Chapter One
My second merge starts at 11:48 AM on the West End High soccer field, in the middle of my big sister’s valedictorian speech.
Alice says my first merge, when I was four, wasn’t that bad. She says Mom died later, not that night in our apartment. But she’s a liar. I was five, and I remember everything:
The maroon glow of another world’s sun in the midnight sky. The constant, low hum and the smell of roses and machine oil that filled our bedroom. An electric tang in my mouth that didn’t go away for hours. Mom. And the flash of white light that blinded all three of us just before…
Look, the point isn’t what happened. The point is that I remember, and that Alice is a liar.
Remember that. It’s gonna be important later.
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Albert Head, Victoria, British Columbia - May 23, 2043, 10:23 AM
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My head bounces against the window as the bus wobbles on its ancient shocks, and I jerk awake suddenly. My sister jolts awake too, reaching for something—but out of all the soon-to-be graduates and their families, only I know what she wants. “Miss Marvelous the Elephant Princess isn’t here right now,” I whisper.
Annoyance and frustration replace the panic on her perfect face; her light blonde eyebrows furrow over brilliant blue eyes, and her lips—the ones that look exactly like Mom’s in the picture Dad keeps in his wallet—purse for a moment, but she doesn’t say anything. I can tell she hasn’t slept in days.
Dad says that’s her own damn fault. Dad also says I’m not allowed to swear until I’m fucking sixteen, so take that however you want.
She fidgets with her sashes and the tassels hanging from her mortarboard hat: valedictorian, sports star, student body president. The black dress underneath her green graduation robe is perfect. So are her flats, her fingernail polish, and even the curl she’s put into her bangs. Everything about Alice is flawless.
I’ll never live up to that standard. I didn’t inherit Mom’s blonde hair, her blue eyes, or even her full lips. And unlike Alice, it’s not looking good for height either; Mom was tall, and so is Dad, but I got the short end of the stick, and I mean that literally. Greasy brown hair, mud-brown eyes, coke-bottle glasses, and no coordination—I’ve won the genetic lottery.
She doesn’t live up to her own standards either. It’s all a lie, and it has been since I was five—ten years ago.
If she hadn’t been out with friends until three and screaming back and forth with Dad until almost four, she wouldn’t have had to get up at five thirty to cover up the bags under her eyes with a pound of foundation and eyeshadow. I’m a little shocked we’re on this bus, to be honest. Usually, Dad would’ve grounded us both after a fight like that, but I guess you only get one shot at graduation.
A seat back, Dad snores blissfully. He doesn’t even feel the bumps.
I punch Alice’s shoulder playfully—kind of. “Hey, dumb-butt, you’ve got this. All you’ve gotta do is walk in a straight line, say a few words, and get your scroll, right?”
She grins back, flashing perfect white teeth at me. It’s not a happy grin; her whole face seems stretched and tense under the foundation. “Yep. It’s my big day. The last day of the beginning of my life.”
I roll my eyes, fish a mouse-brown bang out from between my glasses and my eye, and turn on my phone. “Whatever, valedictorian. Just don’t get stage fright up there, alright? That’d be so embarrassing.”
I don’t hear her response. My aural aug pops and hisses, and Knights of the Apocalypse Three starts up, the retro graphics filling both my phone screen and the cheap optical aug in my left eye that’s the reason I wear glasses. I’m piloting a red knight this time, along with three others in my pick-up group. I’ve mastered all the others except pink, and I’m not planning on playing a healer any time soon. The stocky red figure dashes forward, her armored skirts flaring as she draws a longsword and points it right at me. The sword’s tip almost seems real—if swords were the size of toothpicks.
Knights of the Apocalypse is something my augs can run. Barely. Alice got high-end augs, but when I turned seven, we’d already moved to the basic living apartments, so Dad got mine from an augment drive instead. Just one more unfairness. They’re helpful for school research and this decade-old game, but that’s about it. They don’t fit right, they overheat if I push them too much, and some functions give me migraines, but being connected is more important than an occasional day or two where I just…can’t.
