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Every time the door at the end of the corridor opened, all three of their heads looked up. But it was never a familiar face.
“Maybe you should go home,” Natalie suggested after a long moment of silence, “one of us should.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Avery insisted, “not until I know he’s okay.”
“It might be a while,” Carey warned, leaning back into the hard hospital seat, “Jackson seemed pretty worried.”
“But what would he know about bullet wounds?” Natalie was doubtful.
“From what I’ve heard, nothing would surprise me.”
“And what do you think?” Avery focused on Carey, “do you think he’ll be okay?”
Carey paused, taken aback by the question.
“I uh… it’s not really my field,” he admitted, “biologically speaking I thought he’d die on the spot.”
“So there’s hope,” Avery insisted.
“There’s always hope,” Natalie agreed.
The next time the door opened it was finally a familiar face. As soon as Kate spotted them she picked up the pace.
“Have you heard anything?” she went to Natalie first.
“He’s still in surgery,” she stood to give her a hug, “they said it could be a few hours.”
“What happened? Why wouldn’t you say anything over the phone?”
“It’s complicated. I’m sorry.”
“I think we’re still in a bit of shock. Everyone, that is,” Avery agreed, leaning in to hug her once Natalie let go.
Carey awkwardly stood from his seat, knowing an introduction was coming.
“This is Carey,” Natalie took a subtle look down the corridor to make sure no one was eavesdropping before she spoke.
“Sorry to meet you under these circumstances,” he offered his hand.
Kate shook it, taking a moment to look him over.
“Thanks,” she said eventually, “Zac has told me about you, but…”
“It’s still weird in person?” Natalie offered.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll leave if you want me to,” Carey immediately offered, “I just wanted to make sure these guys got here safe is all.”
“No. I don’t mind,” Kate assured, “but I need to talk to a doctor. Or someone. Anyone that knows what’s going on.”
“This way,” Natalie put a hand on her shoulder to lead her toward the nearest nurse station.
Avery and Carey shared an awkward glance before Avery took a seat again. Carey quickly checked his phone, hoping to hear from Alex. There was nothing yet.“Yes Mr Bell?”
“Oh thank God,” Alex’s heart was already racing, “Mr Hanson they’ve got Isaac.”
“Slow down, what do you mean?”
“I mean they’ve got Isaac! The Russians!”
“When?”
“A few hours, I’ve been trying to get a hold of you. I can’t even find Dr Morris.”
There was a pause on the line, Alex assumed as he digested the information.
“I don’t know if you knew this Sir, but Isaac has a tracer.”
“I did. Is it still active?”
“So far yes. But even if it goes dark I might have another option.”
“I’m listening.”
“I got a call from Carey. He’s the one who told me what happened. He had Isaac swallow his old microchip tracer. I just need access to the older program to lock onto it but I’m having trouble getting access fast enough and I think we’re running out of time.”
“What direction are they heading now?”
“Er, they went to Tulsa International and flew out from an outlying hangar in an easterly direction. Either they’re going to cross the coast via the Carolinas or they’re stopping there before heading north.”
“Send me their flight path.”
“Sending it now.”
“I’ll see about getting you into that program. Stay with your computer, I’ll call you back.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Walker ended the call and Alex started biting his nails. He was watching Isaac’s current tracer crossing the map as they flew, getting closer and closer to the coast. It had been about this long when Taylor’s had stopped working and he was expecting it to stop any minute now.
To try and pass the time he logged into the internal servers of the hospital that Zac was in to try and access the patient records. Not finding anything more than a note that he was still in surgery, he found his way into the CCTV. Once he found the right room he had to quickly close the window almost right away. Seeing Zac’s blood everywhere as they worked only made him nauseous.
When he checked the map again Isaac’s tracer was gone.Isaac understood now why Carey had been adamant that he swallow the microchip. He could feel where the blood was escaping the back of his neck even if he couldn’t reach it with his hands.
He was eventually dragged from the table and set aside, close to a seat but not actually on it. His hands were still bound behind him but it was whatever drug they’d given him that was keeping him still.
He didn’t know what to expect, other than knowing they needed him alive. He hoped he’d find Taylor but knew it wasn’t a guarantee that he was even going to the same place.
It took a long time for him to be able to move again and the soldiers paid him barely any attention in the meantime. When he was eventually able to sit up by himself one of them came to offer him water before being distracted by a call from one of the others. Isaac kept his eyes on the container as he felt his throat drying further in anticipation, but the soldier quickly moved away.
“Oh come on,” he grunted to himself, knowing he was in for a long flight already with or without sustenance.
But their conversation in Russian was growing louder and it didn’t take long for Isaac to realize that they were worried about something. Not just the few soldiers that he could see conversing either; it was the entire crew.
It didn’t fill him with confidence. Was the plane going down? Was this how it was going to end for him? He knew either way there was nothing he could do about it, but he couldn’t fathom it actually happening either.
Then the plane dipped and started to descend. Far too early to have made it to Russian soil.
“What’s going on?” he asked the nearest soldier, one who was cleaning up the blood but clearly listening in to what was going on.
“We are landing,” he responded, not bothering to look in Isaac’s direction.
“Why?” he tried again, surprised to get an answer.
“I don’t know.”
Isaac watched as the other soldiers did indeed appear to be preparing for landing. It was still a while before they came for him, but when they did it happened fast. He was dragged to his feet and planted into the seat he’d been next to and tightly strapped in. The two soldiers doing it were visibly not happy that they had to.
Without any further direction, Isaac kept a worried eye on them as they each began to take their own seats and keep their eyes on their watches.Alex remained staring at the map for what felt like hours. Walker had finally texted him a code that had easily cleared the old tracer program for him, and while the tracer Isaac had ingested appeared to be glitching the GPS in it still worked just enough to follow him. He’d been sending Walker updates on the location, especially as the plane appeared to land just shy of the coast, but Walker hadn’t replied to any and Alex knew he would be busy so wasn’t going to press him for information.
He jumped at least three inches when someone suddenly knocked on the door behind him.
“Come in!” he quickly rubbed his face and debated covering the computer screen.
He was relieved when it was Dr Morris.
“I was told you were trying to reach me,” he looked tired and already done with the day.
“Yes. The Russians took Isaac Hanson,” Alex indicated the screen, “but we got an old tracer working so I’m tracking him now. They just landed on the coast of South Carolina. Mr Hanson is… doing something. I haven’t had an update from him in about three hours.”
“Was he taken before or after Taylor was found?”
“About the same time I think?” Alex wasn’t sure, “that might be why they’ve landed and haven’t just flown through to Europe right away. I don’t know what’s going on I just know Walker’s in charge.”
“Of course he is,” Morris sighed to himself, “I’ll give him a call.”
He left before Alex could say anything else and Alex went back to biting his nails. It had been a long time for radio silence. Hopefully Morris contacting him would prompt Walker to call.
After maybe ten minutes or so he put his headset back on and sent a call through to Carey.
“Hey, I’ve been waiting to hear from you,” Carey’s voice was quiet.
“Are you still at the hospital?” Alex hadn’t bothered checking his tracking.
“Yeah we are. The doctors have been keeping Kate updated but they can’t really tell us anything until the surgery is over.”
“He’s still in surgery?” Alex frowned, “Carey how bad was it? How long could it possibly take?”
“It was bad. They got him in the chest. The left side. I don’t know how it didn’t hit his heart.”
Alex paused to rub his face again. He’d been worried before but now he was outright anxious. Surely they had to know Zac’s chances of survival by now.
“Will you let me know as soon as he gets out?” he asked.
“Of course. I’ll have to run Natalie home at some point but I’ll try and text you first.”
“Great. Thank you. Speaking of Natalie, I do have some good news for you to share.”
“What’s that?”
“Taylor-“ Alex cut off when another call came through, this one from Walker’s number.
“Er… can you hold on a moment?”
“We’ll be here a while. But we could use some good news.”
“I’m just going to try and get you some more. Hold the line.”
He switched calls.
“Mr Hanson?”
“Mr Bell. The army was able to intercept the Russian plane. They have Isaac in custody.”
“Oh thank God,” Alex put his head in his hands, “is he okay?”
“You now know all that I do. He’ll be transferred across to DIGER for questioning along with Taylor and hopefully home not long after.”
“I’ll let the family know. Zac’s still in surgery.”
“Thank you. I’ll accompany Isaac back to Dallas and come up to Tulsa from there.”
“Wait, Dallas?” Alex frowned.
“Yes. DIGER are moving their operations back there.”
“I knew that, but… now?”
“As soon as possible. I assume you might meet us there.”
“I haven’t been told anything so maybe not,” Alex was confused, “I’ll try and find out. Thanks again.”
He quickly ended the call and went back to Carey.
“Still there?”
“I’m here, waiting for some good news.”
“Both Isaac and Taylor have been found and they’re on their way home.”
“Wait, home?”
“Well, DIGER. They have to do interviews like we did on the plane I guess.”
“Right. I’ll let them know.”
“Thanks. Just let me know if anything changes with Zac.”
“I will. Bye.”Carey was already making his way back down the corridor as he hung up and put his phone away. Avery looked up as he approached but neither Natalie or Kate moved.
“So… I have news,” he announced, gaining their attention, “they found Isaac already, and he’s in lab custody.”
“What does that mean?” Avery frowned as Natalie breathed a sigh of relief.
“It should mean he’s safe,” Carey offered, “it’ll just be a short while before he can go home again.”
“That was fast,” Natalie appreciated as Kate focused her attention down the corridor again.
“They also found Taylor.”
“What?” Natalie’s head shot up.
“I don’t know how he is,” Carey quickly covered, “but he’s on his way home too, and that’s all I know. Both Isaac and Taylor are on their way in to DIGER.”“When can I call home? I need to let my family know that I’m okay,” Isaac leant forward in his seat to get his point across, “we already lost my brother to these people, they’ll be worried that I’m gone too.”
“I’m sure you have nothing to worry about,” the handler sitting across the aisle blew off, “we’ll be landing soon. Ask away then.”
Isaac frowned at that, wondering why the answer would be any different then compared to now.
It wasn’t too long before the plane did land, but they didn’t pull up to a gate. Instead they waited for stairs to become available and Isaac was eventually led out onto the tarmac. As he was taken toward a waiting van he quickly realized that he recognized one of the people waiting beside it.
“Dad?” he had to shield his eyes from the setting sun as he got closer, “what are you doing here?”
“Making sure you got into Dallas in one piece,” Walker mused, leading his son toward the van.
Once they were safely inside the van took off, leaving most of the handlers on the tarmac to find their own ride.
“What happened back there?” Isaac was obviously confused, “no one told me anything, but I swear I saw the army.”
“You did,” Walker pulled his sunglasses from his eyes, “we had to call them in to make sure that plane didn’t leave American soil.”
“Was it Alex?” Isaac had to ask, “was it because of the chip?”
“It was,” Walker confirmed, “and this isn’t the only thing to go right today. Your brother should be meeting us at DIGER.”
“Which one?”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Zac woke to a throbbing headache and a dry throat. He didn’t want to wake up at first, but as soon as he realized his surroundings were unfamiliar he managed to force his eyes open.“There he is,” he heard a familiar voice to his right.“Zac?” more importantly, his wife was to his left.He took a moment to focus on her face, waiting for the blur to clear.“Hey,” she was smiling, “how are you feeling?”“Half dead,” his voice croaked.“That’s a little close for comfort,” he noticed Avery behind Kate.“What happened?” Zac frowned, trying to sit himself up.“Stay down,” Kate insisted, pressing gently against his shoulder, “you’ve just had surgery and you need to heal.”“Surgery for what?”“You got shot,” Avery chimed in.“What?”“I should probably take Natalie home,” Carey began to back away from the bed, “it’s getting kinda late.”“Tay wait,” Zac insisted, “tell me what the hell happened!”“That’s not Taylor,” Kate shot Carey a worried look.“They said he might have some memory loss,” Carey reminded her, “I’ll leave you guys to it. Avery did you need a ride?”“I would love one but I think I need to stay here more,” she offered a smile.Carey just nodded and left the room. “What the hell happened? And who was that?” Zac looked between his wife and sister.“That was Carey,” Kate put a hand on his arm to try and calm him down, “and it’s a long story. I wasn’t there but Avie was.”“Before I start the story, everyone’s fine and we’re just worried about you,” Avery insisted.“Now this looks familiar,” Isaac was looking around the lobby as they made their way in, “and yet not at the same time.”“Newly renovated,” his father brushed over.“Rebuilt, don’t you mean?” Isaac scratched at his beard, “Zac said this place was nearly levelled.”“A little of both.”They made it to the doorway that Morris had taken he and Taylor through last time, Walker showing his credentials to the single guard on duty before they were waved through. “So what happens now?” Isaac was still looking around.“They’ll need to ask you some questions about your time with the Russians. If you heard them talking about their plans, that kind of thing.”“I didn’t, they were speaking in Russian the whole time.”“While you’re doing that, I’ll try and find out what time your brother is due in.”“Can I see him? When he gets here?”They stopped at an open doorway and Walker checked that there was someone waiting inside.“I’m not sure yet,” he admitted, “I’ll see how he is first and let you know.”“Okay,” Isaac nodded, otherwise not moving.Walker indicated for him to go into the room. Isaac hesitated only because it hadn’t ended well for him the last time he’d been here, but not seeing Morris or any other doctors around eventually convinced him to step inside. Walker closed the door behind him and continued down the corridor.Once again, Taylor saw bright lights as he woke up. He could feel the oxygen mask still over his face and there was movement either side of him.“Hello there,” he heard a woman’s voice, “welcome back.”He groaned as he tried to move, feeling someone holding his right arm down. He tried to roll onto it but someone else pulled his left shoulder back.“Don’t move too much honey you’re still a little drowsy from the flight and from your surgery.”“Flight?” he croaked out, rubbing at his eyes with his left hand.“That’s right. We’ll have some of the boys come in and talk to you soon about it. Just you wake up for now. And be careful of your arm there, we have some work to do yet.”Taylor felt her let go of his arm and lifted it slightly. A large white bandage covered where the tap should have been. He could have cried in relief. It was only now that he registered the nurse’s accent as Texan.When his eyes finally began to adjust he could see what looked like a hospital room surrounding him. Two nurses stood over him, one fussing about his legs and the other just watching him as he became more alert. He quickly checked for a window. There wasn’t one. He had to be at the labs.“Calm down honey, you’re safe,” the nurse that had been watching gently rubbed his arm in an effort to stop him panicking.“Where am I?” he asked her, “is Morris here?”“Not yet dear. He’ll be here in a few days.”Taylor’s heartrate wasn’t slowing down at that. He knew he couldn’t run. Morris could do whatever he wanted to him. He could drug him again and he wouldn’t be able to defend himself.“We need to get you as well as we can before then. Can you tell us how long ago your ankles were broken? And how long they were broken before being set?”“I don’t know,” Taylor shook his head, “not long between.”“Do you know how much blood you lost?”“A lot,” he swallowed hard, “many times. A lot.”“That’s okay. You were given a transfusion on the way here. You’ll be okay for now,” she gave his arm a pat, “and we’ve taken out that horrible contraption that was making you lose even more.”“Thank you,” Taylor swallowed again.“Would you like some water?”He nodded, unsure if he’d be able to talk much more without it.“I’ll be right back with some. Jen here will look after you until I get back. She’s just going to look over your ankles a little closer so we can figure out how to fix them properly.”With a parting smile, the nurse left the room. Taylor focused on the other one who was more interested in her work. He attempted to clench his toes on both feet and winced as the pain shot up both legs in the effort.“Try to keep still for me,” the nurse said absently, “we don’t want the bones to move any more than they already have.”“Can you fix them?” Taylor tried to push himself up a little, “did they do it right?”“They look okay,” she offered him a reassuring smile, “but we’ll do some scans on them just to make sure. The scans will tell us how far along the healing process is too.”Taylor lay back at that. He knew he wasn’t going anywhere, but at least now he had an idea of what they wanted.Until Morris got there anyhow.Alex had just fetched himself a late dinner and was heading back to his room with it when he turned a corner to find Morris in the hallway. He froze in his tracks, knowing there was something he had to ask him but his mind blanking on him in the moment.“Mr Bell,” Morris gave him a nod, “I take it you’re aware that the Hansons have made it to Dallas.”“Yeah, sure,” he began to fidget with the tray.“Have you spoken to Walker Hanson?”“Not since they arrived,” Alex admitted, “but once they were en route I figured that was good enough.”“Have you told anyone yet?”“Carey,” Alex admitted right away, knowing it would be easier not to lie, “so he could tell Taylor’s family.”“Okay. We want to keep their location on a strictly need to know basis for now.”“Sure.”“So I’d appreciate you not telling anyone that the Dallas headquarters are functioning again.”“Sure.”“And along with that, I’d like to move you and your belongings over there at first opportunity.”It clicked. That was what he’d been meaning to ask next time he spoke to Morris.“I-““We’ll be moving our genetics research component back to Dallas entirely within the next few months, but myself and the other doctors working on the project will be transferring in a week or so. So if you’re happy, I’d like to offer you a first class ticket back to Dallas-Fort Worth for… I don’t know, tomorrow? The day after?”“What about Keandre?” Alex jumped on, “and I need to pack. I have to take the consoles, and my computer.”“We’ll take care of it,” Morris assured, “there’s no need to leave anything behind. As for Keandre he will need to be transported by road again and will meet us there when he can.”“Why can’t I go with him then?” Alex would have preferred not to fly if he could get away with it.“You’ll have an escort. I’d prefer to get you there and settled as soon as possible.”“But what about…” Alex looked back down the corridor, unsure of how to word it, “everything in the media about Taylor having a twin now. What if people start to think I’m Carey?”“Just show them your hand,” Morris mused before turning to walk away, “I’ll organize your flight and let you know when to be ready. Good night, Mr Bell.”“Night!” Alex called after him, waiting until he was gone before heading back to his room.He didn’t want to leave, but he knew that Isaac and Taylor would be in Dallas so he’d at least have some familiar faces around. Not to mention hopefully seeing Keandre at some point.“Hey, sorry we’re so late,” Carey planted a kiss on Emma’s cheek the moment he saw her.“Is Zac okay?” she looked between them as Natalie set her handbag on the counter.“He’s out of surgery, we waited until he woke up,” Carey went to take his jacket off.“It sounds good. I guess they got the bullet out and he just needs to heal,” Natalie was keeping her eyes down.“So what’s wrong?” Emma frowned.Carey came back to take her by the arm and pull her through to the dining table. He was glad to see that none of the kids were around.“What’s wrong?” Emma repeated.“It’s the opposite of wrong,” he quickly assured, “I had a call from Alex, and not only did they manage to stop Isaac leaving the country but they found Taylor at practically the same time.”“They found Taylor?” Emma had to confirm.“They’re both headed back to DIGER in Dallas. Al’s going to keep me updated.”Emma breathed a sigh of relief and came in for a hug. Carey hugged her back a little tighter.“I’m not sure if Natalie wants the kids to know just yet, in case something happens.”“I get it.”“Where’s Jackson?”“I kicked him out as soon as you guys left. I think he caught a cab back into town.”Taylor was holding onto the bedsheets for dear life as they worked to remove the splints. He’d tried to keep his eyes away from where the metal was going through his legs because that was bad enough but he hadn’t expected it to still hurt so much. When he felt the last steel rod come free from his right leg he stopped to catch his breath before finally sitting up properly.“Try and keep them as still as you can,” the nurse insisted, now that he was actually able to move them somewhat freely, “we’ll get your scans done and once the wounds heal over we’ll get you into plasters.”“Thanks,” Taylor closed his eyes, wondering how long it was going to take.He was looking forward to the prospect of at least being in a wheelchair. “How are you feeling?”His eyes shot to the doorway where Walker was looking concerned. It was the most worried Taylor had seen his father look since this whole thing had started.“Dad?” his voice shook, hoping his mind wasn’t just playing tricks on him.Walker immediately came to his bedside and Taylor reached up to grab him into a tight hug. As hard as he tried to keep himself together he ended up bursting into tears.Walker leant himself on the bed so that Taylor could stay there as long as he needed to, waiting until he was ready to talk.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Your brother’s here.”“Which one?” Taylor looked up with a frown.“Isaac. The Russians came after him this morning but we managed to get him back.”Taylor took a moment for it to sink in, and an extra moment to deal with the reminder that what had happened to him had been very real.“Is he okay?”“He’s fine. A little shaken, but he should be fine. I’ll see if I can send him in to see you later.”“I’d like that,” Taylor admitted, dying to see some more familiar faces.“Is there anything you’d like me to pass on before I head out?” Walker offered.“You’re leaving?” Taylor immediately jumped on.“I can’t stay forever.”