Replication

by Kevin Hardman

  Based on what Dreiser had told us – and scenes from a million movies and TV shows – we were looking at a prison control room. It was also safe to assume that this was where the break-in previously mentioned had occurred, and we didn’t have to wait long for that to be confirmed.

  The two soldiers – guards, really – were doubtlessly going about their normal routine when a third person abruptly appeared in the room. He pretty much came out of nowhere; one second he wasn’t there, and the next he was standing directly in front of the two guards’ desks. (Actually, if the date/time stamp in the corner of the screen was correct, it didn’t even take a second for him to appear.)

  The newcomer was facing the camera, and I suddenly found myself leaning in close, not quite believing what I was seeing.

  The fellow who had just shown up had my face.

  Chapter 29

  I hit a button on the laptop, pausing the video.

  “What is this?” I practically demanded.

  “Let’s just let it play out first,” Dreiser replied, tapping a key that caused the video to resume.

  I was going to protest, but a subtle shake of my grandfather’s head made me hold my tongue.

  he instructed me telepathically,

  I gave a mental nod to acknowledge that I understood. Turning back to the footage, I saw the two guards suddenly take note of the newcomer’s presence. They reacted as anticipated, coming to their feet while simultaneously reaching for their sidearms. However, they had barely drawn their weapons before some unseen force unexpectedly snatched the guns from their hands and flung them out of view of the camera. The two guards exchanged worried looks – and then they themselves were gone. They vanished into thin air, like some sort of parlor trick, leaving the new arrival alone in the control room.

  Next, the new guy himself disappeared, only to materialize almost immediately in front of one of the desks. Based on what I’d seen, it didn’t take a lot of effort to understand that the fellow on the screen was a teleporter.

  Without hesitation, the newcomer leaned across the desk, but at an angle that gave the camera a profile view of his visage. He then began tapping on the keyboard, occasionally glancing at an image on one of the security monitors. After about ten seconds of this, he simply stood up straight and seemingly stared at the security monitor image he’d been watching earlier. He then crossed his arms, and I observed the corner of his mouth slowly turning up into a smile. I couldn’t pick up any emotions, of course, but I got the distinct impression that he was feeling a sense of smug satisfaction.

  “What’s he doing?” Gramps finally asked.

  “Admiring his handiwork,” Dreiser replied. My grandfather and I both gave him blank looks, prompting him to add, “Hang on. This will clear things up.”

  Without waiting for questions or commentary, the colonel hit a few keys, and the image on the screen changed.

  We were now looking at a small room – maybe seventy square feet in size – that was austerely furnished with a plastic chair, a sink, and a bed that was more accurately described as a cot bolted to the wall. The sole occupant was a young blonde about my age who was dressed in an orange coverall. Surprisingly, I knew who she was.

  “That’s Incendia,” Dreiser announced, confirming my own assessment. “She’s a super whose power set revolves around fire.”

  Gramps asked telepathically.

  I confirmed.

  My grandfather gave a barely-perceptible nod, and I picked up on a nostalgic vibe that suggested he was reminiscing. Around the time I joined the Alpha League, a group of supervillains had decided I was a threat to one of their schemes, so they had sent Incendia to deal with me. She had then used her power over fire to burn our house to the ground, destroying many of my grandfather’s keepsakes in the process.

  I continued.

  Gramps replied.

  I had to agree with my grandfather. Everything about the scene, from Incendia’s wardrobe to the Spartan furnishings, shouted “prison cell.”

  All of a sudden, Incendia’s head jerked up towards the ceiling, then left-to-right once, but in rapid fashion, as if she had noticed something perplexing. I was curious as to what was happening, but the camera in her cell was not angled in a way to give a view of what she was seeing.

  Without warning, something like a jet of water seemed to splash the front of her coverall from above. Incendia appeared to gasp, like someone being unexpectedly doused with a garden hose. At the same time, the liquid seemed to crystalize on her clothing.

  Incendia then arched her back wildly, her face wincing in pain. She then spun around, with one hand reaching over her shoulder, as if trying to grab something in the middle of her back. As she turned, I noticed that another stream of water (or whatever it was) had struck her back and crystalized there as well.

  “What’s that liquid striking her?” Gramps asked.

  “A modified form of liquid nitrogen,” the colonel replied. “Chemically altered to be more concentrated and pernicious than the industrial grade. It freezes on contact, and there are spouts placed in hidden cubbies all around her cell that will smother Incendia with that stuff if the nullifier fails for some reason and she gets her powers back.”

  As if to prove up what Dreiser was saying, it suddenly appeared as if someone had turned a firehose on Incendia, with jets of liquid hitting her and becoming frozen solid almost immediately. She dashed madly around the cell, trying to get away, but there was nowhere to run. (There was no audio, but from the way her mouth moved, I could tell she was screaming.) After about thirty seconds, she hunkered down in a corner with her back to the camera as she continued getting sprayed. Within a minute, she looked to be little more than a block of ice.

  Dreiser tapped a key on the laptop, ending the video.

