“First of all,” Smokey began, after swallowing a bite of oatmeal, “I’ve only been staying here a couple of days – not long enough to be considered ‘hiding out’ by any standard. Next, I’m here solely because Sarah keeps coming by the house to visit, and I don’t want to deal with her.”
“So you’re here to avoid her.”
“Pretty much.”
“By staying some place she’s unlikely to find you.”
“Yeah, so?”
“That’s the very definition of hiding out.”
He gave me a sideways look, as if there were something he wanted to say, and then we both started laughing.
“Okay, you got me there,” Smokey admitted a few seconds later. “Maybe it is hiding out. But she was calling me ten times a day and leaving twice as many texts – still is. I’m at the point where I don’t even bother looking at my phone anymore because nine times out of ten, it’s her.”
Well, that explained why he hadn’t answered when I called.
“Then, since I wasn’t responding to her calls, she started dropping by the house unexpectedly,” he continued. “My family would do as I asked and tell her I wasn’t home, but they like Sarah and didn’t care for lying to her, and I hated putting them in that position.”
“So you basically moved out.”
Smokey shrugged. “I told my family that I had to check into HQ for some training, which isn’t exactly a lie since I’m going to be homeschooled by Mouse. And if Sarah asks, the League isn’t going to tell her anything about who’s in residence at the moment.”
“Speaking of Sarah,” I said, “full disclosure: I spoke with her today.”
Smokey dropped his spoon into the oatmeal, then pushed the entire bowl away before leaning back, looking annoyed. “I suppose she asked you to talk to me.”
“Something like that.”
“And I take it that’s why you’re here.”
“Not the complete reason, but yeah,” I confirmed. “Obviously it’s none of my business, but for what it’s worth, I think you should at least hear her out.”
Smokey looked away for a moment, shaking his head in a woebegone manner before turning back to me. “Did she tell you about our arrangement – the concessions we had to make to her family in order to date?”
“She told me.”
“I guess you think it’s weird.”
I held up my hands in a hands-off fashion. “Hey man, you’re talking to a guy who had to get engaged to someone in order to get home to see his girlfriend. I’m not in a position to judge anyone.”
“True,” Smokey acknowledged with a chuckle.
“So is that why you started missing school, too?” I asked. “Trying to duck Sarah?”
“No,” he stated, shaking his head. “I skipped school because of Atalanta.”
I frowned. Needless to say, his statement bothered me. Playing hooky – even for a pretty girl – was well out of character for my friend.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You skipped school to hang out with her?”
“Not exactly,” Smokey stated. “She had a problem that she needed some assistance with. Helping her caused me to miss some class time.”
I took a moment to let his statement soak in, not saying anything. Based on what I was picking up from him emotionally, there was more to the story, but I probably needed to get it another time.
“Anyway,” I said, “my talking to Sarah about you was really sidebar to another conversation and segues into the real reason why I’m here.”
I then reached out telepathically to explain about my evil twin – and much to my surprise, hit pay dirt.
Chapter 42
“So Smokey actually interacted with this guy?” Mouse asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, but in a very limited fashion. As far as he was concerned, though, it was me.”
We were in Mouse’s lab. After getting the story from Smokey, I had immediately called my mentor. At that juncture, Mouse was onsite at HQ, so I’d simply teleported and here we were.
“So let me see if I have this right,” Mouse said. “The fake Jim shows up in the teen lounge, sees Smokey, and approaches him. Smokey thinks it’s you, and immediately asks about the mission. Your evil twin says he has to leave, but states he’ll be back in a few minutes and asks Smokey to grab him a soda in the meantime. He then teleports.”
“And about thirty seconds later, I walk in,” I added. “The real me, that is.”
Thinking back on it, it certainly explained why the initial part of the conversation with Smokey seemed odd – as if he were following up on something that had been said before. (And from his point of view, that had been the case.)
“So,” Mouse concluded, “while he seemed to have fooled Smokey, this fraudster didn’t appear to get any useful info.”
“True,” I agreed. “Of course, Smokey’s embarrassed about it. He feels like he’s less of a friend for not being able to tell the difference between me and the fake Jim.”
“Tell him he shouldn’t feel like that at all,” Mouse assured me. “In fact, it was him being a good friend and knowing you that probably made your lookalike skedaddle.”
I gave him a bewildered look. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Think about it. Smokey had just asked him about the mission. Presumably, your double didn’t know anything about it. He wouldn’t be able to discuss it without blowing his cover.”
“Or at the very least making Smokey suspicious,” I added.
“Right,” Mouse stated with a nod.
“It’s too bad the League doesn’t have cameras in the teen lounge,” I lamented. “We might have been able to figure some more things out if we caught this guy on tape again.”
“You super teens are under enough pressure,” Mouse explained. “You need to have at least one place you can go and relax without feeling you’re being scrutinized. So, no cameras in the lounge.”
Unexpectedly, my cell phone vibrated, indicating a text message had been received. I pulled it out and glanced at it as Mouse continued talking.
“Anyway, your evil twin didn’t learn anything,” my mentor stated, “even though he got close to someone in your inner circle.”
