Helen smirked as she stood outside the small cell. Within, Connor was clearly becoming more and more irritated and worried by the minute. Everything was running according to plan. Almost everything.

Where was that darn Connor clone, anyway? He should have been back awhile ago. She hoped he hadn't been bested by barbie - Abby Temple, that is. He was replaceable, of course, but she needed Connor to do something for her...


Abby pressed her foot down on the gas pedal, making the car dart past and around slower vehicles.

"How far?"

"Hmm?" She took a quick glance, and smiled a little before focusing back on the road and cars. Just like the real Connor, the clone didn't like fast driving: his eyes were closed tight and his hand had a vice-like grip on the armrest near the door.

"How close are we to Conn?"

"Oh, erm..." He paused. "We're nearly there! But more to the right..."

"Okay, good. I'll just get off here and we'll take a couple of smaller roads." Abby muttered, carefully changing lanes and turning down the exit ramp at speeds far over the speed limit.

Oh, she hoped there were no cops about.

The phone rang. Abby swore under her breath and reached for her mobile, blindly searching for it. The clone reacted immediately, pushing her hand away and picking up the mobile.

"At the speed we're going, you'd best concentrate, Abby. I'll answer it."

"Fine." He nodded and flipped the phone open.

"Hello?"

''Connor? Jess, Connor answered- yes, Connor-'' Becker's voice came on the line.

"No, no, I'm not Connor. I'm a clone-" He tried to explain, and was then cut off by Captain Becker once more.

''What?! Where is Abby?'' Becker demanded.

"Wait, let me explain! Abby's here, we're heading to find Connor. Helen has your friend, and Abby helped me to be free of Helen." He told the other man, nervously. Becker didn't answer for a moment, so he took the time to check on the strange link to the real Connor Temple. He was a little more sure of it now - because they were getting closer. He wondered what it would be like to meet the man face-to-face.

The clone wasn't sure he wanted to do that.


Connor growled in irritation, shaking the arm with the manacle on it so the chains clanked and clicked against the floor and each other.

"Helen!" He yelled suddenly, "Helen, I know you're there! I know you're doing this on purpose!" I just don't know why, he added silently.

No response.

He began to sink back against the wall, sighing, when a sudden click made him straighten.

The door had been unlocked. It was opened slowly.

Helen stood in the doorway, framed rather dramatically by backlighting. She entered, standing just out of Connor's reach.

"Huh, you know, I'd almost forgotten you were here, Connor." She said in a mild tone, almsot as if they were taking a stroll in the park. Nonchalant.

"No you bloody well didn't." He growled back at her, glaring. She came a little closer.

"I'm sure you want to know what's going on, don't you?"

"Understatement of th' year, Helen." Connor informed her.

"Well, no reason to be like that, is there?! Oh wait, there is, isn't there?" She said with a smirk, watching Connor grow tense.

"Shove off."

"I thought you wanted to talk to me, pretty boy?" She practically purred at him. Connor made a face.

"I must've been goin' insane." He muttered. Helen chuckled, but there was little humor in it as she approached him.

Connor looked at her in alarm, scrambling to his feet. The chain pulled taut, leaving him hlaf-stnading and glaring at

her angrily.

Helen was having fun. In most situations the boy - though he wasn't really a boy anymore, was he? - was cheerful and

even-tempered. She was having fun poking at his temper though.

"Hmm, seems like you're in a bit of trouble, aren't you?"

"I don't need your 'elp!" He protested. "Why don't ya just tell me why I'm 'ere an' we c'n get it all over with, yeah?"

His tone was more calm now. Pity, that.

"Eventually."


"Put it on speaker!" She hastily cut off the 'conn!' that would normally fit after those words, focusing on driving.

She pressed harder on the gas pedal, and the cloen squeaked in alarm.

"Right." He did so, pushing the button, and Becker's voice - and, muffled, Jess' in the background - filled the car.

''Where are you guys? You don't have your blackbox with you Abby.'' Becker asked.

"That's because of me." The clone said, apologetically she thought. Clearly Becker couldn't hear the different tone to the clone's voice, though.

''What? Oh, nevermind. Abby, why's the clone with you?''

"He is with me because he knows where Connor is." Abby said shortly, not wanting to get into her reasons at the moment.

She had too many reasons, and at the moment Becker clearly thought very little of the clone.

"She's driving well above the speed limit. Maybe questions should be for later?" Did she detect a hint of snappishness to the connor clone's voice? Maybe. Becker would probably say she was seeing and hearing the traits she wanted to see and hear. Becker could go complain to someone else.

''Yeah, alright. Where are you?'' Becker asked.

Jess piped up. ''We can send a team to help out, if you'd like?''

"Sure" Abby said, not ready to begrudge any help when it came ot Helen cutter - at the same time as the clone said,

"No thanks." Abby looked at him in astonishment, and the people on the other end of the line fell silent.

"Why not?" She asked, wary now. It wasn't that she didn't trust him, but she didn't really trust him all that much.

He blinked, then frowned.

"I'm not sure. I have a plan, I think."

"What kind of plan?" Abby asked, cautiously.

"Maybe I should start with explaining Helen's original plan?" He suggested, nervously.

''That'd be good, yeah.''

Abby had managed to forget it wasn't just her and the clone in the car- well, technically it was, but the conversation still had ot include Jess and Becker. And she would bet a bar of chocolate to Jess that Lester was nearby, worried for Connor even if he wasn't saying it in so many words.

"Erm, right. Sorry, I am only a clone... I don't know much about them behyond what Helen ordered me to do and explained in my presence, though."

"That's good enough, go on." She tried to focus on the road, but managed a quick smile for him. The smile was enough to convince him to continue.

"Right well, she told me..."


Four weeks ago, Helen had stolen connor's dna from the flat - she'd broken in, taken hair off his pillow and a swab from a teacup in the kitchen he'd left out. Then she had goen through an anoamly to a fixed point in another timeline, in the future, where the lab to make the clones was. Four weeks ago, the clone had been made from connor's dna, stumbling blankly from a machine.

Back through the anomaly, and some pilfered clothes of connor's later, the clone was standing before Helen. She told him the basics, what she felt he needed to know.

"You are Connor Temple."

"I am Connor Temple." He mimicked, robotically.

"This is Abby Temple, his wife." She told him, handing him a photograph of the blonde-haired woman. The cloen nodded, committing the face ot memory. "I want you to take her husband's place- because you are, for all intents and purposes, him - and then I want you to kill her." Helen told him. She explained further, and he accepted the orders without complaint or comment.

"Then you will come back here, and you will personally tell the real connor that you killed his wife."

Up until that point, he had not questioned it. Helen was surprised when his brolw furrowed.

"Why?"

"Because, what better way to break him? Not that it's improtant for you to know my reasoning!"

She wasn't sure what she thought of his question. On the one hand, he was clearly smarter, and more imaginative than her other clones, which meant he could respond to specific things without her ordering every last move. But that also meant that he might be too smart. She would have to add safeguard commands, to be sure.

Now Helen smirked, a predatory gleam in her eye as she looked at the real Connor Temple.

"You know, Barbie won't know what's hit her - and neither will the clone." Helen said in that same, nearly amiable voice. Connor's eyes widened.