Chapter 1: Murder by Numbers
(Wherein JC is not worried and Justin has an ugly carpet)

"Lance, Lance, Lancey-pants, Lancealicious, Lanstenator, Lanstencrantz, Lancie-Lancie-Lanciepoo....."

Lance came into awareness slowly, coaxed out of his thoughts by JC's sing-songed litany just beside his ear. Well, that and Chris's high-pitched chortle. And the constant poking. He grabbed Chris's finger in mid-poke and glared at him, trying to look stern.

Chris just grinned at him. "Hi!"

JC giggled. Lance sighed.

"What were you thinking about?" JC asked, flopping down on the couch beside him and resting his head on Lance's shoulder.

"Yeah, you were a million miles away," Chris added, yanking his finger out of Lance's grip. "Is something afoot?"

"Or a hand?" JC added, sounding slightly drowsy.

Lance hummed an affirmative. "Nothing concrete yet, just sort of a... buzz. But I think it's going to be big." He frowned, trying to gather his scattered thoughts. He had left the others where they had gathered in Justin's exercise room for just that reason. There was something nagging at the edges of his consciousness that just wasn't materializing. He had thought that some time alone in a quiet room might help to solidify the foggy feeling, but so far, it wasn't working very well. "It involves Backstreet, too," he said absently.

"They're in trouble?" Chris asked, frowning in concern.

"No...." Lance hesitated, then shook his head firmly. "No. They're fine. We're fine. It's... outside of us. Someone's going to come to us for help."

Chris nodded and took a seat on Lance's other side. "We'll be ready." He was quiet for a few moments, his legs tapping nervously. "You know, I've been thinking—"

"Uh-oh," JC and Lance chimed in unison.

"Ha-ha," Chris grimaced, absently smacking Lance on the arm. "Give one of those to JC for me." Lance did. "Thanks. Anyway, as I was saying, I've been thinking. This whole superhero thing.... It's kind of cutting into our pop star time. I mean, we schedule stuff—appearances, rehearsals, recording sessions—and half the time they get cancelled or postponed because somebody needs rescuing. I think maybe.... It may be a one or the other kind of deal."

"Either pop stars or superheroes.... You mean.... give up NSYNC?" Lance kept his gaze on Justin's baby blue carpeting as he spoke, unable to meet Chris's eyes.

Chris hesitated before answering. When he did, his voice was a mere whisper. "We may have to."

"No." JC spoke without opening his eyes, his body relaxed against Lance's. "Music is in our blood, it's what we do. Even if we can't tour or have very many planned appearances, we can still make music. We'll figure out a way. I'm not worried."

"No?" Chris stared across at him, hope and doubt warring for dominance in his voice.

"No," JC answered firmly.

Chris sat back against the cushions. "Well, okay, then."

Lance smiled.

~*~

"Oh, Lance, there you are." Joey grinned as Chris and Lance walked into the exercise room where he was spotting Justin on the bench press. "Where'd you get to?"

"Library," Chris answered. "He was having a think."

"Yeah?" Justin grunted, then placed the weight back on the stand. "What about?"

Lance shrugged. "Something's on the horizon, I don't have specifics yet."

Justin frowned. "Bad?"

"Probably. Believe me, when I figure it out, you guys will be the first to know."

"Where's 'C?" Joey asked curiously. "Wasn't he with you?"

Chris rolled his eyes. "Sleeping, where else? We left him on the couch."

"In the library?" Justin made a face. "That's not a very comfortable couch."

"It's not really a library, either," Chris pointed out cheekily, "and it's got an ugly carpet."

"Hey!" Justin threw a towel at him, which Chris caught easily. "I like that carpet! I picked it out myself!"

"Yeah, during your baby blue phase. Not one of your best purchases, J."

Justin pouted, but Chris ignored him. After years of exposure, they were all pretty much immune.

"So, do we have anywhere to be today, Lance, or can we chill?" Joey took a seat on one of the weight benches, idly lifting a 500-lb weight with one hand and tossing it up and down negligently. Justin glared jealously at him.

"Not really," Lance answered, one corner of his mouth twitching as he fought not to laugh at Justin. "Nothing official, anyway. But Johnny wants us to keep thinking about ideas for a new album and tour. We meet next Tuesday to start making arrangements."

"We've got the album ready, pretty much," Justin shrugged. "We've still got, what? Chris's two songs and that dancey one of JC's, right?"

"Right," Lance confirmed, "and that will give us 26 songs to pick from for the album. It'd be nice to have a definite track list for Johnny on Tuesday, or at least a wish-list with maybe 16 to 18 songs that Jive can pick from for the final track list."

"Dude, Jive hates me," Chris complained. "Can we lie and say my songs are Justin's?"

"Well, maybe if you didn't keep burning stuff—" Justin teased.

