Chapter Text
The controls of the pod blurred into a web of astigmatic lights trailing across his vision. His ribs pounded harder with every breath he took, blood oozing through the messy stitches and seeping into his suit. Keith was going back to the castle, proverbial tail between his legs, while his mother finished their mission without him.
General Trugg got a good hit in his ribs before her own weapon took her out. Given that he wasn’t dead, he figured it couldn’t have breached his lung, but Krolia was unconvinced. She’d thrown him in the ship’s escape pod as soon as it was safe. It was that or stay wounded, was her reasoning; there were no healing pods in the quantum abyss.
‘You will slow us down,’ she said firmly over all his protests, ‘If you don’t die first. And I will not lose you again, not so soon.’ She’d raised her hand, and for a moment he thought she might touch him, might hug him. Might do one of the hundreds of things a mother should do with her long lost son, but then she dropped it and slammed down on the shuttle’s hatch. It took off and before Keith could turn his head he was already too far away to see her.
The pod’s autopilot took him through asteroid belts, past nebulae and comets and planetoids too far into the galactic backwaters to be of any interest to the Galra. He didn’t know where the castle was these days, didn’t know anything about his former teammates, but he was going back. If he tried very hard, he could almost feel happy about it.
Keith had been gone a long time - at least months. There was no telling how the paladins had changed, grown without him. Whether he still had a place there at all, or if they’d just send him back to the blade the moment he was healed. He wasn’t quite sure which he wanted, but tried not to get his hopes up either way.
The pod was made for someone larger than him, so at least he could stretch his legs out and tried to sleep as the spacecraft carried him through the vacuum, back to somewhere that had once, briefly, been home, waiting to see if it still was.
He awoke to a sharp, shrill pinging on the console. Groggily, Keith blinked awake and mashed a few buttons until the control panel resolved into a picture of Coran and Allura on the bridge. Their faces dropped, jaws hanging open and eyes wide as they blinked at him.
‘K-,’ Allura swallowed, ‘Keith, is that you?’
‘Yeah,’ he said gruffly, ‘Sorry guys. Mission went a little haywire, Krolia sent me back for a pod.’
‘You’re injured?’ Coran interjected, shooting a worried glance at the princess, ‘I can prepare a pod.’
‘Thanks. I can be out of your hair right after, I know you guys are busy. Sorry to just drop in on you.’
‘No need to apologise, Keith,’ Allura pursed her lips, eyes flitting about the room, across the screen, ‘I will approve landing clearance and inform the other paladins. Make your way to the docking wing and we shall meet you there in a few doboshes.’
Keith nodded, and took the pod off autopilot to steer around to the north face of the castle, where he waited for the heaving docking gate to open and let him into the pod hangar. The unfamiliar controls coupled with his exhaustion made steering into the loading bay more of a challenge than it should be, and he hit the deck with a bump. The hatch hissed open and Keith hauled himself out of the pod, arm clutched tight to his wounded ribcage.
For all his anxieties, he’d hoped the others would be pleased to see him. Even if he’d not been the most sociable with them, they’d still lived and fought together for months, that must count for something? Allura and Coran had seemed more shocked than happy to see him back, but that could just be the suddenness. But his feet hit the floor and echoed through the silence, nobody making a noise. Keith raised his head to see the paladins standing in a cluster a few feet away, faces tight with the same surprise he’d seen on the Alteans a few minutes before.
They looked the same. Keith wasn’t sure why he’d expected them to change in their time apart. Maybe because he had. But they looked the same, Shiro standing firm with both arms at his side, rigid with the hangover of military discipline. Allura with her hands neatly folded, expression set in a diplomatic cool. Hunk worried his fidgeting hands, eyes casting about him in anxiety, and Pidge started with her arms folded, pushing her glasses up her nose to scrutinise him. Lance looked the most severe, caught somewhere between amazement and fury. His body was angled, as if to shield the person beside him, the other Keith peeking out from his-
What?
Keith took a step forward, eyes locked on his double, glaring back at him with hatred. He took another step, and Lance took one too, stepping fulling in between Keith and the other one.
‘What,’ his voice croaked, throat dry as sand, ‘What the fuck is that?’
Nobody turned to look at the other Keith, their eyes fixed solely on him. He wanted to run back into the pod, take his chances with deep space and sepsis. Maybe he’d never left. Maybe this was all one big, terrible dream. It had to be.
