“Okay, fine – there’s a million ways to get my DNA,” I conceded. “Apparently just from stuff that gets thrown out every day.”
“Actually, Mouse may have slightly exaggerated,” BT said. “When you get a haircut, the hair that’s clipped is made up of dead cells that doesn’t contain viable DNA – just like your outer skin.”
“Huh?” I murmured, confused.
“She’s talking about the stratum corneum – the outer layer of your epidermis,” Mouse explained. “It’s made up of dead cells and a ton of them slough off every day, but there’s no useful DNA in them.”
My brow crinkled as I considered this. “So you’re saying that if you peel back the outermost layer of my skin, there’s like a fresh new me underneath?”
“Sort of,” Mouse said. “As I mentioned, there’s a thin mantle of dead skin covering your whole body, but human beings don’t discard it the way you’re describing. There’s not going to be some husk laying around like a snake that just shed its skin.”
“Unless, I just teleport the portion of me that’s beneath the dead skin,” I suggested. “That would leave a husk.”
Mouse just stared at me in disbelief for a moment, then muttered, “Why do I get the feeling that this conversation is foreshadowing some elaborate Halloween prank?”
I laughed. “What makes you think I’ll wait until Halloween?”
We both chortled at that, causing BT to huff slightly in annoyance (while trying not to smile).
“If I can get you two juveniles back on point?” she chided.
“Okay, fine,” I said. “We were talking about how Gray’s minions might have gotten my DNA – basically from things I regularly toss out. I guess I just hadn’t thought about the lengths someone might go to in order to get it, like digging through my trash.”
“From what I’ve heard of Gray,” Mouse said, “it wouldn’t surprise me if he sent guys crawling up your sewer line, if it would get him what he wanted.”
“Okay, that’s mental imagery I didn’t need,” I muttered, causing BT to giggle this time. “Anyway, I think I understand now why you’re saying Jack’s not a true clone. Genetically, he’s not a pure, one-hundred-percent replica of me because of the DNA substitution.”
“Right,” BT agreed with a nod. “He’s maybe ninety percent you, max, with the remainder coming from some other genetic source.”
I rubbed my chin in thought for a moment. “So, this replacement DNA – where’d they get it?”
BT shrugged. “Who knows? It could have come from anyone.”
“Well, can’t you guys look at the DNA string in question and figure all that out?” I asked.
“We appreciate the faith you have in our abilities,” Mouse stated, “but it’s not that simple. It’s like finding fingerprints at a crime scene. Unless you can match them to a set on file somewhere, you can’t say who they belong to without something more. So, unless you’ve got a genetic database for all the billions of people on this planet, we’re a little stuck on that front.”
“Not to mention the fact that the DNA segment in question might not have even come from a single source,” BT added.
“You mean it might have come from more than one person?” I asked, a little stunned.
“It’s unlikely they were successful in creating Jack with a single trial,” BT said. “My guess is they tried various formulations – including hybridized DNA – until they hit upon one that worked.”
I shook my head in dismay. “Okay, this is way more complex than I ever imagined.”
“Don’t get wrapped up in the minutiae,” Mouse advised. “The exact composition of his DNA isn’t pertinent. The main thing is that having his DNA gets us a lot closer to clearing your name.”
“But like you said earlier, this is the equivalent of prints without a match,” I argued. “We need Jack in carne ed ossa.”
“‘In the flesh,’” Mouse translated, impressed. “Kudos on the Latin.”
I gave a brief nod to acknowledge his compliment, while BT stuck to the subject at hand.
“Holding Jack in place is easier said than done, given his power of teleportation,” she noted. “That’s one ability his handlers were effective in developing.”
Her words striking me as odd, I gave BT a curious look. “What do you mean?”
BT appeared to reflect for a moment before answering. “Do you recall when your teleportation ability first manifested?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “I was like five years old and getting whaled on by an older bully. I kept wishing he was somewhere else, and all of a sudden, he was.”
“Using that as an example,” BT said, “under the proper circumstances, your powers seem to develop when needed. It makes you possibly the most versatile super on the planet. Understanding this and knowing your power set, Jack’s handlers were well aware of his potential.”
“In essence,” Mouse added, “they knew the types of abilities he was capable of developing. They simply had to coax them out of him.”
“Coax in what way?” I asked.
Neither BT nor Mouse immediately answered. Instead, my mentor pointed to one of the large monitors positioned around the lab.
The screen suddenly showed an odd scene: several people in white lab coats standing around an odd glass cylinder that was about six feet tall and three feet in diameter. Inside the cylinder, wearing what appeared to be a pair of swimming trunks, was a young boy – maybe nine years old. At that moment, my mouth almost fell open when I realized something: the kid in the cylinder looked exactly like me when I was that age.
Jack, I thought.
He looked nervous, and apparently he had good reason to be, because a few seconds later, the cylinder started filling up with water – fast.
The folks in the lab coats – presumably scientists – watched in utter fascination as the water quickly rose. Jack’s expression, on the other hand, had gone from nervous to anxious as the water climbed to his waist – and then
