Free Resistance (Replica) by Jenna Black

don’t actually remember the wedding, seeing as you had me murdered and I only remember events up to my last backup, but I’m pretty sure one did actually take place and that it does create a bond between our states.”
    His father’s smile was hard and cold.
    “An apt observation,” the Chairman said. “There is nothing that unifies two states better than a marriage. And it just so happens that Chairman Belinski has a marriageable daughter. And I have a marriageable son.”
    The blood drained from Nate’s face so fast it left him dizzy. He’d have leapt to his feet and shouted a protest, only he was afraid his knees wouldn’t hold him. The Chairman turned the stack of contracts around so that Nate could read them and see the words “marriage agreement” featured prominently at the top.
    “I’m engaged to Nadia,” Nate said, but his voice came out sounding thin and tentative.
    “Not by any legal definition of the term. Nadia Lake is too young to sign a legally binding marriage agreement. Agnes Belinski, however, will turn eighteen a week from Saturday. At 12:01 on that morning, she will sign her copy of the agreement, and your engagement will be official.”
    Nate was shaking his head, his pulse racing. “You’ll destroy her,” he said, hardly able to absorb the cruelty of his father’s decision. Nate and Nadia had been unofficially engaged since he was six and she was four. Partially to scandalize people, and partially to help camouflage his sexual preferences, he’d given the press and the rest of Executive society the impression that he was already sleeping with her. And she’d just been a victim of a media storm that had her family hiding her away in the equivalent of a medieval convent. Everyone would assume she had done something terrible. Something so shameful that the Chairman could no longer countenance letting her marry his son. She would be seen as damaged goods, and no respectable Executive would be willing to marry her. Ever.
    “Perhaps the two of you should have thought of that before you forced me to destroy the heart and soul of our economy,” the Chairman said acidly. “As long as we had the revenue from the Replica program, you could marry within our state. Now, however, I have no choice but to use your marriage in a more politically advantageous manner.”
    The explanation was pure bullshit. The Chairman’s intention was to punish Nate and to ruin Nadia’s life.
    “I won’t do it!” Nate said, mining the fury that lay beneath his dismay. He stood up and found that his knees would hold him after all as he glared down at his father. “You can’t drag me to the altar at gunpoint.”
    The Chairman, unaffected by Nate’s declaration, rose from his seat. “You will marry Agnes Belinski, or I will have you put in reprogramming to correct your sexual deviance. I’ll make certain Miss Belinski will still be waiting for you when they’re done with you. And I will, of course, suggest to the public that your deviance is due to Nadia’s inability to inspire you to correct your behavior. I don’t think that will do her marriage prospects much good either, do you?”
    It took everything Nate had to hold himself together. He felt like he was literally going to explode, and he wanted to ram his fist through his father’s face. He should have known something like this was up as soon as he’d heard the Belinskis were visiting.
    “Shall I call security to take you to a reprogramming facility? Or will you sign the contract?”
    Nate wished he could believe his father was bluffing. Wished he had the guts to storm out of the office without signing the papers. But the Chairman was right. If Nate’s sexual preference was revealed, it would destroy Nadia’s reputation as surely as breaking the marriage agreement would. And he would come out of reprogramming a changed person, his spirit crushed. The only person Nate had ever known who’d gone through reprogramming had come out the other end a