Rasputin's presentation was dragging on, so Ikkyu had slid partway down in his seat in the balcony and was starting to doze off. Far below the school in a safe, locked room, Mozart sat watching Shiro and a little Marie Curie clone. And in one of the Strikers' hands was a smartphone that would put an end to all of it.

Mary was halfway dozing when she heard the explosion, so at first she thought she had dreamed it. She sat up straight and looked out the window, only to find that smoke was pouring out of the part of the building where she knew the auditorium was located. Her breath caught in her throat. Ikkyu, she thought. Amadeus. My God, they're both probably in there for the presentations! In the hallway she could hear the nurses running past her room and she pressed a hand to her forehead, trying to calm her thoughts down enough to figure out a way to get to them.

"-an explosion! Did you hear it?" One of the nurses, standing outside her door was breathless and a male voice spoke.

"Calm down! They're going to need all of us on the scene as soon as possible. Gather as many first aid supplies as you can and I'll call Kuroe to find out what we're supposed to do."

Mr. Kuroe, Mary thought. That's right, he'll know what to do. Please let him come here, she prayed, her eyes focused on the pillar of smoke that seemed to be getting larger instead of smaller. Please, Mr. Kuroe, I need you to help Ikkyu and Amadeus.

The wait to see if Kuroe would come was agonizing and Mary tried to keep herself from thinking about what could have happened. She didn't know what was going on in the school and it was driving her crazy. Hoping they would have some sort of information, she pressed the nurse's call button and made her bed sit up. When no one came, Mary knew she had been abandoned.

I can't just lay here. Maybe I could make it to the school building. Her thoughts were cut off by screams from the courtyard and she looked up at the ECG machine, oxygen meter, and IV that had her tied to her bed. Oh my God, what's happening out there?

Before she could make any decisions, the door to her room slid open and Mary breathed a sigh of relief. The first thing that registered for Mary was the wavy blonde hair of the young man that had come inside. It wasn't Kuroe, but it was all right. A wave of warmth flooded her and she smiled, knowing at least one of them was safe. "Amadeus," she said, relieved. It took her almost a minute to realize that it wasn't Mozart, at least not the Mozart she knew.

"You call him that too. Interesting." He considered Mary carefully for a moment and she frowned. The features of the man were the same as Mozart's but he was at least ten years older. Rather than falling past his shoulders, the blonde hair was just below his chin and there was a look of determination in his eyes that she found terrifying.

"Who are you?"

"Who am I? You've already said it. I'm Amadeus." His blue eyes found hers and held them for a long moment. "And you're Mary."

"How do you know who I am?" Her voice was filled with caution. As far as she knew, there was nothing on her door that identified who she was. In addition, the man who had called himself Amadeus was dressed entirely in black, his outfit recalling the ones she had seen on the guards around the school since Kennedy was assassinated.

"I know because you look exactly like her."

"Like who?" Everything he was saying made her more confused. It hit her then and she frowned. "You can't mean-"

"They didn't tell you?"

"There was no other Mary Shelley. I'm the first generation," Mary said. "They told me that when I was younger."

"They lied," the older Mozart said. "My Mary was the first generation. You know how your original died, don't you?"

"Yes, she had cancer." The words sent a chill through Mary. She had known all her life how Mary Shelley had died, and she had obsessed over it every time she had a headache when she was younger. The doctors had always told her it wasn't a problem, that it was her heart they were worried about. "Brain cancer."

"That's right. Very good. But you don't have brain cancer. And you're not going to. The scientists at the lab made sure of that. You see, they wanted to see if they could find and remove that cancer gene while the fetus was still growing. What a boon that would be to medicine! It required some fiddling with your genes, repeated testing and failing that couldn't be risked on a regular person. Not someone that mattered. It had to be someone that was a throwaway, that it wouldn't matter if they accidentally killed because they could just make another." Mozart shook his head. "How many Marys died, I don't know. But after my Mary died just before the Expo, the baby Mary mysteriously disappeared along with her."
"Baby Mary?"

