Dreadlocks

This fanfic is a companion the work "Patents" by Bu Pias still in development. You do not have to read "Patents" to read this but if you like the writing style then I strongly advise you to!

Cosima exits the taxi stomping the door and stepping out onto the sidewalk. She faces a wide green grass garden where children play on a red slider and sandbox. She wears her big red coat. It's cold. Watching the children play with short sleeves makes her shiver instantaneously. And I thought Minnesota was cold. Man, I miss home. She did, she hadn't been in San Francisco in years and today she was feeling a bit homesick. It was her first plane ride ever since she moved to university, therefore, the first time she actually abandoned her second home. It's sad, but at least it keeps her grounded. The environment of Toronto was much like the one from New York or other big city, but she hadn't been in a big city in ages. Just get use to it.

The reason she was standing there was still a bit confusing, for her skeptical scientist mind. A woman had called her telling her of this crazy theory that they had twins spread all around the world. Through facial recognition they tracked her down and she needed to meet her as soon as possible. Of course, at the time, Cosima didn't buy it. I'm a scientist, they can't trick me? But it was no hoax. Immediately after the call, in which Cosima had laughed hysterically, this woman sent her a picture. And what a daunting picture it was. A face of a woman that looked just like her. But it wasn't. After all, who thinks about having twins or doppelgängers?

After a few Skype calls with another duplet, they settled that Cosima would try to get an explanation for it all, that was her part. Hopefully the other two would agree with her theory, which sounded a bit more… possible than a mother abandoning all eight of her equal twins.

Suddenly, without seeing it coming, a hand grabs her from behind, pulling her forward to reach an alley, set between two buildings, a few feet away.

'What the hell?'

Cosima's hair smashes against her forehead and the glasses fly down to the tip of her nose. She tries to pull herself together in order to face her captor, fixing her coat and rearranging the hair.

'Are you crazy?' a woman's voice.

Her glasses make their way up to the right place and as soon as she gets them in focus Cosima's able to distinguish the other girl. Long brown straight hair and no make up, she doesn't need it, she's beautiful and she's just like me. Her eyes, her nose, the shape of her face, everything screams Cosima, but it isn't. Cosima stands in her red coat and this woman is right in front of her wearing a simple pair of jeans and a plain tank top. It's not me.

Her mouth is moving. She's saying something. But Cosima can't decipher her words, mainly because she's in awe. Which of them is she?

'Those are Alison's kids! You can't just show your face like that! Hey! Are you listening dreadlocks?!'

Cosima's brain clicks at the sound of the last word. Beth.

'Hi! I'm sorry I just lost myself for a bit…'

'Well, be careful okay?' Beth's eyes widen with worry.

'Yeah, yeah. Ummm… this is weird.' Cosima smiles to show her fascination.

Beth seems to finally recognize the girl and the strangeness of the situation. 'Oh yeah… You're umm… different… In person, I mean.'

'Yeah, the WebCam is not always flattering.' She chuckles. 'I'm Cosima.' The gesture of an extended hand seems to trigger a suspicious reaction in Beth.

'Yeah I know who you are, dreadlocks.'

Cosima nods taking back the hand. 'Yeah I guess so.'

'Let's go, we have a lot to talk about.' Beth indicates a red van parked opposite to them. Cosima notices a perfectly high ponytail through the window. That must be Alison.

Beth and Cosima sit on the back seat where the windows are smoked. Alison settles herself on the driver's place, she's different from what Cosima had envisioned, while Beth has a simpler side to her, Alison seems to be more stressed and complicated. With the high ponytail and high neck she is the protective mother bear who won't let anything happen to her children.

Cosima notices that neither of them seems as excited about the encounter as she is, but wait till they hear my theory. I bet they'll freak out! She found through some research a possible explanation for their existence, but Beth understood that none of it should be discussed over the computer, for it was too dangerous. So Cosima flew in. To her, the theory made perfect sense so, in a way, the other girls' thoughts wouldn't really matter if it were to be true.

'So, I've set up the trust fund for us.' Alison keeps her look straightforward. She doesn't even say Hi.

'Thank you, but you didn't have to do it Alison.' Beth touches her shoulder in sympathy.

'I want to help.'

She's skeptical. Cosima thinks.

'So what did you find out?' Beth is one of those women that go straight to business, no turning back.

'Humm… yeah well I have theory.' Cosima tries too look convincing.

'Is it going to sound crazy?' Alison's voice sounds sad. It seems like all she wants is to get back to her kids in the park, instead of hanging out with them.

'I think we might be what the average person would call… hmmm… clones.'

Both of them stare at Cosima surprised, but not scary surprised more like a sense of understanding surprise.

