Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Eight: The Detective (Patreon)

Jimmy’s O2 has one the world’s best buffets. As in, they have EVERYTHING.

They take pride in including the most innovative creations from the world’s best chefs in the buffet. You could gorge on the world’s finest lobster, or savour a sample of every type of caviar in creation.

Gastronomic delights for the ultrahuman palate. A normal human might try fifteen, maybe twenty of the dishes on offer; the buffet runs to six hundred and thirty-five unique delicacies.

To sample everything, you have to have a superhuman stomach for sure. Jimmy’s therefore takes the privacy of the diners very, very seriously, and the booths for diners are unrivalled in their discretion.

I showed the card for my reservation, heaped a plate full of food, and slid into a discreet booth.

A single figure was waiting for me there. “You sure took your time,” he said.

“It’s been busy. Enjoying the food?”

“Can’t complain. Wouldn’t try this place on my budget, frankly.”

“Detective Ainsworth, the basic purpose of money has always been to pay for food.”

“Five hundred quid per ticket is a lot of food, but anyway. You wanted the report from my trip to India.”

“Go ahead.”

“I was there for two months, ever since your dad told me about Aman Sen. Got a full dossier on him. Took some time, digging through the records.” The detective pulled up a screen on his tablet. “Aman Sen, born 1998 in Mumbai, India. Traveled to the United States in 2016 on an academic scholarship to study at the University of Missouri, graduated 2020. Got certified as a medical technician, selected to serve as a volunteer EMT owing to a shortage of medical professionals during the coronavirus outbreak.”

“That’s interesting.”

“His address in U.S. records wasn’t updated when we checked, still showed him living in the dorm. However, I managed to get some details in Mumbai.”

“How?”

“His Amazon account. He would order stuff delivered to this address here - coincidentally, the same as the address on Annalise Quentin’s employment records.” Ainsworth grinned. “I’ve solved the mystery of your family’s Mr. X.”

“The tip from Bastion was that it related to my ancestry, not Anne’s.”

“I know, you’re adopted. That’s the weird part. It lines up perfectly with the Quentin-Drake ancestral line; it doesn’t tell us anything about you, personally. That’s where I decided to get creative.”

“What did you do?”

“Tried to trace out Mr. Aman Sen’s relatives. Descendants. Turns out he returned to India in 2021.”

“And?”

“And, then he died. In a car accident. They informed his brother, but nobody bothered to contact Annalise Quentin. Which means that, as far as she could tell, he just mysteriously vanished one day.”

“That must have hurt.”

“No kidding. Anyway, I found his brother’s descendants - they live around Mumbai and Pune. So you have relatives in India. Then I got hold of DNA samples from them.”

“How on earth did you manage that?”

“I paid them, of course. The cost will be added to your bill.”

“They gave you DNA samples for money?”

“Not just for money. I made a nice story about doing a genetic surveillance study, got an official-looking letter from a pharma company, and then paid them for the DNA samples.”

“So you faked a research study and secured genetic material under false pretenses…”

“Look, are you going to question my methods or listen to the results?”

“The results, please.” I sighed.

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“So, I have the DNA results. You can compare them with your own and figure out if there’s a relationship there.”

“That won’t help,” I grumbled. “DNA tests don’t work on me.”

“Huh?”

“About twenty per cent of ultrahumans have something in their bloodstream that screws up the results of DNA testing. Herculeans and shifters, especially. I tried getting a DNA sample analyzed once.” I winced at the memory. “The results came back garbage.”

“Shoot. Well, at least you can test it with Hilary Quentin’s DNA records.”

“We can do that, but what’s the point? Even if there’s a relationship, how does it help find my family?”

“Because of this,” replied Ainsworth proudly, pulling up a photograph.

Aman Sen’s face bore an uncanny resemblance to mine.

The same cheekbones, the same eyebrows, even the distance between the ridges… The detail was close. Very close.

Had he been a shade lighter, we could have passed for twins.

Except, you know, the sixty year age gap.

“There’s two possibilities,” Ainsworth said. “One, Aman Sen had a second family here in the U.S. Or a second child, at least, and you’re descended from them. The other is that you’re an artificially created clone of Aman Sen.” He looked straight at my eyes, as if the Boar Helmet wasn’t there at all. “Which one you are, I suppose, depends on your earliest memories.”

My memories….

My memories had started with a wide blue sky in a city on fire, and a cry for help.

“I don’t know, Ainsworth.”

“Then we’re stuck. Until I run across more information. In the meantime, you can tell your sister that she has second cousins in India, for what that’s worth.”