‘We could ask you the same thing.’ Lance stood firm between Keith and his walking reflection, eyes narrowing. His stare was hard, unforgiving as steel, and Keith wondered what the hell he’d missed.
The other Keith stepped out from Lance’s guard, looking up and down at Keith, ‘This is what I was telling you guys about. The replication labs I found with the Blade. I just didn’t know they’d be running so soon.’
‘The what?’ Keith baulked, ‘He’s, he’s lying.’
‘Clearly there’s something replicative,’ Pidge tilted her head, ‘If we’ve got two Keiths.’
‘You’ve got one Keith,’ he turned to her, waving his hand at his double, ‘And that, that thing, is lying to you. I don’t know anything about replication labs, I- I was sent to destroy a weapon made by General Ranveig, you- you can call Kolivan right now and ask him.’
‘The Blade doesn’t give out intelligence on active missions,’ Shiro said, face carefully blank, and Keith wanted to fall down, ‘We tried to ask them for info on the replication labs when Keith came back-’
‘That is not Keith!’ Keith yelled, gasping when the exertion made his wound throb, ‘I am. If there’s a fucking replicant, it’s him!’
‘And we’re supposed to, what-’ Lance shrugged, kicking at nothing on the floor, ‘Just take your word for it?’
The coldness in his voice made Keith’s stomach drop. He hadn’t expected Lance to roll out the welcome wagon, not with how they’d left things, but maybe he’d hoped for something a little more than flagrant hostility. Flagrant hostility to protect his lying fucking clone, of all things.
‘I’m wearing a Blade uniform,’ he said shakily, ‘How the hell would a Galra lab have one of those?’
Pidge and Lance shrugged at the same time. Pidge tossed a thumb over her shoulder, towards the clone, ‘He showed up in one too.’
Keith’s stomach dropped further. He tugged at his belt, pulled out his luxite blade and held it out to his teammates, ‘And did he have this?’
‘I told you I lost it,’ The other Keith pushed out from the cluster, stalking over to him, ‘On the mission in the lab.’ He reached out to take the blade and Keith yanked it back.
‘Don’t you dare,’ he hissed, ‘Don’t you fucking dare touch it.’
‘He did say he lost it in the lab,’ Hunk chimed in, looking about as close to vomiting as Keith felt.
‘It’s why I left the Blade,’ the clone stepped closer towards him, something glinting in his eye as he stared at Keith, ‘To warn my team about the replicants, in case anyone showed up wearing our faces. So they know not to trust any fakes. Now give me back my sword.’
He ran at Keith and Keith lunged forward, pain rippling up his side as the last of the stitches tore. Pure, furious adrenaline dulled the stab of fractured bone against muscle, and Keith threw himself at the clone. The double caught his wrist but he twisted it free, earning a howl of pain as the double’s shoulder twisted with it. Other Keith was stronger, uninjured, but he was desperate, dodging jabs and kicks like a feral stray, like a single punch would kill him the instant it landed. He dove to the left, slashed along the back of the clone’s knees, and pushed him onto his stomach, straddling his back and raising the knife above his head to drive it home-
Two arms hooked under his and hauled him bodily off the clone, unmoved by all his violent struggling. He couldn’t escape as the arms wrapped around him, pinning his hands to his chest, and wrestled him away from the clone, murmuring something about a pod Keith couldn’t hear over the mounting pain and panic. Shiro pulled him back a few paces, Keith’s feet scrabbling along the floor, until he was out of the clone’s reach.
On the floor, Lance had eased the clone over, checking the cuts on his legs and helping him gently to his feet, wrapping an arm around his waist when his legs buckled. Keith wanted to scream but his body was spent and he sagged in Shiro’s hold.
The clone limped out of Lance’s arms and swiped the dropped blade off the floor, staggering over to Keith and raising it to his throat.
‘We don’t know how many more they made,’ he said coldly, glancing down to the fresh blood darkening his suit, ‘But they look legit, at least. It’s better if we put them down, see if we can find any differences.’
Keith struggled against Shiro’s chest, looking around at his teammates for any signs of intervention. They wouldn’t let this happen. They wouldn’t let this impostor kill him, not before they had proof. Metal grazed the skin of his neck.
Would they?
‘Enough,’ Shiro barked from behind him, ‘Drop it.’
