Chapter 7: Macendale Tells His Story

He also whispered something else into Octavia's ear.

"Meet me at 3:30 at The Daily Grind—and don't bring the friend."

"Oh my God, Octavia, I can't believe you're going off someplace with some strange dude without me! He could be—a CIA agent posing as—"

"Jordan, he's not a CIA agent."

"How do you know? They could've sent an agent out with a mark on his shoulder just to draw you out, man."

"Jordan, don't you think I can tell the difference?"

Jordan threw up another obstacle. "Besides, you're going on a date with Morgan. Your first. You should be getting ready."

"My first? Does the name David Rose mean anything to you?"

"Sorry, but I don't think a chess game at a university picnic table counts. I mean, fancy restaurant, candlelight dinner date."

"Well, I always whipped his ass at chess. And I was taking science classes there. That's where I met him. Just cancel the date, okay? Postpone it."

"Postpone it! You gotta be kidding me! He's been looking forward to this date ever since I introduced you two! This is my twin brother you're talking about!"

Octavia pulled Jordan up close by the collar. "Don't you want me to find out about my past? Don't you want me to find out who I am and what the CIA was planning for me?"

Jordan averted her head. Octavia had her shirt in an iron-hard grip. "Yeah, yeah. You're the octopus' clone and you have to stop the Illuminati's evil plan and save the world. It's just—I'm torn between my best pal, my dad, and my twin. And I just get tired of playing the Ron Weasley to your Harry Potter. Just go meet up with ole Mack. You'll get back in time for the date."

At the Daily Grind, Macendale slowly revealed what he knew.

"I always knew I was different—ever since puberty."

"What happened?"

"Well, as you might guess, I started to get stronger and faster than anyone in my class. And I started to get a mark on my shoulder. You already saw it at that field trip."

"How did you find out you were a clone?"

"My father was shot—and he left me a letter. They said it was a suicide note. I'm not sure."

"What did the letter say?"

"He was once a scientist in the CIA, a molecular biologist. The last job he did for them was something called Project Scorpion. Evidently, they'd taken blood from a New York City super-villain and cloned a kid out of it. The kid—as in, me—was to be given up for adoption at full term. It was supposed to be a psychology experiment on child rearing. Then he found some files saying stuff about what the CIA was really planning to do with me."

The story was too parallel. "You were to become the ancestor of a master race of super-soldiers to help the United States take over the world."

"Basically. He was cool, he wasn't some Frankenstein, you know. His sense of ethics couldn't permit that sort of thing to go on. As soon as he found those files, he made copies of them, hid them in his coat, and took me out of my tank and brought me home. Then he blew up the lab. He told everyone that the 'clone' died in the explosion."

"You were raised by your creator—"

"He was a good dad, Octavia. He knew they'd figure out the explosion was rigged. He took his wife to Chicago. He had me take my mom's surname, because his would be too obvious. Jackson is my mom's middle name. But then I started to get my powers, and my mark. My father started noticing creepy guys in black suits taking pictures of me at school. They took pictures at our house. My father had us pack up and move to New York City."

"And what happened?" Octavia asked. Stupid question. She knew what was coming next.

"I wanted to go to this party. All the cool kids from my new neighborhood were supposed to attend. Dad told me no, I might get kidnapped. We got in a fight, he grounded me. I ended up sneaking out in the middle of the night while Dad was asleep and Mom was working all night at her law firm so she could make partner.

"I had a really good time but I snuck home early so I wouldn't get caught. One of the first things I saw was my dad sprawled out on the floor with two gunshots to the head and an envelope in his hand."

"Oh my god." Octavia was horrified. Your father was suicided?"

Mack shrugged. "I guess that's what you call it. I still feel horrible about it. If I had stayed home like I was supposed to, then I could have used my powers to stop it."

"No, Mack," Octavia said. "It's not your fault. In fact, if you stayed home, they would've killed him later when you were at school or something. They wanted you to be gone when they attacked."

"I opened the letter. It explained everything—including the fact that I wasn't the only clone. One of Dad's colleagues, Dr. Nancy Melitta, was working on another cloning experiment called—"

"Project Octopus."

"Yeah, they started on that after they were informed that Project Scorpion failed. Dad said in the letter that the other clone was a girl. I've been looking for you all my life. Do you know what this means? We were meant for each other!"

"No!" Octavia suddenly realized something more horrible than all the other abominations she'd learned about over the past three years. "They planned this all along! They want us to breed…to see what our offspring would be like! They wanted us to mate so we could produce a master race!"

Mack seemed genuinely puzzled. Mate, breed…Octavia was making it sound like they were two rare pandas in the zoo. "We're not animals. We're human, and we can fall in love."

"No, Mack, humans are created by God through the sexual reproduction of two people. Even animals produce litters that way." Octavia though a little bit. "Besides, I'm probably sterile. My sex chromosomes were altered. I've got a Y chromosome. Genetically, I'm a guy. Us doing that—gross."

Mack shrugged. "Then what can this hurt?" He was leaning closer to Octavia. Octavia, thanks to her new super-strength, could have sent him flying with one hard push if she wanted to. Octavia found herself not wanting to. His lips were on hers, his hands were on her waist, and her tentacles were wrapped around his legs.

And from across the streets, Jordan and Morgan Nicholas were watching. If Octavia had known they were there, she wouldn't have given a rat's ass about it.