“Make that two people in my inner circle,” I corrected, frowning.
I handed Mouse my phone, showing him the text that I’d just received, which had come from BT and confirmed my earlier suspicion about who the fake Jim had definitely made contact with. It stated:
Logs show you visiting Paramount twice this weekend.
Chapter 43
“You think you need to go talk to Paramount?” Mouse asked after viewing BT’s text. “Maybe peek inside his head and see what happened?”
I shook my head. “Paramount’s brain is still a block of Swiss cheese to a large extent. It’s still regrowing, healing. Even if I did go and take a cursory glance at what’s in his mind, between the seizures, the memory lapses, and everything else, I wouldn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. Moreover, if I go in quizzing him about this stuff, it may cause some type of setback – delay his recovery. It’s part of the reason I didn’t go into it when he said I’d already come by that morning. No…it’s enough to know that my doppelganger visited him.”
“That brings up another interesting question,” Mouse stated. “Why visit Paramount? Given everything you said a minute ago, nothing your brother says is really reliable. He’s not a trustworthy source. ”
“It’s more than that,” I insisted. “Historically, Paramount and I weren’t close at all – he didn’t even know who I was. Even if he had known, he’s not anyone I would have hung out with – especially after he put together that little cadre of teen supervillains, like Daemon, Goon, Incendia…”
I trailed off as I suddenly felt something tickling at the back of my brain. It was a stray thought, roaming around like an annoying fly that you can’t quite lay eyes on but which keeps buzzing in your ear. After a few moments, however, it came into focus, making me reco
gnize a connection where I hadn’t seen one before.
Mouse, as expected, was ten steps ahead of me and was already on his cell phone, addressing the issue.
*****
“Okay, it’s confirmed,” Mouse stated a few minutes later, hanging up his phone. “BT verified that, in addition to Incendia, several other members of Paramount’s prior clique of sinister teens have been grievously injured.”
“Was it the same guy?” I asked. “My evil twin?”
“Officially, no. There were three of them, and like Incendia, they were being held in nullifier cells. It appeared that there was some type of malfunction, and the equipment intended to subdue them in the event the nullifiers failed became active.”
“Okay, that’s the official story,” I uttered. “And unofficially?”
“Unofficially,” Mouse said, “with nothing showing up on any of the cameras that were in place, I think your double either became invisible or used telekinesis to do the same thing he did to Incendia. I assume he would have done something similar to Paramount but changed his mind for some reason.”
“Or maybe he figured he’s done enough damage,” I tossed in. “After all, he’s framed me pretty well now by going after people I arguably have a grudge against.”
“Except he’s only visible in the footage concerning Incendia,” Mouse countered. “If everything he’s done is some kind of set-up, why not appear as you every time he attacked someone instead of just that last assault?”
I considered his question for a moment. “You’re thinking maybe this isn’t simply a frame job.”
“What I’m thinking is that his actions don’t make sense if that’s his goal.”
“Hmmm,” I muttered, pondering. “Maybe he wasn’t ready.”
“What do you mean?” Mouse asked, looking perplexed.
“I mean, what if he hadn’t finished whatever process was necessary to make him look like me? If that were the case, he’d want to remain out of sight.”
“Now I understand,” Mouse said with a patronizing nod. “You’re still thinking his resemblance to you is some type of surgery or something.”
“Actually, it occurred to me this morning that maybe the guy has some kind of healing ability,” I clarified. It was a thought that had come to mind when I was wishing my new talent for healing others could take away Sarah’s heartache. “I know you said surgery usually leaves scars, but if he’s able to heal himself like a lot of supers can, then scarring wouldn’t be an issue.”
“If he could heal himself, I would expect any kind of graft to be rejected.”
Mouse’s statement caught me by surprise, prompting me to ask, “Why is that?”
“If a super who gets hurt has a healing ability, his body usually goes back to its form and condition before any injury was sustained. If he gets a cut, it heals. If an organ is damaged, it mends. Lose a leg, it regrows.”
I nodded in understanding. My own body had an exceptional ability to heal, so little of this was news to me (although thankfully, I hadn’t been forced to try to regrow any limbs thus far).
“However,” Mouse said, continuing, “if you try to transplant something – an organ, a limb, or even a face – to someone with that kind of healing talent, the body will reject it.”
“Wait a minute,” I interjected. “I thought there was always the risk of rejection with a transplant anyway.”
“There is, because a person’s immune system often recognizes transplanted material as being foreign – not an original part of the body – and attacks it. But in the situation we’re talking about, it’s less of a risk and more a certainty due to the fact that the body of our hypothetical super is already fixing whatever is wrong. If, say, his body is already regrowing a liver that got shot to pieces, it’s going to identify a transplanted liver as being of unknown origin – because he shouldn’t have two livers – and reject it.”
“So with the fake Jim,” I surmised, “a face transplant wouldn’t work because his body would say, ‘I’m already repairing this guy’s face and it’s going to be perfect when I’m done, so get your substandard transplant material out of here.’ Assuming he has a healing ability, that is.”