“No, I don’t want to be alone,” Taylor’s brow furrowed, “I don’t like being here. Especially not if Morris is coming. I need someone here.”“I can’t stay forever,” Walker emphasized, “you have some interviews to do, you need to have your legs seen to, and you’ll likely have Isaac in here as soon as you’re done.”“I just spent over a month in a cell. Again,” Taylor was insistent, “with no outside contact. Can I at least get a phone so I can call Natalie and the kids?”“You know they won’t allow that.”Taylor grit his teeth before starting to bite his nails in frustration. He’d started to feel like he was just going from one nightmare into the next and he wanted to wake up.“I’ll be around until Isaac is ready to go home, if you need me,” Walker tried to amend, “but I’m sure you’ll be kept busy enough. I’ll make sure to see you before I leave.”“Do they at least know that I’m okay?”“They know.”Walker leant over to give him another half-hug and to rub his shoulder before heading for the door. Taylor watched him go before returning his attention to his ankles.Isaac took a deep breath as he left the room of his interview. He hadn’t expected it to be so in-depth for how little time he’d actually spent on the plane. It had felt like forever at the time, but trying to recount it had made him realize just how short of a time it was. Either way he was glad it was over.The handler was about to lead him back to the foyer when Walker appeared from the opposite direction and the handler promptly passed him over.“So now what?” Isaac absently fixed the collar of his shirt.“I just spoke with Taylor.”“How is he?” Isaac jumped on, “can I see him?”“You can, but he has to do some interviews first.”“How long will that take?”“I’m not sure.”“Dad?” Isaac stopped walking, “I know Morris isn’t here. Are you like a senior officer or something equivalent here?”Walker paused, looking back to make sure there weren’t prying ears.“I’m kept on a very tight leash, I assure you,” he admitted, “I’m sure I only talked them into letting me be here by my relationship to you and your brother.”“You’re talking to me like a scientist already,” Isaac was slightly wary.“I’m sorry. It’s a little different to working with the band.”“Especially when we keep losing members I guess.”“Especially then. Do you want something to eat?”“I’m starving,” Isaac was glad for the change of subject, “take me to the food.”“I don’t know what else to tell you,” Taylor shrugged, “I was unconscious for a lot of it and the rest of the time they just left me there with my broken legs unable to move. They just wanted blood. All of it, in the end, I think.”“If I played you some Russian phrases, do you think you could recognize any?”“I highly doubt it,” Taylor insisted, “I didn’t know what they were saying so I didn’t bother trying to remember. I didn’t know how long I’d be there, I didn’t know it was worth remembering.”“Why don’t we give it a try anyway?”Taylor just rolled his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair.“I’ll organize something for tomorrow. This should do for now.”“How long do I have to stay here?” Taylor looked up as the interviewer stood from his chair.“I’m not sure. Dr Morris will be able to tell you when he gets here.”Taylor grit his teeth again, just waiting for him to leave the room.“Hey, can I see him now?”“Ike?!” Taylor’s head snapped up again when he heard the voice outside.With the man unable to stop him Isaac ducked into the room.“Hey!” Taylor’s face lit up as Isaac came to hug him.“Hey yourself, how are you?”“Easier if you don’t ask, honestly. Tell me what happened to you! Dad said the Russians came back?”Isaac looked back at the door before taking the seat the other man had just vacated. “They did,” he agreed.“And?” Taylor sat up further, “what happened? How are you even here?”“First off, everyone’s okay.”“Everyone,” Taylor repeated, “how- who was involved? Where did it-““It was at your house.”“At my house?” Taylor jumped up further, “are the kids okay?!”“I just said that everyone was okay,” Isaac insisted, “the kids are fine, Natalie is fine, Carey and Emma and their kids are fine-““Carey and Emma?” Taylor frowned, “they’re staying with Nat?”“Yeah… I need to talk to you seriously about something.”“Is Nat-““I said everyone’s okay!” Isaac raised his voice, “just… believe me. I need to get this out.”Taylor paused, forcibly holding himself back.“Zac was shot.”“That doesn’t sound okay,” Taylor kept it under his breath.“He had surgery, he’s out, he’s okay. Last I heard,” Isaac quickly covered, “I heard from Dad who heard from Alex I think? Anyway he’s promised to let me – us – know if anything changes.”“Did the kids see it happen?”“I don’t know,” Isaac was honest, “I’m just going off of what Dad said.”“I wish they’d let me call them,” Taylor shifted himself on the bed.“They won’t but I’m probably headed home tomorrow so I’ll be there for you at least.”“Thanks.”“There is something else I need to tell you.”“Ominous,” Taylor tried to hold back his anxiety again.“Do you remember when Mac called us from LA that time saying that he thought he’d run into you in a club somewhere?”“No,” Taylor frowned, “should I remember?”“It doesn’t matter. But it turns out the guy he ran into was a clone after all, and when you were gone we had to figure out a way to tide things over with the tour prep until you got back-““Wait,” Taylor’s frown deepened.“-and Dad had this idea that we could just-““You replaced me?” Taylor caught on immediately.“No,” Isaac quickly corrected, “not replaced. He stood in for a short time, that’s all. We got the tour cancelled before it could go too far.”“I did not see that coming,” Taylor was avoiding eye contact already, “is he still there?”“He was there when I was taken so yeah, I guess.”“And no one even noticed?”“About that-“Taylor locked eyes with him and Isaac had to pause. He knew he wasn’t going to like this next part.“We had to think of something big to cancel the tour, right?”“How big?” Taylor demanded.“Big enough that people wouldn’t question why we’d cancel.”“I’m listening.”“I kinda…” Isaac scratched at his beard as it was his turn to avoid eye contact, “I kinda made sure the fans knew we were working at the studio some day and I invited Carey over and-““What the fuck did you do?!”One of the handlers showed Alex to his new room, and he made sure the consoles were brought in safely. The moment he had everyone out of his room he quickly set up his computer. It took him some time to get back into the DIGER intranet but once he was in the first thing he looked for was Taylor’s room. Once he had it he tried to memorize the map before checking that his ID would definitely lock his door and heading out.He had to be about halfway there when he heard footsteps. He knew there was barely a skeleton staff in the building, so any more than two or three people walking around seemed odd so far. Hoping that nothing was wrong he headed for the sound. What he saw made him stop in his tracks.A handler was leading six clones about Joey’s age through the center. All stoic and silent. Looking very beaten up. He was about to duck back out of sight so he wouldn’t be in the way when one toward the back suddenly made eye contact with him.“Alex?”He froze, knowing that it had to be Joey. But he wasn’t sure either. They all looked alike.The one that spoke broke away from the group, causing them to stop. “Alex!” he grabbed him into a hug, “I’m so glad you’re here. I’m so glad you decided to stay.”“Hey,” Alex wasn’t sure how to react with the others watching.It was creeping him out a little.“Are you okay? I’ve been gone for a long time.”“I’m fine,” Alex insisted as he let go, “but I’ve been worried about you.”“And Taylor, right? We met him!”“You did?” Alex didn’t know why he was surprised.“We did! He was in the cell next to ours.”“I was just on my way to see him. Do you know how he is?”“I’m not sure.”“Eight!” the handler was getting impatient.“Sorry. I’ll come see you later,” Joey promised before heading back to the line.Alex did a double take when he saw the look he was getting from the handler, but just as soon they were gone.“Far out,” Alex scratched his head as he tried to remember the way to Taylor’s room.By the time he found it a nurse was just leaving. She asked him for his ID which he happily provided, and with a curious look watched him as he went in.“Hi,” he got Taylor’s attention just as he was sitting himself up on the bed, “sorry to intrude.”“No it’s fine,” Taylor insisted, “come on in.”Alex debated closing the door behind him but opted not to. He made his way to the chair beside the bed and awkwardly took a seat.“This doesn’t have to be weird,” Taylor assured, “I know you’re good friends with Zac.”“I don’t have to stay,” Alex insisted, “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Everyone’s been really worried, and between Zac and your Dad I mean I was pretty worried too.”“My Dad?” Taylor caught.“Yeah I’ve been working with him for a while now,” Alex crossed his legs and held his knee, “basically since your tracer went dark because I saw you were headed for the coast but we weren’t able to catch you in time before you know – you left the States.”“You’ve been working on this?” Taylor was surprised.“Of course. I was helping out your Dad whenever I could. He didn’t really need much help but I was trying to help, and I was keeping Zac in the loop.”“What was my Dad doing?”“I’m not sure, but he spent a lot of time at the Pentagon and-““The Pentagon?”“-spent, yeah, and spent a lot of time liaising with the military on the ground. But I was never privy to that information I just knew that something was happening. I knew that that something was important, and that I was ready to help whenever.”“It’s appreciated,” Taylor was a little taken aback, “I mean I guessed that people were looking I just didn’t figure it would be so close to home.”Alex just shrugged, not sure of where to take that.“Is Morris here?” Taylor took the moment of silence to ask.“He was flying in this afternoon I think,” Alex tried to remember, “he wasn’t supposed to be far behind me.”“Are you staying here?”“Yeah I think we’ve moved for good. Is there something I can do for you?”“I know they won’t let me contact my family. No outside contact and all that,” Taylor kept his eye on the door, “but if you could at least keep me updated on Zac, I don’t know how long I’m going to be here.”“I can try and find out,” Alex offered, “but Morris will probably get to you first. I can definitely keep you in the know with Zac. As for the other thing, I’ll see what I can do.”“What do you mean?” Taylor frowned.“What?” Alex was confused, “I’ve been keeping in contact with Carey and he’s filling me in on what I can’t find out through the hospital itself.”“I can’t begin to understand how that works,” Taylor admitted, “but what ‘other thing’?”“Oh, the talking to family thing.”Taylor was about to jump on that when movement in the doorway caught his eye. He froze when he looked over to see Morris standing there.“I don’t mean to interrupt,” he looked between them as he came into the room, making Alex jump in his seat, “but I do need to speak with Mr Hanson.”“Sure,” Alex jumped up right away, “I’ll talk to you later?”“I hope so,” Taylor gave him a nod.“Great,” Alex gave him a smile before leaving the room.He wasn’t sure if Isaac were still around, but he knew that he had to go and finish setting up his room. He wasn’t about to let anyone else do it and do it wrong.

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“How long am I going to be here?” was the first thing Taylor got out.“It will probably be a while, so I’d advise you to settle in,” Morris had made sure to close the door behind Alex before returning to Taylor’s bedside.“Why? Why can’t I go home like Carey did?” Taylor frowned.“Because we have a bit of a special situation here,” Morris sighed as he took a seat, “due to your being in the public eye, the man you know as your father decided that someone should stand in for you while they waited for your return. We had the resources to spare and we managed to find someone to fit your circumstances.”“You replaced me.”“Temporarily. However, now that we’re aware of your current situation,” Morris indicated his legs, “it’s become apparent that we can’t just ‘slot you back into your life’ so to speak. Somehow your brothers have created a little media stir-““I’m aware,” Taylor was evidently not happy about it.“Yes. Well. With your family well and truly in the public eye for now and knowing that your bones will take not quite six weeks to heal, we can’t allow you to arouse suspicion by suddenly appearing in a wheelchair.”“Great,” Taylor muttered, “so you’re keeping me here until my legs heal? Didn’t they cancel the tour anyway?”“You will need similar rehabilitation to what Mr Miller had, which we will be able to provide here for you once the plasters come off,” Morris confirmed, “so like I said, I’d advise you to ‘settle in’.”“So I’m back to being a prisoner,” Taylor decided.“Not at all. You need to heal, and we’re happy to have you here.”“But I can’t leave.”“Not for now, no.”“Can I call someone?”“No.”“Then what’s the difference?” Taylor shook his head.Morris sighed again and smiled. It wasn’t a reassuring smile. He was getting annoyed.“Your brother will be going home today,” he changed the subject making Taylor close his eyes for a second, “I’ve been told your father will escort him. In the meantime you have the nurses and you will undoubtedly have Mr Bell around you. I’ve talked to the nurses and they will be setting your legs in the next few days. They estimate the healing process will take about a month. Then if our calculations using Mr Miller’s record are correct it will most likely take you around three weeks to get up on your feet with another month to get you walking properly.”Taylor had been about to object until he heard the last part. He hadn’t paid all that much attention to the time it had taken Carey in rehab, he’d just known it had been a while.“I’ll leave you to it,” Morris stood from his seat.“How long until I can use a wheelchair?” Taylor kept his eyes away.“We’ll talk to the nurse in a few days,” Morris assured, “good day.”Taylor again watched him leave, hoping that Isaac would appear again right away. But it didn’t happen.With a groan he lay back onto the bed. He’d stared at the ceiling in Russia for so long he was at least glad to have a different ceiling to stare at.“So I have a semi-random question to ask,” Isaac took the jacket Walker handed him as they were getting ready to leave.“I spoke to the hospital and Zac will be in for a few more days,” Walker offered.“That’s great, but that’s not it. I was actually wondering if Keandre was here. I haven’t talked to him since before the whole… you know, this place blowing up and killing everybody incident.”“He’s not here,” Walker led him out of the room, “but they do plan to transfer him so I guess he’ll be here soon.”“Damn,” Isaac pulled a face.He didn’t say anything else until they made it to Taylor’s room and he headed inside without knocking.“Hey,” Taylor sat up the moment he saw them.“Hey we’re just heading out, anything you need before we go?” Isaac offered.“Yeah. Someone to stay here,” Taylor’s brow furrowed, “Morris said I could be here for more than two months. I can’t not talk to anyone for that long! I’ve already been away from the kids for way too long.”“I know we’ve said it before, but just try to think about it like being on tour,” Isaac shrugged, “I don’t know what else we can do. Our hands are – figuratively – tied.”“For now. What about tomorrow?” Taylor lowered his voice, “you know as well as I do what these people are like. Are you really going to leave me here?”“Don’t put that on me Tay,” Isaac frowned, “it’s not like I can just carry you out of here on my back.”“No, you couldn’t,” Taylor agreed before looking up as Walker joined them, “Dad you’d tell me if Jesse were still alive, right?”“What? Where did that come from?!” Isaac took a step back.“I could swear I saw him on the plane ride back.”“You were unconscious the whole flight,” Walker amended, “they were keeping you under sedation in order to keep your blood pressure as low as possible. You must have dreamt it.”“No I woke up,” Taylor insisted, “and Blake was there, and they had to put me under again and I didn’t want to go.”“I didn’t hear of anything like that,” Walker shook his head, “you must have been dreaming.”“I mean you can have some weird drug-induced dreams for sure,” Isaac agreed.“Was Blake there?” Taylor pressed, “was he part of the rescue mission?”“He was.”“How would I know that if I didn’t wake up?”“He’s got a point,” now Isaac was confused, “could it have been another clone?”“How many of them are out there? Where did you find one to replace me?”“Jackson’s about ten years younger,” Isaac looked between them, “they obviously didn’t stop making clones in the 80’s.”“No, they didn’t,” Walker admitted.“So how many are there?” Taylor asked, “how many more did they make?”“This is a conversation for another time,” Walker insisted, “if we get too far into it your brother and I will miss our flight.”“That’s not fair!” Taylor insisted, “I should know how many people are running around out there wearing my face!”“I didn’t say we weren’t going to talk about it I just said this wasn’t the time. We’ll talk when you get home.”“If I ever get home at this rate,” Taylor started scratching his arm pacifyingly.“There will be hell to pay if you don’t and these guys know that by now,” Isaac tried to reassure him.“We need to go,” Walker put a hand on his shoulder.“We’ll keep in contact with Alex,” Isaac promised, “I’ll check in as often as I can.”“Sure.”“Just focus on your healing,” Walker added.“That’s all I’ve been doing.”He shook hands with Isaac before watching them leave. He was already sick of watching people leave.“I want to leave Tulsa.”Emma looked up in surprise. Carey was staring at her from across the counter, purposely having waited for River to leave the room.“I don’t like what’s happening here,” he went on right away, “I don’t think this is a good place for the kids right now, and I just want to be on home ground where we can concentrate.”“Concentrate on what?” Emma frowned.“Everything. What part we want to play in this Hanson game. How to keep Mark in our lives. You know, our problems. Miller problems. Not Hanson problems.”“You keep talking about Hanson problems as if they’re no longer our problems,” Emma pointed out.“You know what I mean. I just want to get back to reality. Back to a stable home environment.”Emma closed the book she’d been reading with a sigh.“I think the stable home environment ship has well and truly sailed.”“But if we went back home-““We’d what? Lock ourselves in our house and never go anywhere? How long until the paparazzi find Mark?”“They won’t be looking for us in LA,” Carey frowned.“You are not that stupid,” Emma insisted, “I did not marry a man that stupid. You literally told the tabloids we were from LA.”“You want to stay in Tulsa?” Carey’s frown only deepened, “why? For how long?”“Well, I made a few calls and there’s a job going at the Tulsa Library in the city, and another one over at Brookside-““Jobs?” Carey’s brow rose, “when were you going to tell me you were looking at jobs here?”“I’m telling you now. I didn’t think it would be that huge of a deal.”“You don’t think the prospect of moving here is a big deal? Em we can’t live in the south, they’re crazy.”“Care it’s the Midwest.”“It’s my nightmare,” Carey emphasized, “they’re crazy religious, they’re racist, they don’t believe in gun control, and I didn’t take biology classes for six years so that I could help Zac cut up his latest hunt.”“Care everywhere is racist. LA is racist,” Emma rolled her eyes.“There is no logical reason to move here. What are we supposed to do with our lives if we’re living in the shadows of these people?”“We’re going to be in their shadow no matter where we go,” Emma hit back, “we always have been. We could never go anywhere or do anything without making sure that Taylor Hanson wasn’t going to be there first. That was all you.”“Because I didn’t want this to happen,” Carey waved an arm, “I didn’t want the furore.”“Well you’ve got it, and now we have to deal with it,” Emma scorned, “and as far as I’m concerned, I have never felt more supported than when I’ve been here. You know as well as I do that we don’t have a great support network in LA, mostly just because you refuse to let people into our lives-““That’s not true,” Carey shook his head.“It is true. You isolated us to the point where even our house is a fortress.”“To protect us!” Carey was getting exasperated, “and I know the Russians still got in, but that just tells me we need more. We need more protection, not less.”“So what were you saying about going back to our lives?”“This is not our life, we don’t belong here,” Carey leant over the counter again, “I know we’ve been playing the game for a while now but we aren’t Hansons. Not really.”“Are you leaving us?”Their eyes shot to the doorway where Penny had appeared, Viggo close behind her. They had no idea how long they’d been there.“We’re talking about it,” Carey admitted outright.“Not yet,” Emma insisted, “is Ellie awake?”“She’s been awake awhile.”Emma stood from her seat, giving Carey one last pointed look.“We need to talk about this,” he insisted.“Talk to yourself. I’m going to parent our children.”“That’s not fair.”She left the room regardless, leaving him with Penny and Viggo. Not knowing what to say to them left an awkward silence before the kids finally followed Emma.“Great,” he muttered under his breath.“You go ahead, I actually have another flight to catch,” Walker stopped before walking into the baggage area.“Another flight? Are you serious?” Isaac turned on him.“I have a job to do,” he sighed, “we might not like it, but I am contracted to these people for a very long time. I need to do what they want me to do, and go where they want me to go.”“But now? You can’t even come and see the kids for five seconds?”“Will they be in the car?”“I don’t know,” Isaac shrugged, “is it a school day? Nicole was picking us up.”“It’s Saturday,” Walker didn’t seem fazed.“So that’s a maybe,” Isaac scratched his head, “you know what? If you’re going to force yourself to want to see the kids, I’d rather you didn’t.”“Don’t do that.”“I have had a very rough week,” Isaac said between his teeth, “I am just about at the end of my rope. I can’t play anymore. I need to go home, be with my family, and sleep.”Without giving his father a chance to rebut, Isaac walked out without looking back.Walker waited until he was out of sight before pulling out his smartphone. He checked down the list of locations he’d been sent, before selecting the first one and enlarging the attached photo. It was a still from a black and white CCTV video at a gas station somewhere in southern Idaho. Apart from the spikey hair, the man held an uncanny resemblance to Taylor.Taylor looked up when his door opened, seeing Alex backing awkwardly into the room. He made sure no one else was in there before closing the door behind himself.“Is anyone due?” he asked, voice so low Taylor barely heard it.“What do you mean?” Taylor was confused.“Is anyone coming to check on you anytime soon?” Alex moved over to the window.“Not that I know of. What’s under your shirt?” Taylor was frowning.Alex closed the blinds and checked that no one could see around them before he made his way to the bed. With one last check over his shoulder he pulled a MacBook Air from under his shirt and set it in Taylor’s lap.“What’s this?” Taylor sat himself up properly as Alex opened it.His eyes widened when Zac’s face came on screen.“Taylor?” he sounded unsure at first, not knowing if it was working.“Yeah I’m here! Where are you?” he grabbed the laptop to position it just right.“Still in the hospital,” Zac was moving his phone around to show Taylor the room, “but I should be leaving tomorrow so… not for much longer.”“What actually happened? I heard you got shot and that it was serious but-“Alex backed away from the bed, assuming they’d want some privacy. He went to the window instead to make sure no one was going to walk in on them.

