Beth walked into school, followed closely by her boyfriend, Paul. They'd gotten into an argument on the way to school about how she was frustrated because his emotionless demeanor made her feel like he didn't actually like her or want to be with her.

"No. Beth. I do want to be with you," responded Paul, stoically in a monotone. Beth rolled her eyes, responding, "This is what I mean. Can you manage a bit of enthusiasm? Please?" She stopped and looked Paul in the eyes. For a moment, she saw what she thought was a small smile, but it happened so fast that she was pretty sure it was just a twitch. She signed and turned away, walking over to her locker. Paul remained on her toes as she undid the lock, which Beth thought was a bit creepy. Could he give her a little privacy? As she opened the locker, a note dropped to the floor. She picked it up, and opened it:

"Meet after school in the lab."

"Who's that from?" ask Paul. At least, Beth assumed he was asking but honestly couldn't tell from his inflection. She quickly shoved it in her pocket. "No one," she said quickly, trying to act nonchalant as she threw her books into her bag. When she had closed her locker, Paul asked, "Who are you meeting after school?" Beth sighed, "None of your business. I'm going to class." With that, she scurried off in the other direction, leaving Paul staring stoically after her.


"Look, we have got to come up with a better system for notifying each other of clone club meetings," Beth burst out, as soon as Cosima had closed the door to the lab.

"I thought I said not to call it that!" snapped Alison, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Cosima looked a little hurt, "I thought the notes were a clever idea! I had to hack the school computer system to get your locker numbers, and I got here early so I wouldn't be seen." Beth took a deep breath and softened a bit, "Okay, it was a good idea, but my boyfriend saw the note, and he follows me everywhere, and I'm worried he'll find us. Plus, our lockers are subject to random searches at any time."

Sarah's eyes widened, "Oi! What the bloody hell! Isn't that an invasion of privacy?" Beth shook her head, responding, "No, it's school property. They can do whatever they want." Sarah shook her head, "Well, I guess you would know, being one of those kiss ass hall monitors or whatever." Beth took a step toward her, trying to control her anger, "That's not fair, Sarah! You don't even know-"

"Hey guys, let's just drop it, okay?" interjected Cosima, who clearly wasn't a fan of conflict.

"Alright, well why did you call us here anyway, Geek Monkey?" quipped Sarah. Cosima headed over to her bookshelf, and pulled out a huge stack of books. "I've been geeking out over genetics for the last day," she said, lugging the books, which appeared to have been checked out of the public library, over to a table in front of them. "I'm trying to figure out how to examine our DNA—"

"Why do you need to do that? We don't know that we're clones or whatever yet," Alison interrupted. But Cosima just kept on talking, "See, there are a lot of different types of genetics tests. There's medical screenings for things like diseases and other genetic predispositions, there's forensic testing for identification, and there's the full genome, " Cosima explained, counting off the types of tests on her hand.

At this point, there were two strong knocks on the door. Everyone froze, except for Cosima, who jumped up and whispered, "Shit! You three, go stand in that corner behind that cabinet." Though none of the girls were particularly found of being ordered around, they did as she said and hid, sensing it was important to do so. Cosima went to the door, and opened it a crack.

"Hey Delphine!" she greeted the surprise guest. "I'm kind of in the middle of a huge project right now, can we meet a bit later?"

"Can I help?" responded Delphine. She was a tall girl with wavy blonde hair and a thick French accent. She leaned forward to peak around the corner at this "project" but Cosima blocked her from entering. With a giggle as an attempt to maintain her casual, relaxed demeanor, Cosima answered, "Um, well, I just don't think it's at that point yet, you know?" Sensing Delphine's disappointment, she leaned forward and planted a kiss on her lips. "We'll hang out later, I promise? Meet me at our spot, in an hour?" Delphine ran her fingers through Cosima's dreads, "Oui. I will be there." She leaned in and kissed Cosima, who wrapped her arms around her neck. Cosima wanted to continue the kiss forever, but remembering her three identicals hiding in the corner, she pulled away, and smiled, "See you soon," she said coyly, before shutting the door behind her.

