Project S: Part 1
A/N: This is my first fanfic. I'm not sure how to load chapters so I'm just going to upload the sequel. Sorry if it's a little boring in the beginning. It WILL get better! Anyway, I usually write stuff more humorous than this. This is pretty serious. But I'll loosen up in the sequel, unless you don't want me to.
Disclaimer: I do not own Replica. Marilyn Kaye does and I think the publishing company. But I love Replica!
Prologue: 1994
They were the future. They were infants.
"We're very pleased with your advances in the project," the Director said. He quickly added, "You better keep it up."
Doctor Kelly Newburg smiled. Her hard work was beginning to be acknowledged. She was young, only twenty-seven, but determined and intelligent. They were creating something that would change the course of history as they knew it. It would hopefully lead them to world power.
By the creation of the twelve Amys and Andys, perfect human clones, they only began preceding steps to their goal of world domination. Unfortunately, the scientists working on the project discovered this and took it upon themselves to terminate the assignment. But, they had an insider agent, an accomplished scientist, work on Project Crescent, as it was called, as a double agent. With her notes of the Amys and Andys Project, they had out done themselves. With scientists that were their own agents, they had successfully created six perfect clone humans without interference; three individual girls and boys. They called this Project S.
None of them were cloned from the same people. They were all Caucasian, and they had an S marking on their shoulders, but none of them looked alike. One of both sexes had brown eyes and hair, red hair and green eyes, and blonde hair and blue eyes.
They had out done themselves by giving them each a unique super human power. Sapphire, a female specimen, had psychic abilities of telekinesis, telepathy, and she had premonitions. Her male counterpart, Shane, had bulletproof body, and could fly. Sara had the power of astroportation, and her future mate, Sean had strange insect powers. Sydney was a shapeshifter, and Sam could adapt to any situation, such as fierce temperatures, or freezing blizzards. They were a few months old. Already, Sara had been leaving her body.
At that moment, a scientist from the project rushed in the room. "Excuse me," he said. "It's extremely important."
Kelly sighed, annoyed. "What?" she asked bluntly.
"Shane is gone."
And she wouldn't see him for another seventeen years, as an old woman.
Chapter 1: 2011 I wonder if I can hide here, Sapphire thought as she sat down on a bench in the zoo. It was in front of the polar bears, with multiplexed glass between them. She knew it was the Los Angeles zoo. It was actually the first time in days she knew which state she was in.
At the agency, she was always under rigorous testing. She was never allowed outside. She only knew anything about the outside world was because the world's finest tutors had taught her. She was probably the most learned seventeen-year-old out there.
Sapphire was the product of Project S, in which an anonymous government agency funded. Their goal was to produce a perfect human being with superhuman powers.
She had premonitions, she was telekinetic, and she was telepathic. She had a tremendous amount of power, and it grew every passing day.
They had made only one of her, as a prototype. It was very successful. They even considered cloning Sapphire after her testing and training was finished.
But she had too much power. She escaped two days before. It had been relatively easy. They didn't even know she had planned it.
Staying away had been another ordeal. She had been created with a foreign chemical added to her blood, so she could be able to be tracked. At that moment her very own blood that was betraying her.
The agency had special tracking devices, - called Trackers, like the kind you'd see as weapons in old Star Trek shows. It had a button on it that if you pressed when she was within twenty feet, would send a shock through her veins and first paralyze her, then send her into a deep slumber.
It was better to stay in crowded places. They would hesitate, because if she fainted just like that, somebody would notice. And that gave her time to get away.
"Like polar bears, huh?" she heard someone ask her.
It was a boy, about her age. Fairly cute. He could be one of them, she thought. She scanned his mind. Nothing but normal guy stuff, she thought.
Of course, he could've been misleading her.
She replied anyway. "Yeah." She pointed to a small baby with his mother. "I like that one there."
The boy sat down beside her. He smiled. "Me too. They remind me of my mom."
I may be a girl but I'm not stupid. You're telling me a fake sensitive story so I'll feel sorry for you, she thought angrily.
She went into his mind again. To her surprise, it was true. His mother had been killed in a car accident while he was in the car when he was only five. He still had nightmares about it. She was just reviewing some suppressed memories of the accident when he put his hand on her shoulder and snapped her out of it.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked, bewildered.
She realized she had been in intense telepathy. She had seen photos of her when she was in testing, reading the mind of whatever subject they had her practice on. She looked so strange, as if she was possessed by a demon. And everyone she'd done it on had felt so violated, but didn't know how.
She blushed. She found it embarrassing to reveal so much of herself to a person like that. But it did serve her right to invade his mind like that.
She got up to leave. "I'm sorry. I just get . . . weird sometimes."
He reached out and touched her arm. Even through the cotton fibers of her shirt, a pleasurable shock went right through her.
Apparently he felt it too. He drew his hand back. "Stay. I like talking to you."
She sat back down. "What's your name?"
"It's Shane Partridge." He looked at her expectantly. "What about you?"
"It's Sapphire."
"So Sapphire, any last name to that?" he asked.
She smiled at him. "I guess not."
"Are you . . ." he began.
She already knew what he was going to say. "A runaway?"
Shane nodded. She sighed. How was she going to answer this one? She was a runaway, but not in that way. "Yeah, kind of."
He gave her a reassuring look. "I know what it's like to have tough times at home."
He looked out at the polar bears. He revealed a long, crimson scar under his ear. "Is that from the accident?" she asked.
"I never told you about the accident," he said, totally shocked.
She had said too much. She ran out of the building like a streak of lightning, not caring who saw.
Chapter 2
She ran through a crowd. She could hear Shane calling her, but she wouldn't stop. And he would never catch her.
In moments, he was well away from her. She was standing by the lions. She couldn't see him anymore, even with her extraordinary vision.
She got a premonition. Her eyes glossed over, and her connection to the real world was lost for two glorious seconds. She saw an agency member coming out of a bathroom stall. She was brought back to the real world when a hand landed on her shoulder. She expected it to be an agency member, but when she turned around, it was Shane!
He didn't look the least bit out of breath. He actually looked relaxed and calm.
Her mouth gaped open. "How did you run that fast?"
He met her eyes with a strong connection. Strange electricity between them sparked. "What about you?" he replied. "You just went out like a blur! I've never seen anyone do that, even on the Olympics. The only time ever seen that was, well, . . . me. When the gym teacher played over tapes of our performance one day, I looked like that. I'm not bragging either. I wish I was."
Sapphire swirled around and pretended she was paying attention to the lion sleeping on a rock.
"Like I'll buy that," she retorted.
"It's true!" he protested to her back.
It actually was. But somehow, this was really aggravating her. She had had enough of it. She turned around and shot the final missile at him. "Didn't your Mommy ever tell you to not talk to strangers?"
She had definitely hit a nerve with that statement. She had gotten the exact reaction she wanted by mentioning that one touchy subject. His own mother. He let her walk away without a glance, somehow afraid to look into her eyes.