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*Ten Weeks Later*“I’m a bush!”“The circle is closing, you can’t be a bush for long.”“No I’m inside the circle, I’m fine. I can be a bush as long as I want to be.”“Until the circle moves again and it’s probably going north.”“There’s a guy on the ridge.”“What? Where?”“Up on the hill to your right. Going into that house.”“That bastard.”“We already cleaned it out so he won’t be in there long. I’ll shoot him when he comes out.”“He’s already out.”“What?”“He’s heading back up the hill! Shoot him!”“Why aren’t you shooting him?!”“You said you were going to and you needed a higher kill count!”“Never mind,” Zac sighed, “he’s gone.”Alex looked up from his screen when he heard footsteps in the hallway. People had rarely passed his quarters in Nevada so he still wasn’t quite used to the idea of other people being around. When he recognized Morris as one of the voices however, he paid more attention.“Hey Zac? I’ll be back in a second.”“Don’t you dare! The circle’s closing again! We need to move!”Alex dropped his headset regardless and didn’t bother exiting the game. By the time he made it to the door the voices had turned a corner and he carefully snuck up to them just in case they were talking about something sensitive. “I’ve been questioning that one for some time,” he heard Morris say, seeming to have stopped just around the corner, “I know you never approved of his friendship with Damien.”“It never should have happened,” a deep voice came back, “he didn’t need a mentor.”“I know. I was taken with the psychological component of the test. I didn’t expect them to grow so close.”“We need to fix the problem before it spreads among the G series. I want you to terminate that phase of the experiment.”“Are you sure? Can we not just isolate the subject and continue to observe?”“I think we’ve had enough problems with these experiments, don’t you? This subject has been both emotionally and psychologically compromised by letting him stray from the project. He is not where we need him to be in this phase. The chance for correction prior to puberty has passed.”He heard Morris sigh.“You’re right, of course,” he seemed reluctant, “I admit that I grew fond of he and Damien and their bond. It was… intriguing to watch.”“It may have worked if Damien had lived. Terminate. Get on with training the other five.”He heard the second man walk away, leaving Morris behind. He wanted to step out and ask him something but he was frozen on the spot.Were they talking about killing Joey?Morris walking away snapped him out of it and he quietly hurried back to his room.He ignored Zac’s faint voice coming from his headset calling him back and logged in to the DIGER intranet. Through a back door he got in to where he knew they kept the details on both the C and G series – along with E, F and H. The latest note in the folder was something from Jackson about leaving for Chicago the next day.He sat and stared at the screen to see if it would update itself. A few minutes went by with nothing happening before someone else walking by the room made him sit back and realize the game with Zac was still connected.“Shit,” he quickly picked up the headset, “are you still there?”“Yeah, are you okay?”“I’m fine. I’m just… I don’t know I heard something and I don’t know if I heard what I thought I heard but if I did hear what I think I heard then holy shit I gotta do something and I don’t know-““Alex slow down! What happened? What did you hear?”Alex froze again. He knew he’d made these lines as secure as he knew how. He knew he’d swept the room for bugs and already disabled the one he’d found. But he hadn’t been keeping up with his hacker friends around the world so much lately so what if there was some kind of new technology he hadn’t found yet? What if the labs were listening?“Alex?”“Sorry,” he frowned, “I have to go.”“Okay.”He disconnected the game and pulled his headset off again. By the time he looked back at the computer, there had been an update.The termination of G8 was scheduled three days from now.“Careful! Careful,” Natalie was quickly moving things out of the way as Taylor came through on his crutches.“I just need to sit down,” he insisted.She closed the front door behind them before leading the way through to the dining table and pulling out a seat. Taylor aimed for it right away, letting out a breath as he collapsed into it.“I thought you’d be walking easier by now, it’s been so long,” she was frowning.“So did I.”“Coffee?”“I’d love some coffee.”“Great. We need to talk.”“What does that mean?” Taylor frowned as he watched her head for the coffeemaker.“It’s nothing bad. Not really. We just have some things to catch up on.”“Did something happen with Jackson?”“In what way?” she demanded, turning back.“I don’t know. Ike said he was kind of a dick,” Taylor shrugged.“I barely ever saw him,” Natalie continued making the coffee, “he came over once to bring Carey’s car back from the studio and that was it.”“So what is it?”Natalie opted to finish what she was doing first, bringing his coffee to the table before taking a seat beside him.“The longer you leave it the worse it looks,” Taylor reached for the mug and took a moment to savour the smell.“I’m pregnant.”The mug never made it to his lips. He set it down and locked eyes with her.“Nearly five months now. We’re due in December.”“I’m not ready for this.”“Ready or not, this is happening,” Natalie frowned, “it’s not like we can delay it.”Taylor sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.“Who else knows?”“Isaac and Zac. The kids. Avery found out while she was here, and I guess Kate and Nikki would know, but I tried to keep it quiet until you got back.”She bit her lip.“I didn’t know what I was going to do if you didn’t come back.”He quickly reached over to take her hand, knowing that she was getting upset.“It’s not that I’m not happy,” he insisted.“Have you told your face?”“I’ve just got a lot going on, upstairs, right now. It’s going to take time to get back in the swing of things.”“Don’t kid yourself Taylor, you weren’t back before you were taken,” her voice lowered.“I know, and I’m sorry. I just don’t see how it’s going to get any easier in the short term.”Natalie let go of his hand but he didn’t take his eyes away from her.“How were you sleeping at the lab?” she asked him.He hesitated, knowing he couldn’t lie to her.“When I could sleep…” he admitted, “worse than before.”“Did they offer for you to talk to anyone?”“How would it help?” Taylor immediately got defensive, “how would reliving nightmare after nightmare-““I don’t know!” Natalie exclaimed, “but you need to do something instead of just hoping it will all magically go away on its own!”They heard the front door and Natalie quickly rubbed at her eyes.“That’ll be Ezra,” she said softly.“We’ll work on this,” he reached over for her hand again and she reluctantly relented, “I don’t know how right now but we’ll do something.”She didn’t reply.“Am I interrupting something?” Ezra’s voice came from the doorway, and Taylor looked up to see him in his rowing gear.“Of course not, come here and hug me!”“Do I have to?”“Yes. You do. Come here.”Ezra faked a grumble but then raced forward into his father’s arms.“Come on,” Alex winced as he hit yet another virtual roadblock.There didn’t seem to be any way in to Keandre’s files. He’d narrowed down what part of the building they had moved him to, and knowing that it was close to where they’d kept Evan all those years had made Alex all that more persistent in trying to see him. Morris had denied another request soon after they had arrived, and yet another after Taylor had been sent home.There was another avenue he could try, but he already doubted that it would work. It hadn’t worked so well the last time he’d tried. But an attempt would at least give him something to focus on at this point. He double-checked where the G series were being kept and that his pass gave him access to that level. Once he’d confirmed it he quickly slipped some shoes on, grabbed his pass, and headed out of his room.He passed two security guards on the way down to Joey’s level but when he reached the cells of the G series he was surprised. They were very different to the ones his own series had been kept in. Completely transparent and not a locked door in sight. “Alex?” the clone in the center on the right stood from his bed.“Joey?” Alex was hopeful.The youngster came out of his cell with barely a glance at the other clones. None of them cared to pay attention. “What’s up?” Joey folded his arms.“Uh…” Alex eyed the other clones before lowering his voice, “I was hoping you could help me with something.”“Sure. What is it?”“Are you allowed to leave?” Alex wasn’t sure.“Yeah, why?”Alex led the way out and Joey followed close behind. Once there was a door between them and the other five G series Alex started to fidget.“Is something wrong?” Joey looked worried.“Maybe,” Alex took a quick look either way down the corridor and checked for the nearest security cameras, “do you think you could get me in to see Keandre?”“Keandre’s here?” Joey seemed cautious.“I think he’s down where Evan used to be.”“Oh. No,” Joey shook his head and took a step back.“No this is different!” Alex quickly defended, “it’s Keandre. We know him. I don’t know why he’s there, but it’s like Morris has been trying to keep me away from him ever since the incident here.”“I wonder why,” Joey’s brow rose, “last time I saw that dude he had blood all over him.”“Evan’s blood,” Alex insisted, “Keandre saved us.”Joey eyed him at that, not looking convinced. “Don’t let his inability to communicate properly make you judge him. He’s not a bad guy,” Alex pleaded.“I’m not,” Joey went on the defence, “I’m just saying. Maybe they think he’s the next Evan. Maybe it’s safer if he stays down there.”“Then why wouldn’t they tell me that?” Alex frowned.“I don’t know.”They fell into awkward silence as they heard footsteps, waiting for the doctor to pass them and make it out of earshot.“Please,” Alex asked softly, “I don’t know what else to do. I’ve been trying for so long.”“What if something goes wrong?”“I will take full responsibility I swear.”Alex was finding it hard enough not to spill what he knew about Joey’s situation. But he didn’t know what he could do for him yet and was hoping that Keandre might give him some direction.“Okay,” Joey relented.“Yeah?” now Alex wasn’t sure.“Yes. Follow me.”Joey took a deep breath before leading him away. Alex followed, again keeping an eye on the security camera placement. There weren’t many down here to begin with.He only partially remembered the way down to Evan’s level and he was expecting resistance from any security guards they might come across. Surprisingly there were still barely any personnel around and Joey managed to easily traverse the digital scanners that seemed to take security’s place.“Any idea where Morris is today?” Alex thought to ask as he knew they were getting closer.He felt like he’d been so close the last time before running into him.“We haven’t seen him in a long time. He doesn’t visit us much,” Joey placed his palm against a screen to gain access to another door, “he’s not so much involved in our series.”Alex followed him through when the door opened and he instantly felt the hairs on his neck stand on end. He recognized this corridor. Evan’s room had been at the end.It was definitely the same room he’d tracked Keandre to.With no other security in sight Joey led the way down, pausing in front of the last security screen.“This is it,” he said to himself.“Just remember, it’s not Evan on the other side this time,” Alex folded his arms.Joey took a deep breath, and quickly placed his palm on the screen before he could change his mind.It didn’t work.“Uh oh.”“What is it?” Alex stepped closer with a frown.“It’s not letting me in,” Joey tried again but the screen continued coming up red.“Wait,” Alex stopped him trying a third time, “it might alert security if you try too many times.”“You know who could probably get through?” Joey pulled a face, “Damien.”“Well Damien’s not going to-“Alex cut himself off suddenly. He’d had an idea.“What?” Joey was clueless.“If Damien could get through,” Alex gently pushed him aside, “then maybe…”He placed his own palm against the screen. It immediately came up green.“It worked!” his eyes lit up.“Ah… Alex?” Joey was pointing at the screen as Alex went to open the door.He was indicating the confirmation screen which had come up with a file photo and pass information. At first Alex didn’t see anything odd until he realized Joey was indicating the name.“Why would Jesse have clearance here?” Alex frowned.“Wasn’t he one of the ones who died here with Damien?” Joey was back to looking worried.“He was,” Alex confirmed, “I don’t know why he’d-“At the sound of a door opening further down the corridor Joey quickly shoved Alex through the door and he didn’t get a chance to finish his thought. Once inside the room Alex immediately had flashbacks to being there with Evan. Not much in the room had changed. The cage setup was still the same and there were limited electronics. There seemed to be more medical supplies, including oxygen tanks and sterilization equipment. Movement from the cell’s bed quickly caught his eye.“Keandre?” he quickly made his way over.“Who are you?” Keandre was frowning, trying to figure it out himself.“Alex,” he pulled his palm pilot from the pocket of his pants and quickly worked to find the translator.“Alex?” Keandre looked between them, “you left me.”“No! No,” Alex insisted, “I have been trying to get to you since we got here! Why are they keeping you down here?!”“I not know enough English,” Keandre was visibly struggling with what Alex had said.“Alex,” Joey tapped him on the arm, “I think they’re doing bio experiments on him. They did them to Evan too.”Alex paused what he’d been doing and stepped to the side to take a closer look. He’d seen a mark on Keandre’s shoulder but it was only once he paid full attention that he realized what it must have been. The result of a large skin sample being taken. He also now saw the medical wrist cuff holding Keandre’s right hand chained to the bed.“They’re taking your skin?” his breath left his throat.“Among other things probably,” Joey was only getting more uncomfortable with every passing second.“We need to get him out of here.”“Oh. Wait. No,” Joey took a stand, “we can’t do that. We can’t do that!”“Joey they’re going to kill you!” Alex blurted, his heart already racing.“…What?”“The G series files say they’re terminating G8 in two days’ time. I overheard Morris talking to someone about you. They said you were emotionally compromised.”“Why, because I actually give a shit that people are getting hurt?!” Joey fired up, “they want to terminate me because I care?!”“That’s what it sounded like,” Alex looked back at Keandre, “I was hoping Keandre could help us figure something out, but now… I need to get you both out of here. Somehow.”“They won’t let us walk.”“I know.”“What is happening?” Keandre’s eyes were darting between them.Alex got back to the translator, holding it to his chin as he spoke.“We want to get you out of here.”“Nous voulons vous sortir d'ici.“Keandre jumped from the bed, taking a moment to steady himself. The chain on his wrist didn’t let him take more than two steps and it kept him well away from the bars.“I want out,” he agreed, a hopeful look in his eyes, “I want help. Please.”Alex stopped to take a deep breath, his eyes locked with Keandre’s.“I’m doing it. I’m going to get you out,” he decided.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

He fell to his hands and knees already covered in sweat. Lights were flashing behind his eyes and it felt as though his heart were about to give out.“У пингвинов колени!” a soldier yelled over him as his rifle armed.“We weren’t doing anything!” his throat hurt with yelling, “just let us go!”“TAYLOR!” he heard a yell from across the field, “Taylor! WAKE UP!”He shot up in bed, arms flailing wildly in an attempt to grab something solid. One of them connected with Natalie’s shoulder.“Tay! Tay calm down! Please calm down!” she pleaded as he sat up, trying to get his eyes to focus.It took him a moment to catch his breath and work out where he was. As soon as he came to his senses his eyes shot to his wife.“Oh my God Nat are you okay?!” he quickly reached over to where she was cradling her shoulder.“I’m fine, you didn’t mean it,” she insisted, wincing as he touched it.“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry!”“Taylor please, just stop.”He sat back when she swatted his hands away, sitting over a little as she waited for the pain to die down. He stared at her for a moment before moving the bedsheets aside.“Where are you going?” she looked across, knowing it would be hard for him.“I don’t know. I can sleep on the couch maybe.”“Tay don’t,” she reached over to put a hand on his arm, “we both know we aren’t going back to sleep anyway.”He paused, not having figured out exactly how to get there yet anyhow.“Did something happen at the lab that you want to talk about?” she offered, hoping his outburst hadn’t woken any of the kids.“No,” Taylor shook his head.“You don’t have to blow it off right away, I’m not giving you a deadline.”“Nothing happened at the lab,” Taylor insisted, “I just didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be here.”“And what about Russia?”Taylor was caught off guard, not expecting her to ask.“Is there something you need to say about-““I don’t want to talk about it,” Taylor was blunt, keeping his eyes away from her.“But maybe this is the problem. You won’t talk. I really, really think you need to.”“I’m not ready.”“You won’t even talk to me about the first time the labs took you, and how long ago was that?”“It doesn’t matter.”“But if you can’t talk about it now, then-““Nat please stop,” he shook his head, “I can’t do this now. I can’t.”“Then when?”Taylor closed his eyes and took another deep breath. His head was spinning. It had taken him long enough to fall asleep in the first place and now he couldn’t even concentrate enough on a decision between leaving the room or not.“Tay?” Nat reached for his arm but he leant forward out of her reach.He used the movement to reach for a walking cane he’d left by the bedside.“I need some air,” he said softly as he forced himself to his feet.Natalie didn’t find the words to object before he’d left the room without looking back. He made his way toward the front door with the aim of sitting on the porch for a while, but he stopped when his hand touched the door handle. He pictured being out there in the dark, talking to Jesse. The shadows moving in the dark. The Russian soldier appearing out of nowhere with a gun in his hand.He recoiled from the door and stopped to close his eyes.“Come on. Pull yourself together,” he muttered to himself.He headed for the back door instead. He knew this was where the kids had had to face the soldiers, but at least he hadn’t been here when it had happened. He hated that he was even a little thankful for that. He should have been here to protect them.He sighed once he was out in the cold night air, the breeze hitting his face like tiny icicles. He wanted to spend as much time outside as he could. He almost wished he could drive again so that he could just get in the car and go. Find an open road somewhere, pull over, and stare at the stars.He wanted to do all the things he’d dreamed of while in that cell unable to move.He was pulled from the thought by getting a notification on his phone. He wiped at his eyes before checking his email, seeing something forwarded to him by Isaac. He checked the time – close to 3am – and frowned as he called his brother.“Sorry if I woke you.”“You didn’t,” Taylor kept his voice down, “but why are you awake?”“Trouble sleeping.”“Seems to be going around,” Taylor sighed to himself.“Everything okay there?”“Not really,” Taylor admitted, “but I can’t… ah… I didn’t look at the email, what was it?”Isaac paused, digesting the change of subject.“It was an invitation from that morning show in LA… Good Day LA I think?” he sounded as tired as he felt, “they’re inviting us to come on the show and talk about Carey. I mean they invited him too, they invited us all to come on the show and… talk about Carey. It could be worth a lot of money.”“Does Carey know about this?”“No, but… would we even consider it?”Taylor looked over his shoulder, back toward the house. There were no lights on so Natalie hadn’t followed him and none of the kids had woken up.“Maybe,” he relented, “I know I just got back, but maybe some time away wouldn’t be a bad thing.”“We’re going to come back to the whole ‘are you okay?’ thing, just so you know.”“And besides, I haven’t had a chance to talk to Carey yet,” Taylor ignored him, “he left before I got here. So any time I can get in LA to just sit and talk with him would probably be a good thing.”“Well I know he isn’t happy with me or Zac right now…”“Zac told me everything.”“What? When?”“It doesn’t matter. The point is we need to get Carey onside before the media circus closes in again.”