Chapter Text
Cosima kissed Delphine’s bare shoulder. Her fingers trailed a loopy and elaborate pattern across Delphine’s chest. Cosima settled even closer to Delphine, and buried her nose into Delphine’s curls. Her breath was hot on Delphine’s neck. “Your phone is buzzing again,” she mumbled.
“Ignore it.” Delphine pulled Cosima a little closer with her right hand, grasping her girlfriend tightly. With her left, she pulled the covers a bit higher to keep them warm.
She had meant to be at work on time this morning, honestly she had. After they had come home late last night to Delphine’s apartment, Cosima and Delphine had gone right to bed. Of course they had not fallen asleep directly. Yet, Delphine had gotten up at seven after only three hours of sleep, and drowsily had taken a shower with the intention of heading to work once she was refreshed.
However, when she had exited the bathroom wrapped in a towel and still not fully awake, Cosima sleeping naked in her bed had been a much more tempting offer than the freshly pressed suit hung from her closet door. Instead of putting the clothes on, Delphine had dropped the towel and slipped back into the warm bed and Cosima’s embrace.
Now the towel was making the carpet damp at the foot of the bed, and Delphine was at least five hours late to work. She did not regret it; after all she had worked plenty of overtime already to justify one morning off. Delphine sighed. She kissed Cosima’s forehead, and then her nose, and then her phone rang again.
“Ugh,” Delphine untangled enough of her limbs from Cosima’s to be able pick up her phone from her nightstand. She turned the sound off, and tossed it back in place. A loud crash made the two women sit up. “Merde,” Delphine said while leaning out of bed to pick up the things that had fallen from the floor. This time, she gently laid her phone down next to her alarm clock. Professor Duncan’s book was taken out of her hands by Cosima before she could put it back in place.
Cosima sat back into her pillow, leaning against the headboard as she put her glasses on and started looking through the book. The innocent and careless expression on her face from a minute ago had again been replaced with that of intrigue and concern as she tried to make sense of the page Rachel had translated last night. The matching notebook page with the injured clone’s shaky handwriting had been stuck between the pages it referred to.
Delphine looked at her girlfriend for a moment. She smiled, and laid her head down on Cosima’s shoulder so that she could see the pages as well. “What are you thinking?”
“I have no idea.”
“How do you mean?” Delphine glanced up at Cosima, trying to see her face. Her own curls got in her way.
Cosima tucked Delphine’s curls behind her ears. She smiled and kissed Delphine deeply. “I have no idea how Rachel’s translation worked. It seems random, maybe she lied to us,” Cosima explained.
“But this isn’t the kind of lie Rachel would come up with, no?”
Cosima nodded. “No, it’s not. This is too specific,” she closed the book in her lap. “But I don’t think we can crack this code.”
“No. Ethan Duncan was a polymath,” Delphine said. She chewed on her lip, and wished she could have saved the old professor the day he had committed suicide.
“I want to talk to Rachel again. Get her to translate the rest,” Cosima admitted. “There has to be more in there besides a hint for the original.”
“I agree,” Delphine nodded. “But do you think she’ll cooperate again?”
Cosima thought for a moment. She went over their visit to Rachel last night in her head, and the following conversation in Siobhan’s living room. “Maybe,” she said. “We won’t know unless we try.”
“That’s true,” Delphine admitted, and with a mischievous smile she added, “There’s one problem though.”
Cosima frowned at Delphine. “Huh?” she asked, and put the book aside.
“We would need to get out of bed,” Delphine joked. And giggling she pulled Cosima under the covers.
Cosima laughed. She kissed Delphine. Neither of them was in any particularly hurry to get to the institute before lunch.
---
After an elaborate brunch, and a slow walk with a detour through a local park, Delphine and Cosima finally made it to the DYAD institute. They leisurely wandered through the hallways, Cosima carrying the book and a notepad in her backpack.
