“However,” Gray continued, “cloning your mentor hasn’t been possible. There’s some breakdown in his DNA that prevents the process.”
I almost laughed. “So even without knowing what you were up to, Mouse has outsmarted you.”
“I wasn’t up to anything!” Gray forcefully insisted. “Had I known about any of this, I would have tried to stop it. As it was, this program was well under way before it came to my attention. At that point, all I could do was damage control.”
“Yeah, right,” I muttered sarcastically, “’cause you’re a regular saint.”
“You think you’ve got me pegged?” Gray shot back, instantly livid. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”
“I know you love your job and the power it gives you.”
“Wrong,” Gray shot back. “I hate this job. I would have retired twenty years ago if I could have.”
“So walk away. No one’s stopping you.”
Gray let out a frustrated breath. “It’s not that easy.”
“Sure it is. People serve notice to their employers every day.”
Gray rolled his eyes in agitation. “Okay, smart guy, let me paint the picture for you. Suppose that you suddenly get sick of being in the Alpha League – you just want to go out, have a normal life, and leave all this superhero business behind you. But the minute you leave, your powers go to someone else who’s still on the roster, and not necessarily someone you’d personally choose. So maybe your abilities go to your best bud Smokey, or maybe your girlfriend Electra. Or maybe someone you’ve only waved to in passing. Or, if he was still in the League, imagine if they went to your brother Paramount. Not the Paramount you know today, but the guy he was a year ago – the arrogant jerk who went bananas and left a bunch of death and destruction his wake. Knowing all that was possible, do you just leave and don’t worry about what’s going to happen?”
“What are you trying to say, Gray?”
“I’m saying that I know you think I’m some kind of fiend, but some of the guys waiting in the wings are far worse. For instance, I’ve always tried to be respectful, such as giving individuals their privacy and so on. If I retire and certain people step into my role, you’ll never have privacy again. Within twenty-four hours, your house will be bugged, and every conversation you have from that point forward will be recorded.”
“Ha!” I scoffed. “Don’t try to sell yourself as some great humanitarian or protector of the innocent. You’ve done horrid things, like kidnapping my friend Rudi.”
“Your friend is one of the most powerful precognitives in the world,” Gray said. “With her ability to see the future, she helped her parents turn a hundred dollars into sixty million in the stock market in less than three weeks. Impressive, but she was causing all kinds of issues in the world of high finance. Left unchecked, she would have wrecked the global market, so we took her into custody.”
His explanation sounded plausible. Rudi was a young girl that my friends and I had rescued awhile back (along with her younger brother) from a secret government facility. As Gray had noted, she was indeed incredibly powerful. However, she was also a pre-teen, and may not have understood the consequences of her actions – assuming that Gray was telling the truth, and from what I could pick up empathically, he was being sincere.
“Okay, but what about Schaefer?” I asked. “You let that maniac release a virus that almost killed every super on the planet.”
As I spoke, I reflected back on the incident in question. Schaefer had been one of Gray’s agents whose hatred of supers had led him to release a virus that only attacked those with superpowers. He had ultimately been stopped, but his actions led to the destruction of the Academy, which had been a schoolhouse and training facility for teen supers.
Without missing a beat, Gray said, “Schaefer went off the rails. What he tried to do wasn’t sanctioned.”
“So you had no hand in that situation?”
“I know I seem all-powerful to you, but I’m in a very tenuous position, all the time. I can’t be seen to be losing control of my organization, or let rumor spread that there are rogue elements in my establishment.”
“So rather than disavow Schaefer, you retroactively approved what he did,” I surmised.
“The damage was done,” Gray protested. “Yes, I knew about the virus, but it was only devised to make sure we had a safety-valve in case supers went bonkers – something that would incapacitate those it infected. It was never supposed to be used to kill people, and I’m truly sorry for that.”
Needless to say, his reply caught me off guard. From everything I could read of his emotional state, Gray was being truthful. But if that were the case, it would mean that I might have seriously misjudged the man. Was it possible that Gray was actually one of the good guys? I didn’t even want to consider it…
“We’ve gone kind of far afield here,” I said. “We were talking about this illegal clone of me that you had made.”
“As I said, this program initially began without my approval,” Gray corrected. “When I found out about it, it was too late to shut it down, so I inserted myself in the process just to ensure there was appropriate oversight.”
“Well, your oversight leaves something to be desired, because your fake Jim is running all over the place, doing whatever he wants.”
“He goes by ‘Jack,’” Gray said.
I blinked. “What?”
“Your clone. His name’s Jack.”
I frowned. “Jack,” of course, is a nickname for “John,” which was my formal first name. They had really pulled out all the stops in making this clone seem connected to me. (Also, understanding now dawned on me with respect to Gray’s you-don’t-know-Jack punchlines.)
“With respect to him running all over the place,” Gray continued, “that’s because he’s escaped.”
Chapter 54
“Escaped?” I repeated with a frown. “Escaped from where? Was he on lockdown or something?”
