The little boy's fingers touch the tips of mine and gently I take his little hand in mine. I feel the physicality of his his flesh and blood; then gently find his pulse with my finger and feel it beating fast with fear of the unknown that haunts all children.

Glancing sideways, I see Kade doing exactly the same with the smaller, delicate little boy, "Are you Thomas?" He asks, gently.

"Yes." He says, his bottom lip trembling, "Are you going to stick needles into us, like the other people do?" He asks, his whole body beginning a rising tremor.

Kade drops to his knees and puts his hands on his tiny shoulders, to settle his increasing tremble, "Of course not, we're not going to hurt you, we'll help you in any way we can," he says, reassuringly.

"How did you know are names?" Asks the little boy still clinging onto my hand.

"I made a guess," I say, knowing it's a useless answer.

He withdraws his hand from mine and frowns, "I don't believe that; you know our names from The Clinical Trial." He goes over to Thomas, gently pulls him away from Kade, puts a protective arm around his shoulder, and whispers, "Remember, we only trust each other, don't believe anything they say."

Kade moves closer and stoops to their level, "Of course we know the names from The Clinical Trial, but she made a guess that you were the children involved," he says.

When the dark haired little boy glances reassuringly at his delicate little friend, I experience a strength of emotion that makes my knees buckle and I drop to the floor.

My heart breaks with a strange mix of love and revulsion.

Imagine meeting yourself and the love of your life as children, and seeing the little loving gestures between yourselves replicated in miniature – it's almost too much to bear, and I cover my eyes, taking deep breaths to try and control my tumultuous feelings.

I feel Kade's hand on my shoulder, followed by the weight of his body next to mine, pulling me into him, "They've cloned us," he whispers.

When I glance forward, I see little Kade holding Thomas in exactly the same way, and I catch his whispered words, "They look like us, but bigger," he says.

Thomas's reaction causes my heart to break further, "But she's a girl, and I'm a boy."

Little Kade responds exactly how I'd expect, "I know, she looks like your big sister, that's what I mean," he says, reassuringly.

I know Kade is feeling the same as I am; the exact emotions are flowing through his body as we experience ourselves as children in real time and not with the comfort from an old home movie from the past.

Kade's body relaxes a little, "Come on Tanya, we have to continue going down, let's not let this deflect us," he says, standing up.

Our young counterparts mirror our action with little Kade raising his voice in surprise, "What did you call her?" He says, pointing to me.

"Her name's Tanya, but I prefer to call her Tan," answers Kade.

The shock on their little faces is palpable, and it's Thomas who asks, "Are you The Lady?"

I look at Kade, to gauge how he thinks I should answer, when he swiftly tilts his head forward, I say, "Yes, I am The Lady."

Little Kade stares at me, his eyes dart over every inch of me, searching, questioning, until he eventually says, "You are whom I'm going to grow up to be. The researchers say that when I'm sixteen, I'm going to become The Lady." He looks suddenly sad, "But I don't want to be The Lady, I want to grow up to be The Kade, just like you," he says, pointing to his adult counterpart.

I feel sick to my stomach looking at these little innocents – ourselves duplicated, whose young lives have not only been manufactured, but the life they lead will be forced upon them.

Drew's last words hit me with a cold hard clarity – "Kill the children, don't let it happen."

But no – we can't literally kill ourselves – this moral dilemma is too much to comprehend.

I suspect Kade is thinking the same; but our racing thoughts are interrupted by the reality of our situation.

Little Thomas calls out to us, "Our internal buzzers are humming, that means our researchers are coming to present us to some more scientists." He points to the broken building from where they emerged, "Please hide, don't leave us yet, we like you," he pleads.

We hear the swish of a descending floor behind us as we sprint to the building in the near distance.

We make it just in time to hear the wall part, open and the collective crunch of footfall on the gravelly ground.

......

An authoritive sounding woman's voice announces, "Ladies and gentlemen, may we present to you: T.2 and K.2."

Kade and I struggle to see through a small crack in the concrete. Eventually we can deduce that the children are standing on a circular plinth; they peer into the distance with cold and detached eyes. They no longer seem like children, more like soul less subjects, devoid of their humanity.

Because of our restricted view, we can't see either the speaker or her audience. But we can hear the speaker all too well – "We are thoroughly satisfied with the success and purity of their genetic cloning. They were created not long after Kelvin, who remains one of our most successful Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer Clones."

She pauses to allow a few whispered exchanges, before continuing – "Please feel free to thoroughly examine the subjects. Even with a cursory physical examination, you will feel no evidence of Large Offspring Organ Syndrome, often found in our early clones, and from which The Surgeon's cloned twins: Lucinda and Lucindy suffered."

