Harbington had been founded originally for the sole purpose of agriculture. When the pilgrims after the skin plague set out to expand human civilization back into the settlement-based structure it had once been, they found the flat lands of Harbington by the riverside in a fresh spring, and they thought, “This place looks like a great place to grow stuff.” They set down the foundation for farmland, building barns and structures to corral the local wildlife into. They turned up the soil for acres to plant and grow crops. Something about the area just seemed to make it thrive. Harbington had never been wanting for food and they shared that with all the nearby settlements.
Eventually, as technology progressed and settlements lived and died, Harbington made the jump to becoming one of the Dome Cities. That move was split among some of the people, some of which set out to live more natural lives. But to those who stayed, the technologies of the future made farming more efficient than ever. They couldn’t resist the allure of taking genetic engineering and injecting it into normal agriculture, creating the “gengineering” standards of the modern day. While some may have scorned the departure from the traditional norms of human limitations, Harbington’s success as an outlet for food only increased tenfold.
One didn’t have to look much further than the Lavinia Family farm, affectionately named “Sweet Acres” by the locals. Old Man Lavinia had been one of the first to welcome the new greenhouse technologies into his farm, and one of the first to hire on a team of genetic engineers to grow artificial meats that would one day push typical livestock out of necessity. It quickly grew in relevance as it became the pioneer for a number of other technologies and designs that would make it one of the biggest multi-faceted producers of foodstuffs in the area. It had grown so much in that time – a hundred and some years may have sounded big, but in the grand scheme of things with how revolutionary tech started raining down on the people after they kicked the need for petroleum, it really hadn’t taken so long.
On the ground, it resembled what one might have thought a utilitarian facility may have looked like in the science-fiction of the early 2000’s. Where people once had country style homes, the Lavinia house was cubic metal and insulated plating with rounded edges. The roof was solar tile that charged batteries in the home that gave them more power than they needed. It was large, a small first-story outcropping being the kitchen and dining areas, and an almost impossible second-story room jut out from the side in a similar manner, giving the home a Z shape. At night, a bright ring of light hovered around the home, and numerous pylons around the property stood like towers with their own floating, glowing rings of illumination to light up nearly every corner of the fields.
The property itself was on the smaller scale of farm fields, and boxed in by numerous polymer alloy greenhouses with glass windows and self-contained climate systems. Specialized cropping techniques and artificial weather technologies had compressed the need for massive, sprawling rows and managed to fit a fair number of vegetable fields into a comparatively small two-hundred acres of land. Every building on that ground level had its very own control center that managed sunlight, heat, and water. Every single one was like its very own season, making crop growth year-round.
What didn’t fit on the ground was taken to the air. Humans had taken to building vertically, and using the same anti-gravity technologies that allowed the above-air travel of vehicles, the Lavinia Farm housed three floating facilities, miniature domes in their own right. Dubbed “Hanging Gardens,” they hosted lush foliage that seemingly overtook the force fields that surrounded the domes, clawing at the sides and hanging down over the bottom in healthy vines shrubbery. Water sparkled in the sunlight as it flowed down from aqueduct systems among the Hanging Gardens, falling to basins below that irrigated the crops at ground level. Metal cylindrical shafts connected the Gardens in a circular fashion above the property, and they had been positioned triangularly so that they appeared at equal distances away from one another when viewed at any angle. Every Hanging Garden contained an additional two hundred acres dedicated entirely to the growing of food, bringing the Lavinia Farm to a total of eight hundred acres of scenic land.
It appeared as a utopia. Nature was ripe at every corner, even among the sleek greenhouses and hovering domes of future kind. Water flowed through ducts and open-air, man-made streams that circulated it to every crop center and kept it from getting stagnant. It wasn’t uncommon to see rainbows arcing in the sky among the waterfalls created by the Hanging Gardens on particularly sunny days in the dome. Large trans trucks came and went every couple of weeks to haul product by the ton, which covered everything from grain, to fruits, to vegetables, to meats and to dairy. With the shorter germination times welcomed by modern science the crops didn’t take long to grow at all, and given that everything was grown, no animals had to be slaughtered for human consumption.
Since the day she was born, Laila Lavinia knew that she was going to own every square inch of that farm. Her father told her constantly that one day it would be hers to own and operate, and that it was her responsibility to see it into the future. She grew up being strictly taught the finer points of the operations, and had been made to help in harvesting the moment her parents thought she was able. She knew several kids who thought that it was a lot of hard work. She had to wake up early every morning to pick meat plants or process milk bulbs, only to have to go to school and then resume her chores when she got home. Other kids thought it was crazy, but Laila loved it. They would have grown up doing everything they could to get some freedom from the regiment, but Laila had absolutely no desire to do so.
She wanted that farm. She loved that farm and she loved growing food. She was the heir and princess of that farm. There wasn’t a rebellious bone in her body geared toward somehow weaseling out of that work. Everyone in her family had run that farm since the day it was founded in the Neo-Medieval times, and she found that fascinating. She wanted to be right there among them when people looked back. Who could possibly take food for granted? It was hard work, but good things came from hard work. Nothing great was ever easy, that was her creed.
Harbington folk were used to hard work, especially lately. The world was taking a strange turn. That humans were spliced with animal DNA, creating an anthromorphic race that piloted flying cars and transformed entire rooms with holographic projections wasn’t even the strangest part of it. Aliens had come to Earth. The Inklings, as they were called, had started in Harbington’s sister-city, Locksmouth, but they had made their way over. Harbington was presented with a new challenge on how to proceed from there, and it had been a struggle. Already they had made what seemed like the wrong choice, and even in light of that the people continued to fumble about, confused and worried.
Laila figured that the best thing to do was just keep on going. Aliens may have been something to worry about, and they may have reintroduced a number of things back into the human sphere that they had long tried to forget; but that was no excuse to let things slip. Even panicked people needed food to eat, and so she worked. It was a welcome distraction in any case. Things were progressing at their own pace – studies were being done, people were making strides to understand the Inklings and just who they were. Of course there were people who wanted to just throw them all on a space ship that could’ve launched into the sun for all they cared, but compromise was being made one exhausting argument at a time.
Laila knew better than most what the Inklings were all about. On September 13th, she first saw Duplex, the Inkling creature who had forcefully inhabited the body of her friend, taking the poor girl on as a host. On that day, she thought she hated Inklings. She thought they were monsters who snatched bodies, covering them in strange coloured skin and giving them unfathomable super powers. By September 27th, Duplex, along with a number of other Inklings, saved Laila’s friend’s life on more than one occasion. She had met so many Inklings and they were so much deeper than she first thought. Duplex was brought home on the 28th, opening the flood gates for the new Inkling Discussion in Harbington. It had been three weeks since then.
Laila’s breathing echoed in her ears as her respirator filtered the air. The giraffe girl wore a full-bodied suit whose skin-tight design resembled a pair of blue overalls with a maroon shirt. Even her face was covered by an attached hood and visor. She hated shoving her luxuriously long honey-gold and chocolate swirled hair into the suits, but it was necessary for the work she was doing. Artificial fish – grown fish meat created using the closest thing to biotic cloning techniques humanity had ever discovered – required water to grow in. It hung down in rows off meaty stems that floated in the tank. Trout, salmon, haddock and more all were grown there, and Laila had to enter through an airlock and pick them by hand.
