Two of a Kind

But I'd found out far too late, that she hadn't been lying. I blamed myself for her death of course. But at the same time I blamed the man who had caused the rift between us in the first place, as well. And once I'd discovered his reasons for doing it, for doing this whole thing, I knew that I owed it to Shelly's memory to end him.

And that's why I don't have a life. It's why I don't have creature comforts or cars. I'm on a mission and I've put having a life on hold until I put that asshole in the ground. I still have my house back home. But I haven't been there in at least a year. And even then it was a quick stop before chasing down another lead.

I've worked my way up the feed chain until I got to Hugh Joel Peters. I had left more than a few dead or disabled lab techs, scientists and shady business men in my wake. There had even been a couple of times when I'd nearly gotten Stein. But the bastard was very wary, very wiley and too God damned slippery for his own good.

Of course I'd been bluffing back there with Peters. I knew that Peters wasn't even associated with Stein when Shelly was cloned. In fact, I had been chasing Stein for longer than he and Peters had worked together. Peters was in no way responsible for what had happened to my wife. I could therefore, in good conscience, not do him any permanent damage. But he didn't have to know that. It was a bluff pure and simple.

The second thing was that I'd given him the impression that our little group was a unified front, when in fact we all had our own separate reasons for what we'd done. Chris and Sarah had been hired to find out whether or not Becca was cheating on Will. If she had been, they were to get evidence to support him in his divorce. It seemed funny to me. Will had been in the exact same situation that I was once in and we had completely different motivations. All I'd wanted was for Shelly to admit what she'd done and stop. I'd have forgiven her in a heartbeat and we could have gone on with our lives.

Will and Becca clearly loved each other a great deal. At lest as much as I loved Shelly, and honestly I'd probably have to say more.

But he'd been willing to simply walk away from that great love simply because she gave another guy some pussy. The oddest thing about it, at least to me, was that he didn't have any proof. At least I had seen with my own eyes, what I thought was Shelly cheating on me. And even then I'd been willing to give her the chance to come clean and stop. Will was obviously more absolute in his morality. Or perhaps it was only his youth.

In my time I've seen a lot of things happen and I've come to realize that no relationship is perfect. As much as Chris and Sarah love each other there are secrets between them. I'm pretty sure that Sarah has no idea that her sweet, soft spoken engineer husband, who helps her out on the occasional divorce case, was tracking and murdering people for Uncle Sam before he attended his high school prom. Chris has probably put all of that behind him. He probably considers it a different life or something that someone else did, but does Sarah even know what her husband is really capable of?

In my time with them I've also wondered just what would happen if Sarah and now the baby she carries was ever threatened. How far Chris might go for someone he loves that much scares me.

But now for all of them, the case is over. Will has the chance that I never did. His wife is back in his arms as we speak. For Chris and Sarah it's even simpler. They've gone far beyond what the average P. I. Is capable of and solved yet another tricky case. Once again, Sarah Price has proven herself to be the best there is at what she does, although this time she really didn't do much. Chris and I had done all of the heavy lifting. But in any event, they'd earned another fat paycheck and probably a healthy bonus for going beyond the call of duty.

All of the remaining questions and problems were mine.

The question of how to go about getting the information I needed from Peters was a problem only for me. How to go about using any information that I got from Peters was again my problem alone. The Becca clone? What would become of her? I had discovered her so I guess it was really up to me to figure out what the hell to do with her as well. Although perhaps I could convince one of the happy couples to look after her until I finished this.

I was hoping that Chris and Sarah would look after her. It probably seems more like something that Will and Becca should do, but it would more than likely be nightmarish for Becca to have to look at a carbon copy of herself all of the time. Especially one who would do some of the things that Becca two had been conditioned to do sexually.

From our conversations Sarah had explained to me some of the things that had angered Will the most about that video. Seeing his wife do things with another man that she had refuse to do with him had caused him to become unglued. Having a woman who looked so exactly like her that even her husband couldn't tell them apart, who did do those things around them, was likely something that Becca wouldn't care for.

