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“And a clone isn’t?”

She grimaced Clones were huranted them humanity was a point of contention between the scientists and the theologians “Having onlyto kill me at the time, I don’t feel qualified to answer that particular question”

Amusement touched the corners of Stephan’s thin lips “As it happens, the test results were altered by a party or parties unknown long before we got them” He picked up a folder froinals Have a look”

From past experience she knew that it was pointless to ask how he’d gotten hold of the original papers Stephan worked on a need-to-know basis—and generally, that meant the less everyone knew, the better She doubted even Gabriel was privy to all his secrets

Not that Gabriel himself was particularly open Not with her, anyway

She leafed through the inforenetic tests on both Wetherton and the clone, the coroner’s report and Wetherton’s medical history

“Wetherton had cancer,” she said, looking up “Incurable”

“Which the current version no longer has”

She threw the folder back on the desk “If you know he’s not the original, why not simply kill him?”

“Because anted to knohy he was cloned And where”

“But not who had cloned him?” Did that mean they suspected the mysterious Sethanon was behind it all?

“As I said, we don’t know the where and the why But there is only one suspect for the who”

“But the enetics There’s no reason why Wetherton can’t be their boy”

“No, there’s not”

His tone seeue notion that she’d hit upon the very issue that was troubling Stephan Only, for soe it “And what about the replacement parts industry? Have you checked to see if they have started developing fully fors, or is that just too obvious?”

His expression became briefly annoyed “We never overlook the obvious”

Of course not She s a lion with a very short stick, but when she got even the slightest reaction, it was oddly satisfying

“The black-market trade in cloned parts is boomi

ng,” she said Of course, it was fueled mainly by humanity’s desperation to cheat death An incredible nuro body parts, so why not take it a step further, and atte miracle? Not just a replacement heart or liver or whatever other part had failed, but a whole new body?

But humanity was more than just a brain; it was also a heart and soul Medical science ht be able to transfer flesh and brain matter, but how could anyone transfer a soul? Even if they could pin dohat a soul actually was?

Not that rules ever stopped anyone—especially when there was huge money to be made

And so at least part of the impossible—fully fleshed, viable clones who looked and acted like the original Wetherton, and her ex-partner, Jack Kazdan, were proof of that Although soht have looked like hi But then, it had been given a shitload of growth accelerant, so it wasn’t truly a surprise that it couldn’t speak well It had never really had the time to learn