by Gwenda Bond
WHOA. And then, dated two days later…
My Frankenstein’s monster yet lives, and he is identical to Mayor Worthington, as promised. He possesses the same mental faculties, but none of the troublesome memories. Meaning he feels no tie to the Mayor and will do as he is told. He can read the scripts provided, and the client is going to put him to the test tomorrow. I have prepared a tracker to be worn on his person, which I have assured him means he will never be lost, that I will always be able to find him.
I imagined for a moment that he looked troubled, but of course he did not. I am his creator. His god. He needs the reassurance that I will be here for him, and I shall. He is my greatest work to date. The first living clone of an existing human being.
There were a few pages more about the subject’s performance on his initial assignment, which was to make a recording imitating James’s dad. There was also a cross-reference tag in the notes that seemed to indicate most information about the duplicate was in a dedicated file. As it should be. It—he—deserved a file of his own.
Because I’d answered my own question about what the man in the tank was.
He was a clone.
A clone of James’s dad, created with some sort of serum produced from Melody’s blood in order to frame the mayor. Currently, it seemed he was being used to threaten the ex-mayor into continuing to stay silent.
I still couldn’t understand why Mayor Worthington hadn’t fought back at the time. That was a question I’d have to put to him directly.
But I believed the notes when they said Melody’s problem was fixable. Awful as this scientist guy was, he clearly was a genius. If a far less savory one than Einstein.
Shuffling the pages back together, I noticed one last section of notes on the back sheet. I’d almost missed it.
My creature must now remain inactive, but I have vowed to Boss that I will keep him alive in case his services should be needed again. And once it is safe, I could always wake him for further study. The effect of such a period in and of itself will be a fascinating subject to explore. For now, I fear, he must sleep in peace.
And then a date two weeks ago: Subject reactivated with minimal difficulty, per request of Boss. Conditioning underway to ensure his readiness to fulfill the purpose for which he was created. I have begun to dose him once more with the daily regimen to suppress connectivity.
It was followed by another tag referring back to the main file on the duplicate.
Inactive? Was that what being in the tank was? Had the double been on blue-glow ice for two years, until now? It sounded that way. The question was why the side effects had emerged if he was being dosed. Perhaps it had something to do with being in the tank for so long… But wait. I remembered the bag the double had removed from his pocket. The round white pills inside. He wasn’t taking the antidote. That was why.
Interesting too that Dr. Donovan had become more familiar about how he referred to Boss Moxie, from Mr. Mannheim to Boss in his notes in two short years.
I wanted to tell everyone what I’d learned. I wanted to show someone the proof, have them agree that however crazy the idea of a clone walking and talking and being used to frame a mayor was, all the signs pointed to that as the right conclusion.
But SmallvilleGuy wasn’t back yet, TheInventor hadn’t answered my PM, and I was missing every single phone number from my contacts. In fact, I wasn’t even sure my phone still worked. I picked it up and dialed our landline number, heard the phone downstairs ring.
I’d just need to restore and re-enter everything from the last backup my phone had stored in the cloud. Based on what I’d read from Dabney Donovan’s notes, he wouldn’t be worried about stealing my data with his little gizmo. The beep and whir I’d heard was undoubtedly some kind of data-erase, devoted to preventing the theft of his vaunted ideas and research by wiping anything in the data memory of a device that visited his lab. Since he only used paper records, his own information would never be impacted.
He’d overlooked the fact that I could walk out with paper.
Cockiness led to mistakes. Pretty much always, in my experience.
There was one thing I’d have to manually restore, though. The backup wouldn’t cover the secure chat app, a security measure of TheInventor’s software. So I searched through my email archive until I found the private, password-protected link to download it, and started the installation process. Once I keyed in the password, I was in for an age of waiting for the installation to finish.
And that’s what I did. I lay on my bed and stared up at the ceiling, thinking over what I’d learned and mulling next moves, waiting…
*
I woke the next morning with a start. There was no alarm, no noise to blame as the cause. I was in my clothes from the day before. My mouth tasted like old spaghetti.
I’d fallen asleep waiting—for the app to install and for SmallvilleGuy’s safe return from the sighting. I jumped to my feet and scrambled to my computer. Like me, my computer had fallen asleep, so I had to rouse it to see the chat window. I also had to log back in, due to inactive time. There were a few messages waiting, but I didn’t bother to read them before typing in mine.
SkepticGirl1: Hey, I fell asleep like a stupid and just woke up and argh please tell me you’re okay. Tell me you’re here and everything’s fine.
Only after my message posted did I scroll up.
SmallvilleGuy: Made it back. Must be something in the air—it was a close call for me too.
SmallvilleGuy: Hey, you there? Lois?
He’d tried a couple more times, which made me feel terrible. But pure energy surged and shoved that aside when I saw a new message pop up below mine.
SmallvilleGuy: You’re not a stupid. And you probably needed the sleep.
SmallvilleGuy: Me, I didn’t get much last night.
SkepticGirl1: Tell me. What happened? You had a close call? Did someone see you? Did the agents see you?
Something occurred to me that might be worse than federal agents.
