Part 13 (1/2)
”You're free to go, Amelia,” he said.
The world dropped out from under me with those words but worse still was the casual shrug that accompanied them. Where did his I-own-you possessiveness go? What happened to his claim that he would never be able to get enough of me? Apparently, he has. I think of the erotic excesses of the golden room and a bitter kernel of shame forms within me.
”You look far away,” Edward says gently.
I swivel my gaze to him and manage a smile despite the tightness in my throat and the constant threat of tears that I struggle to resist, afraid as I am that once I start to cry I won't be able to stop.
”Sorry, it's just a lot to take in all at once. I haven't seen much of the world beyond the palazzo until now.”
I don't see any reason to mention my excursion into the wilderness. The tension between him and Ian was obvious enough without throwing that into the mix.
My discretion notwithstanding, Edward's mouth tightens. It's clear that he's made his own a.s.sessment of what I have and have not experienced. Despite my best efforts, my appearance when I burst into the library might have something to do with that.
Still he is a gentleman so he says only, ”Ian should have contacted me as soon as he found out that you existed rather than waiting until this morning to call.”
He called Edward this morning. After the night we shared. The hollow well of pain inside me widens. But despite everything else I feel, I am undeniably curious about the circ.u.mstances surrounding my awakening and all that proceeded it. If nothing else, they provide a desperately needed distraction.
”You had no inkling of what Susannah had done?” I ask.
He shakes his head. ”None at all. I didn't even know there was a clone. Our parents kept that strictly to themselves and Susannah never said a word about it.”
Ah, yes, the parents who would have gladly sacrificed me in order to save the version of me they regarded as their actual child.
”Do they know yet?” I ask, not relis.h.i.+ng the thought of having to confront them.
Edward looks surprised. ”Mom and Dad were killed eight years ago in a plane crash. There's only me and our grandmother.” His expression turns wryly affectionate. ”You may want to brace yourself. Adele is beyond thrilled. When I left to come get you, she was already putting the wheels in motion.”
”What wheels? What do you mean?” I ask with more than a little apprehension. I have no idea of what to expect when we reach this unknown place called 'home'.
”You're entry into society, of course,” Edward replies. A frown slips across his face. ”You didn't think we were going to keep you hidden away, did you?”
I wonder if that is another implied criticism of Ian but I let it go. Instead, I ask, ”Isn't that asking for trouble given the widespread condemnation of human cloning and especially of the replica process?”
He raises an eyebrow in surprise. ”Ian told you about that?”
”No, I read about it on the link.” I hesitate but decide that my only sensible course is to be direct. ”At best, I'll be regarded as some sort of freak.” I shudder inwardly at the thought even as I realize that far worse could happen. ”But I could also become a target for those like the members of the HPF who think that violence is the solution. That would put everyone around me, including you, at risk.”
His face hardens and I get a glimpse of the man he is capable of being apart from a caring brother--hard, determined, as ruthless in his own way as is Ian.
”You needn't concern yourself with any of that,” he says with casual arrogance that I can only think must be the product of generations of wealth and privilege. ”So far as the world is concerned, you are my cousin, Amelia McClellan, newly arrived in the city. There will be curiosity about you, of course, but nothing more.”
I'm shaking my head before he finishes. ”People will believe you have a cousin who just happens to look exactly like a younger version of your late sister?”
”Fair point,” Edward concedes. ”But you should know that the moment I saw you, I was struck as much by the differences between you and Susannah as by the similarities.”
I look at him uncomprehendingly. ”Our DNA is identical except for the mutation that was removed. Physically, I should be an exact copy of her.”
”And perhaps you would have been,” Edward allows, ”if not for several factors. When she was seven years old, Susannah broke her nose and cheekbones in a bad fall from a horse. The surgeons worked from holographs of her and did an excellent job of reconstruction. But there must have been lingering effects that altered how her features developed from that point on, effects you never experienced. In addition, being sealed away from the world in the environment that you were for so many years was bound to influence your own physiology. The end result is that while you certainly look like Susannah, you also look like yourself, different features and expressions, different body language. Even the timbre of your voice is different.”
I stare at him, wanting to believe yet afraid to do so. Several times, I caught Ian looking at me with what seemed like puzzlement but this is the first I have heard that my appearance is truly my own. I hesitate to let myself hope for too much but perhaps Edward is right and it will be possible to conceal what I am.
”Still, won't people wonder when I pop up out of nowhere?” I ask.
