Life continued surprisingly normally after that day. No one of the absolutely-secret-organization-so-secret-we're-wat ching-your-every-step-so-we'll-know-if-you-tell-so mebody organization contacted me again, thanking me for the 10ml of blood and those few hairs or telling me that the experiment was a success/failure. It annoyed me in a way it shouldn't. Of course they'd take a while to get any results from it, but I guess I just wanted to know what was going on with what was rightfully mine. Well, it wasn't mine, part of the contract was a disclaimer so that I couldn't make any profit from whatever sum of money they made with my DNA. Still I wanted to find out something about it, so I weighed out my options and called the number I'd been given for if I had any questions. It rang twice before someone picked up:

"Human Genetics Mutation Academy, here today to make the people of tomorrow better. May I help you?" The woman on the other end was clearly reading off a script she had learned by heart.

"Yes, my name is Sherlock Holmes, and I was wondering if it was possible to have a peek at how exactly my DNA has been used up to now?"

"Could you please hold?" I opened my mouth but before I could give her an answer, a boring New Orleans tune played on an E flat Alto Saxophone. I pursed my lips as I listened to the melody. My eyes flashed around the living room of my flat, waiting for something to happen. A good five minutes passed, in which I figured out who the murderer was of the relatively easy case I'd been working on. Finally the music stopped and a voice, this time a man, picked up.

"Mister Holmes, I hear you are intrigued by our studies."

"Yes," I answered, "Yes, I am."

"Well we first need to finish off this stage of the process, but afterwards, we'd be delighted to show him to you."

"Him?" I asked. Maybe their technologies weren't as amateurish as I'd initially thought.

"Yes, him. He'll be ready for human contact soon. We'll be in touch." He was just about to hang up when I asked another question:

"Wait! But how did you... create him?"

"I'm sorry, but that's classified. Good day." Beep beep beep beep beep. I put the phone down.

"Who was that?" John asked from behind me. I jerked and stared at him. How long had he been there?

"Uh... I..." He crossed his arms in front of him and raised his eyebrows.

"Sherlock," John said in that reprehending tone, which he reserved solely for saying the eight letters of my name. I still was only able to let out some uhs and ums.

"What were you saying about your DNA?" I decided in that moment to lie, because I had a tendency to take the easy way out of most conversations. It's why I am usually considered "a selfish person."

"It was just some odd inheritable allergy test. You only have a deadly allergy to a kind of... bee, yes, if you have a certain gene. It was just to be sure because I was planning on maybe acquiring some of them, because I'd like to research them." John raised his eyebrows in surprise, but I don't think I saw any disbelief in it.

"Bees? What kind of bee?" I searched my Mind Palace for the fraction of a second (it only took this long because I've always had a fascination for those creatures).

"Apis Mellifera, the Africanized Bee," I almost blurted out. John nodded and I smiled because once again my lie had worked and lying remained the unbeatable champion of Easy Ways Out.

They called me months later. I had almost forgotten about it all. I wish they hadn't now. I didn't think twice when they told me that he could receive visitors. I was the first who would be allowed, because I was in a way related to him (why no other donors weren't, I didn't know). He was my child in a way, I guess, but the idea of parenthood revolted me. I hoped they wouldn't make me have to raise this genetically mutated kid... That wasn't in the contract, I hadn't paid too much attention to, right? No, no, it couldn't be. Even if, they had more than a handful of DNA-donors who were probably all a more eligible parent than I would ever be. The thought calmed me down as I put on my coat and scarf and headed towards the doorway. Luckily, John asked me nothing about where I was going when I opened the door and quickly walked down stairs. Once outside, a car was waiting for me in a mycrofty manner and after some hesitation I got on. The driver said nothing to me so I said nothing back and simply stared out the window, imagining what he would be like. He'd probably have little to no similarities to my infant-self, as my genetics were inside him amongst those of countless others, and I doubted his superiorness would be visible at this early stage. But still, I was intrigued to see this child that without me would not be, wanted to know who he was and who he would become. I wanted to know whether he, whoever he was, would also always take the easy way out. Would he be a better person in my sense of the word or in everyone else's?

Before I knew it, I found myself walking down a corridor of laboratories following a woman wearing a grey suit and excessively high stilettos. She, unlike I, took no notice of the many doors we passed, and probably knew everything about the secrets they hid. My heart started pounding as I noticed I was getting increasingly closer to him. What should I say to him? He wouldn't understand me anyways but still... I guess, I just wanted to have a somewhat stable relationship with him. Finally the woman stopped in front of a door and swiped a membership card through a slot in front of it. The lock clicked open and she let me pass first. The room was unlit and she left saying something about getting the professor then closed the door behind me. When I heard another click I knew that I was in fact locked inside now. As I squinted around, waiting for my eyes to adjust a blue shimmer on the far end of the room caught my eye. For a second I pondered over whether I should wait for this professor to arrive, but I dismissed the idea of a Superinfant being in anyway dangerous to me.