Realistically, I didn't need their help any way. Of course I would have loved to have Chris in this with me. And Sarah would probably prove very useful in getting us intel and coordinating things, but Will and Becca brought nothing to the party. They were better off and safer out of it.

As soon as I reached for the door it opened and there she was waiting for me. As her beautiful eyes focused on me, I answered her unasked question before it touched her lips.

"I didn't hurt him. He's fine," I said, closing the door behind me. She looked at me in confusion. And then the lightbulb went on.

"I wasn't wondering about him," she said. "I was waiting for you."

"Why?" I asked. "Do you need something?"

"I have a lot of questions," she said. "And you're always so nice to me. You don't look at me like the others do. I learned to speak through subliminal and AV training while I was in the bad place. So I may not know the correct words for..."

"What bad place?" I asked.

"The place where I grew," she said. "It was full of men and a few women in white coats who pulled and prodded at me and gave me awful shots and took samples. They never asked and most of the time they talked about me as if I was a thing instead of a person. It was awful."

"Do you remember where the place was?" I asked.

"No," she said shaking her head. "The last thing I remember about it was the last time that I had to be examined by the man with the deep voice and the scary eyes. He told me that I would begin my new life soon. They gave me another shot and when I woke up, I was with Hugh. He told me that if I ever tried to escape, he'd kill me and get another. Hugh kept changing his mind about what he wanted. He was always looking through magazines and saying, "I should have gotten HER."

"I guess sometimes he liked me and other times, I was just wrong. Sometimes he'd talk about how great my legs are and others he'd complain about me not having any tits. Tits are breasts, right?"

I nodded and she smiled. "But you're so beautiful," I said. "You're a work of art. How could anyone complain about..."

"Oh he had lots to complain about," she said. "Sometimes he'd take me to a place where people who wanted to work for him met with us. Hugh makes sex movies."

She informed me of Hugh's occupation like it was the greatest thing in the world.

"There was a woman in one of those places that wanted to work for Hugh," she continued. "She was a short blond woman. Her chest was flatter than mine. But when she got up on stage and started dancing, Hugh's eyes popped out and I could tell that he wanted to sex her. She had a really rounded bottom and she kept wiggling it. I didn't think it was really dancing but Hugh loved it."

"He looked at me," she continued. "He asked me if I could do that. But then he just shook his he's and said, "Forget it. You don't have enough booty to clap."

"And Hugh was always sexing me. He made me do things that I just didn't want to do. But if I refused him, I knew he'd just send me back to the man with the scary voice, so I did it. I could tell that he was getting tired of me though. Because when you rescued me he was about to let all of those men sex me. I think maybe that was now he was going to get rid of me. He was going to let them sex me to death." I just shook my head. I really didn't know what to say to her.

"Uhm no one will ever sex you again unless you want them to," I said. She smiled.

"Not even you?" she asked.

"Especially not me," I said.

"Your friends seem nice," she said. "Why do they all look at me or talk about me like I'm not here?"

"Uhm...?" I began.

"Bitch," she said.

"No, Honey. Bitch is not a name..."

"You called me Becca two, before. Is that my name?" she asked.

"I guess that was just something to call you so we'd know who we were talking about," I said. "Maybe you don't have a name yet. That's a good thing. It means you can have any name you want."

"Your name is Clyde," she said smiling. "Can I be Clyde too?"

"No sweetheart. Clyde is a man's name," I said.

"So what girl's names go with Clyde," she asked.

"Uh, the only one I can think of is Bonnie," I said.

"I love that," she smiled. "Can I be Bonnie?" I nodded and she smiled again.

I sat down on the sofa and turned the TV on. She sat down next to me.

"Clyde why doesn't Becca one like me?" she asked. The innocence of her voice and the question amazed me.

"it's not your fault, Honey," I said. "But you almost cost her something that she loves more than anything else in the world."

"Her man, right?" she asked. "But I've never even spoken to him. And he's afraid of me too. And the other two look at me like I'm an oddity. I don't mind that so much. I'm used to it. But I really want Bonnie one...I mean Becca one to like me. I like her."

"Just give her some time," I said.

"Why does she talk funny?" she asked.

"Because she grew up in a different country," I said. "It's called an accent."

