The real Blake Madison struggled against the grasp of his captors. Somehow he never expected aliens to be this beefy. These guys were ripped. I the pictures he had seen of Aliens...the Roswell casualties, ET, and others...they always looked so willowly. But these guys had fingers that could rip the bumper off of a 59 Cadillac. As two held him, another alien guided his stumbling cyborg clone into the canoe, and dragged it back in place over the hatch doors.
At this moment, Madison noticed a figure he hadn't yet seen, a short stocky figure in a hooded cloak. "Hey! Yoda! Tell your henchmen to let me go!" This figure turned, looked at him momentarily, and clearly said "No, I cannot." The figure then pressed its hand against a glowing plate on the wall, and the hatch doors opened, leaving the canoe bobbing gently over thin air. Then, slowly, the canoe began to descend. "Hey, now what the hell!" said Blake. "Where's he going with my clothes?" The short figure approached him. "He must borrow your things for a short time. They will be given back. He has a job to do."
Madison guffawed. "Him? He can't even walk straight!"
The short figure issued its own grim attempt at a guffaw. "And neither do you, most of the time, Mr Madison. Besides, he is but newborn and learning quickly. Soon he will execute his tasks flawlessly. No one will suspect him...until it is too late."
The figures guided Madison toward the open hatch, and for a second he thought they meant to toss him out. Below him, but at a point still one hundred feet above the lake, he saw the figure pull something shiny from the coat pocket...the 38 revolver. "Aw Christ," said Blake, "now what the heck do you guys have him up to?" Without a sound or an answer, Madison was pulled away from the hatch, and it closed.
The short figure laughed again and said "I can't believe you get paid to figure things out, Mr Madison. Isn't it obvious? We have certain..secrets...that must be maintained at all costs. We don't like to meddle in human affairs, but there are those who are coming close to solving our little riddles, and they must be eliminated. The other Madison is your double in every way, down even to his fingerprints, even to his DNA. When he completes his work, we will not be implicated. It will appear to be a series of random killings. If he is caught, those who know you will marvel that you could do such things."
"But I couldn't do them," said Madison. "And if he's my double, neither will he!"
"What," the figure asked "would keep you from killing?"
"I have no motive."
"The other Madison does, though. A very good one."
"Well...my soul then."
"And that is just the point. The other Madison is merely your physical double. Even we can not manufacture a soul. He is a machine."


Dundee was distracted from his reading of a Thomas Wolfe novel by a light plash from the lake. He stretched in the sun, and stood up on the bank. He saw a man in the boat who was looking fixedly at him. "Ahoy!" said Dundee, and waved. The figure in the boat waved back, then, pulling at the paddle, clumsily made its way toward the shore.