[Superfreaks] Mading Mysteries #3

[Martin Phipps]

                       Mading Mysteries $3

                            So Clone

  "Alright," Mading addressed his class at the University in Taiwan where he taught, "can anyone tell me what exactly 'hot' and 'cold' mean.  Can you assign temperature values to 'hot' and 'cold'?"
  Nobody raised their hand.
  "Aha!" Mading said.  "It's actually good that nobody answered because it's a trick question: it doesn't make sense to define 'hot' and 'cold' using prefixed temperatures.  Why not?"
  A few hands went up and Mading pointed to one of the students and called her by name.
  "Because what I say is hot may be different from what you say is hot," she said.
  Mading nodded.  "Yes, exactly.  My wife, for example, is from the Philippines and she claims she is cold at night -even in the Philippines- no matter how hot it is or how much I'm sweating.  In most cases, it only makes sense to talk about the relative temperature between two objects because --"
  "Teacher!"  One of Mading's students was pointing at the door.  Mading turned to see his collegue and friend Frank David* standing there.
[*Not a real name]
  "Sorry to interrupt," Frank told Mading, "but I can't find the remote control to the projector in the other room and I was wondering if I could borrow the one from this room."
  Mading nodded.  "Sure.  Go ahead.  Just be sure to return it at the end of class."
  "Thanks."  Frank walked over and picked up the remote control.  When he turned around to go out, he hesitated for a moment and found himself staring in the general direction of the class.
  "Is something wrong?" Mading asked.
  "No," Frank said.  "Nothing.  That's fine."  He then walked out of the class.
  "Alright," Mading said.  "Where were we?  Oh yes..."

  Later, when the class was over, Frank came back to return the remote control.  "Hey, um, can we talk for a moment?" he asked.
  "Sure," Mading said.
  "We should wait for all the students to leave."
  "Oh?"
  After about a minute, the remaining students filed out of the classroom.
  "Okay.  What's up?"
  "This is going to sound a bit perverted."
  "Go ahead."
  "I couldn't help but notice that your female students all have large breasts.  I mean large by Taiwan standards.  Quite adequate in fact."
  "I see."
  "Are your students older than my students?"
  Mading thought for a moment.  "It's just something that happens as time goes by."
  Frank nodded.  "I know but I figured that these were college students and they were, you know, finished developing in that area."
  "I mean," Mading explained, "it's like when you're in a high school chemistry lab and you're doing an experiment that involves measuring the rate of reaction and you're waiting for the reaction to occur and you think 'Come on!' and then the reaction happens and you've just screwed up your experiment because now the reaction time is less than it was supposed to be. You know what I mean?"
  "Actually, no."
  Mading nodded.  "Tell you what: if you like, I'll take your students for a week and you take mine.  We switch.  I guarantee that after a week you'll find that your students are -How shall we say?- better endowed."
  "So you're saying it's a 'The grass is greener on the other side' type thing?"
  "Sure.  Whatever."

  Mading and Frank did as they had agreed and two weeks later Frank met Mading in his office.
  "Hey!"
  "Hey.  So how was it teaching my classes last week?"
  "Great!" Frank said.  "How were mine?"
  "Fine.  So, now that you're back with your own students, what do you think?"
  "About what?"
  "About the, um, endowment issue."
  Frank nodded.  "Right.  Well," he said, making sure nobody else was around to hear, "I actually noticed that my students breasts were bigger this week.  In fact, significantly so -and on just about every girl in the class."
  "Really?"
  "Yeah.  I guess they're all late bloomers."
  "I guess so."
  "It's amazing really: I really didn't think, um, that breasts ever got so big so fast."
  Mading shrugged his shoulders.  "They eat rice every day.  That's very starchy."
  "I guess so."
  "So everything's fine now then?"
  Frank nodded enthusiastically.  "You could say that, yeah."
  "Good," Mading said.  "Happy to help."