SkepticGirl1: Did your parents know where you were going? They didn’t catch you, did they?
SmallvilleGuy: As we expected, there was no flying man sighted. There were four people from the boards there… at least I assume they were from the boards. They got collared by four agents who I heard ID themselves as a “classified federal interagency task force,” whatever that means. They interrogated the four, asking specifics about if they’d seen the flying man before and for details, times and dates, specific locations. Whether or not they’d been close enough to describe his facial features. No one was.
SkepticGirl1: How did you almost get caught?
SkepticGirl1: And, wait, how did you hear all that? How close were you?
SmallvilleGuy: Close enough. There were four agents who confronted the posters who showed up, but there were actually five agents there. One of them was sweeping the woods around the coordinates. He almost found me. I managed to move fast enough to get away.
SkepticGirl1: Whew. Did your parents know you went there?
SmallvilleGuy: They didn’t. It makes me feel so guilty. They’re the most honest people in the world. But…
SkepticGirl1: But?
He was typing again, so I took a quick jaunt into my attached bathroom to brush my teeth. Yesterday’s spaghetti was gross, even if he wasn’t here in person to tell me my breath reeked.
I eased back into my chair to catch up.
SmallvilleGuy: They don’t know about Strange Skies. I don’t think they’d approve of me hanging there if they did.
I was nodding in sympathy.
SkepticGirl1: Especially not with federal agents sniffing around. If my dad knew I’d shared anything about what happened to us that night, he’d flip. Like, completely. Like, I would need to dig a tunnel to leave my room probably.
SmallvilleGuy: Right. They mean well.
They want us safe.
SmallvilleGuy: There’s more bad news, related to that.
My palms felt clammy.
SkepticGirl1: What is it?
SmallvilleGuy: TheInventor was waiting when I got back last night and I gave him a report. He had some information to share in return.
Uh-oh.
I hoped SmallvilleGuy wasn’t mad that I’d messaged his friend.
SmallvilleGuy: He’s afraid that maybe his firewalls and security precautions aren’t as impenetrable as he thought. And he’s got evidence that someone—I think we know it has to be this interagency task force—is trying to break them. The only reason they could want to do that is to identify the users on the boards.
SkepticGirl1: Wow, that is bad news.
SmallvilleGuy: The worst.
SkepticGirl1: We can’t just give this up. Not the boards.
And not each other.
I was developing a suspicion about why SmallvilleGuy was so concerned about the fake sightings and the feds, why his parents would freak. But he wasn’t ready for me to know if my suspicion was right, and so I would keep it to myself.
SmallvilleGuy: Agreed. TheInventor wants us to meet up in the game later and discuss, after he does a little more homework.
TheInventor had only ever helped us. But I didn’t quite trust him. I couldn’t explain why. So for now, if SmallvilleGuy did, that would have to be good enough for me.
SkepticGirl1: All right. Just tell me when. I’ll be there.
SmallvilleGuy: Good. I wasn’t positive you’d say yes. But we need to come up with a way to get rid of this fake poster and his pals, and he can help us.
SkepticGirl1: We do. And we will. Because if my parents find out about those posts, if my dad does… I’ll lose this.
What I meant: You. I’ll lose you. Dad would monitor everything I did from then on.
SmallvilleGuy: Speaking of parents, what’d you tell yours about who I was after the call?
I swallowed and typed out: My mom thinks we’re dating. What do you think of that? Too ridiculous? Because it might be nice if it was true.
Then I deleted the words, backspace backspace backspace.
SkepticGirl1: That you’re from Ohio and we met when I went to school there. That we’re friends who game together and I was tormenting you. They bought it.
A subject change was what I needed at this moment, and I had the perfect one. The file folders were still spread across my bed. With the drama of SmallvilleGuy’s late night adventures and TheInventor’s intel, I’d nearly forgotten. Or maybe I thought I’d dreamed the answer. But I had to tell him.
SkepticGirl1: So. Those files I took from Ismenios dude. You won’t believe this, but…
SkepticGirl1: The ex-mayor was set up by that mobster Boss Moxie using a clone. The double is an actual double. An identical duplicate of Mayor Worthington made via some science whizbang using Melody’s DNA and the mayor’s.
There was no response for a long moment, and I thought I’d finally sailed the boat of crazy one league too far.
SmallvilleGuy: Good thing our lives aren’t complicated.
I snorted.
SkepticGirl1: Isn’t it though?
SmallvilleGuy: I have to go, but we’ll talk more later, k?
SkepticGirl1: Later.
I was in danger of running late for school, but I didn’t rush to get ready. Instead I made sure the chat app was reinstalled on my phone (it was), then navigated to the Strange Skies site.
He must not have seen this yet.
The scourge using the handle Insider01 had already announced the next sighting. The location was just outside Wichita, Kansas—37º53’32.63” N, 97º39’14.59” W, to be precise—and the local time was given as 7 p.m. Thursday, the next night.
Why were they still doing this? They couldn’t have gotten anything that helped them the night before, could they? And if they cracked the boards’ security, they’d have everything they wanted.