I’ve almost beaten the third boss and shut down a portal near New Jersey when the bus squeals to a stop. Victoria’s glass-and-steel megabuildings loom far behind us, half-hidden by the morning fog. We’ve arrived at West End High.
I shut down the game and stand excitedly in my seat. I’m not looking forward to the ceremony itself, but getting away from Alice and Dad will be a great change of pace, and I have a friend waiting. I hope. People file past Alice, who’s still sitting down, and I crane my neck for a view over the tide of green robes filing toward the door.
“Wake Dad up,” Alice says.
She tries to disappear into the sea of emerald-clad students, but I lunge forward and grab her wrist before she can. “It’s your big day, graduate. Wake him up yourself.”
“He likes you more, and I have to go.” Alice pulls her hand free and disappears into the crowd, walking awkwardly. I see her glance back at me, a hint of a grin hidden behind her sleep-deprived eyes. Then she’s gone.
“He likes me more because I don’t stay out all night!” I shout at a robe-clad figure I hope is her. Then I turn around, lean over the seat, and hesitate.
Dad’s wearing the same stiff, dirty jeans he’s had on for three days, but he’s changed his shirt; this one has buttons and a pocket. I wrinkle my nose. He still smells like sweat and something stale. He’s smelled like that for nine years, off and on. It’s just his scent. That’s all.
The smell of Dad.
My big sister is right, though, as usual. He does like me more. He admitted it last night while we waited for Alice to come home. I don’t run away much. I usually never stay out past curfew. And I listen—more than Alice does, anyway. At least, he thinks that.
Enough stalling. Dad will sleep the whole day if I don’t wake him up. He’s done it before. He’s done it a lot in the last ten years. And liar or not, Alice needs this day to go well. My phone disappears into my baggy back pocket under my dress, and I shake Dad’s shoulder lightly.
He groans and squints against the pale, cloud-covered sun. “What the hell, Claire?”
“We’re here. Let’s go. I want good seats,” I say, voice pitched low. Then I drop the kicker. The thing that’ll wake him up. “Alice already left.”
“What the hell?” He repeats. He pushes himself out of his seat to his full six feet four inches. I used to see him as a rock when I was younger. He’s still one, but time has worn him down, and his scraggly beard doesn’t help hide his balding hair. Now that he’s standing, the stale smell strengthens. “She already left?”
“That’s what I said. She’s got graduation stuff to do, like standing in line and looking over her notes and getting checked for silly string or beach balls. They won’t find any, though.” I’d made sure of that. My perfect sister might be smuggling in half a dozen beach balls, but she’d enlisted me to help her tape them to her thighs with medical tape. She can’t have that perfect reputation tarnished—not before she gives her big speech.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
The crowd thins enough for Dad to step out into the aisle. I slip into his wake; it’s hard to tell if people are disgusted by his scent, intimidated by his size, or if there just aren’t many people left on the bus, but they clear a path. I bob along behind him as the tide of people fills in behind us.
Albert Head smells different than Victoria. I’ve only been going to West End High for a year, and it’s so much more comfortable than Ten Mile Point’s industrial cleanness or the scents of fear, defeat, and mildew in the basic living apartments where we live. Outside of the city, Vancouver Island smells like the ocean. Unfortunately, that means dead fish and rotten seaweed, not just salt water and storm winds. I breathe it in. Even after my freshman year, it’s still better than basic living.
Dad’s eyes focus, and he sees me for the first time all day. “Where’d you find that dress?”
I keep my mouth shut as his eyes blaze, narrowing at me. Now’s not the time to talk. I’d hoped he wouldn’t notice it. Sometimes, he’s not very aware, and I hadn’t had anything nice that wasn’t Alice’s, so I’d stolen it from the bottom drawer of Dad’s dresser. I don’t quite fill it out, but I’d traded taping the beach balls onto Alice for her pinning it in a few places so I don’t drown in its red and white pleats. I swish them back and forth nervously, not looking at him; they rub against my cargo pants pockets.
I’ll look good for my sister’s graduation, but not that good.
