William couldn’t sleep. Something itched in his mind, picking at a thought or a feeling he couldn’t quite grasp. Yelich’s overtly hostile actions were rubbing him up the wrong way. He had helped Kemprex do some shady shit in the past, but he drew the line at killing cops. The old bastard seemed content to mow down anybody that got in his way, and that frightened William. Could he be next? Whatever they’d grown to block his talents could be a sign he was out of favour. With the Cornucopia machines, his current role in the business was over. Was losing control of the clones the last straw? William turned over and stared at the grains and knots of the rough cut wooden wall. His uneasy thoughts accelerated into full blown fear.

“He’s going to replace me.”

The rambling contemplations coalesced. He was going to be replaced permanently. His uncle wouldn’t have signed off on Yelich murdering him. But what if he was acting alone? Maybe the bastard had sold them out to Paradigm or any one of their wealthy enemies. Maybe he wanted Kemprex for himself. He had been acting odd. William sat up.

Moonlight filtered in through a crack in the curtains. He had to go back and find out, mental block or no. There were other ways of finding information. William threw back the sheets.

The cold Easterly wind whipped at him, stinging his skin and flapped his loose coat, drying the nervous sweat on his brow. William propelled himself through the night on long arms of telekinetic force, back to Harristown and the confrontation he had always secretly feared. At the town’s border he slowed his break-neck speed to a sedate crawl, flying the last kilometre in absolute silence. More bulky transport ships were parked at the lab. William felt vindicated in his return. Something was definitely going on.

A dozen security personnel milled about the entrance as a stream of technicians in hazmat suits carried equipment to the waiting ships. William hovered above, preparing himself. His telepathy could render him invisible, or at the very least unremarkable to people’s vision and memories. They would still see him, they just wouldn’t register that he was there. On one or two people it was easy. On a crowd it was much harder, as he was editing their minds in unison, splitting his attention multiple ways.

He started, linking himself with the nearest person, accessing her real-time visual memory before going on to the next. William’s eyes rolled into the back of his head as his brain filled with a multitude of feelings and senses. He clawed his way back to a surface level consciousness and descended, scrubbing himself from sight. At ground level he joined a queue of techs returning inside the building, hovering behind them like a pale, glassy eyed spectre. As the distance between the connected minds increased, William pulled himself mentally from those out of sight and focused on the people around and approaching him. He ghosted through the first floor, ignored and forgotten on his search for Yelich and the answers to his nagging questions.

People in hazmat suits and tac-bio armour stood for a briefing from a senior looking woman. The scientific words flew over Williams head, he was far too distracted with keeping invisible and tracking Yelich’s furtive movements through the shared collection of images. The briefing ended and the team dispersed, back up the stairs, parting around William as he floated in the air. Yelich peeled away, lighting a cigarette and dialling someone on his phone. Yelich paced up and down the far hall, cell phone pressed to his ear. Two Pro’s tailed him at a respectful distance, alert and watchful, even in the presence of so much extra security. William drifted over, his telepathic links connecting to everyone in the room. He hid behind one of Yelich’s guards, confident in his ability to stay hidden from the savage killers.

“It’s bad, David. Real bad,” said Yelich, his back turned to his guards. “We overheard the clone say something about a virus… No, we don’t know what type. I have my suspicions… Yes. My thoughts exactly… We haven’t been able to locate him… I’m pissed off too… Okay… Four of the six man squad came in contact with the virus. I’m guessing it was airborne. Extremely fast acting… Yes. I remember the trials…”

William returned more of his mind back to be present for the conversation. What had Connor done now?

Yelich pulled another cigarette from his coat pocket, lighting it from the still burning one in his mouth. He spat the butt out and inhaled deeply on his fresh smoke. “Thing is, if it is that, we are in deep shit. That was developed for warfare. It has a deadly half-life. That whole area will need to be locked down and fast… I know… But what do I say?”

He ran a hand through his thinning hair and sighed quietly. “Okay. I can sell that. But what about the bodies? They were Programmed. We can’t leave any evidence… Someone could talk, David... I thought so. I’m prepping a team to remove them as we speak… Yeah, that too… Figure out what we are up against and throw a bone to the Centre…”

Yelich stopped pacing. “There is something else. The boy… No, your other boy… Yeah. This one is falling apart. Just like the last one… It’s just too much for him to handle… It’s only been, what? A year…? I know. I’m going to decant his replacement… Yeah. We’ll need William to fly back and make sure there are no gaps in his memory… Yeah…”

It clicked.