She did this like it was no big deal. She had long gotten over how surreal it felt when she was a child. Now she was sixteen and she didn’t bat an eye to tearing off long strips of pink meat from strange-looking stems twisted like coral, bubbles from the expelled air of her respirator floating up around her. She’d rip off enough to make an armful of hanging meat and wade-swim over to the side of the containment to open a hatch to place the fish in, where it would be moved to processing. Some of the other employees of the farm would handle that; there were several who worked there. She didn’t envy them having to clean and ice the smelly meat, but it did make her crave fish fillets.
A sound clicked into her ear-worn communicator.
“Laila, what’chya doing?” Her sister, Valyrie’s, voice came through.
“Just pickin’ the last of the salmon for the day,” She pushed her fingers against the side of her head to click the communicator and answered, “Which ya’ll were s’posed to be in here helpin’ me do. Where in the heck are ya?”
“Mom told me to help pick the tomatoes in the garden! She wants to make spaghetti tonight.” Valyrie explained.
Laila quirked a brow. That wasn’t fillets, but it did sound tasty. “Well, that sounds darn yummy.” She said.
“Anyway, did you hear? Quincey finally got her dual citizenship!” She said.
Laila was actually surprised. “Did they finally give that over? Took ‘em long enough.”
“Yeah, yeah!” Valyrie seemed excited as well, “It was on the news with Kelly Carson! Quincey was on it!”
“Oh? Reckon I’ll give that a gander.” Laila said. “That it? I’m workin’ here.”
“Yeah that’s it. Dad says come in for dinner when you’re done!” Valyrie said, then the communicator clicked to signify that Valyrie had gotten off hers.
Laila pried her PET off her hip once she had the free hand, its waterproof design supplying her what she needed to activate the device and go look up the clip on the net. It didn’t take long – top page on a search result. With a few taps of her fingers she ran the recording and stuck her PET back to her hip. The sound came through into her ears.
“This is Kelly Carson with the Harbington Monitor,” The mole newscaster spoke, “And I’m here outside the Harbington Dome Arbitrator offices where Quincey Abram, host of the Inkling known as Duplex, has just been awarded her dual-citizenship that recognizes both her and Duplex as citizens of Harbington Dome. This comes after a three week battle to convince the entirety of the Arbitrators as well as a number of constituents who rallied in objection. The vote was passed four to two among the Arbitrators, with a majority rule among the citizens finally turning the tide. Quincey, how do you feel?”
Laila smiled when Quincey spoke because it started exactly as she’d expect.
“Um.”
Quincey was such a meek girl. All this attention that she’d been enduring for weeks was really flustering her, but Laila did her best to encourage her to tough it out. The portly pig had more than once wanted to just go into hiding and her parents had even once tried to have her home-schooled, so once again it had been up to Laila and the rest of Quincey’s pack to keep her on the level. It wasn’t easy, but that news felt like a victory. Laila couldn’t see it, but Quincey was standing with the reporter wearing a halter top and a pair of jeans that seemed glued to her thick body. She couldn’t decide whether to look at the reporter or the camera, and kept nervously switching between both.
“Well, I feel really good.” Quincey said, “But I’m not sure if this will fix everything. It’s just a step. It’s a good step, r-really it is, but citizenship isn’t going to change people’s minds about Inklings.”
“A salient point,” Kelly Carson agreed, “What’s next in this campaign?”
“Campaign? Is… is that what we’re calling it?” Quincey sounded confused, “Well, um, okay. Well you see… I don’t know. I want to teach people more about the Inklings b-but I don’t… well they’re very mysterious. I want to work with Natalie to help people understand them better.”
“Natalie Grayswift, you mean. The host of Echelon who defeated the former Inkling leader, Osoth, during the Locksmouth Invasion?”
“Oh, yes. That’s her.”
“Have you been talking with Natalie a lot during this time?” The reporter asked, “Many Harbington citizens think that you two are closely connected considering the circumstances. Are you friends?”
“Y-Yes? I mean, I think so?” Quincey flustered. “I mean, I’ve been talking to her sometimes, I need to. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t.”
“And what do you think about the new Echelon-themed menu at the Burger Dictator in Locksmouth?” The reporter then asked. “I’ve heard that they’re considering creating a Duplex-themed two-for-one deal.”
There was a pause.
“… What?” Laila could practically hear the way Quincey’s brows furrowed when she spoke.
Laila tapped her PET to stop that derailing interview there. She chuckled though, genuinely amused by the whole Burger Dictator thing, but also in sheer joy of the development. It seemed like after so long, things were heading in the right direction. Laila was just finishing up her work as she mulled over what would happen next. She stepped out into the airlock the cycled the water, returning her to dry land and blowing all the moisture off her. She stepped out of the airlock into the dirt paths and grass of one of her Hanging Gardens, pulling the protective wear off her head and shaking her long pony tail out. She stretched the neck of the suit to pull her arms out, leaving it dangling off her from her hips up, revealing her gold fur and brown spots since she was wearing little more than a sports bra beneath. She welcomed the warm air of the springtime climate and pulled her PET from her hip to give Quincey a call to congratulate her.
It was too bad though. If it had happened sooner, then maybe things would have been better for Quincey at school.
-
--
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Quincey stopped to catch her breath when she stepped up to Wenzel Krüger’s house. He lived on the third story home of one of the high-rises in the city, and even though she’d taken the elevator up she had still rushed so much that she was short of breath. She was late for her tutoring session with the junior high student thanks to her business with the Arbitrators, and she hoped it wasn’t by so much that she couldn’t do it anymore. He was the last student to accept her as a tutor when she returned to Harbington and she really didn’t want to lose him. She composed herself as best she could, straightening out her blue, layered skirt that had light blue under slit gaps at the front and back.
She rang the buzzer at the door and waited. She shuffled her knee-high brown leather boots that packed in her chubby calves like sausages; they were laced all up the front and had a folded cuff at the top. The shiny black socks she wore did something similar up to her thigh. She waited, clutching her portable display screen to her chest, watching the door and feeling more anxious every moment it didn’t open. Finally she heard footsteps. The door sliding open still startled her even with the advance warning. An auburn-furred jerboa boy stood there in some clingy shorts and a loose tank top that looked one size to big.
“Wenzel!” Quincey smiled, “I’m sorry I’m late, I got help up at the Service Centre. I hope I’m not too late to tutor!”
She held out the flexi glass display. “We’ve still got to cover Roman numerals and the advent of mathematics! It’s really interesting, I promise.”
The boy seemed bashful. He had a hard time looking at the portly pig girl’s freckled face. “I’m getting a new tutor.” He practically spat out the words as quickly as he could, then seemed to cringe as he waited for Quincey’s response. Quincey expression sunk and her heart thumped.
“O… Oh.” Quincey turned her head, keeping her gaze at a random spot on the floor. “I… I see.”
“Yeah.” The boy said, looking around. “So… sorry. Bye.”
He quickly closed the door in Quincey’s face. The girl didn’t react to that so much and instead turned to head back down the hall. She went as quickly as she could to get back to the elevator, but she didn’t even make it the whole way without having to wipe tears out of her eyes. By the time she reached it and pushed the button she was whimpering, hugging the screen she brought against her in lieu of anything else.
