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“Your hair is for seriously janked. You know that, right?”

  That’s why I love Shoko. She’s the only one who doesn’t treat me any differently since I got branded. I take my hair out of its sloppy side ponytail and smooth it over my shoulders. I try to ignore the fact that Dea and the rest of the Cheerclones are silently copying me.

  “And you, Miss Weiss, are looking as diva as ever.”

  It’s almost impossible to believe that this teeny pixie chick with the big mouth could have carried another human being inside her. Twice. Shoko just started her second semester at Rutgers and has recently pledged Eta Omicron Tau, the sorority with the reputation for having the hottest girls who “snapped back” after their deliveries. All of this was made possible with the money Shoko earned by providing two kids for a couple she never even met.

  That’s exactly the way Pro transactions are supposed to go down.

  Well, minus the part when she almost died.

  Shoko nearly bled out after her second delivery and had to get an emergency hysterectomy. She was so high on Humerall that she was more concerned about the ragged state of her cuticles than her near-death delivery. To be honest, she acted almost exactly like Celine does now. Shoko doesn’t remember anything that happened in the OR and never caught sight of the human being she brought into the world that day.

  “So did you and Jondoe break up or what?” she asks, getting straight to the point. “Because there’s a nubie-pubie all over the MiNet saying that you did. And disgracing our PDA team jersey while doing it, I might add!”

  Quailey. Gah.

  “I thought I was your best friend! You promised not to lie to me anymore!”

  Though she doesn’t know the sketchy extent of our scamming, Shoko is the only outsider who has so much as a clue that The Hotties are not what we appear to be. Way back when this all started, I told Shoko that it wasn’t me making major media with Jondoe, but Harmony pretending to be me. So she thinks Jondoe has bumped both of us, a position in keeping with her opinion that he is (in her words) “the stiffiest RePro in the business.”

  “We didn’t break up,” I say, which isn’t a lie because you can’t break up if you were never together in the first place. “I swear. She’s just fame-gaming that’s all.”

  Skoko wrinkles her nose the way she does when she detects bullshit.

  “You swear there isn’t something you’re not telling me?”

  There have been times that I’ve been so weighed down by this secret that I’ve come close to confessing to Shoko all about the B$B. She’s always been brutally honest, and I know she would have given me a colorfully candid assessment of our scam:

  “Did you get cock-knocked in the head? You’re never going to get away with this!”

  Yeah, that’s exactly why I haven’t confided in her. I don’t want a confirmation of what I already know.

  “I swear.”

  I’ve lied about a billion times in the past eight and a half months, and I swear it hasn’t gotten any easier. But I don’t get to see Shoko’s response because my MiNet reception goes blind when the Bumpmobile pulls into the school parking lot.

  These mornings are when I miss Shoko the most.

  Malia too.

  Malia is being treated for postpartum psychosis at the Shields Center. She’s been there since last spring, when she tried to kill herself after she was told that she couldn’t keep her “baby” (yes, she used the b-word) because it had already been picked up by the couple who paid for it. Surely she should be cured by now, right? She used to message me all the time about how it wasn’t too late to save myself from preggsploitation, but I haven’t had any contact with her since I went public with The Hotties. She probably thinks I’m the ultimate sellout and has lost all respect for me. I hope she’ll forgive me when I reveal the whole truth.

  I hope everyone forgives me. Even if they don’t agree with me.

  Celine pokes my arm and gives me another one of her unreadable stares.

  “For serious . . . Do you have any . . . like . . . snickity-snacks?”

  I offer my PregGo Bar and she declines because they taste like sweaty shin guards. I’m only carrying it around with me because I’m paid to do so. No one seems to notice or care that I’ve never been seen actually eating one.

  It’s just another prop in this elaborate scam that has become my life.

  harmony

  I’M PANTING LIKE A DOG IN A DROUGHT.

  “Another contraction!” Jondoe says excitedly. “That’s only five minutes after the last round! We should call an air taxi now!”