"It was one conference room! And he'd tried to kill us! And I paid!"

Lance let out a long-suffering sigh.

~*~

Agent Raymond Welsh surveyed the scene with disbelief and a curious sense of detachment. Beside him, his new partner, Agent An Pho Chang, stood silent, his posture stiff and standoffish. Thick, black smoke was still rising in clouds from the wreckage, and every minute, more bodies were being brought out, draped in shrouds to hide the terrible damage done by the fires.

"...the minute we realized what was going on, we called you," Agent Marks was saying, his young face drawn. He took a long drag from his cigarette, then flicked away the butt and shoved his shaking hands into his pockets. "It's the same story from every one of the survivors. They're extremely dangerous and just as powerful as the originals. We're gonna need help on this one, and since you've worked with them before...." He trailed off, turning hopeful eyes on the two senior agents.

Chang walked away without a word, and Welsh had no doubt that he would be hearing of the man's resignation the moment he returned to the office.

He sighed and opened his cell phone.

~*~

They were in the middle of a spirited game of Chutes and Ladders when Lance sat up straight, dropped his game piece, and blurted, "Answer the phone."

"Huh?" Joey looked around at the rest of them in confusion. "But the phone hasn't—" The phone rang. "—rung. Oh."

JC rolled his eyes. "Oh, ye of little faith."

Justin sighed and started putting away the game. "This is that big 'thing,' isn't it?"

Lance didn't answer. He was lost in a deep trance.

"Okay, then."

Chris picked up the ringing phone. "Superheroes 'R' Us, Chris speaking, how may we help you?"

There was a brief silence on the other end. "Kirkpatrick."

"Agent Welsh!" Chris cried, mainly for the benefit of the others. JC, Justin, and Joey all groaned. Lance just looked grim. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"

"This isn't a friendly call, I'm afraid," Welsh said wearily. "Are all of you there? This is the fourth number I've tried."

"Yeah, we're all here. What's up?"

"We've got trouble," the agent answered, "But you knew that already, didn't you?"

"Me? What am I, psychic?"

Welsh sighed. "Put Bass on the phone."

"Yes, sir." Chris passed the receiver to Lance. "It's for you. Try to get some details this time, Miss Cleo."

Lance ignored him. "This is Lance. What can you tell me?"

~*~

The group, Johnny, and Sexual Chocolate all gathered in one of the conference rooms at The Compound early the next morning, munching on a continental breakfast as they waited for the FBI representatives to arrive.

"It'll be Agents Welsh and Marks," Lance was telling them. "Chang, um.... Well, he quit."

"Quit?" JC frowned. "I guess he really didn't want to work with us."

"It's not like that," Lance assured him. "It's just that he got a promotion after the last time he worked with us. He was Agent Welsh's partner, and they worked on a lot of high-profile cases. Nasty stuff. He got burnt out. This latest case just pushed him over the edge."

"That bad, huh?" Johnny said grimly.

Lance nodded. "That bad." He took a thoughtful bite of his croissant. "I'll let Agents Welsh and Marks explain it in more detail—they're bringing the files and stuff—but basically, we're dealing with some powerful people who have powers a lot like ours. It's... well, it's pretty unbelievable."

"Come on, Lance, spill. Throw us a bone, here," Chris begged. "You wouldn't tell us anything yesterday and I can't wait any longer! What's going on?!"

"Dude, is that caffeinated coffee?" Justin asked rhetorically, confiscating Chris's mug. "You need to chill."

"Aren't you the least bit curious?" Chris demanded.

"Well, yeah, but—"

"And isn't it mean of Lance to keep secrets from us, his best friends in the whole world, who are just as involved in this as he is?"

"I guess, but—"

"Then gimme back my coffee!"

The last word emerged in a piercing shriek. Justin flinched, then pointedly walked with Chris's mug over to one of the trashcans, and dumped out the remaining liquid. "Decaf, Chris. Decaf."

Chris huffed, affronted. "You're all mean."

Dre patted him soothingly on the head.

"Clones," Lance said.

"Clones?" said Johnny.

"Clones," Lance confirmed. "Unauthorized clones of the Backstreet Boys, complete with powers. Luckily, we're only dealing with two, not all five, but it's still a very bad thing. And Agents Welsh and Marks can explain the rest."

Lonnie sat back in his chair, putting down his half-eaten Danish with a grimace. "Clones. Damn."

~*~

Agents Welsh and Marks arrived at just after 10:00 and took seats at the head of the table. Both looked tired and worn, and Marks had the look of someone convinced that he's in over his head. "Thanks for agreeing to listen to us," Welsh said as he took his seat. Marks looked longingly at the continental breakfast on the other side of the room, but followed Welsh's example and didn't fix himself a plate.