“We are sorry.” She heard Duplex’s dually rendered voice in her head. She shook her head and nudged her glasses up, kneading her eyes with her wrist to rub away the tears that trickled down her cheeks.
“No. It’s okay.” The girl sniffled. She took a deep breath and tried to relax, snorting as her nose started to run. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Quincey Abram, you are distressed. It is our fault.” Duplex said.
Quincey shook her head. When the elevator opened she stepped inside. “No.” She said, as stern as her pitiful self could be. “It’s not your fault that people think that way. I’ve told them that I’m not going to hurt anyone, it’s their choice not to believe me.”
Quincey sighed, leaning back against the far wall as the elevator slowly descended back toward the ground. “This just means that I… I have a free evening. Yeah.” She loosened her blue necktie and tugged out the collar of her white shirt, just so she could reach in and pull her PET from between her breasts. She dialed a number and waited, and it wasn’t long before Daxton’s face appeared on the screen.
“Hey,” He said, “What’s up?”
Quincey’s face wrinkled under the effort of trying not to cry.
“Oh boy.” Daxton breathed out, rubbing his face with his other hand. “He finally ditched you, huh?”
Quincey nodded.
“Should I come get you?” Daxton asked, “Do you wanna come over to my place or something?”
“Sometimes I feel like I shouldn’t go anywhere!” Quincey whined.
Daxton gently shushed her. “Hey, shhh. Come on, that’s not true.” He said. “You know you’re always welcome here.”
Quincey sunk to the floor of the elevator and curled up into a little ball. Daxton couldn’t see her anymore because she flattened her PET against her knee as she hugged her legs up tightly against herself, but he knew exactly what she was doing. He frowned on the other end of the call. “Aw, Quincey…” He sighed, “Alright, well… Kenny’s place is close to Wenzel’s, right? How about going there? I’ll meet you there.”
Quincey really didn’t feel like getting on a train to go home. She didn’t want to be seen by anybody either. Kenny’s home was only a few blocks away, so it was the best place to go. She’d be embarrassed to walk there crying like a little baby, but she didn’t have any better choice. She lifted her head and looked at her PET, seeing Daxton there looking as sad-puppy as possible. For his sake, she nodded her head. “Okay…”
“Okay. Good.” Daxton said, “I’ll see you there. I love you, okay?”
“Love you too.” Quincey hung up the call. Quincey rose and pushed the button for the sixth floor. The elevator stopped early and opened to a hallway like any other that looped around the entire building, but a tube-like corridor split off from the side. She somberly marched, making a slow, dragging bee-line for the corridor, which had stairs leading up a few small steps onto a meticulously constructed metal walkway supported by gravity skiffs settled in a glass tube that allowed her to see down the six stories to the town below. These walkways connected all the apartment complexes in Harbington, making it easy to get from one to the other.
It didn’t take long for her PET to ring, and the tone used was Laila’s She answered the call, portable screen tucked under one arm so she could grasp the little portable communications device in her shaky fingers.
“Howdy! I heard ya’ll got your…” Laila had been excited to see Quincey, but when she saw the girl’s expression her conversation cut short. “Pork chop, what’s the matter?”
“Wenzel doesn’t want me to tutor him because I’m a scary monster.” Quincey explained.
Laila tsk’d. “Honey, ya’ll ain’t a scary monster, you’re as threatenin’ as an un-sheered sheep. Wenzel’s just a dummy; otherwise he wouldn’t need a darn tutor, right?”
Laila’s insult humor didn’t really make her feel any better. The giraffe lowered her head a little to give the screen an upward look. “Ya’ll need a lil’ love, sweetie?” She asked.
Quincey sniffled. “I’m going to Kenny’s.”
“Boy howdy,” Laila breathed, “That ought to be a treat. Alright, I’m-a-comin’. I’ll bring ya a little of my ma’s spaghetti, okay? See ya’ll there in two shakes!”
Quincey ended the call and sighed. She stopped in her stride, her boots tapping the metal and echoing through the chamber as she did. She looked out over residential sector of Harbington, which only had a few of the high-rise complexes dotting its expanse. Kenny lived in just one that was a mere few blocks away and Quincey had a clear-cut path to it using the tunnel. The connection walks were always rather quiet, and if anyone were around you’d hear them long before seeing them – there were a few kids at play and the odd stranger about, but otherwise there maintained a feeling of isolation so high up above the ground.
The low population felt almost like a boon to her by then. It made her think that, at the very least, it meant only a small number of people on the planet hated and resented her. Her problem didn’t lie in not being liked, she could handle not being liked by everyone. Quincey’s problem lied in that there were people who then actively detested her, or regarded her openly in a tremendously negative manner. Before Duplex came along she was used to just being mostly ignored as just another face in the crowd that only stood out to some because she was overweight. And really, most people didn’t berate her for being fat – some did, but most didn’t – some people might have stared at her a little funny sometimes or wore expressions that announced their concern about her weight without them saying anything, but they were at least polite enough to mind their own business. It was different with Duplex. People weren’t threatened by her having a big belly, but they unquestionably felt threatened knowing there was an alien living under her skin.
The adjustment was so hard. The way people looked at her, she saw it. The times they thought they were whispering, she heard it. The fear people had, she felt it. School was torture in particular in that the other students would give her a wide berth. Sometimes it felt like people treated her as if she were sick. No one wanted to even chance brushing by her in case they “caught” an Inkling or something. For the most part Quincey sympathized with them. They couldn’t understand and so they were afraid. That’s a natural human reaction. That was why people stopped excavating in the old days. But being on the receiving end of the paranoia and fear… it didn’t feel good. It was hard.
How many nights had she come home and spent the evening hiding in her room and trying (and failing) not to cry? In the three weeks she’d been home she’d wrung herself out like a wet rag. She cried for less and less time. The ache in her facial muscles from her features being scrunched up in a sobbing frown was becoming familiar. Even then as she walked toward the spire of an apartment that Kenny lived in, the tears had stopped. She shivered, her heart fluttering, her breaths coming in a little shaky, but her tears had dried up. She just didn’t have any left, even though the feeling was still there.
Quincey tried never to think she deserved more than she had. She would always think on the 42 Principles of Maat – a sort of ancient Egyptian equivalent to Christianity’s 10 Commandments. Rather than simple commandments to live by, the Principles of Maat were virtues that people were to hold themselves to. She didn’t hit all of them – she couldn’t say she had never lied or took more food than she needed, but she certainly never polluted any water or slain men or women. She held herself to those principles, and tried to remind herself of them when she needed to feel humble. Doubts were creeping into her mind though.
She did her best to be a good person, she always did. The way she was being treated wasn’t fair. She deserved better.
“She’s the one with the alien!”
Quincey looked up, seeing a pack of young kids staring at her. They quickly scurried off when she set her eyes on them, running past her and squealing like they were in some kind of danger. They giggled and laughed about it too, which should have been harmless enough… but they really were afraid. Quincey knew they were afraid.
The girl closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath, holding it for a moment before she would release it in a heavy sigh. Turning, she carried on her way.
Lights passed overhead. The tunnels were lined with light rings that reached around the entire tunnel at regular intervals to light the drab metal walkway. There were some accent plants, advertisements, and even vending machines in some areas, but the design of the structure was as utilitarian as could be in all other regards. It served as a brilliant shortcut. Normally the trip on the ground would have taken a considerable amount of time having to walk three blocks in one direction and three blocks down. Instead it took mere minutes as Quincey literally walked above the conjoined houses below.
