Triplicate #4

Everything Dies

Journal of Alana Trammel

December 23^rd

It's been a little over six weeks since I had talked to Gabriel last, probably the longest stretch in the last four years. Needless to say, it has me a little concerned. He stayed behind in Detroit after myself and Whitaker left to put Aphrodite Sambonis into protective custody. Whitaker stayed behind in Washington, accepting a transfer to be closer to his family. I went back to my field office in San Diego.

I called him, and he was in Detroit, observing the tear-down and subsequent move out of Anderson Research, a subsidiary of Anderson Industries, the corporation that began the production of the substance called Triplicate. According to Gabriel, it's a substance that can alter the genetic structure of any living organism on this planet. Used in infants, it can be used to custom order that infant's genetic structure. In others, it usually means death.

Gabriel has secrets, some of which he has told me, most of which he has not. I know that his reason to stay behind was a secret he wouldn't tell me.

He was in love with Jenna, and it was that love that did the most damage. When she showed up as working for AR, his heart broke. When she became the Triplicate project coordinator after the death of the "terrorist" Louis Gibson, her fiancé (she had been cleared of any wrongdoing), his heart was devastated. I didn't know what to do with him, not at all.

But that was six weeks ago. Christmas is right around the corner. I already made the calls to my family, that I was on a big case and wouldn't make it home. I needed to find Gabriel, and make sure that he was okay. He was my friend, I would like to think it was more than that. Not in a romantic way, but in a way that was stronger than just a friendship.

But I got a call from a strange woman. A woman named Michelle. That was just ten minutes ago. She said that I needed to take a plane to Detroit tonight, a ticket was waiting for me at the airport.

One of Gabriel's secret was that he had a computer of sorts implanted into his body. In fact, it was more like an artificial intelligence, patterned after someone close to him, from where he comes from. Her name was Michelle. I'm not the world's greatest detective, but I knew that something was definitely up. I would take that ticket, and I would go and see what was up.
 
 

1

A direct flight to Detroit from San Diego wasn't the most common thing in the world. In fact, Trammel wasn't sure if she had ever seen one before. Sure, they probably existed, but not when she needed to fly there. This time, she was lucky. A first class, non-stop flight to Metro Airport.

She tried to sleep, but she couldn't. She knew she would pay for it on the other end, but she couldn't get the phone call out of her head. A strange woman named Michelle, the same name of the strange AI inside Gabriel's head, had called her urgently, asking for her presence in Detroit. Something might have happened to Gabriel, and Michelle was trying to help him. That was a possibility, but she wasn't sure if that was it.

So she stayed awake on the flight, which would arrive in Detroit at seven in the morning. Tomorrow would be a wasted day, she thought to herself.

The flight went smoothly, and landed without incident. She had a garment bag that she carried on, which was her only luggage. She was ready for anything when she stepped off the plane.

Waiting for her, in a chauffeur's uniform, was Gabriel with an obnoxious smile on his face. He had a plaque with her name on it. She laughed a tired laugh when she saw him. She ran up to him and gave him a hug. "I was worried about you, Gabriel."

"I was worried about me, too," he said. He picked up her bag and led her to the exits. "I needed time to think, to get all the things in my head straight."

"Including M (that's Michelle, for all of you)?"
"Especially M. It was nice having her in my thoughts, but it made it hard, extremely hard to concentrate. I've given her a new home, a more suitable home."

"She's out of you?"

"Not totally, but she has to call me before she can talk to me. She still has access to everything, but from a remote location."

"Neat," Alana said as she walked with Gabriel to the car that he had waiting, a Mustang. She nodded in approval. "A nice upgrade from that stuffy Taurus."

"I think so," he said, throwing the bag in the truck. He opened the door for her and then ran around to the other side and got in.

"So, what's up? What's so important that you called me her from San Diego on such short notice the day before Christmas?"

"It's simple. I want you to quit the FBI and come work for me."

She was surprised, and gave him a look that told him so. "What do you mean, work for you?"

"I've created an agency of sorts, an investigative body. I've started to recruit, but I need a head of operations. I need someone who knows the structure, the methods. I need someone that I can trust."

"And I'm that?"

"Yes, you are." He merged a few times, finding the best route that would take them to Interstate 94 and back into Detroit. After he entered the freeway, he gunned the engine, and took off in a blaze down the interstate. "You are the only one I could think of to do this."

"What kind of investigative body is this?"

"It's primarily to help me with my situation, to broaden my research capabilities. I can be all over the world, so can M. We can see everything that we need to see."

"How many have you recruited so far?"

"Uh, no one. That's why I need you, too. I put out ticklers, but no one has taken a bite."

"I see."

"You will be well paid."

"I can imagine that I would be."

"You will have worldwide access."

"I'm sure."

"I need you, Alana."

"I know you do."

"You'll be doing something for the good of everyone, the entire world."

"I know."

"So, will you do it?"

She was silent for a second. In truth, this was exactly what she wanted to have happen. The FBI was too constraining for her to help him. She believed in his crusade, and would follow him to the ends of earth, to the ends of time itself. "I guess so, I'll fax my resignation letter as soon as we get to your place. Hold on a second, this means I have to relocate to Detroit, doesn't it?"

"Uh, yeah, it does. It's nice here, though."

"I guess I'll do it."

He smiled, and continued into town.

2

It all ends, everything ends. That was a prevailing thought in his mind, as it was for most of his life. He based his life's work on that thought, that somewhere, somehow, everything ends. It wasn't until a few years ago that he learned just how true that was.

He started his professional life rather inconspicuously, going to a few different colleges, graduating with a few different degrees, none of them mastered. He bounced around from job to job, sometimes an insurance salesman, sometimes a web surfer for a major internet provider, sometimes a loan underwriter, a job that he became particularly fond of. He enjoyed the power of having someone's hopes and dreams in his hands. He could crush them or reward them based on how he was feeling that day. Granted, the rules were a bit different than that, but his decision was final, and never up for review.

Then, one night, while he was sleeping alone, he heard voices. These strange, deep, dark voices called him to a higher purpose. They told him to expect certain things, certain events. When these events took place, he was to perform certain tasks. Upon completion of those tasks, he would be rewarded in ways he could not imagine.

The events, which had already faded from his memory, had come to pass, and he performed the tasks necessary to qualify for his reward. And just what was his reward? It was complicated.

His intelligence seemed to grow exponentially. He had insights that he had never before had, he understood things he didn't understand before. As his knowledge expanded, so did his physical stature. He was bigger, stronger, more athletic than ever before. He didn't have superhuman strength or abilities, as far as his physical body was concerned, but he was adequate to set him apart from most humans.

His mental abilities, though, they were the real treat. He began to exude a confidence that seemed to rally those around him. People believed in him, wanted to join him, work for him. They began to look up to him.

That confidence gradually turned into something more, something so powerfully more. The confidence became control, control over people, their thoughts, their actions. Control over objects. He was a powerful psychic, a telekinetic. Throw this in with his intelligence, and what the world got was a man who, in all honestly, could control the entire planet if he so chose.

And that's exactly what he chose.

3

Gabriel and Alana pulled into a rather boring looking building. One side of it was a garage, which was where he had pulled into. The rest of it was a large office, with some cubicles and other offices off to the side. A vast computer setup had a room all by itself. The room was dank, without life or color. The blinds were closed on all the windows except one in the largest of the separate offices. Alana knew that it was Gabriel's personal office.