“In essence, yes,” Mouse concurred. “But it’s more than just that. Remember when we talked about molding the subcutaneous contours of his face to match yours? Those would start healing as well, going back to their previous shape.”
“In other words,” I concluded, “now that we’ve eliminated all other possible explanations for his appearance, I need to accept that this guy is most likely a shapeshifter and–”
I stopped as I abruptly sensed a wild flurry of panicked – almost crazed – emotions coming from nearby. I picked up feelings of dread and trepidation on a level that could almost be described as horror. And the source of it was heading in our direction like a jet.
Acting on instinct, I phased both myself and Mouse just as something seemed to strike the double doors that served as the main entrance to the lab with a sound like a mortar shell. The doors flew open, struck by a force that almost tore them from their hinges and which sent them swinging around so wildly that they embedded in the walls. And whatever had done it suddenly came streaking towards me, a blur moving at almost the speed of sound.
Chapter 44
I shifted into super speed, ready to face whatever threat had just crashed into the lab. However, I was completely unprepared for what I saw coming at me: my father.
Something was obviously wrong. Alpha Prime was so keyed up that I hadn’t even been able to recognize him, empathically, as the source of the feelings I’d picked up on. It was as though he was hardwired with a panic button that had somehow been pushed, setting off an endless string of emotional klaxons.
As he came towards me, I felt my father’s panic subside slightly. At the same time, his speed began dropping precipitously, such that he was no longer flying at me like a rocket trying to break free of Earth’s gravity. He was still far from his typical emotional state, but I didn’t get the sense that he represented a danger. With that in mind, I matched him, switching back to normal speed while at the same time shifting Mouse and myself out of our phased state.
Sparing a glance at my mentor, I suddenly noticed that he had his right arm pointed at my father. More importantly, his right hand was curled into a fist and seemed to be encompassed by something akin to a metallic brace which extended just slightly past his wrist in the direction of his forearm. I had never seen it before, didn’t know where Mouse had retrieved it from, and hadn’t seen him put it on, but everything about the brace – which had a series of softly winking lights on it – seemed to scream “weapon.” And from the intense look on his face, Mouse wasn’t afraid to use it.
A moment later, however, I had no more time to dwell on the subject as my father stopped directly in front of me and began practically jabbering.
“Son! Son!” Alpha Prime essentially shouted as he gently but firmly gripped my head between his hands and looked me in the eye. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
“What…?” I muttered, perplexed, trying to take a step back. “I’m not…I’m–”
“Are you hurt?” my father asked, shifting a hand to my shoulder.
“No,” I insisted, attempting to shake my head. “I’m alri–”
“I’m sorry,” Alpha Prime cut in again, as if he hadn’t heard me, and a moment later, we were completely talking over each other.
“I don’t know what happened…” he said.
“What are you–” I began.
He placed both hands around my face again. “Are you okay, son?”
“Yes, I’m just–”
“Are you in pain?”
“Huh? No, I–”
“Do you need a doctor?” he asked, placing a hand to my abdomen and pressing like a paramedic trying to locate a contusion.
Suddenly frustrated at not being heard, I angrily slapped his hands away and belted out, “Dad, stop!”
Looking co
mpletely startled, Alpha Prime abruptly went quiet and just stood there, staring at me.
*****
Later, Alpha Prime would say that it was my calling him “Dad” that had stunned him into silence. It was a term I had never used in addressing him before. (In truth, I couldn’t say that I had ever actually planned on calling him that, so I was as shocked by it as anyone.) However, after getting over his surprise, he explained what led to him busting into Mouse’s lab.
“I was here at HQ when I got a notice from the alarm system at the mansion indicating intruders,” Alpha Prime explained to me and Mouse. “I pulled up the cameras on my cell phone and saw this.”
He handed the phone to Mouse, who held it so that we could both see the screen. It showed an image that I immediately recognized as being one of the interior rooms of the mansion. Without warning, someone showed up in the middle of the frame, appearing out of nowhere.
“Hang on,” Mouse said, tapping the “Pause” button.
He then pulled some cables from a nearby drawer and spent about thirty seconds using them to connect the phone to some of the equipment in his lab. When he was done, the video from the phone was showing on one of the larger monitors. As I could have guessed without being told, the person who had appeared looked exactly like me (although it was easier to note with the image enlarged on a bigger screen).
Mouse hit a button on the phone and the footage resumed playing.
“You are trespassing,” said a robotic voice on the video. “You have ten seconds to vacate the premises or the use of force will be authorized to detain you. Ten…nine…”
The voice continued counting down, but my doppelganger didn’t seem particularly disturbed. Instead, he seemed to be taking in the room, which housed some nice artwork on the walls. In fact, because his attitude was so nonchalant, it was almost comical when the countdown hit zero and a laser blast took him in the gut, passing through his body and searing a hole in the wall behind him. There was a look of complete and utter surprise on his face – like someone who had just discovered that fire was hot by touching the business end of a blowtorch.
Replication: A Kid Sensation Novel (Kid Sensation #6) Page 22