It seemed Quincey didn’t have to go far to find Kenny, who she found up ahead. He was looking down over the dome city from a spot very near the entrance to his building. He had his elbows resting on the guard rail to support his weight as he leaned slightly over the side of it, at no risk of falling. He had on a big hoodie, a thick navy blue one that looked pretty frumpy, with the hood on it pulled up over his head. His little gray puff of a tail was readily apparent over his bottom. He wore the smallest little shorts that just barely covered his upper thigh, and his slender little legs were bare to his shoes. Quincey almost didn’t recognize him, but she knew the way he looked from the back.
“Kenny?” She spoke, catching the boy’s attention. His ears were housed in little pointed bumps under his hood, but he could hear her quite clearly. He was surprised to see her.
“Quinn? What are you doing here?” He asked.
Quincey, reminded of the reason she had dragged herself toward his home, rubbed her arm. “I… just needed a friend.” She said, “What are you doing up here?”
“Just got out of therapy, wanted to think about stuff. I would’ve gone up to the roof, but…” He paused, shifting his gaze away from her slightly. “… Well, I don’t like the roof.”
Quincey approached him, and he turned to take her into his arms and give her a big hug. The two of them embraced, briefly but comfortably, and then released one another. Quincey stepped up next to him and looked out over the homes below with him. “So… how is it going with the therapist then?” She asked.
“It’s weird conferencing with a hologram in my bedroom, but… I guess it beats going to an office. More comfortable that way.” The boy explained, “Therapist says that, y’know… we can’t take away what happened, but we can untangle it, make sense of it… I dunno though. They keep telling me to just go into SenseRep, but I don’t want to.”
“Ah.” Quincey nodded, chewing on her lip a little.
He looked at her. “But I’m gonna give it a shot, really.” He insisted as if trying to convince her, “I promise, I’ll just… keep trying until it’s fixed, I guess. If it ever gets fixed.”
“Well, how do you feel?” The girl asked.
Kenny kneaded his own chest a little through the shirt. “It hurts talking about it.” He said, “Uh… Why are you here? What’s wrong?”
“Oh.” Quincey blinked, having forgotten her own problems after concerning herself with his. She felt meek all of a sudden, like her problems just weren’t so bad compared to his. “N… Nothing. Just… The last person I was tutoring? He wants to get a new tutor, so…”
Kenny frowned, and even looked offended. “Man, what an asshole.” He groused.
Quincey shook her head. “No, he’s not so bad… it’s just normal now I guess.” She sighed, “He’s just scared of Duplex, like everyone else.”
Kenny pushed off the rail and turned to face her. “Yeah but Duplex is pretty much going to fall apart in a stiff breeze,” He said, “There’s nothing to really be afraid of.”
Quincey felt a shock of sweat creep up her nape and she rubbed the back of her neck. “Oh, jeez, I’m not going to tell anyone that.” She said, “If I did, then… well, I think someone would just try to…”
“Nah, I get it.” Kenny waved off her concern. “So… let’s go inside or something.”
“Oh, right. Daxton and Laila called, so they’re going to come over...” Quincey explained, knowing full well Kenny would likely not be keen on the idea. He was not, given the look that appeared on his face.
“Oh, yeah, great. That’s exactly what I wanted tonight…” Kenny muttered, but he raised his hands before Quincey could say anything along the lines of an apology. “Whatever, it’s fine. I just don’t want to talk about my therapy, okay?”
Quincey made a motion like she was zipping her lips, then locking them and throwing away the key.
Kenny made something of a smile and simply said, “Cool.”
The two of them stepped into the apartment corridor and made for the elevator. They took it to the eighth story, where Kenny’s apartment was. They stepped into the modest dwelling to be met with silence. “Dad?” Kenny called, but no answer returned to him. Figuring that Kenny’s father had gone to work, the two of them instead made themselves at home.
Kenny’s house was exactly what Quincey would expect from a mechanic and his son, who is also interested in mechanics. It was cluttered and messy. It wasn’t messy in the sense that there was laundry everywhere – there was only a little of that – but rather that there were bits of scrap and tools and things in places one may not have expected. The main living area was an attached living room and kitchen with only a counter separating the tile from the carpet. On the counter there was a mug that was actually full of spare nuts and bolts. They had a toolbox on their end table, which sat next to a loveseat that looked well-used, in front of an honest-to-goodness television; a big, flat one that was probably the most expensive thing in the room, more-so than the refrigerator or stove.
There were sketches and blueprints scattered around for various things – one detailed the lamp it sat next to and how to fix it. Clearly it must have broken at some point, but the shaded lamp was working in good order and didn’t look worse for wear. There sat a small spool of wiring, some cutters, and a screwdriver next to the fixture. There was actually even a can of oil in the fridge, little did Quincey know, that had been put there by accident. Kenny saw it when he went into the kitchen and opened the fridge, where he took it out and put it instead on the counter.
Quincey knew that neither Kenny nor his father were much for cooking. That didn’t keep them from eating healthy, but most things in that place were going to be pre-made. She walked into the boy’s house, able to see the bathroom and both Kenny’s bedroom and his father’s from the living room. Each room was cluttered in a sort of organized mess, and neither of them actually made their beds. Quincey sat on the loveseat while Kenny climbed up onto his kitchen counters to reach his upper cupboards so he could get a couple of mugs. He took them to a hot drink machine in the kitchen and had it fill one with hot chocolate and the other with black coffee. The machine was kind of noisy as it dispensed the beverages, mixing in flavour and churning out hot water, but it only took a few seconds. Kenny moved to give Quincey the one with hot chocolate before climbing onto the loveseat to sip his coffee.
Quincey stared at the dark, almost black liquid in the white ceramic mug as Kenny drank it. “Do you actually like that stuff?” She asked.
Kenny shrugged. “Mm. It’s short, dark, bitter… Fitting, right?”
Quincey sighed and moved in close to cuddle Kenny and try not to spill her cocoa.
“So… how’s the others?” Kenny asked.
“Who? Daxton and Laila? I don’t know. Good I guess?” Quincey answered honestly.
Kenny fished out his PET and used it to turn on the television across the small room. A Tackle Toss game was on TV. Quincey didn’t follow the sport or the teams, and neither did Kenny really, but the quiet cheers and droning of the announcers filled the silence in the room pleasantly. “No, I meant Natalie and them,” Kenny clarified, “How they doin’?”
“Oh.” Quincey shrugged, “Okay I guess? I don’t see them much. Last time I went to Canvas for my, uh… er… Duplex’s doctor’s appointment? It was only Sam there.”
“Doctor’s appointment?” Kenny asked.
Quincey almost chuckled. “She gives me suckers for being good.”
Kenny rolled his eyes. “Oh jeez. Well… have you talked to Shelly?”
“No.” Quincey shook her head. “Why?”
“Just wondering.” Kenny answered.
“Do you like her?” Quincey asked.
Kenny’s eyes widened and he shook his head slowly. “Nooo, no, no. No I do not.” He doth protest too loudly. “Nah, no. I mean, she’s… interesting? But I mean, come on. No way.”
“You two talked a bit about machines and things the last time you were there,” Quincey commented, “Are you sure?”