  Later that afternoon, Mading stopped by the main office and noticed one of the local teachers reading a newspaper in Chinese.  The headline caught Mading's attention.
  "Excuse me," Mading said, "does that newspaper say what I think it says?"
  "That depends," Mading was told.  "What do you think it says?"
  Mading struggled to translate it.  "Actresses Hsu Chi, Zhao Wei and Karen Mok were arrested today in Hong Kong after going on a murder spree."
  "Very good!"
  "Is that serious?  They've actually arrested them?"
  She flipped the paper over to read the article.  "It says they were arrested this morning after going on a murder spree yesterday afternoon around 3:00 on the tenth floor of the Union building in the Wanchi district.  It says they shot and killed about twenty people, mostly businessmen and their clients."
  "My God!  It's like something out of a Hong Kong action movie!"
  "But this is real."
  Mading shook his head.  "This can't be right.  I'll have to go back and see what really happened."
  "Excuse me?"
  "Oh -- I mean, excuse me I need to go to the bathroom."
  "Okay."
  Mading went to the bathroom, used the facilities (as long as he was there) and then zipped up again before travelling back in time and space to the event described in the paper.  He also turned invisible and intangible so that nobody would shoot at him and nor would he got hit by stray bullets.  What he saw was exactly as the newspaper had described: three beautiful women looking exactly like the actresses in question on a murder spree throughout the offices on the floor of the building in question.
  "My God!  It's true!"
  Mading remembered that the newspaper had also said that they were arrested the following morning so mading jumped forward in time and space to see them being brought into custody at the local police station.  Mading noticed something strange right away.
  "Wait a moment!" Mading said in Chinese.  "You're making a mistake!"
  One of the police officers spoke to Mading.  "I'm Detective Jialee Chan.  Do you have any reason to believe that these women are not the women who went on a murder spree yesterday afternoon?"
  "Yes, I do!" Mading said.  "The women who went on a murder spree yesterday were much younger than these three women here - No offense ladies."
  "How do you know this?"
  "I was there.  They didn't see me and that's why I didn't get shot but I saw them and they weren't the same women you've arrested today."
  "We have other witnesses who identified the three women as being these three women here."
  "Well, sure, to a casual observer they look the same but, me, I notice every detail when it comes to a beautiful woman's appearance.  It's... a gift."
  "What are you suggesting then?"
  "I think what you're dealing with are clones that have been trained to be killers and then frame the original DNA doners."
  "Nonsense!  Clones aren't sophisticated enough to be trained to do something like that!"
  "I beg to differ!  They can be told to watch Hong Kong action movies and be told to imitate what they see!  Then it's just a matter of getting them to refine their skills!"
  "Do you have any evidence that the perpetrators were clones?"
  "Evidence?"  Mading thought for a moment.  "No," he said, "but I will."
  Mading teleported away and returned to the office building the afternoon before.  This time he froze time, enabling him to walk around the scene freely and not be seen or get shot.  He approached each of the three clones - took a moment each time to reflect upon what a good job was done in producing them - and then plucked from each of them a single hair, making dure to include some of the root.  He then allowed time to resume teleported back to from whence he had come.
  "Detective Chan!" Mading called out.
  "Yes?"
  "I've got your evidence!  I found three hairs, one from each of the perpetrators!  You can test their nuclear and mitochondrial DNA and find that while the nuclear DNA will be a match for our suspects the mitochondrial DNA is not, meaning that the actual perpetrators were clones of our suspects and not the suspects themselves!"
  "What?"
  "I'm sorry," Mading apologised, "I don't know how to say that in Chinese."
  "No, I mean, what kind of budget to you think we have here?  How do you expect us to run those sort of tests?"
  Mading thought for a moment.  "I know somebody who could do it."  He then teleported through time to the DNA lab of the first precinct police station in Pepperton City, U.S.A.
  "Excuse me, Mr. Edward Bailey?"
  "Yeah.  Who wants to know?"
  "I need your help."
  "What's the problem?"
  Mading hesitated for a moment and then spoke.  "Why don't I just show you?"
  "Wait - are you even authorized to be here?" Edward asked before Mading teleported the two of them through time and space to the police station in Hong Kong.  "What the Hell?" he asked.
  "You're in Hong Kong," Mading explained, "and the actresses Hsu Chi, Zhao Wei and Karen Mok have been arrested for a crime they didn't commit."
  "That's too bad," Edward said, "but what's this got to do with me?  Why have you kidnapped me and brought me halfway around the world?"
  Mading held up three hairs.  "These three hairs came from the actual perpetrators: they were clones of these actresses trained to be killers.  But the police here don't believe that clones could be trained to be killers and they aren't going to pay to run the DNA."
  "Well, no offense, but this isn't exactly my jurisdiction," Edward expalined, "and if the police here aren't going to pay for the tests then I can hardly be expected to run them on: these tests take time and they cost money."
  Mading grimaced, not sure what do next.  Just then, though, a man approached the two of them.
  "Excuse me," he said, "I'm Karen Mok's lawyer and I'll be representing all three of the accused.  Am I to understand you have evidence that could clear my clients?"
  "It's not like that," Edward told him.
  The lawyer interrupted him.  "I'm sure Miss Mok would be happy to pay for whatever tests could clear her name."
  Edward nodded.  "I'll have to get permission from my supervisor."
  "Please hurry," the lawyer said.
  "Don't worry," Mading said.  "We'll be quick."