Delphine squeezed Cosima’s hand before she let go of it. She opened the door to Rachel’s patient room for her girlfriend. She was relieved that the door was still open to her pass card; part of her had feared that Dr. Nealon had blocked her access to the room, to Rachel, after having caught the small group with Rachel in the middle of the night. Against her expectations, Delphine followed Cosima into the dimly lit room.
“She’s asleep,” Cosima said. She was already standing at the bed next to Rachel.
Delphine joined her, and looked down at the familiar clone face, partially covered by bandages. “Do you want to wake her up?”
“I don’t know,” Cosima whispered. She was already holding the book in her hands. “She wasn’t happy when we woke her up last night.”
Delphine nodded. She knew Rachel was displeased enough already, forcing her to wake up again to translate might aggravate her beyond fixing and she could stop cooperating all together. And the worst part was that the corporate clone was the only one who could translate the book, it was absolutely vital that she was kept as happy as possible. “We’re not in a hurry right like last night. We can come back later.”
“Yeah, good point,” Cosima answered. Her voice sounded slightly disappointed, but it was hard for Delphine to make out the clone’s face in the near dark. No need to wake her now,” Cosima said, and put the book back in her bag.
“Come,” Delphine whispered, and pulled Cosima towards the exit.
Before they had reached the door, Cosima’s phone rang loudly inside her backpack. “Shit,” Cosima swore, glancing behind her at her still sleeping clone in bed. She took the phone outside the room, and they closed the door behind them before Rachel had shown any signs of having woken up by the loud ringtone.
Cosima glanced at the screen before she picked up. “Hey Alison. What’s up?” she asked her sister on the other side of the line.
Delphine waited patiently, answering some emails on her own phone in the mean time. She did not listen to Cosima’s conversation; the clone was mostly listening to Alison’s elaborate story anyway.
“I’ll be there in a bit,” Cosima finally said. “Bye.” She hung up the phone and rolled her eyes at Delphine. “Alison needs some help, she said gesturing wildly. “Something about an overdue payment and I need to help her with the voting thing.”
Delphine smiled at Cosima and nodded understanding. “Okay, do you want to borrow my car?”
“That would be awesome,” Cosima answered. “Thank you.”
“Delphine dug in her pocket for her car keys. She handed them to Cosima. Even though she knew her girlfriend hated driving, she liked the idea of the clone in a car better than on public transport or in a taxi. The chances of someone harming her were smaller. “Text me when you get there, okay?” Delphine asked. She would go with Cosima, but of course she needed to get some work done today.
“Obvs,” Cosima gave Delphine a quick kiss, before getting on the elevator. She waved at Delphine as the doors closed, but then quickly stuck her hand between the doors to keep them from closing. “Oh, I almost forgot: will you try Rachel again in a bit?”
“Sure,” Delphine nodded. She took the precious book from Cosima, making a mental note at the same time to make a scan of it. “I’ll let you know if there’s something interesting.”
“Thank you,” Cosima said. She kissed Delphine again, this time longer. “I’ll see you tonight at Alison’s dinner, okay?”
Delphine swallowed nervously. “Yes,” she said. “I love you.”
“Love you too,” Cosima answered as she finally allowed the elevator doors to close.
---
After a long afternoon of fulfilling her duties as a director, Delphine put away her papers. The reports from Dr. Nealon on Cosima’s health were promising; the stem-cell treatment seemed to have boosted Cosima’s immune system significantly. Of course, the clone needed another treatment in a month and a permanent cure as soon as possible, but this gave them a bit more time to find the latter.
Delphine picked up the plain brown folder from the corner of her desk as she walked past it. Inside were the book, and some paper and a pencil for Rachel to write down her translations with. She had not found the time to copy all 143 pages of the book, so she was clutching the only copy very tightly while she walked to the patient room.
When Delphine entered the room, Rachel was once again asleep. Delphine hesitated a moment, and then loudly closed the door behind her.
The clone in the bed did not wake immediately up as Delphine had hoped.
Yet, Delphine persisted. She put the folder with the book down on the nightstand and turned the lights on. She looked down at the clone in the bed, wondering how she might wake her up.
