*  *  *  *  *

Sabrina didn't notice any of the onlookers.  She was just glad that she had religiously gone to the gym.  The next two hours were spent running up and down the beach, repeating take after take, holding up the appropriately silver toothpaste box, chased by a bunch of happy looking beach bums. 

Finally some of the extras started protesting, so Tracy had them do the last takes on the harder wet sand by the water's edge.  Sabrina's directions were to act like she was running away from the crowd.  She splashed into the water, playing with the waves spontaneously.  Tracy yelled, "Way to go.  Just a little deeper, Sabrina.  But don't get that suit wet." 

The ocean was chilling her quickly.  After each sprint, a man hurried over to Sabrina to towel the clinging sand off of her legs. 

Sabrina was so out of breath by the last take, where she stood in front of the entire bunch of extras, all doing the latest dance craze, as she smiled and held up the toothpaste, rolled her tongue over her teeth and said Ummm, that Tracy, who had been following her sprints down the beach in a camera truck, let her take a breather.

"You were panting in that last shot,"  Tracy observed sweetly, smiling down at her from his comfortable seat in the truck.  "Looks too sexy.  Take ten."

Sabrina sank down into the warm sand gratefully, not caring if she was covered with the stuff.  She was too tired to notice much, except that Tracy had had Eve in the filming truck during the whole episode and seemed to be trying to explain just what he was doing every moment he wasn't actually filming.  She thought she was a little angry with his behavior, but put it down to low blood sugar.  She did, after all, want Eve to be able to model if she wanted to.  But Eve could be a doctor, physicist, or a scientist.  Anything she chose.  Just because she was pretty Tracy was going all ga-ga.  Typical male reaction.  With all the attention Eve was receiving from Tracy, Sabrina knew that Eve had not been able to surreptitiously take a nip from the bottle of syrup.  Poor thing was probably starving.

After the last shot, Sabrina noticed that Tracy had put his director's cap on Eve.  He had his arm around her as they drove away from the crew and models.  When Sabrina finally caught up to them, she took Eve aside and told her to go behind one of the wagons and drink some syrup.  She saw a breakfast banquet being set up. 

Tracy swaggered up to Sabrina.  "That Eve is so funny.  What a droll sense of humor.  When I tried to get my hat back from her, she said she thought I had given it to her for keeps.  Perfectly straight faced.  Your cousin is a gas.  And so curious.  I think she could shoot a commercial herself, now."

"Eve is very bright." 

"I told her I wanted to take some test shots and she agreed.  Her figure is perfect for modeling, just like yours.  She's a little younger than you?"

"Yes." 

"Eve's a natural,"  Tracy enthused.  "Could be your double.  A few years back."

"People have mentioned that."

"Except for the hair, of course.  Uncanny resemblance."

"Yes."

"She has a great career ahead of her,"  Tracy said, nodding judiciously.  He went off to get some food. 

Sabrina was not amused.  She had run on the beach for hours without even a break until the last shot, and Tracy had not even mentioned how hard she had worked.  What an unmitigated ass.

Eve came from behind the trailer.

"Tracy wants to take some shots of me."  Eve was smiling again.

"As long as he doesn't take a shot at you."

"You need food.  You're shaking."

"Yes.  But I meant what I said.  Tracy makes a career out of seducing young models.  In fact, I'll go along with you.  Make sure he doesn't try any hanky-panky right off the bat." 

They walked through a crowd to the food, with Eve smiling and repeating softly, several times, 'hanky-panky right off the bat.'

Some of the people Sabrina had been running with moved down on a bench to make room for her and Eve at the banquet table.  They had scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and a few donuts.  Eve ate the same things that Sabrina did.  No one seemed to notice when Sabrina put a few extra bagels into her purse. 

The vehicles that had followed Sabrina and Eve to the shooting location were again on their tail as they left.  When the two women stopped at Butterfield's Restaurant on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, Ivar and Malcolm flipped a coin to see who would go into the restaurant.  Malcolm won the toss and walked down stone steps to a cool patio area, covered by vines, that had been set up for brunch.  He located a table where he could watch the women.  The Japanese had just arrived and sat at a table right next to them.

It was obvious to Malcolm that the women were twins or sisters, even with the different coloring.  He had fantasies about the red head, whom he had seen in the silver bathing suit.  She was just his type.  Tall and slim.  But the girl had muscles and he had loved watching her run.  Her thighs especially had excited him.  Long thin thighs, so slim that you could see the muscles straining beneath the skin.  A real thoroughbred. 