'Wow, that makes sense.' Beth stares at her hands considering it as the strongest possibility.

'Yeah?' Cosima is happy. She finally did something that could explain it all and the feeling of accomplishment is overwhelming.

'It's better than my magic closet theory.' The two in the back seat turn their eyes to Alison. 'I have kids!' but suddenly she looks more relieved.

The three of them stay quiet for a moment thinking about it. Cosima has other questions, though.

'What did the German say?' She turns to Beth.

'She's going to get blood samples from everyone in Europe.' Beth's voice weakens. 'She also said it's possible we won't last long. The French and the Italian have been executed already.'

A terrifying silence settles in as if after the big discovery their illusion was broken by a bigger problem.

'I think our creators might be the ones doing it.' Cosima had put a lot of thought into the killing situation on the plane ride.

'Why?' Alison flickers a twinkle of scare.

'Cause we're illegal. Cloning is entirely illegal. And after the German discovered about all of us it's possible they're afraid we know the answer.' Today she is on a row. Everything Cosima says makes perfect sense to the others and that relieves her.

'I have children to take care of. How am I supposed to deal with all of this?' Alison goes red, she isn't sad. She's angry.

'Look, I too have things to worry about, but this is a big deal. We might need to protect ourselves.' The conversation turns to Beth and Alison now.

'How?'

'I'll teach you how to shoot.'

Alison bugs her eyes out and her jaw drops in disbelief. 'Are you serious? You want me to learn how to shoot a gun? I'm a mother!' she squeaks.

'Well, I'm sorry but you need to prevent yourself!' Beth looks serious, but Alison just turns back to the steering wheel with tears in her eyes.

Cosima clears her throat to break off the tension.

'We might need to think about other stuff too.'

'Like what, dreadlocks?' Beth doesn't seem affected by the argument.

'Like, what do we do if we find more like us?'

'I've checked facial recognition we're the only ones in North America.'

Alison remains sitting forward cleaning her eyes with the back of her hand. Cosima doesn't want to acknowledge it, but it feels like she knows these two like the back of her hand, yet they are all so different.

'What if there's a tourist? What if you and I go travel and we meet another clone.' She can tell the disconnection that word caused. To all of them.

'Maybe a keyword or something.'

'I was thinking about a riddle.' Once again the scientist is thinking ahead of them.

'Okay. Anything in mind, dreadlocks?' Beth raises her brows.

'Yeah, actually since we're… you know clones, we should make a kind of a clone club something and-'

'Would you stop?' Alison pleads still with her face in her hands. Her constant squeaking…

'I'm just-'

'No!' she cuts her off. 'We're not calling it that. Clon-' she can't say it 'We're not freaks or lab experiments! We should just leave it alone.'

'What about the hunting? Huh? You wanna die Alison?' Beth's face hardens and her voice thickens. It's like she wants to be this mean to Alison like she can't help it. How cruel.

'Get out of my car!'

And everyone just sits there quietly. What did she say?

'Can't you hear? GET OUT!' Alison's face is red like never before.

When Cosima is about to reach for the knob, Beth holds Alison by her arms. She presses her fingers against Alison's fragile elbows. 'SHAKE IT OFF ALISON!' The tears start falling down from the soccer mom's face again. 'We're looking after you here! After your family! It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is we don't get killed! You hear me? Just shake it off and think about that.'

Beth lets go and there's nothing but silence. Cosima feels like she shouldn't be there, like she's out of place.

'I care about you Ali. Please, I don't you to die.' Now Beth is the one with watery eyelids. 'I want you to meet Paul, you know so I can meet Gemma one day. We can live like sisters, we just have to figure this out first. Okay?'

Alison nods. She understands. The empowerment Beth has is almost fascinating and Cosima knows that what she just did on Alison was beautifully part of her. In fact, Beth looks just like either of them, but altogether she's so very different. Deep down she's one of a kind.

'Continue with your thoughts, dreadlocks.' She fixes her eyes on Cosima.

'Okay, so what about: Just One… Hmm… I'm a few… No family, too. Who am I?'

Everyone stands quiet for a moment. They think about the riddle, Beth is the first one to talk.

'Does it have to rhyme?' She poses on the little overconfident grin.

Cosima responds with an equally provocative smile.

'I like it, as long as it doesn't say the C- word.' Alison fixates her stare on the shotgun seat.

Cosima's aware of Alison's discomfort. She doesn't want to be a clone and it feels strange to Cosima that Alison didn't feel the least excited about this. She, herself, was desperate to find out more. Truthfully, she was a scientist not a mom, but still how fascinating was it to find out you're a product of science itself.

