When they’d finished eating, Kim suggested the two men move into the front room while she cleared away the supper things. She’d tasked Joe with establishing some ground rules with their visitor. Joe settled Xavier into a chair and stood opposite him.
‘Right, mate, what’s your game?’
‘My game?’ Xavier looked up at him. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘You’re not fooling me. What are you after?’
‘I have no agenda. Your wife ordered a new pair of knees. Here they are.’ He gestured at his legs, currently encased in Joe’s second-best corduroy slacks.
‘Yes, very funny. It’s clear that you’re not expecting to part with your knees. What did you think would happen when you got here?’
‘Jean-Claude said you would ask a lot of questions. When you understood a little of my background, he said you would do one of two things.’ Xavier kept his neutral gaze on Joe’s face and waited.
Joe stared back. ‘Which were?’
‘Either return me, which he thought possible but unlikely, or take me to the authorities.’
‘No other options?’
Jean-Claude said anything else would be too complicated.’
‘Oh he did, did he? I’d like to have a word with this Jean-Claude.’
‘I think he might get into trouble with the company, if anyone found out what he was doing. He was trying to help me and the other sentient clones.’
That pulled Joe up short and his voice softened.
‘Yeah, Kim mentioned there were others. What happened to them?’
‘I don’t know. They were dispatched before me.’
Joe hadn’t seen any mention of mysterious human clones on any of the news feeds, so where were they?
‘How many others were there?’
Xavier held up his hand to show three fingers extended, his thumb holding his little finger curled into his palm. Joe whistled softly in surprise and pulled over a stool, to sit beside him.
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