A male voice asks, "Which of the subjects will be transitioned to female?"

The female speaker is emphatic, "The dark haired subject K.2. The original Clinical Trial failed when it emerged that the source of clone T.2. was found to be inherently transgendered, hence the success of their relationship. Clone T.2, will be denied a gender transition while K.2, will have it enforced upon him. Hence we can study the long-term progress of their relationship and in doing so, reach conclusions about gender fluidity that were denied us due to the failure of Clinical Trial: 1." She explains, with a cold, scientific detachment.

A second male voice asks, "We hear that T.1 and K.1 are considerable foes and that even with all our many resources and technology we have failed to halt them. Can you give us a brief overview of what attempts thus far have been made to terminate their source clones?" He asks.

It's clear that the female speaker is taken a little off guard, as she gives a little deflective cough before saying – "Erm yes, they have proven themselves to be rather effective in evading our termination attempts to date. They've managed to evade: infection, Imp and Hybrid attacks. T.1 survived hemorrhage via grow toy implantation, K.1 evaded doll to human likeness castration, as well as multiple seductions by Lucindy and Lucinda. They've escaped all attempts at capture by our London operatives." She coughs again, trying to underplay what has to come next – "Unfortunately they've also managed to survive our Children and Imp strategy, damaging that campaign considerably in the process, whilst also terminating two of our top, topknot guys as well as two of our top London operatives."

She pauses again, "But I must stress, they have been aided and abetted by one of the best brains in the business and by one of our brightest Castrato, who managed to escape, with a vast amount of our intelligence," she says, by way of embarrassed compensation.

A male voice interrupts her, "I must say, you do not instill a great deal of confidence. Our resources and financial expenditure are immense, yet two young adults have not only proven elusive to your capture, but have also been instrumental in the downfall of one of our overseas facilities, and more. Greater action needs to be taken to ensure their removal," he says, assertively.

Kade and I glance at each other and exchange triumphant smiles. We really have achieved so much against a huge and corrupt underground organization. And knowing we've not beaten them yet, we do allow ourselves a moment of proud reflection.

During a pause in their talk, Drew's words continue to course through my head – "Kill whoever gets in your way."

We are sufficiently armed, I'm guessing they're not; we could just take them out now; bring the children with us and proceed down to the next level.

I take out my device and type to Kade – 'Shall we kill them now?'

He types back – 'Let's see what else they have to say, before we finish them off!' Is his reply.

A female voice that isn't the speaker's, breaks the silence, "You are aware that we won't allow Clinical Trial: 2 to commence until we know that the subjects of the original trial are finally terminated," she asserts.

Once again, there's a pause, and the speaker lady comes into our restricted line of vision. We can see that she's pressing an earpiece into her ear and listening intently.

Eventually a huge, perfectly white teethed smile breaks across her face – "What perfect timing ladies and gentleman," she says, walking out of our line of vision – "It's with great pride and pleasure that I can announce that T.1 and K.1 have been captured and successfully terminated!" She announces, to a collective clap from her audience; which is welcome, as it drowns out Kade's and my incredulous gasp.

My instinctive response is to walk out there and say – "YOU DIRTY LITTLE LIAR – and shoot her!" But we both remain calm and listen further.

A male voice speaks – "In order for final sign off for The Trial to commence, we'll need full, visual documentary evidence of their deaths, you understand that, don't you?" He asks.

The female speaker responds confidently – "I can tell you that T.1 and K.1 entered with our escaped Castrato, using the security key of one our topknots. If you look at the screen, you will first see the deceased traitor Drew."

Kade and I strain on our tippy toes and peer through a slightly wider crack, it affords us enough view to see Drew's pale, deathly face up large on the screen.

There's an excited hum and exchanged whispering from the audience, which falls silent when the speaker continues – "And now we have on the left, the deceased corpses of original source clone K. 1 and on the right T. 1 – AKA: Kade and Tanya. Both corpses currently reside in our mini morgue and you're all invited to go examine them for authenticity after this meeting," she says, confidently.

I stare wide-eyed at the two corpses on the screen. Slowly the camera zooms into the faces and focuses on the perfect bullet hole in the center of each of their foreheads.

My mind wants it to be a trick, a brilliantly faked hybrid or mock-up of Kade and I, another one of their lies.

But it isn't. These bodies are all too real.

The look on their faces suggests they experienced great pain and fear before their deaths.

It's Kelly and Troy.