It had been a blisteringly hot day, even for summer, and as Blaine swam, he thanked the Lord for swimming pools, else he'd have melted into a puddle of sweat. Records had been broken left, right and centre; it had so far been one of the hottest summers on record, and Blaine's house wasn't the only one to have the airconditioner running day and night to try and take the edge off the searing heat. The town's power grid was buckling under the pressure, with warnings of power outages if the high use of airconditioners didn't abate.
Blaine surfaced after a few laps, refusing to let the thought of blackouts bother him too much. He had a cushy job, a nice house, and he was only twenty minutes from Atlanta by train. Power outages were small beans compared to the thriving nightlife in which he partook every weekend, and he was looking forward to catching up with his usual crew in downtown Atlanta tonight.
The doorbell rang, shattering his reverie, and he frowned as he climbed out of the pool, wrapping a towel around his waist. No one was meant to visit, but he shrugged it off as he padded barefoot through the house. It was, he thought, a door to door salesman, and he got ready to refuse whatever the slimy shark on the other side was selling.
His retort was cut off when he opened the door, however, to find a man and a woman, dressed in dark suits, and Blaine's jaw dropped when he saw the woman was holding a two-month-old baby in her arms. Blaine tried to cast his mind back to the last time he'd slept with a woman, but the last occasion had been more than two years ago. "Uh, I think you might've got me mistaken with someone else," he said politely.
The woman raised an eyebrow. "You are Blaine Conner, are you not?" she asked, her Midwestern accent contrasting sharply to Blaine's Southern drawl.
"That's me," Blaine said, growing more confused by the moment. "Uh, pardon me, but what the hell is going on?"
"When you were a teenager, you had a DNA sample taken from you during a routine procedure," the man said. "I take it you recall that?"
"My memory's not gone just yet," Blaine said dryly. "Yes, I remember. But what the hell has this to do with me?"
"This baby is your genetic twin," the woman replied. "He is a perfect clone, albeit a small one as yet. The mother died recently, and she named you as the baby's next of kin. We're here to ensure Blaze is delivered to the correct house."
Blaine cautiously took baby Blaze in his arms, feeling awkward. "You make him sound like a package," he muttered, pushing the blanket aside so he could look at his twin's face. There was no sign as yet of the supposed resemblance, but Blaine had seen enough newborns to know it took a while before family features became stamped on little faces. He was still trying to wrap his mind around the circumstanecs of little Blaze's birth, however. "What do you mean he's my clone?" he demanded.
"There have been breakthroughs in DNA and genetics," the man replied. "Blaze was cloned from you because you've got an higher resistence to most incurable diseases. We want to study Blaze when he gets older, and see if we can make advances towards a permanent cure, or better yet, prevention, so those diseases cannot rear up their ugly heads again."
"Back the icecream truck up," Blaine said firmly, holding Blaze protectively. "You mean he was created as a lab rat?"
"He will not come to harm," the woman said. "We need only take a sample of his DNA when he grows up and see if we can use it in our studies. He is not a 'lab rat', as you so crudely put it. He will be free to live his life as a normal boy - he will not be poked, prodded, or placed under a microscope."
Blaine frowned. He'd dealt with enough businesspeople in his life to know when someone was lying to his face, and the woman had "liar" written all over hers. "I'll hold ya'll to that," he said, his voice going into a more lazy drawl than usual. All his friends and family knew that for a warning sign; if he began drawling more, it was time to duck and run for cover. "I won't let ya'll harm him," he added. "If any harm does come to him, I'll be on ya'll's hides faster than a duck on a June bug."
The man and woman exchanged glances. "Of course," the man said. "We've got supplies in the car, and you need not worry about seeing us again for some time. When Blaze is old enough, we'll get back in touch and arrange a time for him to come to the hospital for a DNA sample. After that, we will leave you and your twin alone."
"As I said, I'll hold ya'll to that," Blaine said firmly. But through the requisite signing of papers and handover of baby supplies, questions were still burning in his mind, and as he prepared for the fatherhood so unexpectedly thrust on him, he wondered just what the hell he'd been signed up for when he gave away his DNA as a teenager.
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