(urth) AEG clones...send them in

[Dave Tallman]

James Wynn wrote:
> But what if Cassie is on to something without realizing it? What if the guy 
> who gave Cassie the gold bracelet and the guy who gave her the diamond one 
> are *not* the same person. What if the guy who took the deadly gold bracelet 
> back were not the guy who gave it to her? What if Wally R. is *not* the 
> fellow that the President called one of the most evil men in the world? What 
> if the Rusterman cousin is *not* the same person as Rosenquist or Reis? That 
> clarifies a lot. Well, actually, it doesn't. But it opens the possibility of 
> clarifying a lot. Okay. You've convinced me. We have ourselves a clone story 
> here.
Reis admits to Cassie early on that he started out trying to entrap and 
destroy her (pp. 125, 145). He eventually admits that the gold bracelet 
was radioactive (p. 270). "(Reis) The gold I gave you made you think of 
that first bracelet... (Cassie) We've already talked a little about the 
gold. Radioactive gold... (Reis) We have."

So it's not surprising that he told her lies about it at first. He said 
it was "Eighteen karat, which means it's pretty soft" (p. 67). Eighteen 
karat gold is only 75% gold, and jewelry made with it need not be soft, 
depending on what metals it's mixed with. Later he says it weighed ten 
ounces, and the German craftsman used all ten ounces of the gold Reis 
gave him (p. 122). In other words, it was 100% gold (24 karat), and that 
would indeed be soft. He was maximizing the harm it could do her, though 
that couldn't have been his whole plan to destroy her.

At the party, he claimed he had made it months ago and only decided whom 
to give it to after seeing Cassie in the play (p. 67). From what we know 
above. that was also a lie.

The odd thing is the timing of his change of heart. He knew he had made 
a mistake when he saw her coming up to the microphone to get the gold 
bracelet (p. 145). He persisted for a little while out of stubbornness, 
but scrapped his plan while they sat together in the car that first 
night they met (p. 145). But if it was indeed Reis who saw at least a 
little of the play, why didn't her glamour start charming him out of his 
plan earlier?

The man at the play (p. 53) was possibly Bill's clone, double by magical 
illusion, or shape-changing werewolf. That man was most likely the one 
who waited in the alley to give Cassie something, and who bribed Jimmy 
one hundred dollars to carry a message to her (p. 56). Jimmy died 
shortly after that (p. 65), possibly scared to death by the man.

Simpler, though, would be the idea that Bill was there too briefly to be 
affected deeply, or that he was present only by hologram and got a 
diminished glamour effect. He could be the man in the alley himself.