Rachel was lying very still, making Delphine wonder if she always slept so perfectly rigid, with her hands on top of the cover as if she was a doll a child had tucked in after playing with it.
Delphine leaned a little closer to Rachel’s face, pondering if she should check the clone’s heartbeat; so still the clone was lying. When she came close enough, Delphine noticed the soft breaths; Rachel was still alive. Something was wrong though, and Delphine was not sure exactly what it was. The fact that the clone always seemed to be sleeping whenever they visited made her suspicious. Delphine glanced down Rachel’s body, and took her wrist to time her pulse. “Rachel?” she asked, hoping to wake the clone. The clone did not move. Delphine noticed the clone’s nails. When would Rachel have had the time to get a manicure between last night and this morning Delphine wondered?
She lifted the hand, and inspected the nails closer. Even if Rachel had had the time and means, this is not the manicure the corporate clone would have chosen, Delphine was sure of it. Before she could figure out what was happening it hit her.
Delphine stumbled to the ground. Her hand covered the sore spot in her face as she stood back up to face the clone. Delphine knew that Rachel was angry with her, but it seemed uncharacteristically violent for the clone to actually hit someone.
In the bed Rachel was suddenly sitting upright, gasping and yelling, “Oh my God!” She was moving about, trying to get out of the bed, but slightly tangled in the sheets.
Delphine ignored her painful cheek and pushed her hair out of her face. Confused she looked at the clone who was in full panic mode in the bed. She got up and rushed over to Rachel, pushing her down on the bed. “Rachel, please calm down,” she told the clone firmly.
Rachel did not calm down at all. “Where am I?” she asked Delphine, fighting the doctor’s attempts to keep her in bed.
Delphine shushed and held her down. Moving so wildly could damage the injured clone’s brain even more.
Finally, Rachel seemed to give up her fight as she stared at Delphine with one wide set eye. “You’re the doctor from the salon!” she said in an uncharacteristically high-pitched voice.
“What?” Delphine relaxed her grip on the clone’s arms a little. She looked at Rachel’s face, trying to understand the chaotic situation. “What?”
“You’re the family doctor,” said the clone in that same voice, gesturing wildly.
Suddenly Delphine realized; this wasn’t Rachel. How could she not have seen it sooner? Dr. Nealon’s weird behavior, he should have said something about their visit last night, Rachel would never sleep so long and deep, and the elaborate pink manicure. Rachel had somehow performed the ultimate clone switch after they had left last night, and Dr. Nealon was definitely in on it. And in the bed was the poor, innocent beautician. Delphine took a step back and said, “Krystal?”
Now she’d finally been let go, Krystal sat up. “What am I doing here? Why am I here?” She was gesturing wildly, tugging on her hospital gown in her confusion. Delphine tried to calm her down, so she could take a closer look, but the clone would not hold still. “What’s happening? What happened to my eye?” She reached to touch the bandages on her face.
Delphine grabbed her hand. She had no idea how far Dr. Nealon had gone in order to disguise Krystal as Rachel. But the French doctor didn’t put it past him to actually remove the clone’s eye to make her disguise more convincing. They had abducted the innocent clone and sedated her in order to pass her of as Rachel after all.
Krystal kept asking Delphine what was going on, and what had happened to her eye.
Delphine wanted nothing more than to figure just that out, but Krystal had to calm down first. “Lie down for me again,” she told the clone firmly.
“Am I blind?” asked Krystal her in a high-pitched voice, clearly panicking.
“Relax,” tried Delphine.
“Am I blind?” asked Krystal again waving her arms.
“Just lie down,” Delphine said, pushing the clone back onto the bed.
The clone was clearly not relaxing. “What happened?”
Delphine looked into her eyes and told her to breathe. “We’re going to look at it okay? Just breathe for me, relax.” Finally the clone seemed to calm down a bit. At least she stopped flailing her arms and trying to get up. This gave the doctor a change to peel back the bandage over her eye. There was a familiar, brown eye looking back at her. Delphine let out a relieved breath and leaned back a little.
