Page 62 of The Brightness Between Us

I roll my eyes. “Okay, okay. This is very funny. A simply hilarious Dimokratía stereotype.”

“Much like that skirt.”

I look down at my skirt. “My fustanella? The military leather garment that allows for an unparalleled combination of protection and mobility on the battlefield? Sure. Maybe it’s remarkable to you because you’re not as free of stereotypes about male clothing as you pretend to be in Fédération.”

“Touché. Fine, Kodiak Celius, sure. You got me.”

Is this fun? Are we having fun? Maybe we’re having fun. THUNK.

Ambrose stamps his feet again. It’s notthatcold. Perhaps he’s nervous. And why wouldn’t he be? I’m nervous, too. He takes a deep breath of air. “So. Without Devon Mujaba coming to order us around, we have to chart our own course. I’ve got some thoughts, but I’d love to hear yours first. What’s your plan out here?”

I look around. A sheep, many trees, bright open sky,mountains in the distance. What more could I want? “How do you mean, ‘what’s your plan’?”

“You know, where to go, what to do? A plan!”

My best course is obvious, isn’t it? I guess not. I cough. “We stay here. Going to Titan was more than a mission for me. It was my sole purpose in life. That was my greatest joy, conditioning myself for that transcendent purpose. When it was taken... it was hard. Very hard. It is good you didn’t come here even a few weeks ago. But I’ve started to feel something besides loss. I am surprised to find... triy. I guess you could call it ‘relief’ in Fédération. I’ve never been alone before now. For short periods, yes, but not like this. Now no one has control over my destiny anymore but me.”

“Until I bumbled along and messed everything up.”

THUNK. “I know you’re this bright shining light of Fédération society, but even so, that was maybe a little too self-important.”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I think it was pretty accurate about my importance.”

“Your sister, maybe,” I say, putting a smile on so he knows I intend to tease. “She was that important. You? I don’t know.” I wonder what the Kodiak of even a few months ago would be doing in this situation. Chasing Ambrose off, no doubt. That Kodiak is gone, though. Everything was stripped from him, and this new me wasborn. The one who is willing to talk to a sworn enemy. Maybe it’s as simple as the fact that the “sworn” part is gone. Maybe the very concept of “enemy” has less heat to it now.

I look up to the sky.

Ambrose follows my gaze. “Somewhere out there, copies of us are meeting. Or they will be. A long time from now,” he says.

He knew just where my thoughts had led.

THUNK.

“I don’t mind that you came here,” I finally say. “This is the sort of company I’ve wondered about. What it would be like to be around people who haven’t been assigned to be with me.” I think of Li Qiang, who might have hidden himself away here with me if we hadn’t come up through a system that pitted us so ferociously against each other. A vision: him pulling himself out of a dark pool, shirt ragged, face bleeding, hands empty. Gasping until he could finally speak, his eyes wild and wounded.You have stolen my future.Was he a friend?

“I wish we could know what will happen to us up there on the ship,” Ambrose says. He sighs heavily. “My brain isn’t able to imagine it.”

“I figured that Fédération would have selected someone whose braincouldimagine it.” I meant that to be a joke, but when it comes out it is only mean.

He startles, then softens. “I see we’ve progressed to teasing each other. To be perfectly honest, Kodiak—and I think I can be, since you and I are never going to be on a mission together, just our clones—I’m almost certain that I’m not the strongest candidate. Not by a long shot. I’m sorry your clones have been saddled with me. But, with Minerva... dead, I’m the Cusk child remaining who’s had the training and is the right age. And my mother wasn’t about to send someone who didn’t have the last name of Cusk to be the future of humankind.”

I can’t imagine saying something like this back to Ambrose. Saying that I’m a failure. It’s just a way to sound weak. But it makes me feel warm to have thoughts like these said to me, like I could someday put words to the things I’ve failed at and not feel shame. It’s as hard to imagine as our clones’ lives on that ship.

Perhaps he’s gaming his way into my trust. I don’t think that is true, but then again, my feelings were wrong about my purpose in life, so perhaps my instincts aren’t to be trusted. Who knows, maybe Devon Mujaba didn’t set us up here to save the world, but to murder us in peace and quiet, and we’re actually safer because he’s been captured. The hard part isn’t not knowing things. It’s not knowing what I don’t know.

THUNK. “The war,” I say. “Getting hot. Tell me the details.”

I watch Ambrose as he considers what to say. “From what I was able to pick up on my way here, it’s armed conflict between all the Dimokratía and Fédération regions in South America. Significant flare-ups elsewhere in the world. Brasilia is the worst, though. It’s playing out a little like Juba did, back in the fifties.”

THUNK. “Let’s hope not completely. The aerosol that Fédération deployed, the petrifier. Horrific.”

“Um, you mean thatDimokratíadeployed.”

THUNK. “You really believe that?”

Ambrose pauses. “Yes, I do. You think I shouldn’t?”

“This way you think about Dimokratía might not be the truth. You might be full of easy stereotypes.”

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