"At the Expo, they hauled out the next generation of clones for us to hold during the opening ceremony. I wanted to see you so badly. It would have been almost like seeing her again. But they told me there was no next generation for Mary." He shook his head and laughed. "Now you're here, and their tinkering has cured your cancer. The only problem is that for some reason your heart has failed. No worries, though, because now they want to know if they really can clone a new heart for a person. And here you were, ready made for their experiment. They were able to grow it, check it for the same defect that caused your other heart to fail, and now see how it works once the transplant is complete. Will it function? Will it reject?" He looked at the floor, disgusted. "You have to wonder if they grew your heart separately or if there's another Mary Shelley in a freezer somewhere, who was grown for the sole purpose of providing you with a heart."

"Th-they wouldn't do that," Mary said, feeling lightheaded. "Dr. Kamiya told me-"

"He also told you that you were the only Mary, didn't he?"

Mary was silent. She wanted to protest more, to say that there was no way any of it was true and that she trusted Dr. Kamiya, but the words wouldn't come.

"You aren't even a clone like the others, Mary. You and all the other Mary Shelleys are a series of medical experiments that just happened to survive. The only reason you're at St. Kleio is because they can observe you here. They might have even given you a bad heart on purpose, since you were an experiment anyway. If they can cure your cancer, is that really so far-fetched?"
"Where did you hear this? Who told you-"
"Director Rockswell, of course. It's amazing just how much he likes to talk." Mozart chuckled and took a gun from a holster under his arm. "Though I suppose I'm not one to talk right about now." He leveled the gun at Mary's head. Her heart started pounding in her chest, its beats echoed by the tones from the ECG machine.

"Y-you came to kill me?" There was a strange, tinny taste in Mary's mouth as she looked at the gun in Mozart's hand. That he should be holding it and wearing her Mozart's face seemed obscene and her chest tightened. After everything that had happened to her, this was how she was going to die.

"I'm not killing you," he said, as if trying to convince both of them. "I'm saving you. From the pain she went through and the miserable life you would have had as a clone. You're Mary Shelley, but you're not Mary Shelley. You'll never be her and it's going to drive you mad." He cocked the gun, a sound that was as flat and dead as his voice as he told her future.

"Can you tell me something first?" Mary looked at him, not his gun. His hand was steady and it scared her. She wanted to tell him that he didn't have to kill her, that everything was going to be all right, but she knew it wouldn't make a difference. Instead, she asked the only question that mattered at that moment. "Are Ikkyu and Amadeus already dead?"

"Ikkyu?" Mozart looked confused for a moment, then smiled when he realized it. "Ah, I see. So it's not me this time." He shook his head. "Whether or not he's already been killed I don't know. He didn't have a predecessor, but someone will take care of it. That's our goal." He took his eyes off her for a moment and looked out the window. "We're going to kill all of you."

"Is that what all this is? That explosion?" Mary kept her eyes on his face and Mozart chuckled again. He sighed and turned back to her.

"As for my clone, he's still alive. I'm going to kill you, and then I'm going to take care of him. It's only proper that I should do it." He dropped his eyes briefly. "I held him when he was a baby. I can't let anyone else do it for me."

"All right," Mary said, nodding. "Then kill me."

"What?" Mozart jerked his head up and looked at her in disbelief.

"Go ahead. Just promise you'll make it quick." She sat up and closed her eyes. "If my only alternative is to live in a world without Ikkyu and Amadeus, then I'd rather go now."

"Of course," Mozart said. "I would never want her...you...to suffer." His voice faltered for a moment as he looked at Mary. Her perfect posture, showing not a hint of fear, reminded him of his own Mary years earlier. The way she looked with her eyes closed reminded him painfully of how he had seen her when they kissed for the first time and his hand shook for the first time.