“Oh my God!” Krystal waved her hands in front of her face to check her vision. “Oh my God, I can see.”
Delphine rolled her eyes in disbelief at the ridiculous situation. “You’re fine.”
“No, I’m not fine! Why do weird things keep happening to me? Why am I here? Where am I?” Krystal looked at Delphine; she was in full panic mode again. “Tell me where I am! Who’s keeping me here?”
“Wait,” Delphine told the clone. She needed a moment to think about what to do, but Krystal’s insistent yelling was not helping her make sense of the situation. Delphine leaned against the bed. She pushed her hair from her face; the struggle with the hysterical clone had dishevelled her curls. Delphine sighed deeply, closing her eyes for a moment to shut the clone out.
“Oh my God, my hair!” Krystal yelled, tearing Delphine out of her moment of peace. “What happened to my hair?” When Delphine opened her eyes, she saw that Krystal was looking at the short bob Rachel usually sported. Someone must have cut and dyed it while she had been sedated.
“It’ll grow back,” Delphine said. She did not have the patience to deal with this right now; Rachel was gone, and with her any chance for translating the book, which was still hidden in the folder on the nightstand. “We need to get you somewhere safe.”
“Where am I?” Krystal asked again.
This time, Delphine pulled up a chair to the bed so she could give Krystal some satisfying explanation that would not involve her in any more danger than she already was.
---
“Hey, I’ll be a bit late to Alison’s dinner,” Delphine told Cosima as soon as her girlfriend picked up the phone.
“Oh, that’s okay. Sarah is not here yet either,” Cosima answered. “Is everything alright?”
Delphine was walking down the maze that was DYAD’s basement. She knew her way around by now, and she had wanted to hear Cosima’s voice for a moment, it would be a while longer before she would be able to see her again. “No, Rachel is gone,” Delphine admitted the real reason for her call.
For a few seconds it was eerily quiet on the other side of the line. “What do you mean: Rachel is gone?” Cosima finally asked.
“I mean she’s gone, the clone we saw in the hospital bed this morning was not Rachel. I don’t know where she is, but I intend to find out,” Delphine explained nervously. She felt awfully alone in the empty hallways, only lit by flickering fluorescent lights.
“Then who was in the hospital bed this morning?”
“Krystal Goderitch,” Delphine said.
Cosima spoke to someone on the other side of the line, repeating what Delphine had just said. A voice answered, but too muffled for Delphine to hear what they said. “Crap, she was not yet self-aware,” Cosima finally said, turning her attention back to Delphine on the phone. “We didn’t want to involve her in this mess too.”
Delphine nodded despite the fact that Cosima could not see her. She knew this; she had tried her very best to preserve Krystal’s innocent state. “I talked to her. She has some very peculiar theories about what happened to her, I’ll tell you about them tonight. I sort of implied they were true, and then smuggled her out of the institute and to a save place.”
“That’s my girl,” Cosima said with obvious pride in her voice.
Delphine smiled. Speaking with Cosima comforted her with what she had to do next. She leaned against the wall in the corridor. She had almost reached her destination; it was the same room she had been unable to save Professor Duncan in. The room was right around the corner, but Delphine preferred to wait here and wrap up her conversation with her girlfriend first.
“What’s wrong Delphine?”
Cosima’s obvious concern for her made Delphine smile again. Her girlfriend knew that something was wrong with her before she had told her. Delphine bit away her smile, gathering her thoughts before she expressed her main concern to Cosima, “I don’t know how Rachel escaped. She wasn’t mobile yet, and she was locked up with barely any outside contact. Someone from the inside must have helped her.”
“Yeah, obvs,” Cosima answered immediately. “Any idea who?”
Delphine sighed. “Yes, I have an idea. Which is why I’ll be a bit late, I’m sorry.”
