Chapter 14
Beth rolled her eyes as her computer screen came to life with an irritating beeping, Cosima's face flashing across it to signal the incoming video call. She clicked to answer and waited for Cosima's end of the video to load.
"Sarah!" she called out impatiently. "Get your ass out here!"
Sarah appeared moments later next to her sister rolling her eyes. "I'm here, calm down. What the hell are you even doin' home. Don't you have a job still?"
"Called in sick, dipshit," she retorted and threw a punch into her twin's bicep. "Now shut up, we've got a problem."
Sarah glared at Beth, rubbing her wounded arm. She watched Beth divert her gaze to the open laptop before them and finally noticed Cosima's face frowning back at her. "Oi, 'sup Cosima?"
"Hey, Sarah," the scientist offered an easy smile. She paused after, taking in both the sisters on her screen. "How are you? You know Beth never really mentioned what it was that happened but you gave us a bit of a scare last week."
The British woman's eyes bulged when she remembered that neither Alison nor Cosima had any idea what kind of shit had gone down the previous week. She felt Beth nudge her leg, out of view of the webcam and she immediately forced a gracious smile onto her face. "Oh, yeah thanks. I'm all good now."
If Cosima was put off by Sarah's attempt to brush away the subject, she didn't show it and only responded with a long sigh. "That's good, I'm glad to hear it. But that's obviously not the reason I called."
The sisters watched Cosima taKe a deep breath and preface her words with an apologetic look. "So I met my monitor."
"Oh, here we bloody go," Beth muttered unimpressed.
Cosima ignored the remark and cleared her throat before continuing. "I was planning on telling you last week but then we got interrupted with Sarah's emergency so I obvs didn't get to. But uh, her name is Delphine and I kept seeing her around so I thought I'd get closer to kind of monitor her too."
"Christ, Cosima," Beth sighed with heavy disapproval. "Couldn't you have just stayed away, pretend you're completely oblivious?"
The scientist shrugged helplessly, obviously she couldn't help herself in getting close to her monitor. "Yeah, well I didn't. And things were going well, I was starting to get real information about where we came from."
"Then what happened?" Sarah asked, knowing her sister was stubbornly going to avoid asking that dreaded question.
"I don't know," Cosima shook her head in clear anger and pinched the bridge of her nose. "She sold me out is what happened. She was just pretending to be a student when she's actually got a PhD and works for this like mega powerful scientist Aldous Leekie. He's the creator of this line of thinking called neolutionism and she pretended to be all interested in the concept to get me closer to him I guess."
"Wait, neolutionism?" Beth interrupted abruptly, holding her hand up.
"Yeah, it's like self-directed evolution, futuristic stuff. Basically a breeding ground for the beginnings of a cloning program, right?"
"Shit, yeah," Beth muttered.
"What?" Sarah questioned with a furrowed brow.
"I've been doing some surveillance on Paul lately and he's been to this club a few times."
"Okay?"
"The club is called Neolution."
"Right," Cosima nodded thickly. "Probably reporting to some higher-up. Leekie's the director of the Dyad institute, it's like this huge multinational that'd definitely have the power to start up a cloning experiment and keep it running this long."
It wasn't anything Beth hadn't already figured out weeks ago of course. Cosima's input though was proving valuable, putting the pieces together more clearly in Beth's ever hazy mind. The connections and intentions were becoming much more visible. The more information she could piece together about Dyad and their origins, the closer she'd get to bringing it all crashing to the ground.
"And now that Delphine's sold me out to Leekie, it means Dyad knows we're all self-aware and in contact with each other," Cosima explained grimly and Beth listened to Sarah let out an irritated groan.
"Great, so we take care of one bloody problem only to be hit with another," she grumbled.
Beth snorted at the reality of her sister's words and nodded. "Funny how things always seem to work out that way, huh?"
"Bloody hilarious," Sarah retorted sarcastically.
"Uh, what are you guys talking about?" Cosima asked, her voice thick with confusion. The scientist's wide eyes were alert with curiosity as she stared at her identicals through the screen.
Sarah flashed a half amused glance at her sister. The situation itself was far from a funny matter, but the secrets Beth insisted on keeping from their fellow clones had been serving to entertain her up to this point. Sarah had always been Beth's confidante through the years and despite now being in some deep, complicated shit, it was still proving to be incredibly true. There was something so amusing to her now about how Beth's handling of the entire situation was so completely Beth-like. Her sister had seen and done some serious shit now, had changed in some inexplicable ways, and yet her most base tendency of only ever trusting Sarah was still as present as ever. She'd be lying if she said still holding the title of most trusted person in Beth's life didn't make her at least a bit superior to everyone else around them.