They walked across the office, and Alana heard the garage door shut down behind her automatically. The lights flashed on, and the blinds retracted themselves. All it did was brighten up a very boring room. Gabriel led her into the computer room without talking.

"Alana, let me introduce you to M." He waved his hand towards the vast network set up before her.

"Hello, Alana. Nice to finally meet you."

Alana looked confused and freaked out. She looked at Gabriel, and then back at the rack of computers. Uh, hi," she said softly.

"I downloaded her into the network. She controls everything from this room."

"You're kidding, right?"

"No, I'm not. She has more freedom this way, and so do I. She's working on designing some better systems, so we can lose the bulk on this."

Alana looked at the setup more closely. She saw at least fifty hard drives hooked into various motherboards, as well as just about twenty servers hooked together. It was amazing to see that much memory in one place. She wondered exactly how much was there.

"It's a pretty amazing setup, actually," M answered, seeming reading her mind. "There is over three thousand gigabytes hooked here, and that can barely hold me in place. I've designed a single drive that can hold my entire program, and I am currently in communication with various production firms attempting to contract it out. I should be up to full potential in about a month."

"Interesting," Alana said, turning her attention back to Gabriel. "Do you have constant communications with her?"

"Yes, I do. You do, too. It's a bit beyond me, to be honest, but M knows how my body works, the frequencies and characteristics of my energies, from brainwaves to my electrical field. She can pinpoint me anywhere on the planet. Actually, she can do that for anyone that she's mapped. So far, though, I'm the only one."

"You're going to ask me to get mapped, aren't you?"

Gabriel smiled. "See, you are a good detective. Yes, I am. Really, it's no big deal. All you have to do is touch a sensor pad, like this one here." He pointed to a soft green glowing pad. "One quick touch is all she needs. Then, like a cell phone implanted in your head, she can talk directly with your brain. She can patch me to that, too, just like a phone."

Alana looked concerned, but really, there wasn't anything to be concerned about. Gabriel picked up her fears and tried to put them to rest. "It's not harmful at all. In fact, it's very safe. M can't be compromised, not by anything. Me, I know you trust me, and I wouldn't steer you wrong, not in the least."

That didn't help. "It's just too weird. I just got here, that's all."

"I know it's weird, but it's something that will undoubtedly be helpful down the line."

Alana was still concerned, but she put her hand on the pad anyway. Soon, she could hear M talking to her in her head. Funny, she thought she was talking, but nothing came out of her mouth.

M set up the link with Gabriel. They couldn't read each other's minds, just hear their thoughts, when they directed them to each other. Same with M.

The subconscious had a way of straightening everything out, separating the goings on around them with the voices coming in. Strangely, it began to take the form of feelings and notions, rather than conversations. After things seemed to end, Gabriel smiled at her. "Neat, isn't it?"

"It's not even like you are talking to me, rather I know things now."

"That's pretty much what it is, I think. Our subconscious's are taking that part over, organizing it in a way that frees us to do other things. It starts with the external communication, external of the subconscious, that's where the link is started. Then the subconscious takes over."

"This is cool," she said, and she meant it.

"Come on, I'll show you around."

The building was one story. The south side of it was the garage, running the full length of the wall, which was one hundred and fifty feet long. The building was a square. The garage extended twenty feet in from the wall, as did the six offices built into the north wall. These offices were their own rooms, all connected to the vast network. Gabriel had his, Alana had hers, and four remained open. The east wall held the computers that housed M's program. The room had one access to it, the door that they had used. The rest of the space was taken up by the cubicles and a very large front desk and reception area. "That will be enclosed next week, before New Year's," Gabriel said proudly. "I know there isn't too much color in here, but that will change, too, after the new year. I've hired a decorator to give it a futuristic feel to it. It should be really cool once it's finished."

"I bet it will be," she said, taking everything in. There were six cubicles, each with an extensive computer setup on it. Each had a direct connection to M, but as Gabriel later explained, only a few would know about the true nature of the network. When he closed the door to M's room, a cipher lock that had no combination closed. Touching it was the only way it could open, and M made that determination. If she approved of the person, and she could tell exactly who it was what was attempting to answer, the door would open. Otherwise, it would remain locked.

In fact, the entire complex was like that. M had audio and visual devices all over the facility, as well as access to many common fixtures and all the locks, doors and windows. She was the security system, and it was the best.

"Are you tired? Do you need to take a nap or something?"

Alana had yawned without knowing it. "No, I think that I should probably fight through it. Some breakfast would be nice."

"Great," he said with a smile. "I know a great little place down the way." He grabbed her hand and led her towards the garage, giddy as a kid on Christmas Morning.

4

He read about the destruction of the Anderson Research labs in Michigan in the newspapers. They were an obstacle that would have had to have been dealt with sooner or later. Whatever went down, and no one was really sure exactly what did, it did him the biggest favor. His production of a much more sinister form of the Triplicate formula was in full production, and was soon to be tested in the middle of South America, deep in the Brazilian rainforests. He had no plans on further testing, because he had no plans on failing.

When things went as planned, he would begin to introduce Triplicate when he needed, where he needed.

Things seemed to be going well, according to his perfect planning. Anderson Research stood in his way, but not anymore.

5

Jenna Dimonte sat at her desk in the new offices set up in San Diego, California. She was looking at the folder filled with background information on one Gabriel McGuire, amused by the strange connection they seemed to share. Gabriel had lived in metro Detroit, then, according to the files, seemed to settle in San Diego after some roaming. She hadn't roamed and stayed in Detroit, but now found her relocated to San Diego, while the files say that after the incident only a few shorts weeks ago, Gabriel had never left Detroit as he intended. Instead, he purchased an office building and a surprisingly large about of computer hardware. She didn't know what he was planning, but she wanted to.

She remembered their last meeting, when she held a gun on him, but couldn't pull the trigger. She was furious with him, for destroying the facility, for ruining her professional life, for killing her fiancé. But then, she wasn't sure about Louis, it was a marriage of convenience, one to held her climb the ranks of Anderson Industries. She was ambitious enough to do that, to get close enough to one of the more powerful men in the company. She had an opportunity to go for it, and did, hoping that she could grow into the job. She never really could. Louis was nice enough to her, but she never really loved him. It was as much a job as her job was.

She had already drove by the condominium that Gabriel kept on the harbor. It was a nice enough place, but an even better view. She wondered why Gabriel picked this exact spot, but the sheer beauty of it was enough reason.

She wondered to herself what would have happened if things had worked out differently between the two of them, if he hadn't run away after high school, if they had stayed together. She also wondered about the job she was doing, and why Gabriel was so determined to destroy it.

Clearly, he was dying when she saw him. She knew it was Triplicate that was doing it, but why was it doing it? She knew the possibilities that the substance held, it could be fashioned into just about anything, including most of all the known bacteria, viruses and other diseases that they knew the genetic structure for. It could also be fashioned into their cure.

Anderson Research was already working with it when she joined on with the company. She worked on ways that it could be fashioned to fight birth defects, enhance natural abilities like sight, hearing, and so on. She thought Triplicate to be the best chance at a bright future for mankind.

It was that reason that she decided to stay on with the project when she learned of why it was being produced. It wasn't intended for anything except a way to genetically encode zygotes. She had seen the evidence for herself. Groups of these enhanced beings had been produced for the last thirty-five years, Louis Gibson was one of them.