Grudgingly, he says, ”About the only thing Ian has done right recently is to put an ident.i.ty for you in the works. It will be ready in a day or two. When it is, anyone curious enough to look will find everything necessary to convince them that you've had a perfectly normal life from birth to the present day.”
”Can it be that easy to construct a false ident.i.ty?” Given what I gleaned from the link about the scarcity of anything resembling privacy for most people, I have trouble believing that.
”It isn't,” he acknowledges. ”Let's just say that Ian has the necessary resources.”
I want to ask how that fits with a business focused on developing high tech defense technology but Edward moves on quickly. He begins to fill me in about what I can expect in the coming days. The spring social season is getting underway. The non-stop whirl of activities is the perfect opportunity to introduce ”Cousin Amelia” to the world, or at least the wealthiest and most powerful part of it that claims the city of Manhattan as its own.
I find the prospect daunting but I have to admit that it also excites me. To be out in the world, to have the chance to meet new people and have new experiences. As profoundly as Ian's dismissal of me hurts, I am deeply glad to have a means of occupying myself that involves more than just brooding about how wounded I feel. And even worse, how much I already miss him.
The car turns onto an elevated highway and picks up speed. Miles whip past, little more than a blur of small cities interspersed with suburban communities. We move into a specially designated lane and begin travelling even faster. Traffic around us thins, becoming mostly delivery trucks and a few other luxury vehicles like ours.
Suddenly up ahead I glimpse a wall of gleaming gla.s.s and glittering spires so unlike anything else I have seen that for a moment I think I must be hallucinating. But the vision remains in front of me, growing in intensity.
Sunlight dances off the peaks of buildings that don't so much sc.r.a.pe the sky as boldly thrust into it. I have a moment, scarcely more, to take in details--metal twisted into ornate shapes, gla.s.s shot through with color, impossibly delicate lattice works of steel, crystal domes reflecting entire cloud banks, liquid light spilling down steep cavern walls in s.h.i.+mmering falls of pure energy.
A story embedded in my mind casts up a single word: Oz. But this is so much more, a dream of a city, the triumph of power and beauty that not even gravity seems able to restrain.
Then it is gone, vanis.h.i.+ng as we are swallowed by a tunnel.
”Almost there,” Edward says. His face appears pale and stark in the harsh light that leaves no s.p.a.ce for shadows, nowhere for anything to hide.
”This tunnel and another like it to the south are the two major routes into and out of Manhattan,” he says. ”No vehicle can enter either without a special pa.s.s. There is a handful of bridges but they are similarly restricted.”
I understand that he's telling me this because of the concerns I've voiced about my safety but the information raises more questions in my mind. What kind of world is it where the wealthiest and most powerful possess a private playground of unparalleled opulence set apart from everyone else? What makes them feel the need to seclude themselves to such an extent?
The car begins to slow as we get farther into the tunnel. I can make out raised platforms to either side manned by armed guards who look as intimidating as Ian's men.
With a start, I realize that I've gone from the heavily guarded palazzo to an equally well protected enclave of the elite. Either one offers luxury and security but both are in their own way prisons. I have to wonder if at some point in my life I will be able to experience genuine freedom.
Before I can dwell on that the tunnel is behind us and we are out into sunlit, tree-bordered streets that look as though they must be scrubbed down nightly. Neighborhoods flow past distinguished by rows of elegant brick townhouses mingling with larger loft buildings until they are overtaken by the soaring towers I glimpsed earlier, faced in marble and gla.s.s, hinting at vast, opulent interiors. Edward smiles indulgently as I stare in amazement.
The most startling sight is the people themselves. They are divided into two distinct groups. One is richly dressed, the men no less striking than the women, both given to extremes of fas.h.i.+on.
I can only gape at the sight of multi-colored silks and satins crafted into wildly ballooning trousers, fitted velvet vests from which gossamer wings extend, jackets with absurdly exaggerated shoulders, impossibly high boots, tightly girdled waists, hobble skirts that require the wearer to mince along, gossamer veils that drape the entire body but more than hint at the flesh beneath. Everyone seems engaged in a compet.i.tion to be more outre, more visible, more sensually outrageous.
”Is a carnival going on?” I ask Edward.
He looks surprised, then chuckles. ”I'm afraid not, although there will be soon.” He gestures at the pa.s.sing scene. ”This is just the city in all its frivolous glory. You'll get used to it.”
I will try but I have no interest in making any such spectacle of myself. Edward's quietly elegant appearance rea.s.sures me that not all the privileged elite are fas.h.i.+on mad.
”What about the others?” I ask.