– Chapter Twenty-Four –

Morgan was watching Saffi. She'd been watching Saffi for a few days now, ever since Aila informed her about the clones; ever since Morgan learned Saffi was spying on her.

How could it be though?

Morgan hadn't uttered a word about the discovery since she spoke to Aila. She'd barely uttered a word to anyone at all, in fact. Morgan had been so focused on watching Saffi, determined to pay more attention to her behavioural patterns, and to see if she slipped up and gave something away.

Even if Aila was wrong about the clones, or was stupid enough to lie to Morgan, Morgan still wanted to be sure Saffi could be trusted. Morgan wasn't sure Aila was lying though. Could this be why Tracy avoided telling Morgan about this? Was it too big and crazy that she feared Morgan wouldn't believe her?

It didn't matter, Morgan thought. Tracy had still broken their deal, which was inexcusable.

Tracy wasn't here anymore though, but Saffi was. So far, Morgan hadn't noticed anything out of character for Saffi, however hard she tried to find a reason to suspect her. Morgan's impatience was growing though.

It was for this reason that she decided to confront Saffi anyway. Besides, even if Saffi was innocent, she'd get over Morgan's reaction to all of this. She'd stuck by Morgan's side long enough, after all. She should know by now that questioning Morgan's actions against her, or anyone, was simply not an option.

Aila, who was watching Morgan from a safe distance, held a book up to her face as she pretended to read. She was eager to know what was running through Morgan's mind, but she hadn't been able to pluck up the courage and ask her. Something in Aila's gut told her things weren't shaping up to end well, though.

Her suspicions were confirmed when Morgan got up and approached Saffi. After a moment, Saffi agreed to follow Morgan so they could discuss something.

Aila knew it was unwise to interfere in Morgan's business, but she couldn't resist following them anyway. She abandoned her book promptly, and dodged behind a wall in a deserted corridor to prevent herself from being seen.

Aila followed several feet behind Morgan and Saffi as the two women walked down the corridors to the secluded changing area near the showers. Aila herself had noticed over the last few months that many of the officers avoided monitoring this area. It wasn't really professional, but Aila often found that she didn't care much if it meant not being stared at while she stripped down for a shower. Logically, this made the area a good place for inmates to meet and discuss things in secret.

When the two other inmates stopped walking, Aila ducked down behind a concrete pillar and observed quietly. There were a few other inmates lurking around as well, but many of them hurried away into the showers when they noticed Morgan.

"Sooo…what's up?" Saffi asked, looking down at the clone in confusion.

Morgan stared up at her blankly for a moment, before speaking. "An interesting rumour was brought to my attention a few days ago."

"Oh?" Saffi asked. "What's the rumour?"

"I believe you already know," Morgan told her evenly. "Saffron Monroe of DYAD Australia."

Saffi did a reasonably good job at masking her surprise, but the subtle widening of her eyes and dropping of her jaw did not go unnoticed, and that was apparently enough of a confirmation. In a flash of movement, Morgan pinned Saffi to the wall by her throat and stared up at her blankly.

It only took a moment for Aila to see the small razor in Morgan's free hand. Aila watched in shock, wondering if she should do something. She felt conflicted, because while Saffi was a DYAD employee, a life was a life…but before she could think too much about it, Saffi raised her left hand and pressed the pads of her thumb and middle finger together.

After several seconds, Morgan released a sharp cry of pain and fell to the floor. She twitched and shook violently, and the razor fell to the ground by Saffi's feet with a soft clang. Aila couldn't have looked away if she wanted to, her eyes bouncing between the two women. What was that? A random fit that just happened to occur right then?

Aila suddenly remembered the night she confronted Saffi in their cell, and how the psychologist mentioned something about having a failsafe in place on the off chance Morgan ever turned on her. While she told Aila this, the doctor also recalled that Saffi had been looking down at her left hand, and now, Morgan had collapsed just seconds after Saffi made an odd gesture with her left hand...

After several moments, Morgan stopped twitching and lay still again, just as she had after her last fit. Saffi leaned down and picked up the razor. She tucked it away into her shoe, before picking Morgan up off the ground.

"C'mon princess, bed time. When you wake up, it'll all just be a dream…" Saffi muttered, speaking in her natural Australian accent.

Aila didn't wait, and bolted down the corridor and out of sight before she was seen. Her mind raced with this new revelation, and she tried to put the pieces together. Could it be possible that Morgan's seizures weren't caused by epilepsy? Aila didn't know how it would be possible to induce a seizure on command, but if anyone had the technology to do it, it was DYAD.

This would need looking into.