Kenny blushed. “And you and Max talked about Ancient Mesopotamia, does that mean you’re into him?”
“What? No.” Quincey answered quickly.
“Then shut up.” Kenny chuckled.
For a while they just sat there, sipping their drinks and watching the sports on TV… or rather, looking at it, but not watching it very closely. It was quiet aside from that, and it was probably one of the more normal moments the two of them enjoyed since they got back from Locksmouth. It was only slightly different in the sense that Kenny was relaxed, and Quincey was comfortable. It was no real secret in the past that the two of them were more than a little on edge with each other, but after what had happened to them the idea of that animosity was laughable.
Kenny used to get on Quincey’s case about how she ate or how she never wanted to go out. He nagged her like a parent. But now that he knew that Quincey was very particularly set up the way she was through every effort of her own, he’d lost the will to berate her. He wondered how well she took care of herself, but the idea that she gained weight and maintained a higher-than-average body mass on purpose really took the edge off. She was healthy enough. Quincey understood Kenny’s being quick to anger a little more than she used to, and she understood his sometimes aloof nature a lot more thanks to him finally being forthcoming about his mother. It still bothered him, but he was getting help – Quincey made sure he did, practically dragging him to a therapist herself… or, at least she was there when she had Daxton literally carry him.
The two of them were closer than ever. It was one of the blessings out of the whole mess, though they both had their demons to face.
“Speaking of the Canvas thing, um… do you mind if I… do the… thing?” Quincey couldn’t even find the right words to describe what she wanted to do.
“Do the what?” Kenny cocked a brow at her.
Without much warning, Quincey sort of expelled a second Quincey beside her. It came off as a silver-shining blob of swirling colour at first, solidifying into a duplicate of her right down to the finest detail. It was actually rather fast; all the other times she had used Duplex’s power, it took several seconds, if not a minute to get her clones going. Now it took ten seconds, tops. Not only that, but the duplicate Quincey, identical to the very placement of one of her a hundred or so freckles, wore the same outfit as her with only one exception. The blue skirt was instead red, along with the necktie. Kenny leaned forward to look around Quincey to her double, curious.
“Hey, what the…? Her clothes are a different colour!” Kenny said.
Quincey nodded. “Yeah, um, it’s something we’ve been trying. S-See, when Duplex makes a copy of something it kind of fills in the details as it goes? That’s why it always starts as ink and then becomes something else. I wanted to see if we could copy something but make it different, but it’s really hard… The best thing we can do is alter pigments.”
“PIG-ments.” Kenny commented.
Both the Quinceys tsk’d and sighed.
The Quincey in red pushed off the little sofa to move around to Kenny’s other side and sit down there instead, squishing him between the two plump piggies. Kenny was understandably awkward about this, but the two Quinceys just leaned on him as a sort of punishment for his terrible pun.
“Sam said that I should try something new and that’s what I came up with.” The Quincey-copy said, speaking for its original without missing a beat.
“Great.” Kenny grunted, squished up between them. They let off after a few moments and the boy shook himself out, kind of shuddering. It was so weird, but the Quincey-clone really was just like another Quincey. Duplex seemed to be able to almost perfectly mimic what Quincey was like. That made sense, the two of them had been paired for over a month.
“So what do you do anyway with that thing?” Kenny asked.
“That thing has a name.” Quincey scolded him, sipping her cocoa. The Quincey-clone instead took over for speaking while the original was busy. “Well, I sometimes just copy things. I’m trying to make copies of things like books at home. Since every single page is different it’s pretty difficult to make them very quickly. It helps if I’ve read the book before.”
“So, the more familiar you are with something, the easier it is to copy?” Kenny said, “Like loading a file?”
“Exactly!” Both Quinceys smiled.
Quincey Original shrugged. “Then I copy myself like this, and see how long we can hold it.”
Kenny narrowed his eyes in thought. “I’ve never seen you do it.” He said.
“I don’t want to do it where people are going to see, so I just usually only do it when I’m with Daxt…”
The Quinceys paused, blushed, and looked over Kenny at each other.
Kenny coughed on his coffee, spilling some onto his lap. He shot up off the sofa and stared at the original, blue-wearing Quincey. “You OC with him like that!” Kenny sputtered.
“No!” The Quincey’s protested, but they went red in their faces.
Kenny wiped his face with his arm. “You do!”
“No! Not… not really! I mean, I can’t because understickers are actually really hard to replicate right now, so…” Quincey bit her lip and thumbed over the rim of her mug.
Kenny’s wide-eyed stare went to the Quincey-clone. “You do it without a sticker!”
The clone opened her mouth to say something but no words came out. She stuttered and then covered her mouth with her hand.
“Ho-lee shit.” Kenny shook his head at them.
“I-It’s not like it’s really like the real thing, it’s just a fake.” Quincey moved to rationalization, “It’s not like Duplex can have babies!” She gestured to her clone, who nodded quickly.
“I’m technically not really a person,” She said, “Just think of me as, um… a doll?”
“A sex doll.” Kenny blankly responded.
“NO!” Both the Quinceys fired back.
“Listen, you shut up now okay?” Quincey fussed, lifting her legs onto the loveseat and kind of uncomfortably huddling up. “I was told that I should try and get Duplex… involved in stuff.”
“So involve it in making a pie or something!” Kenny nagged, throwing his arm out to gesture toward his kitchen, “Not involve it in fucking your boyfriend! That’s so weird!”
“It’s not weird, it’s… um…” Quincey tried to argue but… it was kind of weird.
“It’s not THAT weird.” The clone reiterated, “It’s exactly like if there was just two of me, that’s all.”
“I don’t know if that’s…” Kenny responded to the red-wearing clone, stopped, and turned his attention to the blue-wearing original. “I don’t know if that’s really the same thing.”
“Daxton doesn’t mind.” Quincey huffed.
“Well how many, like, copies do you use?” Kenny asked.
“Shh! That’s private! You don’t need to know that!” Quincey sat forward and clapped her hand down over Kenny’s mouth to silence him. “You shouldn’t even know the first part, so… so shush!”
Kenny’s eyes went back and forth between the two Quinceys, and then he just raised his hands and stepped back. “Alright, whatever. Whatever you guys do in your weird kinky time is your weird, kinky business.” He said, “But what, is it just two? Three?”
Quincey lifted her mug to sip from it, staring Kenny down.
“… Four?” He stared back at her in shock.
“Okay, you know what?” The Quincey clone spoke up, “You don’t have an inkling, okay? You don’t get it. Nobody gets it. And it’s none of your business or anyone else’s business and I just wish everyone would just fu… leave me alone!”
The clone melted down back into the silver ink of Duplex and it slid across the couch to spread up over Quincey’s hip where it sunk under her clothes and, assumedly, faded back into her body. She lowered her mug and set it aside on the end table and hung her head. Kenny blinked at her, then peered down at his reflection in his coffee. He breathed a sigh, downed the last of his drink, and then stepped forward.
“I’m sorry,” He said, putting his mug down next to hers and leaning over her lap to put a hand on her shoulder, “You’re right. It’s… probably not that weird.”
“… It’s okay.” Quincey shifted in her seat, turning away from him a little.
