– Chapter Three –

Aila waved down a taxi, and soon the two clones were on their way to Glasgow International Airport. The doctor remained silent during the car ride, not wanting to offend Leigh more than she had. The prank was meant to be harmless, but the more she thought about it, the more she felt as though she probably shouldn't have done it. Leigh seemed genuinely angry, and Aila did owe her her life, after all.

With a quiet sigh, the doctor stared out of the window and reflected on everything that had happened, and wondered about everything that was yet to happen. Would they really be able to warn the others? Did they even have enough money and resources to get to other countries and still support themselves?

Aila supposed whatever was going to happen, she had to go along with it. She had no home anymore, and she couldn't stick around to have another match against the killer.

When the taxi pulled up in front of the gates of the busy airport, she paid the driver and got out of the car, still keeping to herself as she waited for Leigh to do the same before the pair walked into the terminal. Aila didn't even know where they were going, but she knew they'd need to decide soon, and hope there were still some last minute openings for flights.

Dazed from exhaustion, Leigh followed Aila. She looked around nervously when they entered the airport, quickly glancing at her shoes to make sure she'd cleaned off every last drop of blood. Then she stopped, causing Aila to stop too. The doctor spun around and watched her.

"Erm," Leigh began, rubbing the skin between her eyebrows as if to cease her oncoming headache. "I dunno where we're going. We never decided. God, I'm so shit at this," she mumbled the last bit under her breath so Aila wouldn't hear.

"Which countries are the others in again?" Aila asked.

Leigh looked up and strained to remember. "Germany, France…uh…there's one in Austria…and Italy. Oh, and Canada, but I figure she'll be last."

"You have no idea where the person who's after us will be heading next?" Aila asked.

Leigh shrugged and shook her head. "No. Your guess is as good as mine. If we're lucky, they'll stay here for a bit trying to find you while we're buggering off to God knows where...OK, just pick a random country. I don't suppose it matters where we go first. We can only guess."

Aila nodded. "Let's go with Germany then. That's as good of a start as any. What city does she live in?" she asked, ducking into a sheltered area with tables so they could look over their paperwork in private.

Leigh followed her double and looked over her shoulder anxiously, worried about people watching them. Then again, she worried she was making herself look suspicious yet again. She bit her gum and focused. "Here," she said in a hushed voice as she pulled out Katja Obinger's file. "Würzburg, Germany. Her phone number's here too, so we should be able to call her, like I did you. Which reminds me, you still need to get a new phone."

"Right," Aila nodded.

"See if you can get one similar to this," Leigh advised her as she showed the one she'd recently purchased. "It's cheap, but it does the job. We ought to be careful about how we use money."

Aila nodded. "Yeah, good idea. I've got about a grand on me in cash from the savings box in my room." She stood up to find a phone store. "We can ask if there's one air side where most of the other shops are. Where would be the nearest airport to Würzburg?"

"Pfft, you're asking me?" Leigh huffed, shrugging. "I'll Google it in a minute."

The women took a few minutes to organize themselves, and Leigh found the information they were after on her phone. She turned back to Aila. "Nuremberg and Frankfurt, apparently," she informed the doctor.

"Sod it, we'll go with Frankfurt. Sometimes you have to make a choice and just go with it," Aila said tiredly. "Let's get tickets."

Leigh quickly put back Katja's file and followed Aila, trying to keep up with her. She watched her from behind, deciding to let her lead.

Aila asked the airport staff about flights to Frankfurt, and soon enough they had found a one way trip there that would be departing in four hours. They were lucky, because that flight had been full until a large party had needed to cancel last minute.

"At least one thing's going right, eh?" Aila commented as they went through the security line.

The pair received funny looks for looking like twins from different countries with different accents, and also for the fact they just had the one carry-on between them. The officials couldn't find much of a reason to stop them though, and soon enough, they hit air side.

It was a long walk to their gate, but Aila was feeling fairly optimistic about this. She hoped the German clone would be willing to meet with them, and chuckled to herself when she understood the apprehension Leigh must have felt when coming to find her. Was that really just twenty-four hours ago?

Looking around, the Scottish clone noticed a small café, and she paused. "The last time I ate was just before meeting you at the B&B yesterday. We should probably get something to eat before flying."