Don't be so sensitive, she heard him tell himself in thought.
She marched to the restroom. She slammed the door behind her and stared at herself in the mirror. She normally wasn't that vicious, but there was something about that boy that rubbed her the wrong way. As far as she knew, he was completely innocent. In fact, when she was with him, she felt this sense of fullness she had never felt before. Like he had mutual pain and confusion, - like he understood her.
Forget it, she told herself. He's a guy you met less than ten minutes ago. There is no one like you.
She turned around and glanced at the stalls in the empty restroom. Suddenly remembering her premonition, she realized she had made a terrible mistake.
As she foretold, a guy, about twenty or twenty - one, that was dressed in a black suit and had black glasses burst out of the stall right in front of her.
"She's here!" he began to yell. She grabbed his shoulders and looked deep into his eyes. His loud voice sunk into a feeble whisper as he fell to his knees, only Sapphire's firm grip holding him up. She cocked her head to the side, scanning his brain. "They don't think you'd be able to find me, do they? So they made you stay in this stall." Her eyes narrowed, as she looked deeper into his soul. He had once looked like a strong man, but now had the face of a small child. "They didn't even tell you about my psychic abilities. You don't even know how to use a Tracker," Sapphire added. "They don't trust you."
She heard several footfalls outside in the distance that sounded like strong, experienced agents.
Sapphire used her telekinetic abilities and forced the guy back into the stall and locked the door.
Her heart raced. Her eyes frantically darted around the room. How could she get out?
An air vent! It was on the wall, a few feet above her head. She bet the guys were too big to squeeze through there. She concentrated on it, turning the screws out with her mind. In ten seconds, the covering fell to the floor.
She jumped up, caught the edge of it, and pulled herself in. She quickly crawled through the vent. She knew she was above the boys' restroom when she heard laughing below her. Just then, she heard agents in the girls' room, yelling, "Where is she?"
Sapphire got to the end of the air vent. She kicked against the covering at that end and sent it flying.
She slipped out and fell onto her feet, just to see an agent standing in front of her.
His face was stony. He lifted his finger over the button the Tracker, and pressed it.
Chapter 3
Spasms shot through Sapphire in blinding pain. In less than a minute, she would be unconscious. She had to get away - pronto.
Adrenaline rushed through her veins. She ran faster than she ever had, so fast that some people could barely see her speed by.
She was on the outer edges of the zoo. She leaped over a fence, and into the parking lot. She filed in and out of rows of cars, until she got to a sidewalk and stopped. Cars sped at dangerous speeds in front of her on a freeway.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw agents who had been hanging around in the parking lot were running to her at every direction.
A car shrieked to stop expertly right in front of her. A beautiful woman that was at most twenty - two years old with brown hair opened the door for her. "Hop in," she said. Sapphire didn't understand. It was all too easy. She had to be an agent. But what choice did Sapphire have? There was no time to read her mind, and it was better to face one possible agent than an entire army.
She got in and shut the door. The woman drove into traffic, recklessly milling through the lanes on the freeway.
Sapphire was starting to feel paralysis creep up on her. Her limbs started getting stiff and heavy. She held in a groan as her leg muscles began to bind themselves, tightening. "Thank you," she whispered to lady. She hoped that the woman was reliable, because she didn't have enough energy to scan her mind.
"You're welcome," the woman replied, smiling at her. She had soft, gentle eyes. Sapphire knew at that moment she couldn't possibly be an agent.
Sapphire started to feel drowsy. The world began to fade, and then everything was black.
Sapphire's eyes fluttered open. Where was she? She sat up and looked around. She was lying on a leather couch in a mod styled living room with only her shoes off and a blanket covering her.
There was a coffee table made entirely of glass. There was a wood entertainment center, and it had cupboards that were closed.
There was a large window at the far left of the room. It revealed a view of a beach. Women tanned, surfboarders surfed, and the hot sand smoldered small children's feet.
"You're awake?" she heard someone ask her.
She looked behind her. The lady was bringing cups of coffee to the table. She sat down on the couch with her. "You just fell asleep suddenly. I was so worried. Should I call an ambulance?"
"No!" Sapphire exclaimed. If the paramedics looked at her, they would notice some things that they shouldn't, like the fact that she was perfect in every way.
"Okay," the woman said. "My name is Amy Candler."
Sapphire was going through her mind, trying to listen to her and not be too intense. Then she came across something she had never expected. Amy was a clone.
She had been specimen of Project Crescent. It had been funded by the same agency that created Sapphire. They had made thirteen identical clones of both sexes. They didn't have super powers like her; they were just perfect humans. When the scientists found out that the agency's real motives were to gain world power, they secretly terminated the project, sending the Amys, and Andys, as they were called, to adoption agencies. But one scientist kept her as a daughter. She didn't even find out that she was a clone until she was twelve.
"What's your name?" Amy asked.
Sapphire left her mind. "Sapphire." She paused, then added, "No last name comes with it."
Amy nodded. "I should call your parents. What's your number?" she asked, reaching for the phone on the coffee table.
"I don't exactly have parents," Sapphire admitted. "Like you."
Amy looked at her as if she was insane. "I never mentioned my parents."
"That's because you're a clone." Amy got up and backed away. "You're from the organization, aren't you?! I thought you'd stop stalking me! But why did they send a teenager?"
Sapphire stood up. "I'm the product of another project. They created six individual, perfect humans. The only difference from Project Crescent and the one that created me, Project S, was that they gave us super human powers. One of my powers is that I'm psychic."
Amy calmed down. She looked wary again, as an idea occurred to her. "How far did you go into my mind?"
Sapphire wasn't intimidated. She shrugged. "I didn't find anything incriminating."
"And, those guys chasing you, they were agents."
She nodded. "I escaped from the HQ in Washington DC two days ago. And I fell asleep in the car because I was created with a chemical in my blood so they could track me down. The have special devices that they track us with. If they press a certain button on them, it will first paralyze me, then make me unconscious."
"I see," Amy said.
Sapphire got another premonition. There were posters with her picture on them all over the beach. She had to go remove them. "You know, I'm just going to go take a walk on the beach," she said, and left without Amy replying.
Chapter 4
I don't understand it, Sapphire thought as she ripped a missing poster with her name on it off the post of an electrical line. There was a ton of them. Putting up posters for her was a bad move.
She would know that they were looking for her and would hide, and if someone turned her in, it would make the police involved.
She stopped moving, as if she was frozen. It had just occurred to her that they might've put them up so they could watch her. A chill went down her spine. She realized that she was feeling two eyes on her right now. She grunted. Her premonitions were never as they seemed.
She felt a hand lightly touch her shoulder. Adrenaline ran through her as she turned around, ready to fight.
But she didn't need to. It was only Shane.
A warm blush set on her cheeks. It was embarrassing to be so jumpy. Or maybe it was she hadn't noticed how beautiful his eyes were until now. Stop it, she told herself. You're starting to sound like a cheesy romance novel.
