"It looked so easy when Nancy Drew does it," said Sarah L., staring at the computer screen. "Maybe if the biggest clue wasn't on a computer. We're no good with computers." Then she hesitated. It was always possible her 'older sister' had suddenly become an expert in the past four years, but it seemed unlikely.
She was right; Sarah didn't even notice the remark. "There's got to be something else we can do," said Sarah. "I think the biggest problem is that we don't really know what we're trying to solve. All we know is that Karyn got weird when Jon got his cloning machine. And we have an edited picture of her. That's it."
"Maybe if we call some people," offered Sarah L. "Remember what I said? She really could be a clone. The original is still in the mountains. Probably dyed her hair brown. Only... why would she put it on a web page meant to be seen here?"
"Not sure," said Sarah.
In the end they had go to to a library. They had phone books for far away places, including the mountain town where Karyn's grandparents lived. The Sarahs added the number to their cell phones, found a deserted spot, and they were off.
Sarah L. punched in the number for Karyn's grandparents and held the phone up to her ear. It rang several times and was answered by an older-sounding man. "Hello?" he said.
"Hi," she replied. "I was just wondering if I could speak to Karyn Westwind?"
"What? Are you a friend of hers?:
"Yeah, I'm, er, Leah."
"Well, Leah, she's not here. She only comes here on vacations. If you want to talk to her, she put up an Internet with her phone number on it."
"An Internet?"
"A Facebook, she called it. It has her phone number and everything. If you know how to use the Internets."
"Sure I do. May I ask when she was last here?"
"Around two months ago. What's this about, anyway?"
"Nothing, really. You answered my question, so the only thing that bothers me is her hair dye."
"Is this some kind of school prank? Karyn keeps her hair brown, she never dyes it."
"Really? And I may as well ask. Does she have a clone?"
"A what? What's a clone?"
"You don't know what a clone is?" It's... well, it started as something you see in movies but it's when you make a copy of a person."
"Like a mask?"
"Not making a mask to disguise a person, making a person."
"Some kind of robot? Now I know this is a prank. Or a stunt. Is this some kind of sorority initiation, to call up someone and ask if they make people? That's ridiculous!"
"But I was just asking---ahh, never mind." She said "It's nice talking to you," and slid the phone shut before finishing her sentence.
"So he what?" asked Sarah.
"First he said Karyn left when she's supposed to have left, so she's not a clone, or if she is, the original isn't there. Second, he's got this attitude. As soon as I explained clones he acted like I was slightly less nuts than Britney Spears. Oh, and Karyn's hair was always brown."
"Senile?"
"Old," replied her sister. "Not senile. Though you never know."
"You should have let me talk," said Sarah.
"You would have asked exactly the same thing!"
"Of course I would. But then I could explain it to you." She giggled.
"I wonder how far the stone got," said Jon.
"I don't know," said Jonnie. "We should have asked it to make us a map and track it by radio. I think it only did about a third of the world. So two thirds still haven't heard of me and still think clones are strange. Think I can try renting a movie yet?"
"Naah, the company has more than one computer. We may have gotten a couple of them, but just imagine what happens when a computer that was affected tries to talk to one that wasn't."