"Well, even though you've unleashed this new shit storm on us all Cos, it's at least the only one we have to figure out now," Beth explained with a shrug, not shy in hiding her annoyance over Cosima's idiotic handling of her monitor.
"Meaning what exactly."
"Helena and her bloody keeper are no longer a threat to us. Dyad and Leekie might know we're self-aware but we at least don't have some bitch trying to snipe us."
"Wait, you mean she's dead?" Cosima gaped at the screen in complete shock. It wasn't often the woman caught herself speechless, but this was proving to be one of them as she watched Beth nod her head slowly in affirmation. "Holy shit."
"So where do we go from here?" Sarah asked. "Cosima you said there was a chance they'd kill us off if they found out we're self-aware so…"
Cosima nodded emphatically as Sarah spoke and began waving her hands around wildly. "Yeah, yeah, I know. But now that we know who's behind it I think we're okay. I mean Leekie is a scientist, he's just as fascinated by our existence as anyone so he wouldn't even think about termination. I think we're safe, we just have to stick together through however they react to this development."
Beth swallowed the rude comment she felt urging its way out of her mouth. She was pissed with Cosima's carelessness and wanted the woman to know it, but also knew she couldn't project her general frustration all back on one stupid mistake. They were all in this shit together no matter what, so she figured it'd be for the best to save any further bitching for Sarah's ears only.
"Yeah, you're right. I think you should come up here for a little while, Cos. Just so we can weather this storm together," Beth suggested with an easy shrug.
"I thought the same thing," Cosima nodded in immediate response to the idea. "My flight leaves in a couple hours."
"Alright, call us when you land. We'll give you Felix's address and you can crash there while you're in town."
The sisters listened to Cosima babble out her agreement and then Beth ended the call as quickly as she could, not wanting to get stuck in a drawn out goodbye. She turned to Sarah the second after she had done so and gritted her teeth tightly. "Well fuck, eh?"
Sarah chuckled lowly and shook her head in similar disbelief. She wordlessly crossed into the kitchen and pulled out a full bottle of bourbon. A quick glance at the stove clock let her know it was shortly after noon and she shrugged to herself carelessly. She paused for a half second, debating on glasses but figured at this point, her and Beth were far too passed the formality of such things and took a long swig from the bottle. She grimaced at the familiar burn down her throat and passed the bottle to her sister easily and grinned as she watched Beth take an equally long gulp of the liquid.
Okay, she was officially hungover to all hell. The sliver of light shining in through the blinds was enough to make her cringe in her half woken state. After talking to Cosima, the sisters had wasted no time knocking back the booze. Her memory was hazy at best of the previous day's events, except for Beth drunkenly informing Felix of his temporary roommate and both of them being complete assholes to Paul all night.
Sarah groaned loudly when her pillow was abruptly pulled out from under her heavy head. It was only then that she realized her pillow was actually her sister's body and Beth was forcefully trying to push Sarah back to one half of the bed. She resisted the attack with all the power she could muster up but only ended up flopping her body over and burying her face in the cool mattress.
"Stop it," she demanded when Beth continued her movements that only served to keep Sarah jostling around.
"Relax, dipshit," Beth grumbled back as she stood from the bed slowly. Nothing was spinning once she was fully vertical so she took it as a go ahead sign to pad carefully out of the room.
As was typical lately, Paul had taken off for work early to avoid getting the brush off that Beth would surely give him. Even on a Saturday it seems he was content to avoid her, only to return home later that evening acting like their relationship was perfect. She rolled her eyes over the thought of her devoted boyfriend. She only wished she had what it took to end the whole sham for good.
She padded over to the kitchen and immediately turned on the coffeepot, knowing without a doubt she and her sister would never make it through the day without a shitload of caffeine. As she waited for it to brew, she busied herself by getting all the fixings out on the counter and wolfing down a semi-stale muffin.
The doorbell ringing had her groaning softly and carrying her freshly prepared beverage over to the entrance. Beth cracked open the door slowly and immediately rolled her eyes at who she saw grinning on the other side. Although they had never actually met, Beth was all too informed on Aldous Leekie.
"Can I help you?" she bit out, not pleased at his sudden appearance on her door step.
The older man smiled charmingly at her and attempted to position himself so she'd be forced to further open the door. Beth didn't dare budge. "Beth Childs. My name is-"
"I know who you are," Beth interrupted impatiently. "What do you want?"
"May I come in?" he asked politely with the same irritating smile still smacked across his face.
Beth clenched her jaw in anger at the audacity of this guy to just show up hoping for a nice chat. All that aside though, she was actually intrigued by what Leekie could possibly have to say to her. With that in mind she shrugged and stepped back to allow him entrance.