Obviously, Shane wasn't the type to hold a grudge. "It's weird how we keep bumping into each other, huh?"
Sapphire just nodded. She sighed. "Look, I'm sorry about what I said at the zoo . . . I just wasn't myself."
He smiled at her. "Why should it hurt me?"
She knew she was only salting his wounds. He didn't know that she knew about his mom. She tried to act natural. "You know how you said how you said how the polar bears reminded you of your mom . . . well, I assumed something bad happened to her."
Sapphire could feel his burning pain as she poured more salt, just trying to apologize. Shane just nodded. "It's okay."
She heard honking as a car pulled up along side them. A man leaned out. "Hey, Shane," he said. "Ready to go?"
Sapphire assumed it was his father. "Yeah," he nodded to him. He turned around to her. "Listen, call me sometime, okay?"
She nodded. Anything if it means more time with you. She tried to keep the startled look off her face. Why had she thought that?
He fished a pen out of his pocket and wrote his number on one of the papers she held in her arms, not bothering to look at them.
He went to the car. As soon as his father got a good look at Sapphire, his mouth dropped open. She's the psychic one, she heard him think. They're trying to get my son!
He shot out of her sight, leaving tire marks in the road. Sapphire sniffed the burnt rubber hanging in the air as she tried to understand what happened. There was only one logical explanation for it. He was an enemy of the organization. She had to know more about this.
She went back to Amy's and called Shane. "Hey, this is the Partridge residence, who is speaking?" answered the phone.
"Hi Shane," she said. "It's me, Sapphire. Can I go to your house for dinner tonight?"
He gave her the address. When she was finished, she hung up the phone. Amy came over on the couch and talked to her.
"I want to help you," she said. "So, you can stay here as long as you want. In fact, I'll enroll you in the local high school when school starts in September. The one I went to. You can pose as my younger sister." Amy beamed at her. "Sapphire Candler - well, I can do better than that. What about Sapphire Hopkins, my mom's husband?"
A family, Sapphire pondered to herself. That was something she'd never had. No. That would put Amy in too much danger. The organization would find them because of the Trackers. But, the idea of wandering from one place to another the rest of her life didn't seem too appealing.
She couldn't. It was irresponsible to put others in danger. She was going to leave LA after she went to eat at Shane's place.
She didn't tell Amy anything. "I'm going to have dinner at a friends house and I'll think about it, okay?" She had no intention of even thinking about it, but Amy couldn't tell.
You didn't need to be a mind reader to know Amy was upset. She nodded anyway.
Sapphire headed toward the door. "Oh, and Amy?"
"Yes?"
"Don't stay up too late waiting for me."
Chapter 5
They were rich. That's the first thing Sapphire noticed about Shane's place. They had a spotless lawn, with perfectly manicured grass. They had a small gray fountain, lit up in the night by small spotlights.
Sapphire hadn't been afraid of walking around at night in dark. If someone tried to mug her, she would either push him or her away telekinetically or manipulate their mind to make them leave her. If worse came to worse, she would just kick their butt. She was much stronger than an average teenager was.
A heat lamp came on as she dawdled up the paved walkway to the front door. She went up and rang the doorbell.
Shane answered the door. When he saw her, his face lit up into a smile. "Glad you're here."
He led her to the dining room. Around the table sat a girl younger than her, a woman, and the man from the car, Shane's father.
"This is my stepmother, Heidi," he said, gesturing. "My half sister, Laura, and my dad, Bob."
Bob's eyes met hers with a steely gaze. She pushed into his mind to see why.
She was startled when he pushed her back out. No one had ever been able to resist her telepathy. No one had even thought it was possible. And why would he, someone who supposedly didn't know anything about her know she was reading his mind - and push her out?
Heidi elbowed her husband. She whispered in his ear, at only a tone that they and Sapphire could hear. "Don't stare at her that way - it's very rude."
Shane's cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Thanks Dad, he thought. What's with you?
How could he hear that? She had said it so silently, and they were all the way over there!
Sapphire mentally shrugged. Heidi had probably said it louder than she had thought.
They ate lasagna for dinner - overcooked on the bottom and undercooked on the top. Sapphire choked it down anyway, suggesting in Heidi's mind that she gave her a smaller portion.
During dinner, she could tell Heidi was sizing her up. "So, where do you live?"
She was about to reply "Wherever I please," to upset Heidi, but she thought about Shane. For some reason, she couldn't embarrass him like that. "At Miller's Condos on fourteen and fifth," she recited Amy's address.
Heidi gave a nod of approval. "Good neighborhood."
After dinner, Sapphire washed her plate in the kitchen. It was the only time she had been alone with Bob. There was an uncomfortable silence between them.
Bob shattered the ice into a million pieces. "I know who you are. Stay away from my son."
He marched out without another word. Her mouth fell open. What was that all about?
Shane came into the room, defrosting anything icy his father had left. He looked deep in her eyes. The bond she had first felt with him sparked again. He smiled. "Wanna go out to the pool?"
"Sure," she replied.
They went through the living room to the siding glass door. Their pool was clear and clean.
The water was a mix of blue and green in the dark, illuminated by lights in the pool.
"Sorry about how my dad acted tonight," Shane began. "He's usually not like this. I don't know what got into him."
She nodded. "It's all right."
He shook his head. "No, it isn't. I don't know what he doesn't see in you. I know it's cheesy, and I just met you, but you are the perfect girl."
It was supposed to be a compliment, but the words seemed to haunt Sapphire instead of flatter her.
She broke their eye contact. "Being perfect isn't that great."
"Oh," Shane said. "I didn't mean completely. That's impossible. Nobody's perfect."
"That's not true," she told him, not believing that she had. Something told her to tell him.
Don't be stupid and ruin your life, she reprimanded herself.
There was a noise. They both heard it. Suddenly, dozens of guys dressed in ski masks jumped over the fence. Oh no, she thought in horror. They cornered me!
She used her telekinesis to try to keep them away from her. When they couldn't get closer to her, they started heading toward Shane.
Why? Were they going to hold him for ransom?
One of them pointed a Tracker at him and pressed a button. To her surprise, Shane fell to his knees. He tried to scream, but no sound could come out, like a dream. He fell face down, unconscious.
Then she realized it. Shane was a clone, like her.
She had to go with them, and save him. She pretended to go unconscious. She felt her being lift up and shoved into the back of a vehicle. Where were they taking them?
Chapter 6
They drove for two hours, as Sapphire estimated, until they stopped. She was still trying to comprehend what she had learned. Shane was a clone, like her.
But what kind of clone? A clone that was perfect, like Amy, or a clone that was special, and had powers?
Sapphire seriously doubted that he was psychic. And she thought that she was the only specimen in Project S.
There was only one way to find out for sure. She crawled over to Shane. She shook him. "Wake up!"
His eyes opened in slits. "Sapphire . . . what are we doing here?"