“Hey, don’t apologize,” Cosima told her. Delphine heard her walking about, it seemed to her as if Cosima left a room to go outside. Perhaps to avoid the noise of other people’s conversation in the room. “Can I help you?” Cosima asked.
“No, I’ll be there as soon as possible,” Delphine answered. What she was about to do would be easier without Cosima there. “Save me a plate?”
“Of course. I’ll tell the others about this, okay?”
“Yes, okay.” Delphine sighed deeply, staring at the door in front of her. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Be safe, Delphine,” Cosima said.
“Always,” Delphine said. What she was about to do was not that dangerous, it was simply uncomfortable. “See you soon, ma chérie,” she promised before she hung up.
Delphine straightened her jacked, and then pushed her shoulders back making herself as tall as possible. She made up her mind and took the first step towards the door. The sooner she did this, the quicker she would be done with it, Delphine reminded herself. And the quicker she would be done with it, the faster she would be with Cosima. With a small shake of her head, Delphine recalled that this morning she had been nervous for the Clone Club dinner, now she wanted nothing more than to be there already.
She stuffed her phone into her briefcase next to the folder with the book, which Delphine was still too afraid to let out of her sight. She took the files she had collected on Rachel in the past hour out of the briefcase and made her way to the prisoner’s room with large strides and a grim face.
From a distance, she could see Dr. Nealon sitting on a chair in the middle of the room. Two guards were waiting next to him. When they saw Delphine approach they moved out of the room to wait in front of the door.
Delphine placed her briefcase on the table and turned towards Dr. Nealon. Not looking at him, but at the papers in her hand, she said, “We know Rachel flew to Austria as Krystal Goderitch. She took a car to Innsbruck, was admitted to a private hospital…” only then she looked at the man sitting in front of her, “… and disappeared.”
Despite his precarious position, Dr. Nealon did not even remotely seem uncomfortable. He looked up at Delphine and said, “You’ll never understand anything, Delphine, unless you adjust your frame.”
His condescending statement made Delphine furious. She threw the papers on the table, next to her briefcase and tried to contain herself. Instead of yelling at him, she told him in a controlled voice, “Tell me who you work with.”
“Turn on the screen,” he said with a mischievous grin. When Delphine hesitated, he said, “You won’t be disappointed.”
Assuming that there would be no harm in taking a look at whatever he wanted to show her, Delphine turned back to the table and picked up the remote. She pressed the on button.
A large room was displayed on the wall behind Dr. Nealon, in the room a distressed clone in a wheelchair was calling out in a familiar posh British accent. “Where am I? Who’s keeping me here?” Rachel yelled, wheeling around the room.
Dr. Nealon triumphantly observed Delphine’s reaction. “We were there from the very beginning.” In the background Rachel continued to shout. “Topside pursues its profits, the military pursues its weapons. We steer it all from within,” he continued.
“Neolution,” Delphine sighed. She should have known from the start.
The man tied in the chair nodded almost unnoticeable.
“Neolution is nothing but pop-science. I did my time with Aldous,” Delphine told him. As she spoke, Delphine knew it was not true. Neolution was everywhere; they had a plan, if only Delphine knew what it was.
“Leekie was a useful face for seeding ideas, but we run far deeper than that. We’ve infiltrated and maneuvered all the players in this experiment since day one. Castor and Leda are our Adam and Eve,” he spoke triumphantly. For some reason, Dr. Nealon was not even remotely worried about sharing this information with Delphine, and it worried her. His confidence scared her. “Soon, Delphine, Topside will unknowingly deliver the genome right into our waiting hands.”
He had confirmed Delphine’s suspicions; Neolution wanted the complete genome, and probably the original too. But why, Delphine still had no idea as to what Neolution’s intentions were. “To what end, she asked?” wondering if Rachel had told him what she had read in her father’s book.
“Wherever you think the science is at, I guarantee you’re wrong,” he cryptically said, not answering her question at all.
