Page 37 of The Brightness Between Us

But what to do about it?

The assistant leads me to the most restricted corporate elevator, both of us getting our clearances scanned and double-scanned before we can board. The receptionist who glances at us while the doors close is so perfectly beautiful that I can’t tell if they’re a real human. Within seconds we’ve shot into the sky and arrived back at my mother’s floor, leaving the landkeepers behind. Apparently they aren’t coming with us, not this time.

As the doors open I expect my mother—or at least her assistants—to be waiting. But the upper-level corporate lobby is empty. And strangely quiet. Where has everyone gone?

I follow the assistant down the hallway until we’re outside the plain door from yesterday, the one that leads to thesignal-jammed room where my mother told me I wouldn’t be rescuing my sister. What will I be finding out today? The assistant gestures me in alone, then closes the door behind me.

My mother is waiting inside, arms behind her back.

I collapse into one of the antique desk chairs. “What’s today’s big revelation? Am I actually a sentient rock? Or maybe I’m a piece of Camembert.”

“What?”

That was probably the first time I’ve ever even tried to joke with my mother. For good reason, it turns out.

She looks at me flatly, then her eyes widen. “Ambrose, what have you done to yourself?”

I pluck the soft cream robe away from my body, adjust the gold circlet on my head. “Do you like my new look?”

“No, the—are thoseskinprints? You well know those aren’t allowed in the academy. Those aren’t allowed on spacefarers. And what is that written on your chest— ‘Violence’?”

“It’s ‘Labels are the Root of Violence,’ actually. But my shirt has to be off to read the whole thing. And Mother. Tell me you’re not serious right now. You’re upset that I’ve broken the student code of conduct? After you cloned me without my permission so you can launch twenty of me into space to suffer?”

“We’ll get those removed. The prints. It will be painful,but that can’t be helped. Nothing to be done about it yet; you’ll just have skinprints for your recording.” She gestures to the plain table before me, which I now see has a reelcorder set up on it.

I sit before I know what I’m doing. Even after her deep betrayal, I guess I’m still that ten-year-old, terrified of moving down in the rankings of my dozens of siblings. Maybe I’m ten years old for good. I shift my seat so I can look into the cam. A man with a fuzzy gray beard stares back at me from the interface. I vaguely remember him. “Hello there, Ambrose,” he says. “It’s nice to see you again. I’m the director of the reels arm of the Sagittarion Bb project. You knew me as the Titan mission recordings director, though.”

“Super,” I say. “I didn’t know you were into fiction.”

He blinks. “Right. Funny. So. I know Chairperson Cusk is there with you, because she just finished recording her session. Hello there, Chairperson Cusk. Can you say your full name and confirm that there is no one else in the room with you? I don’t have access to any digital signatures in that jammed room, so I’ll need a verbal confirmation from both of you.”

“Cassandra Cusk. And yes,” my mother says.

“It’s just us,” I say, my skin tingling, and only half because of my hangover. There’s only one other time that it’s been just my mother and me alone anywhere, and that was when I found out I’d been cloned.

“Okay, great,” the man says. “This will be recorded onto physical media, with no networking aside from the gatekept link I’m using right now, so Chairperson Cusk, I’ll have to ask you to have it hand-delivered into orbit. The recording is already underway, so you don’t need to say when you’re ready or not; we’ll edit it so that the reel is smooth. Cassandra, have you told Ambrose what this is for yet?”

My mother glances over her shoulder. She’s been staring into the sky, and she’s not one to daydream; I wonder if she’s watching for signs of military aircraft. Or mushroom clouds. “No. You handle that.”

The guy blanches. “Sure, sure, no problem. Let me give it a shot. So, Ambrose, buddy, here’s what’s going on. You know about the real mission of theEndeavorby now. At some point, thousands of years from now, if all goes well, another version of you will arrive at an exoplanet of Sagittarion Bb, which will by then be known as its new name, Cusk. He’s going to need practical advice and instructions. That part we’ll take care of. But that version of you will also be overwhelmed, beside himself, lonely. We want him to feel like he’s seen and loved. We hoped you’d give him some emotional support.”

My legs are shaking.How dare you.And I also know he’s right. That new version of me will be barely holding on by a thread. He’sme. I know for a fact that he didn’t ask for this.

I watch the director try to read my face. “We’ll give you an opportunity now to say whatever you’d like to the clone of you. Whatever you think he’d want to know. Do you want to take some time to think about it?”

“I don’t. I’m ready. ‘Fuck you.’ That’s what I’d like to say. ‘Fuck you.’”

The director closes his mouth so tight that his upper lip puckers, evident even under his bristly mustache.

“Notyou, Ambrose,” I say, overenunciating into the reelcorder. “That was for this director man and for my mother.”

My mother slams her hand on the table, hard enough that her earrings rattle and one of her hieroglyph braids falls loose. “I understand you’re angry. That my son is angry at his mother. It breaks my heart, and I know I deserve it. But let’s both put those feelings to one side for the moment. You’re not just my son. You’re also a spacefarer performing his professional duty. You can’t change what’s happened. This childish mood you’re in will matter nothing to the Ambrose who’s out there on an unfamiliar world, who exists tens of thousands of years from now and is desperate to hear words of consolation as he assumes his role as the hope of all humanity. So put your emotional tantrum to one side, be the spacefarer this corporation has selected, andgiveyourself something.”

I bite back a few responses, each more colorful than the“fuck you” I started with. Just yesterday she was trying to convince me that my clones weren’t really me. Now she says I’m talking to my dear sorry self. But this version of me, the one who’s paying the real price for the dicking-over that my mom’s done, will need whatever solace I can offer. I arrange my cream-colored robe, fingering the silver hem. Just a few hours ago, this robe was on the floor of the Cusk Suite as Devon Mujaba and I writhed on black silk sheets. I still smell like him.

“Fine,” I say.

“Go ahead,” the director replies. There’s no irritation in his voice. I have to sort of like a guy who’s so patient with the person who just told him to fuck off. Then again, the woman who holds his career in her hands is also in the room.

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