“Not exactly,” Gray replied. “Needless to say, you can’t have a secret cloning program and then let said clones roam around like free-range chickens. Thus, for most of his life, Jack was housed in a specialized facility, with little access to the outside world.”
“Housed,” I echoed. “You make it sound like he was boxed up and stored in a warehouse.”
“That’s not far from the truth. Physically, he’s your age, but chronologically he’s much younger. We accelerated his growth and development using special hormones and unconventional biological techniques, among other things. That said, he spent a fair amount of time in stasis until recently.”
“You said ‘recently,’” I noted. “So what happened?”
“A couple of things, actually – first and foremost being that you left the planet.”
“So what? I mean, it was a big deal for me, but I’m not sure what it means for a clone.”
Gray’s brow wrinkled for a moment, as if he were working out a thorny problem mentally.
“There’s something in the cloning process that makes clones want to meet their originals,” Gray began. “With his power set, it was tricky when you were here, but once you left…”
I picked up on his train of thought. “Once I left, you could let your pet out of his cage on a more regular basis because there was no chance we’d meet.”
“Right. Letting him out, as you put it, was necessary to gauge his abilities, assess findings about the cloning methodology, and so on. But then you came back.”
“Let me guess: at that point, you couldn’t put the genie back in the bottle.”
“Yes, but it was actually a little more complicated than that,” Gray said. “Jack’s stasis chamber was an upright, rectangular pod with lots of wires, tubes, etcetera – probably similar to things you’ve seen in the movies.”
I nodded, understanding and able to visualize the type of device he was mentioning.
“Anyway, we discovered that Jack was leaving the pod at will.”
“How?”
“Sometimes the equipment wouldn’t complete the stasis process. It would just stop in the middle, like someone had hit an off button.”
“He did it,” I concluded. “Telekinesis.”
Gray nodded. “That’s what we assumed.”
“Shouldn’t someone have noticed that?”
Gray shrugged. “Like a lot of people, the scientists working with Jack fell into a routine. Once he was in the pod and they turned it on, they didn’t stick around to make sure everything went off without a hitch. They left to do other things.”
“I can follow that,” I said. “It’s kind of like people who let the garage door down when they get home from work. Once they see the garage door descending, they assume it’s going to go all the way down without issue, so they simply go inside without making sure it actually happened.”
“Exactly. Likewise, Jack just telekinetically shut things off – pulled a switch, pressed a button, whatever. In addition, we think there were other times when he simply teleported out of the pod before stasis was complete.”
“Okay, so he liked staying up past his bedtime,” I said. “Big whoop.”
“Except when he was supposed to be all snug in his bed, he was out there doing the types of things that you’re now complaining about.”
I spent a moment pondering his statement before responding. “Paramount’s cohorts. Those times when Jack was slipping out of bed is when he attacked them.”
“Yep. Guess he heard they were getting out and didn’t like it.”
“What?” I blurted out, unable to hide my befuddlement.
“Oh, you haven’t heard,” Gray said casually. “I’m not surprised, since it isn’t common knowledge, but many from your brother’s old crew are getting out of the orange jumpsuits.”
“How’s that possible? People died because of what they did.”
“These folks were mostly minors when they got sucked into Paramount’s orbit, plus some of them say they were terrorized into doing his bidding. In essence, they’ve done the equivalent of serving time in juvie, so…”
He trailed off, but I finished for him. “So their records will be expunged and they get to go back to life as normal.” I shook my head in disgust.
“Well, there may be some community service requirements in one form or another – you know, using their powers for the greater good to make up for their misdeeds and all that.”
“In other words, each of them was probably offered some kind of deal.”
“I’m not at liberty to say, but that’s a safe assumption.”
“I have a better idea now of why Jack was saying they needed to be punished. He thinks they’re getting off light.”
“Probably, but he also feels an affinity and similitude with you, which may have also guided his actions.”
“What are you implying? That he attacked Incendia and those others because he thought that’s what I’d do?”
“More likely he attacked them because that’s what he thought you’d like to do, without regard to whether it’s something you would actually follow through on.”
“That’s crazy.”
“I don’t disagree. Anyway, when his actions were discovered, a decision was made to warehouse him – keep him in stasis – until we figured out a way to control him. Suffice it to say that it didn’t go well.”
“What happened?”
“I’ll let his handlers tell you.”
Gray reached into the inside pocket of his jacket – presumably for a phone, but instead pulled out what I initially took to be notecards. A moment later, I recognized them as photos. He began handing them to me one at a time.
“This guy, as you can see, got telekinetically staked through the heart with a chair leg… This other young man got flung through a plate-glass window – took a piece of glass through the neck that almost decapitated him… This fellow fell victim to Jack’s teleportation power, and to be perfectly honest, we’ve never actually located the other half of him…”
I frowned in distaste as Gray handed me the photos, each more gruesome than the last. Looking at them gave little room for doubt that my clone was deeply disturbed.