"Yes," Leigh said a little too quickly and eagerly. "I can't remember the last time I had a good cuppa, and I'm bursting for a wee as well. Let's go."

Leigh scurried away, making a beeline for the café, leaving Aila staring after her for a moment.

The sip of fresh tea felt like the best thing in the world to Leigh as she and Aila sat opposite each other at a small table in the corner. They were both still waiting for their food to arrive, and despite the urgency at the situation they were in, Leigh couldn't help feeling rather relaxed. Perhaps she was too tired to acknowledge the stress.

Leigh quietly observed Aila for a while. She watched her take sips of her drink, and she couldn't help noticing Aila avoiding eye contact. She also spoke very little. It made Leigh uneasy after a bit, for reasons she wasn't sure of.

"Aila?" she spoke up suddenly, in an almost child-like way. Aila raised her head to fix her gaze on the hairdresser. Leigh sighed, hesitated, and then added, "I'm sorry I got so mad before."

Aila smiled and waved her off. "It's fine. I always pick bad times for pranks," she explained before sipping at her drink again. "Really, I think I should be apologizing. I just didn't want to annoy ya more."

"No, I overreacted," Leigh insisted. "Always been a bit of a problem. I know you were just trying to make light of the situation." She paused to drink more tea, slightly burning her mouth in the process. Leigh quickly pulled the cup away from the face and set it delicately on the table, staring at it. "So…" she spoke again after a short while. She didn't particularly enjoy silence for long periods. "You're a doctor, eh? Pretty impressive."

Aila smiled, inwardly relieved to be back on stable ground with her new friend. She continued drinking her coffee, and looked up again at Leigh's question. "Aye, I have been interested in medicine since I was a teenager. Used to hole up in the attic reading textbooks I'd gotten hold of," she said with a grin. "What do you do for a living?" she inquired, realising she really knew absolutely nothing about this woman.

"Must take some dedication to learn all that," Leigh told her, impressed. She grinned a bit. "I do hair," she chuckled as she spoke, realising how pathetic it sounded compared to Aila's career. "Eh…I was never any good at or interested in much else. Did a hair and beauty course at college, started working part time at a local salon…then I was on my way to being salon manager. I had this hope maybe I could open my own one day, but I dunno if that'll happen now." Leigh fell quiet and absently played with the teaspoon lying on the napkin before her.

Aila smiled. "Course it will. Anything's possible if ya keep moving forward. When we got this whole mess cleaned up, I'm sure we can get back to our lives and carry on with whatever plans there are."

Just then, their food came, and Aila's stomach growled loudly. The doctor chuckled at the sound as she looked at her salad, then at Leigh. "Guess I'm hungrier than I thought." She poured a bit of dressing on her lunch before eating.

Leigh couldn't fight a smile. Aila had more optimism than she did, and she'd been thrown in at the deep end. "I think I could learn a thing or two from you," Leigh told the doctor sincerely. She eyed the salad Aila had chosen, and then stared down at her own plate; a large ham burger and a generous portion of chips. "But not your meal choices. Or you sense of style. Are you really gonna keep that horrible pink hoody?" Leigh's grin grew even bigger as she said this.

Aila grinned brightly. "Oi, don't diss. I like this hoody," she said with a laugh, flicking a piece of lettuce at Leigh's face. "Besides, the initial look on your face WAS quite priceless," she added with a cheeky smirk. She glanced down at her watch, checking the time, before looking around what they could see of the airport. "While you were having your wee, I asked the waitress where a phone store was. Apparently there's one over that way somewhere," she said, pointing to an area of shops down the pathway a bit.

Leigh flicked the lettuce off the table, sending it shooting to the floor. Another customer on the table next to them eyed the clones in disgust at their bad table manners. Leigh fixed her eyes on him. "What?" she demanded.

The customer scrunched his nose up, looked as if he wanted to say something, but then shook his head and went back to reading his paper. Leigh's eyes narrowed and she turned her attention back to Aila.

"OK, good. Let's finish eating and get the phone sorted."

It was a short walk over to the cluster of small stores, and it only took a moment to find the phone store. The two walked in and looked around. Aila looked over their limited selection of low-tech phones before picking one out that was the same model as Leigh's.