“…Okay. I’m going to bed. Unless you want to talk about anything other than this.”“How soon did they want us in LA?”“It’s an open invitation.”“So we’ll talk to Zac and Carey tomorrow?”“I guess?”Taylor smirked a little, hearing his brother going downhill fast.“Go to bed Ike.”“Okay. Good night Tay.”Taylor ended the call and looked out across the yard again. At least this would give him something to focus on for now.Mark pulled the roller door down on his one car garage and after locking it up stooped to collect the three beer bottles he’d left aside while he’d worked. It was as he was walking them down to the trash that he saw the patrol car slowly come to a halt at the end of the driveway, blocking it.“Great,” he muttered under his breath, throwing the bottles in the can as Mike got out of the car.“Miller,” he gave him a nod as he walked around the hood.“What do you want, Mike?” Mark leant against the fence to ask.He knew it was close to midnight and Mike hadn’t done a night patrol in years. He must have been bored out of his brain.“We haven’t really talked in a while. I mean really talked,” Mike seemed oddly nervous as he got closer, “what do you say we catch up?”“I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t rather do,” Mark scorned with a fake smile.“Look, I wanted to make this easy on you,” Mike sighed, “but it’s about your Dad.”“What about him?” Mark frowned, standing up straight.“He took a turn a few hours ago. I just happened to be driving by when the ambulance came-““What the fuck happened?!” Mark was already digging in his pocket for his bike keys.“I’ll drive you,” Mike insisted, “get in the back.”Mark took deep breaths as he followed Mike to the patrol car. Mike opened the back door to let him in before getting in the front to drive away. Mark pulled out his cell phone on the way and just stared at it, debating whether or not to call Carey.No. He didn’t know what had happened yet. Carey wouldn’t bother coming.“So this thing with the Hanson…” Mike glanced in the rear view mirror as Mark dropped his phone into his lap, “crazy, huh? How come you didn’t get a mention?”“I’m not here to talk about that,” Mark kept his gaze out the window, trying to focus on the passing shadows.“’Course not. But we got a ways to go so…”“Can we just not talk? At all? I’m worried about my Dad.”“Sure, sure.”Mark was surprised he backed down so easily, but wasn’t going to question it. Why hadn’t the home called him to say his Dad had been transferred to hospital? Did he not update his phone number when he got a new one? He was sure he had.He couldn’t help but frown when they turned a corner and he recognized some of the buildings.“Where are we going?”“To the hospital. It’s a shortcut.”“In the complete opposite direction?”“How about I ask the questions tonight, huh?”“You can’t keep arresting me for no fucking reason!” Mark was incredulous, “is there even anything wrong with my Dad?!”Mike didn’t reply. Mark quickly went through the contacts on his phone, trying to find Carey’s number. Mike saw what he was doing in the mirror and immediately pulled the car over. Mark found the number and dialled, trying with his other hand to open the car door.“Come on Care, pick up!”The next thing he knew, darts had hit him in the chest. Mark dropped the phone as the Taser did its work, his heart racing as Mike finally let go of the trigger and got out of the car. He watched helplessly as Mike came to his door and took a moment to find the phone before taking it back into the front with him.“None of that,” he said decidedly as he pulled the car out again.It took some time for Mark to get his breath back, and as soon as he could control his faculties again he went back to trying to open the door or break the window. The shock had made him too weak.Mike drove them into an industrial area that Mark knew pretty well. As a teen he’d found odd jobs around the area, but due to growing gang activity over the past decade it had mostly been left abandoned. He pulled the car into one of the larger warehouses and came to rest on oil covered concrete. It was still dark outside but Mark could hear a radio playing somewhere.“What are we doing here?” Mark was trying to see if anything stood out.Without a word Mike got out of the car, taking the Taser with him. Mark kept his eye on him as he came to the door, opening it before switching on his flashlight and shining it in Mark’s eyes.“Out.”“And then what?” Mark demanded, “what are we doing here?!”Mike moved the Taser so that Mark could see it in the beam of the flashlight.“Get out, or I drag you out.”Mark winced, but did as he was told. Once he’d shut the door behind him Mike set the flashlight beam on a wire cage a few feet away. Some gas bottles to the left had obviously come out of it as two more full cages sat to the right.“You’re not-““Get in,” Mike demanded, “or get Tasered again.”“Why?” Mark scowled, “what are you gonna do, leave me here to rot?!”“Let’s just say I got plans,” Mike wasn’t forthcoming, “get the fuck in the cage.”Walker stepped up and knocked deliberately on the red wooden door. There were two cars in the driveway along with a motorcycle, and he could hear a television on inside. Someone was definitely home.The television switched off two seconds later and he heard footsteps on the floorboards. A curtain moved by the door before he heard multiple locks being undone and the door opened enough for an eye to look through.“Can I help you?” a gruff voice didn’t sound happy at being disturbed.“I hope so. I’m with the CDC-““Wait. It’s you?”Walker paused, not having been sure until that moment.“Dale. I go by Walker Hanson of late,” he introduced himself, “I need to talk to you and Karen about Bradley.”The door closed. Walker waited as a few moments of silence passed before it opened again, this time entirely.“Come on in,” the older man still didn’t look happy.Walker offered him a smile before stepping inside. The door was securely locked behind him. He was led into a dusty living room with noticeably little personal effects. There were no photos on the mantle, no trophies, not even personalized cushions anywhere.“Where’s Karen?” Walker asked as he took a seat.“Taking a shower.”They sat in silence for a long, awkward moment. Walker didn’t hear any water running.“I need to talk to you about Bradley,” Walker broke it, “a lot has changed in the last few years-““Bradley’s dead,” Dale stared him in the eye with a dead expression.Walker hesitated, trying to judge his sincerity.“When?”“He was 12. It was a car accident. Karen barely survived. I wasn’t there.”“Hm.”“How did you find us?”“See, that’s the thing…” Walker leant to the side as he pulled out his cell phone, “I was sent to follow up a lead. Recorded CCTV footage from a gas station not far from here.”He brought up the photo he’d been sent and leant forward to show it to him.“Imagine my non-surprise when I did a little research and found that you two lived nearby.”“That could be anyone,” Dale went on the defence, “there were so many of them, and you helped so many of us…”“I thought you’d say that,” Walker took the phone back.“You said you were sent,” Dale’s eyes narrowed, “by who?”“By DIGER.”Dale’s eyes seemed to glaze over and he shortly stood from his seat.“I appreciate everything you did for us, all those years ago,” he was curt, “but I need you to leave.”Walker nodded before standing also. He looked Dale over, again judging his body language.“I’m sorry for your loss. Pass my condolences to Karen,” he offered another smile, “I’ll see myself out.”He found his way to the door, Dale right behind him. At least three of the six bolts on the door had to be unlocked to let him out. Dale closed the door abruptly behind him before starting to secure all six locks once again.“Is he gone?” a quiet voice came from behind him.Dale checked through the window, watching as Walker made his way back to his car.“Almost.”He waited until the car had driven away before turning back to his son.“That was too close,” he put a hand on Bradley’s shoulder, “pack your things, we’re leaving tonight.”“To go where?” Bradley demanded, “how many more times do we have to do this? Why can’t we just-““Do you want to die in a lab or do you want to survive?” Dale scorned, “pack your shit, and you’re leaving the bike behind. It’s caused us too much trouble already.”He left his side to go down the hall and pack his own things, Bradley left to stare after him. With a scowl he hit the wall with the heel of his hand before following him to do the same.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Alex counted out his breaths as he stared himself down in the mirror. “You are made of the same DNA as Mark. The same DNA as Jesse,” he said aloud, “you can do this. It’s in you somewhere.”He took another deep breath and tried to suppress the negativity already boiling to the surface. Once again, he was having to leave everything behind. His consoles, his computer, this new life he’d been able to build at the lab. But he couldn’t weigh that against Joey and Keandre’s lives. He took one last look at the bathroom before shutting off the lights and heading for his laptop. He did one last quick check that the daily transport was arriving on schedule and then shut everything down. He left everything behind. He was one of the few C series left without a working tracer chip, and he wasn’t quite sure how he was going to deal with Keandre’s yet, but taking any form of electronic would be asking for trouble. He’d tried to memorize a few phone numbers that he’d try to use some time later. He just had to get over this first hurdle.It was just after the G series were due to go down for the night. Alex made his way to their quarters, glad to see Joey already waiting outside their room.“Everything set?” he eyed the security camera in their hall.“It’s on a very tight loop,” Alex kept his voice down, “just try not to talk too loud. The mics aren’t covered.”The two of them went a long way around to Keandre’s level in an effort to avoid the night security. They still weren’t fully staffed but there seemed to be more guards around every day. They made it to the level without trouble and Joey was again able to easily clear security. Until they got to Keandre’s cell.Alex paused before placing his hand against the screen. Once again, it recognized him as Jesse. He wished he had time to access the security mainframe and work out why his name was still in there but the job at hand was far more pressing. He didn’t hesitate before opening the door and Joey pushed past him once inside.Keandre stood when he saw them, not being in on the plan just yet. He hadn’t seen them since the first time they’d come in. They’d shared ideas but decided nothing solid. Joey pulled something from his pants and reached through the bars to hand it to him. The moment Keandre saw the wires he got to work on picking the lock on his wrist.“I figured you could do that,” Alex was watching anxiously.“I could if I could reach it,” Joey was keeping an eye on the door.Once Keandre had made progress Alex aimed for the electronic lock on the cell. Hoping with everything that it would work, he pressed his thumb against the smaller panel. Jesse’s name came up yet again.“I can’t believe that worked,” Alex quickly opened the door as Keandre finished with the cuff, “why wouldn’t Keandre’s thumbprint work just the same?”Keandre saw his confusion as he approached the door, soon replaced by wariness at Keandre’s freedom. Keandre raised his hand in a pacifying gesture before placing his thumb against the lock. The screen turned red and his name came up.“How?” Alex frowned.“We should really leave. Like right now,” Joey warned.Keandre showed Alex his thumb. A solid scar ran across his thumb, visibly altering the print.“Did they do this?” “Alex!”“Sorry,” Alex tried to get his head back in the game, “we have to go.”Keandre readily followed them to the door. Joey threw him a white coat which easily hid his scars. It wouldn’t fool anyone they met in person, but it might have helped with some cameras. Alex led the way out into the corridor, but had to wait for Joey to get them through further security. He didn’t want to press his luck in case the outer systems were more updated and had cleared Jesse’s credentials. The three made their way through the back corridors where they’d come in, taking a turn toward the laundry rooms. While most sterilisation took place on DIGER grounds, the generic laundry for their accommodations (including Alex’s) was done by a contractor off site. Security on the laundry going out was a lot more lax than the security coming into the building.Alex led them to where a number of bins were lined up ready to be rolled out into a laundry truck as soon as it arrived in the early hours of the morning. He could tell right away that Keandre wasn’t keen on the idea but that he wasn’t going to protest either. “Is this the only way?” Joey was pulling a face as Keandre climbed into one of the bins.“It’s the easiest way to get around security,” Alex assured, “no one comes down here except to sign off on incoming deliveries.”“Are you sure?”“I wouldn’t be down here if I wasn’t,” Alex insisted, hoping he was hiding his nerves well enough.It must have worked, because Joey pulled himself up into the bin next to Keandre’s. Alex took one last look around before occupying a third.It was still a few hours before the bins were loaded onto the truck, but the three barely breathed in the meantime.Mark wiped sweat from his brow as he took a moment to catch his breath. He’d been kicking at the cage door trying to at least dent it. It wouldn’t budge. The metal was thick and the padlock was half the size of his hand. Before he could start trying again he saw headlights creeping under the garage door.“Fuck.”It didn’t take long for Mike to appear, sliding the door across and quickly closing it behind himself.“You can’t just leave me here as long as you feel like it!” Mark shouted as he came closer, “what am I even here for?! Did they get sick of you dragging me down to lockup for no fucking reason?!”Mike simply opened the McDonald’s bag he’d brought with him, pulling out a burger. Mark eyed it not having eaten in nearly twenty-four hours already. Mike locked eyes with him before dropping it to the floor.“I did some digging,” he scrunched the empty paper bag up in his hands, “pulled up some of your bank accounts.”“That can’t be legal,” Mark scowled.“A lot of suspicious payments going into that account. From a company that doesn’t seem to exist.”“How is that any of your business?”“Not to mention one large lump sum payment from Colin Reis.”Mark’s teeth clenched.“Do you want money? Is that it?” he demanded, “because I don’t have that anymore. It’s gone.”“So I saw,” Mike paced a little, “but for starters, I want to know why Colin gave you that money.”“What do you care?!”“I don’t know. Maybe because the guy shares your face?” Mike scorned, “the same face, by the way, shared by that pop star and his apparent twin brother. Who – I don’t know about you – but I thought was your twin brother.”“Yeah well we were both wrong,” Mark’s eyes narrowed.“So it’s true?”Mark didn’t reply to that, just stared him down.“Well look at you all alone in the world,” Mike smirked making Mark roll his eyes, “your Dad knocking at death’s door and no brother to watch your back. Guess that means no one’s coming to rescue you.”“Forgetting Russo so soon?”“Word on the street is he moved his relations back to Chicago,” Mike shrugged, “he must have lost interest in you. Just like everyone else.”“Everyone but you,” Mark muttered under his breath.“Oh no need to thank me. Besides, like I said, I got plans.”“Do they involve me rotting away in here or are you going to bore me to death right here right now?”“I’m going after Colin Reis.”Mark had to smirk at that.“And I’m going after Jesse Musgrove.”That made Mark break into a laugh, making Mike scowl.“What?” he demanded.“Aside from those guys being just untouchable in general, you’re too late,” Mark insisted, “they’re both dead.”“You mean they were fake identities you and your brother just aren’t using anymore?” Mike corrected, “sorry, you and Hanson’s brother.”“Fuck you Mike.”“So which one of you killed that girl in Louisiana? Or were the two of you just covering for Hanson?”“None of us,” Mark scorned, “Jesse was set up.”“And which one of you was Jesse?”Mark just rolled his eyes and sat back.“I’m going to work it out so you might as well just tell me,” Mike shrugged, “it would make this whole ordeal go a lot faster.”“And what are you going to do once you figure out the ‘big secret’ anyway? Nothing I say under coercion is going to hold up in court!”“You’ll sign a confession and I’ll be the arresting officer in the biggest identity case since OJ.”“You’re insane,” Mark’s brow rose, “I got no clue how you passed the psych eval to become a cop in the first place.”Mike locked eyes with him before purposely planting his boot on the burger he’d earlier dropped to the floor.“It helps to know people,” he smirked, “have a good night. I got things to do.”Mark’s expression darkened as Mike left him there once again, securely closing the door before driving away. Mark only had moonlight from a skylight to see by now, but he instantly tried stretching his hand through the two inch gap between the side of the cage and the floor to reach for the burger Mike had dropped. His fingertips barely graced the paper.“You’re kidding, right? This is a joke,” the frown came through in Carey’s voice.“It’s not,” Taylor assured.“They told me that if I did that Skype interview that it would be enough! That they could just use whatever I said from that and the news companies or whatever could just share it around!”“Who said that?”“Natalie!”Taylor eyed his wife who was closely watching the call.“Well this is a big story,” he tried to amend, “this wasn’t going to go away by just putting a bandaid on it. I could have told you that if I were here.”“I’m sure if you were there it wouldn’t have happened in the first place.”“Honestly, that’s where I’m at now.”“So why do you want me to do the show?”“Because this should be the surgery the bandaid couldn’t fix. A live, televised interview that more sources can pull from. Hopefully after it blows up again it will blow over more and we won’t have to deal with the random news crews and bloggers that are still trying to chase us down.”“We’ve had a few.”“Same here. All of us have. They still stake out the studio from time to time.”Carey sighed and Taylor could tell he was thinking it over.“How soon?”“Once we give them the green light they’ll want to move fast,” Taylor guessed, “probably in the next few days.”“And you’d have to come here?”“Yeah, to LA.”“Would Nat and the kids come?”“No, it should just be the three of us. A quick in and out.”“And what if the circus starts up again and I can’t leave my house?”Taylor shrugged to himself.“Order in?” he suggested, “what did you do last time?”Carey grunted to himself.“Let me know when it’s organized.”“I will. We will,” Taylor promised, “thank you.”“I’ll see you soon.”Carey hung up before Taylor could say anything else and Taylor quickly dialled Isaac instead.“Are you sure this is a good idea? So soon?” Natalie looked nervous, “you can’t even walk properly yet.”“I can fake it for one morning with an interview on a couch,” Taylor assured as he put the phone to his ear, “we just need to hope that Carey can hold it together.”“You mean that all of you can hold it together,” Natalie corrected, “he was the one thrown into this unwillingly.”“The only willing party was – Ike! Carey’s in. Make the call.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“We’re so glad that you could finally join us! Is there a reason you’ve decided to come forward now?”“Honestly we’ve all just been really busy,” Zac blew off, “we haven’t really had time to sit down as a family let alone a band and decide what the best course of action was.”“Busy how? You cancelled your tour because of this, right?”“This wasn’t the only reason,” Taylor shook his head but kept his eyes down.“This wasn’t the only reason,” Isaac agreed, “but it was a big contributor. There was a lot going on, with us, with Carey, and when that whole thing came out it just-““You know when you get to that point where you’re so stressed out that the very last straw could be something tiny?” Zac leant forward a little, “I think we were all sitting on that ledge and then-““And then the media found your brother,” the host ended for him.“And then that blew up, yeah. So we really needed to just take a step back from work, from life in general, even just to clear our heads some but even more so that we could work out where to go next and exactly how to go about it in a proper way.”“Not to mention your recent hospital stay.”“Oh you know about that?” Zac played coy.“We do. What happened there?”“I’m going to keep that on a need to know. It was nothing major, just a standard procedure that went well,” he insisted.“Sure. Before we get to meeting Carey,” made Taylor look up again, “this tour that was cancelled, that was supposed to be something of a comeback tour already wasn’t it?”