"I need to call Rat…"

A few days passed since Gabby met with Rat, and the two finally managed to arrange a time to meet. Leigh felt a bit bad about using Gabby as a messenger, but the young girl didn't seem to mind much. If anything, Gabby seemed a bit excited about the whole thing and often commented that it was as though being in a spy movie.

Leigh pulled her car into the driveway of her parents' old house one afternoon. She didn't see any other cars around yet, and figured that the others hadn't arrived. She got out of the car and stretched, before walking up to the house and unlocking the door. Leigh found that she looked forward to seeing Rat and Danielle again, having missed them much more than she'd let on over the past few months.

The lights were still off in the house, of course, but with the bright sunlight and warm spring air, it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been in the middle of the night in early January. Leigh took the time before the others arrived to clear out the empty food tins that Gabby had left all over the kitchen. She made a face at the sight of mold all over the insides of the tins, quickly shoving everything into a bin bag so that it couldn't spread.

A knock sounded at the door. Leigh abandoned the bag of cans and made her way to the door, grinning a bit in anticipation. Lucas stood on the other side, alone.

"Hallo Leigh," he greeted her.

Leigh stepped back to allow him inside, and peeked over his shoulder. A car was parked a few houses away by the curb of the road.

"Don't vorry; Regina and Danielle are in zee car vaiting for confirmation zat it is safe to enter," Lucas told her. "Regina insisted I check zee place first. She is paranoid of Leekie...or Rachel...vell..."

"You don't have to explain," Leigh said. She smirked a bit at the thought of Rat's paranoia taking over her yet again, but she couldn't blame Rat really. The events of the last few months had been terribly confusing. "Sorry, Lucas. It's good to see you."

"Ja, you too," Lucas said. He swept through the house and peeked into each of the rooms briefly. As he searched, he considered asking Leigh to keep quiet about the fact he knew she was alive, but that would just cause Leigh confusion. Leigh wasn't supposed to know she was thought to be dead, and Rat already knew Lucas and Danielle had been witholding information.

It didn't matter though, Lucas realised. Rat was going to tell Leigh anyway, in a matter of mere minutes.

"Look, I am not going to search zee entire house; I know you vould not lead DYAD to Regina, even by mistake. I vill go and fetch her and Danielle."

Leigh frowned. She'd insisted on meeting at Janet and Spencer's because of that reason. She didn't want Leekie or Rachel to know she was meeting with Rat. Even now, Leigh couldn't help feeling paranoid Leekie would somehow find out about this and use it to capture Rat... "How can you be so sure though?" she asked Lucas.

Lucas paused. He glanced back at Leigh over his shoulder. "I have been monitoring Regina," he said flatly.

Leigh almost choked as a strange gasp escaped her, but Lucas turned firmly and silenced her.

"On Leekie's orders, yes," he confirmed. "You vould only find out from Regina anyvay; she has much to tell you. But if DYAD vanted Regina in zeir clutches, zey vould have asked me to bring her to zem months ago."

Neither of them spoke for a short while. Leigh eventually nodded. She didn't have time to be annoyed about this. She just had to trust that Lucas knew what he was doing, and that he had Rat's best interest at heart. Lucas had always helped the clones in the past, after all.

"Go and get the mardy cow then," Leigh ordered him.

Lucas disappeared. Leigh collapsed onto the sofa in the living room to wait.

Talking could be heard a few minutes later, followed by the living room door opening. Leigh stood up again as Lucas reappeared, followed by Rat.

Danielle trailed in behind Rat, but Rat was suddenly unaware of anyone else in the room besides Leigh. She watched the hairdresser carefully. Leigh simply watched her back in silence for a moment, frowning a bit at the unreadable look on Rat's face.

"What?" Leigh snapped then, and Rat jumped a bit. "We've had no contact for months, and you still look unimpressed to see me?"

Rat swallowed hard, heart racing fast. Leigh folded her arms and looked away awkwardly.

"Won't bother telling you I missed you then," she shot at Rat. "Bitch."

This was unreal; Rat was sure of it. Leigh was exactly how Rat remembered her, down to the mannerisms and anxious demeanour, covered by a fiesty and hard front.

Without a word, Rat flew across the room and crashed into Leigh.

"What the fuck?" Leigh managed when she realised Rat was clinging tightly to her. "OK fine; I did miss you...a bit."

The hairdresser blinked in stunned shock to suddenly feel Rat shaking against her, and to hear quiet sobs. "Woah, woah! Jesus Christ Rat, what the fuck's wrong with you? Surely you couldn't have missed me that much," Leigh exclaimed, instinctively rubbing Rat's back a bit to soothe her.