JC noticed the look, however, and got up to fix one for him. He fixed one for Welsh, too, noting that the man looked like he could use something sweet.

"This is Agent Richard Marks," Welsh introduced the much younger man. "He'll be working with me on this case."

"Richard Marx?" Chris burst out.

"Marks," corrected the younger agent, blushing furiously. "M-A-R-K-S."

"Oh. I thought it was M-A-R-X, like the musician." Chris paused. "You wanna meet him?"

Marks perked up a bit, but Welsh quickly put an end to the banter. "No, he does not. This is serious, Kirkpatrick, alright?"

"Of course it is," Chris frowned, insulted. "But that doesn't mean you have to be all... how you are. I'm just trying to keep things light, okay? I'm not a moron."

Joey put a hand on his shoulder. "We know, man, it's cool. He doesn't mean anything by it, he's just stressed. Relax, alright? Deep breaths."

Chris glared at the agent, but settled down. Johnny let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. He had fire insurance, but still....

"I'm sorry," Welsh said grudgingly. "I understand what you're trying to do. It's just that... this thing is bad. Very bad." He put his briefcase on the table and opened it, nodding a surprised thanks to JC as he placed a plateful of fruits and pastries on the table beside the case. Welsh took out five file folders marked CONFIDENTIAL and handed them to each member of Nsync. "Everything's in here, but I'll give a quick summary." The group each opened their folders and began to read as Welsh spoke.

"From what we can tell so far, an independent group of unknown origins decided to make their own army of super-powered soldiers, using the cloned DNA of you five and the Backstreet Boys. They started with the Backstreet Boys because the presence of a psychic in your group made it too risky for them to get close enough to obtain samples. They set out operatives who collected the samples they needed from Backstreet—they raided hotel rooms, cabs, and such for hair samples, nail clippings, anything they could find. Once they had gathered everything they needed, they took the samples to their main laboratory and started work.

"There were a lot of failures at first—cloning is still a very new procedure, and they had added complications to deal with, using Backstreet's mutated DNA—but finally they were able to develop embryos that survived into infancy. Still with a lot of trial and error, mind you. A lot of those kids died in childhood, or even infancy or earlier."

JC let out a small sound of distress and put a hand over his mouth. Joey looked ill.

"Once they had kids who lived long enough," Welsh continued doggedly, "they started experimenting with how to age them quickly. They needed adult soldiers, so the children were of no use to them, except to study and observe. They lost a lot more in the course of those experiments. Finally, after months of work, they had five fully-grown Backstreet clones with all of the powers of the originals. Unfortunately, these five clones were still imperfect, and suffered from the same strange illnesses and ailments that had killed the clones before them.

The two clones that escaped were modeled after Howard Dorough and Alexander McLean. From what we've been told, the Dorough clone, called #128 in your files, is the one in charge. He is extremely violent and most definitely mentally ill. The scientists who were able to be questioned postulated that the illness had affected his mind much more so than his body. The McLean clone, or #169, is a bit more of a wild card. None of the survivors had ever actually heard him speak. They said he was very quiet and rather timid, but we have to assume he's just as dangerous as the other.

"Our job is to find these two and... neutralize them."

JC gasped. "You want us to kill them?"

"They're dangerous, JC," Welsh answered wearily. "And their ailments are many, and incurable. It would be a kindness."

"No." JC's voice was flat, his eyes hard. "I'm not going to help you kill them. It's not their fault."

"Maybe not, 'C, but they've already killed hundreds of people," Chris told him sadly.

JC went white. "Hundreds?"

"Page 15," Chris nodded. "Almost everyone in that facility died when they broke out. They blew the place to smithereens, with everybody in it."

"Well...." JC looked even more troubled. "Maybe so, but those people shouldn't have done it in the first place! They caused their own deaths!"

"The other clones, too?" Chris said, almost kindly. "All of those little kids? Did they deserve to die that way?"

JC's face fell and he sat back, defeated. The room was quiet for a long while before Johnny cleared his throat and spoke. "I think we need some time to discuss this, Agent Welsh. We'll give you a call when we've made a decision."

Welsh nodded stiffly and stood, closing his briefcase. Marks stood too, nodding awkwardly. "I understand. You have the number." He left the room, his posture slumped. Marks followed slowly, still carrying two nearly untouched plates of food.

Johnny watched the door close behind them, then turned to Joey and Justin, both of whom looked deep in thought. "Well? You've been quiet, what's on your minds?"

Justin looked around the room, his eyes lingering on JC, then Chris. "I don't know, man. I mean... I don't want to be a government assassin, or anything, but...." He took a deep breath. "I've killed before, you know? And for not so noble a reason. I guess I'd do it again, if I had to."

