Note: La Premiere is the sequel to a previous work of fiction of mine, La Deuxieme, story ID# 1288123. For those that understand French, you might find this ironic. However, as I have a bad case of ADD, I don't expect you to read La Deuxieme simply to read this story. So, for you readers new to this series, here is a bare-bones summary of La Deuxieme.

Zoe LaDeuxieme was an average American girl living in St. Louis and entering her senior year of high school in the year 2020 AD. Zoe's life was different than her peers by a few small details; her mother had been sick for all of her life, she lived in a house built around her father's laboratory containing multitudes of mysterious locked doors, and she routinely had to visit therapists to help deal with 'abnormal behavior', though neither she nor any of her friends could find anything different in her behavior than anyone else. After their first day of school, her best friend April Scott found a letter dated to Jordan Bradley, a name that she didn't recognize who also lived at Zoe's house.

Finding this suspicious, April opened it later at her house. Inside, the letter detailed plans for the return of one Mr. Andrew Roberts on the day of Zoe's eighteenth birthday. Determined to find more about this plan, Zoe and April managed to sneak into a sub-level beneath Zoe's house and discovered a story written about Zoe two months before her birthday.

Upon further investigations into the sub-levels of Zoe's house, she and April uncovered a plan for her life. Zoe was a clone of another girl, Zoe Easton, made by a spurned admirer of the original Zoe, Andrew Roberts. Andrew, the eighteen year old son of the richest corporate magnate in the world, spent the majority of his senior year planning out how his ideal girlfriend would act in all situations, and wrote it down as a story guide for the doctors and psychologists he had hired for the project. Finally, just before Zoe's birth, he cryogenically froze himself deep below the LaDeuxieme house, only to be thawed out on Zoe's eighteenth birthday.

Emerging on October 17th, 2020, Andrew expected to meet with his bride to be, only to find that she had escaped and no one knew where she had fled to. Taking this minor setback in good humor, he saw the escape of Zoe LaDeuxieme as a chance to prove his love for her. Fresh from his eighteen year cryogenic sleep, craving a steak, and preparing to be briefed on the status of the cloning project, we now begin from where La Deuxieme left off.

Chapter One: The Triumphant Return

Andrew Roberts strode confidently down the metal halls of the lowest level of the La Deuxieme house, shadowed closely by Donald Ramsey, Jordan Bradley and Emily Arthur. He looked around in awe, silently marveling at how little had changed over the past eighteen years but occasionally giving out little chuckles. He raced up the stairways leading to the main floor of the house, the other three behind him struggling to keep up.

He charismatically thrust open a metal door and emerged in the kitchen, taking a moment to pause and glance around at how clean it was. For a few brief seconds he examined some of the modern appliances, then quickly lost interest and continued on his course to the dining room. Once there, he found an ornately decorated table waiting for him, a staunch butler standing beside it smiling as Andrew looked over the arrangements.

"Aw guys, you didn't have to have this table waiting for me!"

"Master Roberts, your steak is ready," the butler said proudly, a wave of gratitude inwardly washing over him as he saw Andrew's smile broaden.

"You're kidding! You've already got one prepared for me?"

"The scientists in charge of your cryogenic freezing told me you would probably awake hungry," Donald Ramsey stopped beside Andrew, trying to covertly catch his breath. "I thought it would be best if we had a meal waiting for you. I called your mother, she recalled that you always enjoyed filet mignon."

"No kidding, how are my parents?"

"They seem to be in good health, Andrew."

"Good. And my investments? How did my financial advisors do for me?"

"Once their fees are paid and their total dividends are added together, you should be sitting on a nest egg of nearly sixty billion dollars."

"Yeah! Now that's what I'm talking about! Can it be traced back to me?"

"Not a chance. This scheme has five levels encompassing over sixty separate traders."

"Glad to hear it!" Andrew sat down at his private table and gingerly threw his napkin into his lap. "Garcon, another three chairs for my associates. We'll be talking for a while and they've worked so hard for me these past eighteen years that I just have to let them sit down!"

"Thank you, Mr. Roberts," Jordan said with a meek smile.

"Come on, you've spent half my life raising up my bride-to-be, you can call me by my name! It just feels weird to have adults addressing me as Mr. This or Master That. LOL, you know what I mean?"