  “In case you were wondering, Incendia survived,” he stated. “But just barely. She’ll spend the next few weeks being treated for severe hypothermia. Hopefully she’ll regain consciousness soon, and she’ll be lucky not to lose any fingers or toes.”

  “She has our sympathies,” my grandfather said sincerely, “but what does this have to do with us?”

  The colonel gave him a frank stare. “You’re kidding, right? Were we looking at the same video? Our facility got breached by a perp who’s a dead ringer for your grandson.”

  “I saw a young man with a passing resemblance to Jim,” Gramps acknowledged. “But nothing definitive.”

  “Really?” Dreiser droned sarcastically. “What about the part where he telekinetically disarmed a couple of my men, and then teleported them two miles away?”

  Well, that explains what happened to the guards, I thought.

  Gramps shrugged. “They were doing tricks like that with cameras forty years ago. These days, they’ve got apps that can make you look like a dog or turn you into the opposite sex. Making a couple of guys disappear on video is child’s play.”

  “Come on, John,” Dreiser said, almost sounding exasperated. “This visit is off the record, so I’m not here in an official capacity. I’m here as a friend.”

  Gramps stared at him for a moment, and then nodded. “Alright, off the record. So tell me, what do you have?”

  “Just what I said,” the colonel answered. “Your grandson teleporting into a high-end facility last night, accosting two guards, and almost killing a prisoner.”

  “That’s not Jim on that video,” Gramps firmly insisted.

  Dreiser held up his hands defensively. “Look, John, I believe you, but let’s face facts. Your grandson is Kid Sensation. That info isn’t publicly known, but enough people at certain echelons are aware of it. And on the surface, we’ve got a guy displaying both telekinesis and teleportation – two of Kid Sensation’s well-documented abilities – not to mention the fact that he could be yo
ur grandson’s twin.”

  My grandfather crossed his arms. “I get it. People above you on the totem pole think Jim’s a criminal now. Even if that were true, what can they do? Technically, he’s the Caelesian ambassador to Earth, which means he’s got diplomatic immunity. They can’t touch him.”

  The colonel nodded. “True, but even if you can’t arrest a diplomat, you can always give them the boot – kick them out of the country. Or in this case, off the planet.”

  “Make him leave Earth?” Gramps asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “That would be one option,” Dreiser confirmed.

  Gramps frowned. “Is there another?”

  Dreiser made a vague gesture. “Being born on Earth, your grandson is considered to have dual citizenship, from a planetary perspective. He could voluntarily relinquish his Caelesian status.”

  “Which would open him up to arrest and prosecution,” Gramps added. “So he can go to jail or leave the planet. It’s a bit of a catch-22.”

  “Pretty much,” the colonel acknowledged. “Unless he can prove it wasn’t him.”

  “Of course he can prove it wasn’t him!” Gramps declared. “He’s got an alibi.”

  Colonel Dreiser’s eyebrows went up slightly in surprise. “Oh?”

  “He was at a party last night,” Gramps said. “He was seen by hundreds of people.”

  “John, your grandson’s a teleporter,” Dreiser stated flatly. “He could be here one second and on the dark side of the moon the next. Bearing that in mind, it doesn’t matter if a million people saw him at that party. He’s got no alibi for anything. Not now. Not ever.”

  Chapter 30

  Dreiser left shortly thereafter, with my grandfather walking him to the door. I stayed put, still trying to make sense of everything I’d seen and heard. In fact, I was replaying the video in my head when my grandfather came back into the room, albeit a few minutes later than expected.

  “Permission to speak, sir?” I asked.

  “Funny,” Gramps said sarcastically. “I didn’t want you talking because I didn’t want you to say anything that might inadvertently incriminate you.”

  I acknowledged his comment with a nod. “So you took longer than necessary to show the colonel out. What were you two talking about?”

  “I was getting a better lay of the land.”

  “And?”

  “Drake’s a friend, as you could probably tell. Since the facility that got breached is under his authority, I asked him to do what he could to help us.”

  “Which is what?”

  “Well, some people above his pay grade think the case against you is pretty clear-cut. The situation is still being looked into, but they want to fast-track the investigation. However, your standing as a Caelesian dignitary complicates things. Drake’s going to use that to insist on a deliberate, by-the-books approach to the investigation, which he’s heading up. He’ll buy us some time to figure this thing out, including what we want to do.”

  My brow crinkled in thought. “How much time are we talking about?”

  “A week – two, max.”

  “Not a whole lot of time,” I noted. “And what happens after that? They show up with manacles and a rocket ship, giving me a Hobson’s Choice?”

  “Ha!” Gramps chortled. “With your mother and grandmother around, I’d love to see them try.”

  “That reminds me,” I said, noting that I couldn’t detect any nearby emotions besides my grandfather’s, “where is everybody?”

  Gramps shrugged. “They went off to do some post-party, Caelesian princess thing. Your mother doesn’t know anything about it, so Indigo and Myshtal are teaching her.”

  That news came as a bit of a relief. Basically, I was glad that they hadn’t been around to see that footage of what appeared to be me doing something heinous.