“No, it’s not. Seriously, I apologize.” Kenny said, tilting his head to look her in the eye. “You’re right. Nobody else around here has an Inkling and… I mean, they’re not… that bad. It’s just strange. I don’t know whether to see two of you and think it’s just actually two of you, or if it’s just some… something different. I mean, what if I thought I was talking to you sometime and it turns out it wasn’t you at all?”
“I would never do that to you.” Quincey insisted. “Ever. You should know that.”
“Yeah, I should.” Kenny shrugged, “It’s… just going to take some getting used to and I can tell you’re pissed off over it, so I don’t want to be part of the problem, okay? I mean, you’ve got all kinds of shit on me now. If I’m not careful, you could seriously fuck me up.”
Quincey stared at him, distraught. “Do you really think I would ever do that? How could you?”
Kenny paused, opening his mouth, and for a moment words didn’t come out. “… No! No, no, no. No I don’t! I just, I mean… you could! Not that you would. It’s uh, just a joke.”
“It was just a bad joke.”
Kenny sighed and looked Quincey in the eye, pathetically smiling as he shrugged. Quincey shook her head and sat back, crossing her arms. “This really sucks.” Quincey said, “You have no idea.”
“God, Quincey, if everyone knew what I did? I’d be right there with you.” Kenny explained. “That’s scary. I don’t know what that’s like and I don’t want to know what that’s like.”
Finally there was a knock on the door. Kenny looked up over the loveseat toward the front door and he let out a relieved breath. “Finally. Come in!” He called, and Daxton and Laila entered the apartment after the door opened for them. Quincey rose from her seat quickly and made straight for Daxton, practically throwing herself at him for hugs and comfort, which he gave her right away. Kenny just watched them, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly.
Laila caught him right away, and she watched him curiously. “What’s eatin’ you?” She asked.
“Nothing.” Kenny dropped his arm to his side.
-
--
-
Daxton lovingly stroked Quincey’s hair as she snuggled into his chest. She likewise pet his bare tummy as she embraced him. The top he wore covered only his pectoral region and his pants were low-rise at the waist, to the point where the lines of his thighs started. Even though he wore so little, he was still warm. He still had his STOP on, the knit blue hat he was so fond of. Quincey liked it too. It was clean and soft, and it just somehow made him warmer. He was good for a hug and some comfort, something he’d provided for years. Some things never changed, it was simply the “why” that became different.
They sat on Kenny’s bed, the owner of said bed seating himself instead on the floor to give them the more comfortable space. The last member of the pack stepped around the room, not pacing so much as she was simply looking at things. Laila, still in the undone diving suit tied around her waist and her loose, under-chest-revealing top, was interested in Kenny’s collection of model figurines of characters from various shows and games. They were placed on top of his dresser in no particular fashion. All of them were girls. All of them had chests that were varying on the scale between “large” and “enormous.” It gave her something to do while the four of them sat there in silence.
“We should do something.” Daxton proposed.
“Like what?” Kenny looked up from his cross-legged position on the carpet.
“Heat up that spaghetti, I reckon.” Laila suggested.
Daxton shook his head. “No no, I don’t mean like that. I mean about the Inkling thing.” He said, “People are being total jerks about this, and I don’t think even half of them even know anything about it. We should teach ‘em, like my Dad would do.”
“Your Dad already tried that,” Quincey lifted her head, “Almost nobody showed up, and everyone who did just argued because my uncle decided to show up too.”
Daxton shrugged. “Okay, yeah, but I mean do it different.”
“Okay, how?” Kenny asked.
The teens stopped to think. Laila had been hardly putting her mind to the task, but she happened to look away from the busty figurines to instead spy a console of Kenny’s. The slender screen and tiny, attached keyboard were stuffed into one corner of his desk, which barely had any room with all the clutter, tools, and school things he had all over it. Still, just looking at it sparked her with an idea. “Well if they’re gonna be as shy as night critters in the daytime, then why make ‘em mosey on out at all?” She asked, stepping over to grab the console and pick it up. She held the bundle of electronics in her arms, turning to face the group. “How’s about an innernet thing?”
“A forum Q and A?” Kenny clarified, “I guess that could work.”
Daxton pondered the idea. “It could work, maybe. But I don’t know if that’ll be interesting enough for people.”
“It’s not like we can set up an exhibit,” Quincey said, “There’s not much to show, just things to tell.”
“Well that’s extra boring.” Kenny groused. He stood up to get his console from Laila, returning with it to his spot on the floor. He hooked up his PET to the screen and keyboard interface, quickly navigating to the Harbington High networking page. There was a public forum there where students mingled with each other, at least as much as they dared to with the school’s faculty acting as administrators. The youths went on to ask for help with classes or organize after-school clubs, or simply to talk about goings-on.
Kenny looked through the various threads and eventually found some referring to Inklings. Things titled “[Aliens? What’s the deal?]” and “[Are Inklings Basically Super Heroes?]” were but a few of the nicer examples, others seemed to call attention to Quincey herself. He quietly looked through the conversations going on in some of the tamer threads.
“I dunno, I think people are pretty genuinely curious.” Kenny said, “See? This person here doesn’t even know Duplex’s name and wants to know.”
“How can they not know? It’s been on the news.” Daxton pushed a finger into his ear to scratch an itch.
“Well, I can answer that…” Quincey said, finally sitting up straight.
“Ooh, better idea. Comin’ through, lil’ man!” Laila announced to the group, only to set down the metal balls she’d been examining and stepping over Kenny. She dropped down on him, planting her butt on the small of his back and pinning the smaller boy beneath her. She leaned over him and took the keyboard to start typing. “Alright, so I reckon if people don’t wanna be seen bein’ Ink Lovers, as them Eos fellers were so keen on callin’ ‘em, then we make it so they don’t have to in person, while still bein’ able to meet ya’ll to ask ya questions face to face.”
“Ugh…” Kenny folded his arms under himself, trying to read the small screen past Laila’s cumbersome pin. “What are you doing?”
“Settin’ up a meet,” Laila explained, “On Skyships of Conquest.”
“Skyships of Conquest? Seriously? That over-blown sex game you used to play?” Kenny glared upward, though it was impossible for him to do so.
“Yeeeeah, Laila, I don’t know if many people even have that game.” Daxton reasoned.
“We don’t need everyone to come along, just a few people, n’ I’m bettin’ more people have it than not. But come on, wouldn’t ya’ll feel safer in a game?” Laila stopped typing to look at Quincey. “Ain’t nobody gonna know where you are, ain’t nobody gonna hurt ya. Plus, I got a high-level character on there, if anyone tries causin’ a problem I can send ‘em to the brig.”
Quincey stared at Laila, thoughts flying through her head. She was almost dumbfounded by the mere idea of getting on a game and teaching people about Inklings… but Laila had a point. It was a lot safer than going somewhere in real life, where people like her uncle or the Eos sympathizers, who did most certainly exist somewhere in Harbington, could appear and cause trouble. This way the group was small: high schoolers. Plus, avatars welcomed a sense of anonymity that people weren’t going to get anywhere else.
“Huh.” She said.
“You really thinking about it?” Daxton asked, turning his attention to her.
“Well, I think it’s worth a shot. But I don’t have a character on that game.” Quincey looked to Laila for an answer.
“Well that ain’t no big, ya’ll can play with me at my house.” The giraffe smiled, “And ya’ll can become honorary crewmembers of the Temptress.”