Rat couldn't help it though, as the scent of the hairdresser's perfume even matched exactly to how she remembered. There was no doubt in her mind that this was really Leigh. "You're really alive!" the hacker managed to get out. She pulled back to wipe her eyes and stared at Leigh as elation, relief and guilt rolled through her in waves. "God, you're so STUPID to have stayed at DYAD! What were you THINKING?!" she ranted, unable to help herself.

Leigh's eyes widened in shock, and she stared at the Swiss clone numbly. She couldn't even process the second half of what Rat said as he mind latched onto the first half. "Wait what? Why the fuck would you think I wasn't alive?!" she asked.

"Your file said so," Danielle explained, walking over to join them. It was obvious that Rat needed a minute to pull herself together. "We 'ave all zought zat you were killed by DYAD many months ago."

Leigh could only stare at the skater in blank shock as all coherent thought was knocked from her mind. The other clones thought she'd been killed?! Her file said so?! "What the FUCK?!" the hairdresser snarled loudly. "They made you all think I was DEAD?!"

Rat nodded. "Yeah…just after we got Aila back, your file was updated to mark you as deceased. They said they poisoned you in the middle of the night…" Rat tried to refocus, even as she continued standing very close to Leigh.

The hairdresser could barely think as she took in this news. She felt extremely ill to think that DYAD made the others think she was dead. Was there truly no low that they couldn't reach?

Leigh suddenly recalled when she called Aila. The doctor had said that Leigh was no longer with them, and that statement had always confused Leigh, but now it made sense. Aila didn't mean that Leigh was no longer with the group; she meant that Leigh was no longer alive.

Leigh felt her blood boil at the thought that everyone had been made to believe such a terrible lie for the past several months. "FUCKING Leekie!" she ranted then, making Rat and Danielle jump a bit. "How DARE he?! I swear to God, I'm going to punch him right in his stupid smug face the next time I see him! As if this fucking chip wasn't enough of a reason to be pissed at him!"

"Chip?" Rat asked, arching an eyebrow. "What chip?"

Leigh sighed, and reluctantly explained about the tracking chip that had been implanted in the back of her neck. Rat, Danielle, and Lucas could only stare in horrified silence. "That's why I wanted to meet you guys here instead of back at mine," Leigh explained. "I needed to go somewhere that isn't unusual for me to be, but also somewhere Rachel wouldn't randomly show up."

"Jesus…" Rat breathed, examining the scar on the back of Leigh's neck. "Wonder if doc can get that out, once we figure out some way to get her back…"

"Oh yeah, what the fuck at that?" Leigh asked, suddenly remembering that Aila was in prison. "Why's Aila in prison?! And also, where's Katja?!"

Rat flinched and sighed. "Katja's been missing for months," she told her. "We haven't seen or heard from her or Beth since about early November last year."

"Katja's missing?" Leigh echoed, stunned.

"Yeah," Rat muttered. "Stupid bloody cow just up and left in the middle of the night, only leaving behind a video message. I think she's gone to Canada, because she said she was going to stop Helena, and Beth went missing around the same time. As for Aila…it took a while for her to recover from her wounds enough to travel, and when we made it to the airport, we got stopped by these weird bounty hunters who just carted her back off to Scotland. There was nothing we could do."

"Fuck…" Leigh muttered, struggling to take all of this in.

The clones spent the following several hours discussing everything that had happened since they last saw each other. It was a lot for everybody to get their heads around. Leigh hated that Aila thought Rachel was impersonating her, but it now made a lot more sense why the Scottish clone was so angry before.

Rat jumped hard once more when her phone buzzed to life. She scrambled around in her pockets to find it, and took it out with trembling hands.

"Holy shit, you're never gonna believe this," Aila's voice breathed.

Rat tensed and shook her head. "Not a good time, Aila," she informed her. She didn't mean to sound blunt and harsh, but Rat was still in shock, and struggled to focus.

"Aila?" Leigh repeated. "Can I talk to her?"

She lunged forward to snatch the phone, but Rat shifted back and took to pacing the room. Danielle and Lucas watched awkwardly, while Leigh waited in anticipation.

Aila didn't seem to hear Rat, and carried on talking. "You've gotta look something up for me, about DYAD," she said excitedly. "I saw the weirdest thing earlier, and it explains so much, but I dunno how it's medically or scientifically possible-"

"Huh?" Rat asked distractedly. "I'm not following, Aila." She rubbed her forehead hard, feeling a headache approaching.

