“Why not?” asked Eckhart.
“We prefer to have sex,” said Ernst, causing Pawn Clements to choke on her orange juice. “Plus, anyone who wants to clone himself is usually an asshole. You don’t want any more of those running around than absolutely necessary.”
“So the blond man could have been a clone of one of the Antagonists?” said Rook Thomas.
“No,” said Marcel.
“Why not?”
“Because when you clone something, you end up with an embryo that is an exact physical copy.” Marcel looked at Marie sourly. “Provided you haven’t made any unprofessional errors.”
“I made one error!” exclaimed Marie. “When I was nineteen! God! And may I say, that cat lived a long and happy life!”
“It certainly lived a quiet life,” remarked Marcel.
“You know, there are cats born naturally that don’t have ears!” said Marie. At that point, there was a knock on the door, and their appetizers were delivered while everyone sat in awkward silence.
“Anyway,” said Odette after the waitstaff had departed, “cloning is difficult, and even when you do it right, you end up with an embryo that grows into a baby that grows into a child that grows into a person who is a physical copy of the original. Not a mental copy. And the clone ages at a normal rate.”
“You can see why we prefer the sex,” said Ernst. “Same result, more fun, much less math.”
“The blond man was a grown-up,” said Odette helpfully. “Older than all of my friends. They didn’t have time to grow him, and they certainly wouldn’t have the patience to raise him.”
“You mentioned accelerated growth, though,” said Eckhart. “Could that have been used here?”
“No,” said Marcel.
“Possibly,” said Odette. “Accelerated growth results in accelerated breakdown, which is certainly what we saw.”
“It’s very simple,” said Marcel. “Much easier than cloning. But if you accelerate the growth of an embryo, regardless of whether it’s a cloned embryo or a regular one, you end up with an adult with the mind of an embryo. There’s no way to speed-educate it.
“If we are to assume the blond man was a clone, or even a normal zygote that was subjected to accelerated growth,” continued Marcel, “then, judging by the rate of deterioration you’ve described, that man was a couple of weeks old, maximum.” He took a sip of wine. “All he should have been able to do was blink a few times and fall over. Possibly he could have soiled himself. But he certainly shouldn’t have been capable of masquerading as another person. You can’t clone minds or thoughts.”
“You did with him,” said Rook Thomas, nodding over at Ernst.
“What?” said Odette sharply.
“Oh yes,” said the Rook. “I got sent a human heart in a box that grew into a naked man who came into my office, brokered a peace deal, and ate all my frozen pizza.” Security Chief Clovis and Felicity listened to this chronicle of supernatural diplomacy with forks paused halfway to their open mouths. “And he didn’t dissolve into slime.”
“Actually, I did,” said Ernst. “Why did you think I left so abruptly that evening?”
“I thought that you had to notify the Broederschap to stand down hostilities. And that you were uncomfortable with the fact that you were wearing my bathrobe. Which I never got back, by the way.”
“Both those reasons were true,” conceded Ernst, ignoring the point about the bathrobe. “But I also needed to have various nonperishable components of my brain removed and slotted into this pre-prepared cloned body that I had waiting in a house in Mayfair. By the time you were having breakfast, the body you spoke with was a drumful of rotting tissue and liquefying hair and bones that was subsequently poured down the drain into the sewers.”
Felicity carefully put her fork down and pushed her plate away.
“So this is a different body?” said Rook Thomas. “It looks exactly the same.”
“That’s why they call it cloning,” said Marcel drily. “And we had to start growing the current body twenty-odd years ago.”
“You really plan ahead,” said Rook Thomas, sounding impressed. “So could the Antagonists have done that thing you did? Where you get a clone that has your thoughts?”
“That wasn’t a clone,” said Ernst. “A clone is a copy. That was me. The only me. The procedure with the heart means that you strip core elements from yourself. Your old body breaks down. You see —”
“We get the picture,” said Chevalier Eckhart. “So, could they have done it?”
“No. It’s classified material,” said Marie. “Still extremely experimental.”
“The Antagonists have already shown they can get at classified material,” said Odette meekly. “Remember the booby trap in that corpse?”
“Also, it’s an extremely complex and time-consuming process that you need a special lab for,” said Marcel. “And it’s horrendously expensive. That heart we sent you cost almost one hundred seventeen million euros.”
“And you just mailed it to us?” asked Rook Thomas, aghast. “What if we’d thrown it away? Or incinerated it?”
“It wouldn’t have happened,” said Ernst comfortably. “We have two men working in the Checquy morgue.”
“Had,” said Security Chief Clovis pointedly.
“Anyway,” said Marie, “the Antagonists have money, but not like that.”
“And what would be the point?” asked Odette. “So they maybe have a shot at killing you before they rot away and die? Not their style. They’re not suicide people.”
At this point, the ma?tre d’ knocked on the door, and everyone stopped talking as she led in two servers to collect the plates.
“Your mains should be here shortly,” said the ma?tre d’ into the silence.
“Thank you,” said everyone simultaneously, and then they all were quiet until the door had shut.
“Look,” said the Rook, “we simply cannot stop talking every time the servers come in. They’re going to think we’re here plotting something illegal. So, for God’s sake, try to make conversation when they bring the main course.”
“About what?” asked Marie.
“What’s our cover story?” said Clovis. “We need a context for conversation.”
“We’re a family out to lunch,” suggested Ernst. Felicity looked around the room. Apart from Ernst, Odette, and Marcel, no one looked likely to be related to anyone else. “Here to meet Odette’s new boyfriend, Clovis, of whom I do not approve.” Odette winced. “It’s not a race thing,” he said defensively. “It’s because he’s so much older than her. And he’s a drummer.”
“How about we’re a firm of graphic designers,” suggested Odette. “Here to talk about a major project.”
“Yes!” said Marie. “Good! We can be artsy and interesting, so no one will expect us to be particularly coherent.” Her blond haircut grew abruptly jagged, and streaks of blue poured through it.
“They’ll expect our hair not to have changed between courses,” said the Rook.
“Of course,” said Marie. “Sorry, I got a little overexcited.” Her hair snapped back into shape and became a uniform blond again.
“All right, so we’re graphic designers,” said Chevalier Eckhart. “Fine. Now, back to the actual reason we’re here, the mystery of the melting blond man. I’ve had a thought. What about the self-destruct thing you did with your soldiers in Hyde Park? Could it have been something like that?”
“The Chimerae,” said Marie. “They had a discretion function that reduced them to paste.”
“I don’t think it can be the same thing,” said Odette. “The Checquy examined the subject and found no sign of Broederschap implants. That function requires them to have sacs full of chemicals all through them. There’s no way those implants could have been missed. I saw the scans.”
“Marvelous, another possibility down the drain,” said the Rook. “Okay, so, not a clone?”
“No,” said Marcel firmly. “Not enough time.”
“Not a member of the Antagonists with a self-destructing bowel?”