Sparked (The Metal Bones Series Book 1) (24 page)

Chapter 36

I would never have imagined my life like this.

My life was not supposed to be like this.

My life was not this.

Confined. Controlled. Convoluted.

A Mr. Potato Head piece for them to disable and rebuild however they wanted.

That’s not me.

That’s not Vienna.

I am my own.

I frowned.

I was my own.

But now . . .

I was a trinket to play with, to pick and prod until someone deemed fit to trash.

My hopes and dreams, a whim for them to amuse themselves with. My thoughts ready to collapse when they decided to pull the trigger. It felt as if the real me was up above, looking down, not recognizing the person huddled, defeated, below on the cement.

Who is that person?

Who is that person cowering in the corner? Is that me?

Is that Vienna?

I eyed her pale translucent skin, her thin yellow hair and wondered if that was what had become of her.

And wondered if that was what had become of me?

Is that . . . what has become of me?

I think I used to believe in there being a purpose, in everything happening for a reason, a light at the end of a tunnel, a silver lining in a dark sky. I think. Or maybe I never did. Maybe I thought things just happened the way they happened and I was just swept up in the whirlwind it created.

I don’t know.

I wish I did.

I wish I knew a lot of things.

Like why there was a warmth pulsing against my back, spreading over my body. When all I can remember is cold. A numbing cold.

It doesn’t make sense.

Everything should be cold.

My muscles ached, tight and constricting. My head pounded in my ears, deafening, thundering against my skull. I shifted and concrete jabbed against my shoulder and my back . . . my back slid against . . . someone else’s.

My eyes popped open, sensations and realizations inundating my mind, my heartbeat accelerating against my chest as I realized, as I felt, pressed against me, another person.

Another person in the cell, with me.

Chapter 37

I stilled my breathing. 

A shirt rubbed against mine.

Go back to sleep,
I willed the person cozying up on my back.

“Oh good,” she croaked. “You didn’t die on me.”

I froze.

“Hey?” She shook my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

She touched the bruise on my back, and I winced. “Not anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

I rolled over and closed my eyes against the sudden onslaught of the florescent light.

Pound. Pound. Pound.

“I was worried about you for a while there,” she said.

I rubbed my eyes and felt her tuck me into the blanket. I squinted against the pressure in my head and finally looked at her.

Blond and black hair doubled in my vision.

Pound. Pound. Pound.

I closed my eyes and groaned.

“What happened to you?” She leaned over me, blocking out the light.

“Don’t move,” I said and cracked an eye open.

Her hair fell, casting her face in shadows and her arms seemed to glow from the florescent light above her. Her left arm was decorated with a black-and-white tattoo sleeve of a dragon breathing fire down into a field of roses.

“Your tattoo is beautiful,” I said.

She swept her hair to the side and turned to look at her tattoo.

Oh. My. God.

Her eyes, her nose, her lips, her face shape, the tint of her blond hair . . . all mine.

“You look . . .” I swallowed, completely unable to form the words.

Exactly like me.

She gaped at me then, shock in her pale blue eyes, in
my
tiny almond shape, with
my
arched eyebrows. She shook her head at me, her wispy blond hair flying around her face.

So much like
. . . like mine would.

“How is it you look so like . . . me?”

Oh God. Do they make clones of us here? Learning about us so they can condition a clone to go
be
us?

“But your tattoos,” I whispered. “And your eyes, they’re blue.”

“They’ve always been.”

“And your hair.” I frowned. The underside was dyed black and the top was my blond color.

“Wow. If there was a sweet candy-colored-pink side of me, you’d be it
,
” she said, “and it’s a little appalling.”

“Excuse me?” My eye twitched.

“It would.” She shrugged and leaned back to sit at the base of the bed.

I eyed her and sat up. “I don’t understand, why do you look almost exactly like me?”

“No idea.” She picked at her nails. “The only other person who looked like me was my mom and she—”

I froze as her words dwindled on.

My stomach dropped. Her mom?

I leaned off the bed and held my head in my hands.

Don’t puke. Don’t puke.

I dry heaved, my stomach constricting with each heave.

She came over and held the hair away from my face. “It’s going to be okay. A lot of people have look-alikes or what do they call them?” She snapped her fingers. “Doppelgangers.”