"You do know that they're all upstairs sexing, right?" she asked.

"I kind of figured as much," I told her.

"Do you want to sex me?" she asked. Thankfully, we were interrupted by the sound of quiet footsteps coming down the stairs.

I looked and saw Sarah coming down the stairs.

"Didn't you hear him yelling?" she asked. As I watched her don her tiny rectangular glasses while swinging that thick mane of reddish blonde hair out of the way, the thought occurred to me that she had to be at least as attractive as Becca, the world class super model.

She might even be more attractive because Sarah actually had breasts and hips to go with her long legs. Even as I took a breath to answer, Bonnie put her hand on my shoulder almost protectively. Sarah noticed the gesture and her lips formed a hint of a smile as she went past us.

"Where's Chris?" I asked.

"Window," she said. "He's already there."

Next I heard the sound of Will and Becca coming down.

A few moments later we all made it outside, where Chris was holding Hugh by his collar and heading back inside.

"I'll talk," screamed Hugh. "I'll tell you what you want to know, just let me go before you go after him." He looked straight at me. "You won, I don't want to be tortured." Then he looked around before settling on another face.

"Tell him to let me go or you know what will happen to you, bitch!" he screamed.

"That's not my name anymore," she said calmly. "And you can't make me do those awful things anymore, so I don't care what happens to you."

Hugh was flabbergasted. "What do you mean?" he asked. "You're my property. You don't get to just decide what you care about and what you don't."

"It's just like she said," said Sarah. "You have no hold on her anymore. How she came to be here; how she came to be period, doesn't matter. She's a person. She has rights."

"Yeah whatever," said Peters. "I want to do this like the old guy said. I tell you guys everything I know. Then you let me go. You go your way and I go mine. Of course I was planning on taking my property with me, but I guess it'll be easier for me to run and to hide, if I'm alone."

"My name is Bonnie," she said, surprising everyone. They all just looked at me.

"Bonnie and Clyde," said Sarah smiling. "I think it's cute."

We all went back inside of the cabin. For the next hour, Peters told us everything he knew about Stein and his process. He told us where Stein got the financing. Where he believed Stein's main lab was. Stein's most likely home address and how many people he'd seen the one time that he'd actually been to the lab.

We realized then that even with help from Chris, Sarah, Will, Becca and Bonnie, it was hopeless. There was no way that two trained men, one untrained but well mening guy, a pregnant woman, a super model and a clone, were going to take that lab down. Stein had too many hired guns, too much security and all of the advantages.

If this had been a movie, we'd have called in Arnold, Sylvester Stallone and the rest of the expendables, but in real life, we took a different approach.

Chris, Sarah and I went to visit an old friend of Sarah's that she knew from a case. It was funny because I'd have been sure that Chris would have been the one who called in an old friend.

Will agreed to drive me. I think he wanted to somehow stay in the mix on this. I didn't really want to involve any civilians, but I guess he had a right to know what was going on.

Besides there wasn't a better way unless we left Sarah behind and since the guy was her contact that didn't seem feasible. There was also no way for Chris, Sarah and me to fit into Chris' Mustang. I don't know why they put a back seat in that car when no one older than seven or eight can fit back there.

So the four of us drove to the spot Sarah had picked for a meeting. We'd been sitting there in that coney island eating greasy hot dogs for about a half hour, when I heard the growl. I looked out side to see that a third Mustang had pulled up beside the two we'd driven. I began to wonder if everyone except me had one of those cars.

The guy who got out, was older than Sarah and Chris, but younger than I am. He looked around the place with the eyes of a cop or an ops guy. He quickly scanned the place and took a second look at Chris and me, but no one else.

He came right over and sat down at our table.

"Hey Sarah," he said. "The pre-mommy look, looks good on you."

"Hi Dan," she said. "I was sorry to hear about Meg. By the time someone had told me about it, everything was over. I sent flowers to the hospital and called and left you a message."

"I know Sarah," he said sadly. "I got them, but with everything that happened, I'm way behind getting back to people. I was working my butt off to keep me sane. And every second that I wasn't working, I was at the hospital until she came home a couple of months ago and...."