  “No!” I insist, gripping the wall as I inch myself forward. “Not yet!”

  “But you said yourself you don’t want to deliver the twins here.”

  I don’t want to deliver the twins here.

  Or anywhere.

  “It’s too soon! I’m five weeks early!”

  “Preterm labor is not uncommon with twins,” Jondoe says assertively.

  “How can you be sure I’m in labor?” I ask, panic rising in my voice. “How do you know I’m not having those, um, Brixton Hacks—”

  “Braxton Hicks,” he corrects.

  “WHATEVER!” I roar. “YOU ARE NOT A DOCTOR.”

  I’ve never raised my voice like that in my life. If I yelled at Ram like that, he’d scurry away with his puppy tail between his legs. But Jondoe doesn’t back away. He stops and gingerly places his hand on the curve of my back.

  “Exactly,” he says softly. “Which is why we should go to a hospital.”

  I ignore his words, though his soothing touch is harder to resist. I’m determined to do a few more laps up and down this hall.

  “The twins will settle down,” I say unconvincingly, “this is a false alarm and—”

  I stop midsentence.

  Something has just happened inside me.

  A pop. A pulling apart. A loosening. And releasing . . . releasing . . . releasing . . .

  Within a minute, I’m soaked from the waist down.

  “Ack! Gack! Ack! Gack!” I’m flapping around the hall like a goose with a broken wing. “The twins can’t come now! I’ve got five weeks to go! It isn’t time!”

  “They can and they are,” Jondoe replies, taking deep breaths to remain calm.

  He offers his hands to me, but I take a step backward. I’m scared to let him touch me. Afraid of what else might come apart.

  He looks me directly in the eyes before speaking.

  “Your water’s already broken,” he says gently. “There’s nothing else I can break.”

  Oh, Jondoe. How I wish that were true.

  melody

  I NEVER THOUGHT I’D BE SUPPORTIVE OF THE CAMPUS-WIDE MiNet blind, but the seven hours I’m in school are the only part of my private life that stays private. No one can foto me while I’m wearing my ugly protective goggles for my biochem lab. No one can video me eating vitamin-deficient snack products I am not being paid to eat. No one can follow me into the bathroom and MiChat to all my followers about how long and how often I pee.

  But today I’m dreading a run-in with Ventura. I mean, even more than the usual dread based on her usual annoyingness. And I have no idea what I’ll do when I see Zen.

  I wish I could just sprint down the hall and hide out in homeroom. But in my current state of maximum density, I can’t get anywhere nearly as fast as I need to. I don’t know how Harmony does it. She can still milk a cow or shovel manure, for Darwin’s sake. My fake deliveries are making my whole body ache worse than the hardest, longest soccer practice I’ve ever had. Plus it doesn’t help my progress when someone stops me every few steps to make one comment or another on the state of my uterus.

  “You’re bigger and better than ever!”

  “Can I rub your belly for luck?”

  “Work it! Flaunt it! You’ve got fattitude!”

  I’m about halfway to my locker when I’m stopped by major gridlock.

  “I’m trapped!”

  “I’m staaaaaarving!”

/>   Celine somehow jammed the steering mechanism on her Preggway and has pinned a defenseless pre-pubie freshboy against the vending machine. Preggways only go, like, a half-mile an hour, but Celine can’t get through a day without a low-speed wreck. And we can’t keep track of how many times she’s lost her way, motored into an empty classroom, and was later discovered marveling at the pretty unicorns and rainbows projected from her hallucinogenic mind and onto the blank wall.

  I’ll say this about Celine: She’s way more entertaining now than she was before she was dosing Mellonin.

  Anyway, I always looked down on all the lazy bumpers who get their doctors to diagnose them with metatarsal edema (swollen ankles) just so they can get permission to motor through the halls. But by the time I reach my locker I’m seriously considering getting a Preggway too because I’m ready to terminate myself. Especially when I see Zen has gotten there before me.

  So. Yeah. I handled things pretty suckily last night.