Delphine tried her very best to appear intimidating to Dr. Nealon, but he knew her too well, and was obviously not impressed by the show she put up for him. Leaning close to him, Delphine whispered, “I don’t believe you.”
Without skipping a beat, Dr. Nealon said, “We have a place for you. It’s a one time offer.”
Delphine scoffed. “You’re finished,” she told him as she turned and walked towards the door. Looking out into the corridor she called for the guards.
They had disappeared. She had instructed them to wait outside the room, but they were not there. Before she could call them again, something moved behind her. Delphine tried to turn around, but she was pressed on the table with his hands wrapped around her neck before she could react.
As she fought to get his heavy weight off her, Delphine wondered again where the guards had gone. She struggled with the heavier man; her position was awkward and she could not get a grip anywhere to push him off her. She noticed the blood on his face and wondered when she had hurt him to make him bleed that profoundly.
Scared, Delphine noticed her vision going black at the edges of her view. Her brain was starting to go oxygen deprived; he was really cutting off her air supply. Delphine let go of Nealon’s shoulders. She gave up on pushing him off. Struggling to get her hand between her own chest and Dr. Nealon’s, she found the grip of the gun. She didn’t have time to aim properly, but he was so awfully close, it didn’t matter.
As soon as her finger pulled the trigger, he flung back. Dr. Nealon was lying flat on the ground. Still alive, but he was clearly dying.
Her heart beating fast, Delphine scrambled to get up rapidly and aimed the gun at the man on the floor. She took a few deep breaths, pushed her hair back and wiped the blood from her face. Slowly, she walked closer to Nealon. Her knees felt feeble; she thought she might collapse in her high heels. Delphine noticed the roughness of her own breaths, and her heart pounding in her chest. Shaking, she kept the gun aimed at Nealon.
He looked at her, following her movement with his eyes. Something moved between his lips, and Delphine thought at first it was his tongue. “You won’t live till morning,” he said, clearly struggling with speaking. His took two more laboured breaths, and then stopped completely. He had died.
Delphine kneeled next to him, trying to remain calm. His blood was still warm on her cheeks. She checked for a pulse, and found none. Then, slowly and this time without turning her back to him, Delphine retrieved the small medical kit from her briefcase.
She retrieved the thing, still wriggling from Nealon’s mouth and inspected it closely. The maggot made her shiver even worse than the dead man on the floor did. Delphine put it in a test tube and stuffed it with her papers and the gun in her briefcase.
Before she left the room, she took one last look at the corpse. Neolution must have bribed the guards, Delphine realized. They had not chained Dr. Nealon as she had so specifically requested and he had prepared a live stream of Rachel.
Her breath was still painfully laboured as she made her way down the hall to the nearest bathroom. Delphine longed above all to wash the blood from her face.
---
It was dark and raining, Delphine was over an hour late. She had washed the blood away, and changed into a clean blouse, the one she had been wearing had some unremovable stains. She sat in a borrowed company car in front the soap store, part of her wanted to go inside and find some comfort in the company, another part of her was growing anxious again at having to socialise with these strangers all night. They still did not completely trust Delphine, and the French doctor could not blame them. She wished Cosima would come outside, that they could go home together, and Delphine would be able to crawl into her girlfriend’s embrace.
Instead, she got out of the car, bringing her briefcase with her. She still had the book with her, having checked every fifteen minutes whether it was still there. It was not very useful without Rachel, but maybe they would be able to find her back. Next to it was the test tube with the thing that had crawled out of Nealon’s dead mouth. It was still moving.
The door to the soap store was not locked. Delphine pushed inside quickly to get out of the rain. In the main store room, between the pink soaps and purple bubbles pushed to the side stood a large table filled with food. Four identical women, and four completely different people were seated around it. They were all too involved in their conversations to notice Delphine coming into the room, except for Cosima. The American clone locked eyes with Delphine across the table. She had been talking with Felix to her right, but the chair to her left was empty. She smiled at Delphine, pulling the chair a little back in invitation.