At first she was deathly afraid of why they were being produced. Then she was told why, and she was terrified. Because she believed that it was the best chance for humanity, she stayed, and when Louis Gibson, the pride and joy of the first batch of Triplicate babies was killed in what was being described as an insane terrorist plot against his own company-although anyone involved with the incident know different, that a man named Gabriel McGuire was responsible-she accepted her promotion to Triplicate Project Coordinator.

Her main concern was rebuilding a production facility, ordered by her superiors to be placed in San Diego. She said it wasn't a great idea, but she was overruled. Her second concern was the birth of the current crop of Triplicate babies, and their placement in various homes. After this crop, the number of Triplicate children in the world would be over ten thousand.

Her third concern, the one that she was unsure of, was one Gabriel McGuire. Anderson Industries demanded constant surveillance on him, always knowing his whereabouts. If he was as smart as he has shown, he would know to stay away, they said. Jenna had argued that if he was as risky as before, then he would come for them again. They seemed not to be worried. So the spying continued. At least she would be getting regular pictures of him. She liked to look at them, she found. She missed him. Having the pictures helped her deal with her position, and with her past. Maybe she would run into him when she went back to Detroit to celebrate the Christmas holiday with her friends, who told her to be alone after her fiancé had been killed during the holidays was a bad idea. She had to agree, too.

The last concern, and the reason behind the production of Triplicate and the Triplicate children was a phenomenon that had cropped up in humanity in the last few hundred years or so. It was called genetic drift, which was random fluctuations in the frequency of the appearance of a gene in a small, isolated population, presumably owing to chance rather than natural selection. At least that was the dictionary definition of it. In actuality, it was something a little bit different. Humanity's genetic structure had shifts a bit, not a large bit, but a bit nonetheless. What this meant was, well, no one was quite sure exactly what it meant. Some were hopeless romantics, subscribing to the comic book theory, which it was called. Mutations would appear, mutations that manifested strange and unusual powers. Others though that humanity would evolve into a greater being, one with the universe around them, able to use their minds in new and extraordinary ways. Still others saw it as the slow decay and ultimate destruction of the human race.

Triplicate was the answer to the drift, a way to recreate a solid, stable genetic structure. By introducing genetic purity into the gene pool, the drift would eventually be phased out, and the pure genes would remain. Things were tweaked up a bit, creating a better human, stronger, faster, more intelligent, less susceptible to disease and illness. Louis Gibson was a prime example of this.

No one knew where Triplicate came from, and no one asked about it, either. It was an industry secret that would remain a secret.

6

"So what did you do while you were alone?"

"I was headed out of town, I even made it to the airport. I went that night, before I left, to sit on that bench again. Jenna saw me and came out, gun in hand, ready to kill me. She didn't, but she was furious with me. I don't blame her, I would be made at me, too.

"I never got on my plane, I stayed in the airport, thinking about what I could do, how I could do it. I knew that what happened wasn't the end, I knew it when I saw the babies in that room. It's bigger than I thought, bigger than me. I decided that I needed to get bigger."

Alana sipped on her orange juice, waiting for her scrambled eggs and bacon to arrive. She nodded. "So you decided on all of this, then?"

"I figured I should create some kind of network, increase my numbers, and become more proactive and less reactive."

"I guess almost dying does that to you."

"Yeah, it makes you see things differently."

The food arrived, and a tired looking waitress served it to them. She left without saying a word. "Who else have you contacted?"

"I have a friend who works in Scotland Yard. I made him a large offer to be my European liaison. I know someone in Greece-"

"A relative of Aphrodite?"

"No, actually it's someone I met when I was there. He's a shady character, but he knows everything that is going on in the Mediterranean. I've tripled his income, in effect buying his loyalty to me and me alone."

"That must have been a lot of money, Gabriel."

"It is, but I have it, so it's okay. I'm not big on materialistic things, except tools for my jobs, so I can spend on what I need."

"And what do I cost?"

"I would never think of buying you, Alana," he said with a smile to her witty remark. "You get unlimited credit and resources."

She started to blush. Unlimited was a lot of money. "How are you doing this, Gabriel? How can you have so much money?"

"Well, it isn't money, not really. M is taking care of it for us."

She gasped, then shook a finger at him half jokingly. "You're stealing, aren't you?"

He threw up his hands in mock indignation. "Who, me? I would never steal."

"Then M is!"

"She's not stealing, she's being creative, that's all."

"How?"

"She's moving some decimal places here and there, a few numbers added here, gone there. Electronic things, mostly. She can get into anything and find anything. I think she's been hacking Anderson Industries a lot, too, which is okay by mean."

Alana laughed, she had to cover her mouth to prevent the bite she just took from flying out. "I bet Jenna's loving that."

"I doubt she knows, I doubt anyone knows. Things, M tells me, are untraceable."

"I hope so, for your sake."

"No cage can hold me, darling!"

She smiled and kept on eating. "I'm sure you know what she's up to, right?"

He nodded. "Of course I do. She's in charge of the Triplicate project now."

"No way!"

He nodded. "She's trying to get it up and running right now, trying to build another production center in San Diego. She even has me tailed around the clock. Every morning, she has new information about what I'm up to, what I'm doing, pictures and everything emailed from her guys here. I hear she spends most of her mornings viewing my file, too."

"What about the production facility?"

"M is getting creative with that, double booking contractors, erasing contracts, ordering the wrong materials for them. I doubt they'll ever get it up and running."

"You are nasty."

"Only when someone tries to kill me. Anderson Research is a non-player right now, at least in the production department. I'm still trying to find information on the babies."

"I've been thinking about that," Alana said in-between kites. "I think I know what they were."

"Well, don't keep me in suspense."

"I think they're growing a race of humans, their own race of humans."

"That thought had crossed my mind. It would make a little bit of sense, too, but not a whole lot of sense."

"Well, considering everything, anything's possible."

"True."

7

The reports were emailed to him. His computer beeped loudly, awaking him from his straying daydreams. It was a boring day, nothing to do except wait for what no sat in his in-box.

The email was a series of numbers followed by a sentence. The numbers were: 257-0-250-7. The sentence read: All tests within parameters set. He deleted the file and smiled.

Two hundred fifty-seven were exposed to his version of the Triplicate. The Triplicate was designed in a way that it would mutate a specific number of people, destroying the rest. That number was seven.

Once the Triplicate found the best candidates, the mutations had begun. It was best explained to him to occur in this way. Triplicate was introduced into the air in aerosol form. Once a host was infected with it and deemed acceptable, a mutated form of Triplicate was reintroduced into the air to interact with the original form. The mutation was a carefully calculated mutation, used more as a counter than anything else. One that process repeated seven times, the Triplicate remaining in the remaining beings acted almost as if it were alive, mutating into an extremely lethal poison.

Triplicate was a remarkable substance, somewhere between a living entity and a particularly deadly bacteria.

Two hundred fifty people were killed for the tests, but they wouldn't be missed. The seven that mutated, the precise number that he wanted to see mutated, were killed immediately. All the bodies were burned.

He knew that Anderson Industries were using one of the different aspect of Triplicate in their work. He had plans for them, the remaining Triplicate was such a versatile tool that could be used in any way. The only limiting factor was the imagination of the user.