"You have a lovely home," he complimented after a quick survey and Beth merely grunted in response.
She outstretched a careless arm to wordlessly direct him to a seat at the kitchen table. She may have given him access to her and her home but that didn't mean she was going to even try to be polite to this guy. She glanced back toward her bedroom door, half expecting Sarah to appear any moment despite the fact that her sister was dead hungover only minutes earlier. Beth wasn't sure if Sarah's appearance would make things better or worse for this meeting with Leekie.
Right on cue though, her sister's voice jarred through the silence of the apartment. "Fuck Childs, thank bloody Christ you made coffee. I think something's tryin to kill me."
Sarah appeared moments later and beelined to her coffee mug on the counter. Only once she had taken a generous gulp of the steaming liquid did she pay any mind to the two people sitting at the table. She raised her eyes at the sight of Leekie and looked questioningly at her sister. "Who's this?"
Before Beth even had a second to respond, Leekie was standing in front of Sarah with a wide smile. "Doctor Aldous Leekie, director of the Dyad Institute. And you're Sarah Manning, of course. I never even dreamed of finding you here so easily."
Sarah snorted when he held out a hand for her to shake. She brushed it off while throwing a perturbed glance towards Beth. "Right well listen Leekie, me and Beth are both hungover as hell so whatever shit you want here better be quick."
He held up his hands placatingly and took a seat across from the two sisters. "First, I just have to ask how you two managed to find each other."
The siblings both furrowed their brow in an identical fashion. They were confused by Leekie's genuine confusion over Sarah's presence, surely with Paul as Beth's monitor the Dyad knew that she had a twin sister.
"What do you mean? We've known each other basically our entire lives," Beth spoke moments later with her brows still raised questioningly.
Aldous chuckled softly under his breath and shook his head in disbelief. "You're mother sure is a smart one."
"Foster mother," Sarah corrected brashly, not at all pleased to see the elder man seem so relaxed in the moment.
"Right, of course," he accepted the correction and offered a sly smile across the table. "So Siobhan Sadler raised you both then? Legitimized you through fostering and brought you overseas to Canada. She did an excellent job at hiding you. We had lost track of both of you before you were even born. It wasn't until you enrolled in the police academy Beth, that we finally found you."
Beth rolled her eyes at the man's musings. She didn't give a damn about whatever shit he had to go through to 'find' them both again. "Can we just get to reason you're here?"
"Of course," he once again agreed and promptly reached into his briefcase. He pulled out two stapled documents and placed one in front of each sister. "Now that that you are all self-aware and communicating, the Dyad has a proposition for you."
"This oughta be good," Sarah muttered out in a slight amusement at the audacity of the man to come barging into their home with all his speeches and official documents. Beth elbowed her harshly in the side but cracked an entertained grin all the same.
Leekie also had the good faith to smile at the punk and shrug his shoulders self-deprecatingly. "You may not believe this, but we do care about all you girls a great deal. Which is why we're presenting this contract as a proposal rather than through force. We would like for you to consent to routine medical testing at the Dyad institute and remain close to our organization in return for protection and the removal of your monitors as a gesture of good faith."
"Protection from what?" Beth prodded, despite already having a pretty damn good idea of who the scientist was making reference to.
Aldous sighed softly and looked earnestly at the two women across from him. "You're probably already aware that there has been someone trying to end your lives. The Dyad of course does not want this person to have any success and so we would offer you our protection and guarantee safety from any other potential threats."
Beth had her hand clamped down on Sarah's knee as hard as she could. At least they knew now that Dr. Leekie and the Dyad institute didn't have all the facts that they did, something that could be of great value for them. She needed to make sure it stayed that way for the time being and hoped to God her lock on Sarah would communicate to her twin to keep her mouth shut.
"And what happens if we don't feel like agreeing to your demands?" Sarah challenged the man and Beth inwardly breathed a sigh of relief that she didn't mention Helena.
Aldous smiled charmingly and shook his head. "I don't believe it's pertinent to talk about such things at this time, Ms. Manning. For now, I'll leave you both with these contracts and give you time to discuss it over with your sisters. I truly believe it's in all your best interests to let us partner together."
With a final light tap on the tabletop, Leekie stood from his chair and saw himself out of the home. Sarah rolled her eyes heavily over the whole show he had put on for them. "What a fuckin twat."
Beth glanced down at the contract in front of her. She perused it briefly and felt a knot begin to form in the pit of her stomach over the entire ordeal. They needed to call a meeting with Cosima and Alison for sure but as she sat next to Sarah she couldn't help but find herself in total agreement with her sister's astutely drawn conclusion about Dr. Aldous Leekie.