“And finally there’s this lady,” Gray said, handing me a final pic. “She was having convulsions when we found her and it wasn’t until we performed a CAT scan that we discovered the problem. Apparently Jack tossed a paper clip at her head and then phased it, but made it solid again as it passed through her brain. It was surgically removed, but there was some neurological damage, so she has a long road ahead of her in terms of recovery.”
“And these were his handlers?” I asked, flipping swiftly through the photos once again. “He did this to the people he interacted with on a regular basis?”
“Apparently he felt strongly about being indefinitely put into stasis.”
“What about you?”
Gray frowned. “I don’t understand the question.”
“Well, you say he killed or incapacitated all his handlers, but you mentioned that you became involved in the process as well. Why hasn’t he come after you?”
“To begin with, I wasn’t involved in the day-to-day operations, so he didn’t necessarily associate me with those in the photos. In addition…”
Gray seemed to pause for a moment, then cleared his throat. “Ahem. In addition, there is a psychological barrier ingrained in him against harming me.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, focusing on what I’d just heard. “There’s some kind of mental roadblock in place that keeps him from coming after you? How convenient.”
“You assume he had a reason to come after me in the first place. The truth is that he doesn’t. He’s barely ever laid eyes on me.”
“Still, no matter what else happened with this guy, no matter how many gaskets he blew or how many gears he had come loose, you were always safe. Unbelievable. I don’t even know why I’m sitting here with you.”
“You’re here because I can help you deal with Jack.”
“Help me deal with it?” I uttered, nonplussed. “This is your mess. You should be cleaning it up.”
“Perhaps, but I’m not the one implicated by Jack’s actions.”
I just stared at him for a moment, and then, detesting almost everything I’d heard, I teleported.
Chapter 55
I popped up in Mouse’s lab. My mentor, however, was nowhere around. Eager to speak with him and share what I’d learned, I called him on my cell phone. He answered on the first ring.
“Hey,” I said. “Are you coming back to the lab soon?”
“Headed there now,” Mouse replied. “We were at Alpha Prime’s mansion, looking into what happened earlier.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” I asked, curious.
“Me and BT.”
“Okay, I’ve got an update.”
“Great,” Mouse said. “I’ll be there shortly, but BT had something to do.”
“Any interest in taking a shortcut?”
*****
The proposed “shortcut” generally consisted of Mouse pulling over to the side of the road and informing me of his location. I then teleported there and brought him (along with his vehicle) back to HQ. A few minutes later, we were in his lab, at which point I relayed everything that had happened since I’d last seen him.
“A clone, huh?” Mouse muttered after I finished bringing him up to speed. “Fortunately, we have probably the world’s foremost expert on the subject on speed-dial.”
He was talking about BT, of course. Being part of a network of clones herself, she could probably expound on the topic ad nauseum. In fact, the same could be said of BT with respect to almost any topic. Information was her stock in trade, and there was very little that she didn’t know or couldn’t find out.
“Unfortunately,” Mouse went on, “she’s out of pocket at the moment, but I’ll get word to her that we need her expertise.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “So, were you able to find out anything at the mansion?”
Mouse n
odded. “Looks like your clone Jack tried to manipulate the mansion’s security system – presumably via telekinesis. However, instead of turning the laser off, he boosted it up a notch and ended up getting blasted in the stomach.”
“Well, seeing as how his innards weren’t falling out all over the place, I’m assuming he has an advanced healing ability.”
“Maybe,” Mouse intoned. “You said you sensed that he had other powers. Could you tell what they were?”
I shook my head. “Nothing that we don’t already know about, like the telekinesis and teleportation. However, I did pick up on the fact that he’s not a telepath.”
“That’s interesting,” Mouse remarked, his brow wrinkling in thought. “And he’s been attacking Paramount’s former cronies because he thinks it’s what you want?”
“That’s the way Gray seemed to put it, but I don’t think it’s necessarily true. It’s more like Jack self-identifies with me – if that makes any sense – and views an attack on me as an attack on him.”
“And apparently he views injustice to you as injustice to him.”
“Injustice?” I said, puzzled – and then I realized what he meant. “Oh, you’re talking about Incendia and some of the others getting an early release. Yeah, Jack didn’t seem to care for that.”
“What about you?”
“Me?” I muttered. “What do you mean?”
“Do you feel Paramount’s little syndicate has paid their debt to society?”
“If they’re getting out now, I’d say their punishment was like getting a hundred lashes with a wet noodle.”
“So you’re not wild about it either,” Mouse noted, laughing.
I shrugged, then frowned as a new thought occurred to me. “Do you think we need to put out some kind of warning about Jack?”
Mouse seemed to consider the question for a second, then shook his head. “No, I think it’s enough to just focus on your inner circle for now.”
“Yeah, but I’m starting to feel like a newscaster out on assignment, having to constantly give updates.”
Mouse chuckled. “So basically, you’re tired of having to tell the same story over and over again – maybe to me, then your family, then your friends…”
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