Laila finished typing up the announcement and pressed the Enter key to send it away without waiting for further agreement from her pack. In a split second it appeared on the little screen as a posted thread titled “[MEET THE INKLING]”. She sat back and watched as the live-feed number of views on the post began to climb almost immediately. Curious youths who frequented the forums were clicking on and reading the invitation. Skyships of Conquest, Coconut Landing, Saturday at 6:00. Laila knew it to be a sound meeting place, as Coconut Landing was an area in the game dedicated to new players. Anyone should have been able to get there without a hitch.
The replies started rolling in, some good, and some bad. The important ones were the affirmative. Thomas Kurry said he would show up. Bernice Janet showed an interest in learning more. Ulysses Rondo wanted to know if Inklings were something to be scared of. Amid the outcry of “go home Inklings” and “that thing is going to kill us one day,” there was a small, but legitimate following. True to the niche popularity of the game, others said they didn’t have it, and some asked where they might be able to get in on it just long enough to see what would happen. In the span of minutes, people were breaking off into their own little SoC groups, where they’d let others buddy-up on their VR systems so they could attend. Quincey, Laila, Kenny and Daxton just watched in fascination as the thread went from 10 posts to 100 in a fairly short span of time.
“… I can’t believe this is working,” Kenny had sat up, Laila having finally gotten off his back, “People are gonna gather on Pirate Sex Simulator to learn about inter-dimensional alien creatures that live in their neighbourhood.”
“S’pose when you say it like that, it sounds crazier than a mad cow.” Laila confessed, “But it’s workin’, sort of. Reckon’ we got maybe… thirteen people?”
“That’s not a lot.” Kenny argued.
“Well it’s a start.” Daxton countered. He wrapped an arm around Quincey and gave her a gentle hug. “You up for it?”
Quincey leaned against her boyfriend, still trying to absorb what was going to happen. “Well, I… guess I don’t have much of a choice now,” She said, “It’s been arranged.”
“Yeah!” Laila grinned, “So now all’s left to do is figure out what you’re gonna tell ‘em.”
Quincey blinked her eyes. “What I’m… oh. Uh… What do you think they’re going to ask? I don’t actually know a lot about Inklings outside of what was on the news and what Duplex told me!”
“Well I dunno,” Laila shrugged, “I already know more than most!”
Seeing the look of worry cross Quincey’s face, Daxton chuckled. “Maybe you should call Natalie.”
“Yeah, maybe I should…” Quincey agreed.
Quincey didn’t wait. Taking her PET, she dialed Natalie’s number. If anyone would know anything about the Inklings, it would probably be Natalie’s Inkling, Echelon. If not, then surely one of the other Inklings in Locksmouth would know something. It wasn’t exactly a long stretch of the imagination, but Quincey was well aware that most Inklings had problems with memory.
The call went through after a couple of rings. Natalie picked up, ruby red eyes gazing out from Quincey’s screen inquisitively. “Hello?” She answered, as if somehow not knowing who was calling.
“Ah, hey, Natalie! Um… I have a little problem.” Quincey started right away. She told Natalie about the way things had been going for her, how the people of Harbington seemed all too reluctant to accept her after her return home. Natalie nodded along. Quincey told her of what they planned to do, and Natalie commended the idea. She didn’t even hesitate to offer to help.
“So you don’t know too much about Inklings, yeah…” Natalie said, “Well, what do we know, Echelon?”
The wolf girl angled her screen. Next to her was Echelon, similar to her in shape only as a pink-sheened black Inkling. “I’ll admit to knowing very little, as embarrassing as it is to not know your own people,” She confessed, “But I can certainly help explain any concepts about us that seem fuzzy to you. As best I can, anyway; some things… defy convention.”
“Well that would be great,” Quincey said, “It’s just… I guess the sort of things that a student would ask.”
“Well when Echelon was first with me, I wanted to know a few things. I wanted to know who she was. I also wanted to know why I could see her in my dreams, and why she was able to give me weird super powers.” Natalie explained the position she took when the Inklings had first landed in Locksmouth. “In the end I wanted to make sure I knew just whose side she was on. I didn’t really have a choice but to trust her.”
“There aren’t really sides this time around. After Eos did their grandstanding, it’s simply Us v Them.” Echelon commented.
Quincey sighed. “It was easier for you… you saved people. I can’t do anything to make people trust me.”
Echelon flashed a sympathetic smile. “Just don’t give them any reason not to.” She said, “That should be easy for you, Quincey.”
Kenny crossed his arms over his chest in a huff. “That’s easier said than done. People don’t need a good reason not to trust you.”
Echelon took the PET from Natalie and moved to seat herself in a chair in what looked to be Natalie’s room. “Well, let’s get started on some questions, shall we?” She crossed her legs as she began the lesson, opening the floor to whatever the teens wanted to know. “Whatever you’re curious about, they’re curious about, so fire away.”
-
--
-
All the time Quincey would have spent tutoring, she instead spent learning. In a couple of hours she walked out thinking she knew more about the Inklings than before. She understood their old quest for better hosts, trying to find the perfect balance of strength and intelligence that humanity seemed to encapsulate to the highest degree up to that point. The aliens that arrived with the Inklings – the Shufflers, the Crawlers, the Grabbers and so on - had been earlier conquests; failed attempts to find the right “fit” for Osoth’s plan. Osoth herself was something Quincey knew a lot about thanks to Duplex. The inner workings of the late Inkling Empress were made clear by first-hand accounts from Echelon regarding the various obstacles that had to be tackled just to save Earth from Osoth’s clutches. In ways they sounded so very human, and in others they were as alien and monstrous as could be.
Quincey was perhaps the most disappointed about the history. Echelon, and no Inkling in recent memory, knew much of how their world was before Osoth began her campaign across the universe. None knew of what they could call home, none knew of the ruler who had come before. It was all a fog to them, with bits and pieces filled in at random. Duplex had mentioned something about a peaceful Queen and old hosts, but the exact details were unclear. Of course it was unlikely that anyone would care so far as to ask such questions, but not having the answers was unsettling. Still, Quincey collected a lot of data. Odds were that things would go well on Saturday.
Daxton took her home, and gave her a hug and a kiss before saying goodnight and returning to his home just down the way. She entered her house and took off her boots, hearing her parents conversing from her kitchen. Curiously she looked up from the door and leaned to peek past the precipice dividing the front hall from the kitchen. She could see them at the table, talking to someone just out of sight about something. Either they hadn’t heard her come on or they simply hadn’t paid it any mind, but they didn’t stop on her account. She listened, flopped ears lifting to try and tune in on whatever they were talking about. Unsurprisingly, Quincey herself was the topic of discussion.
“We should be home-schooling her at this point.” Walter said in a bit of a fluster.
“She doesn’t want to be home-schooled.” Paula exhaustedly reminded her husband for the millionth time. “And besides, you don’t have the time between all your trips to Locksmouth.”
“I’d make time.” Walter insisted, “The other kids, they’re not being fair. If she comes home crying one more time I’m going to lose it.”
“Well we have to set aside what we want and try and be there for her.” Paula said.
Quincey had moved in close to listen in, sighing quietly to herself. She felt bad for making her parents worry so much. It really didn’t help things, either, that they were so… involved. Quincey felt bad enough at school in the face of those who didn’t accept her; returning home to those who were struggling to wasn’t any better.
