Doppelganger Girl

by T. R. Woodman

  Evelyn sat quietly for a few minutes. She didn’t expect to hear anything, but as the tears faded and the tightness in her chest lifted, she felt like Jane had done what she always did—made her feel better.

  JOURNEYER

  The hull of the shuttle rumbled as the powerful engines reverberated off the rocky ground. No sooner had the shuttle broke free than everything quickly quieted. Like a rising balloon, untethered and released to find its way up, the shuttle rose effortlessly, circling higher and higher.

  The view from the back of the shuttle was always incredible on journeys from the surface to outer space. As the shuttle rose, the rear tilted toward the ground below, giving anyone in the rear an unobstructed view of the shrinking world through the seamless window. It could be a little unnerving to watch as the shuttle rose higher, and the first time Evelyn took the time to sit and watch, she had the uncomfortable feeling she might roll right out of the back if the shuttle hit even the slightest air pocket. She knew it couldn’t happen, but it didn’t keep her from sinking deeper into her captain’s chair in the back bay, tightening the lap belt to the point where she felt the straps cutting into her hip bones.

  Normally, Evelyn would ride in the back bay on flights from the surface—it didn’t matter where she sat, since she could pilot the shuttle from anywhere if she was connected to it through her nanites. But this trip was different. It didn’t matter so much that it was still dark outside; she wouldn’t have been able to see much anyway. The truth was that she really didn’t care about seeing the planet she was leaving behind. There was only one thing left there she cared about, and Evelyn knew Joseph was going to be better off without her around. As far as the rest of the settlers went, she didn’t care if she never saw any of them again, and so she sat in the cockpit and stared at the stormy clouds as they grew ever closer.

  The shuttle’s nose eased into the blackness, the lights on the instrument panel casting an electronic glow throughout the cockpit, with the occasional flash of lightning in the distance brightening the cabin and casting eerie shadows around her. Moments later, the shuttle lifted out of the foggy blackness of the clouds, and in the thin air fifty thousand feet above sea level, Evelyn held her breath as the full brilliance of billions of stars winked at her from the heavens.

  Evelyn powered up the shuttle’s engines, giving them even more thrust, and while she hadn’t enjoyed linking to the agribot just days earlier, she was enjoying her connection to the shuttle, feeling every bit of the surge of power as it pushed higher. The sensation was exhilarating. Evelyn felt the heat and boundless depth of the power of the engines deep within her chest, along her spine, tingling in the back of her neck, in her jaw, and in her eyes. She had noticed the sensation before on other flights, but those flights had been so routine, so tame. This was different.

  Not wanting to let it go, or even wanting the feeling to lessen, Evelyn pushed the shuttle faster, feeling it pull free of the planet’s gravity. As she did, she felt another surge within her, a rawness of energy that rode up her calves and thighs, through her stomach and chest, and down her arms though the tips of her fingers. She felt her muscles flex, as if they were straining to hold the power within her. And then, when the tension was too much for her to bear, feeling like her body might tear apart, she let it go, and with it came another surge as Evelyn activated the Leap Frog.

  As if someone had shredded a screen painted with what seemed to be the reality around her, Evelyn watched as the picture disintegrated. As it did, immense heat and light pounded Evelyn’s body like wave after wave of water breaking over her in rhythm with her heartbeat. She felt her flesh being seared from her muscles and bones, but she didn’t want it to stop, as if someone was peeling away the enormous burden of being human from her body.

  The light and the heat grew, and Evelyn heard a groan. As the moments passed, the groan grew louder and louder until it was a deep and deafening roar. Evelyn tried to cover her ears, but she couldn’t move, and then in a moment of pure ecstasy, she realized that the roar, now a deafening scream, was coming from her. She tried to stop the sound, but found she couldn’t, and the scream and the shuttle raged on through the light and the heat for seconds or minutes or years, she couldn’t tell. And then, as quickly as it all started, everything stopped.