The clone’s eyes darted up to Shiro, a hint of defiance too quick to be smothered. But he stepped back, dropped the blade, and Keith’s bones turned to jelly. Shiro loosened his hold, maneuvering Keith’s wrists behind his back to keep him restrained but mobile. Lance came up behind the clone and prised the blade from his grip.
‘Nobody’s killing anyone until we figure out what’s going on here,’ he said evenly, ‘Who’s got a plan?’
The clone whipped around to him, face contorted in rage, ‘You’re not seriously taking his side on this.’
‘I’m not taking a side,’ Lance handed the blade off to Hunk, keeping his eyes on the copy, ‘But a clone might know who made it, and if someone’s making clones of our team, it’s best to know as much as we can.’
‘I’m not a fucking clone,’ Keith pleaded. Lance ignored him.
‘You said you’d support me,’ the other Keith squared up to him, nose inches from Lance’s, ‘After Black, you said it, Lance. Right hand man, you’re supposed to back me up. You said it when I got back too.’
‘What the fuck do you know about the Black Lion?’ Keith spat, and finally, finally, they both turned to face him.
‘Seeing as I’ve been flying it while you were cooking in your test tube,’ the clone crossed his arms, ‘I’d say I know more than you.’
Keith’s heart sank into his guts. The clone could get into Black? He could fly it, he could talk to it, he could - fuck - he could probably form Voltron, get into all the team’s minds. With that kind of access the clone could sabotage everything they’ve worked for.
Two things, the only two things, in Keith’s life that were entirely his own. His team, and being a paladin. And this, this fucking fraud had taken them both. Would keep them both, if he couldn’t find a way to prove himself.
‘Paladins,’ Allura’s voice boomed loud and regal, ‘This might be an answer for us,’ She regarded Keith without betraying a whisper of emotion, ‘We bring the… new Keith to the Black lion. If he cannot access it, there is our answer.’
A fragile stem of hope sprouted from the gaping pit in his stomach. But still, ‘And if I can?’
She pursed her lips again, ‘Then we pursue other means of investigation. In the meantime, you still require a healing pod. We can test this after-’
‘No,’ Keith shook his head, ‘I can wait. Do it now.’
Keith let Shiro lead him down to the lion hangars, as the wound in his side wept blood and lymphatic fluid. He was tired and hurting and terrified, pinning every hope of his existence on an ancient, debatably sentient mecha cat robot.
When they filed into Black’s hangar, Keith felt the distant rumble stir in his mind, and could have wept. Shiro released his wrists, and he stumbled towards the lion’s mouth, pleading through their connection to let him in, playing everything he could remember from his short time as the black paladin before leaving.
A moment of silence like death settled over the team. Then, the lion’s eyes lit up yellow, and its mouth opened with a mechanical whir, inviting him in. Keith’s legs gave out and he half walked, half crawled up the entry ramp into the lion’s maw, dragging himself into the cockpit and slumping forward to heave out a dry sob over the console. He ran his hands along the control, chanting out a chain of gratitude to the lion until he heard the others call for him to return.
When he left Black and came back out into the hangar, the rest of the team looked graver than ever. ‘Well,’ Allura said tightly, ‘The black lion accepts them both, so we are no closer to determining the real Keith.’
‘It’s me,’ both Keiths said instinctively, shooting to glare at each other. The paladins looked between them, and back to the princess.
‘As it is,’ she continued, looking at Keith, ‘Coran has your pod ready. It should only take a few hours. Once you are healed, we can figure out what to do next.’
Despite the hammering agony running through his chest, Keith didn’t want to go in the pod. He didn’t know what his double was capable of, what he might manage to persuade the team into while he was out.
‘I cut him,’ he said, nodding at the clone, standing a little too close on Lance’s right, ‘He needs a pod too.’
‘No I don’t.’
‘Fine,’ Shiro cut him off, ‘Both of you in pods. We pick this back up when you’re awake.’
Reluctantly, Keith went under, letting the cryo gas wind into his lungs until his vision went black, and he was under.
He woke up bleary and disoriented, falling into Shiro’s chest. It took a moment for Keith to remember where he was, or what had happened before he fell asleep. Shiro propped him up by the shoulders, waiting for his brain to switch on.
‘How’re your ribs?’ he asked.
‘Fine,’ Keith said. He was certainly breathing much easier than he had been for the past quintant. He looked around him, for the pod beside him that should have held his double. It was empty, already packed away under the floor. ‘Where’s the other one?’