His test was a success. The second part of his plan could be put into place.

8

Jenna's plane touched down a little after noon on Christmas Eve. She waited by the baggage claim area for a little over twenty minutes, never noticing the suspicious eyes of a couple of seedy characters constantly watching her.

She picked up her bags and left to get a taxi. One of the two seedy characters pulled out a cellular phone and dialed the pre-arranged number. "Dimonte has just left the airport. Commencing part two."

"Excellent," the man's voice returned. The line went dead.

9

Gabriel had just finished his toast when he was contacted by M. Her voice exploded in his head without any advanced warning. It was so sudden that he dropped the crust of toast on the floor, and the look on his face went blank. Alana was startled as well, seeing something utterly strange happen to her friend.

"Gabriel," she exclaimed quietly but forcefully. "Gabriel!"

His expression didn't change, but his hand raised, and he pointed one finger at her. She knew what it meant, in a minute.

Inside his head, M began talking to him. "Jenna Dimonte just touched down at Metro Airport, Gabriel."

"Okay," he thought back to her. "What's wrong with that?" He could feel his pulse increase.

"I intercepted a cell phone communication originating from Metro airport. Someone's tailing her. I couldn't get a fix on where the call went, but it didn't sound too good." She replayed the call. There was an advantage to having a nearly omnipotent computer on your side.

"Where is she?"

"I don't know," M said. I tried tapping into the surveillance cameras at the baggage claim, but I couldn't find anything."

"When you intercept the next call, let me know. Pinpoint their location. Try and find anyone that Jenna is close to here in Detroit. Friends, colleagues, anyone."

"Count on it." The connection was severed

Gabriel took his napkin and started wiping his face. He grabbed some money out of his wallet and threw it on the table. "I have to go, something's come up."

"M called you, didn't she?"

Gabriel nodded, then fished out some keys from his pocket. He took a napkin and wrote down an address. "Here's my place, and here's the keys. You can head there and hang out, freshen up, take a nap, anything you want. You have free reign."

"What's going on, Gabriel?" She was concerned now, seeing that he was so concerned.

"It's Jenna, I think she's in trouble."

"Jenna, here? I thought you said she had moved to San Diego."

"She did, but she arrived on a flight this morning. M picked up some information that she's being followed."

"Can I help at all?"

He shook his head. "Not right now. M didn't know where Jenna went, so there's no where to start. I'm going to head in the direction of the airport and try and see if I can see her in the oncoming traffic."

"How can you do that?"

"My eyes, remember?"

She nodded. She kept forgetting that he was as special as he was. "Call me when you get a lead, alright? We're in this together, remember that."

Gabriel smiled and nodded. She was right, they were in it together. He wanted a bigger base of operations, and he would have to trust a bit more. "I will, don't worry." He got up and left, and she watched him go, shaking her head.

10

Gabriel flew down I-75, his nerves already at their edge. Sure, he remembered what happened with Jenna only a few short weeks earlier, but if anything happened to her and he didn't lift a finger to help her, he wouldn't be able to live with himself.

He tried his best to concentrate on the road and watch the oncoming traffic. If she was headed up on 75 North, he would spot her. He hadn't seen anything, though, that would give him hope.

He searched for cabs, since M had already come back with a negative as far as her renting a car. It had to be a cab...or she was picked up by someone. M was still investigating that possibility. He wasn't in a hurry, he needed to get a good look at the oncoming drivers and passengers. A few miles per hour didn't matter that much.

He came to the exit to head west on Interstate 94, out of Detroit and towards Metro Airport. He hoped that she wasn't on the same exit coming the other way. He emerged from the ramp and immediately went to the left lane. He continued his scanning of the highway.

About halfway to Metro Airport, he knew that he had missed her. The time it took to get this far, well, she would have been back in Detroit by now. He was upset, but there was still hope. He didn't see any accidents or strange traffic problems.

11

Jenna headed back into the city where she grew up, anxious to meet up with her friends. The last few weeks had been difficult, and the more she thought of it, it wasn't because she had lost Louis. It was her encounters with Gabriel that had troubled her the most. Not seeing him was easier than watching him die, and knowing that she had a hand in it, even as indirectly as it was, it was still eating away at her.

That night, she was furious that she had lost Louis. She had lost the secure future that she thought she had. She had a gun on him, and all he did was leave.

She didn't notice the black Mustang fly by her as the cab made it's way from I-94 East to I-75 North.

12

Gabriel contacted M as he turned around. "Anything yet?"

"Nothing so far. Even her old phone records don't give me any incite to where she might be."

Gabriel thought for a second. "Try high school friends. We might have been searching for something too recent. Try some of the people she hung around with ten years ago."

"Alright, I search the yearbooks, and then feed you the information once I get it."

"Great." The best part about the connection that M and Gabriel had was she could give him information, and it appeared to him as if he had thought it up all by himself. He would "know" addresses and directions, names, all sorts of things. He was never sure if was, in fact, his memory or the aid of M. In the end, it didn't really matter a whole lot.

He pulled into the drive of his house, turned off the ignition and just sat there. He was having trouble breathing. He was hyperventilating. He put his hands on the steering wheel and tried to control himself. It was difficult, but soon, he felt his enhanced body start to kick in and regulate himself again.

When he felt that he had adequately controlled himself, he went inside. He could hear the shower running upstairs. After a few minutes, Alana came downstairs wearing a pair of tight jeans and a red turtleneck. "Any luck?"

Gabriel shook his head. "I didn't see a think."

She nodded and continued doing what she was doing on her way downstairs, drying her hair with a towel. She had fairly short, straight hair. It barely went down to her shoulders. She didn't require large amounts of time to prepare it. Dried and brushed was all she needed, the dried part was optional. She disappeared into the downstairs bathroom and found a brush, finishing the job.

Gabriel turned on the remote computer terminal in the living room. It was the same setup that the cubicles had at the office building; it was connected using a DSL line. In a few seconds, M was on line in the house.

"I was wondering when you would get around to that," she said sarcastically.

"I can turn the power off, M. I'm not in the mood."

"Okay. I'm still searching the yearbook, but it's hard to remember back that far, your memories were all about different things than who she hung around with."

"Just do your best, M."

"Don't I always?"
"Who you talking to?" Alana asked and then saw. "Oh, I see. You've thought of everything, haven't you?"

Gabriel smiled and nodded. "Be prepared," he said, and held up the Vulcan salute for live long and prosper. Alana laughed.

"I have a list of possible locations," M interrupted. "I'm transferring them to you now."

Almost instantly, Gabriel has some new knowledge in his head. He started to remember names and addresses. "Great, M, I got them."

"Let's go," Alana said, and Gabriel smiled and motioned to the door.

"After you."

13

Three hours later, they were no further along. M was unabel to come up with any further information. She had checked if there were anyone remained from Anderson Research or the parent corporation Anderson Industries, but there weren't. Phone records were a big negative, as were just about everything else.

It was approaching six in the afternoon, now, and the sun was almost completely set. Gabriel and Alana returned home, Gabriel more dejected than Alana was. She put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't give up. I'm sure M would have told us if anything came in on the police bands. The search we were doing was blind, the hardest that we could have undertaken. We had virtually no leads. We'll get leads."

Gabriel nodded. "I know." He sat on the couch, and turned on the television. The news was on, and he could check there for any stories.

