How?

Director Kerin and Alicia Roberts were both waiting on the landing pad as Al brought the transport in to land, Lucas noted. Kerin looked as if he'd swallowed the contents of a lemon juice bottle. Guess that's not so surprising, Lucas mused. He knows that what's happened in the last forty-eight hours has made him look like a complete idiot.

"Kendall," Kerin greeted coldly as Lucas exited the transport. "Dr Roberts is here as per request."

"Thank you. Good to see you, Alicia," Lucas added, smiling at the memory expert.

"And you, Lucas. Who's my patient?"

"Joshua Carmen," said Rob, leading Carmen out of the transport.

Alicia looked somewhat surprised. "Must be quite an explanation in there somewhere."

"That's what I'm thinking," agreed Lucas. "You remember Rob Logan?"

"Certainly do," Alicia agreed smiling. "One of the terrible trio."

"Not so terrible these days, 'Licia," Rob retorted, smiling.

"Yes, well this is all very nice," muttered Kerin, "but need I remind you we have a dangerous criminal on the run?"

Lucas sighed. This was going to be a very uneasy partnership. "Alicia -- I'll leave Rob to explain what's up. Dr Hawking, shall we?"

Hawking, who had followed Rob and Carmen from the transport nodded. "Lead on, Lucas."

~*~

For the second time in as many days, Alice found herself lying amongst the gorse bushes on the crest of one of the hills that ringed the TOI compound. This time, though, she wasn't actively looking for a way in.

"What's it look like, Ali?" Rick asked.

"All quiet."

"Is that good or bad?" Namir wondered.

Alice shrugged. "You tell me." She wriggled backwards off the crest of the hill. "Life-sign scans say there are people in there; I don't see any signs of them."

"So, oh fearless leader," Rick began, "what now?"

"Keep the fearless leader shit up and you'll be going in via the sewer, unmorphed," Alice retorted.

Rick opened his mouth to say something but Namir got in first. "Whoa -- ease up, Ali. We're on the same side."

"Ali -- are you OK?" Rick asked softly.

Dad's slipping away from me and I can't stop it. Alice swallowed the words before she could voice them. "When you're in charge, you don't get to have 'other things' on your mind," Eric had once said, and looking at Rick and Namir, she could see the truth of his words. If she didn't get her act together, they would be distracted -- and that would get them hurt. Or worse. She swallowed. Time to be leader. Time to make sure Wes and Katie don't end up like dad.

She met Rick's gaze and nodded. "I'll be OK. Sorry for snapping." Rick smiled in understanding. "Right now, I guess we go knock, real loud. See if anyone's home."

~*~

Zordon was cursing a blue streak, his hands flying over his control panel. "Alpha! Can you do anything to break the tractor beam?"

"Ai-yi---"

Zordon whirled on the little 'bot, pointing at him as if his finger was a weapon. "Don't," he snarled. "Just say no."

"Erm, ah, no. Sorry, 'Don," Alpha replied, all his little lights blinking furiously.

"Anybody got any bright ideas?" barked Zordon to the company at large.

Wes cleared his throat self-consciously. "How about we hide in the secret compartments where you hide your undeclared goods?"

Zordon's expression went all crafty, then an air of faux-innocence settled around him like a cloud. "What secret compartments?" Dimi rolled her eyes.

So did Wes. "You get caught all the time, don't you?"

Zordon was affronted. "Not all the time! I mean, a couple of times, sure, but everybody -- hey!"

Dimi got to her feet and stalked aft, jerking open a section of flooring and gesturing the others inside. Wes smirked.

Zordon was grumpy, climbing in beside Wes, Ben, Dimi and the robot. "I don't get caught all the time," he muttered.

"Will you shut up?" hissed his co-pilot, and pulled the flooring shut over their heads.

~*~

All the knocking in the world, Rick reflected, wouldn't have raised a soul in the TOI. The prison was completely deserted. They had opted to go in morphed, but that was starting to look like overkill.