I can't, he thought in despair. I can't kill Mary. He lowered his gun and took a step back. Mary opened her eyes and looked at him again, and Mozart saw more than he had expected. He shook his head. I'll send someone else. I'll make sure someone kills her. But I can't do it. I can't. He backed out of the room and Mary sat forward in her bed.

"Wait," she said, reaching out to him. "Where are you going?"

"I'm sorry, Mary," he said. "Forgive me, I just can't." With a look of horror on his face, Mozart stuck the gun back into his jacket, turned and ran out the door, leaving her with her hand outstretched.

"Wait! Amadeus!"

There was no sound but his boots on the linoleum of the hallway.

"This way," Kuroe said, motioning for Ikkyu and Florence Nightingale to follow him down the stairs to the ballroom. They were both silent and he couldn't imagine how they were feeling. They'd both had guns to their heads and seen three people shot to death inches from their faces, and he hadn't been able to do anything about it. "Are you hurt anywhere?"

"No," Ikkyu said, looking at Florence. She was staring at the ground as she walked, her hands clasped in front of her chest. "Are you hurt, Nightingale?"

"What?" Florence looked at him as if she had just realized he was there. "N-no, I'm fine."

"The doctors will check you out anyway," Kuroe said, pushing open the door to the stairs so they could get past him. Florence didn't say anything and Ikkyu thanked him for both of them.

The ballroom was filled with clones that had been evacuated from the auditorium and brought in from the courtyard where the burning had taken place. Kuroe led Florence and Ikkyu to a bench where a woman dressed in white was checking people over. They sat down together and Kuroe motioned for the nurse to come over.

"Make sure they get checked out," he said. "I've got to go back in and see if there's anyone else inside." The nurse nodded and Kuroe sighed. Most of the VIPs had been led to safety and from the looks of it so had most of the clones. Now he had the unpleasant duty of searching the scene of the explosion for casualties. "Do we have everyone from the hospital wing on hand to treat the survivors?"

"Yes, sir."

"Hey, Mr. Kuroe?" Ikkyu leaned toward Kuroe, getting his attention without raising his voice. "Is Mary okay? I mean, she's still in the hospital wing, right?"

The words stabbed Kuroe in the chest, wiping thoughts of survivors and casualties out of his head. He looked at Ikkyu in horror, then ran out of the ballroom without a word to either of them. Dammit, I can't believe I forgot about Mary!

Ikkyu stood staring after Kuroe while Florence sat down to be checked over. Judging from Kuroe's reaction to his question, Mary was still in the hospital wing but he didn't know if she was safe or not. The clones that had tried to kill him and Florence were dead but no one knew how many more of them there were.

An unpleasant thought crossed Ikkyu's mind. If some of them had gone to the hospital wing and there was no one there to protect her the way Kuroe and the guards had protected him and Florence, then there was a very good chance she had been killed. He looked around the room. It seemed that Kuroe was right, that every nurse and doctor St. Kleio had was there to check out the students. That meant that Mary was alone.

On the bench, Florence had started crying and he sank down beside her as the strength left his legs. Numbly, he put an arm around Florence as the nurse handed her a towel to wipe the blood off her face. She began to sob into the towel and Ikkyu patted her arm distractedly. Mr. Kuroe's gonna go check on Mary, right? He pushed his glasses off the bridge of his nose and rubbed at his eyes. After everything else that had happened, he didn't know if he'd be able to take it if something had happened to her. Please be okay, Mary, he thought. Please.

It was quiet everywhere but inside Mary's head. There were no more explosions, no more screams, and the pillars of smoke she could see from her bed had dwindled to threads. The peaks on the monitor tracked her heart as it beat faster. It felt as if it was going to leap from her chest but she barely felt the pain.

Images flashed through her head, connecting themselves to the things the older Mozart had told her. Where there were blanks, her mind filled them. His words and the things she thought twisted together, spinning memories she hadn't even known she had. She was trying to deny them, to tell herself that it was just a cruel joke, but it made sense. Too much sense.