  Evelyn crumpled on the floor as if she hadn’t an ounce of strength to hold herself up. She heard herself moan and tried to sit up and realized that she was sweating to the point where her shirt and her shorts and her hair were all soaked. She reached up to grab the arm of the chair she had been sitting in and pulled herself up. She couldn’t focus her eyes, and she took a deep gasping breath, as if she had been underwater for several minutes.

  Evelyn took another deep breath and waited for her eyes to focus. She felt the cool air of the cabin on her skin. Her mind started to catch up. She had never experienced anything even close to that on the other two leaps they had done—the one from Earth six years ago, which brought them within years of the planet they settled, and the other just a month ago, which brought them the rest of the way. And even though she had built the Leap Frog—invented it, even—she couldn’t explain everything about how it worked or why it affected people the way it did.

  Note to self … don’t accelerate at full power before engaging the Leap Frog, or risk being blown apart by eternity. Still, she had to admit the whole experience had felt intensely incredible—she was still tingling all over—until the overwhelming feeling of remorse at letting herself get caught up in the moment hit her.

  Evelyn wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her arm and looked through the window. In front of her, the moon, and beyond it, Earth. She had programmed the Leap Frog to take her to a spot she suspected would be uncluttered with space program debris, and knew it was unlikely that in the six years they had been gone, there would have been any more missions to the moon or beyond. After all, the country had been falling apart when they had left. It had been in a depression, and the government had been losing control of the citizenry, and it seemed hard to believe that they would have done much to reignite the space program. Even so, Evelyn didn’t want to risk being detected by any government agencies and thought it best to hide behind the moon until she could catch her bearings.

  She stood on wobbly legs and walked to the instrumentation panels. Even though she felt like she’d rather lie down, she knew she needed to run her scans of the area to find out for sure if she was alone where she stood. She quickly glanced at the displays. Nothing seemed nearby. There were no signs of life, other than those that the sensors were now picking up on the surface of Earth.

  Evelyn breathed a sigh of relief and fell back into the captain’s chair. She stared out of the window at the dark side of the moon and the dark side of the Earth beyond it, illuminated only by the twinkling of city lights and the brilliantly blinding yellow sun far off in the distance. She had made it safe. Now all she had to do was find Tate.

  Evelyn set the scanners to search for the beacon in Tate—the signal the nanites in his body transmitted. There was a part of her that feared the scanners wouldn’t pick up anything, and then she’d have to wonder if he was still alive, but she caught herself quickly, refusing to dwell on the thought long.

  With the scanners running, Evelyn stood and walked toward her quarters, peeling off her soggy clothing and leaving them strewn in the corridor as she went. Her intent was to take a lingering shower, but as soon as she saw the bed, the feeling of complete exhaustion overwhelmed her. She slipped on a clean pair of shorts and a pale pink T-shirt that read NASA – I need my space. It was a relic of the space program from decades prior. It was Jane’s favorite T-shirt; it was her mom’s favorite before that. And as Evelyn slipped it over her head, she felt the comforting warmth of the cotton against her skin, the equally comforting memories she had of Jane wearing it soothing her, and she fell asleep as she collapsed into the sheets.

  SEEKER

  She cupped her hands over her eyes, trying to shi
eld them from the blinding white sun in the distance. It didn't help.

  She squinted. She saw the silhouette of shapes far off. Trees? People?

  She blinked. Flat red sand—the color of dried blood—as far as she could see. And then, far off in the distance, mountains.

  She walked, the dust scuffing like chalk under her feet. The air so dry she felt it sucking the moisture out of her lungs. The heat making it hard to breathe.

  “It’s dry.”

  “The desert?”

  “The flower.”

  Evelyn looked at her sister and followed her gaze to the Stargazer lying on the sand. It was wilted, its petals browning at the edges. The center, scarlet, wet. It pulsed on the sand, like someone laboring while taking their final breaths.

  “Will it die?”

  Evelyn heard the whisper of the wind around her, watching the lily pulse slower with each breath. She looked into the hazy blinding light. Her sister was gone.

