“That was him?” Con said with a surprise that was already fading as the words came out of her mouth.
Cabigail cut in. “Who else? Once the story was out in the open, the demand created itself. Oh, I objected, but I was easily dealt with—in all things political, I was an infant. Just another idealistic scientist with her head in the clouds. Let’s just say, I am a very quick study.”
Again, Con saw the scope and sophistication of her aunts’ plan. “It was you who maneuvered his clone off the Palingenesis board, not Brooke Fenton.”
“Well, she did the maneuvering. I simply whispered in her ear that having a clone enmeshed in a legal challenge to his fortune with his heirs was bad for business.”
“After you murdered his original.”
“A person with a clone—” Cabigail said tiredly.
“Cannot be killed,” Con finished. “Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first dozen times.”
Abigail finished her tea and set the mug down clumsily. It toppled on its side and a little tea dribbled onto the table. Her eyes went wide as if trying to bring them into focus.
“I think it’s starting,” Abigail said, slurring over the last word. “I wonder if this is how Socrates felt.”
“What did you do to her?” Con asked Cabigail, pushing her own tea farther away.
“Please don’t hold it against her. There can’t be two of us for what comes next,” Abigail said.
“She poisoned you.”
“Yes, I know,” Abigail said.
“So you’re just going to let yourself die?” Con said.
“Not as long as she is here,” Abigail said and squeezed Cabigail’s hand.
“You’re both insane,” Con said, but the two Abigails weren’t paying her any attention.
“Why don’t I go lie down?” Abigail suggested.
Cabigail agreed and took Abigail by the elbow to help her up from her seat. Abigail’s legs buckled, but Cabigail caught her before she fell.
“Would you help me get her to the lab, please?” Cabigail asked Con.
Con put an arm around Abigail’s waist and helped walk her down the hall. Not out of any real concern for Abigail, though, she was just curious to see the lab. And to see what happened next. She wanted to believe their confidence that she’d give them what was locked in her head was just more of their mind games, but she needed to know for sure. Well, she needed them to try and convince her. Then she’d know the truth about her original. And whatever it was, she suspected it would be in her aunt’s laboratory.
Where the rest of the complex was resolutely minimalist, the labs were packed with medical equipment and computers. Con couldn’t identify most of it, but she recognized a CT scanner against one wall. A spectrophotometer. Two examination tables. There was also an upload chair, although the Abigails’ chair was much more utilitarian, without any of the creature comforts that went into the Palingenesis five-star spa experience. Con counted three wombs similar to the ones Palingenesis used to store clones. Two sat empty. The third held an inanimate clone of Abigail Stickling. The backup to the backup to the backup, if Con had her math right.
“Do you want to rest in the office?” Cabigail asked.
“No, just take me to the tray. It will be a pain to move me after I’m gone.”
Cabigail nodded at the good sense of that. Together, they wound their way to the back of the lab. Abigail’s head dropped to her chest, and her breathing became thick and labored. Her feet gave out and dragged behind them on the floor. As they approached the far wall, twin metal doors parted to reveal a blackened chamber. A flat metal tray on a track rolled out and shuddered to a halt.
“What is this thing?” Con asked.
“An incinerator,” Cabigail said.
“Why the hell do you have an incinerator?”
Cabigail looked at it, then back to Con. “Isn’t that kind of self-explanatory?”
“You cremate a lot of bodies?”
“Too many to count over the years. They are the byproduct of our research. Now, if you don’t mind, would you lift her legs? I’m not strong enough to get her up by myself.”
“She’s not dead,” Con said.
“I know,” Cabigail said with genuine sadness. “It’ll only be a few minutes now.”
They managed to wrestle Abigail up onto the tray, miraculously without dropping her. Con leaned against the wall, panting from the exertion.
Abigail’s eyes fluttered open. “Are you there?”