With the night falling overhead, Miriam waited beside the parked Peugeot 508 sedan in front of the B&B Houses. The rental had been arranged by Gabriel to transport them from the cathedral to the rendezvous back at the guesthouse. As a precaution, she kept the sedan between her and the doors to the guesthouse.

The doors to the B&B Houses finally opened and a trio of figures came out. In the centre strode Gabriel, dressed again in tweeds, but he’d donned a baseball cap to shadow his features. He was clearly as cautious as Miriam about their very public meeting. It would not be good for him to be found associated with an Evo Institute scapegoat-turned-traitor. He was flanked by two massive men in black suits and long overcoats, surely hiding an arsenal of weapons within their folds. Gabriel offered her the barest nod of greeting.

Mariam stepped around to the rear of the sedan to meet Gabriel. She kept her hands in the open, offering no threat. Gabriel motioned for the two men to stay on the curb as he joined her at the back of the car. He carried a black leather briefcase. The science teacher squinted up into the evening sky.

“It’s nearly 8PM,” Gabriel said, “and Greylingstad still stands. I assume that means Connor Maddox’s plan failed and his great purge was quashed.”

Miriam scoffed.

“I supposed you understand I could not disclose to you that you were taking from my clone.”

“You mean competition.”

A small smile graced Gabriel’s features. “It was a necessary lure.” He glanced at the darkened windows of the sedan. “And according to your brief phone call, you retrieved my samples.”

Miriam stepped to the rear of the Peugeot sedan and pressed the zero in the silver 508 emblem beside the taillight. The hidden button popped open the trunk, and within its roomy interior lay a thick silver tank. Reminding Gabriel of the bargain, Miriam slammed the trunk closed. She didn’t want Gabriel to pull another stunt on her again.

“As you can see, I have the samples,” Mariam said, holding up the sedan’s electronic fob. “And here is the key to its freedom.”

Gabriel reached for the key, but Mariam pulled her hand away. “Not so fast,” she said. She then tugged down her jacket’s collar and exposed the steel one beneath it. “What about this?” She also nodded over to Betty, who still had her scarf in place. “An exchange of keys. The samples for our freedom.”

“Alright,” Gabriel said. “That was the deal, and I’m a man of my word.” He reached into a pocket and removed a guesthouse key card. He placed it on the top of the trunk. “Inside your guesthouse, you’ll find what you need to free yourselves.” He must have read the suspicion on her face and smiled sadly.

“Fear not,” Gabriel continued. “Your deaths will not serve me. In fact, I plan on pinning my clone’s loss upon your traitorous shoulders. With Evo Institute hunting you, no suspicions will be cast my way. And the faster you run, Ndlovukazi, the better it is for all of us. But, as an additional sign of good faith, I believe I promised you some documents.” He swung the briefcase onto the trunk and ran a hand over the rich leather surface. “Here you are.” He smiled over at Mariam with amusement.

Gabriel snapped open the case to reveal a stack of files. On the top folder, imprinted onto the cover, was the image of a sheep with outstretched legs, holding an olive branch in one foot and a stack of fibres in the other. It was the Emblem of the New South Africa.

“What you do with this information, and where it will lead you, will be a very dangerous territory to tread,” Gabriel warned. “It might serve you better to simply walk away.”

“Not a chance,” Mariam said. She then took the case and the guesthouse key card. With the prizes in hand, she placed the sedan’s fob on the trunk and backed to the curb, well out of the reach of Gabriel’s guards.

Miriam waited for the sedan to pull away from the curb and headed down the street. As the car vanished out of sight, Betty crossed over to join her. “Did you get what you wanted?” Betty asked.

Mariam nodded in response, picturing the relief Gabriel must be feeling. For the sake of his precious samples, the science teacher couldn’t risk that she might have searched the papers first. They had to be authentic.

“Do you think he can be trusted?” Betty asked, reaching to her scarf.

“That remains to be seen.”

As the two women stared across the street, Betty took off her cashmere neckpiece and revealed a close-guarded secret, a secret that Miriam had kept from Gabriel. Betty’s throat was bare. She rubbed at the red burn from her earlier shock. “It was good to get that bloody thing off,” she said.

Miriam agreed. She reached for her throat and unsnapped her own collar. She stared down at the green LED light. After Gabriel’s clone died, she’d found herself with an extra hour before the 8PM deadline. Taking advantage of the additional time in the catacombs, Miriam had reached out to her limited network of resources. She had sent out a clarion call for help. One of her contacts responded, an expert in electrical engineering and micro-design. He was able to get the collars off and he removed the shocking mechanism from Miriam’s. That was all done underground, where Gabriel was unlikely to be able to receive any warning signals from the collars.

Once they were free, Miriam risked making a play for the briefcase. As she stared at her collar now, Betty’s early question played in her head: ‘Could Gabriel still be trusted?’

The answer came a moment later. The green light on her collar flashed to red as it received a transmitted signal, but with the shocking mechanism neutralized, there was no danger. At least, not for her.

In the distant, a tremendous blast echoed across the city. Mariam searched in the direction of the departed sedan and watched an oily tendril of smoke curl into the night blue sky. In the end, it seemed that Gabriel could not be trusted. Apparently, despite his claims, it was too dangerous to let Mariam live, and he had transmitted the kill order to the collars, which was a bad move.

Mariam had given Gabriel the chance to do the right thing. He hadn’t taken it, though. She pictured the thick silver tank in the sedan’s trunk. Hidden inside it, and snapped snugly around the corner edges, was Betty’s missing electronic collar. The corner edges were formed out of a moulded wad of C4, retrieved from one of the explosive charges in the catacombs.

The collar had been wired to a detonator, and if and when the electronic collar was jolted, it would set off the C4. She had calculated the quantity and shaped the explosive to take out the sedan and its occupants with little collateral damage. She then sighed, feeling a twinge of regret. It was a nice car.

Betty gaped at the smoke signal in the sky, stunned, and with one hand clutching her throat. She finally moved her eyes away from it and faced Mariam. “What now?” she aksed. She then dumped the collar into a curb-side trash bin and hefted up the briefcase.

“Now I’m going to use these documents to overthrow the Twin Effect Law,” Mariam said. “Just because we’re clones doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to live long and normal lives.”

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