  But if there was a better strategy than locking myself in my bathroom and telling Zen I wasn’t coming out until I knew he was gone, I still don’t know what it is. Zen complied more quickly than I thought he would, and I can hardly blame him if he decided to head straight for Ventura’s bedroom. I doubt he did though. Ventura is not discreet and news of their hookup would be all over the MiNet this morning.

  Zen is leaning against my locker with his arms folded across his chest and one leg crossed over the other, the unnatural pose of someone straining very hard to look totally at ease. It’s a relief, really, knowing that he feels as awkward about what happened—or didn’t happen—as I do.

  “Hey.” His voice cracks. “Hey,” he repeats in a baritone that I think is supposed to be sexy but has the opposite of its intended effect on me.

  “Hey,” I say back.

  He runs a hand through his hair. I shift all my weight onto my right hip, trying to get comfortable.

  “I kinda went about it all wrong last night, didn’t I?”

  “Kinda? It was a total fustercluck.”

  This makes him smile.

  “You’re right,” he says. “And I’m sorry.”

  “I accept your apology.”

  Whew. That wasn’t so awkward, was it?

  Without anything to add, I punch the code to open the door.

  Oh no.

  “Surprise!” he says with a goofy flourish.

  Inside my locker are a six-pack of Coke ’99 and a box of chocolate chip energy bars.

  “What’s wrong? These are your favorites!” And then he proceeds to reach in, grab a bar, tear off the wrapper, and eat the whole bar in one big bite. “Mmm! Deeelicious.”

  “You’re right. These are my favorites. And yours too, apparently.”

  Zen chews for a few seconds, then swallows. “Sorry, I didn’t have time for breakfast,” he mumbles.

  “That’s fine,” I say, eyeing a smear of chocolate in the corner of his mouth.

  “Then why are you making The Fuggy?”

  He’s right. I’m frowning and my forehead is furrowed. I make The Fuggy whenever I get too tired of hiding my true feelings, which is happening more and more the longer I’m mocked up.

  I turn to him slowly, not to be dramatic but because that’s the only speed I’m capable of achieving right now.

  “Harmony told me that when Jondoe first came to my house, and he thought she was me, he tried to woo her—meaning me—by presenting her with the exact same gifts.”

  Zen’s face falls. “What’s your point?”

  “My point is that anyone who takes a moment’s glance at my file could know me just as well as you think you do. I’ve got a million MiNet followers who know me as well as you do.”

  And now, as an added measure of his distress, Zen pulls on his hair spikes.

  “We’ve been naive to believe our relationship is any deeper than it really is.”

  Zen is shaking his head at me. “Don’t do this, Mel.”

  “Do what? This is good news for both of us! It’s so liberating!” I point to my ubiquitous face in an ad on the wall right behind Zen. “The National Association for Procreation didn’t select me as their spokesteen without good reason! Why open our hearts and minds when we can open our files and legs!”

  “Yeah, what she says!” says Asif, the Baller who pregged Dea. His locker is right next to mine and he’s been graciously offering to bump hump me all year.

  “Gah,” I say to the Baller. “Delete yourself already.”

  Zen smiles uneasily. “Well, it’s nice to know that you’re rejecting all comers, not just me.”

  But Zen is the only one I struggle to resist.

  He’s licking his lips, not at all in a humpy way, but it’s still having that effect on me anyway. As much as I want press my thumb to the corner of his mouth to wipe away that stubborn smudge of chocolate, I feel like I shouldn’t touch him in that or any other way if he’s so conflicted about what—who—he wants.

  “Look,” Zen says, quietly now, so we won’t be overheard. “I don’t know what you think has happened or is happening with me and—”

  He stops himself before he says her name. I follow his wandering eyes behind me just in time to catch none other than Ventura herself hovering nearby. She unsuccessfully tries to escape detection by dashing into the boys’ bathroom.

  This, to me, is all the evidence I need that something has and is happening.

  Mercifully, the last bell rings, putting an end to this conversation.

