Two Beating Hearts Read online

  “What would they do with us then? Did she know?” I knew what would happen to me but the others… maybe they still had a chance of staying alive.

  Rocky chewed his lip, not wanting to tell me. He was protecting me again, keeping the truth hidden in case it injured me. It was more frightening not knowing.

  “Come on, Rock. Just tell me. I can handle it.”

  “They want to store our organs and… dispose of the rest of us.”

  I gasped, even though I should have already guessed. Clones were created for their Makers. We were a bag of spare body parts that could be used whenever our Maker needed them.

  We were disposable.

  We had no rights.

  We weren’t human.

  But we were human.

  They didn’t realize that by giving us a brain and a heart we were more human than they were. We could feel everything they did to us and it hurt more than they could ever imagine.

  Rocky gathered up both my hands in his good one. “I want to run away, Wren. We can leave here, try to get over the wall, and never come back again. We can start a new life. Say you’ll come with me.” He searched my face for an answer.

  “Yeah, right. Like that’s even possible.”

  Sadness infiltrated his brown doe eyes. I had thought he was joking. I was mistaken. “There’s nothing keeping us here. We could disappear today and nobody will miss us.”

  “Except the troopers.”

  “Even more reason to go.” His face relaxed into a soft smile, framed by his mass of straggly, messy brown hair. “If they’re going to capture all of us, now is the time to do it, Wren. We can’t stick around for that.”

  I settled back into his side, feeling the warmth of his body against mine. “You’re forgetting the major flaw with your plan – the wall is impenetrable. We couldn’t leave even if we wanted to. They’d only catch us even quicker.”

  “I know of a way.”

  We’d had this conversation too many times before for it to be real this time. Rocky was always trying to find a way out of the city and I was always telling him it was impossible.

  As much as the troopers and everyone else wanted us out of their sight and lives, they couldn’t let us go completely.

  They needed us for their organs.

  If we were to escape, our Makers would be all alone. They would be dependent on finding another donor if gripped by one of the many common, horrible diseases. We were their only shot at surviving. We were a necessary evil.

  And a disease would get them.

  It got everyone eventually.

  For all the research the scientists did in the laboratories, the population was riddled with life-threatening illnesses. Clones were the only hope people had of making it to old age.

  The poor always died young.

  They didn’t have enough money for clones.

  Rocky took my silence for answer enough. “Will you just think about it? Promise me that, at least.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I replied, knowing it was something to dream about, not actually consider as a reality.

  “Good, because I really think we can do—”

  My hand shot up to cover his mouth. There were noises outside, the steady beating of boots on dirt trails. Rocky heard it too, removing my hand and sitting up straighter.

  Our ears strained to hear, trying to place where they were and how long we had until they discovered us. I could not be caught with Rocky. He was wearing a Wren-shaped target right on his chest.

  I silently stood, my stupid limp foot making me tumble against the wall. Rocky steadied me, silently asking me if I was okay. I nodded, praying I was quiet enough not to attract the troopers’ attention.

  “Hide.” I mouthed the words silently.

  Rocky nodded and we split up. He knew I would never hide with him, it too was a conversation we had shared too many times over our eighteen years.

  I always won.

  Outside the shack, I turned left and walked bent over, willing myself to be invisible and small. And quiet. Always quiet. I shuffled along, moving behind one shack after another until I caught my first glimpse of the troopers.

  They all looked the same in their white uniforms, helmets, and weapons. They walked in a team of four, their beady eyes always on the lookout for the one thing that would allow them to use their brute force and display their power.

  I hated them all.

  Crouching behind a shack, I watched them parade past. They were looking for me. I knew it without needing confirmation. President Stone was throwing all her resources into finding me and she always got what she wanted.

  Except this time.

  They moved in their little gangs, bursting into shacks and shoving their guns in the faces of terrified Defectives before moving onto the next one.

  If what Rocky said was right and they were going to kill us all soon, they wouldn’t have far to look. Nearly every Defective in the city lived in a shanty town like ours. It was easier – and safer – sticking together rather than trying to exist in the city alone with the Makers.

  Cries from down the way pierced the air. The troopers were terrifying a child somewhere. They enjoyed hurting us. It was a sport to them. Making a Defective child cry was nothing when they didn’t view them as a person. We were a product, manufactured for our Maker.

  The whole system was messed up.

  Out of the corner of my vision, a familiar gait caught my eye. I discreetly turned, peeking through the bushes at the trooper who caught my attention.

  It was him.

  The trooper that let me go.

  It was there in his walk, the way he held his gun like his life didn’t depend on shooting the thing, in the tilt of his head like he was asking a question, in the inkiness of his hair. It was all there, I would recognize him anywhere now.

  He was poking his head inside the shacks but keeping his gun at his side – unlike the others who went in gun first. Underneath his white helmet I caught a brief glimpse of his face, it was relaxed and open, his eyes alive with curiosity instead of burning with hatred.