It was Christmas Eve, though, and he thought everything would be about the holiday. He was right.

One of the reporters was live at a shopping mall, Oakland Mall, not too far from where he lived. They were at the entrance to the Movie Theater, the latest James Bond movie had come out and they were doing some humanitarian story about how Bond had affected the world.

Big deal, he thought to himself. But then he saw a group of women entering the theater, tickets in hand. He did a double take, but he was sure.

"Alana, get over here," he shouted. Alana came running.

"What is it?"

"Look." He was pointing at the television screen.

On it was Jenna Dimonte and three other women. "Bingo," Alana said.

"Yep." He grabbed his jacket. "M, order us two tickets for whatever showing they are going into."

"Already done. Better hurry, it starts in ten minutes."

"Right." The two left the house, only moments after arriving.

14

The movie was starting as Gabriel and Alana walked into the theater. The last preview had just wrapped up with an obviously computer-generated explosion. Looked cool, either way, Gabriel thought as he scanned the theater, looking for Jenna. He saw her about halfway down the rows, sitting in the middle of the theater with her three friends. They seemed anxious for the movie to start.

The screen went dark, and then, in the far background, getting louder and louder, a strange piece of music, not too familiar for the beginning of a Bond movie started to play. The violins were revving up, sounding more like they should be in a heavy metal song than the soundtrack for a movie. Then, just like the opening credits for the classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the music built to a apex and abruptly stopped. What followed next was the gun barrel view of the newest actor to play James Bond, an actor that Gabriel did not recognize, walking across the screen, turning to fire, and the screen becoming red with blood. The classic theme was reworked only a little bit.

"I found her," Gabriel whispered to Alana, who nodded. She pointed to two seats, and they sat down. Jenna remained in direct view of Gabriel at all times.

He looked around the theater, but couldn't find two men that seemingly were there by themselves, or watching Jenna. That was a good sign. Maybe they had laid off.

M shattered those hopes. "They've contacted their boss, and he told them to wait until the night to make their move. The others were doing the same."

"The others?" Gabriel mentally asked her. M couldn't add any details to that.

Something new to add to this mess, he thought to himself.

The movie was enjoyable, Gabriel thought to himself. The beginning sequence, known to everyone who know anything at all about Bond movies, proved to be a very exciting sequence. Bond was following someone covertly, but was discovered. He was outnumbered, but that didn't stop him. He fought as best he could, and when he had the chance, he jumped on a motorcycle that was nearby and sped off. He was in the mountains in Germany, in a small villa. Through he narrow streets he was chased, mostly by other cars or motorcycles. It was winter, so there was a bunch of snow throughout the streets and town, especially since they were in the mountains. Bond eventually wiped out and was thrown off the bike and through the air towards a mountain lake that had already frozen over. A hockey team was playing on the lake.

In the air, Bond pressed a button and two blades appeared on his boots. He landed without incident on the ice and had to fight off a whole hockey team of goons. When the last goon was defeated with the use of a hockey stick, Bond said "two minutes for spearing," and skated away down a river that flowed from the lake. He was chased by helicopters, the ice breaking apart behind him. Ahead of him was a cliff, and he dove off of it. As he fell, the helicopters went away, and he unleashed a parachute. He landed near his car, got in and drove away.

The plot of the movie was interesting as well. It had to do with the IRA, a militant offshoot of the IRA that was well financed by a mystery organization. This group performed some serious terrorist attacks against England, which brought Bond into the game. He quickly infiltrated the IRA faction, finding out that the mysterious financier was a foreigner who was only trying to introduce stability into that region, as well as other places throughout the world. A trip to Vienna and then to Oslo was next, where the group in question was SPECTRE. They were back, and Bond barely escaped with his life. Of course, he was able to defeat the IRA and stop SPECTRE's attempt to incite unrest, but the future looked bleak indeed.

Gabriel stayed in his seat as the crowd filed out. He watched as Jenna and her friends waited through the credits, probably listening to the latest Bond song, which once again held the name of the movie, From Here to Eternity.

Thankfully, Jenna and her friends got up and exited down the farthest isle from Gabriel and Alana. That would help in not giving him away. When Gabriel thought she might see him, he turned to Alana and kissed her flush on the lips. Alana knew what was up immediately, but responded in kind. When they parted, they both seemed a bit flustered.

"Uh, we should go." Gabriel was blushing a little bit.

"All work and no play," she teased him. Gabriel started laughing at that. They were close, but they were friends. One kiss wouldn't change that.

They left the theater, staying a comfortable distance behind the four friends. He watched them get into their car. "Get a tracer on them," Alana said. That was a good idea, Gabriel though, although he couldn't get close enough to them. All he had to do was touch the car, put a hair follicle or any cell from his body on it to track. Trouble was, they were about fifty feet away from the car and they were pulling out.

It had snowed a bit, not too much, but enough to make a snowball. Alana bent down and formed one. "Spit on it," she said. Gabriel smiled and hocked one onto the snowball. Alana let it fly, hitting the truck with her shot.

"Hopefully it will stay on there," Gabriel said, making their way to their car. Alana seemed more optimistic.

"It'll freeze. I already have M tracing it. We won't lose them this time."

In fact, they didn't. M fed Gabriel the directions, and it led right to a nice colonial house on a street names Acton. Gabriel parked the Mustang a few houses down and turned off the ignition. "Now we wait for those two guys."

"Yeah, and hope we can head them off."

"I don't really want to reveal myself to her tonight, it would make things way too complicated."

"You still love her, don't you?"

Gabriel shook his head. "I don't know what I feel anymore. This thing, this crusade of mine, it's unbalanced everything, especially the last few months. I think about her all the time, but I think about her being one of the people who tried to kill me."

"It's hard to go through what you have, Gabriel. A weaker man would have let it kill them."

"Sometimes I think that I should have let it kill me. Things would have been a lot easier."

"Life isn't easy, though."

"I know, that's why I'm still around, why I still fight. I know the end result if I don't do anything, so I have to do something."

They sat there in silence for almost two hours, but nothing happened, nothing that they could see, anyway. Gabriel was watching the windows for anything strange, either in the way the curtains moved or with silhouettes.

He saw one, then two people in the window, two of Jenna's friends. He had already memorized their appearances. Then he saw a strange shadow in the window, that of a man. Then, two others quickly went past the front.

"Damn," Gabriel said, starting to get out of the car. "They're already in there."

"What?"

"I saw something through the front window, I saw a man, then running. It's them, I know it."

"Alright, lets go."

They both made their way towards the house, Alana with her gun drawn and in a ready position, Gabriel walking normally. She saw him form a long black trench coat and a hood that obscured his face.

"Let's go around back, see how they got in," she suggested. Gabriel nodded. He was all for busting in and getting right into it with the two men, but that could put people, especially Jenna, in danger.

Once in the backyard, they noticed that the back patio sliding glass door had been broken, broken enough for a hand to get in and unlock it. That was how they got in.

"Cut the power," Gabriel told her. "I'm going in the front door. You stay back here, go in the patio door."

She understood what he was doing, although she didn't agree with him. It was his show, she could tell that by the tone of his voice. He took off around the house, walking to the front door. He waited in the shadows until Alana found a way to cut the power. He could hear a couple of muffled screams in the house, and he was starting to twitch. He wanted to get in there, get to action. Finally, after twenty seconds that seemed more like hours, the power shut off. Gabriel went to the front door, held onto the knob, waiting for the lock to open. It did, and he walked into the dark house.