"This is too weird," Namir murmured. "Where'd everyone go? And what's with the slime?" He nodded in the direction of one of the many piles of pinkish goop they'd walked passed so far -- this particular one was lying beside a doorway in a position that could have been where a guard would normally have stood.

Alice sounded grim as she said, "I think that's where everyone went."

"Huh?"

"More clones?" Rick queried.

"According to LIA," she replied, "when Replicants stop receiving their cohesion signal, they dissolve."

"Dissolve?" Namir looked nauseated.

"You're suggesting all the guards here were Replicants," Rick realised.

"That's what it looks like."

"Then why are we still getting life-signs showing up on the scan?" Rick asked.

Alice's voice turned grimmer. "Could be a couple of things. Either there are some other poor bastards trapped here -- or there's a different batch of Replicants waiting for us."

~*~

Eric was lying down on the bio-bed when Kimberly returned to the medi-centre. Of Ven, there was no sign -- which probably meant the doctor was already five fathoms deep in her research.

"Kim?" Eric must have heard her arrive.

"Yeah." She came into the room and took a seat beside the bio-bed. "I'm here."

Eric smiled bleakly. "Wish you weren't. This is gonna get ugly."

"In sickness and in health, Eric," Kimberly replied, taking hold of one of his hands and giving it a gentle squeeze. "It doesn't matter how ugly this gets; I stay." She squeezed his hand again. "Besides, you've dodged the bullet before."

"Don't think I'm gonna dodge it this time," he admitted quietly. "My luck has to run out sooner or later."

"Don't think like that -- you're..."

"Kim, I can't feel my legs," he said softly. "My balance has gone...I can barely feel your hands on mine."

Kimberly swallowed. "Fight it," she whispered. "Fight it like you've fought everything else that's ever come up against you. Please."

"I don't know how."

"Just don't give up." Kimberly bent her head and kissed him on the temple. "Please don't give up."

~*~

Alice had recommended they split up so as they could search the TOI that much faster. Given the Ranger comm. system's power, Namir knew that Rick and Alice were within hearing, but even so, he couldn't help but feel apprehensive. Sneaking into somewhere he wasn't supposed to be was one thing -- and something that, thanks to The Master, he was very good at -- but this wasn't sneaking. This was practically a full frontal assault, something for which he had no experience.

What if I have to fight something? he wondered as he made his way down the hallway. I can't fight -- I don't know how to fight.

Maybe he wasn't the one the blue morpher had been intended for. Maybe his mother shouldn't have given it to him.

His mother.

Who was missing.

Suddenly, his own fears seemed like small change. The whole reason they were at the TOI again was in the hopes of finding information that would help find her.

That reminder lent a little more steel to Namir's courage. His parents were counting on him. So were Rick and Alice. Time to start returning their faith in him.

At that moment, he rounded a corner and stopped, dead.

"Holy...crap!" he breathed.

~*~

Hawking settled down in front of his favourite terminal. The task force headquarters was well appointed, but there was definitely something about sitting down in front of the machine you'd used almost every day of your working career for making you feel as if you could accomplish the impossible.

"All right, Simon old chap," he murmured to himself. "Work your brand of magic. Let's find the missing people."

~*~

Rick moved along the upper level hallway, making for the overall command centre of the prison, with an ease and grace that would have surprised him six weeks earlier. Weird what you can learn in such a short space of time, he mused idly.

Though he was cautious, he knew there weren't any life signs indicated up here. That was something he was in two minds about. It could mean that the command team here had been clones and when their cohesion signal stopped they simply melted into the pinkish goo he'd seen everywhere else. Or there could have been people here and they've sabotaged the computer system.

Another five yards along the hallway, he reached the first of the computer rooms. This had been the weapons and defence monitoring. It was unlikely the systems in here held any useful data, but it was something that had to be checked. He entered the room and was oddly gratified to have to step over a large puddle of pink slime. Replicants in here, then, at least.