"Shane, take off your coat."
He sat up. "Why?"
Do it, she mentally urged him. He took it off. She rolled up his right sleeve.
"Why are you looking at that? I just have an s shaped birthmark."
That was it. He was a specimen of Project S.
"Shane?" she asked him.
He looked over at her. "Yeah, Sapphire?"
She sighed. How could she put this? "Have you ever . . . noticed something about you and everyone else? Like have you ever noticed that you can hear and see much better than anyone else? Have you been able to do things no one else could?"
There was no time to answer. The truck they were in halted to a stop.
Sapphire and Shane fell to the ground, pretending to be asleep.
In seconds, a light came in for the first time as the door was being opened. There was a clicking against the ground, like a clock.
High heels, Sapphire thought.
"Pick 'em up and bring 'em to the beds," she heard a woman say. "They won't stay asleep for long."
Sapphire felt herself be lift up and carried again. As she was laid down, she felt cool metal on the nape of her neck. She felt something firm and cold was being locked around her wrists and ankles.
When everything was quiet and they least expected it, she got the drop on them. She jerked up, trying to break the metal. It didn't even buckle at her maximum strength.
"It's pure adamantium," she heard female voice say. "Unbreakable metal."
She turned her head to the side. A woman with graying hair smiled evilly down at her. She seemed so familiar, but even with her extraordinary memory, Sapphire couldn't recall seeing her.
She glanced over at Shane. He stared back at her. He was confused and afraid. But it didn't show in his face.
"What do you want from us?" he barked at them.
"Ah, Shane," the woman greeted him, grinning. "I haven't seen you in thirteen years, since you were taken from us so unexpectedly."
"How do you know who I am? Who are you?" he asked.
The metal operating tables they were laying on were propped up to a seventy- eight degree angle.
"We know you because we created you," the woman told him. "You're a clone, like Sapphire here."
His jaw dropped open. "What? That's impossible. I have a father!" He quickly added, "And a mother, too."
The woman chuckled coldly, shaking her head. "Don't you have dreams of looking through glass, having strange people examine you? Do you ever wonder why there are no pictures of you before four years old? The man you call father was a scientist working for us. One day, he just took you from us."
Shane hung his head, as if he was ashamed of the truth.
She went on. "But there is more than that. You are a perfect human being. You not only define human perfection - you exceed it. And, you were created with special powers. You have a bulletproof body. You cannot be burned, cut, or bruised. And you can fly. The only scar you'll ever have is that one from the accident. We intentionally got you in accident and made you get cut by the only thing that is your weakness. A special metal."
He looked enraged. He wriggled violently to get off the table. His face looked like it had been turned inside out. "You killed my mother on purpose?! Just to test me?!"
The woman ignored Shane's yelling and glanced over at Sapphire. "Sapphire here is completely psychic. She can see the future, move objects with her mind, and read minds. You two were designed to have a unique attraction to each other, and, at some point, mate. She will bare your perfect offspring. But now, she has trapped you."
Shane looked over Sapphire with complete shock. "You mean, you set me up? It was all a trick? Everything?!"
"No, Shane - " she began.
He shook his head in disappointment. "I don't want to hear it."
Two large men unlocked the braces on his wrist and ankles. They kept firm grips on his shoulders. He didn't even resist. He walked away, avoiding her eyes.
Chapter 7
When the automatic sliding doors, made entirely of glass shut behind them, the braces around Sapphire wrists and ankles unlocked. She ran to the door, banging on it and screaming Shane's name.
He looked back at her. She didn't see any anger on his face. She saw anguish. He looked back forward and continued down the hall.
"He'll get over it," the woman said behind her. "You have him rapped around your little finger. It would upset him too much to be against you."
Sapphire looked over her shoulder. "What are you going to do with him?"
"I don't have to tell you. If you interfere, we'll hurt Amy."
Sapphire tried to push into her mind. The woman pushed her out. "Don't try reading my mind. I understand your powers, and I can block them out."
Sapphire sighed. I'll have to come up with something later, she thought.
"Now," the woman said. "We're going to do what we should've done in the first place. Clone you." She snapped her fingers. Two large men come up behind her. The woman pulled out a Tracker. "Sweet dreams, Sapphire."
In a fraction of a second, Sapphire kicked the Tracker out of her hand, leaped up and held onto a pipe from the ceiling, and swung to the door. She kicked the door open and ran outside into a vast, desolate desert.
She ran to the other side of the building. Using her telekinesis, she brought herself up to the roof. She ran over to the door and looked down as the two men and the woman looked for her.
"Where is she?!" the woman yelled, frantic. She glanced at both of the men. "Well, go look for her, imbeciles!"
Just then, Sapphire heard a murmuring sound. What was it? She followed were the sound took her.
It led her to a skylight. She looked down, and saw Amy tied up to a chair. Sapphire backed up, ran, and jumped into the skylight.
The glass shattered at her feet on impact. She landed on her feet in front of Amy.
"Hey!" she heard someone yell.
She swirled around. Two guards were dodging toward her.
She held out a hand. They stopped in their tracks, paralyzed by her telekinesis. This never happened. You will leave here and not remember anything.
Slowly, they both walked out of the room.
Sapphire swirled around and untied Amy. "You okay?"
Amy smiled, as she stood up, unrestrained. "Are you kidding?"
"C'mon," Sapphire said, grabbing Amy's elbow. "We have to find Shane."
"Who's Shane?"
"He's another clone from Project S." She shook her head. "I didn't know he existed until now." Sapphire got a premonition. She saw a door marked "Operation in Process: Keep out!" and it was being opened to reveal Shane lying on a table, unconscious.
They went down the hall to a dead end that read the same thing in Sapphire's premonition. She went in.
Shane lay on the table in peaceful sleep. She ran over and shook him. "Shane! Shane! Wake up!"
His eyes opened. "What?" He sat up, his eyes narrowed. "Oh," he said as cold as the metal table he was sitting on. "You again."
She felt her face tighten with urgency. "Shane, I didn't trap you here. Don't believe a word they say."
"Oh yeah?" he replied. "What's your excuse? How do you make yourself guiltless for trapping us here?"
"I ran away from the HQ in Washington DC three days ago. I lived there my entire life. When I was in the zoo the first time, I was hiding. They have these things - Trackers. They can sense you on them from a foreign chemical that is laced in our blood. If they press a button on a Tracker, it paralyzes you and makes you unconscious."
He slid off the table. "I understand it after I've been zapped twice."
"Hey," Amy said, on the sidelines of Sapphire and Shane's exchange. "What's behind this door?"
She opened it, and revealed a small room. Two men were standing idly in it, in front of a computer screen that had two small red dots beeping on it. Words came up on the screen: Subjects are ten feet away.
Sapphire glanced around at the room, then at Amy and Shane. Sapphire telepathically told Amy what it was, the message flying over Shane's head.
"This is the base for all Trackers," Amy told Shane. "The satellite; the headquarters."
