“What do you mean he is gone. What happened to him? I thought you were supposed to be watching him,” said Rachel into her microphone. She had raised her voice to the point that the others had turned their head and looked at her talking on the phone. The emotions ran across her face clearly as the conversation continued.

“I’m not sure when it started but I haven’t been watching our team instead,” said Jake.

“Where was he and how did you let that happen?”

“I have been busy with this mission and watching you guys that it slipped by me and was on the back burner. I’m sorry that this happened, and it is my fault. You need to get to the warehouse at least as soon as possible. It was his last location and is burning down right now.”

“You should have led with that. Find him,” Rachel ended the call and turned to Emma, “I need you with me now. We have a fire to come with.”

Rachel grabbed Emma and pulled her into the air until she got settled in the air with her powers going. They sped up as they rose, and Rachel guided them as they flew towards Jason’s workshop. Rachel explained on the way, and they left the other two behind them to meet with the reinforcements arriving. She couldn’t be burdened by carrying a person and needed to arrive quickly.

When they arrived the roof of the warehouse was smoking, and two sides of the wall had collapsed in places. Based on the size of the fire and her knowledge of the layout of the building she knew it wasn’t a natural fire. It also didn’t help that there was currently no fire support already at the scene. The fire was contained in the warehouse but was burning extremely hot. It had not spread to other buildings and looked to be targeting the storage areas.

Emma stepped up and approached while Rachel watched. She brought her hands out as she approached the nearest collapsed wall. The smoke swirled as she started calling to the fire and pushing its sources with her powers. She started to direct them towards each other where they would burn up the air around them killing the air and in turn the fuel around them. At this point, it was more important to protect the areas that weren’t burning instead of taking out the fire. It was already too large for her to do that directly.

As she pushed the fires together and snuffed out the edges she could there was suddenly a large bang. Sets of chemical bottles broke and spilled into the fire causing reactions between them. Emma stepped back as the smoke cloud grew slightly and turned green and orange in a few places. She and Rachel could smell sulfur and other chemicals coming from within the fire. The building shook slightly, and more parts of the brick wall fell apart.

Emma continued to work. There was little she could do about the chemicals inside. Whenever there was a chemical reaction she could only step back if needed and keep the fire away from the places it already was in. It was slow work and not something she was very skilled at evident from her failure to progress within the Alvarez Fire School. Rachel held a worried expression on her face and waited as she didn’t have anything to do to help Emma. Jake called back as Emma made progress on killing the fire.

“I have some good news but not quite what were are looking for,” said Jake.

“Just spit it out. We don’t have time for this.”

“Of course. I pulled the camera footage, and someone tried to wipe it. They did a bad job because they were in a rush while from I presume that they knew we wouldn’t be looking for a while. I can confirm that Jason is probably not in the building. He left a few minutes after I left him be and I don’t think the arsonists dropped him back in there. Two people did this. A bullhead minotaur guy that I’m pulling the records of now and another person who had a better mask to hide themself with. I assume the bull broke stuff while the other started the fire. They seem to be henchmen of the stranger because neither matches the look of the stranger and they cleared out the area beforehand. This is clearly a message. How should we proceed? The id for the bull-man should come within the hour.”

“We can’t wait an hour. Our guy has a hostage now. How long has it been since he left the warehouse?”

“Two hours.”

“That’s too long. Get Caleb on the phone now. Have him tap his resource to speed this up. I’m going to help Emma clean this up. Bring in a fire crew. I want to move out within thirty minutes.”

“I will get on it.”

Emma had killed the fire to the point it was shrinking faster than it could grow and smoke was no longer billowing out of the exits. It also seemed as though any more flammable chemicals were done mixing for the time being. Rachel walked through the side of the building and looked around. Emma was also inside working with the fire more directly. The machines and assembly tools were smashed, and the computer set away from the fire had been smashed. The glass cases that used to contain the old costumes of her and others were gone. The melted glass lay at the feet of where they once stood. Rachel walked around the broken tools and searched for an outlet. It took another minute of searching but eventually, she found the outlet for the water she was looking for. It was turned off at the moment and had been used to pump high-pressure water into a now-defunct machine. Rachel turned on the faucet and ripped the hose out of the back of the machine. With the help of water, the process to kill the fire came closer. Rachel used a few buckets, and the fire was soon out.

