The agent rubbed his calf a little before getting up, and then stood up, rubbing his elbow. Lastly, he rubbed the back of his neck, while studying the man in the tube. He stretched his neck from side to side, waiting for it to pop. When it did, a look of realization came across his face. “Wait a minute. What are you saying? Jack’s a clone?”

Doctor Xenos picked up a clipboard hanging on the railing, took a pen out of the pocket of his lab coat, and made a notation concerning the man floating in the tube tank. Tapping the top of the clipboard with his pen, he hung the board back on the railing, and waved a technician over their way. Pointing at the tank with his pen, and then putting it back in his pocket, he answered, “Well, this one is, anyway.”

Looking at the doctor incredulously, the agent repeated, “This one? Are you saying you’ve made more than one copy of this kid?”

“Why so surprised, agent? This is the second one you’ve seen so far.”

The agent started to protest the statement, but again realization changed his face, and he said, “What? Are you saying that in the theater...?”

“Yes, Agent Orange, I’m talking about Lumberjack. We’ve cloned five so far.”

The agent’s jaw fell open a little as he coughed slightly. Leaning closer to the doctor, he said, “Five? Five? Are you trying to tell me you’re creating an army of Jacks?”

Doctor Xenos tisked, chuckling a little at the agent. Shaking his head, he answered, “No, agent, nothing so ominous. Just one clone for each personality, with the possible exception of ‘Jack O. Lantern.’ As you noted yourself, he is a bit uncontrollable- better left ‘in-the-box,’ as it were.” The technician the scientist had signaled walked up behind Doctor Xenos, picked up the clipboard, and walked around the other side of the tank.

The confusion etched itself deeper into the agent’s face. “One clone for each personality?”

The doctor walked past him, pointing at identical tube tanks around the circle of the dome. “Yes: Crackerjack, Lumberjack, Jack Frost, Jack Sprat...”

As Agent Orange turned to face Doctor Xenos, he looked annoyed. “I know their names, doctor. Jack’s a schizophrenic changeling. How do you propose to confine each clone to a specific personality?”

The doctor looked over the agent’s shoulder, and motioned for the technician coming around the first tube tank. “Quite easily, actually. Jacks is a changeling, true. But the DNA of the individual personalities is quite stable. The Crackerjack personality is the dominant one, controlling the shifts from Jack-to-Jack, and he alone controls the changeling ability.”

“How can you be so sure of that?” asked the agent.

“Believe me, we studied the first clone extensively, to make sure. We don’t want more than one ‘Jack O. Lantern’ running around any more than you do.”

He had heard the technician come up behind him after the doctor had signaled him. The voice he was hearing, however, was Doctor Xenos’. He was looking at Doctor Xenos though, and his lips had never moved. Agent Orange laughed. “Ha! That’s pretty good, doctor! Ventriloquism!” Turning towards the technician, he said, “Geez, he must be a riot at office...” the Agent went slack jawed, and trailed off, “...parties. What the hell?” He looked back at the doctor, and then at the technician. Back at the doctor, and then at the technician. They were identical. Finally, he looked back at the doctor, and repeated, “What the hell?”

The technician spoke. “Isn’t it obvious? We...”

The agent held up a stiff left hand towards the technician, holding his right hand over his eyes. “NOT ...Not you. Man, that creeps me out.” He looked back at the doctor for an explanation.

Doctor Xenos couldn’t help but look amused. “Isn’t it obvious, agent? Jacks isn’t the first human clone we’ve done. There had to be a control for this experiment; DNA that we could compare against Jacks’ so we’d know how the clones were progressing. Being the head of the project, I cloned myself. Out of a certain amount of curiosity, to be sure, but also because I could compare my clone’s DNA to my own, to know if he was stable or not. Since the incident with the lab assistant that led you here, all the technicians here are clones of me. If only one thing is certain, I know that they all understand me, and that I don’t have to check behind them. Quite refreshing, really.”

Story and characters owned by Chris Bishop, copyright 1997, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022.