"She came home?" gasped Sarah. "But I thought...."

"Yeah," smiled Dan. "Pretty much everyone did. But she pulled through."

"How is she?" asked Sarah. "Is she still...?"

"She's different in a lot of ways," said Dan. "But in many she's still the same. She can't work any more. And she uh...doesn't remember a lot of things. But you can't get shot in the head and not have it change things."

I'm a pretty good judge of people and the thing that struck me the most was that the man was either lying or holding something back. Shit, I hated this. Spies and spooks made their living lying and pretending to be something other than what they really were. I didn't think those guys could tell the truth to save their lives. Did any of them know what the truth actually was?

That made me think about Chris. In his case I was pretty sure that he'd either been sworn to secrecy or had just put his past behind him, not to fool the people close to him, but so he could have a somewhat normal life. This Dan guy though, was a different matter. He seemed as twitchy and secretive as every other CIA, FBI, NSA, EIEIO guy I'd ever met.

"Chris Harris," he said, extending his hand to Chris. "I guess this kind of thing is different from drawing car parts huh?

Maybe it was just his normal expression but the tiny hint of a smirk on his face made me think that he knew more about Chris and his background than he was letting on. Maybe he knew and had been advised to keep it to himself or maybe he was telling the truth but I couldn't tell. He turned to me then and stuck out his hand.

"Clyde Waitt," he said. "When I goggled "Old War Horse" your picture came up. Whatever you guys are into, I'm sure you can handle it." Once again his words told me that he'd probably seen my files as well, maybe even the stuff that was supposed to be very highly classified.

I noticed that as friendly as he was acting or attempting to act, he didn't bother to introduce either himself or the agency he worked for. It was simply more proof of the secrets and lies type of field that he worked in. Those guys never, EVER, freely give out any information. And they NEVER give you the whole story. With these guys, when they're looking you straight in the eye, there's usually a knife at your back.

I had to get my head in the game before I gave away anything that I didn't want to let out. I noticed that both Sarah and Chris were as cool as cucumbers. It took us about forty five minutes to tell Almond about what we had, what we knew and what we'd done. He took notes and recorded the conversation. He also asked us a bunch of questions for clarification. Then he got up and briefly went out to his car.

As soon as he left, we started making small talk. We didn't talk about the case except to ask each other several scripted questions about Dan himself and what we thought he might do. We'd asked each other those questions because Sarah had told us that she liked Dan and she trusted him, but he was as slick as oiled snake shit, so she wouldn't put it past him to have planted some sort of listening device or marker.

We had, by prior arrangement, left out a few things even when we went into detail about the case. We had never mentioned Bonnie at all. We had also not mentioned that we'd briefly held Hugh Joel Peters.

When Dan came back inside the restaurant, Chris and I were dumbfoundedly watching as Sarah managed to cram another coney dog into her svelte frame.

"Shut up, I'm eating for three," she said.

"I thought it was eating for two," I told her.

"I'm providing nutrition for myself and the baby. That makes two," she said. "And the more I eat here, the less chance of me sending Chris out to get me some weird craving."

Dan sat down then, and I could tell that he'd discovered something. He looked excited but at the same time he seemed pensive.

"Dr. Franklin Nathaniel Stein is wanted in several different countries," he began.

"He's done this in other places too?" I asked.

"Not that I know of Clyde," he said. "We have no proof that he's done what you claim at all and that's..."

"That's why Uncle Sam is going to sit back on his fat ass, while my wife's murderer goes free, right," I spat. I got up then. "Come on guys. Let's go."

"Wait a minute, Clyde," he said. "You have to let me finish." he actually seemed to have genuine concern, perhaps compassion or empathy on his face. Maybe what he'd gone through with his own wife had made him sensitive to my plight.

"Clyde even you have to admit that the whole cloning thing is far fetched. It sounds like bad science fiction. Cloning, although illegal all over the world is possible. But the way you guys described it is years away from being possible. The only successful things we can confirm that have been cloned are a few frogs and some sheep. And even those were implanted into other animals and had to grow to adulthood. What you're talking about is just..."