  “Anyway,” I said, “did Dreiser say anything else?”

  “No,” my grandfather replied, shaking his head. “But he did give me this.”

  He held out a hand, palm open, in which sat the flash drive with the incriminating footage.

  Chapter 31

  It went without saying, of course, that the data on the flash drive was a duplicate. Dreiser wasn’t foolish enough to carry the original of something that important around with him, and he certainly wouldn’t have given it to Gramps, no matter how close their friendship was.

  “So what’s our next step?” I asked.

  “We try to get a better handle on what’s going on here,” my grandfather replied. “See what more there is to the story.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll reach out to some old friends. Make a few phone calls. If I can get in contact with the right people, maybe I can even stop this crazy talk about kicking you off the planet.”

  His statement brought Gray to mind, who had once threatened to deport me off the planet as well. I hadn’t even told Gramps that he’d called me, but I did so now, swiftly bringing him up to speed on the conversation we’d had.

  “You don’t think he’s behind this, do you?” I asked when finished.

  My grandfather shook his head. “It’s really not his style. Gray tends to tackle things like this head-on.”

  “In other words, he would have shown up and tried to toss me in the paddy wagon.”

  Gramps chuckled softly. “Probably. But even if he isn’t directly involved, he obviously knows something. The timing of his call couldn’t have been a coincidence.”

  “Agreed,” I said with a nod. “But back to your friends – do you really think they’ll help?”

  “Of course. I’m still owed more than a few favors by some high-ranking individuals. I just need to call in some markers.”

  “Great,” I effused. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Nothing. Just sit tight while I go get my phone and start making calls.”

  With that, he began walking out of the room while I smiled to myself, thinking how lucky I was to have such a great grandfather. He typically had good contacts, so it was almost a certainty that they’d be able to help us. I hated to think what would have happened if this mess had occurred a little later, after my mom and grandparents had left the planet. I’d be on my own then, and have to deal with the problem myself.

  Suddenly I frowned as an entirely new line of thought pushed itself to the forefront of my brain.

  “Wait,” I practically ordered, causing Gramps to turn around just as he was leaving the room. “Don’t do it.”

  My grandfather frowned. “Do what?”

  “Don’t call.”

  Gramps seemed to ponder this for a moment, then asked, “You don’t want me to call my friends?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Why wouldn’t you want…?” he began, and then his eyes grew big as I felt something like dread arising in him. “Jim, you didn’t do this, did you?”

  “What?!” I exclaimed. “No! We both know that’s not me on that video.”

  “Then I don’t understand. Why don’t you want me to have my contacts look into this?”

  I closed my eyes for a moment and let out a deep breath, trying to figure the best way to explain. “You, Mom, and Indigo are leaving soon. If this had happened when you were gone, it would be my problem. I’d have to handle it.”

  “Well, we aren’t gone yet,” Gramps said, “and we’re not leaving before this thing gets resolved.”

  He made his statement in a matter-of-fact tone, not even fazed by the fact that I knew about their plans. (Presumably Mom had told him, since he didn’t register any surprise when I mentioned her going with them.)

  “Regardless,” I stated, “this is something I need to take care of. More to the point, you need to be comfortable with the idea of me tackling issues like this – and worse – while you’re gone, because that’s what’s going to happen. And if you can’t adjust to the notion of me dealing with these types of problems on my own, then maybe you shouldn’t leave.”

  I had spoken more fiercely than I intende
d, and felt a little ashamed for talking to my grandfather in that tone. He hadn’t really done anything but offer to help, but it had suddenly occurred to me – as I’d stated – that I wasn’t going to be able to lean on him for much longer. I needed to start handling my own problems.

  On his part, Gramps merely stared at me for a moment. Then he extended a hand in my direction, and I realized that he was holding out the flash drive. As I reached out and took it, he still didn’t say anything, but I felt a powerful emotion surging through him: pride.

  Chapter 32

  As with most dilemmas, I turned to the place where I was most likely to get answers: Mouse. Dismissing with formalities, I teleported straight to his lab (after promising Gramps that I would keep him and the rest of the family apprised of any developments).

  I popped up in an exceptionally large room with numerous oversized worktables covered with highly sophisticated and specialized devices. An extensive array of complex computers and machinery were lined along one wall. Finally, an uninterrupted stream of data flowed nonstop across more than a dozen large, flat-screen monitors placed strategically around the room.

  This was Mouse’s lab. Much to my dismay, however, Mouse himself was nowhere to be found and didn’t answer when I called him on his cell phone. Feeling frustrated and thwarted, I left him an urgent voicemail asking that he call me back asap.

  I hung around for a few minutes afterwards, hoping that my mentor would quickly return my call (or better yet, show up in person), but it didn’t happen. Impatience quickly got the better of me, and simply for want of something to do, I teleported to my Alpha League quarters.

  My suite, like all the other teen units, was furnished, but in a strictly utilitarian manner – with chairs, a bed and so on. There were no pictures on the walls, no photos, no memorabilia or knickknacks. In short, it lacked a lot of the homey features that make a place feel cozy and inviting.