Chapter Text
“If this was what my old gym teacher would have said I was preparing for I wouldn’t have skipped PE all those times,” Will says with a groan holding a hand against the pained stitch to his side.
“I still don’t think it was the best idea calling Simone to help with containment, Dayton” Sigourney gasps in scolding as Cole and his sister finish their attempted barricade of the door.
“I’m just glad one of them answered that SOS text I sent. Although I thought I sent it to Andrew, not Si…”
“Yeah, like that would have made things so much better.” Cole snaps heavy sarcasm dripping from his voice as he glares at his sister.
“Regardless of who answered it, it was still incredibly dangerous.” The scientist mother cuts in looking from one to the other of the Reyes siblings. “We don’t know the extent of this virus or anything about it at all really. We don’t know its origins if it could potentially infect other….”
“Sig not now.” Will waves off in a scold of his own. “how do we help Frankie?” he asks over the muffled sounds of something heavy breaking down below them.
At first, his wife only shrugs her shoulders unsure of an answer as she drags her hands through her hair in indecision. “If only I had grabbed….”
“This?” Jenny asks, holding up the laptop she’d thought to drag with her in the panicked retreat from her currently evil and virus-inflicted android sister.
“Oh, smart thinking, sweetie.”
“Way to go Jen.”
“Jenny you’re a genius.”
“Guys, it's quiet now. Why is it quiet now?” Cole asks standing as close as he can get to the barricaded door as the others quieted enough from their praising to listen as well. “Then again this would be the perfect setup for the villain of the movie to spring a clever trap for the unsuspecting heroes unwittingly cornered in said villain’s evil lair.
“Well, if I know our girl, she put up one heck of a fight.” Will says almost as worried as Cole himself in the glare of the silence drifting from the floor below them.
“But if Simone had found some way of overpowering Frankie, wouldn’t she have signaled to us somehow?” Dayton reasons warry even as Cole starts deliberately unbarricading the door.
“Cole what the hell, are you nuts?” Dayton yelps at the action.
“I’m not just going to leave her down there,” Cole growls tossing an overturned beanbag onto the floor then giving up and kicking the rest of the improvised barriers out of his way to wrench the door back open. Will was a few steps behind him and Jenny looked ready to push past both of them as soon as she was able.
The Gaines living room looked worse than if a literal tornado had swept through it as the group made relatively stealthy work in moving from the second floor back to the first.
Android-sized holes littered the walls and most of the floor but it’s the soft sounds of crying coming from the kitchen that draws all attention.
Dayton rather than Cole jumps the last few steps charging wild-eyed into the Gaines’s connecting kitchen only to come up short at the sight of her best friend kneeling heartbroken over a now powered-off looking Simone as Frankie cradles her fellow android's head against her lap. Dayton considers thanking some kind of religious personage that at least Simone’s head was still attached to the rest of her battle-scared body.
Frankie stiffens at the human girl’s approach folding even tighter around the other android. It was heartbreakingly clear as soon as her tearful best friend lifted her head whatever WARPA had done was still running as strong as ever.
“I’m so sorry Dayton Reyes. So. So sorry.” Frankie sobs.
The sound of her name seems to trigger something in a comatose-looking Simone who twitches at first a few fingers then gives a pained groan as she turns into Frankie’s huddled crouch over her. “Dayton?”
But it wasn’t Simone’s voice coming from the snarky girl’s lips now. It was Cole’s.
“Frankie?”
Dayton whirls at the sounds of the real Cole’s asking coming from behind her.
“Oh great, perfect that’s just what I need.” Simone still talking as Cole groaned as she attempted to sit up slowly under a cloudy-eyed Frankie’s ever-watchful. “So not only has WARPA scrambled my actual brains as they did with Tammy but now they’ve made me my own freakazoid android copy.”
At this Frankie gave what could be an honest giggling as she leaned into Simone’s shoulder. “Trust me Cole. There can only ever be one Cole Reyes and that’s you.” She soothed a hand slipping sweetly into Simone’s hair ruffling it as she would sometimes do to the real Cole’s as the sickly android nuzzled her forehead to the voice-copied ones.
