"So, you're okay?" Em asked for the what felt like the millionth time in five minutes.
"Em, listen. I'm okay. You don't need to worry about me." Sarah replied loudly over the speaker phone in Beth's Jaguar as she sped down the highway. "I just had to get out of there before he got too comfortable and started asking me more questions. I need time to figure out what leverage I have on the whole situation."
"And you really don't think he knows about you and the whole…clone thing?" Em whispered the last part. It still felt weird to say that word out loud. It should only exist in sci-fi dystopian literature, not as a noun to describe a very important detail in her family tree.
"If he did, I don't think he'd let me out of his sight."
"He didn't. You escaped…"
Sarah's clone phone started buzzing and she looked over to see Cosima's name pop up on the screen. Saved by the scientist, Sarah thought. She didn't want to indulge Em's anxieties about her safety for any longer. "Cosima's on the other line. Can I call you back later?"
Em rolled her eyes. Her sister's deflection over her safety didn't go unnoticed. "Sure, fine. Please be careful and call me if you need anything. I mean it, Sarah."
"Yep, bye." Sarah quickly hung up.
After Em had reached out to Cosima last night about meeting up to talk, the scientist had replied this morning agreeing to call Em within the next few days. The teen couldn't help but feel a bit nervous about the prospect of meeting up with a clone one on one. Which was ridiculous to think since she'd unknowingly done just that for her entire life.
With her attention back on Siobhan's laptop, Em scrolled down the University of Minnesota's online bulletin board to the poster for Dr. Aldous Leekie's Neolution seminar. It was today, this afternoon in fact. She'd looked online and there was no audio livestream available so she hoped that Cosima would attend and be able to fill her in on the professor's keynote.
Em stared at Leekie's face on the screen in front of her. Something about this guy really bothered her. The smug smile wiped across his face in the photo was an obvious red flag but it was the notion that this 'scientist' was so insistent on the idea of a self-directed evolution that really troubled Em. She'd read about people who took his thesis so seriously that they'd pierce their fingertips with magnets to provide the illusion that they were giving evolution a kickstart on telekinesis. Neolution didn't sound like a scientific theory, it was more like a cult if anything.
Em's bedroom door rattled on its hinges as S burst into the room.
She quickly shut the laptop. "Ever heard of knocking?"
S smiled falsely and headed over to the desk Em was sat at, "Good morning to you too, love." She pointed towards the laptop, "How's it going?"
Em had lowered the screen as soon as S had appeared, shielding the tabs containing information about Dr. Leekie and some very large photos of both Cosima Niehaus and Alison Hendrix. Something told her that Siobhan wouldn't be as gullible to believe they were pictures of Sarah in costume.
"Huh?"
S raised her eyebrows, totally unconvinced that her daughter was borrowing her laptop for school work but decided to humour her anyway. "Science project? Can I see what you've been working on?"
"Oh, it's…it's really not very interesting at all. Lots of charts and numbers…hypotheses." Em drifted off.
"Mm-hm. Okay, well as long as you wrap it up soon. I'll need it back for work on Monday."
"Okay, I'll try."
"Nope. You won't try, I want it back by Monday." Siobhan waited for a nod of acknowledgement from the girl. "Kira is at swimming this morning. Fancy heading down to Tommy Thompson Park? Take a look at the birds?"
Em turned her body towards Siobhan and sighed, "Mum, I can't – I really have to work on this."
"Nonsense. You can take a few hours off to spend some time in the fresh air with me!" Siobhan held the door wide open for Em to follow her downstairs.
Em sat for a moment but knew this was a battle she wouldn't win, not without a fight. Things were going really well with S and she didn't want to rock the boat. Besides, she needed something to take her mind off of whatever shitstorm Sarah was wrapped up in with Paul.
"Come on. Get your stuff together and I'll meet you in the car in a few." Siobhan beckoned further.
Em sighed in defeat, put the laptop to the side and gave her mum a mock salute as she walked past her in the doorframe, "Yes, ma'am."
Sarah noticed Alison's eyes were full of panic as she let her through the basement door, still wearing her pink-chequered pyjamas. "Hey. What's the emergency?"
"Um." Alison was frantically looking around the room, her eyes darting from wall to wall. She moved too quickly and wouldn't stand in the same spot for more than a second. It was as if the floor was lava. Sarah wondered for a small moment if she was high; her movements resembling that of a coked-up junkie. "You might want to sit down for this."
