"Watch out!" said Jim. "That plant...."
"It's okay," said Megan, moving away from the plant a bit. "I held my breath. How much do you know about this thing, anyway?"
"Not a lot... I bought it as a gift for a friend. I thought it was a giant rose and the person selling it was trying to be weird. I'm not sure what to do with it now... I had this idea of using it on you but I'd never really do something like that."
"That... wait a minute. Did you use the plant on Melissa?"
"Yeah. Well, I didn't *use* it. She stumbled on it and it..."
"It created a duplicate of her? And that isn't really Melissa?"
"Well, yeah... wait a minute, how do you know that much about it?"
Megan looked puzzled. "I'm a botanist. That's a plant. Why wouldn't I know about it?"
"But it's not the kind of plant you'd read about in textbooks..."
"Of course it isn't," said Megan. "It's a big news story... if you're a botanist. We have to spread the news under the table... emails, having coffee with people at scientific conferences. But we're not allowed to write papers about it or tell the newspapers... the government won't let us."
"Well, how does it work and what's it for?" asked Jim.
"It's for alien invasion," said Megan. "Or so we guess. Use the plant to create a clone of someone, but the clone will follow the orders of the one it imprints on. If you're an alien invader it's very useful to have a clone to obey your orders."
"Is there an alien invasion?" wondered Jim.
"Not really... the plant's good for invasion, but that doesn't mean there are any invasions. An invader would need to plant it at his base to program the clone as it comes out. He wouldn't want the plants to get loose, because it would be whoever finds the clone that gets to program it."
"Well, this clone thinks she's Melissa. And that I'm her boyfriend..."
"You didn't!" exclaimed Megan.
"I'm afraid I did," said Jim. "She was already obeying orders and I was testing them."
"I don't know if I should complain," said Megan. Melissa herself you didn't do anything to and the clone has to be programmed to obey someone, after all... I have to figure out what to do with her, though."
Thu Jun 14 14:04:48 2007