“I told you,” said the voice, “we are your brothers.” The mysterious speaker pressed a button to bring up the lights, and Lyle gasped in shock: the back of the limo was full of five people, all identical.
All Lyle.
Lyle’s own face smiled at him coldly. “Now get in the car.”
Lyle was too shocked to resist; the big men pushed him through the door and he fell onto the seat, clutching it desperately, righting himself and staring at their faces in horror.
“But,” said Lyle, “you’re all gone!”
The other Lyle raised his eyebrow. “You know about us?”
“You’re the…” But no; the men in São Tomé knew fully well that Lyle knew about them. These weren’t the test subjects, and they weren’t the factory workers. Who else had the lotion?
The answer came as quickly as the question: These are the thieves.
The men outside closed the door with a thump, and the limo pulled away into the street; Lyle looked up just in time to see another copy of himself standing on the sidewalk, clipping on his security badge. He checked his belt and found the badge missing—they’d stolen it from him when they pushed him into the car.
“You’re the ones who stole the lotion,” he said.
“I take it from the vagueness of your accusation,” said the lead Lyle, “that you don’t know any more than that.”
Lyle shook his head.
“We’ve been watching you with some interest, Doctor. You and the rest of your company. When you abducted our contact we thought you’d discovered us, but it seems our fears were unfounded. For a company in possession of such power, you’re far less dangerous than we’d expected.”
“Your contact?” asked Lyle. “What are you talking about—we didn’t abduct any—” He stopped. We have abducted people, he corrected himself. Everyone accidentally affected by the lotion: the test subjects, the plant workers, and now Susan. One of them was a contact for the thieves? Which one?
“You’re an excellent scientist, Dr. Fontanelle,” said the lead Lyle. “As you can see, we’ve all sampled your product and found it extremely compelling. There is a use for a thing like this—many uses, few of them legal. All of them powerful.”
“What do you want?”
“Isn’t it obvious, Doctor? We want Igdrocil.”
Lyle looked back at him, wondering what, if anything, his expression gave away. Igdrocil was the imaginary herbal ingredient Sunny and Kerry had dreamed up for the label; it was their shorthand way of saying “the part that overwrites your DNA,” without coming right out and saying it, or even understanding it. Igdrocil was what made the lotion work.
Lyle just had no idea what it was.
“You want to make your own lotion,” said Lyle.
The man nodded. “Being you is a profound experience, but hardly the most useful thing in the world. All we can really do as you is replace you, which we have now done, but our sources tell us you have very little power or freedom in the NewYew hierarchy these days. Even Jeffrey, the great embarrassment, has more say in the boardroom than you.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Because we look exactly like you, and because we are not idiots.” The man glowered; Lyle had never seen his own face look so frightening. “If we can go anywhere you go, and talk to anyone you talk to, we would have to be extremely incompetent not to have a fairly good idea of exactly what you’re doing, and when, and why. More importantly, we have much grander plans to pursue, and much grander people to impersonate.”
Lyle swallowed. “The president?”
“Eventually, yes, though presidential power is mostly ceremonial. But the director of the CIA, perhaps? Or Senator Moore, the special liaison to the Department of Homeland Security? These are positions with real, immediate power, which can help us cement our position for the future.” He smiled. “I assure you that we have thought this through very, very carefully.”
Lyle’s mind reeled, thinking about the terrifying ramifications of such a plot, but he had more pressing concerns. He forced himself back to the present—back to the stony faces of his five solemn kidnappers. Maybe he could talk his way out of this? “You’re right,” he said, “I’m practically a figurehead these days—I don’t know what you expect to accomplish by replacing me.”
“They must keep you around for something.”
Lyle shrugged, surprised to find himself nearly overwhelmed with emotion. “I think they just don’t trust me to leave. Plus they still don’t understand the science.”
“Do you understand it, Dr. Fontanelle?”
Lyle shook his head. “I know what it does, and I think I know how, but I still haven’t figured out why.” He looked around the limo. “You don’t understand it, either, do you? You definitely didn’t understand it when you stole it, or you wouldn’t have turned into me. I’m guessing you used it by accident the first time—” He stopped abruptly, staring at the lead Lyle. “But now it’s been weeks, and you still look like me. You stole the formula when you stole the lotion: you can make your own.” He looked around in confusion. “Why are you still me?”
The lead Lyle frowned. “We have an older formula: 14G.”
“14G is the final,” said Lyle. “We haven’t changed it since then—the active ingredients are exactly the same as what we’re putting in stores next month.”
“That can’t be,” the man hissed. “We’ve tried it a hundred times—a thousand times! You think we want to spend our lives as you?”
“Have you kept it clean during manufacture?” asked Lyle. “Have you kept it away from your own DNA? Did you imprint it properly?”
“Yes, of course!” the man shouted. “We know all of that—we’ve been listening in on you for weeks, dammit, we know how it works! But it’s not working!”
“That’s what my replacement is doing,” said Lyle, “isn’t he? He’s going through my files in person to try to figure it out.”
“Your replacement is going to get us blank lotion from the manufacturing plant,” said Evil Lyle. “It’s a temporary measure, but we have plans that can’t wait any longer. He’s also going to look for the latest formula, though if what you say is true he’s not going to find anything.”
“It’s true, I swear it.”
“No matter,” said Evil Lyle. “That’s why we have you.”
Lyle nodded; he’d been expecting this ever since they’d shoved him into the car. “You want me to make you more.”
