Author's Note: Oh man, it's been a long time. I re-read this last night as well as all the lovely reviews and then my outline for the rest of the story, and I'm really going to push to finish it. If you're still out there and reading here, I'd appreciate your feedback. It's been about a year since I looked at the file before this, and I had stopped in the middle of a sentence/thought, and I had no idea where I was going with it. So I regrouped and picked a direction. Hopefully it's leading us toward a resolution for all of us. Also, you're probably going to have to go back and read at least the last 2 chapters. I definitely did.

Chapter 17

"Who?" Max hissed. "Which of my siblings are you experimenting on?"

Makiko took a step back. "It's not like that at all."

"You'd better explain yourself. Now." Max kept her voice even and her tone low, but her eyes meant business. Potentially dangerous business.

Makiko motioned to a smaller room with a few chairs set up off to the side. "Let's go over here so we can talk privately."

"I think Zack should hear this."

"We'll bring him into the conversation in a bit, but I want to explain this to you first. Okay?"

Max exhaled. "Okay." They sat.

"There are a few things you need to understand. First, I met Taro-san when I took his cell and molecular biology class. He only taught the one undergraduate class, and I made sure to take it. I knew who he was, and I knew he was doing the type of work that we'd only dreamed about before he began publishing. The world had been waiting for the breakthroughs that his labs said they were doing. The problem was, no one else was replicating results, not the major ones, anyway. The summer after the course, he offered me an internship in his lab. Not only was it an amazing opportunity in the field, there were so many unanswered questions. I was afraid it was another "Dolly the sheep," but after I'd been there for about three months, he introduced me to his associate, Dr. Yamamoto.

"He'd come from Manticore around the turn of the century. Him, his wife, and their daughter. His wife had been an obstetrician. Their daughter Nashi was 9 the year I met them, the year your class escaped."

Max narrowed her eyes. "Okay."

"My understanding is that in addition to those of you who trained together, there were additional versions of each of your genetic codes that were created and raised separately."

"Clones?"

"Yes. Not for all of you, but some."

"So I have more siblings?"

"Yes and no. Some of the pregnancies weren't carried to term, but a handful were."

Max's eyes widened. "We heard them talk about 'spare parts' from time to time. Did they use the other kids like that?"

"I honestly don't know, Max, but there's more to my story. Dr. Linden, that's Dr. Yamamoto's wife, also worked at Manticore in the breeding and birthing center. The obstetricians were instructed to terminate any multiple pregnancies."

"But you said there were twins," Max interjected.

Makiko held out her hand, palm up. "Not twins. Clones. Except for one pregnancy that was a spontaneous twin gestation. The embryo split, creating identical twins with identical genetics. Dr. Linden had been a party to multiple terminations, as multiple pregnancies happened occasionally, and they didn't need the risk of losing a birth mother and two babies. If they needed another version of that embryo, they could just re-make it. In spite of this, or maybe because of it, she had been able to maintain professional distance until she saw those two heartbeats together that day. She couldn't do what she'd been instructed to do. Instead, she falsified the records for a singleton pregnancy until they were at the time for delivery. She knew at least one baby was breech, feet first, so she had planned for a c-section, but the birth mother went into spontaneous labor. The first baby was in the right position to come out head first, so she delivered the baby and hid her. Then they took the mother to c-section for the second baby, who you later knew as your sister Brin."

"So we have another sister. Does Zack know?" Max turned back toward the corridor they'd just come from, searching for any sign of Zack's presence there.

Makiko shook her head. "I don't think so. I don't think anyone knows that she existed other than their family. And those of us in Dr. Hasegawa's lab. She was genetically an X-5. Her parents knew what that meant, and they expected her future would include heat cycles and other genetic alterations that were less than desirable in civilian life. And they couldn't stay at Manticore with the baby, so they went back to Japan. Back to Osaka. I'm not sure how they got away or how they ended up where we were, but they came to our lab when she was 9, and we started sequencing her genome and working on repairs to the faulty code."

Max leaned forward in her seat. "And you fixed it?"

"Some of it. The worst parts."

"Brin didn't have seizures like me," Max pointed out as she stood and started to pace.

"Nor did Nashi."

Max stopped and turned to face Makiko. "So you don't know if you can fix that."

"I'm fairly certain that I can. It's a faulty membrane transport protein in tryptophan synthesis. I'm pretty sure we can do that, and even more, I'm pretty sure I can do it on a germline level."

Max shook her head, not understanding the meaning or significance of this.

"I can fix it in you, and I can fix it in your eggs." Max shrugged, still not quite getting it. "So you won't pass it on to any potential children," Makiko explained.

"Oh."

"I know you're young and that may not be something that you've thought about yet, but if this treatment works well for Logan, it could increase your chances of a pregnancy when you're with him."

"Oh." Max sat in the chair nearest to her, as she considered this.

"Anyway, I'd like to sequence your genome so that I can see what's there and what I can possibly alter for your benefit."

"Is that, um, legal or whatever?"

"Legal? Absolutely. Ethical? That's a grey area," Makiko conceded. "There are two main reasons scientists publish their work. The first is to expand knowledge in their subject matter and to better understand the natural world. The second is to secure funding."

"But your money comes from a Seattle billionaire family."

"It does," Makiko confirmed.

"And you don't have to publish any of this in order to continue to get funding if you don't want to or if it's something you don't necessarily want shared with the scientific community.

"I don't."

Max nodded. "Okay. What do you need from me to do that?"

"A blood sample."

"Okay."

"Good." Makiko smiled across at Max, still attempting to put her more at ease but sensing that she couldn't really push much further. "I know how to improve the heat cycles. And I know the process to work on the rest, but it's really just a variation on what we already know and can do."

"Okay." Max chewed on her lower lip as she considered this.

"I know it's hard to imagine that things could change or that people could use work like Manticore's to help rather than to hurt you, but that's what we've spent our careers doing."

That wasn't what worried Max, though. It was much more complicated, and Makiko needed to know. "Whatever you can or can't do for me isn't that important. You have to understand that if this doesn't work for Logan, or if it does and he loses it again, I'd don't know if he'd be able to handle that, to go through it all over."

"I understand."

"I don't think that you do. After Dr. Vertes was killed, I found him in his study with a gun in his hand. He's gone through this twice now. I don't think he can do it another time."

"I see." Makiko's brow furrowed as she met Max's gaze with a decided nod of her head.

"Not to add pressure or anything, but if we start this, and you can tell it's not going to work or that something isn't right, you need to tell him right away. You can't keep anything from him so that he's prepared. So that I'm prepared to do what I need to for him."

"Oh, Max."

Max shook her hair back out of her face as she continued. "We can manage the way things are. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than it's been." She dropped her head, avoiding Makiko's intense gaze. "I didn't want to tell him that I'd found you. I wasn't trying to find you, but I knew if he found out that I knew and didn't tell him, he wouldn't ever be able to forgive or trust me again."

"I understand." Max nodded, feeling that the young doctor now did understand a lot better than she had a moment ago. "Do you want to join him at the hospital? I will be there once I check in on Zack and Takeshi."

"Sure." Max jumped up and headed toward the door.

"It's the biggest building. You can't miss it," Makiko called to her disappearing back.

"I'll find him."

"I have no doubt that you will." Makiko closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. What in the world had she gotten herself into?