As they went to check out, the doctor stopped as something caught her attention, and she wandered over to an incredibly tiny selection of phone cases. She couldn't help grinning at the fact the only one there for her model of phone was bright pink.

She picked it up. "I'll have this too."

It took a second or two for Leigh to realise what Aila was doing. She did a double take and then stared rigidly. "Again with the pink?" she asked exasperatedly. She hoped Aila was joking, but the doctor hurried off to pay for her purchases, leaving Leigh waiting in the middle of the store.

Aila smiled as she made her way back to Leigh, who was holding her breath and keeping her mouth closed tightly. "You OK?" Aila asked.

Leigh nodded a little too quickly. "Mhm, I'm good."

"Good," Aila told her, and she pulled out a pink cover from her new carrier bag. "Because they were on sale, so I got you one as well."

Leigh took it from Aila without a word and resisted the urge to shake her head in disbelief. "Fine," she said shortly. She did not want to upset Aila again, so she held her tongue, waited until Aila was out of earshot, and muttered, "Fuck's sake, why me?"

Leigh took an unusually long time to remove the case from the packaging, and pretended it wouldn't fit her phone for the next hour.

"Leigh...LEIGH!"

The British clone only squeezed her eyes shut tighter at the sound of her name being called. Not that she really considered 'Leigh' her name…

"Shut up," she murmured, constantly drifting between reality and the dream world she'd found herself in for the last hour or so.

Then she felt something touch her shoulder, shaking her lightly. Someone was trying to wake her. Leigh half opened an eye. She was met by the blurry sight of a familiar face; a face that, while she was still mostly asleep and confused, annoyed her to no end.

"Sod off Rachel," she groaned. She shoved the hand away from her, but then, as if everything came crashing back to her in an instant, Leigh sat up straight, fully awake.

She'd fallen asleep on the plane. Aila had too; Leigh had waited for the other clone to drift off before giving in to sleep as well. Now Aila was watching her curiously.

"I think we'll be landing soon," she informed Leigh quietly. "Thought I ought to wake you." Aila looked like she wanted to ask something, but thought better of it and simply stretched as best as one could in a tiny and cramped airplane seat. She smiled and looked out the window as she settled back into her seat, watching as the ground slowly came into view. "I love flying," the doctor commented as they slowly descended back down to earth. "And the nap was heavenly. Normally I don't like sleeping in public, but I was so exhausted that it didn't matter."

"Yeah, if you gotta sleep, you gotta sleep," Leigh agreed.

They remained rather quiet until the plane landed. Leigh still felt rather sleepy, and it wouldn't have surprised her if Aila was feeling the same.

"What do you reckon?" Leigh asked later on with a yawn. They walked slowly through the airport as they prepared to leave. "Find a place to stay first? Or call this Katja woman and then decide where we're heading?"

"I think we have some time to spare. We should get a proper rest before meeting up with Katja. I don't think we'll make a good impression looking like zombies," Aila chuckled, stepping out onto the street after clearing security and customs. The doctor looked around at the signs. "I don't suppose you actually know how to speak and read German?"

Leigh stopped in her tracks. She frowned deeply. "Shit."

Oh, she could just picture Rachel's stupid, smug face. Leigh remembered Rachel taking extra language lessons in their youth, particularly focusing on German. Leigh thought Rachel had more or less been forced into it, because Rachel spent weeks trying to get Leigh to do it with her, and Leigh refused. She found languages boring at school. She wasn't going to sign up for extra tuition, however much her double nagged her.

"I know the basics from what I studied in school years ago," Leigh offered feebly, shrugging. "Don't remember much though." She sighed and pulled out her phone to check for hotels close by, muttering incoherently, including words such 'stupid', 'robot', and 'windows' as she did.

Aila watched her curiously before taking out her own phone, setting it to various preferences as she waited. "After we rest up, we should look into getting a train to Würzburg," she said to Leigh. "Then we can call Katja when we're there. Sound like a good plan?"

Leigh grunted something that sounded vaguely like an agreement as she continued looking for cheap hotels nearby. She finally decided on one close to the airport, but reasonable in price.