  She looked back down and watched as the lily slowly stopped pulsing. And then as it lay still, Evelyn watched it melt into the sand.

  Evelyn held her breath. She knelt quickly. She scooped her hand into the sand under the flower, but as she tried to lift her hand, she realized her finger was caught.

  Feeling a grip of panic squeezing her chest, she grabbed her wrist with her other hand and pulled, and as she did, she felt her hand start to pull free from the sand. Something stuck to her finger. She pulled harder, unable to breathe, and then she felt her hand coming slowly out of the sand—with it something pale, smooth like a stone. More pulling, gasping for air, her finger caught in a hole in the smooth stone, and then with a final pull, she saw her finger caught in the eye socket of skull—a man’s, traces of graying hair still stuck to his temples—peeking at her through the blood-red sand.

  Then, screaming. Deafening. All around her. An echo far away. A haunting wail inside her head.

  She screamed.

  Evelyn sat up, jerking herself upright, her skin hot, the sweat on her brow feeling cool in the recirculated vent-cooled air. She shook her head and gasped. Clutching her chest, she started to weep, finally resting her head in the palms of her hands, unsure if she was relieved or panicked to be awake.

  She stood slowly, her breath shuddering in her chest. Now, a few moments later, she knew it had just been a dream, but she couldn’t get the images out of her head, and she felt herself getting pissed that her somewhat comforting dream of Jane a few days ago had been replaced by something so ugly. Shaking her head, she peeled her clothes off and stepped into the closet-sized bathroom for a shower she hoped might wash away the disturbing images still lingering in her mind.

  Twenty minutes later, Evelyn stepped out of the shower, the air jets having dried her off in less than a minute. Stepping around the door, she walked over to her closet—Jane’s closet—and couldn’t help but smile. She always loved that her sister was so athletic. There was nothing frilly to be seen. She slipped on a sports bra and briefs and then grabbed a pair of deep-brown cargo pants, a well-fitting T-shirt, and some socks and lightweight canvas boots that were resting at the bottom of the closet.

  Evelyn put the clothes on the table while she dressed and then sat on the edge of the bed to lace up her boots. There was a little distance now between her and her nightmare, and Evelyn was feeling better.

  Standing, she went through the door of her quarters, grabbing a protein bar from the galley. She hadn’t eaten anything in what seemed like days, and she felt like her hip bones were on the verge of pushing through her skin. She peeled back the wrapper on the bar. How old it was, she had no idea. She tried not to think about it but knew it would probably stand the test of time better than she would, even if she lived two thousand years.

  It was July, Earth time. Evelyn had the shuttle’s systems track the time on Earth because she knew it would be important information to know when they made trips back. What she didn’t know was where Tate was. She hoped he would be someplace cool, because if he was near Atlanta, in Ironhead, the small industrial town he was living in when they left, it was sure to be hot in the peak of summer.

  Stepping into the cockpit, she sat in a captain’s seat. Through the window, she could still see the moon, only now it was fully lit from the sun behind her, which had also illuminated Earth beyond. She figured she had slept for more than ten hours, which may have been a record for her.

  Evelyn glanced down at the display. She still didn’t want to link to the shuttle’s computers—she was enjoying the quiet in her head—and she figured she had time, so she read quickly, scanning her way through the reports.

  It didn’t take but a few seconds for Evelyn to get terribly confused by what she read. The scanners on the shuttle were very sensitive, and she had them set to estimate the population of major cities and the country as a whole, based on human life signs. She knew it wasn’t possible, but in her head, Evelyn could only imagine the counter was stuck, as it read 129.2 million.

  Evelyn stared at the number as if that might help the computer realize the ridiculousness of its statement.

  “A hundred thirty million?” she said, cocking her head and her eyebrows at the same time. Given that she had the entire recorded history of humanity stashed away in her brain, she knew that number was about what the population was during the Great Depression, and about 170 million fewer people than were in the United States just six years prior.