"Morgan!" Aila barked. "She, she has this thing; I dunno how to explain it – her monitor, Saffi – there were seizures, and I think Saffi's controlling her with them, or at least protecting herself by triggering them when Morgan starts going psycho, but-"

"Aila, calm down," Rat pleaded. She paced over to the window and stared out of it. She was aware of Leigh lingering close behind, eager to speak to Aila herself. "Start again, yeah?"

So Aila explained slowly and calmly. Rat understood this time, but it still didn't seem important when Leigh was standing right behind her, very much alive.

"You've got to find out how this is possible, and how it works," Aila ordered Rat. "This is down to DYAD somehow; I know it!"

"Yeah, yeah," Rat agreed. "I'll definitely look into it. But Aila, I need to tell you – Leigh – she's-"

A series of loud and violent coughs from Aila's end silenced Rat. Back on C-Wing, the couging almost forced Aila to her knees, and she bent over to catch her breath. Blood smeared her hand.

"Aila?" Rat asked. Leigh once again darted forward to try and take the phone, but Rat moved away again.

"Sorry Rat," Aila gasped. "I need water. Catch you later."

Aila hung up. So did Rat. Leigh stared.

"Call her back!" she squealed. "I need to talk to her and explain!"

"I can't call her back; you can't call into the prisons," Rat muttered.

Leigh smacked her forehead. She knew that herself already.

"Well I'm going to see her and get this sorted out," Leigh said defiantly. "She passed on a visiting order to Tracy, actually, and Tracy gave it to me when she got out. I dunno what the hell I did with it though...must have chucked it out by accident..."

Rat nodded. "I...I'll tell Aila you're OK next time she calls," she promised. "I'll ask her to send a new visiting order too. I wanna go with you, Leigh."

"Yeah, it's been too long since we were all together," Leigh agreed.

Danielle frowned to herself. Rat, Leigh, and Aila had a very strong bond, it seemed.

Leigh sat back down again, smiling to herself as she thought about seeing Aila again. Surely the doctor wouldn't be angry anymore once Rat told her the truth.

Rat looked down at her phone, momentarily worried about the violent cough she heard. She assured herself that it was nothing, though. Everyone had a cough every so often, and the doctor did say that she needed water, so maybe she just had a dry spot.

Rat glanced over at Leigh again. She couldn't help but think of how cold and angry Aila had been whenever the topic of the hairdresser was brought up, even before they thought she was dead. Rat wondered if she should tell Leigh about that…but she decided against it for the moment. There was no point in making Leigh worry about the upcoming visit until Rat had a chance to speak to Aila again.

Rat returned to the sofa and sat down, looking at Leigh again. "So what are you going to do about Amelia now?"

Leigh leaned back with a heavy sigh. "I don't know…Leekie's the one who wants her found, really, but I'm not sure I really want to keep working for them after what they made you guys believe about me. I still can't believe that," she muttered bitterly.

"But if you run, zey will track you, oui?" Danielle piped up.

"Yeah, that's the problem," Leigh said, nodding to the skater. "Rachel can track me on her friggin' phone for Christ's sake. I'd need to get this stupid chip out before having any chance of running."

"I could try to access and disable it remotely," Rat mused, thinking about it. "It's gotta be operating wirelessly…that'd take time and a load of trial and error, though."

"Yeah, I don't want to keep you guys from heading to Canada for too long," Leigh nodded. "You've still gotta find Katja and Beth."

Rat fell silent, apparently thinking hard about something. After a moment, she spoke. "OK, how about this; what if you don't tell anyone that you know about your file being changed, and go after Amelia as you have been. I'll admit I'm curious to find out more about Helena's twin as well…we have to wait for Aila to send a new visiting order and set up a date to go back to Scotland again anyway, so in the meantime, I could start working on something to disable that chip, at least until we have a way to remove it safely. Maybe we can reconnect permanently after you find out what you need to from Amelia?"

"Yeah…can do," Leigh said, thinking about it. Maybe Tracy and Gabby could join the group as well, along with Shaun and his boy… "We seriously need to make some kind of HQ somewhere, where we could all meet up and live in safely. Especially if our numbers keep growing."

Rat arched an eyebrow. "An HQ? What, turning this into a spy movie now?" she teased.

Leigh smirked a bit. "Well you're the one who said I'm a spa ninja bandit, so why not?" she quipped. It had been too long since she'd been able to banter with Rat like this.

Danielle and Lucas were still lost on the 'spa ninja bandit' term, but they remained silent and simply allowed the other clones to talk. Lucas was glad that Rat hadn't yet remembered to question him and Danielle, and he hoped she continued to forget in light of everything that was going on.

It wasn't long before Danielle became bored and took Rat's 3DS out of her pocket, flipping it open again.

