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[x-copycat.livejournal.com]

Vanessa sneaks into a blood bank to steal a sample for a paternity case she's working on but she doesn't get in and out as cleanly as she thinks.

“Enjoying life in your dank little hole?” a voice asked over the radio.

“I didn’t do anything bad enough to get stuck in here,” was the response.

“You won’t complain about entrance duty next time, will you?”

“I can’t even see any decent cleavage on here, man. Security cameras seem like they could be hot but then it’s just all people at desks and rolling up sleeves and shit. One dude passed out when he tried to stand up. Busted his head open. That was sorta funny.”

“You should do security at a fertility clinic next time.”

“They have fertility clinics, too?”

There was a pause, then, “Dunno, man. If they’ve got a blood bank then why not? Screen blood, screen babies. All the same science ain’t it?”

Silence.

“Ain’t it? Dude, are you there? You fall asleep? They’ll have your ass if you fall asleep when you’re supposed to be watching the monitors.”

“Shut up, dude.” Roberts put down the radio and squinted at the monitors. A few keystrokes put the feeds for the two cameras he needed up side by side. “We don’t have any twins working for us, do we, Jones?”

“Nah. Why, we got hot twin donators?”

Roberts scrutinized the feed. He was pretty sure that was Lance taking blood from an elderly man on one of the cameras. But that was also Lance in the room with the samples waiting to be processed for disease screening and whatever else it was that they screened for on another. “No, we’ve got something weird. There’s two of one of the employees. What am I supposed to do, put out the alarm?”

“Call the bosses.”

“What? For real?”

“Yeah. They get twitchy about corporate espionage and shit. Call them, they’ll figure it out.”

Sighing, Roberts set his eyes on the phone. Just his luck, right? He bitches about his post, gets thrown in here and now he had to call the real bosses to tell them there was some sort of doppleganger running around the clinic. He couldn’t avoid it and if he put it off his ass would be in a sling even more. He picked up and dialed the number posted on the wall.

A perky, female voice answered the line. “New Son security operations, how may I direct your call?”

“This is Roberts at the New York blood clinic. We’ve got a situation...”

* * *

Lance Edwards found himself guarded in the conference room while the clinic was scoured for his double. “I don’t understand. What’d I do?”

One of the nameless men shrugged. They all wore the same black suit with those little ear buds that made them look like they were CIA or the Secret Service or something. “You? Maybe nothing. But we’ll figure that out soon enough. We’re waiting to locate your accomplice before figuring that out if we can.”

Lance wore confusion well. “My what?”

“Your accomplice, Mister Edwards. We saw him on the security feeds, don’t play stupid.”

“I’m not playing anything. I don’t know what you’re--”

The nameless man snorted. “Of course you don’t. You’re just that stupid, right?”

* * *

The other Lance Edwards slipped out of the clinic’s back door before the nameless fleet of men had managed to get in the front. Vanessa hadn’t taken the entire bag of blood Mister Thorston had donated. She’d merely extracted about six millileters and put it into a vial with a little solution that would keep it from coagulating.

She popped back out on the street a few buildings down from the clinic which is when, unbeknownst to her, she was spotted. The man ditched his coat and tie, throwing both into the open window of a black passenger van. He rolled up his shirt sleeves, undid the top couple buttons of his shirt and pulled the bottom of it out of his pants. Looking far more casual now, her tail blended in with the crowd more easily than he had a moment ago. “I’ve got visual on Edwards,” he reported through the comms receiver that was barely distinguishable from a normal blue tooth receiver.

“We’ve got one Edwards in the conference room, stay on yours,” came back to him.

“Yes, sir.” Another man followed the one who had gotten eyes on the duplicate first. The second man followed further behind and was there in case his colleague was spotted.

He wasn’t.

Vanessa looked around before going into a cafe. She didn’t see anyone suspicious. No one was particularly paying her any attention or seemed to be searching the faces of the people walking around. Her first tail walked right past her but the second stopped behind the Edwards double and looked impatient. “You going in or are you just going to block the door for the people who want coffee?”

The look the man in the suit got was sort of lazy but also apologetic. “Sorry. Long shift.” The Edwards imposter offered a smile and held the door open for the man in the suit.

The tail gave him a nod. “No problem, man.” Then he walked right past his target and into the cafe. The Edwards double followed him in without suspecting a thing. He went up to one of the baristas and smiled at her. The smile was better than the one the real Edwards had. A whispered conversation went on as the tail ordered an Americano. A gym bag changed hands by time the man had paid.

The first tail cycled back and took up a post across the street. “Where’d he go?”

“Bathroom,” the man in the cafe murmured back. He had watched the double disappear while he waited casually at the end of the counter for his coffee.

When someone came out of the men’s room the man in the suit was seated at a table with his coffee. He thought nothing of it at first, really. Then he spotted the gym bag. The woman was already past him when he turned and realized it was the same bag. “The blue woman,” he said just loud enough for his colleague outside to hear him over the comms while he got up and headed to the bathroom.

“What?”

It was empty. The bathroom had no windows to slip through and no one else in it. “The blue woman with the gym bag. White tee, tan cargo pants.”

“Yeah, I got eyes on her. What about her?”

“That’s Edwards.”

“What?” He sprang into action, hustling down the sidewalk on his side of the street so he could keep the woman in his line of sight. “Shifter, then?”

“Yeah.”

“Weren’t the higher ups having trouble with a shape shifter?”

“Yeah.” The suit emerged from the cafe and just barely caught sight of his other half in time to know what street their target had turned down. “You keep eyes, I’ll call it in.”

“Got it.”

* * *

“New Son security operations, how may I direct your call?”

“Hey, Lucy.”

“Bill! Are you on that double thing at the blood clinic? That’s in your zone, right?”

“Yeah, Luce. That’s why I’m calling. Can you look in the database for me?”

“Sure.” Keystrokes could be heard over the line. “What am I looking for?”

“A shapeshifter. One in New York.”

A few more keystrokes were heard, then a pause. “Hmm.” A few more strokes, then a somewhat startled, “Oh.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. They took a sample off a guy who tracked back to New York. A shapeshifter. Jake Gavin Junior.”

“What sort of sample?”

“An arm.”

“Oh.” Bill sounded disappointed. “So Gavin’s a one armed man?”

“Looks like he walks around with two. Bosses think he compensates via his shifting. Why are you asking about him?”

“There’s a chance he just broke into the clinic.”

“I’ll put you through.”

Typical elevator music followed until the line suddenly picked up again, this time a gruff male voice on the other end. “You’ve found Gavin?”

“I'm not certain, sir. A shapeshifter just broke into the blood clinic in New York. Went from being one of our nurses to a blue chick in a couple minutes. Is that in his capabilities?”

“Yes. Keep eyes on the shifter. Report back daily. Further instructions will be sent shortly.”

“Yes, sir.” Bill hung up and tapped back into the comms. “Hope you like her ass.”

“Why?”

“We’re watching it until further notice.”