  Evelyn stood and paced around the cockpit, glancing out the window at Earth beyond. For a moment, she wondered if she had actually traveled through time. She shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t think she had, but she supposed it could have been possible.

  “Buzz,” she said, speaking to the shuttle’s computer, “are there any time stamps on the radio transmissions we have been receiving since we arrived? Anything to indicate the year?”

  “Multiple time stamps confirm the date is July seventh, 2042,” the electronic, distinctly male, and wholly charmless voice answered over the intercom.

  “Well, that rules out time travel,” Evelyn muttered.

  She looked back out the window, her arms crossed, shaking her head gently, not sure she really wanted to know what had happened. Obviously, it was something bad; however, if more than half of the population of the United States was gone in only six years.

  Evelyn felt a lump in her throat as the request she knew she had to make—the one she had been stalling to ask—circled in her thoughts.

  “Buzz, show me the location of Tate Philips.”

  Evelyn held her breath. If he was still alive, the scanners should have detected him, but Evelyn knew, with sixty percent of the population gone, the chance Tate was still alive wasn’t good.

  The screen in front of her flashed, and a map of the United States materialized with a small red dot located in Texas.

  “Tate is near the town of San Antonio, Texas,” Buzz droned.

  “Buzz, if you and I are going to get along, you’re going to have to work on your sweet talk,” Evelyn said, feeling a wave of relief wash over her, even though the news of Tate’s location also meant she was going to one of the hottest spots in North America during the hottest part of the year.

  Evelyn sat back down in her seat. Tate was still alive, and she knew where he was. Now all she had to do was get to him without getting caught.

  EMPTY

  Getting to the surface undetected was going to be nearly impossible, and Evelyn knew it. There wasn’t a government agency anywhere in the world that wasn’t going to notice a flaming hundred-ton shuttle shaped like a giant bird of prey hurtling toward Earth at twenty thousand miles per hour. At least, she knew six years ago she would have been noticed, and she had to assume the same or worse today. About the best she could hope for was to give the illusion that her shuttle had crashed, and so, as the nose of the shuttle cut through the outer edge of Earth’s atmosphere, and the telltale signs of friction lit up the front of the shuttle with an orange glow, Evelyn strapped herself in for what she k
new would be a terrifying ride.

  In their final days on Earth, Jane had flown down to the surface under similar circumstances. She had been going back to rescue the orphans Tate had been caring for, and she had escaped from DF-23, the government-run death camp, just hours before. The military had been after them, and they hadn’t had the luxury of a leisurely controlled decent, circling their way to the surface. They had headed straight for Ironhead, letting gravity pull them, and friction slow them; the g-forces had nearly knocked Jane unconscious.

  It was the first shuttle Evelyn had piloted as a passenger. She had flown plenty of shuttles from the safety of the command center on Vista, or the headquarters in Atlanta, but she hadn’t had a body then. Once she had, she knew her only chance to stand on the surface of Earth, as a human, as a person, was going to be if she went down with Jane, so she had stowed away in a locker in the storage bay, linked herself to the shuttle’s computers, and tried to keep from screaming when she realized she had made a horrible mistake.

  Watching the flames lick up the sides of the shuttle and feeling the temperature rise twenty degrees in twenty seconds, Evelyn realized she didn’t much prefer the view from the cockpit to the one in the locker.

  She gripped the armrests, trying to breath, her chest constricting. The air-cooling system did little to give her any sense of comfort that the shuttle wouldn’t light up like a dry leaf in a bonfire.

  Evelyn watched as the nose of the shuttle punched through the clouds, and then felt her bowels go weak as she watched the southern Atlantic Ocean race toward her. The shuttle’s engines kicked in to level the craft, and Evelyn nearly vomited as the shuttle rocked and slid, like it was skidding across a lake of ice. The rockets fired, the shuttle’s computer trying to turn a thousand miles per hour of free fall into horizontal flight. In a split second, the g-forces of the change pushed enough blood out of Evelyn’s head that she felt her vision grow black as her brain struggled for oxygen.