Sorry, sorry, sorry! It's been a while. But here's a short catch up chapter to get us all back into the swing of things.
Hope your 2018 is treating you well.
tryautumn x
Bioinformatics, DNA sequence analysis, genome sequencing, synthetic biology. Em had almost memorised page after page, book after book, anything she could get her hands on that was remotely related to human cloning. Still, it didn't make any sense. How? How could this really be happening. But it was. Somehow, someone had developed an underground illegal cloning experiment and somehow Em's very own sister was a clone.
How many Sarahs were there? Who created them? How many were being killed off? Why were they being killed off? Was anyone watching them? Surely, they couldn't just abandon a successful cloning experiment – they were almost thirty years old and still alive. Someone must be out there. Someone with answers.
"Wow, rich man!" Cosima's exuberance rang out through the laptop screen sitting Felix's bed. "This looks like a new blade inset in a much older handle".
Sarah turned the Russian clone's creepy looking knife around in her fingertips as the scientist inspected a photo copy of the very same weapon.
"So the fish is a bitch. Symbiotically speaking. Like a universal way back symbol of fecundity But these wings though –" Cosima's arms flap about as she continues down her spiral of speculation.
"Seriously, what is she on about?" Felix pours tea into the two mugs set aside for himself and Sarah who is sat on the bed, trying her best to focus.
"Quiet, she's just weird."
"Sorry, sorry, sorry." Cosima's train of thought is placed back on the correct track. "Okay, going on a tangent there. If she's not dead, we need to find her. Find out what she knows."
Fe climbs into bed beside his sister and almost scoffs at the screen, "Are you mad? She's a homicidal maniac."
"But we need to find out who she is, Sarah. She found us. She's got answers."
Sarah took a sip of the tea, too eagerly, burning the roof of her mouth, "The only way I'm gonna do that is go back to being a cop."
Felix sighed out of frustration, "No. No way. You're not going back to being Beth. Impersonating a dead officer, that's like a whole new crime."
"I think I'm safest with the cop, to be honest with you", Sarah seemed so detached.
"Did that actually just come out of your mouth?"
"Look, Art's already looking for the killer. I shadow him as Beth, let them figure out what happened to her and when I find that out, I can jump off and deal."
"Deal? I'm beginning to realise crazy is genetic".
Sarah rolled her eyes as Cosima took the moment to address scientific facts confirming Fe's offhanded snipe, "Well, yeah, bad brain chemistry can be genetic. But environment, that;s individual, right? I mean, that's the whole nature-nurture question right there."
"Okay," Fe bit into his McVities Digestive biscuit, "Let's talk nature. Out of nine so far, one's a psycho who killed four others. One committed suicide, one is a bloody soccer mom, and then there's you. My crazy sister is sane by comparison."
"Thanks, Fe." Sarah smiled at his backhanded compliment.
"I think this might help us figure out where she's coming from." Cosima holds up the photo once more, "So I'll look into it."
Three sharp chirps from Beth's phone steals the trio's attention away from one another as Sarah swipes the device from the nightstand. "Ah, police business. Art's got a lead."
"Okay," Cosima smiles, the plan to continue with the help of a cop was coming to fruition. Sarah and Felix didn't seem like they could complicate it in any way, in fact there was only one person who needed to stay out of the loop when it regarded the crazy killer clone, "Hey, you didn't show this to Alison by any chance, did you?"
Sarah looks up from the phone, briefly, "You joking? She'd crap her Lululemons. Got Alison on standby."
"Mum, can I borrow your laptop?" Em grabbed a glass and let the cold water from the tap fill over the brim onto her fingertips.
Siobhan hovered in the front room, staring at the blank TV screen, ear glued to the phone and regret from times before copy and pasted onto her expression, "Yes, once again 8 o'clock, before her bedtime."
Sarah, Em thought to herself, remembering the arrangement S and her older sister had made to spend the evening with Kira. Must be tonight.
"Is that my mum?" Kira looks up from painting.
"No," S replied bluntly.
Em snorted unwillingly at the blatant lie, earning a questioning look from the seven-year-old, a look so bizarrely adult and out of place on the child's face.
"What are you painting?" Em asked the girl, in efforts to distract her from the phone conversation. "Woah, easy on the red paint there, Kira."
"I'm making it for tonight."
"She'll love it, Monkey." Em smiled as S' hushed voice echoed through the phone.
She watched her little niece paint the portrait of her mother – one of the man Sarahs. Or was it just one of them? How would Kira fit into all of this? Em wasn't even sure that the girl she'd helped raise for all these years was even biologically related to her. Of course, she had her mother's unruly curls and Sarah's chin. Kira's skin tone was perhaps a shade darker than Sarah's pasty self but the eyes… those were Sarah's eyes all right. Except Kira's still had a sparkle of innocence and would light up with curiosity, where Sarah's had become dark and bitter. Would Kira turn out just like her mother, just like another Sarah?