“It was, which made it all the more hard to cancel,” Zac agreed.“It was supposed to be a way of thanking the fans for sticking by us, and we really just wanted to have some fun out on the road,” Taylor perked up a little, “I guess in a way we kind of wanted to run from our problems and it was proven in the worst way possible that we couldn’t do that. We had to face what was happening with us, with Carey, and with a bunch of other things and we’ve now been doing that and tying up those loose ends so that we can move on and we can eventually tour again and – as you said, make this something special, make this about the fans, and not so much make this about us and what we’re going through.”“That sounds a little dire,” the hostess attempted a joke.“We’ve gone through rough patches before, as a band,” Isaac nodded, “but this one was certainly a doozy.”“But you’re getting back on track now?”“I think we are,” Isaac looked to his brothers for confirmation.“Yeah,” Zac nodded.“Sure,” Taylor agreed, “we’re ready to hit the ground running and get back to work.”“But before you do that, we do want to introduce someone else to the stage.”Taylor looked over his shoulder to where they could see Carey waiting in the shadows.“Carey? Would you like to come up?” the hostess invited with a warm smile.Carey did one last check to make sure his microphone was properly in place before heading up to the stage. Zac scooted over so that he could sit between he and Taylor. There was an odd hush from the studio crowd as he took his seat.“Good morning Carey.”“Good morning,” he returned her smile, trying to ignore Taylor’s eyes on him.“I just have to say it. You certainly do look very much like Taylor!”“It’s been said,” Carey shot him a glance as Taylor nodded in agreement.“Do you have trouble telling them apart?” the host looked between Isaac and Zac.“Not anymore,” Isaac mused.“We definitely have our ways of telling them apart, and the longer we spend with Carey the easier it’s been,” Zac added.“Has there been any talk about Carey joining the band?”“Oh no, no,” Isaac and Taylor both jumped on making Carey chuckle a little.“I don’t have a musical bone in my body,” Carey assured, “I didn’t grow up around music like these guys did. I can’t play anything, and honestly I’m not too interested in trying. I’m definitely going to leave it to the experts.”“How different was your upbringing? We know the Hansons were what – three out of-““Seven,” Zac finished for her.“Seven kids, and they all have many kids themselves…”“I have two to add to the collection now,” Carey mused, “my wife and I just had our second child at the start of the year.”“And my wife is expecting in December,” Taylor strategically placed his bombshell.“Your wife is expecting? Congratulations! What number is this?”“This will be number six,” Taylor’s face couldn’t help but light up a little at the topic, “we’re very excited, and now they have some extra cousins to play with.”“Have the kids all met each other?”“They have, mostly,” Taylor shot Carey another glance.“It’s a madhouse when they all get together, but mine are still pretty young,” Carey returned the look, “Taylor’s kids get along great with them though which I’ve been glad for.”“So their reaction was a good one?”“Well…” Taylor eyed Carey again, “they were pretty excited overall. When we first met Carey there was a lot of other stuff going on as well so I think it was a good distraction for them. They all kind of fell head over heels for him.”“So the whole family has welcomed you with open arms then?”“I don’t think I’ve met the whole family yet,” Carey looked between them.“My kids haven’t met him,” Zac leant forward again.“Has Mac met him? Have you met Mac?” Taylor asked him.“Who’s Mac?” the hostess attempted to get in on the confused huddle.“Mac is our younger brother,” Isaac explained.“I’m pretty sure I haven’t,” Carey tried to think, “I think I’ve met all your sisters but not your brother.”“My kids have met him briefly just recently,” Isaac didn’t bother looking up from the huddle.“And what about your parents? Have you all had a talk about what happened when Carey was adopted out?”“We haven’t really had a family meeting per se,” Zac considered, “but we all kinda know the story and we’ll be keeping that to ourselves for now.”The other three nodded in agreement.“Another day another dollar,” Price muttered as he waited for the coffee maker to do its thing.“You never know, today could be ‘the day’,” Mike took a bite of his toasted sandwich.“Yeah the day like every other day,” Price looked up to the television in the break room, “wait… isn’t that Miller? The better one?”Mike looked to the television which was showing Good Day LA. Carey’s part of the interview had just started.“That’s here, right?” Mike frowned.“It’s Good Day LA. So yes. I heard something about the Hansons being in town and them wanting extra security. Didn’t realize it was today.”“I need to get on that security detail,” Mike immediately left the room.Price watched after him confused before simply getting back to his breakfast.“It is crazy out there,” Isaac was putting his jacket back on, “I don’t remember the last time we had a crowd this big waiting.”“Our last show?” Zac smirked, “whenever that was.”“This is a little different,” Taylor looked nervous.“If you guys are worried, I’m just going to point out, I have no hope,” Carey’s eyes were slightly wide, “how are we getting through?”“They organized security for us, we should have a police escort back to the hotel,” Isaac tried to reassure him, “we just need to get to the cars.”“And… how are we doing that?”“With brute strength,” Zac was enjoying the twins’ discomfort far too much, “just… don’t hit anyone, and if you do, make sure they know it wasn’t Taylor. That’s not the kind of publicity we need right now.”A police officer soon appeared and quickly liaised with Bex on the best way to leave. She soon returned to the group.“They managed to get an extra car for us so we’re going to split up,” she informed them, “Taylor and Carey, you’ll need to head out first. We’ll follow in a few minutes.”“Why are they splitting us up?” Carey frowned, “we all came in together.”“When the crowd was a tenth of the size,” Zac reminded him, “it’s probably easier to only focus on two of us at a time.”“Are you ready?” Bex looked between Taylor and Carey.“As we’ll ever be,” they shared a glance before Taylor stepped forward and lowered his voice, “my walking cane?”“We’ll have it in our car. I’ll pass it to you at the hotel,” Bex replied just as softly.“Thanks,” he felt like his legs were going to collapse under him pretty soon.“These are the first two?” the officer came closer.“They are,” Bex confirmed.“Then let’s go.”“Good luck!” Zac gave them a wave as they were ushered outside.The crowd and the paparazzi outside gave Carey flashbacks to nightmares he had as a teen. It was everything he’d never wanted. The blinding camera flashes, the hands relentlessly grabbing for him. The yelling. Taylor kept a good eye on him as he led him through the crowd, aiming for the backseat of a patrol car at the end of the barricaded walkway. The officer made sure they were in safely before giving the roof a tap and going back for Isaac and Zac.“That was crazy,” Carey had to catch his breath, trying to look back but still having to shield his eyes from the camera flashes.“It’s been a while since we’ve had that for sure,” Taylor agreed.“You boys have caused quite a stir out there,” their driver spoke up.“Mike?” Carey immediately recognized the voice, “how did you get on this?”Taylor fell silent, easily recognizing him as the officer that had escorted him to the airport.“I might have pulled a few strings with a few buddies down at the precinct. How’s your brother by the way? The fake one? Or is this the fake one?”“Mark’s fine,” Carey scowled, “just get us to the hotel.”“How do you know each other?” Taylor’s anxiety was creeping back already, “he’s the one I was telling you about.”“We went to school together. He and Mark gave each other a hard time,” Carey shrugged, keeping his voice down despite knowing Mike would hear him anyway.“So Mark’s the triplet that brings shame to the family?” Mike was looking in the rear mirror, “that’s gotta be the reason he wasn’t on the show too right? I can’t blame you. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was using again.”“Mark’s fine,” Carey insisted between his teeth.“How would you know? You haven’t talked to him in days.”Carey paused at that, taking a moment to comprehend it.“How would you know that?” he frowned.“We just passed the hotel,” Taylor tried to interrupt, “you’ll have to go back around the block.”“I’ve been in touch with him the past few days, should we say,” Mike shrugged.“Why? Did you arrest him again?”“Something like that.”“Guys, we’re losing the hotel,” Taylor insisted, “it’s back there.”“We’re not going to the hotel,” Mike announced.“Then where are we going?” Taylor demanded.“What’s going on with Mark?” Carey’s expression matched his.“I guess you’ll find out won’t you?”“Come on, pick up, pick up…” Alex tapped his fingers against the glass of the phone booth erratically.When there was again no answer at Carey’s house he hung up in frustration. He looked back at the car they’d managed to buy for cheap in which Keandre was waiting for Joey to come out of the store with food.Alex paused, debating whether he really wanted to make the next call. He couldn’t contact any of the Hansons because of Walker being their liaison now, and neither of the Millers were picking up. His options were running low.He quickly dialled the number before he could think himself out of it.“Hello?” a groggy voice answered, “why is someone calling me from a phone box in New Mexico?”“Hi. I’m really sorry to do this to you, but my name is Alex and I need your help to get to LA,” he closed his eyes, “you’d know me better by my screen name.”

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“What is he going to do?” Taylor asked under his breath, keeping his arms folded.“I don’t know,” Carey admitted, “usually he just drags us into lockup for a few hours and that’s it.”“Usually?” Taylor’s brow furrowed, “what are you getting me into?”Mike was quiet until they made it to the warehouse. There was more traffic around at this time of day but the yard that held the structure was eerily vacant and the warehouse stood at the far back.“What are we doing here?” Carey leant forward, “what do you want this time?”“You’ll find out,” Mike smirked, parking the car and getting out.They watched as he went to open the warehouse door before both tried to see where Mike had confiscated Carey’s phone. It was far out of reach from the divider. In seconds Mike was back to move the car into the building, getting out again to close the door behind them.“Carey,” Taylor hit him on the arm before indicating out the window on his side.“Is that Mark?!” Carey sat up straighter trying to see.“Shit.”Carey’s door suddenly opened, Mike training the Taser on him.“Get out,” he demanded.“What do you want?!” Carey demanded.“I want you to get out of the fucking car before I drag you out!”Carey got out faster than intended and Mike closed the door before Taylor could follow.“Care?!” Mark’s voice came from the other side.“Yeah,” he confirmed.“Move,” Mike tilted the weapon slightly.Carey stared at it, knowing from experience that he’d be happy to use it. At a second tilt he grudgingly moved around to the cages.“What’s going on?” he eyed Mark right away.“Long fucking story,” Mark sounded tired, “is that Taylor?”“It is.”“Get in,” Mike ordered, indicating the cage next to Mark’s.“Why?” Carey demanded, “tell us why we’re here!”“I’ll tell you once you get in.”“He wants to pin us for identity fraud,” Mark cut in, “he thinks we’re triplets and that one of us was posing as Colin and one of us was Jesse.”“What?”“GET IN!” Mike shouted over them.“This is insane just fucking let us go!” Mark’s voice rose.“Shut up!”“I dare you to make me,” Mark knew that if Mike used the Taser on him it gave Carey a chance to make a move.“Get in or I fire in three-““Okay! Okay,” Carey raised his hands in surrender, “just… what are you going to do with Taylor? He’s not a part of this.”“The lies stop now,” Mike scowled, “two-““Okay!” Carey frowned, making his way to the cage.He avoided eye contact with Mark as he gave in, but he couldn’t think of a way to fight without being incapacitated. The moment the padlock went on Mike went back to the car to fetch Taylor.“How long have you been here?” Carey suddenly thought to ask.“Couple of days,” Mark replied.“Shit.”Taylor could feel his heart racing as Mike came back to the car. He couldn’t go into another cage, he still felt like he’d just gotten out of the last one. He didn’t move when the door opened.“You too. Out,” Mike was waving the Taser again.“I can’t,” Taylor’s legs wouldn’t move.“Don’t be an idiot. This is happening whether you want it to or not,” Mike scorned, “get out.”Taylor stopped to center himself, closing his eyes for a moment. At further insistence he eventually pulled himself out.The cage looked even smaller once he saw it up close.“I can’t do this,” he raised a hand, not taking his eyes off it, “and I’m not kidding. I can’t deal with small spaces right now.”“Neither can Carey,” Mike smirked as Carey watched on carefully, “makes for a fun time. Now get in.”“I said no,” Taylor took a stand, finally looking him in the eye, “I can’t do it. Shoot me if you have to but I have spent far too long-“Taylor cut off as the Taser hit him in the shoulder. “Jesus Christ,” Mark sat back into the cage again as he went down and Mike started dragging him toward the last cage.He was locked inside before he could regain any movement despite his adrenaline spiking.“Now what?” Carey demanded, “what’s your plan now that you have us?”“And now that you have Taylor…” Mark’s brow rose, “and people are actually going to be looking for us…”“If they find you before I get back you’ll have more questions to answer than I will,” Mike was smug, “I’ll be back once I’ve finished rounding up the evidence. Enough so that none of you can deny what you’ve done.”He stopped to look them over as Taylor worked to sit himself up.“By then maybe Chelsea Musgrove’s killer will decide to confess,” he added before heading for the car.“So he just leaves us here?” Carey checked with Mark who simply shrugged.“I don’t think he knows what he’s doing.”They watched as Mike opened the door, slowly backed the car out, and closed and locked it behind him.“You still have a tracer, right?” Mark hated to ask.“Yeah,” Carey confirmed, “Alex will find us easily. Zac will probably call him the second they realize we’re gone.”“I can’t believe you actually look like him,” she was having trouble containing herself, “I mean I found some of your old school photos but because you left the system and never bothered getting a driver’s license…”“I made a point to keep my face off the internet,” Alex mused, “thank you again for this. I was kinda worried you wouldn’t want to talk to me.”“Are you kidding? We thought you were in jail! Or dead,” she led he and Joey through to a back room in her house, “you just dropped off the face of the earth. Why didn’t you contact anyone?”“It’s a long story. I’ll try an abridged version as soon as I manage to contact someone.”“Alex,” Joey took him by the arm to hold him back for a second, “why do we trust this lady? How do you know her?”“She’s an old friend. Don’t worry,” Alex put a hand on his shoulder, “anything we try and hide from her she’ll probably find out eventually anyway.”“That kind of old friend?”“…No,” Alex took a moment to work out what he’d meant, “I never met her in person before today.”“You’re weird.”“Thanks.”Joey rolled his eyes and continued to follow. The house was large and well-furnished and they saw at least three cats on the way through to what looked like a large office where a console was set up almost twice the size of Alex’s original in Miami. Knowing the tech he wasn’t at all surprised by it but Joey had no idea of what anything was and to him it was pretty impressive.“So who are you trying to call?” she asked as she took her seat in a fine leather recliner.“A guy named Carey Miller. He lives in LA,” Alex watched over her shoulder.“Why does that name ring a bell… There’s three Carey Millers in-““That one,” Alex pointed to the screen.She handed him a headset and he quickly put it on. “Let’s see where he is and why he’s not responding,” she got to work.Alex waited as the first call rang through, again not being answered. He watched her trying to lock onto a location but she was having trouble. It looked as if the phone was moving.“I just remembered why his name sounded familiar,” his friend shifted to another screen to do a quick internet search.“Oh yeah?” Alex couldn’t think of why it would.She brought up a video of the morning’s Good Day LA interview before looking up at Alex expectantly. It took him a moment to work out what it was but his face instantly flushed red.“You’ve got a lot of explaining to do Mister,” her brow rose.“If Hanson are in LA…” Alex’s mind wandered elsewhere, “Carey might be with them. Call Taylor.”“Call Taylor Hanson?” she looked incredulous.“Yes.”“Let’s be honest, it’s not the first time this has happened,” Isaac pointed out, “but with everything that’s been going on why wouldn’t one of them at least call?”“This might be why,” Zac was holding up a phone that clearly wasn’t his.“Is that Tay’s?” Isaac waited for Zac’s nod, “but Carey has our numbers so-“Zac’s phone suddenly rang and he had to quickly dig it out of his pocket.“Is that Carey now?” “It’s Dad,” Zac frowned before answering, “hey Dad.”“I need to know if you’ve heard from Alex Bell.”“Alex?” Zac gave Isaac an odd look, “no I haven’t heard from him in a few days. Why? Is he okay?”“If you hear from him could you let me know as soon as you do?”“Sure. But can you tell me what’s going on? Can’t you just call the lab?”“Alex is no longer at the lab. We’re very worried about him and we need to know his whereabouts. That’s all I can share right now.”“Great timing,” Zac rubbed his face.“Zac?”“We were supposed to meet Tay and Carey here at the hotel in LA and they haven’t turned up. I’ve got Tay’s phone,” Zac admitted, “so if you hear from either of them…?”“I’ll let you know. Thanks Zac.”“Good luck.”He frowned as he hung up.“What’s happening?” Isaac was confused.“Alex is missing,” Zac looked up, “do you think-?”“Not the Russians again,” Isaac felt his stomach lurch at the thought.“It’s all I can think-“ Zac cut off as Taylor’s phone rang this time.No caller ID came up so he quickly answered. “Hello?”“Er… you’re not Taylor.”“No I’m not. Who am I talking to?” Zac eyed his brother.“Is your Dad with you?”“No,” Zac frowned, “is that Alex?”“Yeah.”“Alex where are you? Dad’s looking for you!”“I can’t tell you yet. But I’m trying to get hold of Carey. Is he there?”“Join the club. He and Tay are missing.”“What?”“Yeah… until Dad’s call I was kinda hoping you’d be able to follow Carey’s tracer.”“I’ve been trying to call Carey all day. I just saw you were with him this morning.”“We were, but we got separated on the way out. We haven’t heard from he or Tay since.”He heard Alex sigh in frustration.“Alex what’s going on?” Zac tried, “Dad wouldn’t tell me anything except that you weren’t at the lab. He wants me to call him after I talk to you. Please just tell me what’s going on.”There was a pause as Alex debated with himself.“Alex?! I won’t tell, I swear. You know me!”“I’ve got Keandre and Joey with me,” Alex relented, “Zac they were going to kill them.”“What do you mean?” Zac wasn’t sure he’d heard right.“I mean they had Joey down for termination, tomorrow, and you should see Keandre. They were keeping me away from him and I can’t even begin to describe why.”Zac locked eyes with Isaac again who was waiting for an explanation.“Not good,” was all he said.“What?” Alex’s voice came through.“Nothing. What’s your plan once you talk to Carey?”“I don’t know. I was hoping he might have an idea,” Alex admitted, “I can’t let them find us. We need a safe house or something like Colin had. The first place I thought of was Carey’s with all his updated security.”“Yeah we swung by to pick him up this morning. Place is a fortress,” Zac agreed, “if you can get to LA we can meet you.”“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. What if your Dad’s watching?”“According to Ike Dad’s off on another mission. I don’t know that he’d drop everything to come here if they think you’re still in Texas,” Zac pointed out, “either way I like to think we’re pretty good at keeping secrets.”“You think we should come to LA?”“If you do I can give you the address of the safe house I was staying in.”Alex paused again as he thought it over.“Let me call you back,” he said before suddenly ending the call.“What is going on?” Isaac was still frowning.“He said that DIGER want to kill Joey and Keandre,” the worry showed on Zac’s face.“Joey? I don’t know a Joey,” Isaac shook his head.“I do.”