TBC . . .
A/N: This is my first fanfic. I'm not sure how to load chapters so I'm just going to upload the sequel. Sorry if it's a little boring in the beginning. It WILL get better! Anyway, I usually write stuff more humorous than this. This is pretty serious. But I'll loosen up in the sequel, unless you don't want me to.
Disclaimer: I do not own Replica. Marilyn Kaye does and I think the publishing company. But I love Replica!
Prologue: 1994
They were the future. They were infants.
"We're very pleased with your advances in the project," the Director said. He quickly added, "You better keep it up."
Doctor Kelly Newburg smiled. Her hard work was beginning to be acknowledged. She was young, only twenty-seven, but determined and intelligent. They were creating something that would change the course of history as they knew it. It would hopefully lead them to world power.
By the creation of the twelve Amys and Andys, perfect human clones, they only began preceding steps to their goal of world domination. Unfortunately, the scientists working on the project discovered this and took it upon themselves to terminate the assignment. But, they had an insider agent, an accomplished scientist, work on Project Crescent, as it was called, as a double agent. With her notes of the Amys and Andys Project, they had out done themselves. With scientists that were their own agents, they had successfully created six perfect clone humans without interference; three individual girls and boys. They called this Project S.
None of them were cloned from the same people. They were all Caucasian, and they had an S marking on their shoulders, but none of them looked alike. One of both sexes had brown eyes and hair, red hair and green eyes, and blonde hair and blue eyes.
They had out done themselves by giving them each a unique super human power. Sapphire, a female specimen, had psychic abilities of telekinesis, telepathy, and she had premonitions. Her male counterpart, Shane, had bulletproof body, and could fly. Sara had the power of astroportation, and her future mate, Sean had strange insect powers. Sydney was a shapeshifter, and Sam could adapt to any situation, such as fierce temperatures, or freezing blizzards. They were a few months old. Already, Sara had been leaving her body.
At that moment, a scientist from the project rushed in the room. "Excuse me," he said. "It's extremely important."
Kelly sighed, annoyed. "What?" she asked bluntly.
"Shane is gone."
And she wouldn't see him for another seventeen years, as an old woman.
Chapter 1: 2011 I wonder if I can hide here, Sapphire thought as she sat down on a bench in the zoo. It was in front of the polar bears, with multiplexed glass between them. She knew it was the Los Angeles zoo. It was actually the first time in days she knew which state she was in.
At the agency, she was always under rigorous testing. She was never allowed outside. She only knew anything about the outside world was because the world's finest tutors had taught her. She was probably the most learned seventeen-year-old out there.
Sapphire was the product of Project S, in which an anonymous government agency funded. Their goal was to produce a perfect human being with superhuman powers.
She had premonitions, she was telekinetic, and she was telepathic. She had a tremendous amount of power, and it grew every passing day.
They had made only one of her, as a prototype. It was very successful. They even considered cloning Sapphire after her testing and training was finished.
But she had too much power. She escaped two days before. It had been relatively easy. They didn't even know she had planned it.
Staying away had been another ordeal. She had been created with a foreign chemical added to her blood, so she could be able to be tracked. At that moment her very own blood that was betraying her.
The agency had special tracking devices, - called Trackers, like the kind you'd see as weapons in old Star Trek shows. It had a button on it that if you pressed when she was within twenty feet, would send a shock through her veins and first paralyze her, then send her into a deep slumber.
It was better to stay in crowded places. They would hesitate, because if she fainted just like that, somebody would notice. And that gave her time to get away.
"Like polar bears, huh?" she heard someone ask her.
It was a boy, about her age. Fairly cute. He could be one of them, she thought. She scanned his mind. Nothing but normal guy stuff, she thought.
Of course, he could've been misleading her.
She replied anyway. "Yeah." She pointed to a small baby with his mother. "I like that one there."
The boy sat down beside her. He smiled. "Me too. They remind me of my mom."
I may be a girl but I'm not stupid. You're telling me a fake sensitive story so I'll feel sorry for you, she thought angrily.
She went into his mind again. To her surprise, it was true. His mother had been killed in a car accident while he was in the car when he was only five. He still had nightmares about it. She was just reviewing some suppressed memories of the accident when he put his hand on her shoulder and snapped her out of it.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked, bewildered.
She realized she had been in intense telepathy. She had seen photos of her when she was in testing, reading the mind of whatever subject they had her practice on. She looked so strange, as if she was possessed by a demon. And everyone she'd done it on had felt so violated, but didn't know how.
She blushed. She found it embarrassing to reveal so much of herself to a person like that. But it did serve her right to invade his mind like that.
She got up to leave. "I'm sorry. I just get . . . weird sometimes."
He reached out and touched her arm. Even through the cotton fibers of her shirt, a pleasurable shock went right through her.
Apparently he felt it too. He drew his hand back. "Stay. I like talking to you."
She sat back down. "What's your name?"
"It's Shane Partridge." He looked at her expectantly. "What about you?"
"It's Sapphire."
"So Sapphire, any last name to that?" he asked.
She smiled at him. "I guess not."
"Are you . . ." he began.
She already knew what he was going to say. "A runaway?"
Shane nodded. She sighed. How was she going to answer this one? She was a runaway, but not in that way. "Yeah, kind of."
He gave her a reassuring look. "I know what it's like to have tough times at home."
He looked out at the polar bears. He revealed a long, crimson scar under his ear. "Is that from the accident?" she asked.
"I never told you about the accident," he said, totally shocked.
She had said too much. She ran out of the building like a streak of lightning, not caring who saw.
Chapter 2
She ran through a crowd. She could hear Shane calling her, but she wouldn't stop. And he would never catch her.
In moments, he was well away from her. She was standing by the lions. She couldn't see him anymore, even with her extraordinary vision.
She got a premonition. Her eyes glossed over, and her connection to the real world was lost for two glorious seconds. She saw an agency member coming out of a bathroom stall. She was brought back to the real world when a hand landed on her shoulder. She expected it to be an agency member, but when she turned around, it was Shane!
He didn't look the least bit out of breath. He actually looked relaxed and calm.
Her mouth gaped open. "How did you run that fast?"
He met her eyes with a strong connection. Strange electricity between them sparked. "What about you?" he replied. "You just went out like a blur! I've never seen anyone do that, even on the Olympics. The only time ever seen that was, well, . . . me. When the gym teacher played over tapes of our performance one day, I looked like that. I'm not bragging either. I wish I was."
Sapphire swirled around and pretended she was paying attention to the lion sleeping on a rock.
"Like I'll buy that," she retorted.
"It's true!" he protested to her back.
It actually was. But somehow, this was really aggravating her. She had had enough of it. She turned around and shot the final missile at him. "Didn't your Mommy ever tell you to not talk to strangers?"
She had definitely hit a nerve with that statement. She had gotten the exact reaction she wanted by mentioning that one touchy subject. His own mother. He let her walk away without a glance, somehow afraid to look into her eyes.