He could see everything as if it were day. He knew that the people inside couldn't, at least for a few minutes. He had an advantage, and he intended to use it.

He saw three women tied up in the room to his right, the living room. M was in his head, now, giving him information when he needed it.

"I can smell it," Gabriel said to her. M knew exactly what he was talking about.

"You're right, large doses have been used."

Triplicate, he thought to himself. That meant that Anderson Industries was involved in this. Or were they? An intriguing possibility, he though. What if there was another player?

A man was standing over the three bodies, he had just finished injecting the third one with the Triplicate. In fact, when the lights when out, he was so startled that he broke off the needle in her arm.

The man didn't notice Gabriel, who was already moving to take him out. Within a few seconds, the man was unconscious on the floor, and Gabriel was already digging out the needle from the woman's arm. When he had a firm grasp on it, he absorbed it into himself, and then reformed a syringe. He formed a vile containing the inhibitor that he rolled on back a few weeks earlier, the inhibitor that saved him from certain death. He could only hope that it would help these women now.

"Gabriel, I have some interesting news," M said.

"Go ahead, M."

"The Triplicate is different. It's not the same as you were infected with, or is it any of the samples that were in the labs at AR. This is different."

"Will the inhibitor work?"

"Yes, it will, but this means that-"

"That someone else is in on the Triplicate secret. I'll worry about that later."

"A cell call was just made from the next floor up. The man was asking for instructions. Attempting trace as we speak."

"Tell me if there is an execution order."

"I will."

Gabriel finished injecting the inhibitor into the three women, releasing them from the grips of Triplicate and probable death. He reabsorbed his garments and reformed his work uniform, as he considered it. The black one piece cover-alls with the high collar. The mask, though, he did without. It was too constrictive, and he didn't have an important enough life that he needed to cover up. No one really knew him that much, anyway. If he was in a situation that needed discretion, it was only a thought away.

"Gabriel, something's happening." It was M, and she sounded worried.

"What?"

"I don't know. My systems are being invaded. It happened during the trace. I'm being erased."

Damn, he thought to himself. What the hell was going on? First the new source of Triplicate, then this. "Fight it, M."

"I can't, it's taking over all of my functions."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I won't exist in a few seconds."

"No, no, I won't accept that. Fight it, M. Fight it with every last bit of strength."

"I can't," the voice was becoming more and more mechanical. "Gabriel, you'll only lose me, my voice, you won't lose your abilities. You'll just lose me."

"Damn it, M, I don't want to lose you."

"Too late," said another voice, a male voice. M was gone, his link was severed. The voice remained, though. "Gabriel McGuire, I have been monitoring your progress for years. I doubt you know who I am, though. No one of any significance does. Welcome to my world." Then the voice was gone.

Things were happening too fast. Gabriel saw none of this coming. Things had been normal, as normal as they could be. He was starting his business, he was gaining allies, he was coming up with plans. He had M, his computer network, but that seemingly was gone now. She was an unlimited source of knowledge, and his only link back. He was alone, now, all alone.

He didn't know what to do. He didn't even know where he was. He looked around, but he couldn't think straight enough to put it together. He heard a scream upstairs. Upstairs? Jenna!

He bounded up the stairs, his shoulder-length hair bouncing with him. He saw the room where the scream came from, and he kicked in the door.

"Get the hell away from her," he growled. He let all the confusion and anger flow into the moment. He would save Jenna, and for her attacker, he had little mercy.

He, the man in the room, had a knife and was about to plunge it into Jenna's chest. He looked at the door, at the man who burst in, who spoke at him like the devil himself. He saw a big, strong, angry man in front of him. In that second, the man knew he was going to die.

"Gabriel?" Jenna asked, but Gabriel didn't even look down at her. He kept his eyes focused on the man, on his prey. "Gabriel?" she asked again.

Gabriel pointed at the man. "Put the knife down now." It wasn't a request, or a warning. The man put the knife down. He wasn't dumb. "Who sent you here?"

The man started to stammer, but nothing intelligible came out of his mouth. Gabriel didn't like that answer.

The power came on, and the man covered his eyes. Gabriel jumped on him, grabbed an arm, and pulled as hard as he could. He heard them man scream as the arm came out of the shoulder socket. Looking at the shoulder made it clear, it was severely dislocated. The man fell to his knees in front of Gabriel.

"Tell me who you work for, or else every joint in your body will end up the same way."

"I don't know." This time, the elbow was bent in a way that nature never intended it to. The man was crying, not only from the pain, but he was terrified.

"I have all the time in the world," Gabriel snarled. He grabbed the man's wrist, sending lightning bolts of pain through his body from his two previous injuries.

"I never met anyone, I answered an ad in the paper."

"Nice try." The wrist was now dislocated. He kicked the man in the hip with the same results.

"Gabriel, stop it!" It was Jenna. He looked at her, the expression on his face like that of a rabid dog. He couldn't hear what she was saying, not a word of it. He looked down at the man, then back to her. Something in his head flipped, and he felt the fear he was suppressing overwhelm him. He dropped the man, and stepped back, looking at the damage that he had caused. He was having trouble catching his breath again, that was twice today. "Gabriel," Jenna said softly, her voice soothed him, "what's happening here?"

He was still breathing heavy, but it was under control, much quicker this time. He pointed at the man writhing in pain on the floor, groaning a soft but painful groan. "He was hired to kill you," Gabriel said.

"No," the man croaked. "I was hired to kill you." Gabriel saw the man, with his good arm begin to pull out a gun. Gabriel, now a little bit more in control of himself, stepped on the man's wrist, the gun came loose. Gabriel heard footsteps running up the stairs. Jenna recoiled in fear, but it was only Alana. She saw Gabriel and knew at once that something terrible had happened.

"It was all about me," he said, looking down at the man under his boot. "Who sent you?"

"You can go to hell, buddy." Gabriel kicked him in the head, knocking him out, not doing any permanent damage. Jenna and Alana looked at him as if he had disemboweled the man.

"He'll be fine, except for a headache." They looked at him like they didn't believe him. "Honestly."

"You're that FBI Agent from a few weeks back, aren't you?" Alana nodded. "And you've been working with Gabriel?"

Alana looked over to Gabriel, who nodded, giving her the okay to talk. "For the last four years."

"Four years?"

More footsteps up the stairs. It was Jenna's friends. "What happened?" the red-head, whose name was Kim, asked. "Who the hell are all these people."

Gabriel looked at Jenna. "I'm getting you out of here. Have your friends call the police and arrest these two on attempted murder. They injected everyone with a substance, but not enough to be anything but a mild sedative." He grabbed her hand, and she followed him.

Alana followed him. Jenna's three friends were left behind. Before descending the stairs, Gabriel turned to the three. "Jenna was never here, is that understood?" Kim nodded. She was the only one that seemed in command of her faculties. Gabriel proceeded down the stairs, followed by Jenna and Alana.

Alana didn't dare ask what was happening until they were out of the house and by the car. "What the hell happened in there? I've been trying to reach M, but she won't answer."

"She's gone." He opened the car door and pushed the seat forward so Jenna could get in the back.

"What do you mean she's gone?"

"I don't know what happened, but I do know she's gone."

