Chapter Text
“I saw a clone today at the library,” Anya said at dinner one night. Her brother didn’t even look up from his meal; he just scoffed.
“You’re making that up,” he said, raising a forkful of fish to his face, “Clones don’t read.”
“Well, this one can,” she said, annoyed. Why did Vaska always have to trivialize everything she said? Just because he had graduated from some fancy ivy league school, he thought he was better than everyone!
“I didn’t say they can’t read,” said Vaska, in his infuriatingly calm ‘I’m so much smarter than you’ voice, “I just said they don’t. Obviously they can read. But why would one go to the library?”
“That’s exactly what I was wondering,” said Anya testily. The only reason she had mentioned it in the first place was because it was unusual.
“It is unusual,” her mother agreed, “But good for him! Even clones deserve an education.”
“Books will get you far in life,” agreed her father, “Don’t you forget it.”
Anya signed. Her parents always managed to turn everything into a lesson about how “education is important” and that she should “stay in school” if she wanted to succeed in life. As if she didn’t already know that!
“Speaking of clones,” her father said, “Have you heard about the Republic victory in the * system? Glad they finally managed that; if only they had secured the air base earlier. Would have gone a lot faster.”
“What a brutal battle,” her mother sighed.
Clones were always playing in the holovids these days, in the news and in the commercials, rows and rows of identical troopers marching by, heading off to win glorious victories for the republic. Her father liked to watch them, listening to the latest news from the front and commenting in disgruntled tones how they should have done things differently. She and Vaska liked to joke that if only he’d been elected chancellor the war would have been over ages ago. But alas, he only worked at a holonet company and so the battles raged on.
As for Anya, she knew about the war of course, and that they were fighting in it, but unlike her father she didn’t really care. She didn’t listen to the news or watch the holovids; she had more important things to think about. For example: her teacher hadn’t liked her proposal for her upcoming literature essay, and now she had to completely rethink her whole approach. Literature had been her best subject in middle school, but now that she was taking the advanced course at one of the best high schools in the prefecture it suddenly wasn’t so easy.
Her father often said that school shouldn’t distract her from learning what happened in the rest of the world; but her father also demanded that she get perfect marks on all her tests and assignments too and frankly she didn’t have time for both.
So Anya let her father rant about the war efforts while in the back of her head she tried to think of the best way to revise her literature proposal.
“If you meet that clone again,” her father said off-handedly, “You should thank him for his service. We wouldn’t even have a Republic if it weren’t for their bravery and courage.”
“I will,” said Anya.
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But she doubted she would see him again.
And sure enough, the library was pretty much empty when Anya arrived that evening after school. There were a few people browsing the holonet and a homeless man sleeping in a chair and the librarian was helping a Bothan at the front counter fill out some forms in quiet murmurs; other than that the library was empty, and there certainly weren’t any clones.
When Anya was younger, she had spent entire days holed up in the library, devouring fiction. She had always felt at peace here, the air heavy with stillness, the hum of electric lights and rows of colourful shelves adding a mesmerizing rhythm to the silence. Now whenever she needed to concentrate, she found herself returning here, to her quiet desk in the corner by the window where she could work all day and never be interrupted.
And these days, she had a lot to concentrate on. Her happy days reading fiction were now over – she was a grown-up now, and had to deal with grown-up concerns. She needed to secure her future and get into a good university, and that meant she needed to study.
There was of course, that stupid literature essay, and also the upcoming chemistry test, and a math sheet to work on, plus they were counting on her to write an article for the journalism club, not to mention that her group for civics class really needed to decide on a topic for the upcoming presentation….
Thus, her work was cut out for her.
She finished up the math worksheet and was flipping through her copy of “Of Womprats and Wookies” trying to figure out the interplay between societal expectations of the main character and how this had influenced the tragic denouement of the novel when she noticed the clone had come back.
She had been concentrating so hard on her work that she had not noticed him come in, but there he was, sitting not to far away from her in a desk in the corner of the room. He was unmistakably a clone, but was it the same one as yesterday?
She thought it must be, because just like last time his arm was in a sling. It was unlikely enough to meet a single clone in the library, let alone two who both happened to have a broken arm. He was wearing the unmistakable clone trooper armour, but it was painted a minty green rather than the red she was used to seeing around Coruscant. His helmet was off. It was weird seeing a clone without the helmet. It made him look… like an ordinary human, almost. Not like the holovids at all.
He was reading something. He had a small pile of books at the table but she couldn’t make out the titles. The one he was reading at the moment was massive. She didn’t even know they had books that big at the library. Was he reading a dictionary or something?