Delphine walked around the table, saying hello to Sarah and Siobhan as they greeted her in between their conversation. Delphine took her coat of and laid it on the till with her briefcase and tiredly sat down next to Cosima. She suddenly realized that she was starving.
“Hey, you came,” Cosima said with a sweet grin. She looked well; hopeful and happy.
“Of course.” Delphine laid her hand on the back of Cosima’s chair, not entirely sure how intimate they were allowed to be in this company. Nobody seemed to notice them, but Delphine was anxious to make a good impression, and she was already much later than dinner had started. “I’m sorry I’m a bit late.”
“That’s okay, you didn’t miss much,” Alison’s husband, Delphine had forgotten his name, interjected. He leaned across Delphine to fill her glass with wine.
Delphine thanked him, and took a long drink.
“Did you find Rachel?” Cosima asked her.
“Not really.” Delphine sighed. “I’ll tell you all in a bit, no need to ruin the mood for Alison,” she told Cosima, with a glance at the Canadian clone who was giggling and eating without a worry in the world.
Cosima nodded. “Yeah, good idea,” she said, and leaned into Delphine to give her a quick kiss on her lip. As she pulled back, she glanced at Delphine’s neck and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
With a mischievous grin, Cosima whispered very softly, “Did I give you a hickey this morning? You have bruises here.” The clone gestured at Delphine’s neck.
Delphine swallowed, her neck was still sore. She should not be so surprised that there were marks upon it. “No, I think it’s from Nealon,” she admitted. Delphine had hoped not have to tell Cosima about their struggle until after dinner, but her girlfriend was too observant.
“Dr. Nealon gave you hickeys?” Cosima asked, her eyes wide behind her glasses.
A cold shiver ran down Delphine’s spine and she cringed. “No,” she said, slightly nauseated at the idea alone. She took a long drink from her wine, washing away the foul taste.
“It doesn’t look like a hickey. More like actual bruises,” Cosima observed. She looked closely at Delphine, first her neck and then stared in her eyes. “Why do you have a bruised neck, Delphine?”
“He tried to strangle me,” Delphine admitted quietly. Her hands were shaking around her glass.
“What?” Cosima took Delphine’s hands in her own, forcing her to put the glass down. “Please tell me you’re kidding?”
Delphine could only shake her head.
“I’ll kill that bastard,” Cosima bravely stated.
The rest of the room was still wrapped in their own conversations. Sarah, Siobhan and Art seemed to have a very serious discussion. Felix and Helena were laughing loudly, and Alison and her husband were wrapped up in each other. None of them noticed the conversation the two women were having at the corner of the table.
“No need,” Delphine smiled at Cosima’s nearly comical dedication. “He’s already gone.”
Cosima frowned at the vague statement, but before she could ask what Delphine meant, Sarah interjected with a toast.
“To Beth,” the British clone said. “For giving us all her strength.”
“To Beth,” each member of the small group repeated.
Cosima’s smiled sadly at the mention of her deceased sister. She drank deep from her water; after all she could not drink alcohol with her medications, and sat back down next to Delphine.
They did not get their chance to return to the topic of Nealon or the disappearance of Rachel during that dinner. Alison insisted on giving a speech, and Felix pulled Cosima into another conversation. Delphine was contented to simply eat and chat a little with Alison. The immaculate housewife, who had cooked an amazing meal as Delphine told her at least three times, turned out the be interesting beyond Delphine’s expectations. Throughout the entire meal including the dessert, Cosima’s hand rested on Delphine’s back. Delphine forgot she had been worried about Rachel, the man she had just killed, and the idea that she had been nervous at all for tonight; for having to spend it conversing with Cosima’s family, seemed silly to her now.
They were leaning back after a long meal. It must have grown quite late, but nobody was ready to leave yet. It must have been the first worry free evening for most of them. Helena was telling a funny story, she was the only person in the room who was not drowsy and tired, or so it seemed.