Malcolm observed the two women ordering from the menu.  He was curious about what they would eat after the enormous breakfast on the set.  He had observed the sneaking of bagels into the red head's purse through his binoculars.  He himself was starving and he ordered a large breakfast, hoping he would have time to eat. 

A waiter approach the women's table.  Orange juice and coffee for each was unloaded.  The waiter served the red haired woman pancakes and sausages.  The dark woman had steak and eggs with hash browns. 

The dark girl ate all of the steak and eggs and a couple of muffins.  The red head did not touch her food.  Then Malcolm watched, astonished, as they traded plates.  The dark girl ate the red head's breakfast.

Both women could chow-down, but the black haired sister was extraordinary.  Malcolm did not know exactly what he was supposed to be watching for, but he just bet that she was one of those women who ate excessively and then went to the toilet to vomit.  It was supposed to be some sort of disease.  The poor woman probably couldn't help herself.  The red head was aiding and abetting.  It was really sick.  He would report it because he was supposed to observe and report all that the women did.  Who was he to complain? It was not an unpleasant assignment, watching two gorgeous broads, even if they did have unusual eating habits.

"I need to learn to use the body better,"  Eve said seriously as they discussed a trip to Sabrina's spa on the way home.  "I have been moving all the parts, but a physical workout would probably be good for it."

Sabrina looked at Eve.  She was blinking, but she was still very odd.  She seemed to disconnect her mind, or the computer, from her body, the way she spoke about them as separate, distinct entities.  Maybe Eve felt comfortable enough with her to be peculiar, Sabrina thought.  In public she had to be performing assiduously because she always seemed to do the socially correct thing when people were watching. 

Sabrina drove down Sunset to her gym, Total Figure Shaping.  She got a guest pass for Eve and they went to the locker room to change. 

"I'll take you around and show you the equipment,"  Sabrina said.

"I recognize everything.  I know your routine." 

"Really?"

Eve nodded.

Could Eve really possess all her memories?

"Shall we meet in a couple of hours at the juice bar?"  Eve asked.

"Okay."  That was part of the routine, too.

Sabrina watched Eve go into the main room.  The facilities were state of the art in Los Angeles and contained exercise devices which would be a puzzle to anyone who had not been specifically trained to use the machinery.  She saw Eve go to the first machine she always used, the pectoral machine.  Eve positioned herself on the seat and pulled the weights toward her.  Suddenly the weights crashed together, causing a gigantic clash.  Everyone in the room stopped and looked at Eve.  Evidently the weights were on a setting that was too light for Eve, although it was the weight Sabrina always used herself and found quite difficult.  Sabrina was impressed. 

She watched Eve calmly reset the machine to the highest difficulty possible, and do two sets of exercises.  Then Eve went to the arm pulley.  As she did so she turned around and looked at Sabrina.  It was pretty uncanny; like having an identical twin who knew you so well she expected you to watch.

As Eve was working out on the machines, she had the strange sensation that her body was taking over, like it had a memory of its own.  She went from one machine to another, as though she had been programmed. 

Eve walked, almost involuntarily, up the stairs to the oblong track above the exercise rooms.  As she ran, her mind virtually turned off, and she seemed to be floating.  She had not read about 'runners high,' but was starting to feel a new sensation, an exhilaration of movement, breathing and flow that was almost hypnotic.  She jogged slowly in rhythm to the sound of soft rock music that was piped throughout the gym.

An aerobics class was already in progress, but Eve went in anyway and left her towel by the back mirrors, like she always did.  She joined the hops and high kicks.  The instructor was on a raised platform leading the class energetically.  Eve knew she was a match for the instructor any time. 

Eve thought that she had, no, Sabrina had, come to this class often because some of the arm movements, combined with the leg movements, were very complicated.  Eve performed as though she had done the routine hundreds of times.  There were some pretty wonderful things about being a physical being.  She watched the people around her.  They were laughing and straining.  A variety of surprising shapes.  Of course people were mammals, even though they often forgot that fact.

Ferd had said that she was to be a superior new off-shoot of mankind, but Eve did not think she was superior.  She was just learning to behave in human fashion, and it was not easy.  They had such strange rituals.  Like that Tracy Rieber.  He had given her his hat.  Then he had taken the hat back.  She had felt possessive of the hat and wanted it because it kept the sun out of her eyes and because it was bright red. 

Sabrina said he was 'coming on to her.' Did that mean that Tracy wanted to procreate? Or copulate? Or fuck? There were nuances in the meanings that Eve didn't understand.  It was puzzling, and she knew Sabrina had been angry at Tracy. 