"If you let her down, that's it. I won't let you see her again." A short pause and then a click. Siobhan huffed and placed the phone onto the coffee table.
Em raised her eyebrows in question, "Tad too dramatic, don't you think?"
"Well, we shall see."
"Don't worry about it, S. She'll be here." Em noticed her mother's stressful cleaning commence and probed her again, "So, can I borrow the laptop?"
"Uh, again? For your science project?" S looked up distractedly from the dishes.
"Mmhmm." Since Em had been so distracted with wrapping her head around the whole cloning thing, research and keeping herself sane etc., she had told her mother that all of her energy was being put into her science project.
She wasn't completely lying; nerdy-kid Henry had taken on the project with some light bat of the eyelids and all Em had to participate with was already within the realm of biological genetics. However, it was fair to say that although Em was going to class and staying in school for the duration of the day, her attention was nowhere near the SATs or group projects. With the weekend here, Em would spend as much time as possible finding out what the fuck was going on.
S hands the dish cloth to the teen, "As long as you do the rest for me."
Climbing upon the chair and lifting herself onto the counter, Kira's little hands opened the door and grabbed the cookies from the out-of-sight-out-of-mind hiding spot.
"Kira, only one. You'll get a stomach ache."
"What are we going to do today? I'm bored of painting." Kira managed to ask as crumbs fell from her mouth and embedded themselves into the knots of her woolen sweater.
"Well you can't be too tired for tonight but we could go to the market in town. I know they'll be setting up their Christmas decorations. What do you think?" Siobhan smiled at the little girl.
"Yeah, yeah!" Kira jumped up and down.
"Kira, listen Chicken. I need to talk to you about tonight".
"About mummy coming to see me!" She beams.
Kira's excitement prompts a concerned look from Siobhan as she glances at the older girl – your sister better not let her down. "That's the plan. Now if, for some reason, she can't make it – "
"But she is going to make it. She is going to read me a story and I can show her all the books I'm reading and – oh – ," Kira's little hands fly up to her face in an almost comedic and cliché damsel type way as the words tumble out of her excited little body, "We should bring the camera to the market and take lots of pictures to show mummy!"
Em folded the cloth and brushed her hands together, lightly amused by her nieces rambling delight, "Ah sounds fun, Monkey. I think I'm going to work on this science stuff all day. Bring me back something good though?"
Kira's bottom lip jutted out into a sulky pout but Siobhan looked beside herself, "Who are you and what have you done to my teenager?"
"Oh my God. Get over it, you bloody weirdo," Em sighed, exasperated but laughed it off as she grabbed S' laptop from the dining table and took it back up to her room. Out of sight, out of mind.
Siobhan shook her head in amusement and returned to giving Kira the cautionary Hurricane Sarah weather warning, fearful of the hustler's fickleness.
Sarah slams the car door shut and struts towards the station. Every damn time! As fucked up as Sarah's return to the city has been, she is back for Kira and S can't keep dangling her daughter in front of her.
This time, it's different. Everything is different.
"Eye witness says we got it wrong," Art begins as Sarah walks into the office. "Jane Doe's killer is female, about Beth's size".
Sarah shrinks away from Art's glance towards her as if her eyes alone could give away who the killer was…who she looked like.
"As for the Jane Doe," Another detective began, "It isn't easy reconstructing a skull that's gone through a gravel crusher, but we do have cause of death." She points to the fragmented skull, "This hole, .223 caliber."
Shit.
"So, we have a long range, high powered weapon. Name me one homicide ever pinned on a female sniper." Art challenges.
The chief sat right in front of Sarah, "How's that profile?"
"Female killers often suffer from chronic detachment. Isolation breeds sociopath. This song, 'fearfully and wonderfully made'; she's a religious fanatic.
"The stick figures, the doll's head, fortune teller. Early childhood development issues… could be extreme abuse?"
Sarah watches as the whole team edge closer and closer to the truth.
"But she's also careful. No prints on any of this so far."
Any prints you'll find will lead straight back to the victim.
"And the DNA evidence?" Art asks.
"On rush, but we're still a week away from knowing if they match anyone on file."
They will. A few.
And if Sarah doesn't do something soon, the results are going to lead straight back to Beth.
"Nothing on Jane Doe's prints? Her hand didn't give us a match?" It took a few noticeable moments for Sarah to realise the Chief was aiming his question at her.