He looked up briefly and she whipped her gaze away, not wanting to be caught staring. She turned back to “Of Womprats and Wookies” and pretended she was engrossed in the book. But she was so distracted she couldn’t have read it even if she tried.
Should she go up and talk to him? Anya wasn’t typically a shy person, but people didn’t go to a library because they wanted to chat. It would be rude to bother him, wouldn’t it?
But even after surreptitiously snapping several photos (that would show Vaska!) and sending them to all her friends, she didn’t feel satisfied. They were just going to ask what he was doing there, and she wouldn’t know the answer. And she had promised her father to thank him, hadn’t she?
That’s it! She was never going to get a chance like this again. Maybe she could even interview him for the school paper. She just had to talk to him! She stood up before she could overthink things and walked over to the clone trooper.
At first she thought he hadn’t noticed her because he didn’t even look up from his book. But before she could say anything he asked in a low tone, “Do you need something from me, Miss?”
“Oh, uh …” she stuttered. Maybe overthinking things would have been helpful after all, because now that she was here, she didn’t actually know what to say. She’d heard that clones were genetically engineered to follow orders and be perfect soldiers. All they thought about was war, or so she’d heard. Were they even capable of a normal conversation?
So she said the first thing that came to her mind and instantly regretted it.
“You’re a clone, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” he said, in the same tone of voice you’d use to say that the sky on Naboo is blue. He looked at her funny. AAAGGH what had she done?! Just because he was a clone didn’t give her any excuse to be rude! She was being totally insensitive! It was obvious he was a clone!
Trying to save herself from her blunder, Anya stammered out a quick, “Thank you for your service.”
“Oh, uh…You’re welcome,” he said.
“So what are you reading?” she asked, desperately starting a new line of conversation. She noticed that the clone looked almost the same age as her brother – a weird thought she didn’t have time to unpack right now.
“Hm?” said the clone. He stared up at her with wary brown eyes. “Oh, it’s an encyclopaedia.”
“An encyclopaedia?” repeated Anya. She stared at the enormous book in front of him. It looked… really boring.
“Yeah?”
“I-Is it interesting?” Anya said, trying to peak at the open pages. From what she could tell he had been reading an article on fungi.
The clone shrugged. “Eh, it’s alright,” he said. He didn’t seem very enthusiastic about it.
“I see... Well, why don’t you read something more exciting?” said Anya, “I know! Have you ever heard of the C* trilogy?”
“Never heard of it.”
“Really?!” she exclaimed. She wasn’t that surprised – it was a little bit obscure, but even so it was her favourite series of all times. She and her friends were obsessed with it! They’d even had a dinner party based on the food from the novel.
“Well, it’s about this family... they don’t actually do that much but – “ she launched herself into a long and rambling explanation, but when she noticed the slightly puzzled look on the clone’s face she forced herself to stop. Her friends had looked at her the same way when she first started ranting about the series. “Uh well, it’s a little hard to explain,” she said ruefully, “But I promise you, it’s really good! I have all the books, so I could lend it to you if you like.” That’s how she had gotten her friends hooked too.
“Oh,” said the clone, “Uh… thanks. But I’m fine with the encyclopaedia.”
“Really?” said Anya, not entirely convinced, “Why?”
“What do you mean why?” he said defensively, “You never know when a thorough knowledge of uh – “ He glanced at the article above fungi. “ - funerary traditions might come in handy.”
“Yeah? How so?”
“Uh…” He had to stop and think. “Well, there was this one time on the moons of B*,” he said at last, “If we’d have known…” He trailed off abruptly.
“What?” asked Anya, thinking he was just gathering his thoughts. But instead he just looked away.
“Nevermind,” he said, “Shouldn’t be telling war stories to little girls like you.”
“I’m not a little girl!” said Anya. She’d heard that clones were considered adults at only 10 years old, so she was probably older than him anyways.
“I shouldn’t share military details with teenage girls either,” he said.
“I understand,” said Anya, when she saw that he wasn’t going to give in, “Sorry for bringing it up.”
“Well,” he said, after a brief pause, “It was nice talking to you.”
“Yeah, you too,” replied Anya automatically, and nodded him a polite goodbye, even though she hadn’t even begun to ask him all the questions she had wanted to ask. What had happened to his arm? What was he doing in the library? Do clones often read encyclopaedias? But she knew enough about conversations to realize that this one was over, whether she liked it or not. He was clearly finished talking. It would be rude to press anymore.
He returned to his book, and she went back to her desk and resumed her studies, millions of questions swirling unanswered at the back of her mind.