On top of it all was the knowledge that the other Mozart was out there in the school somewhere stalking her Mozart, and possibly Ikkyu as well. The possibility that he was now after Ikkyu because of her words struck Mary and a wave of nausea threatened to overcome her. She looked out the window as best she could, her mind racing. There was nothing she could do as long as she was stuck here. Nothing but wait until someone came to tell her if her friends were alive or dead. Her best friend. Her boyfriend. They could both be dead and she wouldn't know it.

There was a sharp pain from the center of her chest as Mary yanked the ECG leads off their pads and dropped them on the floor, then a second as she flung back the covers. She took the oxygen monitor from her finger and dropped it on the sheets, then slid out of bed only to be stopped by a pain from the crook of her right arm. She turned, annoyed, and pulled the IV catheter out of her vein. It stung for a moment and she pressed her finger over the hole for a second.

Once she was out of bed, things became much more difficult. Since her surgery a week earlier she had only gotten out of bed to use the bathroom, and only with help from the nurses. She hadn't stood on her own since the day Ikkyu had carried her into the hospital wing, and her legs trembled as she moved away from the bed, holding on to the table where her flowers sat.

"Okay," she said out loud, as if doing so would help her stay upright. She moved an inch at a time, trying to will her legs to stop shaking. When she ran out of table to hold, she leaned on the wall and slowly made her way to the door, alarms from her monitors shrieking behind her.

She staggered down the hallway, her new heart trying desperately to keep up with her desire to get out of the hospital wing and to where the rest of the students were so she could stop Mozart. Her vision began to blur and she slapped at her face to keep herself awake. I can't pass out. I have to get to Amadeus. I have to save him and I have to save Ikkyu.

Her body refused to listen to her. Dark stars exploded behind Mary's eyes and she felt her legs giving way. Pain screamed from her chest through the rest of her body and she bit her lip to keep herself from crying out. It cleared her head for a moment but Mary knew her body was giving up. She pressed herself harder against the wall, trying to make herself get just a few more inches closer to the door that led to Ikkyu and Mozart.

"Mary?" The door at the end of the hall opened and Kuroe came through it, calling her name. When he saw that she was out of her room, he darted toward her with a look of mingled fear and relief. "Mary! What are you doing? Are you all right?"

"Mr. Kuroe," she breathed, stumbling forward. "What's happening?"

"There's been an attack on the school," Kuroe said, catching her before she could fall. "There are terrorists in the school who have threatened to kill all the clones. I came to take you somewhere safe." He put an arm around Mary's waist and picked her up as effortlessly as a kitten.

"Terrorists," she said with a frown. "Clones."

"Yes," Kuroe said, looking as if he had been taken aback by her insight. He walked with her down the hall and pushed the door open with his foot. "How did you know?"

"I met someone," she said, looking toward the school building. "Is the attack over? Is Amadeus all right? How about Ikkyu?"

"I haven't seen Mozart," Kuroe said, shaking his head. "But I took Ikkyu and Florence Nightingale out myself. He's fine." Mary relaxed a little in Kuroe's arms, then tensed again and grabbed the lapels of his jacket.

"Mr. Kuroe, you have to find Amadeus. There's another Mozart, and he's going to kill him!"

"I'll take you somewhere safe," Kuroe said again. "I'll take you to where Ikkyu and the rest of the clones are, you'll be safe there. We'll bring you back here when everything is over. Just calm down and don't stress that new heart of yours out."

"But what about Amadeus?"

"I'll look for him," Kuroe said, giving Mary a kind smile. She had grown used to seeing him smile at her like that but for some reason this time it wasn't comforting. Unable to do anything else, she let go of his jacket and let Kuroe carry her toward the ballroom and Ikkyu, hoping that by the time they got there Mozart would have joined the rest.

Amadeus, she thought, closing her eyes against the tears that had welled up. You're all right, aren't you?