At that moment, Eve felt a tremendous jolt and her body was catapulted violently to the floor.  She landed solidly on her hands and knees and leaped up to confront the person who knocked her down.  She was consumed with blinding rage, having been pushed off balance while she had one leg high in the air, her space taken by another, a big clumsy man.  She snarled at the man, baring her teeth.  She wanted to kill. 

Fortunately the computer took over because she almost punched the clumsy lout. 

The man took her arm.  She could tell he was scared that he had really hurt her.  "Are you okay?"  the big man was asking.  Fortunately he mistook the bared teeth for pain, and had not heard her growl over the loud music.

"Yes.  You surprised me, bumping that hard,"  Eve managed to say.  It had been bad luck that he had bumped into her when she was vulnerable, or he wouldn't have been able to knock her down with her heavy body mass.  "Do not worry about my condition.  I am fine.  It's a good thing you are working out.  Your body needs it."

The man laughed.  "You're right.  Can you go on?"

"I will continue to exercise."  Eve started moving with the music again.

The man watched her and began to move too, being very cautious to stay out of her way. 

There was another man watching Eve from the upstairs running oval.  Malcolm Stoner made no pretense of exercising.  From his vantage point he could see Eve doing aerobics and Sabrina in the jacuzzi.  He had talked his way into the private gym on the pretext of trying the facilities out before deciding on a membership.  He was glad he had won the coin toss again because he could see that the dark sister had muscles just like the redhead's.

As Malcolm Stoner sat at the juice bar in the gym, watching the two women, Ivar Cousin was outside in the car observing the Japanese men still trying to get inside the private gym.  Obviously not Japanese-Americans, they didn't possess the skill in English necessary to bluff their way in, as Malcolm had done.  But Ivar had never thought they were Americans.  He wondered if the Japanese government was also following the two women.

Later that afternoon Ivar and Malcolm drove to downtown Los Angeles.  Burgess Whitcomb wanted their report in person.  They presented the pictures they had taken of Eve and Sabrina on the beach and in the restaurant.

After they left, Burgess sat and wondered what the hell was going on.  One interesting point in the recent investigation of Sabrina Miller was that she was an orphan.  Background on the Miller woman had stated that her mother was unwed and had died in childbirth, leaving no living relatives.  Now Sabrina had a woman staying with her that the Cousin-Stoner report stated could only be a sister or close relative because of the almost uncanny resemblance.  The military investigator's eyebrows went down and his mouth became thin as a pencil line when he looked at a picture of both women together at a restaurant, taken that afternoon. 

Burgess frowned because he knew that the redhead was a blond.  Or maybe the blond had changed to brunette.  He opened a file drawer and checked for the picture that was first taken of the Miller woman when she went into the tanning salon.  She did have blond hair in the first picture.  But women often changed their hair color. 

The whole thing was rather intriguing.  Whitcomb thought he would have the two women more closely scrutinized.  The fact that at least one of them had changed their hair color indicated the possibility that one of them was wearing a wig and had undergone plastic surgery so the two could be passed off as sisters.  He decided contact his agents immediately and tell them to break the covert surveillance.  He wanted to know if one of the women was wearing a wig or had evidence of recent plastic surgery.

Burgess wondered what the break-in at Dr. Steinbrenner's residence had to do with the case.  Nothing seemed to be stolen, but you could never tell.  On that night, when Dr. Steinbrenner had a heart attack and both of his sons had their legs broken, the man on surveillance at the tanning salon had had bouts of diarrhea and had not called in for backup. 

What actually occurred that night was unknown, except that a man and woman had gone into the tanning salon and set off the alarm.  Somehow the door knob had been totally broken off the door.  It looked like it was torn off.  The idiot on reconnaissance said he had cramps at just that moment.  He had ducked into a restaurant to use the facilities.  His picture of the man and woman who entered the tanning salon showed only their backs.  The man was dark and the woman blond.  The woman was a little taller than the man, but that was all they currently had.  Of course, the dick with diarrhea was out of a job. 

Sabrina Miller and her friend Mark Ponti had the correct coloring and height to be the people who had entered the doctor's shop that night.  They were the best suspects.  But Burgess Whitcomb didn't think either of them had a computer implanted in their brain.  Neither had taken time off of work recently.

Now there was this mysterious new woman with Sabrina Miller.  Burgess got on the phone.  He told Malcolm Stoner and Ivar Cousin that they had to do some overtime work tonight.