"Fringey…"
Summary: Sarah and her sisters see there's an even darker side to Dyad's little cloning-fest…
(Not sure about this one but while I await more details for "Nessun Dorma" I'll play round with this darker one and see how it goes.)
Disclaimer: No copywrite infringement intended.
Part I…
Rt 27, upstate New York State…
A local BP station…Into which a rather impatient driver has pulled…
After all, he's not only a "player" in the City…He's good-looking with clothes and the car to match.
Honk…No action.
"Hey…This sign says full service available? Hello?!" glare at gas station window.
Lovely. Slam of car door.
"I guess in Hooterville we don't read our own signs, eh, pal?!" loud call.
Well, only one car, parked…Guess it's the customer service that draws 'em in. Drags nozzle to open tank, filling…
A screen door slamming catches his attention…
"Little late, Lester…" he looks over to see a rather attractive young brunette…In causal but nice trousers, jacket…Staring at him.
Another disappointed customer, no doubt…Unless she…
She eyes him, his rather nice car, then hers…Moving his way…He offering smile.
Perhaps, if she's the attendant/owner, he's been a little…Hasty.
The screen door opens behind her…To his surprise, an identical twin in a near-identical outfit…Likewise staring at him…
Following her sister…The first pausing about ten feet from him…Rather blank look…
But hey, out here? And in this kind of work? It's not exactly a surprise they'd be a little…
And yet, really quite easy on the…
The first of the two now smiling at him…The second moving to her, smiling as well…
"Hi…" he tried…
"Hi…" the first smiled. Then pulling up the pistol from her jacket pocket with her left hand, shot him in the face and stomach, repeatedly.
Both moving to his now fallen, dead body…One taking the pump from the ground and replacing it in its holder, the other after glancing in the open car door, moving to search the body for the car keys.
A moment later both entered the car and after the one on the driver's side had examined the dashboard, she started the car and they drove over the body, then off…Their expressions completely blank as before.
Ten minutes later a patrol car pulls into the station, pulling to a pump before the passenger seat officer spies the body…Immediate stop…Both men looking about from the car as the driver's seat officer reports in, both emerging after the call-in and a careful scan of the area.
One moves to the station door…The other, hanging back to cover…The first peers inside…
But for them, all totally still…
"Jesus Christ!" the officer at the door, a tall, muscled veteran of the force…Putting hand up.
"More…?" the other calls.
"At least three…God…One's a kid for Christsake!" he opens cautiously staring at the body of a young girl, not more than five or six…Shot multiple times.
One hour later…Buffalo, New York…
The same rather elegant car speeding at reasonable pace downtown…
Pulling into a parking garage…The twin driving taking a parking ticket from the attendant…Sorry, machine's broke…With a pleasant smile…Before returning to her habitual blank look immediately on turning away.
Both women emerging…Proceeding to the exit…One smiling pleasantly at an elderly woman while holding the exit door for her.
The two women, now on a large street in the business district, moving quietly but quickly…Smiling pleasantly if blandly at passersby…Ignoring one or two catcalls…Stopping at a large Barnes and Noble bookstore…Entering.
One moving quietly to the music and dvds section, the other to information.
"Hello…" smile to the information desk attendant. "I'm looking for a book by Dr. Stephen Jay Gould… 'The Panda's Thumb'?"
"Yeah…We got it." The attendant, a twentyish sort nodded. "It's in the science section." He eyed the lovely woman.
Now normally he had "more important" things to do than personally guide a customer to a book easily found but…She seemed eager for help and customer service was Jeremy's middle name…When the customer was this hot…
"I'll show you." He moved out from behind the desk.
"Thanks so much." She smiled.
In the music section, her twin was quietly, quickly thumbing through foreign films…Pulling out a few.
"Like the classics…" a young, twenty-something dark-haired fellow of reasonably nice and relatively neat appearance eyed her. She pausing to smile at him.
"Yes." She nodded, continuing.
" 'Rules of the Game'…That's a great one." He nodded, eagerly…
"Yes." She smiled. Blinking at him a moment. Then… "I'm very fond of great films."
"Same here…" he smiled. "Michael Racks."
She stopped her resumed search, eyeing him a moment until he started to feel just the slightest bit uncomfortable…
"Olive…Hello." She smiled.
"So you like Jean Renoir?" he tried. Clearly though not a geek in any sense of the word, a rather fixated film buff…
She paused, regarding him again. Then another smile. "Yes. Jean Renoir is a very great French director, isn't he…?" pause… "Michael?" slightest note of warmth, encouraging him…
"Olive?" the other twin had arrived, startling him.
Twins? He blinked.
"Yes." Olive eyed her twin. "This is Michael Racks, Louise. Michael, this is my sister, Louise."
"Hello." Louise eyed him. "I've got my book. Jeremy at the information desk showed me. He's very nice."
She held up the copy of Stephen Jay Gould…
"Yes." Olive nodded. "Do you want to speak with him some more? Michael and I are talking."
"Yes." Louise nodded, smiling. "I'll go talk with Jeremy." She turned and headed back to the information desk from which the returned Jeremy had been glancing their way since his return.
Ok…Michael eyed the two. The sort who don't really get out much, obviously.
"Coffee? Or tea?" Olive asked.
"Excuse me?" Michael blinked.
"I see a coffee place…Starbucks…There." Olive pointed. "Would you like to drink coffee or tea with me?"
"Uh…Sure…" he nodded.
"Good…I'm glad." She smiled.
Three hours later…
Dear God…Michael stared, gasping…Pulling bedcovers.
"Was it nice?" pleasant tone. Careful stare from the side…Brush of loose hair back.
He gave a nervous shrug to the naked brunette beside him in his bed.
