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ONE
SAMANTHA RYAN PLACED HER HANDS on the front of her boss’s desk and said, “I want a transfer, not more of your damn excuses.”
She knew that speaking to Stephan in such a manner wasn’t the best idea, especially when he was the man in charge of both the Special Investigations Unit and the more secretive Federation—a man who’d ruthlessly do whatever it took to get the answers he needed or the job done. She knew that from firsthand experience; she’d suffered through his interrogation without the medical help she’d required after she’d been shot while trying to stop the shapeshifter imitating her partner—a man who also happened to be his brother.
Not that she thought he intended her any sort of harm right now. He had as much interest in finding out who and what she was as she did. But he certainly could make her life hell—though how much worse it would be than her current hell was debatable.
She leaned across the desk and added, “Sir,” a touch sarcastically.
Stephan Stern raised one blond eyebrow, as if mildly surprised by her outburst. An outburst he’d known was coming for months. “You know I don’t want to do that.”
“I don’t honestly care what you want. This is about what I want.” She pushed away from the desk, unable to stand still any longer. Damn it, she’d spent more than half her life with her head in the sand, cruising through life rather than participating, and she’d had more than enough. The time had come to get greedy—to think about her wants, her desires, for a change. And what she wanted right now was not only a more active personal life, but a working life that involved something better than a broom closet. “Transfer me back to State, let me resign or find me another partner. As I said, I don’t care. Just get me out of my current situation.”
Her angry strides carried her the length of the beige-colored office in no time and she turned to face Stephan. His expression was as remote as ever, but she’d learned very early on that Stephan was a master at hiding his emotions—and that his dead face was just as likely to mean fury as calm.
“I prefer to leave you with Gabriel, as I still believe you two will make a formidable team.”
Sam snorted softly. “That has never been an option, and I think we both realize that now.”
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried, for God’s sake. But her partner was still going out of his way to exclude her from everything from investigations to chitchat. Access to the SIU’s vast computer system just wasn’t worth this frustration and unhappiness.
Especially since she was getting jack shit in the way of information about the past she couldn’t remember. Hell, her dreams were providing more information than the SIU’s system. The only trouble was, how much could she actually trust the dreams?
And how much could she trust the man who constantly walked through them?
She didn’t know, nor did she have anyone she could talk to about it—and that was perhaps the most frustrating thing about this entire situation. She needed to get a life. Friends. People she could trust and talk to. Hell, even a pet would be better than going home alone to a soulless hotel room every night.
“I prefer to give the situation more time.” Stephan crossed his arms and leaned forward. “However, I do have another option that might suit us both.”
Sam met his gaze. His blue eyes were sharp, full of cunning and intelligence. Stephan was a shark by nature—and this was the reason he, rather than his twin, Gabriel, ruled the SIU and the Federation.
Of course, that also meant she was beating her head against a brick wall where Gabriel was concerned, because Stephan was always going to look after his twin’s interests first. Even if said twin didn’t appreciate his efforts any more than Sam did.
She came to a stop in front of his desk and couldn’t help feeling like a fish about to be hooked. “What might that be?”
“You remember Dan Wetherton?”
She nodded. “Last I heard, no one was sure if the body Gabriel found was the real Wetherton or a clone.”
“Well, as it happens, it was the original.”
Sam snagged the nearest chair and sat down, interested despite her wariness. “Gabriel and I theorized about the possibility of whole brain transplants making clones a viable replacement option, but officially—as far as I’m aware—it’s still considered impossible to create a clone that exactly duplicates the mannerisms and thoughts of the original person. They may be genetically identical, but they are nevertheless different.” She hesitated, frowning. “Besides, I read the in-house reports and tests done on the living Wetherton. He was declared human in all scientific results.”
“And a clone isn’t?”
She grimaced. Clones were human, no doubt about that. But whether that actually granted them humanity was a point of contention between the scientists and the theologians. “Having only met one clone, who was trying to kill me at the time, I don’t feel qualified to answer that particular question.”
Amusement touched the corners of Stephan’s thin lips. “As it happens, the test results were altered by a party or parties unknown long before we got them.” He picked up a folder from his desk and offered it to her. “These are the originals. Have a look.”
From past experience she knew that it was pointless to ask how he’d gotten hold of the original papers. Stephan worked on a need-to-know basis—and generally, that meant the less everyone knew, the better. She doubted even Gabriel was privy to all his secrets.
Not that Gabriel himself was particularly open. Not with her, anyway.
She leafed through the information inside the folder. It included the genetic tests on both Wetherton and the clone, the coroner’s report and Wetherton’s medical history.
“Wetherton had cancer,” she said, looking up. “Incurable.”
“Which the current version no longer has.”
She threw the folder back on the desk. “If you know he’s not the original, why not simply kill him?”
“Because we wanted to know why he was cloned. And where.”
“But not who had cloned him?” Did that mean they suspected the mysterious Sethanon was behind it all?
“As I said, we don’t know the where and the why. But there is only one suspect for the who.”
“But the military is experimenting with genetics. There’s no reason why Wetherton can’t be their boy.”
“No, there’s not.”
His tone seemed to dismiss her speculation, and yet she had a vague notion that she’d hit upon the very issue that was troubling Stephan. Only, for some weird reason, he didn’t want to acknowledge it. “And what about the replacement parts industry? Have you checked to see if they have started developing fully formed beings, or is that just too obvious?”
His expression became briefly annoyed. “We never overlook the obvious.”
Of course not. She smiled slightly. Irritating Stephan might be akin to prodding a lion with a very short stick, but when she got even the slightest reaction, it was oddly satisfying.
“The black-market trade in cloned parts is boomi
ng,” she said. Of course, it was fueled mainly by humanity’s desperation to cheat death. An incredible number of people seemed willing to pay exorbitant prices to grow new body parts, so why not take it a step further, and attempt a cloning miracle? Not just a replacement heart or liver or whatever other part had failed, but a whole new body?
But humanity was more than just a brain; it was also a heart and soul. Medical science might be able to transfer flesh and brain matter, but how could anyone transfer a soul? Even if they could pin down what a soul actually was?
Not that rules ever stopped anyone—especially when there was huge money to be made.
And somewhere along the line, someone had succeeded in achieving at least part of the impossible—fully fleshed, viable clones who looked and acted like the original. Wetherton, and her ex-partner, Jack Kazdan, were proof of that. Although something had gone wrong with Jack’s clone; it might have looked like him, but it had had serious problems speaking. But then, it had been given a shitload of growth accelerant, so it wasn’t truly a surprise that it couldn’t speak well. It had never really had the time to learn.