Rick took up a seat in front of the lead terminal and started punching in commands. Time to get to work...

~*~

Alicia looked over the results of the tests.

"It's definite," she said to Rob. "He's had his mind played around with. Whoever it was did a regular hatchet job about it, though -- he's lucky not to have ended up as a vegetable."

Rob winced. "Any ideas when it was done?"

Alicia shook her head. "Could have been this morning, for all I can tell."

Rob sighed. "Guess we'll have to find that out the old fashioned way, then."

~*~

Alice recognised her surroundings as she walked through the lower level cells. This had been where she'd broken Eric out. That there was a life sign reading in this vicinity was making her suspicious.

LIA, any signs of booby traps? she queried.

[Negative,] came the response. [But recommending caution all the same.]

Don't believe in coincidences, either, huh? But LIA made no response to that.

Alice continued along the hallway, heading deeper into the bowels of the prison.

[Life sign directly ahead,] LIA warned. [Cell to your left.]

This is what I was afraid of, Alice realised, grimacing. Other prisoners.

She stepped up to the cell door and knocked, calling aloud, "Anyone in there?"

"Alice? Is that you?"

~*~

Ven looked at the search results and for the first time, she felt a little bit of hope for Eric's situation. It was an awkward hybrid of archaic techniques and up to the second technology, and yet, it could definitely work. Provided there was sufficient time to implement it.

She glanced at the earlier scan.

That was going to be the key issue. Time.

She chewed her lip. Did she run a sym?

A yell of pure panic from the medi-centre ended the debate. Grabbing a hypo-spray of sedative she'd prepared before sitting down to her research, she hurried into the medi-centre. Kimberly had her arms wrapped firmly around Eric, trying to calm him, but from what she could hear of what Eric was babbling, he was beyond being calmed. His last link with the outside world, his hearing, had just gone.

No. No time to run a sym. This was either going to work, or it wasn't.

"Kim, give me room," she said, in a voice that was far more composed than she felt.

Reluctantly, Kimberly backed away. Ven applied the hypo-spray to Eric's neck. The sedative took almost immediate effect.

"Is this...it?" Kimberly asked, her voice thick with tears.

"No. Not yet." Ven turned to face Kimberly. "It's just a sedative -- he asked me to put him under when his hearing went; he said he didn't deal too well with total silence."

Kimberly gave a hiccup of suspiciously hysterical laughter. "Even after all this time, he still doesn't deal with that." Ven's eyebrows rose at that. Kimberly shook her head. "What happens next?"

"I think I may have the answer."

~*~

Namir stared, wide-eyed. He was standing at the start of a catwalk that crossed a vast clone maturation chamber. Hundreds definitely -- thousands probably -- of individual clone pods lined the walls. To his left, he could see the clonal foeti. To his right, he could see the almost mature clones. The machinery was still running, he could hear it humming faintly, which meant that all the pods were still receiving the right nutrient mix...

...which meant the clones nearest to him must be almost ready for release.

Namir started down the steps, moving quickly, onto the maturation chamber floor. The last thing they needed was more of The Master's clones on the loose. And then something about the clone nearest to the steps caught his attention and stopped him dead once more.

"Oh. Fuck."

~*~

Alice froze at the voice. It couldn't be...shouldn't be...

"Dad?"

"Alice?"

It was. Oh my God... "Dad!"

[Caution!] LIA urged. [Probability dictates this is not...]

LIA shut up! Alice snapped. She needed to think. Was this really Eric? Or was the tired, sick, old man she'd rescued the previous day Eric?

"Honey, what's going on?" Eric called. "What're you doing here?"

"I've come to get you out," Alice answered. What if the man she'd rescued yesterday was another clone? What if this was the real Eric? What if...

[Do not open this door!] LIA practically begged.

LIA, I can't not open this door, Alice retorted. "Stand back, dad -- I'm gonna break the door down."