“You look just like her.” Dad’s voice softens, and my stomach starts to untangle itself, only to tie itself in a different knot. “Get your ass moving. Find good seats. I’ll be right behind you.”
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Alice’s favorite place is West End High’s soccer pitch.
Mine is under the bleachers.
West End High’s stands loop around the field on three sides. You can sit behind the goals or face the school’s math and science wing. Usually, two benches sit against the building’s cinderblock wall for the teams, right next to the decorative rocks, but a couple hundred folding chairs fill that space today instead. I don’t find a spot; the bleachers haven’t even started filling up, and Dad’ll find a seat or two without me. I’ve got important under-the-bleachers crap to get to.
The mostly empty pack of cigarettes in my pocket bounces against my leg as I hurry toward the gap under the bleachers. I’ve got three left: one for me, one for the friend I’m meeting, and one for later. They’re all stolen from Dad, and so is the lighter. But before I can get to the gap, a hand clamps onto my shoulder.
I tense, ready to fight, but it’s Candice. The soccer team’s star defender, Alice’s friend, and my enemy. I haven’t seen her in a few weeks—not because she’s stopped bugging me, but because the soccer team was in the playoffs and I’d finally learned her spring semester schedule. Before that, she’d been great at tormenting me, and Alice didn’t believe a word I said about her.
She’s only a junior, too, so I’ve got a whole nother year of dealing with her. “What do you want?” I ask, looking at the metal seat under my feet so she can’t see my glare.
“A smoke. I’m out, and so is Derrick. I know you’ve got some, so hand them over.”
My fists tighten, but I can’t fight her. Her boyfriend’s behind her, and I might be able to lose her in the graduates’ family and friends crowding in around us, but I can’t lose both of them. I hike up the dress, fish out my pack of reds, and grudgingly hand her two.
“Thanks, CeeCee.” Candice pockets my cigarette with her free hand, passes the other to Derrick, and looks down at the soccer field. I start pulling away, but her grip tightens, and I stop. “Hey, which one’s Alice?”
“I don’t know.”
“Better start looking, then. Can’t let you go until I know who to cheer for, right?”
Fuck. I’m going to be late. I look up at her blue eyes under dark, curled hair, hoping she’s just messing with me. But there’s no mercy in her gaze, so I start scanning the crowded sea of dark green robes until I see someone who’s about the right height, wearing the right sashes, with the right hair color. “There,” I say, pointing with my free hand and pulling away with the other.
She lets me go, and I slip into the crowd, getting some distance and letting my mind drift back to my own business.
The Truth Club isn’t an official school group. We all know something—something our older siblings or our parents want to let die. We don’t have to talk about it or even share what we know, but together, my friends and I keep our secrets alive.
The one I always share is that my sister’s a liar—a fake.
But the one I made the Truth Club for? That’s what she’s really lying about—my first merge and what happened. I don’t talk about that one, but Alice does. In her version, I’m four and slept through it, and it wasn’t a big deal at all. Most people at school heard her story long before my freshman year, and since I don’t talk about it, her version is the truth.
But mine is the Truth.
I only expect one other member of the Truth Club today. I send a quick text to see where she’s at.
Claire -
Sora -
The Ito family is a success story compared to ours, and I hate Mr. and Mrs. Ito for it. They’ve gotten in and out of basic living. Most families get stuck in the apartments like flies in a sticky trap. That’s what happened to us. But Sora’s parents dragged all four kids up and out, back to the Duncan arcologies, kicking and screaming. We text all the time and see each other at school, but it’s not the same. This has been planned for weeks; instead of listening to every speech, one more meeting of the Truth Club before summer break.
I finally push through the crowd, smooth out my wrinkled dress, and duck below the bleachers. Dad’s probably back, but Sora’s not here yet, and the only part of graduation I care about hasn’t started, so we have time.
Not much, but some.
So, while Sora’s family hops off their bus and makes their way to the soccer field, I twiddle my thumbs and try not to drag Mom’s dress through the muddy dirt and our cigarette butts. I already miss my two smokes.
The band launches into Pomp and Circumstance, that ridiculous graduation song, as Sora arrives. Dad hasn’t fallen asleep yet; I see him across the way.