‘Got out before you,’ was all Shiro gave as an answer, ‘If you’re feeling up to it, we’ve got a few questions for you. Are you alright to do it now, or do you need to rest a little longer?’
Sleep sounded delicious, almost as delicious as food. But if the clone had woken up first, then he’d been interrogated first. Keith couldn’t look like he was putting anything off. He shook his head, ‘I’m fine. Let’s go now.’
Shiro took him to a small room with a table and a long mirror taking up the width of the whole back wall, which Keith strongly suspected was two way glass. The room was empty and Shiro pulled out a chair for him before taking the one opposite, tucking himself in politely.
‘So, Keith,’ he started, using his best professional voice, ‘Let’s start easy. Can you tell me who you are, and what you were doing before you came here?’
Keith swallowed. He wasn’t sure how exactly the team was grading this performance, but failing meant death, ‘My name is Keith Kogane, former red paladin, former black paladin, current operative of the Blade of Marmora. Before coming back here I was on a mission with operative Krolia, my m-’ he cut himself off. Was it a good idea to disclose what he’d learned? Maybe they’d think he’d made it up, and if the Blade wasn’t sharing any intel about missions, they couldn’t confirm it. He swallowed again, ‘My partner on the mission. We were sent to destroy a weapon created by General Ranveig, and I was wounded in the fight with Commander Trugg. Trugg was then killed by the weapon, and Krolia put me on a pod back to the castle for my injury and continued the mission alone. So I came here, and… This.’
‘Right,’ Shiro nodded, typing something on his tablet, ‘And you remember the rest of the paladins, I take it. You know who I am?’
‘Of course I know who you are,’ he gaped, ‘Shiro, I- you’re my brother. Back on Earth, before all of this, you were the only family I had. I tore myself apart for a whole year looking for you, did it again after the fight with Zarkon, of course I know you.’
‘And do you remember how you met me?’
Even in an interrogation room, even when his life was on the line, Keith’s lips quirked up at the memory, ‘You mean when I stole your car?’
Shiro ducked his head, failing to completely wipe his smile clean, ‘Yes, that.’
Keith told him a few more things from that day; about the simulator and getting angry and the race. About deciding to actually try to live a life he’d already given up on because of it. Shiro typed a few more things into his tablet, then stood up.
‘That’s all I had for you. The others will come in and ask their own questions. Do you want water or anything?’
Keith shook his head. He wasn’t sure if the clone had asked for anything, but he didn’t want to, just in case it was evidence either way, ‘I’m okay.’
Shiro nodded, and left him alone in the room. Keith sunk down in the chair, staring at his hands, wondering if the others were watching him through the mirror. Wondering if all of them were there. Even the other one. What had he said to his questions? What was he saying now?
The door hissed open and Allura entered before he had time to think about it. She took the seat opposite him, and forehead on her clasped hands, staring at him over her knuckles. Then she took a deep breath, and her voice was gentle.
Allura asked him a few questions about his first few weeks in the castle, about the missions they’d shared together, and times he’d spent with her. Then she left. Hunk was next, asked him about their journey into the Weblum, and after him Pidge came in to ask about the hunt for the blue lion and her attempt to leave the team. He told them everything he remembered, they typed a few things into their tablets, and left without another word.
Keith wasn’t certain if Lance had gone last intentionally, or if the universe just wanted to spit on him some more, but he was halfway to tearing out his hair by the time he eventually walked in. No jokes, no smarmy little jabs, just in his chair and straight to business. Not even a hello, after months away from him.
‘You know what’s strange?’ Lance mused, toying with the stylus for his tablet. Keith didn’t answer, and he carried on anyway, ‘That for every question, every last one, you’ve been almost word for word. We thought someone would slip somewhere, but whoever built you got your brain hooked up right and everything.’
‘Nobody built me,’ Keith spat, ‘I’m not the fucking clone.’
Lance rolled his eyes, and Keith gripped at the legs of his chair, ‘Right. It’s just a crazy coincidence that you show up right after Keith tells us about the labs.’
He leant forward, ‘I’m Keith,’ he pleaded, ‘Lance, I don’t know what he’s said to you-’
‘Question one-’
‘But it’s a fifty-fifty chance, so why the hell are you so sure it’s him, huh? What did he tell you, that you’re so convinced?’
Lance’s jaw tightened, the way it always used to when Keith got him under his skin, ‘You’re not the one asking the questions here, Kogane.’
‘I’m the one that ends up dead if you back the wrong horse.’
