Episode 8: A Double Life / Departures

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Slipstream
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Episode 8: A Double Life / Departures

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EPISODE 8
A concert pianist expertly plays his masterpiece.

Meenwhile, a medical cryogenic room illuminates. Frost covers the instruments. A skeletal robot activates and supported by wires connected to the building, it floats to a huge vault, which unseals and creeks open.

The piano continues. Every note hit. Every emotion conveyed.

A specific panel slides out with barcodes and some frozen samples. The robot’s specifically designed hands remove the plate and floats back. It places the plate in a drawer. The drawer closes on one side and opens on the other side of the lab, where someone in a labcoat removes it with gloves. They turn and walk out, the machine deactivates and the lights go out.

Music finishes and the crowds stand in applause.

A DOUBLE LIFE / DEPARTURES

Section 10 is alerted to a kidnapping at the Meditech’s Applied Cryogenics facility.

Three embryos were stolen. Technically, this would be kidnapping, not theft, as the embryos were fertilized.

The crime scene is investigated…a genetic sample was retrieved on a door but it doesn’t match any criminal on file. The mother is Chansia Asadi. Sharron knows her as the most powerful woman in the Middle East, which does say a lot considering what she had to fight against the achieve that, mostly due to her late husband. She controls everything of his now, a story in of itself. Sharron fully understands the implications of this crime. Asadi reached her power being as ruthless as her opponents. Her husband had many enemies, well more than she…however, she seems to have inherited a few. Her survival was assured because of her relation to the Royal Family.

She was in Japan, preparing to pick up her embryos, which were transported from orbit, where the odds of conceptions greatly increase, to Etorufu, before she would receive them and take them back to Saudi Arabia.

She is interviewed but does not plan on staying if the kidnapper escapes Japan. The Embryos are more important than the obvious reasons. Sharron’s contact in Middle East inform him that the executive of her empire is her new lover but the embryos are fertilized from her late husband. Her survival depends on the heir. If they are killed, your life and empire my die with them. The suspect list could be endless.

Section 10 investigates the crime scene. The building is under construction so security systems had not been finished. Section 10 dives into the construction team in hopes of suspicious persons. One Middle Eastern technician pops up but he has an iron alibi, plus it seems a little too convenient. The look into how the kidnapper gained control, using a copied ID card. They interview the security chief and find the security more of a joke than they thought. The ID cards are tossed around the office. With so many personnel moving in and out, the Security officer had piles of cards he has not deleted yet. Instead of finding which card was copied, Section 10 investigates how it was copied. They go to the black market to search for someone who could have copies this very advanced security card.

A Kidnapper demand arrives in an envelope for Asadi. She is at Police HQ, hearing it, when Section 10 arrives.

“Meenwhile, I have your children…and they are—obviously—at a very vulnerable age. Prepare 50 Million in YES funds to be deposited in the account provided in the data file. I wouldn’t bother tracking. All data in this chip was implanted using organic based nueralchip technology, it cannot be traced and identification is impossible. Transmissions will be received on the following IP: 245.268.10. I expect payment in 24 hours.”

The group investigates her enemies, it becomes clear, there are many…one of the most unpopular women around. Her husband was an arms dealer. Business rivals, power struggles, family feuds, sex, jealousy revenge, and of course, money—it’s all there.

Investigating the ID card, the group find only one black market dealer who could copy a card like that. The threaten brain diving before he finally admits to copying a card like that recently. He offers them an image from his memory of the buyer.

Asadi decides to return to her country…she has more power there. She has a lot of influence.

The image is distorted and a comparison brings up a match…that of James Andrew Banermen, the world famous concert pianist, composer and conductor.

The first transmission arrives…She is sent one…as is one to Section 10 as well. It’s at 3:00 am.

“Chancia…I am upset to see there is no money in my account. I do hope you are not letting time…just…slip away…” With that tweezers holding one of the plates are dropped into acid and an embryo vaporizes.

“Just in case you didn’t think I was serious.”

The transmission could not be traced. It was a directional beams transmission that bounced off an two satellites without memory facilities.

Banerman does not have a criminal record and he was performing a concert at the time.

James Andrew Banerman: Born May 15, 1995. The illegitimate son of (the Geneticist) Cyrus Teil and the Opera singer, Margareet Banerman.

Cyrus Teil is also deceased. Teil was a shark. He moved into Somatic Cell Replication. He made a lot of advances and took a lot of rich people’s money. When his work was banned, he took the money and ran. European court held up his case. Unfortunately, one of his clients wasn’t European.

…the Asadi’s have a talent for retribution.

Banerman is in Japan, preparing for his next big concert.

Section 10 contacts him. They want to eliminate him as a suspect considering his alibi. He donates a genetic sample. It matches the sample taken from the cryogenic facility.

Banerman doesn’t know Asadi and never knew his Father. His alibi is unsinkable. Was that decot playing piano? Then the piano would not play as well.

Another ransom transmission…

“Hello, Chansia…sorry for calling so late but this is not really good enough. I thought, by now you would have tried a little harder to find the money. Maybe you don’t value your children. Maybe you don’t care if another son…an heir…gets fried. Your family tree vanishing into thin air.” Another is destroyed.

Asadi is putting pressure on the Japanese government for an arrest. Someone in the chain of command leaks the name to her. This puts his life in danger. He needs to be placed under security…and perhaps moved to a more secure location. Section 10 decides to move him back to HQ. On the trip there, Section 10’s car is ambushed by a half dozen SUVs. Ben drives like a man possessed, weaving through traffic, avoiding the pursuers the best he can. An ambush stops the chase. After a firefight, James is kidnapped. Asadi denies the incident of the kidnapping. Sharron and Ben go to her Japanese residency to face her one last time.

Ben brings up the subject of cloning. Margereet divorced Teil a few years before his death, when James was only six months old. If there is a clone, there should be duplicate photos of the same person somewhere around…

Greg finds Cyrus Teil did pay for a boarding school in England. There, they find a picture of Albi Teil. Greg checks the name through registries. Checking the JSA reveals an Albi Teal has a contract with Pioneer Industrial’s Space division to work on Genetics. He lives less then two blocks away from Section 10.

Section 10 arrives at Asadi’s house and Sharron tries to talk to Asadi to buy time. Even when Asadi is convinced that James is not a criminal, she will still condemn him and have him pay for his twin’s crime. They are of the same blood. They will start with the cutting of his hands.

Albi appears on a screen with the last tadpole. Asadi pleads with him but he will not listen. Just before he kills the last embryo, Greg bursts in and shoots him dead. James is released and the last tadpole retrieved.
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Gillsing
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Post by Gillsing »

So the DNA tests aren't accurate enough to detect the small mutations that would occur in two persons living separate lives? Mutations would occur given enough time, right? Perhaps those DNA tests are an inexact science, similar to finger print analysis, just check for a number of 'points' to see if they fit? (from what I saw on Law & Order) :?
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Slipstream
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Post by Slipstream »

Well, once the DNA matched the suspect, they were in trouble. It took a full day to really think about clones seriously because the group kept on thinking that the crime was staged to frame him. Clones don't pop out fully grown in this setting so it would have to be a crime planned decades ago. It never occured to them that it was more of a coincidence. Once they realized it was a clone, they fond the culprit pretty fast. As for mutations, our DNA does not change enough to void a suspect match on a DNA test.
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