'After my shooting lesson, you're going to end up loving the C- word, Ali.' Beth winks at her and then turns to Cosima. 'Where are you staying dreadlocks? Want to come along?'

'Humm… I think I'm just… gonna stay at the hotel.' She looks at both of the clones searching for confirmation. 'I'm at the Hilton.'

'Right. Just don't go anywhere until we find out more.' Beth leads her goofy side behind. She is serious now.

Some kind of show tune ringtone goes off. It's coming from Cosima's pocket. She analyzes the caller ID. Shit. Everyone else in the vehicle stares at her blankly as if waiting for her to answer the phone right there. The pressure wins.

'Yeah? Oh Bea. Yeah, I can't talk right now.' An excuse won't be enough for a Bea, she's an insistent kind of bitch always perking around to see where Cosima was.

She made a jealous scene once thinking that Cosima was in love with Scott. Scott for crying out loud!? Cosima was unsure about many things like clones and if the chicken came before the egg, but one thing she was sure of. She was not in love with Scott or anyone that could develop the unique ability of peeing standing.

But like predictable Bea was being persistent, again. 'I mean I can't talk right now, Bea. No I'm not even on campus.' She pauses to hear Bea's hysterical voice. 'No I'm in Toronto. Why? Because I have businesses here… Look, I don't have to explain you anything. We're over! You know, I told you that months ago. No, it's not because of freaking Scott!' Her tone might have escalated a little bit. 'Bea I seriously can't talk right now. Because I don't want to be rude to you! I'm not like you.' Silence. 'I'm sorry, but maybe you should think about the things you say to me. The things you do to hurt my happiness.' Utter silence. 'Well, I guess what's done is done and if you're going to do that then, I'm just gonna… go.'

The word is said with a bit of sorrow but Cosima couldn't keep up with this anymore. Bea used to be cool. She was actually the first girl Cosima had ever kissed in high school. They had been sort of together, but not officially, they would share their beds sometimes a few kisses occasionally, it was more of a casual thing. That was until one day Cosima involved herself with this girl called Audrey, a redheaded wonder with a hipster side to her. She was phenomenal, but Bea threatened Audrey to stay away from Cosima and then, oddly enough, she asked Cosima to date her… like officially date her. It was surprising but good old hearted to Cosima could not say no, not after Audrey's sudden disappearance. Bea filled her broken heart. A few months after that the redheaded called dreadlocks to tell her everything and that was enough to break her and Bea apart.

'Was that a girl?' Alison shocked eyes take Cosima away from her thoughts.

'Yeah.'

'Oh, I did not see that coming.' Beth smiles in acceptance. 'Cool, so I'll check on you tomorrow at the hotel so we can sort things out and then, you can clear this entire thing for us in your fancy lab.'

Cosima nods. As the other two make arrangements to get out of the car, she just stares blankly at her phone. What a waste of time Bea was. She wouldn't make amends with either her or Audrey, maybe this cloning subject was what she needed. No more love or over studying problems she finally had something to be excited about and was not only she apart of it, she was in fact it.

Lying in bed Cosima smokes a small joint she asked some dude in an abandoned skate park near her hotel. Watching the smoke she thinks brightly about the amount of research she'll have to do to figure out the clone mystery. Then, the smoke starts to morph into atoms in her mind, the atoms become actual cells and then a butterfly bursts through them. Beautiful. The power of science has fascinated her ever since she was a little girl. I guess it really is about where you grow up, if we're really clones those two couldn't more different. She starts to imagine her childhood, what if she had ever faced Beth or Alison or the German when she was just a little girl? Did her mom know about it? Her hallucinations turn into questions and doubt, but not for long.

A strong knock pushes her out of her daze and realizing that somebody might be at the door, Cosima puts out her joint in the ashtray on the bedside table. She waves the smoke about and then opens the door hoping the smell of stoned pot does not transpire.

'Beth?'

Her equal stands at the door of her hotel room. 'Hey, dreadlocks.'

Shit, she's a cop.

Cosima tries to look natural as if nothing wrong has been done. 'So, what's up?'

'Really? I'm a cop dreadlocks, I know the smell of weed.'

'Right.'

They both stare at each other for a moment.

'So, you're gonna let me in or what?' Beth reveals her seductive smile again.

'Sure.'

The Canadian enters to sit on the bed with no formal invitation. Looking around she notices the joint. 'Classy.'

'Yeah, it's a pleasant hotel.' Really Cosima?

Beth chuckles. 'You're from San Francisco, right?'

'Yeah.' Cosima has to get used to Beth knowing everything about her.

'Do you do that a lot over there?' she indicates the joint.

'Huh… I guess it's sort of part of the culture there.' Cosima stutters.

