Hanna signs to me, replacing Ulrich's name with
the Muscle,
since it's quicker. Hah. Makes me wonder what shorthand she uses for me and Camus when not spelling out our names.

After Hanna's gone, Hawking makes a show of looking around. “I don't see your other half here anywhere. Where is Commander Forsyth this evening?”

“I thought you wanted to speak with me,” I say.

“His absence will be noted, you know. The people like to see both their commanders present at events.”

Events, she says. Like this is a potluck. “I don't know where Camus is. Busy, probably.”

Or, just as likely, he decided not to come. Camus tossed and turned all last night, jolting me awake several times, until I finally hit him with a pillow. In the morning, when I reminded him of the vigil tonight, his mouth flattened into a line and he confessed he didn't much care for public grief forums. When he returned without me from Anchorage, all of McKinley held a similar vigil in the cafeteria, praying for my safe return, unaware of the truth: I was already dead. Camus had to attend, light his little candle, and pretend there was still hope. Hanna told me about it once. I think that memory still rolls over in his head every now and then, pressing down on him like a stone.
How much worse would he feel knowing he'd left more than just a dead body behind?

Hawking puckers her mouth. “Busy? Too busy for this? For you?”

“What did you need, Councilwoman?”

“I was hoping you might know where he is. He's who I need to speak with, actually.”

“I don't,” I answer, crossing my arms, “but if there's a problem, you're welcome to run it by me.”

She gives me another hollow, political smile, her eyes still shining like bloody waters in the dying light. “I suppose it can wait.”

As she turns to leave, I have two thoughts. The first is
I hate this.
This feeling that important things are taking place without my input, people talking behind my back, events moving too quickly. And me, being dragged behind them by the wrists.

Unfortunately, my second thought is
Why was she crying?

“Wait.” I almost groan the word. It's enough to cause Hawking to stop and face me. She arches a single eyebrow, tight-lipped, but her stiff, defensive body language suggests she's expecting an attack. “Are you all right?”

Hawking stares at me as if I just accused her of being a lizard person. Which, come to think of it, could explain the cold-bloodedness…

Empathy, Rhona. Empathy.

“Your eyes,” I say, pointing at them.

“Allergies.” She delivers the lie effortlessly, but she's fooling no one.

“What? Are you eating the plants?” I'm hoping the joke will function as an icebreaker between us. Until the attack, I got along perfectly well with the councilwoman. We may not have agreed on everything, but in the two months since her election to the council, she'd proven herself a reasonable sort, at least willing to consider another's viewpoint even if she disagreed with it. But fifteen minutes of incriminating footage and you'd think I was the reincarnation of Hitler.

Hawking smiles stiffly. “If you see Commander Forsyth, tell him I'd like to have a few words with him. Commander.”

She dismisses me with a nod. I resist another smart-aleck remark, letting her walk away. Shaking my head, I find Hanna and Ulrich on the edge of the crowd, just as a few volunteers are coming by with candles for the ceremony.

What did she want?
Hanna signs anxiously. Ulrich, too, looks interested.

“Just to wish me good luck tonight with my speech,” I lie, watching the volunteers. The candles they're passing out are all different shapes and sizes: everything from skinny birthday-cake toppers to fat, decorative monsters that look like they belong in a castle sconce. Many have crispy wicks set in a small valley, drooling bubbles of cooled wax along the side. It was the best we could do on such short notice.

Nice of her,
Hanna signs.

“Oh, yeah. Nice is the first word I'd use to describe Renee Hawking.” One of the volunteers stops next to our little trio and, recognizing me, digs through their box to find one of the better candles. Digs and digs, muttering to himself. I select a slightly lopsided one from the top of the pile, saving him time. “This is fine. Thanks.”