  Why was he so different?

  My feet were moving before my sensibilities could stop me. I stuck behind the bushes and trees but I still managed to follow him. He didn’t move in pairs or teams like the others. He cut a lonely figure as he went from shack to shack, moving on quietly and efficiently.

  A bead of sweat ran down the side of his face. It had to be hot in his white uniform, covered from head to foot in the bulletproof fabric. They needn’t have bothered, Defectives didn’t have the money or means of obtaining any kind of weapons. It was illegal for us to have even a knife. We were the ones that needed protecting.

  From them.

  The man stopped as a small child of about three toddled into his path and fell over. She had a gimp foot like I did, tripping herself over. I held my breath for the poor thing, she had no idea how much danger she was in. Fear of the troopers had not been drilled into her yet.

  She cried as fat tears rolled down her cheeks. Blood was already starting to seep from her knees from the impact of the fall. The man crouched down and I bit my lip to stop myself crying out for mercy for the poor baby.

  He righted her, setting the girl back on her feet again. Her mouth was open in a wail as he patted her back. He was comforting her? Normally that kind of behavior would end with a sharp kick from the trooper. A broken rib would have been acceptable for them to keep walking.

  “Shhh, it’s okay,” he soothed.

  The child hiccupped a few times as she settled. Her round little face was still flaming red but her tears were already starting to dry up. Such an innocent little girl in the arms of a deadly trooper. It was akin to a fox watching over some chicks.

  I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move. I waited for the inevitable, for the violence that we lived with every day. It had to come. He was playing some kind of a game. Lulling the girl into a sense of safety and then pulling the rug out from underneath her. That ha
d to be it.

  “Where do you live, huh?” the trooper asked. The girl just stared up at him. She reached for his helmet, grabbing the strap underneath his chin and giving it a tug.

  He did the unthinkable.

  Perhaps more terrifying than anything else.

  The trooper laughed.

  The girl giggled.

  That was not right.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” The gruff voice sent a new wave of terror down my spine. It was another trooper. He stomped over to them, his gun pointed directly at the child.

  The trooper stood, leaving the girl on the ground by herself again. “Checking for disease. You know what these filthy Defectives are like.”

  The other trooper nodded. “We should just shoot her now. Save us all a lot of trouble later on. Look at her, deformed and pathetic.” He already had his gun trained on her, his finger twitching on the trigger. She started crying again, wailing like all her hopes were dead.

  All my breaths were caught in my throat, choking me. My heart pounded so hard against my ribs I thought for sure it would give away my location. Would I have time to rush out and knock him to the ground before he could pull the trigger? Would it distract him long enough to spare the child?

  “She’s not worth the bullet. Come on.” The man that saved me pushed his colleague away. He went reluctantly, clearly not happy about leaving the baby alive and breathing.

  Her cries punctuated the air.

  As they walked away, they looked like twins. Their arrogant stances and matching guns moved in sync. They were one and the same, like every other one of the thousands of troopers in the city.

  Cold.

  Unfeeling.

  Brutal.

  Which one was he really?

  I waited until nobody else was around before rushing out and picking up the little girl. I held her in my arms, cradling her to me so she wouldn’t make any more noise. The troopers shot things that annoyed them. A crying child rated pretty high on their list of things that were annoying.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I whispered, giving her a kiss on the forehead. I rubbed at her foot, knowing it probably caused her more pain that anyone could imagine. “You’re not pathetic. Don’t listen to them.”

  The child and I merged back into the trees where we remained cradled together for a very long time. I needed to find Rocky and the Defectives who were looking after the child. So much needed to be done but the lingering fear of the troopers kept me in place.

  It was only after the others started emerging from their shacks that I found the courage to move. The child was reunited with Defectives two shacks down. They had witnessed the whole thing and were just as relieved as I was that she had survived the encounter.

  Many hadn’t been so lucky.

  The troopers had taken away at least three Defectives. They were probably recalled for their body parts. Their Makers had most likely needed an organ or two. We would never see them again. Of that we were certain.

  Defectives went missing all the time.

  We all knew what happened to them.

  I searched the shanties until I found Rocky. A flush of relief washed over him when he saw me – mirroring mine. At least we had both survived the latest search.

  We ran into each other’s arms, needing the contact to confirm that we weren’t both dreaming of the other’s existence. I couldn’t live without Rocky. He was the only constant thing in my life apart from the fear.

  “Thank goodness you’re okay,” he gushed when he let go. He tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “They took Leaf.”

  “I know, I’m sorry.” It was always worse when you knew one of the taken. Leaf had shared food with us on more than one occasion. He could build a fire better than anyone in the village. I would never be able to look at fire again without thinking of him.

  “I’m going to go help fix some of the shacks that they wrecked. Meet you at the center tree tonight?”