A literal replacement of him.

They had cloned him.

No. He was the clone.

William launched himself at the scientist, knocking the two guards aside with a sweeping blow of telekinesis and pinning them to the floor. His hands went for Yelich’s throat, as he barrelled forward, grabbing and slamming him into the wall.

“You’re going to just get rid of me? Like some piece of fucking trash?” screamed William, inches from the other man’s face.

“You’re losing control of yourself,” gasped Yelich, struggling against Williams grip. “A flaw we can’t remove from you…”

William squeezed tighter, cutting Yelich off. He could keep going. Snapping the bastard’s neck would be a cathartic experience like no other. He had more questions though.

“How many others?”

“Two.”

“Dead?”

Yelich nodded.

“How…” He struggled to find the words. His whole world was crashing down. “How long did I… he stay? How long until he gave up?”

“Month,” said Yelich giving him a pained smile.

William turned his head. One Pro had managed to get a hand on a sidearm despite the crushing pressure he forced on them. William bent the arm back with a mental tug, snapping the shoulder with an audible crunch. The Pro cried out in pain briefly before scowling back at William. He ignored the guards. Yelich seemed to be turning purple in the face. William relaxed his grip, dropping the man to the floor. “So… the Cornucopia doesn’t exist? There was no need to wait so long?”

Yelich rubbed at his throat and coughed. “Oh… It exists. Just not to replace you. It’s going to revolutionise how people receive medical, gene and enhancement treatment. This thing can do anything the customer wants. Anything we let them anyway… No, your replacement has just been flown in. You can meet him if you like.”

William spat on Yelich. “I’ll crush your skull first, you smug prick.”

Yelich wiped the spit from his face and put a hand in his pocket. “I don’t think so…” he removed a small handheld cylinder with a safety toggle. It looked like a wireless switch for a detonator, such as the aged or sick Khalists had used to great effect with suicide bombings in their final, glorious act for the death cult. Yelich flicked the safety back.

“What are you doing?”

Yelich squeezed the trigger. His expanded mind instantly collapsed, unravelling his telekinetic force holding the Pros. His grasp on his ability seemed to fizzle out, become unreachable.

“What the hell?” yelped William, clasping his head with his hands.

“It triggers an electrical pulse in the Null membrane up here,” smiled Yelich tapping his scalp. “Excited by the introduction of electricity, the field of effect grows. You’re fucked now, Boy.”

The Pro’s gave animalistic grunts of satisfaction as their freed hands sought a weapon. William sought his ability for protection. It dripped from his mind like hot wax, spluttered like a shimmering candle. He bolted, past Yelich and his dogs, further into the complex to hide. After several meters the feeling returned to that section of his brain that spawned his power, as if he had run to the edge of Yelich’s negative field. He summoned the faltering reserves, building an arm of energy. A Pro opened fire as the other flung Yelich to the floor. The far end of the hall exploded in front of William. He took a round near his collar bone, blowing a chunk from his chest as the bullet passed through and detonated against the hard surface of the hall.

William dropped to the ground, his body unwilling to move any further. William’s brain acted on impulse, sealing the wound and lashing out with a wave of telekinetic force, knocking down the pursuing Pro and smashing the glass and anything not nailed down away from him. Debris from the walls and shattered glass clattered to the floor.

He felt weak. The right side of his body refused to move, and a tearing pain radiated from the bullet wound. William extended his left hand, groping for something he couldn’t quite see or reach. If he didn’t get help soon, he would die. There was only one option.

William slung a line of telekinetic force down the hall and around the corner, latching onto a door frame and pulling himself along the slippery floor. As he slid, he constructed a barrier behind him to deflect bullets. No sooner than the shield was up, mini-ex detonated around him, showering his face in hot shards of shrapnel. Something hard hit him in the eye and his vision blacked out as he felt a horrible slickness creep down his cheek. He made it around the corner, his blood painting a trail behind him. At the door frame he rolled himself sideways with a mental push. He heard the crunch of poly-carb boots on shattered tile. William looked up with his remaining eye.

The Pro pointed a smoking gun at him. His other arm hung loosely at his side, the shoulder broken. “Found you, baldy.”

William wormed his way into the soldier’s mind, altering the man’s vision. The Pro squeezed the trigger, emptying his clip into the far wall in a wild gesture of fury. Through the smoke and dust, he gave a vicious smile to the projected image of William’s corpse.

“Got him.”

William held his tongue as he quietly bled out on the floor.