"Olive…It was incredible…I've never been with anyone so…"
"I'm Louise." She smiled. "We changed our blouses and jackets in the ladies room while you and Jeremy waited for us. Olive went with Jeremy. I hope they had as nice a time as we did." Smile.
"L-Louise?" he stared. "But…I thought Olive…Liked me."
"Yes. We both like you, Michael. Would you like to sleep with Olive tomorrow?" pleasant tone.
"What?"
"I have to go now. We need to get to our hotel and check-in. Do you want the number or shall I take yours?"
Uh…
She blinked. "Michael? Have we done something wrong? You did have a nice time?"
Uh… "Louise…I…This was a little…"
"We were very anxious to know you better." She smiled. "You both seemed so nice."
"Thanks…I guess."
"Good-bye." She leaned forward, kissed him, then, with deft motion, snapped his neck. His dead eyes staring at her…
Wearing the former blank expression she dressed and left a few minutes later, pausing in the street about two blocks away to pull out a cell phone and make a call. A few minutes later, Olive, driving the stolen car, pulled up to take her and they drove off.
As they drove, Louise blankly answered a buzzing phone after a pause. "Yes. Confirming test complete. Proceeding."
Never met two more charming girls, Mrs. Pearson, owner/manager of the bed-and-breakfast, Louise and Olive…Pearson…Had stayed at that night, noted to her husband the next morning after breakfast. The girls having happily chatted about the delights of Buffalo…They having never seen so large a city before, coming from a very small town in upper Ontario. They hadn't even been to Toronto, they'd politely noted to her question. Though given the range of their conversation…From literature to science to history, one would assume they'd traveled.
After a final wave, having paid their bill and thanked their hostess and host for a wonderful breakfast and a very nice stay, the two drove off…Their happy chatter and expressions going silent and blank as soon as they'd driven out of sight.
At eleven am that morning, dressed a bit more elegantly than the day before in business suits, overcoats, and large hats, purchased the previous evening, they both emerged from the car in another city parking garage and entering a small Buffalo bank, Louise quietly proceeded to a position near the main door while Olive went to the nearest bank officer asking about opening an account…Both carefully keeping their hats a bit low. Olive then pulled out one of the two pistols concealed in her coat and demanded the officer, a middle-aged blonde woman in business suit, stand up and call for everyone to drop to the floor covering their heads. The panicked woman did so and the few customers dropped to the floor, Louise quickly shooting the security guard who tried to step forward. The bank attendants behind their grills backing away, Louise quietly ordered the officer to call for them to come out and lie on the floor as well. Olive, while keeping head up just enough to view events, was pretending to be one of the customers on the floor when the others nervously came out and dropped to the floor. She then rose and using the silencer in her coat pocket proceeded to shoot each person in the head, moving quickly through the group till all were collapsed on the floor. They left a moment later and deposited the overcoats and hats in an alley dumpster next to the bank, reaching the main street and quietly proceeding down it and then by way of several side streets to a different parking garage where, even as the sounds of police sirens indicated their actions at the bank had been reported, they found a young woman about to enter her car and with polite smiles and a gun pressed into her side, forced her to drive them out of the city, leaving her dead body at a quiet spot about five miles outside Buffalo.
That night, at a small motel, both sitting quietly on their respective beds, a blank-faced Louise answered a buzzing phone.
"Yes. Test confirmed."
The next morning, about seven am, the women having left their motel at five, they arrived near a water treatment facility near Albany. Leaving the car they found a bus stop near the facility in a somewhat isolated area near a grassy field and some trees and waited. After two bus loads had dropped workers, a third bus dropped only three, whom they followed, Louise moving quickly ahead and confronting the group with a gun, shooting the first of the group, a man of about forty, when he refused to believe she wasn't joking and then strangling one of the others, a young woman while Olive snapped the neck of the third, an middle-aged female janitor. After dragging the bodies into the grassy field, they dressed in the women's uniforms behind the trees, leaving their clothes concealed there. They proceeded to the entrance and flashing their victims' badges managed to take the one security guard by surprise, quickly killing him, hiding the body in a storage shack, and entered the facility. Once in, they entered a water treatment area and poured what would later turn out to be a completely harmless colored fluid into the water. On emerging, noting the guard had been noted missing they managed to force a manager at his car to drive them to and through the gate, Louise driving into and killing one of the employees who'd been assisting in the search for the guard around his booth. Olive shooting and then tossing the manager from the car as they drove, pausing by the bus stop to retrieve their clothes and calmly driving by several rescue and police vehicles speeding to the site.
"And that was all we had on these two…" Art eyed a staring Sarah/Beth. "Just the names another employee at the bookstore had heard or thought he'd heard and these two shots of them…One of them at the bookstore on video, one at the waste treatment facility. Which by the way is undamaged and shows no sign of being tampered with except for five people being murdered and some food coloring in the water." He pushed the photos over to her.
She looked at him.
"Art. I swear I don't know anything about this…"
"If I didn't believe that, Beth…" he eyed her carefully. "I'd be calling you Sarah and you'd be on your way to federal prison."
"You said there was more…"
He nodded.
"One of the twins was shot down yesterday at a convenience store in this city. The lady behind the counter was wounded but got to her shotgun before they could finish her. The other fled and twin one…Louise or Olive, who knows…Died about twenty minutes later."
"You don't have to tell me you're running her DNA."
"We are…And we both know it will match yours and the others but that's not the point…" Art eyed her. "This girl had most of her brain missing…A bit surgically, but mostly congenitally, I'm told. Courtesy your friend Felix's friend at the mortuary."
"What." Sarah blinked.
"In fact it was impossible that this girl could have functioned at anything like the level she did during this crime spree. She should have been a vegetable, Beth. And I would guess her twin is exactly the same."
