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"How come no one noticed they were short a clone?" asked Becks
Kelly shrugged, shaking off her brief malaise "Clones are considered lab waste Anyone can dispose of them"
"So you disposed of the clone that didn’t exist"
"Exactly"
"What did Iin with a basket full of toet you anything? Toast? Oot here just in time to hear the Doc explain how they broke her clone out of storage and slaughtered it like a chicken so she’d be free to come and make herself our proble "Also, you got any Coke?"
Alaric and Becks exchanged a look Maggie siet you one in awith her harvest "Keep talking, everybody I’ht up"
"Great" I looked back to Kelly "Carry on, Doc We’re burning daylight here, and you’ve just made that a rare cohtered like a chicken," she protested "Dr Wynne knows some people Professional people He hired them to break in and shoot the clone after we’d decanted it They guaranteed a kill on the first shot It didn’t have time to suffer"
"And then you ran for us"
"And then I ran for youKelly glanced away Her gaze fell on the open door and she gri down at her lap instead "Your… There were a lot of records detailing the progression of Georgia Mason’s retinal Kellis-A provided an invaluable source of data"
"Meaning what, exactly?" asked Maggie, putting a skillet on the stove
"She means there were caot a lot of med tests so we could follow the ’rents into proscribed areas" I watched Kelly Kelly kept watching her lap "It reat case study, without any of those pesky release for up "That also e, quietly Prolonged exposure to soh, but for you to be ical reactions uniquely fascinating," said Kelly, her words overlaying Georgia’s until she drowned out the voice in h to slosh the ree I put the cup down on the table Kelly didn’t see you to come in for some tests later this year if our study had been allowed to develop normally Just to see if there were any deep abnorht explain why she developed retinal Kellis-Aia dead, there’s always the possibility whoever’s killing the people with reservoir conditions could come after you, instead We don’t knohat the motive is there"
"So combine Shaun’s possibly fked-up iot, and our known connections to the research teaet, is that it?" asked Becks "Note for the future? This is the sort of shit you should maybe lead off with ‘Hi, nice to see you, just faked my own death, and PS, the people ant ie pleasantly, as she started cracking eggs into the pan "It ht’ve saved Dave’s life"
"That’s not fair," interjected Kelly
Maggie ignored her "Two eggs or three, Shaun?"
"Three, please I doubt we’re going to be stopping for a big lunch"
"Good Will you need to bury her body in the forest behindher around a little longer for informational purposes?" This question was asked just as pleasantly as the last Maggie’s tone didn’t hold anything to indicate that killing Kelly was of any ie can be like that so, for the irl whose response to things she doesn’t like begins and ends with getting rid of theets that way "Informational purposes, but I proes," I said Kelly paled I decided that the polite thing would be to ignore it "Any news out of Oakland?"
"The announceo," said Alaric, quietly
"Okay" I looked at hed "What do our site stats look like?"
"Up five percent globally, Dave’s reports are up thirty-five percent, and we have three syndication requests for his Alaska material from last year" Alaric sounded a lotNext to Mahir, there’s nobody who tracks our standings as carefully as Alaric does
"Did Maggie fill you in on the cover story?" Everyone nodded "Good Has anyone posted?" Everyone shook their heads "Not so good I need you all online We were caot blown up, we’re shaken, we’re going to stay in the field for a few days while we recover Maggie, I want you to make it clear that you’re here alone Tack on a poeery--the usual--and then if you can double security, that would probably be a bonus Nobody say anything about the Doc She’s not here"