"She can't be gone."

Gabriel shrugged. "Nevertheless, we will no longer be in contact with her."

"What's going on, Gabriel. No funny talk. Give it to me straight."

Gabriel sighed. "Okay, here's what happened. M told me that the guy upstairs was making a cell phone call, and tried to trace it. Someone used that connection to shut her down." Alana looked at him like he was crazy. "That person knew me, Alana, knew my by name. He said he's been following me for years."

"Do you think he knows everything?"

"I have assume that." He looked back into the car, at Jenna. "I have to get her out of here. She can't be a part of this."

"I'll stay with the girls. I'll tell the police that I was in the neighborhood visiting a friend when I saw some commotion. I'll take care of this end."

"Thanks," said Gabriel wearily. Alana could tell that this was bad, really bad. She reached up and kissed him on the cheek and gave him a strong hug.

"It'll be okay. Trust me, it will be okay." She started towards the house, and Gabriel went to the driver's side door. He opened it and flipped the seat forward.

"You can sit in the front, now. She's staying with your friends."

Jenna got out, looking at Gabriel peculiarly. Gabriel unlocked the door, but didn't make a move to open it. Jenna got in, then Gabriel did. He started the car and began to drive away.

"Thanks for helping me," she said softly. He looked at her, unable to hide his emotions. He began to cry. "Oh, God, Gabriel," she reached across the car and held him.

15

The man sat back, watching the news pour in from around the country. He still hadn't heard from his two most important operatives, the two sent to remove Gabriel McGuire from the picture. He had hurt him, though, even if he survived the attack. Gabriel employed the most complex and advanced computer network he had ever seen, but it was a computer and in the end, he was able to defeat it. Sending a simple command back into the hardware telling it to consume itself was ingenious.

His plan had gone closer to perfection than he had originally anticipated. The path had been cleared of nearly all obstacles. He could proceed with his master plan.

16

Jenna was cleaning herself up while Gabriel sat on his couch, in the dark, staring into nothing. He couldn't believe that M had been taken away from him. He had such great plans for her, to create a body somehow and have her walk and talk like everyone else. She was his anchor, his conscience, his motivation. She kept him on the straight and narrow. Now she was gone.

He had driven by the building that he had bought only to find, and not that much of a surprise to him, that it was on fire. Nothing would be recovered. His house was left untouched, but the terminal he had set up was nothing but an empty shell of what it was. He had logged on and emailed the prospective partners, telling him that due to unforeseen complications, all offers were off the table. He cut the ties that he was building quicker than he thought possible.

That's what hurt him the most, that for the first time in his life, he was actually trying to be outgoing, create a team of some kind, make some friends. Now, his little six week pipe dream had been blown up in his face, and he lost the one person that he thought he couldn't live without.

For the last ten years, Michelle was the only one that was with him every step of the way. Now, for all intents and purposes, she was dead, and Gabriel felt like he was finished.

Jenna stood in the archway into the living room and watched Gabriel. She resolved to watch him until he noticed her. It had been twenty minutes so far.

She saw him differently tonight, she saw a side of him she hadn't seen since she took him to the hospital after he broke his leg back in high school. She saw, when the coaches left, that he let his defenses down and he was so scared, so hurt. He was like that today. She felt the same way about him right then that she did when she offered to drive him to the hospital.

It was like that last six weeks, hell, the last six months hadn't happened.

He looked up at her. She smiled back at him. "How long have you been standing there?" He asked softly.

"Twenty minutes," she said equally as soft.

He sighed. "I'm sorry." She walked over to him and sat next to him.

"There's nothing to be sorry about. You saved my life tonight. You better not be sorry about that." She was smiling at him, but he didn't smile back.

"Should I be sorry about that? I mean, you were going to kill me the last time I saw you."

"I was scared," she said, looking away for a bit. "My whole life changed that night at the labs. I had a plan, and it was shattered."

"I had to protect myself, Jenna, I had to try and save myself."

"Louis told me about what happened to you, before he or I knew who you were. We had secrets to protect, secrets that warranted that protection."

"Secrets you can't tell me, right?"

She nodded. "I can't tell you."

"I have secrets, too."

"I know, Gabriel, I've always known."

"No one knows the truth. No one would believe it."

She smirked. "Same with my secrets."

Gabriel smiled. "I want to tell you, Jenna, I want to tell you everything."

She looked at him, her eyes growing wide. "What happened tonight?"

"My world came crashing down on top of me tonight."

She put her arm around his shoulders. "I want to know your secrets, Gabriel. I always have."

"If I tell you, you have to promise me to keep them secret as well."

She nodded. "I promise."

It shouldn't have been, but it was enough for Gabriel. "It's hard, it's hard to find the words." He took a deep breath. "I might as well show you." He held out his hand in front of Jenna. "Watch closely." The air around his hand seemed to waver, to shake. She thought she could see something materializing, and she was right. In his had formed a small crystal rose, one that she had given him the night of the Prom, along with his corsage. "Pick it up," he said softly. She was apprehensive at first, but then she took it from his hand. She had a look of wonder and fear on her face.

"How did you do that?" she asked, her voice soft, filled with awe. She was examining the crystal rose, every inch, seeing if it was real. After about a second, it seemingly evaporated into nothingness. She jumped at first, but then calmed.

"I have special abilities." He reformed another crystal rose, identical to the first one.

"I can see that." She picked it up again, examining it until is evaporated again. "But how?"

"I'm not from this planet." He looked at her with such passion in his eyes that she was transfixed in her position next to him. Normally, a confession of that magnitude would cause someone to be repulsed. Not Jenna.

"Where?"

"I'm from a planet on the far side of the galaxy from here. It's a large planet, much larger than Earth."

"But you turned out so much like us, like humans." She was a scientist, and in stressful situations, people revert to how they were trained. She was a scientist.

"I am human."

Now she seemed a little bit freaked out. "How?"

"Our planet, called Terra, was colonized by humans from Earth over eight thousand years ago."

"But we didn't have space travel capability eight thousand years ago." She caught on, or at least was catching on.

"I know. We came to our planet from Earth in your not too distant future."

"What?" She was startled now. "You are talking about time travel."

"I know I am talking about time travel."

"That technology is impossible."

"I don't use technology to travel backwards. I can do it naturally."

"Naturally?"

"I was a mutant human, I grew up with a skewed genetic structure, resulting in my ability to travel backwards in time."

"How?"

"That's something that no one has ever been able to explain. I just could. Sure, my genetic structure was different. I think they even tried to clone me once, but it didn't work with the clone. I was the only one who could do it."

"You're serious, aren't you?"

"I am serious. It's my secret. I'm a mutant from the future and from a different planet. Some secret, huh?"

She nodded. "Then why come here?"

"I was uniquely suited to undertake a mission, a fact finding mission."

"What kind of mission?"

"Why we left Earth. No one had any idea."

"No one?"

"When we landed on Terra, we had nothing. We crashed, for the most part, and only about fifteen thousand people survived."

"You had a ship that had fifteen thousand people on it?"

"That's how the story goes. We left Earth, or we were kicked off. No one was sure. We sent probes back to Earth, but found nothing more than a lifeless rock. Certainly, something happened to expel us from Earth. I was sent back to the approximate time that they thought something happened."

"Triplicate?"