The clones walked to the hotel in silence, taking in the sights as they did. The buildings in Frankfurt were huge, and seemed to go on forever. Aila was thankful for the hoody as she shivered a bit from the cool air coming off of the large river running through the city.

When they reached the hotel, Aila looked a bit apprehensive. She glanced at Leigh, trying to look casual. "Should we get one room with two beds, or two rooms?"

Leigh shrugged. "Dunno, not fussed. One room will probably be cheaper, but whatever. Doesn't really matter."

Leigh was more concerned about there being any rooms available at all. Perhaps they should have called first to make sure…

She was starting to feel anxious again now. She'd have to make the call to Katja soon. Meeting Aila had been difficult enough, especially making contact with her for the first time. What if Katja wasn't quite so accepting of all of this? What if everything was about to get harder?

"Shit," she whispered to herself. She quickened her pace. The sooner this was over with, the better.

"Let's see if they have two rooms near each other," the doctor suggested, walking up to the counter to ask. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Leigh pacing around, mumbling something under her breath.

After a few minutes of struggling with accents and English, the receptionist figured out what Aila was asking and nodded to her request. Aila managed to get two single-bed rooms a few doors down the hall from each other.

Aila smiled and paid for the rooms while Leigh wandered around, staring at her phone. The doctor rolled her eyes at the display. She really needed to teach this girl how to relax a bit. "Oi, pick a card," she said, getting Leigh's attention before holding up the two key-cards.

Leigh stopped to snatch the first card she saw from Aila, and then turned her attention back to her phone. She began aimlessly walking to try and find the room, eyes fixed to the screen. "You're going the wrong way," Aila informed her as she looked back over her shoulder.

"Fuck's sake," Leigh muttered. She turned on her heel and caught up to Aila, and they proceeded to find their rooms.

Later on, the women sat side by side in one of the rooms. Katja's file lay on the desk before them, as well as Leigh's phone. She had already entered Katja's number, and was preparing to dial.

"Just do it," Aila urged her.

"OK," Leigh sighed, lightly picking up the phone. "OK." She pressed dial. She brought the phone up to her ear, and felt sick when it began ringing.

No answer came for a few moments. Leigh was sure Katja wasn't going to answer, and then-

"Ja? Katja Obinger. Wer ist das?"

"Shit," Leigh whispered frantically. She pulled the phone away from her ear, ready to hang up, but Aila grabbed her wrist to stop her.

"Oh no you don't; just talk to her," she ordered.

"What do I say?!" Leigh panicked.

"Hallo?" the voice on the other end spoke.

"Just a second!" Aila called down the line to let Katja know someone was there. "Oh crap, can she even speak English?"

"Put it on loud-speaker!" Leigh squeaked. Aila pressed the button so both of them could hear Katja.

"Katja?" Leigh asked loudly.

"Ja. Who ez zis?"

Aila cleared her throat and let go of Leigh's wrist, giving her a stern look that said not to touch the phone no matter what. The doctor faltered before shrugging. "My name is Aila. I'm a doctor from Scotland. First off, can you speak English?"

"Ja," Katja confirmed, which instantly made Aila sigh in relief. At least they wouldn't have a language barrier to get over.

"Right, that makes life easier. This might seem sudden, but my friend and I have reason to believe you're in danger. Would you be willing to meet us some place public tomorrow to discuss this?" the doctor continued.

Leigh held her breath in anticipation. Katja did not respond, but she didn't hang up either.

"Why isn't she saying anything?!" Leigh asked in a rushed whisper.

Aila held her hand up for silence. "Katja?" she asked.

More silence. A sharp intake of breath from Katja's end. And then-

"Just one. I'm a few. No family too. Voo am I?"

A long pause followed.

"I'm sorry; what?" Leigh demanded, her voice high and shrill.

"Hold on. I vill call you back," Katja spoke firmly and coolly.

The German clone hung up before Aila or Leigh could respond.

Aila stared at the phone for a minute, before glancing at Leigh. "Well that was…random. Was that some kind of riddle?"

Leigh shrugged, shaking her head. "I have no idea. 'Just one. I'm a few. No family too. Who am I?'? What the hell does that even mean?"