Emma’s breath was ragged, and she sat in the computer chair that only had a few burns on it but was otherwise fine. The damage to the machine and the burning of materials were clearly intentional. Now that the fire was out Rachel walked around the storage area and examined the fire. Racks for storage were tipped over and ash-strewn. She could see a few hot spots where the fire had burned especially bright and had contained an excess of propellant for the fire.

“Thank you for taking care of the fire so quickly,” said Rachel.

“It is just my job and what it is supposed to do. And it helped me practice one of my lesser-used skills. I’m also glad no one was inside. If we hadn’t arrived for another five minutes the rooftop fire would have spread to the other buildings nearby.”

“I can sometimes forget that you put out fires on occasion instead of starting them,” said Rachel cheekily.

“What can I say. I play both sides and need to especially when I was first starting out and burned almost every piece of clothing I owned. My parents were very mad but understanding about that one.”

“I understand the feeling when your parents are angry about powers being out of control. My room’s furniture had to be upgraded a bit more after the first incident,” said Rachel.

“There is only interior damage and broken material. I don’t think this place will need to be torn down except for the corner we entered through,” said Emma as she started moving around the broken items and sorting them all. “It could have been worse. At least no one was here.”

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“Yeah at least Jason isn’t here but if we can’t find where he is soon then he might face a worse death than a building fire.”

“Oh, this is Jason’s place?’

“Yeah. Jake and Caleb were supposed to be watching him but I’m not sure what happened. I just hope we have time to fix this,” said Rachel. She grew teary-eyed and before she knew it Emma was holding her and hugging her.

“It is ok. You know that I will be here with you to support you. Just tell me what I need to do, and I will do it.”

They held their embrace for a little longer as Rachel calmed down.

“We don’t have anything we can do now. We just have to wait until Jake or Caleb call us again.”

“Ok. Let’s work on cleaning up this place for a bit. It won’t be good to dwell on all of our bad thoughts. It will keep you busy and distracted for a while.”

Emma was right as Rachel helped sort the junk that used to be Jason’s storage area. Emma cooled down the items so they could both move the stuff around. The metal scraps were the best-kept items. Some of it had warped or melted in places but no more so than it had been before. All of the fabrics, plastics, and electronics were put in the junk piles. None of it had survived in large pieces and the electronics were near the center of the fires so they had been made inoperable. They worked for a few minutes longer when Rachel’s phone went off again and this time it was Caleb on the line.

“I got the rundown from Jake.”

“And what is your excuse for this fuck up.”

“This was planned. I am out of my apartment at the moment because fire alarms went off on the floor below me. Any fire department efforts have been redirected here because it is involving people instead of products.”

“Do they know how the fire was started or by who?”

“I don’t have an answer for you about that. I do know where Jason should be. He called me and had set a time to meet with Wesley Rodriguez. If we can find him then we should find Jason.”

“Then let's get there quickly. Where are you at? I will pick you up and we can check-in at Hero Wear HQ.”

Caleb gave his address – a café a block away from his apartment – and Rachel left the warehouse to pick him up with Emma right behind her.

<-0-0-0-0-0->

I felt the pain of my injuries wake me up. Some blood covered my body. My left arm was bent awkwardly and had been set back into place sometime later. Bandages lined my broken arm. I also had a bad headache with a sore back from hitting the vat. Rope wrapped around my body tying me to a chair. Wesley’s voice sounded like an echo as I tried to focus.

“Welcome back to the waking world NOT Jason.”

Wesley stood above me with a smug look on his face. He was also a few feet away from me watching me. The bull-man was gone. It was just me and him in the empty area. I tried to shift and test the knots in the rope. It only caused me pain. The rope tying me up stayed firm and the chair was still.

“There is no need to do that. I’m just here to talk. For now, at least. You are an interesting specimen I have yet to fully understand,” said Wesley getting closer to me. “Just when I thought all was lost and his secrets died with him you appeared.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I said defiantly.

While it might be the leading theory that I was a clone I knew the truth or at least more of it than him. Any test they had would show that I am the same as my dead self. It would complicate things if I had to explain my origins further to the police, but I would rather have another interrogation session at home than stay here. Wesley had already killed me once and he might do it again. Now I just had to find a way out of this situation.