I shook my head and groaned. “No.” I clutched my stomach. “It’s not that. You’re my”—her eyes were such a deep blue—“did your dad have blue eyes?”

She dropped my hair and it fell into my face. “How’d you guess that?”

I swallowed.

“I look like my . . .”
Mom
. I couldn’t seem to get the words out. My mouth hung open and my tongue sat there, paralyzed.

“No.” She made a face. “There’s no way. That’s too much of a coincidence. That would mean you’d have to be some long-lost relative of mine. Which is impossible because my mom didn’t have family. You’re just some weird carbon-like copy of me.”

This wasn’t happening.

This wasn’t.

I stared at her tattoo, something Mom hadn’t painted on her body. Yet.

“What’s your tattoo for?” I whispered.

She twisted her arm, just like the way I would twist my arm if I had to.

I pressed my lips together.

“To remind me what has been lost, what has been learned, and what has been gained. And everything I have overcome.”

“Oh.”

How deep.

“You have any?” She gestured at my body.

“I thought you said I was your pink-candy clone.”

She laughed. It was deep and rich and nothing like mine.

“I could picture one on you, though,” she said.

Maybe that’s because I’m a mirror image of you.

“I could see you having one right across your back.” She traced a line behind her neck and smiled.

It was the same smile as mine. My stomach turned.

“So.” She leaned back. “How’d you end up here?”

Paula flashed through my mind. “Have no idea.”

“
Sure
. Let me guess.” Her eyes twinkled. “Robots?”

Almond, brown, screaming eyes thrashed through my mind.

I settled back on my bed. “No.”

“No?” She lowered her voice and scooted toward me. “Because I think that’s what we’re in here for.”

“How would robots have anything to do with the reason that we’re in here?”

Unless they somehow found out about Alec and me. But that doesn’t make sense. He was sent before “us.”

“It’s the link.” She leaned in, our faces nose-to-nose, and whispered, “It’s the one thing everyone in here has in common. We have all, in some way or another, rebelled against the use of robots.”

Oh. No. And therefore, we each rebelled against the government.

“Think about it. What would happen if our rebellion spread? What would the people do? Focus on why robots were created in the first place? Focus on why we were never told in the first place? Or, more importantly, focus on a way to make the government take robots away—to make the government stop them from being in use, for even the government.”

My eyes widened.

We would open the holes the government was trying so desperately to close.

Goose bumps rose along my arms and I cupped my hands over my mouth.

“Don’t you get it?” She continued. “We are a liability. The questioners. The rebels. We could spread. We could grow. We could ask the right questions. And then where would the government be? Stuck. A sailboat floating helplessly in its own thunderstorm. To them, we are dangerous.”

“But they can’t—” I swallowed. “That can’t be enough of a reason.”

“Isn’t it?” She whirled her fingers in the air. “Then tell me, what do you think you’re in here for?”

Something about unity?

But my robot protest, my searches at the library, my computer searches. I led them straight to me. I made it so easy to pick me off.

“Robots are a vital part of society,” I said instead.

Although I don’t exactly know why I said it.

“Who”—she frowned, the same way I did with one eyebrow slightly higher than the other—“who did you say you were again?”

“I didn’t.”

She snorted, and it reminded me so much of Mom and Aunt Becky that a ping pulled at my heart. “I thought I would have recognized most of the people in here from the news, but”—she cocked her head—“I don’t remember seeing your face.”

“It wouldn’t have been.”

“Why?”

“My . . .” I swallowed. “My parents wouldn’t have reported me missing,” I said simply.

Her fingers twirled in the air, itching for something. “Neither would mine.”

“What’s your name?” She crossed her arms. “And please don’t tell me it’s the same as mine.”

“That would be something short of a miracle.” I rested my head against the cement wall. “I’m Vienna.”

“Good. Because if you had my name”—she narrowed her blue eyes—“I’d have to take you out.”

I gulped. She probably would.

“If your name was Vienna,” I said, pretending to be more interested in playing with my hair, “I’d help you do it myself.”

“We’re both in luck then.” She held out her hand. “Name’s London.”

London. London. London.

You’re her.