Don't be so sensitive, she heard him tell himself in thought.
She marched to the restroom. She slammed the door behind her and stared at herself in the mirror. She normally wasn't that vicious, but there was something about that boy that rubbed her the wrong way. As far as she knew, he was completely innocent. In fact, when she was with him, she felt this sense of fullness she had never felt before. Like he had mutual pain and confusion, - like he understood her.
Forget it, she told herself. He's a guy you met less than ten minutes ago. There is no one like you.
She turned around and glanced at the stalls in the empty restroom. Suddenly remembering her premonition, she realized she had made a terrible mistake.
As she foretold, a guy, about twenty or twenty - one, that was dressed in a black suit and had black glasses burst out of the stall right in front of her.
"She's here!" he began to yell. She grabbed his shoulders and looked deep into his eyes. His loud voice sunk into a feeble whisper as he fell to his knees, only Sapphire's firm grip holding him up. She cocked her head to the side, scanning his brain. "They don't think you'd be able to find me, do they? So they made you stay in this stall." Her eyes narrowed, as she looked deeper into his soul. He had once looked like a strong man, but now had the face of a small child. "They didn't even tell you about my psychic abilities. You don't even know how to use a Tracker," Sapphire added. "They don't trust you."
She heard several footfalls outside in the distance that sounded like strong, experienced agents.
Sapphire used her telekinetic abilities and forced the guy back into the stall and locked the door.
Her heart raced. Her eyes frantically darted around the room. How could she get out?
An air vent! It was on the wall, a few feet above her head. She bet the guys were too big to squeeze through there. She concentrated on it, turning the screws out with her mind. In ten seconds, the covering fell to the floor.
She jumped up, caught the edge of it, and pulled herself in. She quickly crawled through the vent. She knew she was above the boys' restroom when she heard laughing below her. Just then, she heard agents in the girls' room, yelling, "Where is she?"
Sapphire got to the end of the air vent. She kicked against the covering at that end and sent it flying.
She slipped out and fell onto her feet, just to see an agent standing in front of her.
His face was stony. He lifted his finger over the button the Tracker, and pressed it.
Chapter 3
Spasms shot through Sapphire in blinding pain. In less than a minute, she would be unconscious. She had to get away - pronto.
Adrenaline rushed through her veins. She ran faster than she ever had, so fast that some people could barely see her speed by.
She was on the outer edges of the zoo. She leaped over a fence, and into the parking lot. She filed in and out of rows of cars, until she got to a sidewalk and stopped. Cars sped at dangerous speeds in front of her on a freeway.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw agents who had been hanging around in the parking lot were running to her at every direction.
A car shrieked to stop expertly right in front of her. A beautiful woman that was at most twenty - two years old with brown hair opened the door for her. "Hop in," she said. Sapphire didn't understand. It was all too easy. She had to be an agent. But what choice did Sapphire have? There was no time to read her mind, and it was better to face one possible agent than an entire army.
She got in and shut the door. The woman drove into traffic, recklessly milling through the lanes on the freeway.
Sapphire was starting to feel paralysis creep up on her. Her limbs started getting stiff and heavy. She held in a groan as her leg muscles began to bind themselves, tightening. "Thank you," she whispered to lady. She hoped that the woman was reliable, because she didn't have enough energy to scan her mind.
"You're welcome," the woman replied, smiling at her. She had soft, gentle eyes. Sapphire knew at that moment she couldn't possibly be an agent.
Sapphire started to feel drowsy. The world began to fade, and then everything was black.
Sapphire's eyes fluttered open. Where was she? She sat up and looked around. She was lying on a leather couch in a mod styled living room with only her shoes off and a blanket covering her.
There was a coffee table made entirely of glass. There was a wood entertainment center, and it had cupboards that were closed.
There was a large window at the far left of the room. It revealed a view of a beach. Women tanned, surfboarders surfed, and the hot sand smoldered small children's feet.
"You're awake?" she heard someone ask her.
She looked behind her. The lady was bringing cups of coffee to the table. She sat down on the couch with her. "You just fell asleep suddenly. I was so worried. Should I call an ambulance?"
"No!" Sapphire exclaimed. If the paramedics looked at her, they would notice some things that they shouldn't, like the fact that she was perfect in every way.
"Okay," the woman said. "My name is Amy Candler."
Sapphire was going through her mind, trying to listen to her and not be too intense. Then she came across something she had never expected. Amy was a clone.
She had been specimen of Project Crescent. It had been funded by the same agency that created Sapphire. They had made thirteen identical clones of both sexes. They didn't have super powers like her; they were just perfect humans. When the scientists found out that the agency's real motives were to gain world power, they secretly terminated the project, sending the Amys, and Andys, as they were called, to adoption agencies. But one scientist kept her as a daughter. She didn't even find out that she was a clone until she was twelve.
"What's your name?" Amy asked.
Sapphire left her mind. "Sapphire." She paused, then added, "No last name comes with it."
Amy nodded. "I should call your parents. What's your number?" she asked, reaching for the phone on the coffee table.
"I don't exactly have parents," Sapphire admitted. "Like you."
Amy looked at her as if she was insane. "I never mentioned my parents."
"That's because you're a clone." Amy got up and backed away. "You're from the organization, aren't you?! I thought you'd stop stalking me! But why did they send a teenager?"
Sapphire stood up. "I'm the product of another project. They created six individual, perfect humans. The only difference from Project Crescent and the one that created me, Project S, was that they gave us super human powers. One of my powers is that I'm psychic."
Amy calmed down. She looked wary again, as an idea occurred to her. "How far did you go into my mind?"
Sapphire wasn't intimidated. She shrugged. "I didn't find anything incriminating."
"And, those guys chasing you, they were agents."
She nodded. "I escaped from the HQ in Washington DC two days ago. And I fell asleep in the car because I was created with a chemical in my blood so they could track me down. The have special devices that they track us with. If they press a certain button on them, it will first paralyze me, then make me unconscious."
"I see," Amy said.
Sapphire got another premonition. There were posters with her picture on them all over the beach. She had to go remove them. "You know, I'm just going to go take a walk on the beach," she said, and left without Amy replying.
Chapter 4
I don't understand it, Sapphire thought as she ripped a missing poster with her name on it off the post of an electrical line. There was a ton of them. Putting up posters for her was a bad move.
She would know that they were looking for her and would hide, and if someone turned her in, it would make the police involved.
She stopped moving, as if she was frozen. It had just occurred to her that they might've put them up so they could watch her. A chill went down her spine. She realized that she was feeling two eyes on her right now. She grunted. Her premonitions were never as they seemed.
She felt a hand lightly touch her shoulder. Adrenaline ran through her as she turned around, ready to fight.
But she didn't need to. It was only Shane.
A warm blush set on her cheeks. It was embarrassing to be so jumpy. Or maybe it was she hadn't noticed how beautiful his eyes were until now. Stop it, she told herself. You're starting to sound like a cheesy romance novel.