Donald, Jordan and Emily stared blankly at him.

"'LOL'? I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, Andrew," Donald explained as he sat down at the chair placed for him.

"What? Haven't you ever been online? It's what all the kids say! It's short for 'Laughing Out Loud'. Come on, how out of the loop are you?"

"Oh, right, the Internet acronym that was in popular use around the turn of the century," Jordan suddenly remembered, as if recalling something unimportant from his childhood. "Andrew, you must remember that eighteen years have passed since you were frozen. It may not seem like it to you, but that's the way it's happened. A lot has changed. People are going to be unfamiliar with your outdated slang."

A look of unwanted acceptance briefly passed over Andrew's face, but was quickly erased by his commonplace confident smile. "Right, right, thanks for the heads-up buddy! So fill me in on everything that's happened. Has everything gone according to plan?"

"For the most part, yes," Emily inched ahead in her chair and nervously stared at Andrew.

"Whoa, who's this?" Andrew regarded Emily with playful suspicion.

"Emily Arthur. You hired me to play mommy for Zoe, Andrew."

"Yeah, I remember, but you look like you've hardly aged at all! Babe, you could make a fortune on your little plan for staying young! I mean, make no mistake, I'd still hit it!"

Emily blushed and smiled sheepishly, Donald and Jordan shot nervous glances at each other. "Yes, as I was saying, everything has, for the most part, happened as you stated you wanted it to happen."

"For the most part? I have to say, the way you phrase that has me worried."

"Well, I meant that all the important things have been taken care of."

"Her psychological conditioning went without a hitch?"

"Absolutely. She's very rebellious right now, wherever she is, but her conditioning has been so intense that nothing can shake her from what you intended her to be."

"Good. Now that I know her mind is perfect, are there any differences between her body and the original Zoe's?"

"Nothing too major, except for a small crescent moon-shaped scar just below her left earlobe that she got when she fell down while learning how to ride a bike."

"Alright, I thought you were going to tell me major differences. So far, so good!"

"Well, Danielle died."

"Oh, she did? When did this happen?"

"During the Cooper Weaving crash. It was icy that night, and Danielle was out taking a walk with her parents, and Cooper's car slipped off the road and pinned her between the car and a light post."

"Ouch. So what happened to the best friend role?"

"We brought in another girl, although her family has no idea what's going on here. She knows, however."

"The girl?"

"Yes, her name's April Scott. She's been Zoe's closest friend ever since second grade."

"So you carted in a family who has no idea what's going on here with a little girl who was meant to take on Danielle's role, and now this April girl knows what goes on here?"

"Yes, she's very adept at sneaking around. She actually developed a plan on how to get past one of the locked doors."

"So what happened?"

"They got away with a copy of 'Second Impressions'. On a later visit, they got away with several records, mostly correspondences between you and Rael."

"Speaking of Rael, how is he?"

"He went public with Zoe shortly after her birth. We had no choice but to set up puppet organizations to debunk their whole claims. Once that happened, people forgot about human cloning as a serious occurrence, and the Raelians disappeared. Rael committed suicide about fifteen years ago."

"Alright, so everything is just as I planned it, except that Zoe knows about this whole deal and has run off, Danielle is dead and replaced by another girl who also knows about this, and Rael's dead. Alright. So when's my steak going to be ready?"

"In a few minutes, I had alerted the head chef when you were unfrozen."

"Fantastic. So in the meantime, you can tell me how you plan to catch Zoe."

"We're monitoring all lines of communication between her and April."

"Her friend? So what's that going to do?"

"We've made a pact with Ms. Scott that in exchange for her family's safety, she notifies us of all forms of communication between Zoe and herself."

"That's all? I'm sorry Don, but even back in my day kids had a way around that kind of security system. It's called 'not telling the grown-ups'. Did you ever think about that?"

"Of course. That's why we took the liberty of tapping her home phones, her cell phone, monitoring her E-mail, and screening her mail at the post office."

"Okay, now we're talking. So what do we know so far?"

"Absolutely nothing. So far, there have been no lines of communication between them."

"I expected her to be independent, I never thought it would come back and slap me in the face like this, though. Ah well, no concerns here, we'll find her eventually, right?"

