After dinner, Annie was sent straight to bed. Ever since she had collapsed at her ballet recital, and the autopsy men had taken a DNA sample from her, revealing her unique condition to the scientific world, her parents had feared for her life. She dully remembered that day, when she had woken up, and had overheard their conversation with the press downstairs.
"Hi, I'm Gustave from the Parisian Times, and we'd like a word with your daughter. Is it true that she can change her age at will?"
"Go away! You are wrong! There is nothing freakish about my daughter, now leave us be!" Annie's mother had shouted at the press.
"Marthe," Annie's father said to her mother. "Excuse me," he said, stepping in front of his wife. "I shall explain everything."
"Henri, no!" Marthe shouted at him. "You don't mean!"
"Relax," Henri whispered in her direction. "Our fourteen-year-old daughter is not here. She went missing about a year ago."
"Then explain Claire Perrault, the newest member of the ballet. We hear that she had died, and is now back with you! Are you sure that Claire and Annie are not the same girl?"
Henri faked a laugh, and he was a fairly good actor. "Oh, forgive me for not explaining. You see; Claire is my niece. She is staying with us for now, because she came here to get into Annie's ballet program. They needed a replacement for her, until she's back, which I hope she will be."
Marthe stared at Henri in astonishment. "Yes, that's true."
"Can't we at least talk to Claire?" Gustave asked. "Maybe interview her?"
"Gustave, Claire nearly died. She doesn't want visitors!" Henri said, continuing his lie.
Once Gustave was gone, Marthe had something to say to Henri. "What was that? Now how are we going to explain when Annie returns, and Claire is gone forever?"
"Ah, do not worry. We shall tell them that Claire has gone off somewhere to think, she has lost interest in ballet. Meanwhile, Annie is back, and the company liked her performance better. Marthe, you worry far too much," Henri said.
"I'm worried about having Annie's reputation marred by her nonexistent cousin's lousy performance!" Marthe shouted.
It was settled. Soon, Annie would return to her ordinary, fourteen-year-old self, and hopefully everyone would forget there ever having been a young woman mysteriously dead right in front of them. Sure, they might dwell on it, but the stresses and joys of their lives would wash the memory away with time, and Annie's parents would tell the police that their daughter had been found, and Claire would be forgotten.
Annie wanted to die, as she looked through her room. She had been recovering from the ageing treatment for six and a half weeks, and had reached about age nineteen. She was almost glad that no one knew that she was back. It meant that no one had to see her like this. Her hair hung in mangled clumps throughout her head, and her expression was pale, with a mixture of hate and despair. She had let an entire government organization down, and worst of all, she had lost all of her powers, and the crescent moon birthmark on her back. It figured. Sebastien probably didn't think that she deserved to have superior powers anymore. Now that she was a failure, weak, and helpless; everything that she hated, she had no reason to be conceited as she used to be. Now, rage and a feeling of complete loss replaced her ambitious need to take over the world.
"Annie, we have called for a doctor, and I want you to stay in bed. He says that he has to take you to the hospital to do more tests," Marthe said. "This doctor knows about Project Crescent, so you will be safe."
Despite Annie's mother's perfectionism, if it wasn't sympathy that inclined her to keep Annie around, it was pure shame in having a crippled daughter, and the desire to make her better before anyone knew about it. Now, Annie even needed help to walk, and she figured that if she was not able to become her normal self by the time that she returned to her normal age, that they might not love her anymore at all. Not that she cared in the least for them, but not even meeting their standards made her feel ill.
"Annie, the doctor is here!" her father called.
The man entered the room, and was about to introduce the phony, made-up name that he had created for himself, but he didn't have to.
"Sebastien?" she asked.
…………………………Meanwhile……………………………………………………….
Amy Lawrence sat in her room, crying. How could she be a clone? Sure, she had always considered her self to be different, but now she wasn't even human. It was midday, and Amy had refused to come down for dinner the past night. Her mother had tried to get her to come down, and she even refused to talk to her father, who hadn't called in five years, when the phone had rang last night. Even if he was her dad, he had left them when Amy was only seven-years-old, and was probably returning for money's sake. There was just no other explanation for why Sebastien would contact her mother, Cindy Lawrence.
