Unearthly Love: Early Encounters (Unearthly Love Supernatural Romance Series Book 1)

The Clone

She was so busy playing with the mengo that she didn't notice footsteps approaching.

"It would be wise of you to throw yourself in that water," a cold voice said. She heard that voice before. She turned around and there was Xenia standing only inches from her looking at her menacingly.

"Excuse me?" Ava managed.

"You do not belong here. How dare you come here and trick Meldrick into kissing your filthy human lips?"

"I see what this is about," said Ava. "But something doesn't quite make sense to me." She cocked her head. "Aren't you human too?" Ava asked.

"I may be of human origin but I was born here and this is my home. You however are an imposter and absolutely no match for a noble man such as Meldrick. You have no powers, you are a plain human and you are to vanish or else," she squinted, "I'll take care of it... of you!" she hissed pointing her finger at Ava's face.

Ava was shaking. That wasn't the relaxing afternoon she imagined she'll have. As soon as Xenia left the mengo started jumping up and down again squeaking with a hue of worry in its tone.

"You heard that, boy? What am I going to do now?" Ava said. The mengo jumped up and down squeaking and doing pirouettes in the air. Ava so wished she could understand it.

"Copy process will be completed in 3, 2, 1...copying complete." The machine said.

The clone opened its eyes. "Meldrick?" it said with a rusty voice.

"Please sync the voice chords," Meldrick commanded.

"Meldrick?" the clone repeated this time with Ava's voice.

"Yes," he replied. "You're safe now but we have to go get Chloe."

"Oh, Chloe, yes," agreed the clone.

"Sir Richglow, may we at least spare half an hour for testing purposes?"

"No, I'm sorry, we have to go now or else Chloe will die and after her other humans. We leave now," he ordered.

They boarded the Aria and jumped through the portal, docking in Hamilton shortly after. The black convertible Maserati was waiting nearby. Once it got to the airport and they boarded the jet the clone stared at Meldrick intently.

"What is it?" Meldrick asked.

"According to my calculations we need to increase our flight speed by 50 km/h if we are to make it before Chloe is served her final lethal dose of the pink liquid."

Meldrick's jaw dropped. He never told Ava about the holographic message from Victor so that information couldn't have been stored in Ava's mind during the transfer process. How did the clone have this information? And what did it mean for their mission?

"Thank you," Meldrick said. He rose and knocked on the cockpit door. After a brief chat with the pilot he took his seat again.

"We increased our cruising speed, we will arrive in time."

Meldrick knew that omitting the testing phase was risky and that anything could happen but this was their only shot at saving Chloe and delivering the clone to the Xemlix but what it they noticed it was not the real Ava? Thy Xemlix were evil as it is but if they learned that they were tricked the consequences could be extremely severe. For now Meldrick needed to understand what he could expect form this clone before he handed it into the hands of the Xemlix.

"Do you know what the goal of this mission is?" Meldrick asked the clone.

"Mission to save Chloe from death, trick the Xemlix, visit their dimension and neutralize."

Meldrick wasn't sure where the clone's information came from. He never talked to Ava about visiting the Xemlix dimension but that's obviously what the Xemlix agenda for Ava was. He also wondered what the clone meant by "neutralize". Omitting the testing phase obviously had consequences but this clone seemed to be willing to cooperate... so far. The Lapo technology has been experimenting with clones for decades now. Chloe's clone was perfect and didn't make any problems, Meldrick thought. But then again it was programmed only to say a few sentences when Meldrick was visiting Ava in her "dreams". Copying a mind was a big deal and he ordered his team to skip the testing phase, but then again he had no other choice, he tried to convince himself.

"Eight minutes to landing," the clone said.

"Sir Richglow, Miss Davenport, we will be landing in about eight minutes," the pilot announced.

Extraordinary, thought Meldrick. Exactly what abilities does this clone have? Meldrick wondered.

As soon as they landed they got to the black Maserati, Meldrick skillfully maneuvered between the cars to get to their destination. Victor said in the holographic message that he would be holding Choe in a rented apartment on fifth street, apartment number three.

"19 minutes to the lethal dose, 10 minutes to destination," the clone announced.

This new Ava was quite the gps, Meldrick thought as he increased the Maserati's velocity even more.

Finally they parked leaving black marks on the asphalt.

"9 minutes to lethal dose, follow me." Meldrick didn't like the clone to be in control but he only had 9 minutes left. The clone ran across the street, up a flight of stairs, across the hall, past the vending machine and pointed to the door.

"This is it," the clone said. "7 minutes to lethal dose," it announced.

Meldrick knocked on the door, no answer. He turned the door knob and his jaw dropped. There was Chloe exactly as she appeared in the hologram only now she was pale white, with all color drained from her skin, black bags under her eyes, hardly responding to their presence.

"Just in time," Victor laughed as he was pouring a pink liquid into a glass.

The clone came towards Victor and said "I believe we are of the same kind." Victor raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He handcuffed the clone and dragged it out of the apartment laughing a wicked laugh as he passed by Meldrick.

Meldrick knelt by dying Chloe and took a small bottle with a glowing liquid out of his pocket. He carefully poured it into Chloe's mouth. Chloe went through a dramatic transformation right there and then. Her skin slowly regained its pink hue, the bags under her eyes disappeared, her eyes opened and changed from foggy to focused.

"Meldrick?" she asked. "Meldrick from Ava's dreams?"

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you," Meldrick said content that the healing liquid was working.

"I just had the worst nightmare," Chloe said looking almost like her old self now.

"It's over now," Meldrick said and helped her out of the apartment.

Meldrick knocked on Ava's cabin door. As soon as she opened and saw that it was him, she thew herself in his arms.

"You're back! You were gone all day," she said with a sigh. "How did it go?" Is Chloe all right?"

"Yes, Chloe is fine and she won't remember a thing of what she had to go through. I gave her an enhanced version of ambrosia, which not only heals the body but also removes recent traumatic events from the mind. She's back to her old self now and Victor didn't notice we delivered a clone, at least for now."

"I'm so happy to hear this, but now that I'm here and the clone is going to the Xemlix dimension, won't people get suspicious that I'm gone?"

"They could but we have a quick fix for this. Aunt Sybilla isn't used to seeing you very often, so that's not a problem, Chloe will be sleeping a lot in the next week, that's the liquid's side effect and you're a freelancer so nobody will notice until your article is due."

"You think about everything, don't you?" said Ava beaming.

"It's my job," Meldrick winked. "How have you been?"

"Oh, all right but remembera when you said I could start waking those hidden powers I have? I feel ready."

"So soon? Very well then. We'll start first thing in the morning."