He looked down at his tablet, ‘Question one.’
‘Lance-’
‘What were you doing when you saved me from the broken castle airlock?’
Keith blinked at him, ‘Fighting the gladiator,’ Lance’s eyes remained fixed on his tablet, and Keith spoke on, ‘It had gone rogue, same as the airlock. Or I would’ve got there sooner.’
Lance didn't speak, just tapped a few points on his screen. Then he cleared his throat and said, ‘Number two. Where were we when the elevator broke?’
Keith’s mouth went dry, and his voice came out hoarse, ‘The pool. Well, on our way to it, I mean. But it’s upside down. I…’ He swallowed around the lump in his throat, thinking of Lance’s back against his, the warmth of his skin even as he shoved Keith around the empty elevator shaft, ‘I know how bad you wanted to swim. Sorry you didn’t get to.’
Lance clenched his jaw, nodded. ‘Three,’ he said, looking back up at Keith, ‘Who do we leave the math to?’
The tiniest splinter cut through the hostility written across his face. For a second he looked at Keith with something else, something Keith couldn’t quite name, grasping at butterflies as his mind leapt back to Lance in his room, all his insecurities dragging his shoulders down as he counted on his fingers and confessed. ‘Pidge,’ he said quietly, ‘Leave the math to Pidge.’
It echoed off the metal walls, around both their heads. Lance held his eye for a moment longer, then cleared his throat, dropping his gaze back to his tablet, ‘Last one,’ he said, all the coolness of his tone replenished, ‘Why did you leave?’
‘Huh?’
He looked up again, hostility back and burning higher, ‘The team, dipshit. Why’d you leave the team?’
‘Oh.’ Now it was Keith’s turn to look away. ‘I…’
He hadn't been good enough. He couldn’t handle the pressure. He didn’t want everyone’s lives in his hands. Lance was scared of being replaced, and Keith could take that chance away. He swallowed thickly. One paladin too many, and he knew who he’d rather lose.
‘I was..’ he trailed off, staring down at the table, up at the ceiling, anyway but the boy before him and the two way glass beyond. Keith had a lot of reasons for leaving the team, but only one of them was a confession, ‘I was a terrible leader. A bad teammate, bad strategist, bad black paladin. You remember the first mission I led, nearly got us all killed. Would have, if you weren’t there. But in the Blade, with them I’m good. I know how to fight and I know how to die. That’s all you need.’
‘And were you happier there?’
Lance was still looking at him, those eyes boring down into his center. Keith couldn’t take it, ‘What does that matter? It’s war, not an exchange trip.’
‘Right,’ Lance said, a hint of bitterness in it. He went back to his tablet, tapping away for a few minutes more, neither of them saying anything else. When he got up and left, Keith was alone, waiting for the verdict.
Pidge came to collect him a while later. There were no cocks of interfaces in the room, so he wasn’t sure how long he sat there, staring at the chrome tabletop and wondering if he was about to die. Cataloguing his regrets, knowing there was nothing he could do about them now. He stood up and followed her onto the bridge, where everyone else was waiting. Even the other one, hovering at Lance’s side, brows furrowed and eyes trained on him. Wearing Keith’s fucking gloves.
‘So, everybody,’ Allura clasped her hands together, ‘We’ve gone over our interviews, and, as you know, the answers were impeccably similar.’
‘Most of the time,’ Lance muttered. The other Keith reached up a hand to lay between his shoulder blades, and Lance let him. Keith staggered forward, stopped by Shiro sliding up on his left. He stared at that hand like he might burn it off.
He’d never touched Lance like that, never just for the sake of it. Each instance of contact was calibrated, carefully planned and weighed against the chance of rejection. A friendly pat after a good mission, a hand helping him up off the training mat, Lance yanking him back by the armor when he stormed off to do something reckless. But here this guy was, hands all over him, for what? What was he playing at?
‘Either way,’ Allura’s voice pulled him from his reverie, ‘This means that both Keiths at least share the same memories, and so interaction and personality cues are an unreliable means of differentiation. So Pidge, Hunk, and I have come up with a better plan. Pidge?’ She gestured at the green paladin, who came up to stand beside her on the dais.
‘I’m about ninety five per cent sure I can engineer a telomere gauge. If it works, we can use a cellular sample from both Keiths to determine who the real one is.’
The other Keith spoke up from Lance’s side, ‘What’s a telomere?’ Keith was glad he wasn’t the one to ask, even if he didn’t know either.