~*~

Lucas frowned over the data. Someone had to have helped Ransik escape. But there was no sign of anyone breaching MAX security -- which meant it was an inside job. There was no sign of anything on the security tapes -- which meant it was a very, very cleverly done inside job.

Who the hell had the computer skills to hack the MAX system?

Two names sprang to mind. Trip Regis and Rick Collins. But Trip was accounted for -- he was still in the intensive care unit of Time Force Medical, and as for Rick, Lucas knew full well where Rick had been when Ransik was broken out and that was on the landing pad at the task force headquarters.

Was there someone else? Lucas grimaced. Or was it something else? There had been Replicants running around already -- primarily the Frax clone, of course, but there was also the copy of Eric that had been standing trial on his behalf. Are there clones of the kids lurking in the shadows waiting to be found?

~*~

There hadn't been anything of note in any of the defence systems, or in the habitat systems -- not that Rick was terribly surprised. He'd suspected that, if pay dirt was to be had, it would be in the overall central systems -- and that would only be accessible from the main command centre -- but the other systems had to be checked first.

He now moved along the hallway towards the command centre at a loping jog. The sooner he got there, the sooner...

"Rick?" Namir's voice came over the comm. loud and clear.

"What's up, Nam?" Rick asked.

"I think I've found clone central," Namir answered.

That was enough to bring Rick to a complete halt. "You have?"

"Yeah," Namir answered.

"Have you told Alice?"

"She's not answering." Rick forced himself not to panic. There could be lots of reasons why Alice wasn't answering comm. calls. Except that he couldn't think of a solitary one. "And Rick," Namir added, "we've got an even bigger problem than that."

~*~

Namir heard Rick give an audible gulp. "What's that, Nam?"

Namir looked up at the nearest pod. "It's definite. We've been cloned."

"What?"

"I'm looking up at one of the nearly mature clones, and if I wasn't talking to you right now and if I didn't know damn well you're where you are, I'd think you were in this pod," Namir answered. "There's another one of Alice here, too. One of me as well. Also two others -- I figure they're probably John and Lexia." Rick swore. "And it gets worse."

"Nam, what the hell can be worse than that?"

"How about another thousand clones in various stages of generation, eight empty pods and five clones almost ready to be released?"

~*~

Hawking's fingers moved across the keyboard of the terminal in a blur. He was through the initial interference now, but behind that was a secondary layer of blocking and a third level beneath that, too. Whoever it was that set this up had really done their work.

But whoever did this probably wasn't expecting the foremost expert in temporal tracking to be on the case. Absently, Hawking smiled. Nearly there, now.

~*~

The door proved to be a stiffer opponent than she'd anticipated. Alice found herself needing to take three or four kicks before it gave way, unlike the door of the cell she'd busted open the day before. Had that one been too easy? Was this one supposed to make her think that?

What if this was the real Eric?

What if it was a clone back at the task force base?

What if he wasn't really sick?

What if that was all some kind of ploy to get to her or Kimberly?

"Dad?" she called.

"Ali -- are you OK?" Rick's voice was an unwelcome intrusion.

"Just a sec, Rick," she responded. Aloud, she called, "Dad?"

"This can't wait, Ali," Rick insisted. "Namir's found clone central. And we have eight missing clones."

"Dad?" Alice was starting to get suspicious now. To Rick she said, "Eight? Out of how many?"

"We---"

The rest of Rick's transmission was lost in a burst of static. What the... But Alice didn't have time to finish that thought as a strong arm wrapped itself around her neck.

"Sorry," said a voice, "but you can't be my daughter. You're one of those clones..."

~*~

Panic rose in Rick's chest. The comm. couldn't cut like that. There was something wrong -- Alice needed his help.

"Rick, I don't wanna rush you," Namir said, panic audible in his voice, "but you need to find this batch of clones' cohesion code and now."

Alice needed his help.

"Rick!"