Oh, shit! Was she a junkie? "Uh. I'll stand, thanks."
"Okay." Alison moved her hand to the craft room door and pushed down on the handle.
"Who's that?" Sarah peered around the door frame and spotted a fully grown man tied up to a chair in a pink satin blindfold. His ears were covered in matching pink sound protectors and his chest was marked with dried wax, the skin below red and blotchy. The man was obviously distressed, as he writhed around in the chair and attempted to yell for help through the cloth that had been rolled up and stuffed in his mouth. What the bloody hell was going on?
"That's my husband."
"What?"
"I think he's my watcher!" Alison's hands flew up to her face.
"Jesus Christ, Alison! What have you done?" This was definitely worse than a coked-up junkie.
Siobhan strolled along the shore of the lake at Tommy Thompson park, binoculars hanging around her neck, her teenage foster daughter beside her. It was a cold winter's day and the sky was cold and heavy but a sliver of warm, golden light ran across her face and she basked in the small ray of sunlight. Moments like these made it all worthwhile. It was calm and she was peaceful.
"No way!" Siobhan's moment of silence was disrupted. She stopped walking and looked over at her teen, gawking at the sky, eyes glued to the binoculars. "Great Blue!" Em looked over to Siobhan and nudged her.
S smiled and checked on the species of bird Em was claiming to have found. Sure enough, a migration of Great Blue herons flew past them. "Looks like it."
"I thought they'd already left by winter?"
"You're right. It's rare to see them this time of year. Wonder what they are sticking around for." Siobhan kept smiling over as she watched Em peer excitedly at the birds. "I thought you hated birdwatching. I recall tears and tantrums whenever I'd drag you along."
"You sure that wasn't Felix?" Em chuckled.
"Touché!" The two kept on walking along in comfortable silence for a while, only the occasional sound of sniffling away the cold air and bird calls singing out in the distance. Finally S broke the quiet.
"Tell me about this school work you've been obsessing over."
"What?" Em noticed the woman chuckle slightly and smiled at this rare sighting of carefree behaviour.
"I just can't believe I said those two things in the same sentence regarding you."
Em nodded with a smile. Siobhan was right, Em had obviously never been all that dedicated to school at all. Learning was a different story; she could talk about a particular subject of interest in detail until you had to shut her up. But any type of enthusiasm towards the Canadian high school curriculum was null and void.
"So," S pushed on, "What have you been working on?"
Em couldn't tell her mother the truth, for obvious reasons. She hadn't been working on school work. In fact, she couldn't remember the last time she'd focused on any lesson in school since Sarah's great revelation. The teen had been giving all her attention to Clone Club, research included.
"Biology assignment. It's all to do with genetics, the minutia of biological differences, abnormalities…" It wasn't necessarily a full-on lie, Em reasoned with herself.
For a moment, Em wondered about the life she was missing out on. Would she have ever gained some kind of natural balance to life as a high schooler? If she had really applied herself, maybe she would have even made a friend at that school. She remembers how she'd ditch school to go to a dark and dingy apartment in the middle of the city and get high with Jax. But that whole life feels so far away from her now. It all seems so juvenile now it was hard to believe she had only just been that person. When had it all shifted?
"That makes sense. All those questions about your genetics…had to be coming from somewhere." Em was still so wrapped up in her thoughts, she didn't even catch on to the slight questioning in Siobhan's tone. "Love, I –" the older woman opened her mouth to say more but was cut off by a shrill ringing, an unwelcome noise in the harmonious setting.
Em noticed the ringtone from her clone phone and shielded her body to hide the cell from Siobhan's eyes, "Sarah? You alright?"
Em had apologised to Siobhan and rushed home from the park, grabbing a change of clothes from the house. Felix had picked her up on the way through the city and they'd grabbed some last-minute party supplies. They sat quietly in the back of a cab, driving through suburbia, watching each house blend into another. Em looked down at the navy-blue turtleneck and pale grey jeans she had found at the back of her wardrobe. This was the closest to 'dressing suburban' she would allow herself to get. Although she had brushed and tied back her hair and worn a little less eye make-up than usual. Sarah better appreciate this, Em thought.
Felix, however, had completely embraced his new character. Em glanced over to her brother and chuckled at his outfit: leather mules, a button-down shirt, suit jacket and light tan chinos. His hair was, as always, perfectly coiffed but today, it sat in a deep side parting and bundled together on the left of his head.