“Please. I know that the police visited your house. If I didn’t grab you when I did you would have been taken to the chipper for illegal cloning. The police are at your house now.”

Wesley took out a tablet and it showed the feed from one of the cameras in my house. The two officers who were there last time were inside my house waiting for me just as they had before.

“You have two options the first is you spill your guts about everything and then help me prepare a cover-up. You would then work for me and live a quiet life under my control for the rest of your fake life.”

“Yeah, that is not happening. What is my other option?” I said.

“Your other option would be torture. It is not my preferred method for doing things, but I don’t have the time or personnel for breaking into your mind. So, what will it be Clone? I wonder if you will scream the same or if something weird will happen once enough pressure is put on your body. Amazingly, you cracked the cloning process, but it is a shame there were flaws in the mind a memory part of the recreation,” he said tapping my head. I didn’t react. “Do you remember the first moments you were brought to life? How does it feel to no longer have that tether to your creator?”

“How do you know I’m not actually the real Jason and the one you killed was the clone?” I asked trying to be smug.

Wesley just laughed. “We both know that is false because of my eidetic memory and skills. You are not the same Jason that died in the building unless you are suggesting that you somehow survived and now have brain damage. We have wasted enough time on this idea. Now do get on with it at telling me first whether Jason stored away more clones or not.”

“To my knowledge, there aren’t any more of me running around the city. There are no other clones. And before I answer any more questions first it is your turn to answer these three things. How did you know I wasn’t the real Jason?” I asked stalling for time as my breathing grew quicker.

Things were uncomfortable at the moment, but I knew that if I did the wrong thing around him I would be dead. I also hadn’t confirmed what happened to the ARGO. He knew to know that I was the last ‘clone’. Did he not believe me, or did he have to keep me alive for something else? I hoped my questions could explain some of the missing information I hadn’t learned.

“Do you remember our first conversation? The one at the party. You may not have noticed your actions, but I did. Your body language, way of speech, and tone were all off. And do you remember what you asked me? ‘What have you been working on since last we spoke’. I answered a similar question to your other self some time ago. It also didn’t help that you held no recognition of me or the topic of a contract. Something that your original self once considered. It was quite a surprise for me to see you in the crowd before Rachel and you approached. I thought you must have survived somehow amongst the wreckage, but you don’t have the same memories. And so, it is clear that you are a mere dirtied replica of that what once was.”

“Next. Why haven’t you killed me already? You seemed happy to kill me at Diana’s house. What changed your mind?”

“Interesting question. It reveals much about what you don’t know and how clueless you really are. Do you even understand how valuable the technology for cloning is?” Wesley paused for a moment staring at my weakened body. “I did not truly understand that you were a clone until after the attack and I learned presumable around the same time that you were already dead. Or were supposed to be. I had miscalculated and had not thought it possible to clone someone without the superpowers to do so. The technology was supposed to be decades away for superhumans at least. Can you imagine it? A thousand duplicates of Hercules or myself. The kind of power one could wield with an army of clones. I suppose cloning a regular human was easier in some way. It is too bad something went wrong in your head. Maybe once I can get my hands on your corpse we can begin making some comparisons. And I will need you to be alive during that process. At least for a little bit while I make sure that there are no issues. If you chose to struggle through it I will be forced to make my scientific progress a bit slower and without the help of your ARGO device. So, think that over while I answer your final question.”

I had held my head low while he spoke trying to process all of the new information, but it was difficult with the pain. His words had confirmed some things for me that I could use to my advantage. He had wanted to kill me and probably would have if I wasn’t thought of as a clone that had a dysfunctional memory. Next was that he still hadn’t found the ARGO device he was looking for. It was likely why he was tracking me after the party. But that made things difficult because I still didn’t know where it was. I had gone through the entire warehouse which meant it was either somewhere in the house that I hadn’t noticed before or it was in a location my old self hadn’t made note of. I had already gone through the phone and computer and had found nothing on it. At this point, I doubted I would see it at all.

“You are right,” I admitted, “I am not the original Jason. You killed him before I connect with him. How did he die? I know the building collapsed but what happened before that?”