"No… uh no, they did not". She shook her head, trying to feign disappointment.
Art hesitates, his eyes always questioning Sarah's answers, before he begins, "Look, the bottom line is we're chasing a calculated female killer who loves playing games. Like these fortune tellers."
Angie begins to explain the role of the fortune tellers, and how they work.
"Childs? Childs?"
Sarah turns around, her eyebrows raised in question at the female officer.
"Call for you."
Thank God, Sarah needed to escape from under Art's distrustful glare and that room full of…
"Detective Childs," She answers.
That same thick Russian accent breathes through the phone, "No you're not. Beth is dead, isn't she."
Sarah drops the act, "What do you want from me? You could have killed me but, here we are."
"You didn't feel it?"
"What?"
"We have a connection."
Any fear about whatever the psycho doppelganger was going to say drained from Sarah. She was just that, a psycho… on drugs or some shit. Almost laughable, "Uh, you mean when I stuck that piece of rebar in your liver? How's that going?"
The Russian ignores Sarah's questions, "I need to know who you are. Let's meet again." She inhales sharply, she's in pain. "I never got your name".
"I never got yours,"
"Helena," The word sounds even more foreign from the psycho's lips. A name so dainty and ladylike. So wrong.
Sarah scrambles for a pen and paper, "And uh, last name?"
"You're doing police work, but how long can that last? When the real police find me, you are me, I am you. Both the victim and the cop." Helen teases.
"Yeah, that would be bad for both of us." Sarah replies.
"So come see me. Discuss. I already gave you directions".
She hangs up just as Art and the others walk past.
"The numbers. They're addresses." Art walks towards the wall map.
They figured it out. Sarah was too late. They were all going to pay a visit.
Emma paced around her brother's loft as he faced his canvas, paint splatted arms and pale arse hanging out of his sullied apron, "But how can you just act like nothing's happening? We need to do something! This isn't normal, Fe."
"Ah, my darling, what can we do? I am but a humble painter, I draw exquisite genitalia. I'm not versed in the intricate dealings of clone hunting".
Em rolled her eyes, "Fe! I'm serious. Ugh, this is so fucked up!". She sighs, rubbing her eyes before turning back to the books splayed out across the couch.
At that moment, Fe's phone began ringing.
"Detective Childs," Felix answer, earning a classic Sarah eye roll, "Is it my imagination or does Cosima have bigger breasts than you?"
"Let me hear, let me hear!" Em voices at the mention of her sister's fake persona.
Felix presses a button and suddenly Sarah's rushed voice echoes around the loft, "There's no way I can make dinner with Kira tonight."
At this, Em closed her notes and turned towards the phone, frustrated, "You're joking. You've got to."
"I can't. I'm stuck with Art and this bitch is right on top of me. I can lead her straight to Kira." Sarah thinks back to the sketchy phone call the department received from an unknown suspect. Of course, Sarah was the only one who knew that the guy they were looking for was in fact a woman, a psychotic, murderous Russian. Her clone. Beth's clone. Sarah shudders.
"I know, but S gave you an ultimatum. She's gonna cut you off." Fe probed her sister, reminding her of what was at stake.
"Rock and a hard place here, Fe".
"Yeah, your permanent address", Em sniped.
Sarah hesitated as a small seed grew, "I do have one really idiotic idea."
"Oh good."
"I need to be two places at once, yeah?"
"Yeah," Fe answered hesitantly, worried as to where this was going.
"Well, if anybody can do that, we can."
"Are you effing serious?" Felix spun around, finally distracted enough from his artwork.
Em's head fell into her hands, "Jesus, Sarah."
A small smile grew on Sarah's face, "Yeah, suddenly I am".
So, here they were. Smack bang in the middle of suburbia.
"Wow." Em breathed, staring out the car window at the clean, symmetrical row upon row of WASP houses.
"I know." Felix slammed the car door shut. "Sarah better get rid of this bloody psycho; this is the last time I enter White-ville."
Em looked down at her attire, glancing across at Fe's, "We look like the black and white part of The Wizard of Oz… except everything is in pastel colour."
"Just follow the boozy brick road."
The siblings hastily walk around the corner and through the back gate into Alison's garden.
Felix knocked on the door and soon enough, Alison peered through the curtain and opened the door.
"What happened? Is she okay?" She probed.
"Yeah, she's okay. She's fine," Felix sighed.
"That doesn't sound okay." Alison shut the door behind Em, who caught a glance at Alison's peacemaker, resting in her hand.
Em leaned into her brother's shoulder, "Why the hell does a soccer mom have a gun?"
Fe brushes her off and carries on, "Sarah needs your help with her daughter."
Let the chaos ensue!