'That's okay. I love San Fran actually.'

'Really?' Finally the conversation seems to have a point. Cosima leans against the table that holds an old looking TV set.

'Yup, funny thing we never met there.' That smile is killing me. 'So, how's your girlfriend?'

'I guess we kind of broke up.' Is Beth teasing her?

'I'm sorry…' Beth looks at her compassionately. 'Oh, I almost forgot.' She reaches into her pocket and takes out a couple of pre-paid cellphones with pink silicone cases. 'I bought these, they have private numbers for each of us so we can communicate.'

She hands Cosima one. 'Pink?'

'It's Ali's favorite color.'

Cosima places it on the table. There's a lot of mystery involving Beth and this was definitely one of those moments you should take advantage of if you ever want to find out more about someone else.

'Do you always call everyone by nicknames?'

'I make it sound less formal to talk to people. It's an ice breaker.'

'So, you think "dreadlocks" makes me wanna talk to you?' Now, Cosima is the one teasing her.

'I call my partner dipshit.'

'Is your partner Paul?'

An ecstatic expression runs over Beth's face.

'Wow, how do you know about Paul?' Beth looks amused.

'You told Alison you wanted her to meet Paul.'

Beth nods finding it easier to believe in Cosima's memory power other then her being a traitor of some kind who knows everything about them.

'Oh, yeah. No, Paul's my partner in other… ways.' Now her smile becomes a shy one.

Her boyfriend. 'He sounds nice.'

Beth seems like she remembered something for her expression turns into roughness, a bit of sadness too.

'He is, but I think we've been growing apart. After all of this… twins shit, I haven't been paying much attention to him.'

She doesn't like the c- word either.

Beth continues after a small nod from Cosima. 'Anyway, I talked to the German. She said the clone thing is more than possible. She analyzed our birthdays, I just assumed that someone lied about them, but we were all born within the month of March and April.' Beth nods. 'It's getting creepier everyday and we need your science dreadlocks. You should probably just go back to Michigan and help us all from there.'

Cosima giggles. 'It's Minnesota, but yeah I have a morning flight in two days.'

'You better reschedule that.' she stands from the bed. 'We're in danger and every minute counts. Once the German gets me the blood and hair I'll send it to you.'

Beth's phone rings, not the pre-paid clone phone, her actual black cell.

'Yeah?' she answers. 'A lead on what? Xan Yip? You sure? Okay I'll be right there.' she hangs with a bip. She stares at Cosima for a second.

'Goodbye, dreadlocks I hope we see each other again.'

She turns to face the door.

'Wait?' Cosima calls. 'How was the shooting lesson?'

Beth smiles, again. 'I guess Ali got some of that frustration out.'

'Oh, good for her.'

'You ever wondered why I don't call her dipshit too?'

Cosima frowns.

'Ali sounds bitter, but she has the biggest heart among us all. She'd forget all about this… situation for the sake of her kids and that just makes of her a doomed soul.' Beth gives away a worried look. 'I'll look after her the best I can, but I'm too involved so… Dreadlocks, if I ever go down you take care of her for me, okay?'

Cosima's expression changes to scared. She's serious, she thinks she's gonna die.

'Yeah, I will.'

'Good.' Beth nods pleased with her new friend.

'Please call?' Cosima sees herself pleading. Beth's heart grabbing power was unmistakably one of the most enticing things Cosima had ever experienced. It was even bigger than science.

'You're damn right, dreadlocks.'

A little over four months later, sitting in Alison's lower living room trying to explain to the new girl "Sarah" all about "Clone club" and hearing first about Beth's death, Cosima remembers her promise to take care of Alison. She quickly realizes how hard it will be to protect such a reluctant person. Beth knew she was gonna die, in their second and last conversation she knew Cosima was going to have to keep up to that promise at some point. However, Dreadlocks wasn't sure about it.

She recalls the words: Dreadlocks, if I ever go down you take care of her for me, okay? The nickname echoes around her head. Then, she remembers the attitude: We're looking after you here! After your family! It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is we don't get killed! You hear me? Just shake it off and think about that.

That stopped Alison from rambling once so Cosima does the same. She yells at her clone and tries to convince her how unimportant Beth's death is, but that was a lie.

Beth was the founder of Clone Club, she was the spirit that always kept Cosima reassured about it all. She killed herself. Sarah's words were everything but reassuring. How could she do this? How could she do this to me? Most of all, How could she do this to Alison? It didn't make sense. Beth's death didn't make sense. Beth's death was a mystery. Beth's death wasn't real. And analyzing it one last time the story of a woman with Beth's documents jumping in front of a train was as tangled and confusing as Cosima's own dreadlocks.