"But there's nothing saying we have to, is there?" Joey pointed out. "Have we thought of everything, yet? Maybe there's a way to help them, or something. I don't think any of us exactly relishes the idea of killing them, do we?" Four heads shook in the negative. "Right. But we also don't want two homicidal maniacs running around loose when we could have stopped them."

"Why don't you make a deal with the Feebs?" Lonnie suggested hesitantly. "Like, tell them you'll help catch these guys, but only on the condition that they do everything in their power to find an alternative to execution. Chris, maybe you can help find a cure for whatever this weird illness is. Or figure out a way to keep them safely locked up, but relatively comfortable. Maybe Welsh is right and they're in such bad shape that death would be kind, but he could be wrong, too."

"Lonnie's right, guys," Big Mike added. "Tell Welsh you'll help, but that they have to give you time to help the clones too. They kind of got a raw deal, you know?"

JC nodded. "I can live with that. Chris? Lance? Can we do that? Stop them, but not, you know.... No killing?"

Lance smiled slightly. "Sounds fine to me."

Chris nodded. "As long as they're stopped."

"Good, then it's decided." Johnny took a long sip of his tea. "We ought to call the Boys, you know. This involves them in a big way."

Chris made a sour face. "Yeah. Does it ever."

~*~

Chris lost the coin toss on who would make the call. The others all gathered around him as he slowly dialed Howie's number.

"Hello?" Howie sounded happy and breathless when he answered the phone. Chris could hear yelling and laughter in the background, and was caught so off guard that his prepared speech vanished from his mind and he blurted, "What the hell's going on, Dorough?"

Joey closed his eyes and smacked himself on the forehead, groaning. Johnny let his forehead hit the table. Hard.

Howie laughed. "Oh hi, Chris! AJ just gave the creature a name."

"Uh-oh." Chris winced as Kevin's particularly loud and blistering tired reached his ears clearly, even over the phone. "Do I even want to know?"

"You really do," Howie told him, beginning to chuckle. "You ready?"

"Hit me."

"Gertrude."

Chris burst out laughing and dropped the receiver. Joey lunged for it, but Chris was just a little bit quicker and he scooped it up before Joey could get to it.

"Dammit, Chris, this is serious!" JC yelled frustratedly.

Chris tried to stem his laughter. "But... but... Gertrude!"

The others all looked at once another in confusion. "Gertrude?" Joey asked.

Then Lance's eyes widened and he, too, dissolved into giggles, despite himself. "Gertrude!" he snorted, setting Chris off again.

Justin sighed and snatched the phone from Chris. "We'll call you back," he told Howie, and hung up.

~*~

"Okay, so...." Lance fought not to laugh. Chris was still giggling. "See, we couldn't tell them yet. Chris really, really tried."

Johnny nodded, his arms crossed over his chest. "Uh-huh."

"But you, see... they were in a really good mood. Well, except for Kevin."

Chris let out a long, "Heeeeee!" which set Lonnie and Dre to giggling.

Johnny rolled his eyes. "Why me?"

"Why was Kevin not in a good mood?" Big Mike prompted, sounding almost afraid to hear the answer.

"Because...." Lance's voice squeaked, so he cleared his throat and tried again. "Because AJ and the Creature had just settled on a name."

"He named the—" Johnny began with a puzzled frown, but he was interrupted.

"Gertrude?!" Justin shrieked.

There was a split second of silence, and then everyone in the room dissolved into laughter.

~*~

"There," 128 said shortly, his fingers digging painfully into 169's arm. "You see that? A perfect shelter, with plenty of room for both of us."

169 flinched, knowing that his arm would bruise. "But 128, there's already people there. Let's find something else, okay?"

"No!" 128's eyes glittered dangerously and he yanked 169 back into the shadows, slamming him against the wall. "You listen to me, you little pissant. I'm calling the shots, remember?" He raised the pitch of his voice mockingly. "Oh, please don't kill me, 128, oh please take me with you!" He slammed 169 into the wall again, causing him to whimper in pain. "I took pity on you then, but I won't do it again. You think I won't hesitate to kill you, just like I did to 154 and the others? You remember how much pain he was in when he died?"

169 sobbed, remembering the tortured blue eyes that had turned to meet his just before they had gone blank. "Why?" 154 had whispered, blood bubbling out from between his lips. "'69.... Why?"

He sobbed a little bit, choking it off when 128 slammed him into the wall again. "Are you with me or against me? Your choice."

"With you," he answered, his voice a mere whisper. "God help me, I'm with you."

128 snorted cruelly, slamming him into the wall one last time before turning toward the dark, smelly warehouse where only three homeless men stood between them and their new shelter. "God has nothing to do with this."

169 closed his eyes and slid down the wall, burying his face between his knees and covering his ears. If he was lucky, he wouldn't hear what was to come next.

~*~

Miles away, Lance Bass awoke with a gasp from an uneasy sleep, and screamed.

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