"Yes sir, Andrew."

"That's the spirit! A can-do attitude! That's why I hired you guys in the first place, you all agreed that this project could be done! You get paid and partake in exciting scientific studies, and soon I get the love of my life. A lot of people said it couldn't be done, but we proved them wrong, and the benefits are outstanding!"

As Andrew sat beaming, the LaDeuxieme family dog walked through the halls and into the dining room. Seeing a new person in the house, it immediately ran to Andrew and jumped into his lap, licking his face excitedly.

"Scraps? Oh my God, Scraps! I can't believe it's you! I thought I'd never see you again!" Andrew cried out in surprise as he hugged the dog tightly to his chest. "Really, you guys didn't have to freeze my dog, too!"

The three adults around the table shot nervous glances at each other before Jonathan cleared his throat. "Andrew, that's not Scraps. Your dog died many years ago. That dog is Scraps' great grandson. His name's Skyler. He's Zoe's dog."

"Oh, I see. He looks just like Scraps. So he's still a purebred Yorkie?"

"Yes."

Suddenly sullen, Andrew released Skyler from his tight hug. Skyler contentedly curled up on Andrew's lap, who sadly petted him.

"We're sorry, Andrew. We know how much you loved Scraps, and we never wanted to introduce you to Skyler like this."

"It's alright, Emily. Really, I came to grips with all of this long ago. It was just part of being cryogenically frozen, I had to accept that I'd need to start my life all over again. Well, I'm ready. All I need is to find Zoe, and I'll be ready to go. Actually, no, there's still one person from my old life that I'd like to see again."

"Who is it, Andrew? I'd be glad to arrange a visit for you," Donald leaned over the table, hoping to do anything he could to ease Andrew into his new life.

"Zoe Easton. The girl that my Zoe was cloned from. I'd just like to see how her life turned out."

"I'll get her address for you, Andrew."

"Fantastic!" Andrew suddenly brightened. "You know, this was one of my dad's old homes. I bet he hasn't been here in eighteen years, maybe even more!"

"Actually, he dropped by two years after you were frozen."

"Alright then, that's still sixteen years since a Roberts has toured their own home. While we're waiting for my dinner, may I take a look around?"

"By all means, Andrew. However, many of the rooms relating to your family have been locked, so you will need our authorization codes to get into many rooms."

"Ah, so I need escorts to tour my old home? Some things really do change. Alright then, let's go. I'd like to see my old bedroom, actually." Andrew suddenly bounded to his feet, sending the LaDeuxieme family dog flying out of his lap and onto the floor. Without waiting to see if his three companions were following him, Andrew wound his way through the maze of blank hallways and at last to a room that had not been opened in nearly eighteen years; his old bedroom.

Andrew waited impatiently for his aging supervisors, leaning against the wall and anxiously tapping his foot against the floor. Eventually, Donald, Jordan and Emily calmly walked down the hall to Andrew's room, finding him glaring at them. As they neared, he gave an exasperated sigh.

"I understand that you guys are getting old, but this stuff is really important to me. So please, try to keep up with me next time."

Hardly suppressing a frown, Donald walked to the door and curtly said "As you wish."

As he placed his hand upon the scanner beside the door, a butler walked down the hall. He noticed Andrew, paused, and smiled widely at him. "Master Roberts, it's so good to see you! I'm so excited to be working with you around now!"

"Well, I'm glad that my presence inspires!" Andrew smiled back at the butler who went happily on his way. Turning back to the three adults standing next to him, Andrew dropped his voice to a murmur. "Seriously, what was I supposed to say to that? Like me being around is going to change how everything's run? Unless you guys have had them doing something wrong all these years, but so far everything seems great."

"Your old bedroom, Andrew," Donald quickly said as he opened the door. Andrew looked inside, a smile spreading across his face. He walked in and immediately began inspecting everything. His room was neat and very classy. Along the walls stood several bookshelves lined with a variety of literature. Stuck in one corner of the room was an inviting bed with an ancient desk sitting beside it, a long-outdated computer resting atop the desk. The floor was littered with posters and pictures that had long-since peeled off the walls. Several ancient electronic gadgets, knick-knacks, CDs and other miscellaneous possessions seemed to be tucked into any free space that could be found. And everything was covered in a heavy layer of dust.