“Paula, Walter has every right to worry.” Quincey’s Uncle Jim, otherwise known as Mason, was in there with them. Quincey wasn’t too happy to hear his voice – he’d been bearing down on her and the Inklings since the day she set foot back in Harbington. Duplex was understandably uneasy around him.
Paula rubbed her face. “I’m not saying he shouldn’t be worried, I’m simply saying that Quincey has every right to make this decision for herself.”
“You don’t know how that thing is effecting her.” Mason said, “She might not be making her own decisions no matter how much she says otherwise.”
“We’ve been watching, and I don’t see any reason to think she’s not herself.” Paula argued.
“She never would have run away from home, either.” Walter snidely added.
“That was a desperate time. Wouldn’t you have done the same if you thought you were going to be killed?” Paula turned on her husband.
Mason leaned on the table and folded his hands together. “Which makes me wonder why we’re even putting up with it.” He said, “If it can’t kill her, or won’t, then why are we tolerating it? It’s got nothing to use as leverage.”
“It’s not about the Inkling, it’s about Quincey.” Paula reminded the men, “You keep pushing the alien in the way of what’s really happening; trying to ignore that Quincey is the one that chose to keep it around.”
“But why?” Walter asked, “Why would she do that? It’s like trying to raise a tapeworm.”
“Because Inklings are people too.”
Having heard enough, Quincey stepped into the kitchen. All attention turned to her when her bare feet touched the tile floor. She stood closer to the door than not, nestled within the kitchen where there were cupboards and the fridge. The table was some eight feet away or more, nestled in a small dining area connected to the kitchen that had a ceiling fan spinning overhead. There were small scraps of paper and dice on the table. They must have been playing a game before the topic of the Inklings distracted them so much they’d stopped.
“Inklings aren’t that different from us,” Quincey said, “They just come from somewhere else. They were under the thumb of a dictator. They wouldn’t have invaded Earth at all if it weren’t for her. We’ve had our conquerors of history: Julius Caesar, Adolf Hitler, Alexander the Great, Genghis Kahn… would you have doubted the people they led because of their actions? How is that fair?”
Quincey’s parents looked to one another. Even Mason was a bit stunned, caught off guard by the young pig’s sudden intrusion into the conversation. He studied her with interest though.
“Quincey, it gives you the power to make copies of yourself. Surely you can see why that’s something we’re concerned about.” He said, trying to reason with the girl.
She scrunched her brow. “So?” She posed, “If one night some little boy showed up at our front door with a broken leg, would you try and send him home? Duplex is injured. It’s unstable. It needs me in order to survive. The only reason it threatened me is because it didn’t think I would be willing to help – like seemingly everyone else on this planet.”
Paula shook her head. “We understand, sweetie.”
“No, we don’t!” Quincey argued, “You might, but not all of you do! Dad and Uncle Jim don’t care!”
Walter blushed. “Sweetie, if a boy showed up at our home, it’s a different case. He’s a human. We aren’t afraid of humans.”
“That’s racist.” Quincey stared at her father, gesturing firmly at him with flat, sideways hands. “That’s literally what racism was. That’s literally what the insectoid sub-species had to deal with! You’re scared of them for no reason!”
“We’re scared of them because one of them bit off someone’s hand, and another one made an entire building into a battle robot.” Mason countered, “And Duplex attacked your friends and your parents.”
Quincey paused. “I… I’m sorry about that,” She said, “It really was just a big misunderstanding. It was scared.”
“It acted like an animal.” Walter added.
“We’re literally pigs!” Quincey rebutted.
“That’s different.” Walter replied.
Mason pushed out his chair, and the sound of its legs scraping on the tile was loud enough to halt the conversation. He rounded the table and approached Quincey, not menacingly, not maliciously, not in frustration even – he approached her like a calm, understanding adult. He was a good actor. He didn’t get down to her height, standing there in his slacks and shirt, arms crossed. “Quincey,” He said, “How long are you going to let this thing suck all the joy out of you?”
The girl seemed confused. Mason went on. “You’ve been miserable for weeks now, and it’s time to admit that it’s Duplex’s fault.” He said, “It’s alright to blame someone else once in a while, you know.”
Quincey stared at her uncle, unable to even grasp what he was saying. She visibly strained to process his words, and even as she did she was shaking her head. She struggled for several seconds just to find the words. “I don’t blame Duplex,” She said, “I blame people like you.”
Her voice wavered. She was getting emotional, but how could she not? Her own family wasn’t even willing to try to understand. They continued to talk to her as if she were just a child who didn’t know any better, and like they had all the answers. It was condescending, and she could feel that in her bones. It was a very teenage instinct in her that assured her they were wrong. Her mind echoed the notion, knowing of several times in history where people had turned on one another simply because they were unwilling to understand one another. It seemed so unreal that such a thing were happening once again, after humanity boasted maturity from those war-torn times.
After a moment’s thought, she fished for a quote.
“I call on you not to hate, because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair, and it makes you blind, and closes all doors of thinking.”
“Excuse me?” Mason cocked a brow.
“Another dictator once said that, ironically enough.” Quincey huffed, turning on her heels.
“Quincey, wait!” Her father called, but she wasn’t having any of it. She marched out of the kitchen.
She passed herself in the hall. The original Quincey, still standing outside the kitchen with head somberly bowed, pushed from her spot and marched up the stairs. She stepped into her double, which melded perfectly into her body with a ripple. She climbed alone to her room. Her parents didn’t continue to call for her; in fact it seemed as if they didn’t say a word as she stormed off. Maybe they started talking again when she closed her door, but it didn’t matter at that point. She wished they’d learn, or even take the things she said seriously, but she had a feeling they wouldn’t – not that they couldn’t, but that they simply wouldn’t.
She sat on her bed, letting her weight sink into the mattress. She breathed in, held it, and slowly let it out before rubbing her face. She wiped her tears away, then laughed past them. They couldn’t really tell that they had been talking to a clone of her the whole time, could they? The thought hit her, tickling her love for irony but also trickling in feelings of sadness. It could have been that Duplex was very accustomed to her, understanding her mannerisms and the way she does things to the smallest detail… or, it could mean her family was truly blind. They couldn’t see anything for what it was beneath the surface.
“Oh well.” Quincey said, “It’s okay. We’ll teach them. It’s just going to take time. Everything good takes time.”
“We are sorry, Quincey.” Duplex spoke in her head.
“I know.” Quincey nodded, “We just have to never give up, just like Daxton would say.”
“Never say that you can’t.” Duplex echoed her boyfriend’s mantra.
“Right.” Quincey threw herself onto her back on her bed, stretching her arms up above her. “We can do it.”
“Yes.” Duplex agreed, “We can.”
There was a pause as Quincey stared at the ceiling. “That’s strange.” Duplex continued.
“What is?” Quincey asked.
“We do not remember ever saying those words. “We can”.” Duplex said, “It has been a long time since we have ever thought we could accomplish anything.”
Quincey nodded. “Mm.” She said, “Me neither. But thinking that you couldn’t do anything is what started this whole mess. It’s probably not a good idea to do that again.”
“You are correct, Quincey.” Duplex said.
“Yeah,” Quincey agreed, “If only everyone else thought so.”