She’s officially my . . . my cousin.

“It’s called a hand. You shake it.” London waved it in front of me.

“Is your brother . . .?” I took a deep breath. “Is your brother Lester?”

She stilled, her hand dropping to her side. “Who told you that?”

“And your mother, is her name . . .?” My tongue stuck to my mouth. “T-Ta-Tamera?”

She grabbed my jacket and hauled me against the cement wall. “Who the hell are you and what the hell do you want with me?” Her blue eyes inches from my face.

“You’re her,” I whispered as she slid one hand to my pinned neck. “I’m Vienna,” I said, trying to pry her hand off my throat. “Vienna Avery.”

She slammed me against the wall again.

My head hit with a crack and I winced.

“Let go. That freakin’ hurt,” I said, scratching at her hands.

“Who the hell is Vienna Avery?” she hissed in my face.

“I’m Diane’s daughter,” I said, hoping something would ring a bell.

“What did you just say?” she asked, her hold loosening.

“Diane’s daughter?”

“That’s. Not. Possible.”

“They have a third sister,” I choked out and tried to slam my elbow down into her arm. “B-B-Becky.”

“How am I supposed to believe, for one second—”

I punched her in the face, knocking her off my bed.

I heaved in air as she scrambled to her feet. I coughed and held out a hand to stop her from approaching.

“Don’t touch me, again,” I managed, and dropped, my lungs groping in air. “You look . . .” I said, finally catching my breath. “E-E-Exactly,” I said again. “Like me,” I breathed.

“And you pack a punch, for being cotton candy,” she said, caressing the side of her face.

“You were suffocating me.” I closed my eyes and enjoyed drinking in the air.

She paced back and forth. “Just cause we look alike doesn’t mean a thing.”

“Have you ever seen pictures of them together?”

She stilled. “Pictures?”

“They all looked the same,” I whispered and opened my eyes.

“My mom always said she didn’t have any family. But everyone has to come from somewhere. And those names.” She pressed her lips together. “She used to say them in her sleep, Diane and Becky.”

“Aunt Becky has two children, Sydney and Joel.”

She scoffed. “More cousins.” 

“What about your brother, Lester?” I swallowed. “How is he?”

“That’s a great question, and when I find him, I’ll let you know.”

“Is he missing, too?”

“You could call it that. He left after our mom died, when I was fifteen. Haven’t seen him since.”

“Oh.”

“The only good thing he ever gave me.” She rolled up her sleeve to show her full tattoo. A dragon flew out of the moon and stars, its head down, with fire flaming from his mouth into a field of roses.

Amazing.

“Was he a tattoo artist?”

“It was the only thing he gave a damn about.”

I nodded. “Was your mom an artist?”

“Would have been the next Titian.”

I closed my eyes and I felt Aunt Tamera’s hands pressing along the crack of my partition.

Titian.

“He was her favorite painter, you know. Titian this, Titian that. She told us our father always believed Titian was her one true love and that no one could ever compare.” She quieted. “She told us that was his excuse for walking out.” She twiddled her fingers again. “Seemed like a load of crap.”

“Sounds about right,” I whispered, and pushed Aunt Tamera back into the darkness. It was only a crack in my partition. Nothing more. “Sounds like our family in a nutshell.”

Lies. Secrets. Questions unanswered.

London fit in more perfectly than I did.

Blood relation to blood relation, cousin to cousin, family to family, and perfect stranger to perfect stranger.

Nothing more, nothing less.

From old skeletons to new skeletons, from forsaken mothers to forsaken sisters, from letting barriers stay where they fall, to using anger as a way to override pain. 

I rested my head against the cold wall and heard boots echo along the corridor.

Really, what perfect timing.

“Green?” Bacchart sat with his chin in his hands.

“Green what?”

“Who’s Green?”

“I have no idea what green is.”

“Not what.” He twisted my file around. “Who?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He sat back in the chair. “What does green mean to you?”

“The color of money?”
What are we going for here?
“The color of the grass?”

“If you were to pick a person to name as being green, who would it be?” He snapped his fingers. “Now!”

“I-I-d-don’t know. A greedy person.”

“A name. A name,” he said, exasperated. “A name of a person you know.”