  “I have to go now,” I say. “Because I’m already too late.”

  harmony

  THE AIR TAXI HAS LANDED SILENTLY IN MELODY’S BACKYARD. And that’s when I realize my escape plan has more holes than a pile of Ram’s unmended socks.

  “How do we know the pilot won’t alert the media?” I ask.

  “I have it covered,” Jondoe says, gently stroking the worried wrinkle in my forehead. “There’s no pilot. It’s a preprogrammed droid. It’s the only way I travel these days. How did you think we got here last night?”

  I was so out of it last night that I hadn’t even noticed.

  We climb aboard and Jondoe helps extend the seatbelt to accommodate the vast acreage of my waistline. The air taxi lifts off and within what seems like seconds Melody’s house is already in the distance.

  “We’ll be at the EBC in two minutes,” he says.

  I feel taken care of for the first time in far too long. The twins are settled down for now and I revel in this moment of relative calm. I need to reserve my strength for what lies ahead, and I pray we arrive before the next contraction.

  “I’m sorry I wanked out when I saw the twin’s face last night,” Jondoe says. “All the research I’ve done didn’t quite prepare me for that.”

  I can’t blame him. I’ve had more than eight months to live with the idea and I still can’t imagine what life will be like after the twins are born.

  “I can’t believe you had a plan all this time and you kept it to yourself,” he says with admiration. “You’re so encrypted!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You didn’t tell me or Melody or anyone!”

  “Well, I didn’t really have an escape plan in place. I—”

  “Give yourself some credit, Harmony. Cutting and dying your hair was a genius way to disguise your identity! You don’t want anyone to recognize you so you can deliver in Otherside without being stalked by the paparazzi! I only wish you had told me, though. I could have helped take your disguise to a whole ’nother level! With the help of some synthetic skinfeel, I could have given you a temporary racelift.”

  “A what?”

  “You know, like for obsolescents who want to try on their new raceface before committing to irreversible surgery. I could’ve turned you into a hundred-year-old Chinese man! I’m not sure why a hundred-year-old Chinese man would require admittance to a birthcenter, but that’s beside the point. You would have been unrecognizable.”

  “But I didn’t have
a plan. . . .”

  He waves my denials away with his hand. But the truth is, my makeover really wasn’t as calculated as Jondoe is making it sound. I only knew that I wanted to try look like someone else for a while. But maybe, deep down, I was formulating this plan all along and it just wasn’t until the Elders arrived on my doorstep last night that it all came together. That’s when I finally realized that I wouldn’t have any freedom of choice if I delivered in Goodside. If the Council voted for shunning, they would have taken the twins away. I reckon their new caregivers were already selected for me. Had one of the girls in my prayerclique already been assigned to the task, whether she knew it yet or not? The Council would’ve said this arrangement was for the good of the Church community. But would it have been good for the girls?

  “I just want you to include me from now on, Harmony. Whatever it is, I’m in! I would have disguised myself by dying my hair too. But I guess this fake beard and hat will have to do.”

  I must still be frowning over the thought of the twins growing up with my housesisters because Jondoe squeezes my hand and offers a compassionate look.

  “Oh, don’t worry, Harmony,” he says soothingly. “With my bone structure and complexion, I definitely could’ve pulled off the darker color.” Jondoe runs his fingers through his wheat-blond locks. “Then again, so many wannabes have cloned my hair color that I could easily be mistaken for one of my handsomer followers.”

  Does he really believe I’m troubled about his hair? I heave a sigh.

  “Were you this full of yourself when we met?”

  Oh my grace. My mouth is as out of control as my body.

  “Ha!” Jondoe barks in surprise.

  “I’m sorry. That was unkind of me to say.”

  “No! Don’t apologize!” Jondoe says. “You’re right! I’ve played the famegame so long that I’ve forgotten what I was like before. It really warps your mind, being the object of the world’s affection. I’m treated like everything I do or say is the awesomest thing that anyone has ever done or said, until the next thing I do or say becomes the awesomest. It’s no wonder I started believing I was an instrument of God.”