Obviously, Shane wasn't the type to hold a grudge. "It's weird how we keep bumping into each other, huh?"
Sapphire just nodded. She sighed. "Look, I'm sorry about what I said at the zoo . . . I just wasn't myself."
He smiled at her. "Why should it hurt me?"
She knew she was only salting his wounds. He didn't know that she knew about his mom. She tried to act natural. "You know how you said how you said how the polar bears reminded you of your mom . . . well, I assumed something bad happened to her."
Sapphire could feel his burning pain as she poured more salt, just trying to apologize. Shane just nodded. "It's okay."
She heard honking as a car pulled up along side them. A man leaned out. "Hey, Shane," he said. "Ready to go?"
Sapphire assumed it was his father. "Yeah," he nodded to him. He turned around to her. "Listen, call me sometime, okay?"
She nodded. Anything if it means more time with you. She tried to keep the startled look off her face. Why had she thought that?
He fished a pen out of his pocket and wrote his number on one of the papers she held in her arms, not bothering to look at them.
He went to the car. As soon as his father got a good look at Sapphire, his mouth dropped open. She's the psychic one, she heard him think. They're trying to get my son!
He shot out of her sight, leaving tire marks in the road. Sapphire sniffed the burnt rubber hanging in the air as she tried to understand what happened. There was only one logical explanation for it. He was an enemy of the organization. She had to know more about this.
She went back to Amy's and called Shane. "Hey, this is the Partridge residence, who is speaking?" answered the phone.
"Hi Shane," she said. "It's me, Sapphire. Can I go to your house for dinner tonight?"
He gave her the address. When she was finished, she hung up the phone. Amy came over on the couch and talked to her.
"I want to help you," she said. "So, you can stay here as long as you want. In fact, I'll enroll you in the local high school when school starts in September. The one I went to. You can pose as my younger sister." Amy beamed at her. "Sapphire Candler - well, I can do better than that. What about Sapphire Hopkins, my mom's husband?"
A family, Sapphire pondered to herself. That was something she'd never had. No. That would put Amy in too much danger. The organization would find them because of the Trackers. But, the idea of wandering from one place to another the rest of her life didn't seem too appealing.
She couldn't. It was irresponsible to put others in danger. She was going to leave LA after she went to eat at Shane's place.
She didn't tell Amy anything. "I'm going to have dinner at a friends house and I'll think about it, okay?" She had no intention of even thinking about it, but Amy couldn't tell.
You didn't need to be a mind reader to know Amy was upset. She nodded anyway.
Sapphire headed toward the door. "Oh, and Amy?"
"Yes?"
"Don't stay up too late waiting for me."
Chapter 5
They were rich. That's the first thing Sapphire noticed about Shane's place. They had a spotless lawn, with perfectly manicured grass. They had a small gray fountain, lit up in the night by small spotlights.
Sapphire hadn't been afraid of walking around at night in dark. If someone tried to mug her, she would either push him or her away telekinetically or manipulate their mind to make them leave her. If worse came to worse, she would just kick their butt. She was much stronger than an average teenager was.
A heat lamp came on as she dawdled up the paved walkway to the front door. She went up and rang the doorbell.
Shane answered the door. When he saw her, his face lit up into a smile. "Glad you're here."
He led her to the dining room. Around the table sat a girl younger than her, a woman, and the man from the car, Shane's father.
"This is my stepmother, Heidi," he said, gesturing. "My half sister, Laura, and my dad, Bob."
Bob's eyes met hers with a steely gaze. She pushed into his mind to see why.
She was startled when he pushed her back out. No one had ever been able to resist her telepathy. No one had even thought it was possible. And why would he, someone who supposedly didn't know anything about her know she was reading his mind - and push her out?
Heidi elbowed her husband. She whispered in his ear, at only a tone that they and Sapphire could hear. "Don't stare at her that way - it's very rude."
Shane's cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Thanks Dad, he thought. What's with you?
How could he hear that? She had said it so silently, and they were all the way over there!
Sapphire mentally shrugged. Heidi had probably said it louder than she had thought.
They ate lasagna for dinner - overcooked on the bottom and undercooked on the top. Sapphire choked it down anyway, suggesting in Heidi's mind that she gave her a smaller portion.
During dinner, she could tell Heidi was sizing her up. "So, where do you live?"
She was about to reply "Wherever I please," to upset Heidi, but she thought about Shane. For some reason, she couldn't embarrass him like that. "At Miller's Condos on fourteen and fifth," she recited Amy's address.
Heidi gave a nod of approval. "Good neighborhood."
After dinner, Sapphire washed her plate in the kitchen. It was the only time she had been alone with Bob. There was an uncomfortable silence between them.
Bob shattered the ice into a million pieces. "I know who you are. Stay away from my son."
He marched out without another word. Her mouth fell open. What was that all about?
Shane came into the room, defrosting anything icy his father had left. He looked deep in her eyes. The bond she had first felt with him sparked again. He smiled. "Wanna go out to the pool?"
"Sure," she replied.
They went through the living room to the siding glass door. Their pool was clear and clean.
The water was a mix of blue and green in the dark, illuminated by lights in the pool.
"Sorry about how my dad acted tonight," Shane began. "He's usually not like this. I don't know what got into him."
She nodded. "It's all right."
He shook his head. "No, it isn't. I don't know what he doesn't see in you. I know it's cheesy, and I just met you, but you are the perfect girl."
It was supposed to be a compliment, but the words seemed to haunt Sapphire instead of flatter her.
She broke their eye contact. "Being perfect isn't that great."
"Oh," Shane said. "I didn't mean completely. That's impossible. Nobody's perfect."
"That's not true," she told him, not believing that she had. Something told her to tell him.
Don't be stupid and ruin your life, she reprimanded herself.
There was a noise. They both heard it. Suddenly, dozens of guys dressed in ski masks jumped over the fence. Oh no, she thought in horror. They cornered me!
She used her telekinesis to try to keep them away from her. When they couldn't get closer to her, they started heading toward Shane.
Why? Were they going to hold him for ransom?
One of them pointed a Tracker at him and pressed a button. To her surprise, Shane fell to his knees. He tried to scream, but no sound could come out, like a dream. He fell face down, unconscious.
Then she realized it. Shane was a clone, like her.
She had to go with them, and save him. She pretended to go unconscious. She felt her being lift up and shoved into the back of a vehicle. Where were they taking them?
Chapter 6
They drove for two hours, as Sapphire estimated, until they stopped. She was still trying to comprehend what she had learned. Shane was a clone, like her.
But what kind of clone? A clone that was perfect, like Amy, or a clone that was special, and had powers?
Sapphire seriously doubted that he was psychic. And she thought that she was the only specimen in Project S.
There was only one way to find out for sure. She crawled over to Shane. She shook him. "Wake up!"
His eyes opened in slits. "Sapphire . . . what are we doing here?"
"Shane, take off your coat."
