Chapter 21

Saying goodbye after the funeral was difficult, but the trip to Miami was quick and easy. I was on good terms with Cole, the Superhero League teleporter and he agreed to drop me off and pick me up when I was ready. I think he felt sorry for me after my time in Washington. He also told me that he would be speaking to his superiors and if I was willing to work again, he hoped to arrange superhero bodyguards.

The next two weeks passed quickly as I played both with Jordan and my genetics and powers. I went out frequently, mainly to eat, but every couple of days I wore a different wig and different face. Then Talia came with Kalie. It was quite a long flight so they arrived exhausted and spent the next day recovering with only a short trip to the beach and out for food.

Then it was time for the birth, the most dangerous and worrying part of my scheme. I tried to stay strong and not cry out and really the pain never reached the highest level. I was so grateful that my power allowed me to chose a configuration that made the birth process more manageable. Talia had been studying both textbooks and watching youtube videos so that she could help me as much as possible. Two hours after the start of labour and Jordan/ Hannah was reborn. I tore again, but since it was just the four of us, I could reset my vagina, in fact, I returned myself to my normal settings ready for Stacy again, apart from my breasts.

We then had three wonderful days taking Kalie out to Disney. I had to watch and carry baby Hannah, but nothing brings a smile to your face better than watching a child have such fun. They then returned to Australia and I soldiered on. Once Hannah was too big to fit in a pram I was mostly stuck inside the apartment. Theoretically, she was big enough to walk, but in reality, she was either asleep, feeding, pooping or half-aware. I did realise that was coming so I stocked myself up with loads of protein powders, and food generally. Takeout food deliveries were also very helpful, but, by the time Hannah had finished maturing and my breasts stopped naturally, I was exhausted and probably a bit malnourished. Constant sleep interruption with forcing food down so you had enough to give to a young child to grow quickly, resulted in a level of tiredness I don't think I have ever experienced.

Curiously enough, Hannah stopped at the biological age of sixteen which I think just shows different people mature at a different age. I returned my face to my Josie appearance as that was the one most familiar to Jordan/ Hannah.

It was all worth it when awareness finally returned to Jordan/ Hannah's eyes about a day after her last breastfeed. Her eyes lit with recognition. “Josie? What happened? Why can't I hear your thoughts?”

I sighed in relief. “What is the last thing you remember?”

“You had found a lead on Abby, we went to bed and now, I'm here, feeling... weird. Do I sound right?” She tapped her throat trying to work out why she sounded different to normal.

“You need to stay calm as some of what I am going to tell you will be alarming. Remember I told you originally that I had some secrets that I didn't want anyone to find out,” I asked.

“Yes. To tell you the truth, I was asked to spy on you, but I knew you had guessed that.”

“Well, you have just had a front-row seat to my secret. I have the ability to clone someone and pull their soul or spirit from their original body and into my clone. It is sort of like reincarnation without losing your memory. In your case, I had to push the boundaries a little. Come with me, I need to show you something,” I said, before leading her to the bathroom so she could see her new face.

“That's... that's Hannah's face. Why did you do this to me and why do I have Hannah's face?”

I took a deep breath. “You might want to sit down for this one.” We both went back to the lounge. “I don't know how to say this gently, but that night when we both went to sleep, an assassin entered our room and killed us both. For some reason, my ability activated and after a day and a half, I woke up, restored. You did not. I believed that souls linger after death so I rushed to your body, which took some begging, I assure you, cloned your body and crazily started waving my hands above your body until finally, I felt your soul join your clone.”

“I died?”

I just nodded and gave her time.

“Why Hannah?” she eventually asked.

“First of all, I don't want anyone to know what I can do. Every rich old person in the world would be after me. Even worse if they think I can raise the dead and I could hardly tell everyone, no, don't have a funeral for Jordan, she is alive as an embryo in my womb. So your Jordan identity is officially dead. Nice funeral by the way. Your mother was sweet, your dad a bit emotionally dead and your brother talked about how horrible it was to have a telepath as a sister. Aside from that, I cried buckets and I knew you weren't really gone. Whilst you are within me I have the ability to alter your DNA. There are some core elements that I can't change or you wouldn't be you, other than that there is much I can change. Incidentally, when I can see your DNA in action, I have a much better understanding of it and if it doesn't correspond to areas of my DNA that are my core elements, I call it my read-only files, I can add your abilities,” I explained.

“So you are now telepathic?”

“Yes, well, sort of. You have another ability that I call mind partitioning. I didn't really want to be telepathic so I have set a part of my mind to receive all the data but not inform my main mind unless there is something important being revealed. My main mind is telepathic with the minimum level of sensitivity, just enough to keep my mind quiet. Anyway, back to you. You couldn't be you anymore, but you still needed an identity. I have to be honest and tell you that I made the choices for you that I thought you would have wanted. I would love to have consulted you, but that wasn't possible,” I admitted.

“OK, so Hannah because we were sure she had died, but there is the possibility that she is alive.”

“And she would be the right age. I can only mature my clones until they reach maturity then my power stops. And her parents are lovely although they are still grieving right now and how you want to deal with that I will leave up to you,” I agreed.

“Was there anything else you changed?”

“Maybe, but just a few cosmetic things that you had already admitted you liked. Like hairlessness, C cup breasts, having a metabolism that means you will never become fat, things like that,” I said, looking away.