With a sinking feeling, Rick realised he couldn't help her. He didn't know where in the complex she was. And if he didn't help Namir, it would probably be moot. The clones couldn't be allowed to escape the TOI. "I'm looking Nam," he answered tersely, starting to pound the terminal keyboard he was sitting at. "Hang tight."

~*~

Namir looked at the five newly released clones who were all staring balefully at him. Hang tight, he says!

"It's one of the fakes," said the Alice-clone. "Get him!"

The Rick-clone and the clone that Namir guessed was probably based on Alice's younger brother, John, started forwards. Namir backed away -- only to bump into something else.

"Going somewhere?"

Namir whipped his head round and found that somehow his clone had crept up behind him.

"You know what, yeah -- as a matter of fact I am," Namir answered, swiftly ducking to the side and dodging his clone. I hope this works. "Now you see me..." The stealth mode kicked in. And now you don't...

To judge from the completely bemused expressions on the clones faces, it had worked.

"He's here somewhere," judged the Rick-clone. "Fakes can't just vanish into thin air."

"But he's got some sort of cloaking device," put in the fifth clone -- the one that had to be based on Rick's sister.

"Cloaking device or not," said the Alice-clone. "We have to find him."

An idea occurred to Namir. If they're playing Hunt-The-Nam, they're not gonna be trying to get out of here, he reasoned. So let's make this a real game...

He crept up behind the Lexia-clone, briefly released the stealth mode and tapped her on the shoulder. "Looking for me?"

She jumped and whirled around, but in that time, Namir dodged backwards and brought the stealth mode back up. "Gah!" she howled and lunged towards where Namir had been standing.

Namir grinned. Who needed to fight when you could play?

~*~

Alice tried to fight off her assailant, but he used his bigger bulk to keep her in a position that she couldn't fight out of.

"You can't be Alice," he said. "You have to be one of the clones."

His arm was pressed against her windpipe, and though she was morphed -- and hence he couldn't actually crush it -- the angle he had her at combined with the arm across it meant she most effectively couldn't breathe.

"I'm...not..."

But the world began to grey and dim. She couldn't speak. Couldn't call out. Couldn't even ask why.

~*~

Rick pounded the keyboard. That code had to be in here somewhere, he just had to find it -- and the sooner the better. Namir was facing five-on-one odds while Alice... He grimaced. He wasn't sure what had happened to Alice.

As soon as I've found this code and shut it off, I can go look for her, Rick reminded himself.

If he found it.

~*~

Namir crouched behind one of the computer terminals in the maturation chamber and let stealth mode drop away. As fun as this was, it was also exhausting. The only upside was that he could see the clones were as tired as he was, if not more so.

"Rick, any sign of that code?" he asked.

"Not... Got it!" Rick exclaimed. "Give me a minute to punch up the transmitter and..."

"So this is where you've got to!" exclaimed a voice.

Namir looked up to see the Alice-clone and the John-clone looming over him. Shit! He tried to bring back stealth mode, but there wasn't enough power left. Shit... "Rick," he said via the comm., "I don't think you've got a minute..."

~*~

Rick forced his fingers to move faster. He wasn't sure what was going on where Namir was, but whatever it was, it couldn't be good. C'mon, c'mon...

:::Cohesion code transmission ceased:::

Yes! Rick gave it a moment or two, then called via the comm., "Nam?"

~*~

Namir swallowed, hard. One second, the John-clone had been reaching for him, presumably intending to grab him and make good the threat to kill him, the next both clones had started to melt into the pink gunk.

"Nam?"

"You wanna cut that any closer next time?" Namir found himself asking as he got to his feet.

"Sorry. You OK?"

"I'll live." Namir swallowed again and tried to stop shaking. "But geez that was..."

"What's the status of those clones, Nam?" Rick asked.

"Goo," Namir replied, grateful to have something to focus on beyond how close it had been.

"All of them?"

"The five released ones for sure -- it'll take me a little while to double check the other pods."