"What's with all the dust?"

"One of the cleaning ladies was caught snooping around in here shortly after you were frozen. Seeing as how this was where you kept all of your personal records, we thought it best to fire her and neglect to instruct the next maid to clean this room. A bit of dust is a small price to pay for your personal privacy."

"Good thinking."

A student passed by the door and quickly stared back through the doorway, his face lighting up upon seeing Andrew. "Mr. Roberts, it's so exciting to have you here!"

"Thank you. I look forward to working with you later!" Beaming, the young man proudly strode down the hall. Andrew turned to the three surrounding him and sighed. "He said pretty much the exact same thing as the butler. What's with all of these empty compliments people throw around? It's all so meaningless! Here, let me show you what I mean."

Andrew hopped over to one of his tall bookshelves and retrieved a tall, thin hardback book entitled Franklin Roosevelt High School Yearbook 2002- 2003. He quickly flipped to one of the back pages reserved for autographs and pointed to a small note scrawled in the corner.

"See, right there. 'Dear Andrew, Thanks for making French class such a blast. Your jokes always made me laugh! Heart, Leah Morgan, smiley face'."

"Well, I don't see what's so empty and meaningless about that," Emily began.

"Then let me tell you. I never said anything in French. Never. I hardly answered questions when the teacher asked me out loud, much less jokes. Besides, Leah and I were never friends. We never once talked throughout those four years of high school. And yet I made her laugh, repeatedly by the sound of it, and I made French a so-called blast for her. Let me further explain this; French class was the class that I spent on planning this whole scheme. I paid Sandy Stevens one thousand dollars to do my homework for the year and paid Randy Michaels five hundred dollars to hack Madame Cendrick's computer and get the notes for the whole year. I just open up a bunch of documents of French notes on one planning some aspect of this operation, and I was set for the easiest class ever. I was the kid who always had his face buried in his lap-top poring over some inane detail that would have meant nothing to anybody else. Does that sound like I made French class a blast?"

Donald, Jordan and Emily shook their heads.

"Exactly. I absolutely hate those empty compliments. They could have left it at 'I'm glad you're back safely, Mr. Roberts', and I would have been happy. Anyways, if you'll all excuse me, I've got to drop a load eighteen years in the making. Don't worry about me, I can find the crapper by myself, unless you moved it on me!" With that, Andrew walked out of his room, tossing his yearbook carelessly onto his bed. Donald, Jordan and Emily exchanged disgusted glances, and Donald quickly followed Andrew out of the room and down the hall.

"Andrew, a word, if you please."

"Sure, what's up Don?" Andrew turned to face Donald, his constant smile still plastered across his face.

"Andrew, we all realize that you're excited to be back and search for Zoe. However, your language is exceedingly foul for someone in your position. You are one of the richest men in the world, without even lifting a finger I might add, and you are surrounded by educated men and women who have served you in upwards of eighteen years. These are people of refinement, they have manners and tact and I'm sure they're all expecting the same of you. Simply being eighteen and using outdated slang terms won't excuse you, you're an adult and a role model of sorts to these fine people, and they would be sorely disappointed to hear you using such crass terms."

Andrew's smile had slowly faded from his face replaced by an incredulous look. He tilted his head slightly, inhaled deeply, and carefully calculated his response. "Donald, I'm just trying to have fun here. Just because you all grew up and got stodgy doesn't mean I have to. I'm eighteen, no one should expect me to use impeccable English and refrain from possibly insulting whatever oversensitive people might be listening. And may I remind you that not only am I one of the world's richest men, I am also your boss, and as such I must politely ask you to let me have some fun. There will be a time to be serious later, but right now, it's still my celebration. Andrew Fest 2020, baby. So please, don't correct me, don't lecture me, and don't ask me to change. I wouldn't do the same to you." With that, Andrew turned back down the hall, leaving Donald Ramsey alone in the hall.

Another student was walking down the hall as she saw Mr. Ramsey standing in place, somewhat vexed. Deciding to try and cheer him up, she smiled as she walked past and happily said "Nice to see you, Mr. Ramsey! I can't wait to see the results of our latest tests!"

"Go to Hell, Ms. Jackson."