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“What are we going to do?” Joey was obviously worried.“Go to LA,” Alex decided aloud, “get the safe house address from Zac. Go to wherever that is.”“They won’t be looking for us in LA?”“I hope not,” Alex offered a dull smile, “Zac doesn’t seem to think so. And since you cut out yours and Keandre’s tracers we should be in the clear.”Joey absently rubbed his arm where he’d had to cut it open. It was already itching as it tried to heal itself.“Do you think we’re going to make it?” he asked, keeping his eyes down.“Sure,” Alex shrugged, “my friend will get me a new ID by morning. That should get us to California at least. I have other friends there if needed that can do similar things.”“That’s not what I meant.”Alex looked up at where Joey sat on the desk, swinging one of his legs. He didn’t return eye contact.“Then I don’t know,” Alex answered honestly, “but I hope so. I think with our powers combined so to speak we should have a decent chance.”“Okay,” Joey was forlorn.“Are you having second thoughts?” Alex asked just in case.“No. I’m just…”Joey looked toward the door to make sure the lady was still busy further into the house. She’d offered to give them a stash of non-perishable food to take to California with them.“I’m turning 16 next year, it was kind of supposed to be a big thing,” Joey shrugged, “and I’m gonna miss my parents, and my hockey. The team’s gonna suck without me.”Alex smiled at that which made Joey smirk a tiny bit before grunting in frustration.“This whole thing sucks. I know I’m supposed to be this perfect little soldier like the rest of them, but I can’t be! I had a taste of life outside of the lab and I want that. I want to grow up, I want to pay my taxes and own my own house and have 2.5 kids and all that and I know that I legally can’t because I’m not technically human and it sucks.”“You are human,” Alex insisted, “you’re as human as I am, and I feel pretty damn human.”“That’s not a good example,” Joey scoffed, “you were made the same way I was.”“You also don’t have to live a legal life either, I mean that’s an option,” Alex added, “I doubt that I ever will again.”“From what I learned about you, you weren’t before either.”Alex was about to ask what he meant by ‘learned’ when his friend returned with a few bags stocked with dry food and cans.“I even remembered to throw in a can opener,” she mused as Alex stood from his chair to take them.“I don’t know how I could repay you,” he was a little worried, “I mean if I can get into my accounts I can send you some money but I don’t know if-““Consider it a present, Christmas is coming up,” she blew him off, “and besides, it is literal food. I’m not going to let you starve.”“Well… thanks then.”“You’re welcome.”“Are we leaving?” Joey wasn’t going to get down if they weren’t.“We should. Keandre’s waited for us long enough.”“We need to catch up when whatever this is is over,” the woman waved her hand in Alex’s face, “call me.”“I will,” Alex mused, at the same time wondering when it would even count as being ‘over’.Joey jumped down from the table and took one of the bags from Alex, immediately regretting it when he felt the weight. Walker looked through his phone as he sat in a different hire car outside Dale’s neighbor’s home. He’d watched as both Dale and Bradley had frantically packed one of the cars and taken off at high speed. They’d left a lot of things behind.He passed both numbers for DIGER and for Morris in his phone before settling on Blake’s. He placed the call.“Mr Hanson? What can I do you for?”“I need a small favor,” Walker eyed the end of the street where he’d lost sight of the car.“What is it?”“I need you to check in on Taylor for me. He and his brothers are in LA at the moment and they’ve lost track of him.”“On it.”“Thank you.”He ended the call before opening a mapping program instead. A small beacon showed Dale’s car making a beeline for the nearest state border. He sighed as he debated even putting in the report.“You doing okay?”Taylor opened his eyes to see Carey staring through the wires at him. His fingers vigorously tapping against his arm gave away his own nerves.“No,” he admitted, trying to close his eyes again.“Yeah. Me neither.”“You’ve been here all of five minutes for fuck’s sake,” Mark rolled his eyes, “we don’t know how long he’s planning to keep us here. Settle in.”Taylor winced as he remembered Morris saying the same thing at the lab. “You know I can’t handle small spaces,” Carey scorned.“You got used to the Russian cell alright.”“At least I could stretch my legs out there!”“Whatever.”In the awkward silence that followed they could hear distant traffic. Nothing close enough to pay them any mind.“I can’t do small spaces either,” Taylor eventually broke it, looking across at Carey again.“Really?” Carey felt oddly comforted by that, “but you’re in planes all the time.”“I got used to them, but I’d still prefer not to be.”“Oh boo hoo,” Mark grumbled, rolling his eyes.“He just got back from Russia, give it a break,” Carey scorned.“We’ve all been taken by the Russians,” Mark scoffed, “you were never taken by the mob.”“You weren’t having your blood drained,” Taylor hit right back.“No I was having my face lazered,” Mark came back.“This is not a competition!” Carey’s voice rose, “everything we’ve been through is fucked up! But what’s even more fucked up is that it isn’t over!”He set his eyes on Mark as Taylor collapsed backward again.“What’s it going to take for him to let us go?” Carey asked, “he wants a confession, right?”“He wants to be the asshole that gets the credit for busting this fake ID thing ‘wide open’,” Mark drawled, “so unless you’re willing to throw yourself under the bus and you have a way to prove that you at some point were either Jesse or Colin…”“You can prove you were Colin. What do we know about Jesse?”“Not enough,” Taylor mumbled.“Not since he and Chelsea went AWOL,” Mark agreed, “we don’t know what he did the few years before he died.”“So that’s a problem,” Carey thought aloud, “but Colin’s a start.”“What are you expecting me to do, exactly?” Mark frowned.“I don’t know yet. Give me a minute.”Alex was running his tongue along his bottom lip where a scar was forming from his biting through it earlier in the day. While his mother had all but forced him into learning to drive as a teen, he’d avoided getting behind the wheel ever since. Now he was travelling cross-country in a car full of government fugitives. He spent most of his time just trying not to think about it.He checked the mirror as he pulled off of the interstate, catching a glimpse of Joey asleep in Keandre’s arms in the backseat as he did. Keandre was clearly awake but being careful not to disturb him. The sight calmed Alex somewhat.It was a while longer before they made it to Carey’s address and Alex carefully pulled into the empty driveway. Not careful enough to stop the bump waking Joey however.“We are here,” Keandre told him softly as he sat up.“Wait here,” Alex insisted, getting out of the car.He took a quick look around before heading for the gate and hitting the doorbell. It was only once he’d done it that he realized Emma might not still be awake.“Who’s there?” her voice soon proved him wrong.“It’s- it’s Alex,” he stuttered a little, “did Zac call you?”Instead of answering, Alex heard the gate unlock. He quickly opened it in time to meet Emma at the door.“You have others with you, right?” she kept her voice down.“I do.”“Get them inside and we’ll come back for whatever you have. I need to call Zac and let him know that you’re here.”“You’re quiet today,” Price shot Mike a glance as they drove the back streets.“Didn’t get much sleep,” he rubbed at his eyes.“Old Bea said you never clocked out last night.”“I had to do some research.”“You know that we are partners, right?” Price drawled, “research for what? We don’t have anything big going on right now.”Mike just avoided eye contact, visibly struggling to keep his eyes open now.“Why don’t we take a detour past the Millers?” Price suggested, “that might wake you up.”“That’s not necessary.”“Come on. We can have some fun if they’re out,” Price teased, knowing they were already nearby one of them.“Sure,” Mike rolled his eyes, just hoping that Carey’s wife wouldn’t pull them up.As they came closer to the house Mike frowned at the unknown car in the driveway before his heart skipped a beat when he saw someone fetching a CVS bag from it.“I didn’t know Miller wore glasses. He must be getting old,” Price smirked to himself.“Pull in,” Mike ordered.“Really?”“Pull in! Behind that car!”Price shrugged a little and let the blue lights flicker before pulling into the driveway behind Alex’s car. Alex stared as the car approached before quickly backing over to the intercom.“Emma?!” he called out after hitting the doorbell again.The officers both got out of the car, Mike hanging back a little.“Saw your interview this morning Miller,” Price fixed his hat as he approached, Alex staying frozen against the gate, “what does your brother think of it?”Alex eyed Mike without responding. He could hear Emma’s footsteps behind him.“Since when are you a four-eyes anyway?” Price prodded again, “even your eyes are getting tired of your bullshit.”“What are you doing here?” Emma grumbled as she appeared, “it’s getting late. Isn’t it Dunkin’ Donuts time for you boys?”“We just need to have a talk with this guy for a moment,” Mike found his voice, indicating Alex.“Why?” Emma demanded, trying not to give anything away, “he’s not feeling good tonight. Come back tomorrow.”“New glasses are making me dizzy,” Alex offered quietly.“It’s about your Dad,” Mike leant on what had worked before, “he’s taken a turn and we need you to come with us.”Price shot him a curious look which he ignored. “When?” Emma demanded, “and what hospital is he at?”“He’s down at Sherman Oaks,” Mike quickly replied.“Then we’ll take our car. Thanks for letting us know,” Emma was fishing for her phone to once again try calling Carey.“Time is of the essence and we can get him there faster,” Mike assured, “you can follow in your car if you want.”“Do you have a phone on you?” Emma asked Alex.“No,” Alex hoped she wasn’t considering this.“Take mine,” she handed it over, “call the house phone when you get there. I’ll call Mark and let him know.”She eyed the cops as Price took a step back to go and open the car door.“Seriously?” Alex’s brow furrowed.“It’s not far,” Emma promised, “either I or Mark will come pick you up. Hopefully Mark’s already there.”“What about Zac?”“I’ll let him know when he gets here. You’ll be fine.”“But what if-““You’ll be fine!” Emma insisted, “I’ll talk to you soon. Go.”Alex stumbled as she pushed him back a little, but he took a deep breath and headed for the car.“You look sick. What’s wrong with you?” Price looked him over as he passed.“Nothing,” Alex insisted as he got into the back seat.Price closed the door after him before sharing a glance with Mike as they both got into the car.“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Price asked once the doors were locked and they began to pull out from the driveway.“Head East. I’ll show you.”

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“He’s not going to believe anything else,” Carey insisted.“So what, you want to sign his confession?” Mark scowled, “we could both go to jail. Forever.”“If that’s what it takes to get out of here, we can figure out the logistics later,” Carey shrugged, “anyone who knows anything about our past isn’t going to believe we did this willingly.”“So why isn’t the rock star putting his hand up to sign this confession? Why do we gotta take the fall for this?!”“Because we’re the reason he’s here!” Carey defended, “Mike is our problem, and he always has been!”“Of course you’re defending him,” Mark rolled his eyes, “you sure are one big happy family now aren’t you?”“I’m as much a Miller as you’ve ever been,” Carey scowled.“Are you though?” Mark gave him a curious look, “where were you when Dad needed you?”Carey felt his face flush red and turned his eyes away. “You don’t get to decide to take after half a family, Care. And you’re already as bad as he ever was.”“Excuse me?” Carey scowled.“You left us. Just like he did,” Mark stared him down.There was an awkward moment before they heard Taylor shifting.“Someone’s coming,” his eyes were on the door.Mark stared Carey down a little longer before diverting his eyes to the door.“Hopefully he has food,” he grumbled as they heard the car stop.The sound of more than one voice made all three frown. “Who is that?” Carey shifted himself forward.“HEY! WHO’S THERE?!” Mark yelled out instead, “HELP US! HEY!”The door opened and they were immediately deflated to see Mike come through first. When Price followed him however the Millers’ hearts jumped again.“Price! Hey!”“Mike’s gone insane! Help us!”“Let us out!”“What… the hell is this?” Price looked horrified.“That is Mark Miller, Carey Miller…” Mike pointed to them in turn, “and Taylor Hanson.”“HELP US!” Mark yelled again, “do something fucking useful for once and call this in!”“Then who do we have in the car?” Price looked to Mike with wide eyes.“I don’t know yet.”“Yes? Hello?”“Hey it’s Emma. I’ve got some bad news. But I think I’ve worked out what’s happened to Care and Taylor.”“Where are they? What’s happened?!”“Our not-so-friendly neighborhood cop stopped by about the time Alex got here. Said something was wrong with Care’s Dad and that he had to get to hospital right away. But I called the care home that he lives in and he’s fine – he’s still there.”“So… what? A cop? You think a cop has them?”“I gave Alex my phone and I haven’t been able to contact him since he left.”“Hold on one second.”She heard him talking away from the phone for a moment, Isaac solemnly replying.“How well do you know this cop?” Zac asked when he came back.“We’ve known him since we were kids. He used to harass Care at school. He never really stopped.”“We had a police escort out of the studio this morning, which is the last time anyone heard from them. When we called them they said they’d been dropped at the hotel as planned but no one at the hotel ever saw them make it.”“It has to be Mike!”“What do we do if the police are the ones causing this?” she heard Isaac asking in the background, “who do we even call besides Morris?”“We can’t call Morris. They’ll find Alex,” Zac insisted.“I know how we can find them,” Emma jumped on.“You have access to their tracers...?” Zac didn’t sound sure.“Of course not. But Alex has my phone, and I can easily track that.”“Do it! Text me as soon as you know where they are!”“What are we going to do? They’re cops!” Isaac’s voice came through again.Emma jumped when someone tapped her on the shoulder. She knew there were only two other people in the house aside from her kids but was somehow still surprised to see Keandre there.“I go,” he insisted, “you stay with children.”“How did you even know what I was saying?” Emma frowned.Keandre checked Alex’s palm pilot before holding it up to her. It had silently translated what she’d just said for him.“Sneaky. I like it,” she amended, “but this could be dangerous and you don’t know these people. You don’t even know your way around.”“That is what this is for,” Keandre mused, holding up the translator again.“If that’s Keandre offering to take care of it, I’d take him up on that,” Zac clearly remembered what he’d looked like that night at DIGER, “he’s probably the closest thing to Jesse we have left.”“I can’t let him go alone. You’re not seeing what I’m seeing,” Emma was referring to Keandre’s wounds, some of which were still very fresh.“We can meet him there.”“It’s Al,” Mark recognized him right away.They’d pulled the car into the shed again and dragged Alex out. He stood between the officers now with his shoulders hunched over and hands cuffed behind his back.“So which one are you?” Mike demanded, standing over him intimidatingly, “Musgrove or Reis?”“Don’t let him get to you Al he’s a piece of shit!” Mark called out.“Shut up,” Price scowled, just wanting to get to the bottom of it.“Make me!”“You can’t be Musgrove. Not from the look of you,” Mike judged, “so you must be Colin Reis.”“I’m not Colin Reis,” Alex had no idea what he was getting into but he knew it wasn’t good.“You got any ID on you?”“No I don’t.”“Let him go,” Carey’s eyes were on Mike, “you don’t know what you’re playing with!”“But I’m going to find out!” Mike snapped, “I told you I was going to find out! So let’s get it out in the open, right now!”“They’re obviously related,” Price tried to get them back on track.“No, no, three I could understand,” Mike indicated the cages, “but four? They ain’t quads. They can’t be.”“How many are you?” Price looked to the Millers.“At least five. Six if this guy is new,” Mike answered for them.“More than you want to know about,” Mark was cryptic.“Get us out and we’ll tell you,” Carey’s fingers slid through the wires, “we’ll tell you everything.”“Are you serious?” Taylor was watching him, “everything?”“We’ll deal with the consequences later but what the fuck else are we going to do?” Carey said under his breath.“You’ll tell us now!” Mike demanded, “and then, maybe, we let you go. Not the other way around!”“Or else what? You leave us here?” Carey hit back, “we have the leverage! Let us go and we tell you everything.”Mike ignored the Taser in favor of drawing his pistol instead.“Whoa! Hey!” Mark objected as Alex attempted to back away.Price wasn’t letting him go anywhere.“What are you going to do, shoot us?” Carey taunted, “you think even Price will let you get away with that?”“He’s right,” Price still had hold of Alex’s arm, “put the gun away. There’s no need.”“Then what do you suggest?” Mike wasn’t moving.“Are we sure this is the right place?” Isaac looked doubtful, eyeing the warehouse.They’d parked some distance back but the place appeared deserted. “GPS says yes,” Zac checked again anyway, “even if it isn’t, this will be where Keandre comes to.”As if on cue, Carey’s car pulled into the lot. They weren’t completely sure that it wasn’t just Carey driving until Keandre got out of that car and came to sit in the back of theirs.“Wow,” was Isaac’s initial reaction, “you look like you’ve been through hell.”Keandre ignored him, not having the translator ready yet. “Where’s Joey?” Zac asked the moment he had it, though Keandre understood that.“Emma,” he simply replied.“Good place for him,” Isaac still wasn’t totally sure he believed in a teenage version of Taylor being out there yet.“Do you have some kind of plan or are we winging this one?” Zac looked over his shoulder, “I mean, making it up as we go along?”“No,” Keandre replied.“No… what?” Zac checked.“No plan.”“Great,” Isaac diverted his eyes, “are we sure we can’t call Dad?”“And what happens when Dad calls Morris?” Zac scorned.“No Morris!” Keandre insisted.“See?” Zac’s brow rose.“Are we expecting company?” Isaac suddenly frowned, his eyes on the side mirror.“Not any good company,” Zac saw where he was looking and turned to look behind them, “is that a…?”“It looks like a military vehicle.”“Get your head down!”Isaac and Zac both quickly ducked, before Zac reached up to pull Keandre down with them.“We’re clones,” Alex blurted out, his eyes on the gun.An awkward silence followed, letting them hear the hum of the traffic outside.“What did you say?” Price tugged roughly on his arm.“If my life wasn’t over before it sure is now,” Taylor muttered to himself.“Alex,” Carey was staring him down, a warning to be careful with how far he took it.“Say it again,” Price demanded, and Alex could feel his arms bruising already.“Clones,” his voice shook, returning Mike’s stare, “we were all part of a genetic experiment that was happening in the 80’s. We weren’t supposed to survive it.”“So you’re not even human,” Mike’s eyes narrowed.“Yes we fucking are,” Mark scowled.“We’re as human as anyone else,” Alex defended, “we were made from volunteered DNA. Human DNA.”“But born from a test tube,” Price assumed.“No, we had mothers,” Alex tried to look over his shoulder at him.Mike used the butt of the gun to scratch at his head. “Are you happy now?” Mark demanded, “you got your magic answer now let us the fuck out!”“You still gotta let us go,” Carey insisted, worried at Mike’s expression.“Can’t keep them here forever,” Price agreed with a shrug.“You can start by taking your hands off him!” Mark scorned, but Price wasn’t about to let Alex go either.The sound of the door sliding open drew everyone’s attention. Mike immediately lowered the gun.“HEY!” Mark shouted right away, “HELP! HELP US!”The moment Taylor recognized the first silhouette that entered he sprang forward in the cage.“No way. Blake? BLAKE!”Blake’s eyes went to Taylor as his partner came through behind. The sudden sunlight was blinding.“What is this?” Mike demanded, “the military coming to clean up their secret mess?!”“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Mark’s eyes were wide and on Blake’s partner.“Jesse?” Carey was breathless.Taylor took a moment to realize what he’d said, but froze once he had.“Who is the problem here?” Blake ignored them, eyes on the police officers.None of the clones responded, reeling from the looks they were getting from the clone in military camouflage. His eyes settled on Price.“Let him go,” he demanded, the accent confirming Carey’s suspicion for all of them.“Who are you? Show some identification,” Price scowled.“I won’t say it again.”“Neither will we,” Mike stared him down, hand tightening on his gun again, “why are you here? How did you find us?”“Officer Michael I take it?” “Who’s asking?”Jesse drew his gun and before Mike could react had put a bullet through his forehead.“WHOA!” Mark immediately snapped out of it.“What the flying fuck?!” Carey joined him as Mike’s body hit the ground.Price dropped Alex’s arm but Alex was frozen on the spot. Price made a run for it. Blake stepped forward and put two in his back as Jesse only watched him go down.“WHAT THE FUCK is going on?!” Mark demanded, clutching the wires of the cage.“JESSE! Jesse! You’re supposed to be dead!” Carey’s heart was racing, “what happened to you?!”“Why the fuck did this take so long?!”“Where have you been?!”“You just shot Mike! Do you understand who that is?!”Ignoring the Millers, Jesse was eyeing Alex. Alex could feel that he had some of Mike’s blood on him but that wasn’t what Jesse was looking at.“This the one?” Blake broke his concentration, indicating Alex.“What?” Mark frowned.“Guys let us out!” Carey insisted.“He is,” Jesse confirmed, not taking his eyes from Alex, “where are they?”“Who?” Alex found his voice but it was shaky.“You know who. C7 and G8.”Alex felt his stomach instantly drop. The gun was still in Jesse’s hand.