He sat up. "Why?"
Do it, she mentally urged him. He took it off. She rolled up his right sleeve.
"Why are you looking at that? I just have an s shaped birthmark."
That was it. He was a specimen of Project S.
"Shane?" she asked him.
He looked over at her. "Yeah, Sapphire?"
She sighed. How could she put this? "Have you ever . . . noticed something about you and everyone else? Like have you ever noticed that you can hear and see much better than anyone else? Have you been able to do things no one else could?"
There was no time to answer. The truck they were in halted to a stop.
Sapphire and Shane fell to the ground, pretending to be asleep.
In seconds, a light came in for the first time as the door was being opened. There was a clicking against the ground, like a clock.
High heels, Sapphire thought.
"Pick 'em up and bring 'em to the beds," she heard a woman say. "They won't stay asleep for long."
Sapphire felt herself be lift up and carried again. As she was laid down, she felt cool metal on the nape of her neck. She felt something firm and cold was being locked around her wrists and ankles.
When everything was quiet and they least expected it, she got the drop on them. She jerked up, trying to break the metal. It didn't even buckle at her maximum strength.
"It's pure adamantium," she heard female voice say. "Unbreakable metal."
She turned her head to the side. A woman with graying hair smiled evilly down at her. She seemed so familiar, but even with her extraordinary memory, Sapphire couldn't recall seeing her.
She glanced over at Shane. He stared back at her. He was confused and afraid. But it didn't show in his face.
"What do you want from us?" he barked at them.
"Ah, Shane," the woman greeted him, grinning. "I haven't seen you in thirteen years, since you were taken from us so unexpectedly."
"How do you know who I am? Who are you?" he asked.
The metal operating tables they were laying on were propped up to a seventy- eight degree angle.
"We know you because we created you," the woman told him. "You're a clone, like Sapphire here."
His jaw dropped open. "What? That's impossible. I have a father!" He quickly added, "And a mother, too."
The woman chuckled coldly, shaking her head. "Don't you have dreams of looking through glass, having strange people examine you? Do you ever wonder why there are no pictures of you before four years old? The man you call father was a scientist working for us. One day, he just took you from us."
Shane hung his head, as if he was ashamed of the truth.
She went on. "But there is more than that. You are a perfect human being. You not only define human perfection - you exceed it. And, you were created with special powers. You have a bulletproof body. You cannot be burned, cut, or bruised. And you can fly. The only scar you'll ever have is that one from the accident. We intentionally got you in accident and made you get cut by the only thing that is your weakness. A special metal."
He looked enraged. He wriggled violently to get off the table. His face looked like it had been turned inside out. "You killed my mother on purpose?! Just to test me?!"
The woman ignored Shane's yelling and glanced over at Sapphire. "Sapphire here is completely psychic. She can see the future, move objects with her mind, and read minds. You two were designed to have a unique attraction to each other, and, at some point, mate. She will bare your perfect offspring. But now, she has trapped you."
Shane looked over Sapphire with complete shock. "You mean, you set me up? It was all a trick? Everything?!"
"No, Shane - " she began.
He shook his head in disappointment. "I don't want to hear it."
Two large men unlocked the braces on his wrist and ankles. They kept firm grips on his shoulders. He didn't even resist. He walked away, avoiding her eyes.
Chapter 7
When the automatic sliding doors, made entirely of glass shut behind them, the braces around Sapphire wrists and ankles unlocked. She ran to the door, banging on it and screaming Shane's name.
He looked back at her. She didn't see any anger on his face. She saw anguish. He looked back forward and continued down the hall.
"He'll get over it," the woman said behind her. "You have him rapped around your little finger. It would upset him too much to be against you."
Sapphire looked over her shoulder. "What are you going to do with him?"
"I don't have to tell you. If you interfere, we'll hurt Amy."
Sapphire tried to push into her mind. The woman pushed her out. "Don't try reading my mind. I understand your powers, and I can block them out."
Sapphire sighed. I'll have to come up with something later, she thought.
"Now," the woman said. "We're going to do what we should've done in the first place. Clone you." She snapped her fingers. Two large men come up behind her. The woman pulled out a Tracker. "Sweet dreams, Sapphire."
In a fraction of a second, Sapphire kicked the Tracker out of her hand, leaped up and held onto a pipe from the ceiling, and swung to the door. She kicked the door open and ran outside into a vast, desolate desert.
She ran to the other side of the building. Using her telekinesis, she brought herself up to the roof. She ran over to the door and looked down as the two men and the woman looked for her.
"Where is she?!" the woman yelled, frantic. She glanced at both of the men. "Well, go look for her, imbeciles!"
Just then, Sapphire heard a murmuring sound. What was it? She followed were the sound took her.
It led her to a skylight. She looked down, and saw Amy tied up to a chair. Sapphire backed up, ran, and jumped into the skylight.
The glass shattered at her feet on impact. She landed on her feet in front of Amy.
"Hey!" she heard someone yell.
She swirled around. Two guards were dodging toward her.
She held out a hand. They stopped in their tracks, paralyzed by her telekinesis. This never happened. You will leave here and not remember anything.
Slowly, they both walked out of the room.
Sapphire swirled around and untied Amy. "You okay?"
Amy smiled, as she stood up, unrestrained. "Are you kidding?"
"C'mon," Sapphire said, grabbing Amy's elbow. "We have to find Shane."
"Who's Shane?"
"He's another clone from Project S." She shook her head. "I didn't know he existed until now." Sapphire got a premonition. She saw a door marked "Operation in Process: Keep out!" and it was being opened to reveal Shane lying on a table, unconscious.
They went down the hall to a dead end that read the same thing in Sapphire's premonition. She went in.
Shane lay on the table in peaceful sleep. She ran over and shook him. "Shane! Shane! Wake up!"
His eyes opened. "What?" He sat up, his eyes narrowed. "Oh," he said as cold as the metal table he was sitting on. "You again."
She felt her face tighten with urgency. "Shane, I didn't trap you here. Don't believe a word they say."
"Oh yeah?" he replied. "What's your excuse? How do you make yourself guiltless for trapping us here?"
"I ran away from the HQ in Washington DC three days ago. I lived there my entire life. When I was in the zoo the first time, I was hiding. They have these things - Trackers. They can sense you on them from a foreign chemical that is laced in our blood. If they press a button on a Tracker, it paralyzes you and makes you unconscious."
He slid off the table. "I understand it after I've been zapped twice."
"Hey," Amy said, on the sidelines of Sapphire and Shane's exchange. "What's behind this door?"
She opened it, and revealed a small room. Two men were standing idly in it, in front of a computer screen that had two small red dots beeping on it. Words came up on the screen: Subjects are ten feet away.
Sapphire glanced around at the room, then at Amy and Shane. Sapphire telepathically told Amy what it was, the message flying over Shane's head.
"This is the base for all Trackers," Amy told Shane. "The satellite; the headquarters."
TBC . . .