  I nodded and Rocky kissed me on the forehead before heading off with some other guys. We seemed to spend our lives either running or trying to fix the damage left behind by the troopers. Meanwhile, all the Makers in the city attended parties and soirees. I always wondered what they did at soirees. Such a fancy word for sitting around talking and drinking.

  “Hey, Wren. We’re going on a food run. You in?” I turned around to see Daisy grinning at me, a smear of dirt on her cheek.

  “Isn’t it a bit dangerous after the raid this morning?” The troopers always expected us to retaliate after they stormed through our camp. We never did but that didn’t seem to matter much to them. Some prejudices were inbuilt from birth.

  “Nah. We’re going into the Hills. They won’t have any idea of what happened down here.” Daisy waved away my concerns. She was an inch shorter than me, her white-blonde hair the perfect testament to her name. “So, you in? We gotta get going.”

  “I’m in.”

  A girl still had to eat.

  Chapter 3: Reece

  The shanty town was a mess today. I didn’t know how those Defectives managed to survive when we gave them so little. They were the true warriors.

  Not us.

  We walked around and thought the president’s shield on our uniforms would protect us from everything. We assumed the fear we instilled in others would be enough to keep us alive.

  We were all delusional.

  If the people of Aria really wanted to take back the city and fight for what was fair, then we couldn’t stop them. Sure, our guns would go a long way to slowing them down but they wouldn’t win the war for us.

  One day the Defectives would realize that.

  They would fight back and take their rightful place in the city.

  God, I hoped they would.

  “Thompson, report,” the order was barked at me by Sergeant Malone. The buttons on his white trooper uniform strained around his girth. One day they were all going to pop and he would kill someone with the impact.

  I stepped forward and assumed the role of the man I was supposed to be. “We searched Village Alpha for the target. She was not in the location. Three others on the list were taken into custody and delivered to Laboratory Foxtrot. Sir.”

  Malone nodded thoughtfully, assessing me to ascertain whether I was speaking the full and absolute truth. He thought he was clever, always able to determine truths from lies.

  Malone knew nothing.

  I had been in his midst for four years and never once had he discovered my lies.

  Still, he reached a conclusion and moved onto the next trooper for their report. I was dismissed.

  There was no time to waste as I headed through the barracks. Our base was ten times the size of the Defectives’ village. Large buildings formed a protective square around the training grounds in the center. One was a school for new recruits, another an administration building. The remaining two were our living quarters.

  I ducked into the mess hall, hoping for some late afternoon chow. The cafeteria ladies hadn’t closed the kitchen yet so I was in luck. I grabbed a plate and took a seat.

  It was the first moment I’d had to think after leaving the village. A sense of melancholy had been with me ever since we stepped foot in the place. There seemed to be no logic for it.

  As far as our mission was concerned, it was largely successful. The few Defectives we picked up were all on the list of clones recalled so they could Fulfil Their Purpose. We wouldn’t get our ass chewed out for sloppy work.

  We didn’t get the target we were looking for, but we never did.

  I made sure of it.

  It was always the same speech before a mission in the village. Our number one target was President Stone’s clone. The trooper who captured her was guaranteed a nice retirement with a fat paycheck.

  I had seen her a total of once.

  And I let her get away.

  Let probably wasn’t even the right word. I encouraged her to get away. I showed her the means of escape and she took it. She dived
through that window and disappeared into the complete blackness of the night.

  I told no-one.

  If anyone found out I would have been dead within minutes. There would be no trial for a trooper that committed that level of treason against his president. My body would be burned on the ground where I would fall.

  Finally, I could pinpoint the reason for my melancholy. I had not seen the girl in the village and I had hoped I would. We had good intel that she would be there. She had been spotted only that morning and it was only logical she would return to her home.

  Every shack I had looked in there was a part of me hoping she would be in there.

  But she wasn’t.

  There was nothing about her that resembled President Stone except for her eyes. They were the same color and shape, but that’s where the similarities ceased.

  The clone’s light blue eyes were fearful but they were still kind. President Stone’s were dead and hard. They saw nothing but the worst in people and the world at large. The clone’s still held the innocence that Stone’s had long lost.

  I had to get the clone out of my head. If I were to survive in the army, I needed to keep my head straight. And she had a way of muddling all my logical thoughts until they were no longer in order.

  A group of troopers back from their own missions joined me at my table. We were all eating the tasteless and colorless lumps that were supposed to contain all the nutrition we needed for our line of work.

  I wished it was also devoid of aroma.

  My ears tuned into their conversation, an automatic response now after my training. A good trooper listened, they heard things they weren’t supposed to.

  And then reported everything to their superiors like tattletale children.

  “I’m sick of cleaning up the bloody mess those Defectives leave behind,” one of the corporals, Watson, complained before shoving a mouthful of the gruel into his mouth.

  The others nodded in agreement. One cleared his throat to speak. “We should just shoot the lot of them. That’s how they’re all going to end up anyhow. They should never even let them out of the lab, if you ask me.”