Em reached across the back seat of the cab and pulled at his jacket, "Is that an ascot?" she laughed.
"It's a pocket square! And it's all the rage in this month's GQ." Felix batted his sister's hand away, exasperated at her lack of fashion know-how.
"So, this is what normal looks like."
"Trust me. We're far from normal."
Finally, they pulled up across the road from Alison's large house. Felix paid the driver, stepped out of the car with a flourish and headed towards the front door. "Alright, Em. Time to party with the party."
Em gawked at his elegance as he strutted towards the house, "Christ… I can't believe we are doing this."
"Oh come on, Em! Get into character." Felix beckoned his sister to the basement entrance and knocked on the door three times.
After a few moments, someone opened the door. She wore a pink blouse with jeans, a hairband to pull her dark hair back and her lips were painted a crimson red. It took Em a few moments to decide whether it was her sister or a clone, that was until the woman took a look at what she and Felix were wearing and burst into laughter.
"Oh shit! I totally thought you were Alison." Felix voiced for both of them.
"What are you wearing?!" Sarah managed to get out in between breaths.
Em pointed at her sister and handed over a bag of ice, "Have you looked in a mirror? There's a thing on your head."
Sarah rolled her eyes and took the bag with a smile, "Shit as they say is completely sideways."
"So what's going on here? What do you need?"
Sarah exhaled, "Monthly potluck. Alison's whole neighbourhood is upstairs and her husband is tied up in that room."
"Mm, kinky…" Felix narrowed his eyes and edged towards the locked door.
Sarah blocked his entrance, "Fe, listen – I need you to tend bar, keep all these people happy, and keep a low profile. Em, there's a load of kids running around, please just keep them out of Alison's way." She waited for a nod from both of her siblings before adjusting her headband and turned once again to her sister. "Oh and she's stressin' about gift bags…?"
Em held up her hand, acknowledging this was, surprisingly, in her wheelhouse. "You should have seen the hype I got from Kira's last birthday party bags. I'm on it."
"But perhaps no firecrackers this time. Something tells me that won't go down quite as well in this neighbourhood." Felix raised an eyebrow at Em.
Sarah glanced towards the the 'off limits' door and Em followed her gaze. "Is he really tied up in there?"
Sarah rubbed her head, stressed, "It's a shit show."
At that moment, a ball hit the basement window, startling the three siblings. A young girl with chocolate eyes and dark hair in pigtails opened the door. "Sorry Mummy!" She called over to Sarah.
"Gemma. You remember Felix?" Sarah sprang into character, and Em realised she was being Alison. If it wasn't so perturbing, Em would be able to appreciate the small gestures and Canadian lilt her older sister seemed to pull off so seamlessly. But the moment was far too uncanny and she had no time to process it before the little girl bounced over to Em's brother.
"Felix! Have you come to play?" Gemma exclaimed excitedly.
Sarah was all too aware that Gemma's dad was bound up and blindfolded in a chair just next door. She ushered the group outside and gave Felix and Em a quick nod before returning back to the crafts room to check in on the hostage.
Felix patted Gemma's head awkwardly. "Hello, darling. I'm helping your Mummy today... but I've brought the next best thing!" He pulled Em to his side, "This is my sister and she'll play with you all day."
Em glared at Felix, thanks a lot. "Hi, I'm Em. "
Siobhan moved around her kitchen with ease, plucking the 'good' peanut butter down from the top shelf in the cupboard.
"And I swam a whole length holding my breath. I only had to come up to breathe once!" Kira regaled her swimming lesson tales she carried her dirty laundry over to the older woman.
"That's brilliant, Chicken!" Siobhan plopped the sandwich plate onto the kitchen table for the girl and threw the dirty clothes into the machine. "Come eat your lunch."
Kira nodded and jumped onto her chair, slowly peeling away at the crusts of her bread. Siobhan took this moment to head upstairs into Em's room. She picked up a few socks and errant shirts that lay around the teen's room and turned to head back downstairs with the laundry. The laptop caught her eye as it sat unprovoked on the desk. Siobhan couldn't help but think about how determined Em was to spend the day working on her project until a call made her abandon her plans for the day to flock to her sister's side.
So help me God, if Sarah had got her sister caught up in trouble, S cursed under her breath, lifting the laptop open slowly. The reflection of the screen shone bright in her eyes and Siobhan stared at the image in front.