  After getting comparison hair samples from each of the three suspects, Mading teleported himself and Edward to the office of Detective Michael King.  Mading made a point of slightly altering his appearance so that Detective King wouldn't notice his resemblance to the late Beyonitor.  Edward Bailey then explained the situation to his boss.
  Michael nodded.  "I don't see why not," he said.  "It wouldn't be the first time that the lab has performed an investigation because another lab elsewhere didn't have the necessary equipment.  I say go ahead."
  "Thanks!" Edward said.
  Mading went to shake Detective King's hand.  "I appreciate your help."
  Detective King looked at Mading.  "You look familiar."
  Mading shook his head.  "No, I don't.
  "No, you don't," King repeated back.
  "Good."
  "Good."
  "We'll run the tests then."
  "You run the tests then."

  Mading took Edward back to his lab.  "How long will this take?" Mading asked.
  "A few hours," Edward said.
  "Really?" Mading asked as he looked at his watch.  "Why don't I just jump ahead in time then to when you'd be done?"
  "Sure.  Do what you want."
  Mading jumped forward a few hours.
  "Okay.  Are you done?"
  "Yeah.  I finished a few minutes ago."
  "And?"
  "You were right: the mitochrondrial DNA was different.  I can't tell from that which three women were clones but it does prove that the women they have in custody are not the same women who committed the crime."
  "I'm sure that's all we need.  Let's go."

  Mading teleported himself, Edward and the evidence back to Hong Kong.  There they and the lawyer for the defense arranged a meeting with Detective Chan and the local DA.
  "The evidence is inadmissible!" the DA said.
  "Why?" the defense lawyer asked.
  "Because we don't know for sure where the evidence came from!  This man claims that he collected the hair from the scene but we only have his word on that!  We have no reason to believe that the accused weren't the ones who actually committed the murders!"
  "But it proves that he was in contact with clones of the accused!"
  "But it doesn't prove that those clones were the ones who committed the murders!  We only have his word for that!  And who's going to believe that the murders were committed by clones?"
  "The least you could do is investigate the possibility!"
  The DA nodded.  "Fine.  Detective Chan!"
  "Yes?"
  "I'm going to need to have you investigate this.  I need you to find out if there, in fact, any clones of these women in Hong Kong and, if so, where are they, who owns them and where were they were during the time of the murders.  Can you do that?"
  "I'll try."
  "Good.  I want this matter settled before it goes to trial."
  Mading sighed.  "Sounds like boring police work.  Why don't I just skip ahead to when it's over?"

  Mading travelled three days forward in time and found Detective Chan at the same police station.
  "Ah!  Detective Chan!  Was I right?  Were the murders committed by clones?"
  "You were right."
  "Aha!  So you arrested the clones and the people who trained them, right?"
  "We arrested the people who trained the clones but the clones themselves were shot."
  "What???"
  "Our SWAT team moved in and the three of them openned fire.  SWAT had to take them out.  There was no other choice."
  "But... they were gorgeous!"
  "They were killers."
  Mading sighed.  "It's just like that scene in So Close where Hsu Chi's character got shot and killed.  So depressing."
  Detective Chan became indignant.  "Look, we did all we could do.  At least the real actresses have been cleared of any wrong doing."
  Mading grimaced.  "Well, excuse me, but clones of people are still real people."
  "You know what I mean: the innocent people have been cleared, the killers have been terminated and their trainers have been arrested.  Case closed."
  "Fine.  I guess my work is done then."
  Mading teleported back to the place and time he originally came from, namely the bathroom near the main office of the department where he worked
at the university that employed him on the afternoon a few days earlier.  We walked back to the main office.
  "Mading, are you okay?" his coleague asked him.
  Mading nodded.  "Yeah, I'm fine.  I guess I'm still a bit depressed about that news story."
  "I see," she said.  "Well, don't worry.  Maybe it will turn out to be a mistake and they'll be set free."
  Mading smiled slightly.  "Actually, I'm sure they will."

                              THE END