“What are you talking about Frankie? I’m right here.” Cole says puzzled lifting a hand to wave towards them as if in proof. “See real Cole Reyes standing right over here.” He says with a grin.
“Yeah, how about let’s not anger the virus-sick droids,” Jenny warns already tugging the teenager back towards the kitchen doorway. Will and Sigourney quickly closed ranks in front of him under Frankie’s glazed angry glare in his direction that only makes the red haze clouding her eyes even more prominent as she crouched even closer over a snickering Simone.
“Ookkaayy. How about we all just take a very, very deep breath and calm down a little huh?” Dayton steps in forcing herself between both groups.
“Yeah, as soon as you all stop treating that WARPA copy as me first, sis.” Again, it's unnerving hearing a clear copy of Cole’s voice coming from Simone’s throat as the girl herself was helped back to her feet by an equally shaky-legged Frankie. “Honestly Days it’s kind of insulting you’re siding with that obvious WARPA spy copy over me. Your own actual brother.”
“About that.” Dayton says glossing over the point that at no time ever has her brother ever called her ‘Days’ as she attempted to keep her voice even and low as she spoke. It didn’t take a genius to know this was incredibly shaky territory at the moment. “How are you feeling, Cole?” she says after throwing her true brother a ‘sorry’ glance before calling someone else by his name.
“Honestly?” Simon sighs now spinning a cracked coffee mug between her fingers before filling said broken cup with water from the tap. “Aside from WARPA zapping parts of my brain implanting some kind of chip thing in my head that will make me turn against my girlfriend at some point in the near future I’m pretty alright.” The glitching android chuckles lifting the mug to her lips for a drink.
A drink most of the watching group knew would be fatal given Simone like any computer didn’t take kindly to water of any kind getting into her delicate insides.
As if some part of her frazzled mind realizes this too Frankie’s clammy-looking hand flashes out to stop the action before any liquid could do more than slosh meekly against the lip of the thing. A move that has the rest of her watching family and friends breathing a sigh of relief until she opens her mouth to speak. “Until Doctor Mom has worked out just what it was WARPA did to you it's best if you refrain from eating or drinking anything, Cole.” She reasons gently holding ‘Cole’s’ wrist hostage as she speaks.
“Finally, you’re talking normal.” Jenny sighs from the doorway.
“Nearly normal you mean.” Cole huffs earing a huffed shushing from his girlfriend’s younger sister.
“Oh hush, clone head.” Simone scolds earning a happy giggle from Frankie.
“Clone head, okay come on Frankie.”
“Cole, watch it.” Will shoved the teenager aside letting the hurled water mug smash to the ground where Cole would have been standing.
“Dad this is Cole.” Frankie says wrapping her arms around Simone’s shoulders.
“aww Sig did you hear that, she called me Dad.” Will sighs, glancing towards his wife who, with Jenny’s help, was typing away on the open laptop Jenny was holding still.
“Dammit Will.”
“Nice work Dad.”
His wife and daughter say in unison at the same time Simone/Cole growls a bone-rattling “Take your hands off that computer WARPA spies.”
“Everybody get to the car,” Sigourney calls hugging the laptop tightly to her chest as the red hazy glow of the twin android’s eyes glows brighter in the flickering of the kitchen lights.
“What about Frankie?” the real Cole asks pain clear in his voice as his sickly girlfriend readies for another attack.
“Cole car.” Sigourney barks backing towards the opened front door as she hurriedly types a few keys of the slid-opened keyboard.
“Not without Frankie.”
“Like I’m letting WARPA lay another finger on her.” A voice stealing Simone snarls “No. I’m getting her as far away from them and you as we can. Right after I take back that computer.”
Cole readies for the coiled spring but Sigourney beats the stalking android to the punch with a whispered “Sorry Frankie” with one jabbing press of a button.
Will and Dayton forcibly drag a struggling Cole back as Frankie gives a pained lurching cry now clutching at her stomach with a twisted mask of pain. Black sludge already seeping from between her tightly closed lips as she dropped hard to the ground still clutching at her stomach.
“What did you do to her?” Jenny asks when, as Sigourney hoped Simone doubles back to help, giving them time to make an escape.
“I momentarily disabled the patch to her E-stomach.”