Rat arched an eyebrow at the skater. "I'm never getting that thing back, am I?" she said dramatically.

Danielle shrugged, her lips twitching up in a faint smirk. "It works very well for distractions, especially when zee cravings start up again," she said quietly. She didn't want to admit that she'd been struggling more frequently lately.

"Oh yeah, good job on going through rehab, Danielle," Leigh told her honestly with a smile.

Danielle blinked at the unexpected praise, blushing faintly. "Merci," she said shyly, keeping her eyes trained on the 3DS's screen.

Rachel Duncan stood quietly in front of the large floor-to-ceiling windows that lined her office. On her phone, the red dot of Leigh's location was displayed. Rachel found that she'd been far busier now than she had been before taking over Leekie's jobs at the facility, and this left her little time to see Leigh. It was an inconvenience, but there was little to be done about it.

Suddenly, her phone rang. Rachel barely even glanced at the name displayed on the screen as she answered. "Rachel Duncan."

"Rachel," Leekie's annoyingly cheerful voice greeted her. "How're things going back in London?"

"Everything is fine, Aldous," Rachel told him shortly. "Is there something you require? I am quite busy."

"Of course. Well, we couldn't stop 324B21 from moving to Minnesota. Her new monitor has reported that she has become self-aware, and seems to have met, or is at least aware of several of her sisters. Including a Helena, and a Sarah Manning," Leekie explained.

"Sarah Manning?" Rachel asked. "Should that name be significant?"

"It should, because we have no idea who she is," Leekie told her seriously. "She's been posing as another clone, Elizabeth Childs, but her blood work revealed that she certainly is not Miss Childs. In fact, her blood work does not match any monitored clone in our database. As far as our records are concerned, Sarah Manning doesn't exist."

Rachel blinked slowly, suddenly very interested. "An unmonitored clone…a rogue…could she be the missing one? Amelia's child?"

"I believe that's a very real possibility," Leekie agreed. "I'll be personally investigating Miss Manning to determine that for sure. I'll update you again when we know more."

"See that you do," Rachel told him, her mind turning careful circles around this new piece of data. She'd have to inform Leigh. This may help somehow in her hunt for Amelia. "Is that all there is to report, Aldous?"

"That's the big news. There's also a smaller matter of 324B21's former monitor, Emi. She's not backing off, and may become a danger to the new monitor. Drastic action may be required if she doesn't leave Cosima alone," Leekie said.

Rachel nodded, even though she didn't particularly care about that. She snapped the phone shut without another word, and took a seat back down at her desk to think about things.

"Sarah Manning…"

Rat's room was silent. The events of the day were straining and exhausting, but she hadn't been able to sleep once returning back to her mother and father's house. It was always odd, Rat felt, to be back in her own room. It was familiar, but at the same time, so different.

Looking into Morgan's history took up most of Rat's night. She became so focused on reading that she failed to get up and switch on the light once it became dark, so the light from her laptop was all she had to illuminate her room. Every so often, her typing broke the silence.

What she discovered about Morgan was alarming. Aila would certainly be very interested to hear about it.

Eventually, the constant staring at the screen combined with her crying from earlier hurt Rat's eyes, and she found herself taking a break from the laptop. She simply crossed over to her bed and sat to cuddle Bianca for a moment, but a moment turned into hours.

Once Rat made herself comfortable on the bed, she didn't awake until morning. Her phone ringing acted as an alarm.

"Holy hell, my head," Rat groaned. The room was dull, but the sun had obviously come up. It wasn't overly bright out yet. Rat pulled herself up and pulled a face when she realised she'd fallen asleep in her day clothes.

"Aila?" she said sleepily. She knew the prison number off by heart by now.

"Morning, sleepy," Aila taunted. "Did I wake you?"

"Yeah, actually," Rat grumbled. "I was up all night looking into Morgan for you."

"Oh?" Aila asked. "Anything relevant?"

"It's absolutely relevant," Rat said. She hopped off the bed and climbed onto her computer chair. She pressed a button on the laptop to wake it up and display Morgan's data again.

"Go on then; don't keep me hanging."

"I need you to send me a visiting order, Aila," Rat spoke seriously. She wasn't sure what compelled her to make this request instead of talking about Morgan. It just felt like it needed to be said.

"Eh? Everything OK?" Aila questioned.

"I'll tell you about Morgan in a minute, but Aila, this is serious," Rat told her. "I need you to send me a visiting order, and I need you to fill it out for Leigh, too."

On a quiet and deserted C-Wing, Aila listened in stunned silence to what Rat had to say.