Aila shrugged and sighed. "I guess now we just…wait?"

"For fuck's sake…"

The sound of fingers tapping against a keyboard echoed slightly through a brightly lit room. Windows and lines of code appeared and vanished off of four different screens, all of them set up on an old wooden table.

"And...done," the person at the table said, hitting a key before leaning back in her chair. She watched as a green loading bar appeared, before several official-looking documents flashed up on the central screen. They were all branded with the official DYAD logo.

Just before the woman could read them, something in the corner of the screen flashed. The woman hit another key, opening up a window of a video call.

"Mmmhmm, go on Katja. Did you find out anything?" she asked without looking at the other woman on the screen, instead reading over the documents.

"Did you speak to any of the others yet, Rat?" Katja asked, straight to the point.

"Uh, no," Rat told her just as bluntly.

"Ez zere a Scottish one? A doctor?"

"Why?"

"She has just called me. I zink she knows, but she and zee ozer von vith her did not recognise zee code."

"Did you get her name?" Rat asked, opening a new window on her screen.

"Ja, Aila," Katja said with a nod.

Rat typed the name into a search bar to scan through lists of names, and nodded after a minute when she found what she was looking for. "Aila MacPherson; A&E doctor from Erskine, Scotland. Last seen in Glasgow, Scotland. Currently under suspicion of murder," she rattled off the information on the screen. "They last traced her purchasing a plane ticket from Glasgow to Frankfurt, along with another clone, Ashleigh Callingham; reported missing from London this morning. What do they want with you?"

"Zey are calling to tell me I am in danger," Katja responded instantly. She did not appear fazed in the slightest. "Zey vish to meet me. Vat do you suggest?"

Rat leaned back in her chair, running a hand through her short hair. "I'd advise against it. We don't know how extensively they're being tracked. Hell, for all we know, they could be leading DYAD right to you, knowingly or not. Ashleigh seems to have been quite involved with them from childhood," she said, wrinkling her nose in unabashed disgust as she looked at the two files on her screen. "I don't trust her."

"You don't trust anybody," Katja pointed out bluntly.

"With good reason," Rat said matter-of-factly, scanning through Leigh's file in detail.

"I said I vould call zem back, if you vant to make a secure channel and speak to zem too," Katja offered, holding her phone.

Rat raised an eyebrow. "Are you joking? Even with a secure connection, they might have others physically listening in."

"In zat case, I shall speak vith zem alone."

"You're not going to meet them, are you?"

"I vill take zee risk. Nothing vill lead back to you," Katja assured her, and she ended the call abruptly.

When the screen went blank, Rat rolled her eyes. "Bloody reckless as usual. Fine, but if you get carted off to God knows where, I'm not busting your ass back out," she muttered out loud before going back to the documents she'd been reading before the call.

The German turned her attention back to her phone. She picked it up, held it to her ear, and brushed back her short hair. "Hallo. Am I speaking to Aila MacPherson and Ashleigh Callingham?"

Aila jumped when the phone went off, and she quickly hit the button, though Katja spoke before she could, and the doctor froze with wide eyes. "Y-Yeah, but how did you know our full names?" she inquired. How much did this clone know already? "Ashleigh?" the doctor whispered to Leigh, having not known her full name before that moment.

Leigh's throat tightened. She froze. She couldn't respond.

Aila hurried to put the phone back on loud-speaker so they could both listen. Katja did not answer the doctor's question, but she continued to speak. "I vill meet you both in person in von hour. I vill be opposite Capitol Zeater Offenbanch. Be zere."

Katja hung up. Aila's eyes widened significantly, and she slowly allowed her head to turn to face Leigh.

"So much for sleeping tonight. We have an hour to haul ass to somewhere that I'm guessing is in Würzburg," she said, sighing as she went to move off of the bed. The doctor blinked, seeing that Leigh hadn't moved. "Hey, c'mon. We need to figure out where this place is and how to get there," she said, gently tapping at the other clone's shoulder.

"How the eff does she know our names…" Leigh whispered in panic.

Aila sighed, but said nothing. She took out her own phone to find the location Katja had given them. After a few minutes, Leigh began to help, ignoring her new found fear as best she could.