"It's the first thing that I cam across that would warrant an investigation. I started checking into it, but it didn't make any sense, none at all. It was at a level, a technological level far above what this planet should be at. To come up with something like that on our own, well, it didn't seem natural." To her credit, Jenna gave away nothing. Gabriel knew that she had the answers he sought, but he also knew not to press her.

"That's why you left."

"I came back without too much knowledge at first, but that night, the Prom night of all nights, I was called. I received my mission, my memory restored. I knew I had to leave, and I knew I couldn't tell you anything."

"I think I understand."

"I was in love with you, long before I knew of any mission. It was the hardest thing to do." Gabriel shifted in his seat. "I've always been in love with you, but I know it can't work, it will never be able to work."

"What are you talking about?"

Gabriel shook his head. "My life is in complete shambles right now. I've lost just about everything." Gabriel was obviously upset, getting more upset as time when by.

"Hey," she said forcefully, pulling him to look at her. "Hey, Gabriel, listen to me. You haven't lost everything. I don't know that Michelle, or what she meant to you, I can never know that, but I can understand it, at least a little bit. I've lost people close to me, too, but I've gone on, I've had to go on.

"Don't let the pain destroy you, Gabriel, never let it destroy you. It's all here," she tapped his head, "and here," she tapped his chest, his heart. "These are the two worst organs in the body. They make us love and they make us hurt. But they are yours, and you have to live with them.

"You have to find a way to deal with this pain, Gabriel, and fight through it. Fight through it and come out the other end a better man. Besides, you haven't lost everything. You got me back." She wiped a tear from his cheek. "Gabriel, I fell in love with you because of your strength, of your determination. You always instilled me with confidence. I was safe when I was around you." She moved closer to him, and kissed him gently on his lips. She pulled back and looked into his eyes, his hurting eyes.

"I don't know if I can go on, Jenna. I can't be the cause of people I love getting hurt anymore. I don't even know what I'm fighting for anymore."

"You are fighting for all of us, Gabriel. You are fighting for the future. If this is it, if what Anderson Research is doing is the cause of this, then I'll stop. I won't be the cause of some cataclysm. I won't let that happen." Her cell phone started to ring. Gabriel had one on him again, after M had been taken down. His started ringing as well.

They smiled at each other. Jenna got up and walked into the kitchen. Gabriel flipped it open. "Hello?"

"Gabriel, it's Alana. Have you been watching the news?"

Gabriel felt the knot in his stomach begin to twist and tighten. Her tone indicated that whatever the reports were, they weren't good. "No, I haven't been watching television at all. Why? What's going on?"

"My God, Gabriel, it's terrible. They got hit hard tonight." Gabriel found the remote control and flipped on the set. He started changing the channel, trying to find the report that Alana may have been talking about. He tried the Total News Channel, and when he saw the Special Report logo in the lower right corner, he figured that he had found what he was looking for.

The screen was one of carnage. It was night, and the reporter, a man that the screen said was named Greg Franks, was standing in front of a building that was ablaze. He was saying something, holding his earpiece in like he was trying to hear a question.

"What's this all about?"

"It's Anderson Industries, Gabriel. Ten separate facilities in the company were hit and destroyed, mostly Anderson Research facilities. Labs, Gabriel, like the one that they moved from Detroit. Something's happened tonight."

"Anything else?"

"Yeah, top level executives, project managers, those types, many have been executed. They are saying that about seventy of the highest ranking officers are gone. Anderson Industries is finished."

Gabriel couldn't say anything. He watched Reporter Greg Franks describe the grisly scene, wondering to himself if the hit on him was also a hit on Jenna, that it was more efficient to kill two birds with one stone, or two goons. "Thanks, Alana," he said, his voice trailing off as he diverted more attention to the television.

"Gabriel?"

"Yeah," he said half-heartedly.

"You still there?"

"I'm just watching the report now."

"I think this is connected with what happened to you, tonight."

"I know it is. When are you coming back?"

"About an hour, still some paperwork to do with the arrest."

"Great, hurry up if you could."

"Ok."

He saw Jenna shaking in the kitchen, the phone pressed hard against her ear. He got up and went to her, putting an arm around her. She looked at him, her eye makeup streamed from the tears. Gabriel nodded. "I know," he mouthed, and she gave him a nod in return.

"Okay, okay Mark. I'll get back as soon as I can." Another set of shakes, another pause on the phone. "Tomorrow morning," she said. "Alright, goodbye." Another pause. "I'm sorry, too." She turned off the phone and immediately hugged Gabriel. "They killed everyone, Gabriel. Their all dead."

"Who's dead?"

"My whole team, the management of the Triplicate project. They're all dead."

"The labs are gone, too, right?"

She pulled away. "How did you know?"

"Alana told me."

She nodded. "All of them. We are no longer producing Triplicate."

"What about those babies?"

"They were transferred to adopted parents already. That's what was going to happen."

"Jenna, what are the babies for?"

"Not now, Gabriel. Not now." He held her, because that was the only thing that he could do.

17

Alana returned, almost an hour exactly after she had talked Gabriel. It was getting close to midnight.

She had snow in her hair and on her jacket. "It's started to snow," she said, motioning towards the front window. "Looks like a white Christmas after all."

Jenna was asleep, her head resting on Gabriel's lap. Alana sat in the chair next to him, tired from the strange day that she had. "How is she?"

"No worse than I am," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "We both lost today."

Alana didn't respond, she wasn't sure what to say. What could she say?

"How bad is it?"

"Extremely," Alana answered. "We have the two hitmen in jail now, but nothing will stick. No evidence whatsoever. I don't know what happened, but even the three women won't talk. I don't think that they remember what happened at all. It's hard to hold someone on hearsay."

He nodded. The two would get theirs in the end, Gabriel was sure of that. "What about AI?"

"They lost almost everything. Their chain-of-command is decimated, as is their infrastructure. The only building that remained untouched was an office building in Santa Clara. Everything else is totaled. Insurance will cover it, but they aren't going to survive this."

Jenna started to stir in his lap. She lifted her head and saw Alana and gave her a strange smile. Alana smiled back and wiped Jenna's hair out of her eyes. "I'm sorry," Alana said.

"Yeah," was all she could say. She sat up, though, and looked at both of them.

The grandfather clock in the den, a room adjacent to the living room, began to chime the midnight hour. It was Christmas. Gabriel got up and went into the kitchen. He returned with a bottle of wine and three glasses. "Might as well celebrate Christmas." He popped the cork and poured the glasses of wine. He raised his glass in a toast. "To the future," he said, and the others repeated it.

18

The next day, Gabriel booked two tickets to San Diego, one for Jenna Dimonte and one for Special Agent Alana Trammel. He told them that he would not be requiring their assistance any longer, not for the foreseeable future. It's best that they stayed away, at least until things calmed down. They would be safer at least.

He called a cab for both of them, and saw them off. It was hard to do, but he knew he was doing the right thing. He was going to be getting his hands dirty in the near future, his quest for revenge was all he could think of. He wouldn't let it consume him, but while revenge and his mission both shared common objectives, he felt comfortable succumbing to that emotion.

He was alone Christmas Night, in his house, finishing off the bottle of wine they started the night before, as well as a second bottle he had. Why not? He would let himself get drunk, he deserved that much.

Holidays had not been good to him lately. He laughed to himself, wondering what the New Year could possibly bring him.