The Two Jasons (novel)

 was the ninth full length novel published by Big Finish Productions as part of their Big Finish Bernice Summerfield series. It was written by Dave Stone.

Publisher's summary
"Oh bloody hell," she snapped. "Listen: me no wantee good time jig-jig all same, okay?"

When Bernice Summerfield first met Jason Kane, she failed to spot his many fine qualities and assets. Over the course of many subsequent adventures, including marriage and divorce, she continued not to see them...

"You're not Jason," she said. "Who the hell are you?"

When Bernice Summerfield first met Jason Kane 2, he was disguised as a critic of the work of Jason Kane. Benny saw through his false moustache and literary pretensions, and had him and his other clones expelled into space, there to make their own fortunes. One Jason Kane was, she felt, rather more than enough.

Now something is astir in the universe, a plot that threatens Benny and all she holds dear. If she stands any chance at all, she needs all the Jason Kanes she can get...

Plot
Receiving a call for help from Jason and believing that she has tracked him with her psionix, Mira travels to a space station in the Catan Nebula and instead finds two of his three short-term clones created as part of a scam. The third died after attempting to access memories which the original had not granted to them and the surviving clones, 2-Jason and 3-Jason, have gone ahead with purchasing permanent bodies for themselves, although 3-Jason's mind has been deliberately frozen at the mental age of eleven. The Church of the Righteously Ascended Pure, who have religious objections to genetic manipulation, attack the station and the Jasons escape with Mira to the shuttle bay.

3-Jason collapses due to a rush of memories of stabbing his father, going to a remand centre where he attacked a gay man and physically abusing his girlfriend before going to the women's shelter that she had moved to and beating her until she miscarried their child. After flying to Mira's ship in her shuttle, Mira and 2-Jason help him realise that these memories contradict the fact that Jason left Earth and that they must have been implanted with a memory bomb to make him a compliant slave. Mira gives him her data-pad for him to write down his memories of meeting Benny, believing that it will keep the false memories at bay. At 2-Jason's request, she leaves the two Jasons in the Proximan Chain before heading to the Braxiatel Collection to help the original Jason.

Whilst 3-Jason writes down his memories in a storage locker, 2-Jason meets Ophelia Cholmoldly-Shrike, a fan of Jason's books, and goes home with her. He is forced to flee, however, when her mother and gangster father return home and, finding him with their leather-clad daughter, attempt to kill him. He returns to 3-Jason and accesses the files on Mira's data-pad, learning that she has been under the control of Jason's enemy. The two Jasons use stasis emitters to keep Mira from moving when she arrives and 2-Jason reveals that his mind was split between himself and the only other available body, that being the body of a man who beat his girlfriend, after the clone that he arrived at the manufactory with died. Her mind starts to burn out as she denies being under anybody's control, but 2-Jason has a device which replaces the affected part of her brain with new tissue.

Jason created the clones in part to have backups as he had suspicions that something might happen to him and 2-Jason has been investigating Mira the whole time, distinctly remembering her dying during the Fifth Axis occupation of the Braxiatel Collection and deducing that time has been altered so that she could serve as an unwitting spy. 3-Jason merges with 2-Jason who, after attempting to contact the Collection and finding no record of Benny nor Jason having ever worked there, decides to live his life to honour the original Jason. He and Mira enter into a romantic relationship and use the reputation of the fictional Plague Dogs to lead a comfortable life, having several children together. Decades later, they are summoned to Earth where the President, a clone of Benny, informs them that Benny's remains have been found.

Characters

 * 2-Jason
 * 3-Jason
 * Mira
 * Jason Kane
 * Bernice Summerfield
 * Shug
 * Chris Cwej
 * Roz Forrester
 * Ophelia Cholmoldly-Shrike
 * Jasper Cholmoldly-Shrike
 * Mrs Cholmoldly-Shrike
 * The President

Continuity

 * Takes place concurrently with The End of the World and The Final Amendment.