“What else?” she asked.

“Humm?” I asked with an innocent look.

“I may not be able to read your mind anymore, and I hope we are still best girlfriends. I can tell when you are being economical with the truth, so, what else?”

I smiled at her a bit naughtily. “I didn't touch your sex drive, but let's just say I made sure all the working parts are in spectacular order.”

Chapter 22

It was easy enough for me to say that her old life was over and the identity burned, but not so easy for Jordan to say goodbye, especially to her family. To be fair, being a telepath was not good on social interactions. It's hard to smile at someone who was scared that you would unearth their darkest secrets while thinking of those darkest secrets that you had to pretend to unhear. It pretty much ruined her relationship with her father and brother and even made her mother uneasy. Her brother was just paranoid and blamed her for anything that went wrong in his life. Her father worried that she would reveal his marital indiscretions and kicked her out of the house as soon as he could. Her mother didn't fight for her and even knew that her father hadn't been faithful but didn't want to confront him.

For all that I felt her family had treated her poorly, she loved them, so agreeing to never contact them or speak to them again was difficult. In the end, she realised that letting them know she was still alive was impossible and she had to let it go. They had buried her physical body. There was no way they would believe her and any attempt to prove it would only be by revealing secrets they didn't want to be known, that any telepath could have found out.

Similarly with friends, besides me, who was old enough that I didn't really care if she could hear my surface thoughts, most people tended to shy away from telepaths. It was also a decision she had to make for her new life. She had no idea of the potential in the mind partitioning. She had used it unconsciously, but only for little things. Telepaths usually revealed themselves by knowing more than they should and Null's were rare so when another telepath couldn't read you, you were considered a telepath until they realised you couldn't hear other minds. She could do something similar to me and pretend to be a Null. For me, it was an easy decision, but Jordan who now insisted I call her Hannah so that she could get used to it, anyway, the Jordan that she was had tied her identity with being a telepath. It was the reason for her social isolation and also the ability that helped her find work and get paid.

Hannah's parents were very rich, so if she pretended to be their daughter, she would never need to worry about money again. After much thought, she decided that the pain of being a telepath was not worth the compensations, so she set up her mind partitions and telepathy like me. Hannah's next moral dilemma was what to tell Steven and Joy, Hannah's rich parents. As a telepath, she hated the idea of lying to them at the same time she couldn't reveal my involvement.

Hannah wanted to tell them that she was a clone rather than their original daughter. We started with that premise and tried to create a story from there. The only people who would logically be able to create a clone was a mad scientist and most mad scientists were too science obsessed to be either good or evil. However, they also couldn't hide their thoughts from a telepath so the only option was to pretend to be cloned by an evil mad scientist who had died recently.

There were none in the news in the right time frame in the US so we stepped it up a gear. It was also where we found that combining telepathy with mind partitioning made the telepathy much more effective. Hannah knew what mad scientists sounded like from using her telepathy previously. Of all the different superhero types, only mad scientists think differently. First Hannah set her mind partition to inform her main mind of mad scientist type thoughts. We then travelled around Miami until we found one, mainly on the bus. I was then given a brief training in telepathy and listened to the difference between a mad scientist and everyone else. We found a hotel within listening distance so that one of us could listen in to determine if he was good, evil or morally grey. While one of us stayed to listen in the other continued the search for another.

We found three in Miami and all three were morally grey. We moved on going through larger population centres and essentially spying on the resident mad scientists. I asked why the government didn't do something like what we were doing and Hannah explained how difficult it normally was to go through thousands of mind voices to pick out the ones that were saying anything actionable. Our mind partitioning was really showing its value.

We found one in Tampa and two in Orlando, both grey, however, we found an evil one in Jacksonville. We bought a burner phone, I changed my voice to a random male voice and we gave an anonymous tip to the police. Because of what we had telepathically heard we could include that he was a super doing human experimentation. Evil mad scientists had a tendency to have hidden labs which is what we had found, but they also tended to have self-destruct triggers and elaborate escape plans. The normal tactical response was to send a telepath to check it out. We couldn't hear the thoughts of a telepath if they did send one, but we did hear the explosion when it happened and the mind of the mad scientist going suddenly silent. This was our chance. I said goodbye to Hannah although I hoped to use a disguise and check on her at a later date. We set up passwords so that she could know it was me. She then headed towards the explosion so that she could hand herself in to the police while I headed back to Miami. When I got there I phoned Cole and he teleported me back to Surfer's Paradise.

It wasn't even a week before Steven and Joy announced the miraculous return of their daughter. She was being tutored at home to catch up with all that she had missed before she returned to school the next year. There was not a doubt in my mind that she told them she was a clone of their daughter, but that didn't seem to bother them.

Before she left, Hannah made two confessions. Despite not realising it, when my mind was open to her telepathy, there were several instances where my mind had marvelled at the difference between being a woman compared to a man. So she knew that I had previously been male. It hadn't bothered her then and didn't bother her now. The second confession was that she had fallen in love with me. I was the only person who knew her and loved her, warts and all. She knew I loved someone else and had therefore never mentioned it, but now we were saying goodbye, possibly forever, she felt the need to get it off her chest. She knew I loved her as a friend, but she had always yearned for more. She gave me a passionate kiss and then walked away.

Mind blown.