“Sorry I’m late. Dad wanted to check the program. I think Itsuki made it in time, but it was close. I’m glad Dad stopped to check, though. The keynote speaker is a total mystery.” Sora ducks under the bleachers, bob-cut black hair covering half her face. She brushes it back, tucking it behind her ears with her fingers.
“Who is it?” I ask.
“I have no idea. It just says, ‘Mr. Smith.’ There’s no Mr. Smith at West End, though. That’s a fake name, and we’re in for a surprise. I bet it’s a tech guru or someone like that.” Sora’s face lights up. She’s always been curious; a mystery like this always gets her going. It’s something that does not matter. It doesn’t affect me, her, our parents, or even Alice and Itsuki. So, of course, she’s more interested in it than the reason we’re here.
“Cool. Today is graduation and the last meeting of the Truth Club this school year. I want to share what I know so it never, ever disappears,” I intone solemnly. “My sister, Alice Pendleton, is and remains a liar. She’ll always be a liar and a fake, and nothing will ever change that.”
Sora nods, echoing my seriousness. “I also want to share what I know, so it never, ever disappears,” she says. Then she pauses. She’s never paused before, and we’ve spoken our Truths so many times that it’s rote by now.
I raise an eyebrow, wait a few seconds for it to get awkward, and—finally—say the magic words. “Speak your Truth, Sister.”
She nods again, flushing slightly, but I know she appreciates the encouragement. Outside our little lair, the audience shouts and whistles and cheers. The graduates must’ve finally finished filing in.
“The Truth is my brother, Itsuki Ito, shouldn’t be graduating today. My parents made dozens of phone calls and convinced Mr. Andrews to change his grade to a D. But he should have failed Senior Language Arts.”
My jaw drops. Sora never so much as hinted at that—not in a million Truth Club meetings. She’s opening up about her family, not because I’m here, but because no one else is. No one but the thousands of people packing the stands and the chairs covering half the soccer field. I have to share a deeper, darker secret. I have to make her Truth less awful for her. “I want to share what else I know,” I say.
“Go on.”
But before I can, Alice’s voice booms out across the loudspeakers. “Congratulations, West End High School graduating class of 2043! Whew! We made it.”
“I have to go. I’m sorry. I’ll share my Truth later, but Alice is—“
“Giving her speech,” Sora says. She looks down, not meeting my eyes. “I get it. Text me when you want to meet again.”
I’m already gone. In fact, I’m halfway back to Dad when I realize that Sora needed to hear my Truth and that not sharing it is crushing her. But it’s too late now. I slide onto the cold aluminum bleacher beside Dad, hiding a mud-covered spot on Mom’s dress’s hem, and nod. “I needed the bathroom,” I say in explanation. Lies fuel the Truth Club, and some of them are our own.
He grunts. There’s a new scent on top of the stale one. New, but familiar. Another smell of Dad. It burns my throat and makes my eyes water.
The beach balls are flying, and I wonder how many are Alice’s.
“It’s a big world out there, but together, you and I are gonna change it, fellow Moose,” Alice says into the microphone. She did an okay job with her makeup. I can’t see the bags under her eyes from this far away. I zoom in with my optic aug, even though it heats up and goes wobbly in protest. On a good day, I can stand about two minutes of this before the migraine hits. Less if I run my aural augs, too, but the loudspeaker helps with that.
“So celebrate your victory today, West End graduates! Be proud of yourselves. And tomorrow, be ready, because life is bigger than high school, and it’s going to hit us hard. But we’re going to hit it…we’re going to…” Alice trails off. The mic drops from her hands. My heart starts thumping in my chest, louder and louder, as a rumbling fills my ears where, just a moment ago, I heard my sister’s voice.
It’s the crowd. It’s a thousand people whispering and muttering and shouting and screaming. I zoom my optic aug out. The moment I do, words fill my vision, and I realize why they’re panicking.
[Warning: Reality Merge Window Detected: 11:48 Local Time]
[Locations: Victoria, BC; Albert Head, BC; Sooke, BC; Duncan, BC, (more)]