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“So now what?” Isaac was peeking over the dashboard warily.They’d clearly heard the gunshots but the subsequent yelling was muffled by distance.“I say we find our damn brother,” Zac opened his door and got out.“ZAC!” Isaac went to grab him but missed, “what about-?”The door slammed and Zac headed for the open door of the warehouse. Isaac gave Keandre an awkward shrug.“Stay here,” he said, hoping Keandre would understand.His nod told him that he did, so Isaac quickly followed Zac.“I don’t- why would I know that?” Alex stuttered, backing away.“Don’t play coy,” Jesse was condescending but not moving to follow, “we know you helped them escape.”“Escape? What?” Carey’s eyes darted between them, “what is going on?!”“And who’s ‘we’?” Mark’s eyes narrowed.“He’s working for DIGER,” Taylor realized, his eyes not having left Jesse.“That’s not true,” Carey insisted, “that can’t be true. Jesse?!”“If not then why isn’t he letting us out?” Mark muttered.“Alex?” Jesse’s attention hadn’t wavered, “where are they?”“I don’t know.”All eyes went to the door as a shadow fell across them. Zac quickly took in the scene, making sure he recognized everyone there.“TAY?!” he made to dart for him, stopping short when Blake stepped between them.“Zac?” Taylor finally leant forward, “ZAC!”“What’s going on?” Zac demanded, hands raised a little in surrender.“We’re trying to find out!” Mark was getting angry.“Alex is coming with us,” Jesse finally put the gun away.“What? No! No I’m not,” Alex was shaking his head.“Guys let us out!” Carey was starting to panic all over again at the prospect of being left there.“You’re not taking him anywhere,” Zac jumped on, “who even are you?!”“Zac it’s Jesse,” Taylor remained calm on the outside despite his heart racing, “he’s with DIGER now.”“Jesse Jesse?!”Isaac suddenly appeared at the door making Jesse roll his eyes.“We’re taking him, and you’re not going to stop us,” he said decidedly.“Ike?!” Taylor frowned when he realized he was there too.“What the-““No, you know that’s not a good idea,” Zac’s aim was on Jesse, “they’ll kill him!”“WHAT IS GOING ON?!” Carey was losing it.“Alex helped Kea and Joey escape from DIGER. They obviously want them back,” Zac summarized.“Escape?” Mark’s brow rose.“Who’s Joey?” Carey frowned.“I need to come back with a clone,” Jesse’s voice rose slightly, “if it’s not C7 then it has to be Alex.”“Why? Why me?” Alex had caught on right away.“Take me then!” Mark jumped on right away, “if you need a clone, take me!”“We can’t,” Jesse looked toward him for the first time, “your bio work is too contaminated from all the drugs and alcohol you’ve done in the past.”“What exactly do you want him for?” Zac was afraid to ask.“Experiments,” Alex supplied, “they were testing Keandre. His skin, his blood, everything.”“For what?”“That’s not our concern,” Blake covered, “we just need to bring them their lab rat.”“You told us you didn’t work for DIGER,” Zac glared at him, “what changed?”“I don’t work for DIGER, not directly,” Blake countered, “I work as a private contractor to your father.”“So he knows about this?” Isaac frowned.“Probably not.”While the Hanson brothers were distracted Jesse went for Alex and took hold of his arm. Still cuffed, he couldn’t defend himself.“Leave him alone!” Zac jumped again.“You seem to know an awful lot about what’s going on here, Zac,” Jesse didn’t sound fazed at all, “I’ll let him go right now if y’all tell us where Keandre is.”“How would I know that?”“Are you going to try and tell me that you and Alex here haven’t been talkin’ since he left Texas?”“I’m not gonna lie to you, so no,” Zac assured, “but why him? If you’re all the same, why don’t you sign yourself up? You seem to be the perfect little soldier otherwise, and I’m sure certain people there would love to do some work on you.”He ignored the glare from Blake and the awkward looks from the Millers. He’d meant it to be harsh.Jesse straightened his back in a way that eerily reminded Isaac of Taylor when he got angry.“Because my blood has been contaminated,” he said loud and clear enough for everyone to hear.“Contaminated?” Taylor frowned.“What do you mean?” Carey was already thinking back to the Russians coming for him.“Out in the field, many years back, Blake here-“ he indicated him, “-had to give me a transfusion.”“I saved his life,” Blake openly bragged.“In the world of science and sterilization and whatever, that makes me useless for biological comparisons, as Morris quickly found out,” Jesse went on, “and thanks to me, they won’t be looking for your brother either.”His eyes went to Taylor, who was staring back.“What do you mean?” Zac bit.“I was on the rescue team that brought him back from Russia. I’m sure he’s told you they wanted his blood. He was near-drained when we found him, so I had to top him up.”He smirked, eyes still on Taylor.“You’re welcome. It means Russia won’t want you back. But the moral of the story is: I’m contaminated, Taylor’s contaminated, Mark’s self-contaminated and Carey’s still an infection risk for the next couple of years because of his finger. With Colin dead that leaves us two options. We need a sacrifice. So I ask again…”His eyes returned to Zac.“Where’s Keandre?”Zac’s eyes went to Isaac. If he was going to have to choose between the two of them, he already knew his answer. “Don’t,” Isaac warned, seeing his thought process, “don’t you dare.”“What else are we going to do?”“If you both know where he is you need to start talking,” Blake put a hand on his weapon making Isaac back away.“If you work for our Dad then you’re not allowed to touch us,” Zac’s eyes fell to the movement but he didn’t budge otherwise.“Is that true?” Isaac paused.They saw Jesse hold back a roll of his eyes as Blake grimaced and let go of the gun.“GET ME OUT OF HERE!” Taylor hit the cage door when he saw what had happened.“Where are the keys?!” Isaac was lost.“I got them,” Zac shoved Blake aside and dove for Mike’s belt where he’d seen keys.Jesse pulled his gun instead.“Blake might be under contract to your Dad, but I don’t have that handicap,” he warned.Zac got the keys unhooked and stood up again.“Then fucking shoot me,” he dared, staring him in the eye before going for the cage.Taylor watched as he struggled to find the right key, ready to open the door the second the padlock came free.“We’re wasting time,” Jesse began to pull Alex toward the door.He tried to dig his heels in but Jesse was far too strong.“You’re not going anywhere,” Isaac stood in front of them, “not until we figure this out.”“And you’re going to stop me?” Jesse looked him up and down.“At least tell us how you’re still alive!” Carey insisted, “we mourned you! We thought we’d lost you! What the fuck happened?! Why couldn’t you at least pick up a damn phone?”“Seconded,” Mark agreed.“They kept Colin alive with a bullet wound to the head, you really think a gut wound was a problem for them?” Jesse was scornful.“Keandre said you were gone,” Mark’s brow rose, “was he lying?”“No,” Jesse admitted, “no and I tried hard to stay gone, believe me.”“It took them months to bring him back fully,” Blake added on, “but I made sure they knew how important he was and they kept at it.”The look Jesse gave him at that was telling.“You wanted to die?” Carey tried to understand.“I did,” he confirmed, “I couldn’t, and now I’m trapped. I’m their fucking puppet like they always wanted me to be.”“Why though?” Mark jumped on, “since when are you their bitch? Huh? What do they have on you?!”“That’s nobody’s business, least of all yours,” Jesse glared as Zac finally got the padlock open.Taylor struggled to get out at first when his legs refused to work but grabbed the keys from Zac.“Get Alex,” he insisted as he began to work on Carey’s lock.“I bet Chelsea would be real proud of you right now,” Mark scorned.Jesse’s hand went to his gun again.“HEY! Stop! Enough!” Zac interjected, “let’s talk this out. There’s gotta be another way.”“There is,” Blake assured, “and it has a name.”“Keandre doesn’t deserve this, he doesn’t deserve what they were doing to him,” Alex’s voice shook.“You don’t know enough about him,” Jesse muttered.“I know everything. I know everything about all of you!” Alex exclaimed, “Kea has done a lot of good in this world, which you’d know if you ever bothered to find out. Maybe if we all stopped being caught up in our own bullshit and learned something about each other we wouldn’t be in this mess to start with!”“What part of this was our doing? We’ve been strung along by Morris and his puppets-“ Mark indicated Jesse, “-this entire time.”“Because we’d be looking out for each other instead of throwing us under the bus,” Alex was getting desperate, “we’d be helping each other survive this. We’d be helping the other generations.”“No one’s throwing you under the bus,” Zac insisted, “we’re not letting them take you.”“Again I’m findin’ it funny that you think y’all’re going to stop us,” Jesse was incredulous, “Blake we need to go.”“Step aside,” Blake warned Isaac in turn.“I can’t do that,” Isaac was nervous as hell but he couldn’t make his feet move either.“I’m sorry,” Taylor was meanwhile stressing about not finding the right key for Carey.“Be careful, take your time!” Carey could see his hands shaking, “just not too long yeah?”Keandre was biting his nails as he stared at the open warehouse door. He could see shadows moving inside but not much else. He had a bad feeling about this. Surely Isaac and Zac should have had Taylor out by now at least. But they hadn’t brought him for nothing. With a grimace as the wound in his shoulder pulled, he got out of the car. Taylor dropped the keys and closed his eyes in defeat. “One last warning,” Blake stared Isaac down, “and you’re going on the floor.” While Jesse was distracted with the byplay, Zac darted his hand behind Alex’s back and gave him the key to the handcuffs. “I can’t in good conscience step aside,” Isaac regretted the words instantly. “Give them here!” Carey was trying to grab for the keys that Taylor had dropped. Blake was already reaching for Isaac’s shoulder when Keandre appeared at the door. Jesse immediately dropped Alex’s arm and went for him. Alex already had one side of the cuffs off but Zac was too distracted to help him with the other. “AWAY!” Keandre yelled as he backed off, the moment he recognized Jesse. “Leave him alone!” Isaac darted sideways to put himself between Keandre and the soldiers. “Hey,” Zac hit Alex on the arm, pulling the car keys from his pocket, “take our hire car. There’s an address in the GPS in Texas. Grab Joey and take him there. It’s Colin’s safe house.” “What?” Alex was breathless. “Just go while they’re distracted!” Zac insisted, giving him a shove. Alex quickly backed around the other side of the squad car as Jesse closed in on Keandre in the far corner. With Blake’s attention caught between Isaac and the drama, Alex managed to slip out the door undetected. As Jesse reached to grab Keandre’s shoulder, Keandre easily clocked him across the jaw. Jesse recovered faster than the Frenchman and used his whole body to slam him into the corner. “Get off him!” Isaac aimed for Jesse, but Blake caught him by the arm first. “This is ridiculous how the fuck-“ Carey muttered to himself, unable to fit his fingers through the wire enough to unlock the cage himself. Taylor was trying to hold the lock so that he could get to it but it wasn’t working. Keandre struggled to get in another punch before aiming a knee for Jesse’s groin, the jolt finally enough to get the man to back off. Keandre ducked out from under him and tried to catch his breath as Jesse fell into the wall with a grunt. “What happened?” Isaac hadn’t seen, as Zac made it to his side. “I could shoot him in the leg?” Blake offered, already aiming in Keandre’s direction and making the Frenchman freeze. “No! Don’t!” Jesse choked out, “we can’t let him bleed!” Blake just rolled his eyes. “They can’t let him bleed,” Zac’s eyes went to Isaac. Isaac stared back, confused at his brother’s expression. “I have an idea,” Zac had pulled his pocketknife.“No!” Isaac’s eyes widened.“Why, you got a better one?!” Zac scowled, “we’re running out of options here!”Jesse had recovered and gone for Keandre again, this time using his forearm to push him back into the wall by his throat. With his air cut off Keandre was too weak to get in another hit.“Maybe,” Isaac quickly dug out his cell phone.“Got it!” Taylor had taken the key back and managed to get it into the lock on the first try.He threw the lock aside and fell back as Carey threw the door open and crawled out. He immediately snatched the keys back and went for Mark’s lock. Taylor’s eyes went to his brothers.“HEY!” Isaac shouted to gain the soldiers’ attention.He held the phone up. The camera was on screen.“One touch and this all goes live to Hanson fans all around the world,” Isaac raised his brow, “unless you want to anger both of your bosses, I’d suggest taking a step back.”“And letting him go,” Zac indicated Keandre.Blake’s gun went to Isaac in a flash.“You wouldn’t dare,” Jesse held back a smirk as he kept Keandre against the wall, “that’s your rep out the window.”“He’s done it before,” Zac visibly hated to admit.“What?” Blake scowled.“It’s true,” Taylor spoke up, not bothering to get to his feet, “you think Carey’s publicity was an accident?”“I still preferred to think so,” Carey muttered under his breath as he finally got Mark’s cage open.Mark had trouble getting his legs to work at first, but as soon as he was standing he aimed for Jesse. Blake swung the gun to aim for him instead and fired a warning shot at the wall between their heads.“FUCK!” Mark jumped back, Jesse simply turning his head away.“Just let him go, you’re outnumbered now,” Zac tried to reason, still holding out hope for a lack of violence.“And I’m the only one with a gun,” Blake scorned.“And you’re not gonna shoot us!” Zac scorned back.Blake’s eyes narrowed before he aimed the gun in Mark’s direction.“Gonna shoot me while I’m unarmed?” Mark spread his hands a little in surrender, still within three feet of Jesse and Keandre.“No!” Jesse held out his other hand to stop Blake.“Why? He’s expendable,” Blake frowned.“Just leave him alone.”“Are you telling me the Jesse we know is still in there somewhere?” Carey dared not get too hopeful.“Don’t you get it?! I’m trying to save you!” Jesse’s voice rose again, “if we give them Keandre they’ll leave the rest of us alone! Do y’all want to go back to those cells?!”“What do you want me to do?” Blake asked him, knowing he was torn.Jesse eyed where Isaac was still holding the phone. He looked down at the bodies of the officers, and carefully took a step back from Keandre.“It will take us some time to clean up this mess,” he indicated the squad car, “you have that long of a head start.”Taylor finally got to his feet as Mark instantly grabbed Keandre and ran for the door, knowing he wouldn’t have understood what Jesse had said.“Thank you,” Carey looked him up and down before shooting Blake a glance and following them out.“Tay?” Zac indicated for him to follow.Taylor’s eyes were on Jesse who was avoiding eye contact. He wanted to ask a hundred questions about where he’d been and why he hadn’t been able to say anything, but none of the words would come out. “Tay!”“Coming,” he pulled himself together enough to say before following Zac to the door.Isaac waited for them both to go past, unsure if he should also thank Jesse or not. They were getting a head start, it didn’t mean they were actually going to make it. But he had said that the Russians wouldn’t come after Taylor anymore…“Thank you. For bringing him back from Russia,” his eyes went between them.“Don’t thank me Isaac,” Jesse finally looked him in the eye, “your blood is the purest of all. They’re going to want you back.”“DIGER?” Isaac frowned, “they took everything they wanted when-”“Russia,” Jesse corrected, making a chill creep down Isaac’s spine, “they somehow worked out that you were connected to the project. That’s why they came for you last time. We still don’t even know how they could have gotten hold of a sample of your blood.”“I have an idea,” Blake stepped forward, sheathing his weapon as he did so, “your arm was bleeding the night they came for Taylor. They must have found it when they did their cleanup.”“I thought your people cleaned up 3CG?” Isaac frowned.“We didn’t have the chance to,” Blake shrugged.Jesse scoffed at that.“What’s going to happen to you two if you go back to DIGER empty handed?” Isaac thought to ask.“We won’t,” Jesse looked up again, a defiant look in his eye.“I don’t even want to know why my car is here,” Carey insisted as he followed Mark and Keandre over to it.“Kea came from your place,” Zac had jogged to catch up to them, “Alex took ours.”“Where?” Mark frowned, opening the driver’s door once Keandre had thrown him the keys.“I gave him a safe house location. Told him to pick up Joey from Carey’s first.”“We probably shouldn’t talk about this out in the open,” Carey cautioned.“We aren’t all going to fit in the one car,” Taylor realized, looking back for Isaac who still hadn’t appeared.“We’ll make it work!” Mark insisted, “just get in!”Carey got into the passenger side while Keandre and Zac aimed for the back. Taylor had stopped to wait, only breathing again once Isaac finally emerged from the warehouse.“Mike’s dead,” Carey said to Mark as they waited for the Hansons to get in.“I saw that.”“I mean his father is the chief warden. If he finds out we had anything to do with this we are fucked.”“I think we’re pretty fucked already, don’t you?” Mark gave him a condescending look.“One of us is.”When Keandre saw Taylor and Isaac ready to get in, he climbed over the back seats and into the trunk. Zac made sure he was okay before the other two got in.As soon as the final door shut Mark spun the wheels and headed back for Carey’s house.“I don’t think there’s a way to make this look like an accident,” Blake was circling the squad car to check for any CCTV as Jesse began setting the discarded gas canisters aside it. “It doesn’t need to look like an accident, it just needs to look like someone else,” Jesse insisted.“Why don’t we just call it in for a regular clean up?”“Because that won’t give them enough of a head start.”“You know what he’s gonna do when you come back without anyone, right?”Jesse shot him a glance as he finished up and pulled his gun.“Right?”“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Jesse indicated for Blake to clear the area.They headed back toward their vehicle, Blake replacing his sunglasses over his eyes. When they were far enough away Jesse turned back and aimed for the gas canisters. The entire warehouse almost immediately went up in flames.“Cops should take about four minutes to get here,” he checked his watch.“Then we’d better look busy,” Blake mused, reaching into the vehicle to find a gas mask.