Pidge pushed her glasses up, ‘In layman’s terms, it’s a little protein cap on the ends of your chromosomes. They deteriorate slightly every time a cell splits so the clone, having been alive for less time, would have less damage on theirs. Building it will take a while, but once it’s functional, I’m pretty sure it’ll show a difference between who’s real and who’s not.’
‘How long will it take to build?’ Keith asked, at the same time the other Keith asked, ‘How sure is pretty sure?’
She looked at the other Keith first, then at him, ‘A few weeks maximum, with any luck. And pretty sure means pretty sure. It depends on what results we get, but it’s the most reliable chance we have right now.’
‘But,’ the other Keith looked around him, ‘But if the clone was grown from a DNA sample, its cells would be dividing too.’
‘True,’ Pidge tilted her head, eyes flicking between the two Keiths, ‘But only for however long it took Keith prime to reach physical maturity. When did you stop growing?’
‘Sixteen,’ Keith answered first, shrugging, ‘At least that when I stopped having to get new clothes. But I put on some muscle at the castle.’
Pidge crossed her arms, ‘Even in the worst case, we should still see a disparity from whenever they acquired the DNA sample and whenever the clone was created, even if it’s just a few months. Speedrunning a whole human adolescence with alien tech means the cells were getting help, and wouldn’t have taken as much damage if they needed to reproduce fast without giving you turbo cancer. Because the Galra live longer than humans, there’ll be some abnormal results in both of you, but the clone would have much less damage to theirs if they were grown with Galra medical tech.’
Keith nodded, rooted to the spot, and the other Keith gripped onto Lance’s forearm. ‘Fine,’ he said eventually, ‘Let’s do it then.’
‘What about until then?’ Lance asked, glancing cautiously at the Keith beside him, ‘If this thing is gonna take weeks, we still have two Keiths until then.’
Pidge shrugged, and Shiro took over, ‘We will be keeping both Keiths separate unless at least one of us is there to supervise. For ease of distinction, we can call them Lab Keith and Weapon Keith.’
‘And what if Weapon Keith starts pretending to be me?’ The other Keith narrowed his eyes in Keith’s direction. Keith had heard his name too many times in the last minute, eyes still locked onto where his own, wrong hand was holding Lance.
‘I don't want to be you,’ he said simply, trying to will his stomach into settling.
‘Here,’ Hunk untied his bandana, and distantly Keith realised that he’d never actually seen the yellow paladin without it. He handed the strip of fabric to Keith, ‘Tie that around your wrist. Then we know who’s who.’
‘Why do I have to wear it?’ Keith frowned, ‘He’s the one with a problem.’
‘He was here first,’ Lance said, frowning back at him, ‘Early bird privilege.’
‘This is bullshit,’ Keith huffed, winding the fabric around his wrist, ‘Anything else, or can I go to my room now?’
‘You’re not going to my room,’ The other Keith sniped, ‘Find a different one.’
He gaped at his double, looking around his team to see if anyone would object, but nobody did. They avoided his eye with varying degrees of subtlety instead, clearly agreeing with the clone’s claim on his room.
‘He was here first,’ Lance shrugged again, ‘Called dibs.’
Keith set his jaw. He was not going to get upset. He waited one more moment to see if anybody stopped him, then stormed out of the room when they didn’t.
He traced familiar halls he hadn’t walked in months until he found the dormitory wing, and fell through the first open door he found, sinking to the floor on the other side, finally allowing his hands to shake.
They didn’t believe him. Black couldn’t tell, and his answers weren’t good enough. His only hope was Pidge’s invention, and even that.
What if it didn’t work? What if the other Keith killed him before he got the change to kill it, before they made it to the test at all? What if it was unreliable - they were hedging their bets that the cloning process would reduce damage, but what if it didn’t? What if growing a human body in the span of weeks actually made it worse, and they took those readings to mean that the other Keith was the real one? Even if the telomere gauge worked fine, that gave no information about who made the clones, how, and why.
Another, more terrifying though crept through the back. Both Keiths had answered the same. Both Keiths had the same memories. The other Keith knew everything about him, every part of his life, every weakness he hid, every secret he kept. He closed his eyes. Burned on the back of it was the image of the fake Keith holding Lance’s arm, of Lance letting him. The other Keith knew everything. And whatever he was planning to do with it, Keith was one step behind.