Delphine felt Cosima’s hand toy with a curl on the back of her neck, and she felt safe. Tired and satisfied, Delphine watched the clones and their family interact. She caught Siobhan’s glance from across the table, and smiled at her. They must be thinking the same; how similar these four women were without being even aware; similar yet completely different.
Delphine was shaken out of her thoughts by her phone ringing loudly. Leaning back, she pulled her coat a little closer and dug her phone out of her pocket. The number on the screen was unrecognizable, so Delphine ignored the call. When it was silent again, she laid it down on the table, this time with the sound off. The French doctor apologized, and once again got wrapped up in the stories of the people around her.
Again, her phone rang. Again, Delphine ignored the unidentified caller. After the third time, Cosima told her to pick up.
Irritated, Delphine pressed the green button. “Allô?”
“Delphine Cormier,” an unfamiliar female voice sounded on the other side. The strong North European accent warped Delphine’s name.
“This is she,” Delphine answered.
Cosima was observing her with a frown. She could probably hear the person on the other side since she was sitting very close to Delphine.
After a silent moment, the woman on the other side of the line continued, “My name is M.K. I knew Beth. Neolution knows where you are.”
Delphine felt her mouth drop. She had no idea who M.K. was, but there was something in the voice that seemed familiar to her.
“They’re coming for you.”
Cosima was gripping her knee tightly, her knuckles white. It was obvious that she had heard the person on the other side speaking. The rest of the people around the room were all silent now, watching Delphine who felt all the blood drain from her face.
She had forgotten about Nealon’s final words, but now they came flooding back. Neolution is coming for you. You won’t live till morning. Delphine’s hands were shaking as she laid it on top of Cosima’s hand. “How do you know that?”
“Listen to me, Delphine. You need to run,” M.K. said, “right now.” And she hung up.
Delphine felt oddly clear headed. She put her phone back into her pocket, and finished her glass of wine in one big gulp. “I have to go,” she told Cosima.
Each faces were staring at Delphine, none of them understanding what had happened, except maybe Cosima for the glimpses of the phone call she had overheard.
“Who was that?” Cosima asked Delphine.
“Another clone. Someone who knew Beth,” Delphine told her. “Neolution is after me, Cosima. This time, they won’t take prisoners.” Delphine believed without a doubt that the caller had been serious, and though she did not know whom M.K. might be, and the accent had been hard to distinguish, the voice was unmistakably that of one of the Leda clones.
“Oh,” Cosima stammered. Her eyes were wide behind her glasses.
“What about DYAD, you’re the director after all?” Sarah asked, suggesting that Delphine took refuge with the very company that had tried to kill nearly everyone in the room.
“Not after today,” Delphine shook her head. She stood up, and started pulling her coat on. “It’s a long story. Please find the original, and be safe. We’ll be in touch.”
Cosima shifted in her seat. She exchanged a glance with Sarah, and scratched her dreadlocks trying to make sense of the sudden change in mood.
“Thank you for a lovely dinner,” Delphine told Alison. “Good night,” she said to the rest of the Clone Club with a firm nod. She hoped they would be able to find the original. with their DNA a cure for Cosima might be possible even without DYAD’s resources. Of all that had happened, the lack of medical resources for a cure for her girlfriend was what bothered her most about running. Yet, Delphine knew as she picked the briefcase up that she was of no use to Cosima if she were dead either. She trusted Siobhan would know how to keep Cosima safe for her.
Cosima stood up to face Delphine.
With a brave smile, for she did not know when she would see her girlfriend again, Delphine ran a hand across Cosima’s jaw, and then gently pulled her closer for a kiss. “Stay safe, okay?” Delphine asked her as she started to walk towards the door.
Somehow, Cosima reacted very quickly. “Bullshit, I’m coming with you,” Cosima stated firmly. She grasped Delphine by the arm, and pulled her closer.
Delphine’s mouth dropped. She should have known that she would not be running from Neolution all by herself in the dark of the night. A slow glow of relief washed over Delphine and they said goodbye again. She grabbed firm hold of the briefcase, and followed Cosima outside.