Eventually, Amy's hunger overcame her need to ponder what had happened, and she wandered downstairs to get herself a bowl of cereal. "Mom?" she asked. "What are you doing home?"
"Amy, sweetie, I wanted to talk to you about what I told you yesterday," Cindy said.
"Well, I don't," Amy said, backing away.
"Amy…" her mother started. Just then, the phone rang.
"Hello?" Cindy asked.
Amy decided to test her newfound clone abilities, and find out who was on the other end of the line. "Hello, Cindy, zees ees Sebastien. I have called ask zat you return Fifteen to our custody right now."
"My…my…daughter? Now? But you said that you weren't going to start the procedure until she was eighteen!" Cindy shrieked.
"We have found alternate methods of getting her to that age," Sebastien explained. "And we have perfected them, due to our recent problems accelerating Amy, Number Nine," he said, as if that would completely reassure Cindy that it was okay to give her daughter to this group of barbarians, or Nazis, many of which Cindy had discovered shortly before Sebastien had left the family.
Torn between her only source of income, and her love for Amy, Cindy fainted.
"Mom!" Amy shrieked.
Amy heard the phone fall to the ground, and she picked it up. "Dad?" she asked. "Dad, Mom just fainted! What are you trying to pull? Are you from that government Organization too? I have to go, okay, Mom fainted!" she shrieked in a panic.
"Okay, okay, Amy," Sebastien said calmly. "I will call zee hospital for her, help ees on zee way."
"I don't trust you," Amy breathed, as she put down the phone. Instinctively, she dialed 911 herself.
After what seemed like hours of waiting, and dreading, some paramedics finally came to take Cindy to the hospital. "I'll come with her," Amy offered.
"No, no, Amy," Sebastien said. "I am her father," he explained to the Paramedics. "And I am really her legal Guardian. I shall take her."
"No one's taking me anywhere!" Amy said. Still, she seemed to have no other option but to go with him. Besides, she didn't really feel much loyalty to her mother after last night. Although she knew deep down that it was pointless to blame Cindy, a part of her did.
When she entered the backseat of his car, she found herself sitting next to a brunette woman whose attractiveness was flawed by her sickness and exhaustion.
"Is this your new wife, or something?" Amy asked sarcastically.
"Zees ees Amy, Number Nine," Sebastien explained. "Her growth has been accelerated, and it ees wearing off slowly, causing her to be a bit weak."
Amy was horrified. "Why did you do that to her, it's terrible!" Then, a thought crossed Amy's mind. "Are you Annie?" she asked, having a one in fifteen chance of being right.
Annie looked just as surprised, although wearier. "How can you be Amy, Number Fifteen?" she asked. "You are a redhead with glasses."
"I dyed my hair," Amy explained. "Brown was just too…ordinary."
Something was blurring Amy's vision, and she took off her glasses to wipe them clean, when she noticed that her vision actually improved without them, to far better than they had been when the glasses had helped.
"You removed your earrings, I see," Annie commented. "Will my powers return when I reach my regular age?"
"Someone, I do not know who, triggered what made zee original twelve Amys perfect. However, there ees no need to worry, I can bring zem back," Sebastien said. "I shall only fix zee powers of zee clones who will help us zees time. Zee rebellious clones shall not stop us zees time."
Annie groaned. "Great. Have you managed to collect any other Amys besides us?" she asked lethargically.
"Yeah, I was wondering that myself," Amy cut in.
"Yes, in fact, we have Amys Thirteen through Sixteen with us. And you of course, Annie. I am hoping that in time, you can be a role model for the younger Amys."
"We are not younger," Amy interrupted. "She's still fourteen, just in a mature body!"
"Will you just shut up?" Annie asked. Amy wasn't quite sure whom the question was directed to, but she was sure that three more girls with the same name as her would become extremely confusing over time. And she also knew that her father had a lot of explaining to do.