Cosima turned back to the other three girls, who were coming out of the corner. "Where was I? Oh, the three tests—" Alison cut her off, "Who was that?!" Cosima smiled, "That's Delphine, my girlfriend. So, for our purposes, the med—"

Alison interrupted again, "Girlfriend? So, you're… well… you're… that way?"

Sarah slapped Alison on the back of the head, "Oi! What's it to you?"

Alison pursed her lips, "Well, if she's… you know… then we certainly aren't clones, because I'm not."

Cosima stepped in, "There's not proof that sexuality is genetic. It's a complex spectrum that could be the result of any number of influences." She smirked at Alison, "So, you have nothing to worry about."

"So, the genetic tests?" Beth provided, ready to move on from this tangent and get to the point.

"Right! So, obviously, a full genome is preferable, more to study, more to learn! But that's not really something I'm capable of doing right now. Though hopefully one day, I'll have access to a real lab at a big university where I can study whatever I want. And medical testing doesn't make sense, since there's not any evidence at this time that we have any genetic illnesses." She had been gesturing wildly when talking about these different methods with her hands, but now, she stopped, splaying her hands wider for dramatic effect, "That means what's left is forensics."

Sarah threw her hands up and began pacing, "So, you got the equipment to run forensic tests now?" She demanded. Cosima paused, "Well, no, but it made me think about other tests we could do—"

"I have access to forensic equipment," said Beth quietly. All three clones stopped, and turned to her, "Wait…what?"

Beth shrugged, "Well, sort of. My dad's a cop, and he knows that I want to be one too, so he takes me to the station, and lets me shadow him sometimes. So, I know my way around," she hesitated, and looked around, as if looking to see if anyone was listening in, before continuing, "And I also know his password to access the police database and DNA testing."

Cosima, at this point, looked like she could burst from excitement, and exclaimed, "Beth, that's perfect!" But Sarah wasn't so sure, "But aren't police stations open 24 hours?" She inquired cautiously, "We wouldn't have a chance to sneak in unnoticed." Beth shook her head, "Yeah, the station's open 24 hours a day, but the lab isn't. And that's where we'd have to get to in order to run the DNA test anyway."

At this point, Alison's eyes about bulged out of her skull, and she hissed, "Are you both actually suggesting we break into a police station? That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard! We could go to jail." As much as Sarah hated to admit it, the uptight cheer bitch was right; it was an epically stupid idea, especially for someone already on probation. But it's not as if epically stupid had stopped her in the past.

Cosima also knew Alison was right, but her curiosity was too overwhelming to abandon the idea. "Okay, well. How about this. As far as alternative tests I was going to mention before, I was thinking we could see if our blood type and fingerprints match. Blood type will tell us if it's possible we're related, and fingerprints, well, only monozygotic twins have matching prints. So, we do those tests, and if either of those turn out negative, we'll postpone this police-lab-DNA-quest."

Sarah and Beth hesitated, but eventually agreed to the plan. Alison dug her feet in, declaring that there was no way she would sneak into a police station, under any circumstances, but finally agreed to at let Cosima test her blood samples and fingerprints. They were about to leave, when Sarah motioned for them to hold up, "Well, if we're really serious about figuring all this out, then Beth's right. We need a better way to contact each other." They all considered, until Beth said, "Okay, I have an idea. We'll meet here same time tomorrow, okay? I'll see if I can get it together by then."

"What's the bright idea?" Sarah asked. Beth calmly stated, "I'll tell you tomorrow." Sarah rolled her eyes, but nodded. Clearly, she had underestimated Beth; she may be a "kiss-ass hall monitor," if she was willing to help them sneak into a forensics lab to test their DNA, she was clearly committed to this, whatever it was. Sarah headed for the door, "Whatever. I'll see you freaks tomorrow." She swung the door open before Alison could protest being called a freak, just in time to see a poof of blond hair disappearing around the corner.