“Mary’s a real person, and she’s really Dr. Wynne’s niece,” said Kelly. “Born in Oregon, joined Greenpeace straight out of high school, and got her conservationist’s pass to move across the Canadian border five years ago. Last Dr. Wynne heard, she was working on one of the dog preservation farms and had no intention of ever coming back to the States.”

“So she’s disreputable enough to get along with journalists, and unlikely to come demanding her identity back when you’re still using it.” I looked over at Alaric. “Well?”

“Damn. I mean, just… damn.” He was staring at his screen in open admiration. The rest of us took that as an invitation and put down whatever we were holding as we clustered around to peer over his shoulders, leaving Kelly by herself. Alaric shook his head. “I’ve never had a confirmed piece of the Monkey’s work to look at. This is… it’s not just amazing; it’s elegant.”

I frowned. “What are we looking at?”

The entire screen was filled with pictures of Kelly. Kelly in elementary school. Kelly at what looked like her senior prom. Kelly holding up one end of a banner that read STOP SHARK FISHING in big yellow hand-painted letters. Pretty standard snapshots, the kind you’d find on anybody’s personal site or bias page.

Look again, prompted George, sounding exasperated.

I looked again, and actually saw what I was looking at. “Holy… are all those pictures fakes?”

“Yes and no,” Alaric said, pulling up another set of pictures, including what looked like a still frame from an ATM’s security camera and a shot where she was clearly drunk and flipping off the camera. “They’re not really pictures of the Doc,” he nodded toward Kelly, “but they’re real pictures. The Monkey must’ve taken every picture of Mary on the entire Internet and somehow forced Kelly’s physical isometrics over them. Seamless transition. Add the paperwork I’m finding, and—”

“No one ever knows the difference,” Becks finished. “Slick.”

“I’m glad you all understand what the fuck that means, because I don’t,” I said sharply.

“Magic computer pictures make old Mary go bye-bye, put pretty new Mary instead. Now pretty new Mary not get shot by CDC for failure to be her own dead clone,” said Dave, in the lilting voice of a children’s teaching-blog host.

“Great. So you’ve got an ID that’s unbreakable as long as some chick in Canada doesn’t get homesick, a bunch of numbers I don’t understand, and a bunch of dead researchers. Oh, and folks like George are dying way too fast for anything short of a massive conspiracy. Okay, people, can anyone come up with a way to make this day any worse?”

That’s when everything started to happen at once.