I went to close the browser, but noticed a small number 1 on top of my PM box. I clicked, and saw that TheInventor had responded to my message.
PM from TheInventor to SkepticGirl1: I could tell him to be as cautious as I am, but I think we both know that it wouldn’t matter. If he was going to listen to anyone, he’d listen to you. I feel we are going to make a good team to get rid of this threat that plagues us all. Best, A
CHAPTER 17
Maddy finished stashing her books inside her locker, clicked the royal blue door shut, and spun the combination lock. She turned to find Devin and me standing behind her. Her T-shirt said Nervous Takedown.
We must have been wearing “serious business” expressions, because she held out her wrists like we were police who might cuff them.
“I should’ve known I’d get caught, officers,” she said. “Today’s the day you finally take me away.”
“Haha,” I said. “Ha.”
She lowered her wrists. “To what do I owe this dramatic interruption on the way to lunch?”
“Lois thought it was best not to give you too much warning,” Devin said, not that helpfully.
I gave him a dose of side-eye before answering Maddy. “It’s time to bring everyone up to speed.” Devin, of course, already knew I’d been to the locations and gotten the goods—but not yet what the goods were. “I know what’s going on with your sister and how it connects to James’s dad.”
She swallowed. “Shouldn’t we wait until after school? Melody would probably rather come by the office.”
I started walking in the direction of the cafeteria, joining the streaming traffic of students around us. Neither of them protested.
I waited until Maddy was on one side, and Devin was on my other. Maddy and Melody’s relationship was a delicate thing to balance against the larger story, but in this case I had come to the conclusion that caution would have to be tossed into the wind. I had the other relevant party—James’s dad—to brief later.
Not to mention, Perry still had no idea any of this was going on.
I told her, “Your sister’s worries about being seen with the likes of us will have to wayside. I have other plans for after school. And you have a date, remember?”
“What if she ignores us?” Maddy said, only flushing a little at the mention of her date.
Devin nodded. “It could happen, Lois.”
I heard what he didn’t say outright. He wanted to make sure I’d thought through how Maddy would feel if Melody snubbed us in front of everyone.
“Nope,” I said. She wouldn’t do that to her sister, would she? I didn’t think so. “I checked out her social accounts.” Melody’s fixation on popularity was so strange to me, I’d figured this was the equivalent of a background check. “It’s what you said the other day about popularity, Devin. Melody’s is the second kind. She carefully curates everything she does. Every outfit, every selfie she snaps, every status update. They’re all so… crafted. She’s not a mean girl, even if she can turn on the snob factor. She doesn’t joke around. She wants to be perfect, unattainable, untouchable.”
“Tell me about it,” Maddy muttered.
“But no one is all that, not really. So it’s an act,” I said. “She’s just afraid someone will notice if she’s hanging out with us. That they might discover something she doesn’t want them to see, something she didn’t choose to show. She won’t risk making a scene once it’s clear that’s going to happen no matter what. I already gave James the heads-up that we’re coming to get her. He’ll play along.”
We were near the point of no return, aka the cafeteria doors, when Maddy grabbed my arm. “Even if you’re right, she’ll never forgive me,” she said. “Not for messing up the act.”
“She will.” I sounded more confident than I felt. But I wanted to figure out what had distanced the sisters from each other. I wanted to
help them bridge that distance. They clearly cared for each other—at least, Maddy clearly cared for Melody. That was enough for me to want them to be friends as well as sisters. Even if they’d never be best friends. “Were you guys close when you were little?” I asked.
“What does that have to do with anything?” she asked.
I waited.
She smoothed her streaked hair behind her ear. “Yes.”
“How old were you when that stopped?”
“I don’t know, twelve and a half.” Maddy shrugged, but her specificity gave her away. She must know the precise instant. “Or sometime around then. I think.”
So, seventh grade. A crucible that many relationships did not survive. Hadn’t Melody said Maddy ditched piano lessons around then too?
“Good to know. Let’s do this.”
“Enter, miladies,” Devin said, stepping out front and pushing open the cafeteria doors for us. We’d managed to wait until the rest of the students in our period were inside, many of them already ensconced at their usual tables. That included Melody and her cluster of popular perfection, which included James, and another similarly glossy-toothed guy I didn’t know, and three smiling, chatting girls.
I took a handful of Maddy’s shirt in my fist to prevent her from bolting as we approached. “I’m not going to run now,” she said under her breath.
“I know,” I countered. “Because I’m not letting go of your shirt.”
James had been watching for us, because he lifted a hand in greeting when we reached the table. A redhead in glasses aimed a coy smile at one member of our party. “Hi, Devin, what’s up?”
I recognized her from Melody’s social media as a girl who juggled cheerleading squad with Latin Club and a handful of charities. She’d posted a photo of herself and Melody volunteer bathing extremely cute, extremely shaggy dogs. The photo had made me like Melody more. An act that included helping out at a dog shelter hopefully wasn’t entirely an act.
“Hey, Clara,” Devin said. “We need to borrow James.”
“And Melody,” I added. “Impromptu staff meeting.”