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“He’s already gone, and he took Joey with him,” Emma was hugging herself as a cold breeze began to set in.“That’s good for them, not so much for Kea here,” Zac winced.“Is there somewhere else we can send him?” Carey’s eyes were on Mark.“Of course,” he shrugged, “as far as I know only one of Colin’s houses was compromised. The one that Jesse took Chelsea to.”“Do you remember them all?” Zac frowned.“I tried to commit them to memory after what happened with Taylor in Dallas. I know one for sure. The one in Louisiana.”“Great, we can send him there,” Carey jumped on.“How?” Emma asked.“I’ll take him,” Mark offered.“You still have a tracer,” Carey scorned, “I’ll have to do it.”“How are you doing?” Isaac found Taylor leaning against the back of the SUV, trying not to listen in.“Not great,” Taylor admitted, “I can’t know their plans. I mean what if Morris-”He cut himself off, unable to finish the sentence. Isaac stared at him for a moment before turning back to the group.“Hey, guys? We’re gonna take a cab back to the hotel and maybe deal with the missing hire car,” he announced.“I’ll come with,” Zac assured, prompting Isaac to dial for the cab.“I don’t want you to go,” Emma looked Carey in the eye, “what if this ends in a shootout?”“It won’t!”“You don’t know that. What if they think you’re Alex?”“They won’t hurt Alex, they need him,” Mark insisted, “look it’s a long story, but I’d bet anything they want to keep Care on a retainer too, so to speak.”That made Carey give him a worried look.“You heard them,” Mark stared his brother down, “you’re only going to be an infection risk for so long and then you’re back on their fucking list.”“What list?” Emma demanded.“It’s a long story,” Carey tried to divert, his face having gone red, “and one we can’t deal with until we sort Keandre out. We don’t know what kind of lead time we have.”“Will you guys be okay?” Zac wanted to make sure before he left them to it.“Sure. Thanks Zac,” Carey didn’t look at all sure.Zac offered a reassuring smile before stepping back to where Isaac was now focused on checking how Keandre was doing. He was insisting that he was fine, and Isaac was attempting to explain Mark’s plan to him.When the taxi finally pulled up Taylor couldn’t get into it fast enough.“Good luck!” Isaac gave the others a wave as the three brothers piled into the back and Zac asked the driver to head for the hotel.Keandre waved back as the others just stared.“Maybe we should take this inside before people start noticing how many Millers are actually standing here,” Emma suggested.“No need. We’ll leave now,” Carey aimed for the car.“What if they’ve bugged your car?” Mark suggested, making him pause, “and you can’t take your phone. Give it here.”“I need another car,” Carey thought aloud.“We have enough to hire one,” Emma suggested.“That should work,” Mark agreed, “I can drop you off at the nearest place.”“It’s a plan,” Carey agreed, eyeing Keandre now.He was staring back at them, hoping they knew what they were doing.“How long do we have to stay here?” Joey had slept twice but was still tired when they finally arrived at the house in Texas.“I don’t know,” Alex was honest as he shut the car off and got out.“We should probably ditch this car. They’re going to be looking for it,” Joey pointed out.“We’ll go and buy one tomorrow.”“With what money?” Joey frowned as he finally got out and followed Alex up to the door.He found the hidden key and let them in, quickly disabling a standard house alarm on the nearby wall.“If I knew Colin at all, he’s going to have money stashed in here somewhere,” Alex kept his voice down, “we just have to find it.”“On it,” Joey insisted, glad to have something to focus on other than their situation.Alex watched him head for the living room and start pulling apart cabinets and drawers in his search. With a quick check to make sure that the door had been locked behind them, he headed for the kitchen to do the same thing there.Carey glanced across at where Keandre was staring out of the car window sullenly. He’d always found Keandre hard to read, but he hadn’t spent all that much time with him either.He wasn’t very good at French, but he didn’t know that he could stand for the entire drive to be in silence.“Does it hurt?” he finally broke the quiet.When Keandre looked up questioningly, Carey indicated his shoulder.“Does it hurt, what they did?” he hoped he understood.“Oui, it hurts,” Keandre couldn’t hide the scorn in his tone.“I deserve that,” Carey muttered, returning focus to the road.Some of the bandages clearly needed replacing, but it had been a while since they’d seen a CVS or anything similar. “We’re going to need more gas soon,” again he hoped that Keandre understood, “are you hungry? Food?”“Yes,” Keandre only hugged himself tighter, the thin black hoodie that Alex had found for him not really keeping him warm at all.“Okay we’ll get food, and hopefully something for your shoulder.”Carey was sure he’d understood that, as Keandre scratched at his shoulder as soon as Carey said it.The thought had crossed his mind multiple times already that he should turn Keandre in to DIGER. If Alex had disappeared and they couldn’t find Keandre, if Mark was right, if Jesse was right – that meant he could be next to be taken in. He couldn’t run like the rest of them could. He couldn’t force that onto Emma or Eleanor or Max. He couldn’t leave them behind either, lest they be taken and used against him like they’d done to Taylor and Jesse before.Hopefully he was right in thinking he had more time. It might not have been long before DIGER worked out that the Millers knew where Keandre was anyway.He’d heard that people in New Orleans spoke French. Hopefully that meant a French guy in Louisiana wasn’t such a big deal and he could fly under the radar as long as they needed him to.He sighed as he shut the car off in the Love’s refuelling bay and checked his wallet for how much cash he had. He couldn’t risk them tracing his cards.“Food, gas, and bandages,” he handed over what he had.Keandre frowned at the last one.“Your shoulder,” Carey indicated, pulling the hoodie down a little to make his point, “you are bleeding. You need to replace them.”“Bandages,” Keandre repeated.“Yes. Oui. Whatever,” Carey was just hoping he did as asked.Keandre had a quick look at the amount of money he had before leaving the car.“Twenty for gas!” Carey called after him before the door closed.He watched him go inside with a sigh before getting out himself. He was relieved when $20 of credit appeared at the pump and focused on filling the car instead of watching Keandre in the store.So far he hadn’t felt like they were being watched. He hoped to hell he was right about it.Taylor had barely spoken a word except to demand the fastest flight back to Tulsa, and everyone had listened. They booked onto the first flight the following day and flew home in silence. Once at the airport Zac separated by catching a taxi directly home while Isaac insisted on accompanying Taylor on his ride home. Taylor didn’t object.Isaac waited until they got out onto the 412 before clearing this throat.“So Jesse told me something in the warehouse that I think you should know.”“I don’t want to know, I just want to go home,” Taylor was stern.“I get that, and I do too,” Isaac insisted, “but someone needs to know, and I think that someone needs to be you.”“Why?”“Because it’s about the Russians.”Taylor’s eyes met his and Isaac couldn’t read them. They looked glazed. “You’re safe, right?” Isaac felt the need to reiterate, “as soon as they find out what Jesse did, you’re saved. But it’s going to be a different story for me.”“For you,” Taylor was confused.“They didn’t take me for nothing,” Isaac was trying to be careful with what he said in case the taxi driver was listening in, “and Jesse told me that they’ll probably try again because my- you know what, is the purest of anyone’s. Like I must be similar to a universal donor or something.”“So they’re coming back for you,” Taylor was frowning now.“Jesse thinks they will.”“Does Dad know?”“I don’t know what Dad knows. I think I’m about to have a very interesting phone conversation with him when I get home.”Taylor turned to focus out the window, chewing on his bottom lip.“But if something happens, God forbid, in the next five seconds, I needed someone to know that this is a probable option.”“Who do I tell?”“I don’t know. I’m half hoping Dad will put Blake back on protection detail but we all know how that ended with you.”It was a while longer before the cab finally pulled into Taylor’s street.“Are you going to be safe getting home?” Taylor was worried.“I’ll be fine,” Isaac assured, “I’m sure they still need time to collect themselves after the last loss.”Taylor was somewhat comforted by the thought but not greatly. “Sure you don’t want to stay the night?”“No, I’ll be fine.”Taylor nodded to himself as they pulled in and he unbuckled himself.“I don’t have any cash on me, but-”“I’ll cover it,” Isaac insisted, “just worry about you for now.”He offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile.“Thanks,” Taylor mumbled under his breath before getting out.He waited while the taxi reversed, and didn’t head for the door until it was out of sight. He let himself in and headed for the dining table where he set his satchel down in time for Natalie to appear from the hallway.“Taylor!” the relief was clear in her voice as she closed in for a hug, “God I was so worried.”“I know,” he replied, otherwise not responding.Natalie could feel how tense his entire body was and eventually took a step back.“What is it?” she was cautious, “what happened? Why couldn’t Zac get a hold of you guys yesterday?”He didn’t reply, keeping his eyes diverted toward the kitchen.“Taylor,” she didn’t want to get mad with him, but she wasn’t sure how much more of this she could handle.Then she saw the tears in his eyes.“Taylor?” her voice was immediately softer.She reached out to take his hand and she could feel it shaking.“Taylor say something,” she whispered, praying that none of the kids would walk in on them in that moment.“I think I need to talk to someone.”Her brow furrowed and she quickly pulled him in for another hug. This time she could feel his heart racing.“We’ll look into it right away,” she assured, “we’ll get you some help. I promise.”Taylor wiped at his eyes before finally returning her hug. “Thank you.”“Wait here,” the man in a lab coat ordered, leaving Jesse and Blake in a room not far from the reception area at DIGER. Jesse took a deep breath, already praying in his head.“Decided what you’re going to say yet?” Blake took a seat.“Figured I’d cross that bridge when we came to it.”“J we are at that bridge. We have crossed that bridge. We are about to jump off that motherfucking bridge. What are you going to say?”Before Jesse could answer, Morris appeared in the doorway.“Hello boys, it’s good to see you,” he looked between them with a smile, “but I hear you have some bad news for me.”“They got away,” Blake offered, standing from his seat, “but they made a mess in the process so we had to work the clean up when-”“I think I need to speak to Mr Musgrove here in private for a moment,” Morris offered Blake the same smile as earlier.One that wasn’t changing.Blake eyed his friend with caution, but Jesse gave him a nod.“I’ll be right outside,” Blake looked between them before stepping out.Morris followed him to the door, locking it once it was closed. Jesse couldn’t help but take a step back when he pulled a small device similar to a car key from one of his lab coat pockets.“I need you to be very truthful with me, Mr Musgrove,” he said before turning back.“Of course,” Jesse tried not to react. “Did you see Mr Bell and Mr Moreau out there?”“Yes,” Jesse was honest, “but I couldn’t find G8.”“That’s okay for now,” Morris disregarded, “did you have a chance to contain either Mr Bell or Mr Moreau?”“What do you mean, Sir?” Jesse tried to buy some time.“I mean,” Morris stepped closer, “did you or your friend have an opportunity to capture either of them, and maybe chose not to?”“Of course not,” Jesse frowned, “why would I-”Jesse was cut off as Morris pointedly pressed a button on the device and a searing pain shot through his head. He couldn’t help but cry out as he grabbed at his head and fell to his knees. Morris only looked down at him with disdain.“I’ll let you rephrase your answer. Keeping in mind this time that Mark Miller still has an active tracer, alongside your own.”Jesse grunted as the stars behind his eyes began to dissipate. “What were you doing in all that time before Mr Bell indeed stole the Hansons’ hire car?”“Why are you asking me if you already know?” Jesse squinted up at him.“Because I want to hear it from you,” Morris took a step back to make it easier, “I need to know that I can trust you. Especially if I’m going to keep allowing you to venture out into the open world.”His finger hovered over the button again and Jesse’s eyes glued to it as he sat back onto the floor.How easily he could just aim a dagger for the man’s chest, he thought. But he knew what would happen to him – and to the others – if he dared.“So tell me...” Morris was talking through his teeth now, “...what happened out there. Before I decide that you might be better off back in your box.”“They talked a good game,” Jesse showed his frustration, “Isaac threatened to livestream the whole thing to the world. Zac was about to cut them open so that we couldn’t use their blood. On top of that there was seven of them and only two of us. We were out-manned.”“That’s never been a problem for you before now, has it?”“I’ve never come up against clones before. Morris I know these people, I was a friend to these people. I’ll never see them the way that you do. Please,” he begged, “I can’t do C series recon. It’s like betraying my own team.”“They aren’t ‘your team’ anymore,” Morris clenched his teeth again before depressing the button a second time.Jesse grunted through the pain, unable to focus on anything again until it was over.“Which tells me you’re going to need some more retraining before your next mission. Trust me Mr Musgrove when I tell you that the chip we’ve installed in your cerebral cortex is just the first in a long line of tricks we have up our sleeves here to keep unruly participants under our control.”“Whatever you’re going to threaten me with I guarantee I’ve had worse done to me out in the field,” Jesse was having trouble catching his breath. Morris paused, the earlier smile returning to his face.“Oh I very much doubt that.”*He paused when he heard the phone ringing, unsure if that was what was actually happening. How often do public phones ring? How many of these phone booths even existed anymore? It must have been someone calling the wrong number, but the overwhelming urge to answer a ringing phone was still very much there.He took a quick look around to check that no one else was going to answer it before stepping into the booth and grabbing the receiver.“Hello?”“Hey please don’t hang up! I really need to talk to you!”“Talk to me?” he smirked, “buddy you rang a payphone in Nowhere, South Dakota. You might want to try again.”“I know who you are.”He froze, the smile leaving his face instantly.“Please don’t hang up.”“What do you mean by that?”“Thirty-five years ago your mother ran away from a research lab in Dallas and in the process saved your life.”“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t hang up.”“Aren’t you tired of running? We can help you.”“Who’s ‘we’?”“The rest of us that survived.”“You mean Taylor and Carey?” he hazarded a guess, taking another quick look around to make sure no one was watching him.“And the rest of us.”“Wait, how many?” he frowned.There was a pause on the line.“There’s six of us still alive, myself included.”“You look like us too?”“We all look alike. I mean not perfectly, but-”“Who are you?”“Sorry, my name’s Alex. Alex Bell. I used to live in Miami but er… maybe that’s a story for another time. I’m on the run now like you are, and I’m not alone.”“My Dad says the scientists want us dead.”“He’s only partly wrong,” Alex admitted, “they want to study our differences. Some of us have been more helpful than others, and some of us I fear have outlived our usefulness.”“Wait, you’ve been inside the lab?”“Many times. It wasn’t so bad at first, but now… I mean I could tell you all about it if you’re willing to stay in contact with us.”“Where are you?”“Right now I’m in Texas. We also have someone at a safe house in Louisiana. The rest I’m afraid are a bit of a security risk for us to contact at the moment.”“You mean like how they paraded their faces on national TV?”“Something like that, yeah.”“It’s not doing me any favors I can tell you that.”“They aren’t bad guys.”“How did you find me anyway? What makes you think the lab isn’t tracing this call right now?”“This is going to sound like a brag, but… I’m pretty good with a computer or two. I worked out what facial recognition software the labs were using to track us and I planted a bug in their system and then I found a better one to use and you just kind’ve appeared. I’ve been following you for nearly a week now.”“That’s kind of creepy.”“I need to be careful.”“I can appreciate that.”“You don’t have a cell phone, do you?”“No, I’ve never had one.”“I can get you a burner phone-”“I wouldn’t know how to use one,” he shrugged, “I know they’re easy to trace so I’d prefer not having one.”“Okay. That makes it a bit difficult.”“Nothing about my life has ever been easy.”“Join the club. Look, I’ll continue to check in with you if you don’t mind? I can keep you updated on lab activity to make sure they aren’t anywhere near you and if I figure out an easier way to talk I can let you know.”“Sure. Hey, do you know a man by the name of Walker?”“Walker Hanson?”“Maybe. He showed up on our doorstep some time back. We thought the lab had found us so we booked it.”“He’s a current liaison for our series. I’d do my best to stay clear of him if I were you.”“What do you mean ‘series’?” he frowned.“Er… short version is that we aren’t the only clones out there. I’d love to tell you more at another time, but I don’t want to keep you on the line for too long.”“Should I tell my Dad?”“I’ll leave that up to you. I should be able to track you well enough from here if he decides you need to leave.”“Great. Thank you, Alex?”“You’re welcome Bradley. Good luck.”Bradley hung the phone up and ran his fingers through his hair.He couldn’t tell his father. He’d yell and scream and demand that they start again somewhere new. Alex was right, he was tired of running. Never staying in the same state for more than a year or two was only becoming more and more frustrating. How was this even a life?Maybe if he stayed in contact with Alex he’d finally get the answers his father had never been willing to give him.