His explanation sounded plausible. Rudi was a young girl that my friends and I had rescued awhile back (along with her younger brother) from a secret government facility. As Gray had noted, she was indeed incredibly powerful. However, she was also a pre-teen, and may not have understood the consequences of her actions – assuming that Gray was telling the truth, and from what I could pick up empathically, he was being sincere.
“Okay, but what about Schaefer?” I asked. “You let that maniac release a virus that almost killed every super on the planet.”
As I spoke, I reflected back on the incident in question. Schaefer had been one of Gray’s agents whose hatred of supers had led him to release a virus that only attacked those with superpowers. He had ultimately been stopped, but his actions led to the destruction of the Academy, which had been a schoolhouse and training facility for teen supers.
Without missing a beat, Gray said, “Schaefer went off the rails. What he tried to do wasn’t sanctioned.”
“So you had no hand in that situation?”
“I know I seem all-powerful to you, but I’m in a very tenuous position, all the time. I can’t be seen to be losing control of my organization, or let rumor spread that there are rogue elements in my establishment.”
“So rather than disavow Schaefer, you retroactively approved what he did,” I surmised.
“The damage was done,” Gray protested. “Yes, I knew about the virus, but it was only devised to make sure we had a safety-valve in case supers went bonkers – something that would incapacitate those it infected. It was never supposed to be used to kill people, and I’m truly sorry for that.”
Needless to say, his reply caught me off guard. From everything I could read of his emotional state, Gray was being truthful. But if that were the case, it would mean that I might have seriously misjudged the man. Was it possible that Gray was actually one of the good guys? I didn’t even want to consider it…
“We’ve gone kind of far afield here,” I said. “We were talking about this illegal clone of me that you had made.”
“As I said, this program initially began without my approval,” Gray corrected. “When I found out about it, it was too late to shut it down, so I inserted myself in the process just to ensure there was appropriate oversight.”
“Well, your oversight leaves something to be desired, because your fake Jim is running all over the place, doing whatever he wants.”
“He goes by ‘Jack,’” Gray said.
I blinked. “What?”
“Your clone. His name’s Jack.”
I frowned. “Jack,” of course, is a nickname for “John,” which was my formal first name. They had really pulled out all the stops in making this clone seem connected to me. (Also, understanding now dawned on me with respect to Gray’s you-don’t-know-Jack punchlines.)
“With respect to him running all over the place,” Gray continued, “that’s because he’s escaped.”
Chapter 54
“Escaped?” I repeated with a frown. “Escaped from where? Was he on lockdown or something?”
“Not exactly,” Gray replied. “Needless to say, you can’t have a secret cloning program and then let said clones roam around like free-range chickens. Thus, for most of his life, Jack was housed in a specialized facility, with little access to the outside world.”
“Housed,” I echoed. “You make it sound like he was boxed up and stored in a warehouse.”
“That’s not far from the truth. Physically, he’s your age, but chronologically he’s much younger. We accelerated his growth and development using special hormones and unconventional biological techniques, among other things. That said, he spent a fair amount of time in stasis until recently.”
“You said ‘recently,’” I noted. “So what happened?”
“A couple of things, actually – first and foremost being that you left the planet.”
“So what? I mean, it was a big deal for me, but I’m not sure what it means for a clone.”
Gray’s brow wrinkled for a moment, as if he were working out a thorny problem mentally.
“There’s something in the cloning process that makes clones want to meet their originals,” Gray began. “With his power set, it was tricky when you were here, but once you left…”
I picked up on his train of thought. “Once I left, you could let your pet out of his cage on a more regular basis because there was no chance we’d meet.”
“Right. Letting him out, as you put it, was necessary to gauge his abilities, assess findings about the cloning methodology, and so on. But then you came back.”
“Let me guess: at that point, you couldn’t put the genie back in the bottle.”
“Yes, but it was actually a little more complicated than that,” Gray said. “Jack’s stasis chamber was an upright, rectangular pod with lots of wires, tubes, etcetera – probably similar to things you’ve seen in the movies.”
I nodded, understanding and able to visualize the type of device he was mentioning.
“Anyway, we discovered that Jack was leaving the pod at will.”
“How?”
“Sometimes the equipment wouldn’t complete the stasis process. It would just stop in the middle, like someone had hit an off button.”
“He did it,” I concluded. “Telekinesis.”
Gray nodded. “That’s what we assumed.”
“Shouldn’t someone have noticed that?”
Gray shrugged. “Like a lot of people, the scientists working with Jack fell into a routine. Once he was in the pod and they turned it on, they didn’t stick around to make sure everything went off without a hitch. They left to do other things.”
“I can follow that,” I said. “It’s kind of like people who let the garage door down when they get home from work. Once they see the garage door descending, they assume it’s going to go all the way down without issue, so they simply go inside without making sure it actually happened.”
“Exactly. Likewise, Jack just telekinetically shut things off – pulled a switch, pressed a button, whatever. In addition, we think there were other times when he simply teleported out of the pod before stasis was