With steady steps I made my way towards the light, feeling the glow on my face. As I got closer, I noticed that it was in fact a kind of tank filled with indefinable liquid. It was still too far for me to make anything out except that there was some kind of body growing within it. As I approached the aquarium the feature's he had started to take real shape: he had dark hair which gently floated around his closed eyes, and quite pale skin. Once I cautiously took a couple steps closer I could also see that his face was rather long with quite high cheekbones and a strong cupid's bow. I shuttered, as it became clear to me, that this was not an infant but a fully grown, 6 foot tall man. I took the last step, which made the glass be the only thing, which made us unable to touch. My lips quivered as I gazed over his lightly closed lids, which said nothing about his eye hue, but an odd feeling inside told me that they were probably a light, icy, blue. Just like my own. I had absolutely no idea how they'd done it but there he was. An adult, Superhuman, who was absolutely identical to me.

"We named him Khan." The voice made me jump and I immediately turned around, prepared to take a defensive position. There stood the afore-mentioned professor, hands in the pockets of his lab coat. He was rather old and didn't seem to have shaven in a month. His jumper was of the sort I was certain that John would instantly find something likable about him, and his old face, though worn-down looked relatively friendly. I stared at him; I'm not sure how long, until I finally understood what he said.

"Why Khan?" I asked, glancing back at the man in the tank. Now that I looked at him more carefully, I did notice some differences. He had a better shape than I did (which was saying something); he had more muscles, but he also looked as if his stamina would be better than mine. Also, in all, he looked harsher than I did.

"Khan means 'leader' in Urdu. We thought it fit him well."

"Why's that?" I asked a little absently, while I watched him in his sleep.

"Well he's the first of his kind. He will lead the world into a new age, an age of Human-Perfection." I said nothing and continued to examine Khan, as if he might suddenly move and I would miss it.

"I suppose," the professor, who still hadn't revealed his name, spoke again, "you are wondering why you and he have so many similarities." I finally took my gaze off the Superhuman.

"Yes," I said less loudly than I usually talk, but it was still loud enough for him to clearly hear me. The professor smiled.

"Well, Mr Holmes, it turns out you have what we call 'almost-perfect genes.' You have all the good traits we can use to achieve perfection." I couldn't quite believe this.

"Even though I don't c-" But he cut me off: "You don't care," he finished the sentence, "Mr Holmes, sentimentality, as I'm sure you know is human's greatest weakness." Finally someone who understood me.

"If I am 'perfect', as you say," I turned my head back to the tank, "then why isn't he an exact replica of me?"

"I said almost-perfect. Absolute perfection is impossible for humans..." He smiled. "But not necessarily for Superhumans. What we do is we use your genetic code and locate all the good traits in it; your intelligence, your stamina, your detachedness from others, and we enhance them, strengthen them and eliminate the few faults we can find by replacing them with the genes of our other donors." I looked at him once more, compelled to ask what my faults were, but didn't in the end.

"As a result we have Khan. He is mostly a stronger copy of you, with some small genetic differences." I turned my head back to Khan, sleeping in such a peaceful manner. Suddenly I wondered how he was breathing, but passed the questions once more. I looked at him and saw my reflection. Only better. Khan was an updated, in every way better version of me. I could feel it, pulsing through his veins, the superhuman perfection that I could never achieve. It upset me. It probably wouldn't have, had he not looked exactly like me, minus the fitter body. He was I, but flawless. I wondered whether John could tell the difference between Khan and me, I wondered whether if one day Khan came home instead of me, John would keep living with him, noticing how suddenly I'd become better. At everything.

Why did you put yourself through this? I asked myself, realizing how much staring at the first of the perfect Superhumans hurt me. Maybe for once, I thought, I was taking the hard way out.

If you think that's hard, you're into something.

The whole thing reminded me of why I always took the easy one. I was in fact a coward. When I noticed this, it also sprang to my mind that Khan would not be a coward, and it angered me even more. I was sure Khan wouldn't have gotten angry at such ridicule either. The vicious circle was infuriating. But just as I had enough of staring at him and decided to leave, the still-unnamed professor threw a completely unexpected question at me:

"Would you like to speak to him?" I turned around startled. I'd forgotten he was here, too. Honestly, I had no answer to his question. I couldn't think of how talking to him could worsen the situation anymore, but then again, was I really interested in hearing Khan's more intelligent and more deep thoughts than mine could ever be?

"Yes," I replied quite quickly. The professor smiled at me.

"Well then just stay right where you are." He turned around and left the room, not turning around and remembering that he also had to introduce himself. And so I waited. I don't know what exactly I waited or, what exactly I expected from Khan, Sherlock 2.0, Super-Me, Perfect-Me. Maybe I could learn some things from him, but the truth was that I would and could never be as flawless as he was.

A loud alarm sound interrupted my train of thought. I looked over to the tank and as a light flashed up above the glass, the liquid was slowly drained. Sluggishly, the floating body of Khan sank down to the base of the giant tank until he was kneeling on the ground, though still unconscious. As the liquid got to the top of his head he bent over into a lying down position, so that his face was only out of the blue chemical when it was just a couple of inches high. In that moment I heard a gasp for air. Khan got back up into a kneeling position, his hands on the wet floor of the not completely drained tank, as he took long breaths. His breathing however, regulated after far less time than the average human would've taken to recover from that sort of situation. A door on the back of the tank opened and closed again, once Khan had disappeared through it, seemingly not noticing me, his imperfect doppelgänger on the other side of the glass.