"Got it." There was a hesitation. "Are there data sources down there?"

Namir looked around and spotted a likely bank of machines. "Looks like it."

"Destroy them."

"Don't we..."

"Destroy them." Rick was firm. "We've got more than enough evidence against this guy, and bluntly, I don't wanna run the risk of someone else finding our DNA and making more clones."

Namir could understand that viewpoint. "Understood. What're you going to do?"

"I'm gonna find Alice."

~*~

The release was so sudden that Alice found herself dropping to her knees, no longer being held up by the arms that had so successfully been holding her captive and draining her of life. The world greyed even more for a few seconds as the visceral relief of knowing she wasn't going to suffocate hit her.

But as she recovered, something else slowly penetrated her consciousness. Her attacker had been a Replicant. A clone. It hadn't been Eric -- had never been Eric -- but that was no relief.

It meant the man she'd rescued the day before almost certainly was Eric.

And he was dying.

~*~

"Well?" Kerin snapped.

"Not well at all," Lucas responded, ignoring the other man's rudeness. "The Master's plan is extremely complex. My theory is every single person The Master has used in this time period -- and in the others he's been active in -- have been Replicants."

"That's quite a theory."

Lucas started to count off on his fingers. "We had the Frax clone first off. Then there was the clone of Lieutenant Chisholm from your department. Then the clone of Eric Myers that's currently in custody here in Central City."

At that, Kerin grimaced. "That's only three."

"Sorry to interrupt," said Marissa, poking her head into Lucas' office. "But Dr Hawking's just comm'd to say he's on his way up."

Lucas and Kerin exchanged looks.

"I guess we can argue about the Replicants later," said Kerin. "Let's just hope your temporal expert has made the breakthrough we need."

"For once," said Lucas, "we're in complete agreement."

~*~

Rick moved swiftly through the dank cell block. Alice's morpher had stopped transmitting its homing signal, which suggested she'd demorphed one way or another. That couldn't be a good sign. Particularly not paired with the information that the homing signal had been stationary until vanishing.

But as he neared the location, a sound caught his attention: Sobs.

Oh hell... Rick rounded the corner and came to a stop. Alice was there, and there was a conspicuous pile of pink goo just behind her -- the life sign she'd been tracing had been a clone, then. But this wasn't even the distracted Alice who'd been in control and command at the start of this little excursion. She was on her knees, huddled over, crying pitiably.

Rick demorphed and dropped to the ground beside her. "Ali?"

"He's dying, Rick..." she sobbed as his arms went around her. "I can't stop it..."

"Who's dying?" Rick asked, though he had a nasty suspicion he knew.

"Dad. He's dying and I can't stop it..."

~*~

Despite Rick's order to the contrary, Namir checked the data that was stored on the bank of machines he'd spotted. Most of the information on them was about the clones, and he was just about to put a blaster bolt through the terminal, most effectively frying the data core, when he spotted another file.

It was just tagged 'Redemption'. There was nothing about it that should have made him curious -- except that he was.

With a couple of keyboard commands, he brought the file up on screen.

"Holy...shit..."

~*~

Dimi climbed onto Zordon's back and pressed her ear to the bulkhead.

"Are they gone?" the hunched-over pilot whispered through gritted teeth.

She shot him a dirty look. "Do you have to sound like you're dying?"

Zordon opened his mouth to retort but Ben gently intervened. "Do you hear anything, my dear?"

Dimi shook her head and clambered down, taking care to step on key parts of Zordon's anatomy, Wes noticed, amused. She reminded him of Jen, this Dimi. No shit taken, plenty doled out. Except for the questions-only thing -- that was starting to grate on his nerves. He'd pay good money to hear the woman utter a single declarative sentence.

"Okay, hotshot," Zordon was looking at him, "this is your big rescue mission. So how do we get to your lady friend?"

Wes thought about it. "First, we need a couple of those plastic suits..."

TO BE CONTINUED...