Doppelganger Girl

by T. R. Woodman

  But it did as soon as she looked up to see Tate looking over her shoulder, a wrinkled brow and the start of a frown forming.

  “What?” Evelyn asked quickly. “What’s the matter?”

  “I think I just saw a couple of NCG rangers.”

  Evelyn remembered what Ollie had told her about the NCG and how brutal they could be. She whipped her head around to see where Tate was looking and then quickly turned back to him.

  “Are we okay?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied, and then shifted his glance back to her. “You know about the NCG?”

  “Not really, but I heard they aren’t guys you want to mess with.”

  Tate’s eyes opened wide. “That’s an understatement,” he added, grabbing her hand and staring into her eyes with a cold enough expression to send chills up her spine. “Listen to me carefully, Evie. If you ever see those guys—even if you just think they’re around—you need to leave. We—you and me,” he added, toggling his hand between them, “but you especially—are not safe when those guys are around.

  “I’ll explain more later, but right now, we have to go.”

  Tate stood, grabbed Evelyn’s pack, slung it over his shoulder, grabbed her hand, and started pulling her toward the other side of the market, and a narrow alley at the end.

  “What do you mean, me especially?” she asked.

  “I mean, you’re not safe,” Tate said, obviously paying more attention to where they were going than to what he was saying.

  As they approached the end of the alley, Tate peeked around the corner and down the street. Still having her hand anchored to his, and now to his hip as he pulled her closer, Evelyn took a half step forward to peer around the corner, trying to see the men who had Tate in such a panic.

  Evelyn had imagined she might see a couple of men dressed in fatigues or black battle gear, carrying rifles and wearing helmets or armbands or breastplates emblazoned with some sort of NCG insignia. In retrospect, she realized that was foolish—the product of having seen too many news clippings of combat troops—because what she did see wasn’t even close.

  About twenty yards out, the two men Tate had identified were still walking away. They were dressed similarly in cargo pants—one tan and the other dark brown—and T-shirts—one black and the other a dark green. Both had close-cropped hair, which was short enough to see their scalps around the sides and back, and was slightly longer on top. But neither wore a uniform, and if Tate hadn’t suspected them of being NCG rangers, she wouldn’t have thought anything about them. Except now that she was looking, she could see what it was that tipped Tate off—it wasn’t what they were wearing so much as how they were carrying themselves.

  Evelyn didn’t have to see them up close to know that if it was possible to have negative body fat, these guys were there. Even from twenty yards away, Evelyn could see the muscles in their backs and necks through their T-shirts. It was as if their skin had been stretched too far around their muscles for them to be comfortable, and they walked like it, like they were irritated by it, and even more, like their muscles were so amped and angry that they might spasm at any second and send the men bounding through a brick wall.

  Evelyn stared at them for all of three seconds, and then, as if she had just broken a bone, she felt nauseous. The surge of a horrifying aching shudder ran up her spine. The sensation was so deep and penetrating she almost retched, but quickly whipped her body back into the alley, pressing herself against the hot brick of the wall.

  Evelyn couldn’t think. Her mind was in a complete panic. Horrible thoughts—her worst nightmares—were projecting into her field of view. She couldn’t breathe, and then one word came into her mind. Nanites.

  A second later, she felt a pinch in the back of her mind, she collapsed onto her knees and found Tate kneeling next to her.

  “Evelyn, are you okay!”

  Her mind started to clear. “Nanites,” she said, and then absently she reached up and grabbed the back of Tate’s head, felt the snap of a spark, and heard him groan.

  “What’re you doing?” he said, rubbing the back of his head as she pulled her hand away.

  “Are they gone?” she replied, crawling toward the corner of the wall, shaking her head and sucking in air as if that might help the fog in her mind dissipate.

  She peered around the corner. The men were still standing in the same spot, looking around as if they had heard something, and as the seconds passed, Evelyn could see them getting jittery, like they were expecting to get into a fight and were getting more frustrated that it didn’t happen.

  The one in the green shirt let out a loud grunt and seemed to tighten every muscle in his body as he did. It was then that Evelyn noticed the bulge at the lower back of both men. They were carrying pistols, but hiding them.

  A second later, green shirt shoved black shirt in the shoulder. With reflexes and moves fast enough that Evelyn saw little other than a blur, black shirt rolled his shoulder away and then brought his fist up, punching green shirt in the ribs. It was loud enough that Evelyn could hear it—probably hard enough to have broken the ribs of a normal person. Green shirt grabbed his ribs, danced sideways for a few steps, and laughed.

  The men started walking away, and Evelyn leaned back against the wall, glad there weren’t any other people around other than Tate. Her mind started to clear.

  “Evelyn … answer me. Are you okay?” Tate said, kneeling next to her.

  “Yeah, I think so,” she said, putting her hand to her forehead.

  “Tate, those guys are enhanced with some serious tech. I think they have nanites … like you and me, except theirs are … I don’t know … militant … It’s scary. I picked up on the signal. I don’t know where they got them, or who programmed them, but the signal those nanites are emitting is toxic.

  “I don’t know how they can live with that tech inside them, Tate. That would drive any normal person insane. It’s no wonder those guys just want to fight. Those nanites are pushing them to be on the edge all the time.”

  Evelyn looked up at Tate, realizing she had been rambling. She had a lot of questions, was missing a lot of answers, and she knew most of them weren’t going to help her feel any better.

  “What are they doing here, Tate? If they’re part of a U.S. military group, and this isn’t the U.S. anymore, why are they here?”

  Tate stood and peered around the corner to make sure the men had left. He offered Evelyn his hand, and she stood, a little shaky but feeling better.

  “I don’t know. But it seems like wherever I go, they’re not far behind. It’s why I’ve had to keep moving over the past six years. It doesn’t seem to take more than a few weeks of me being anywhere before I catch sight of guys like them. I thought by coming this far south, I might be rid of them, but it doesn’t look like it.”

  “You don’t suppose they’re still looking for you, do you?” she asked, realizing her shoulders were tensing at the thought.

  Tate looked around the corner again. “Come on,” he said over his shoulder, waving to her, “I think we’re okay, be we can’t stick around here anymore.”

  They walked quickly across the street, dust from the dry day kicking up around their feet. The sun had lazily wandered directly overhead and was beating heat onto every surface. Evelyn felt the dry air draw the moisture out of her breath, and the dust draw it out of her skin as they walked. Maybe if she had been more hydrated, she would have been sweating, but as it was, she could feel the sizzle of the sun frying her shoulders pink through her mostly dry shirt.

  “Stay with me,” Tate said as they quickly ducked between a couple of adobe walls.

  Moments later, the alley opened to a concrete channel that seemed to go on for miles. Evelyn knew it was an open culvert, which would have been used to channel flash flood waters away from the city, though in the moment, as her lungs felt like chalk and she could feel the life drying out of her skin, she wondered in what world such a thing would have ever been necessary.


  Tate stepped quickly down the sloped concrete bank to the open channel below, and Evelyn followed closely. Reaching the bottom, Tate slowed to a walk as Evelyn caught up.

  “It’s hot,” he said, barely having to catch his breath after their run down to the channel, “but nobody’ll come down here in the middle of the day. We should be pretty safe.”

  Evelyn looked back over her shoulder and realized that from their vantage point, they would be able to see someone from miles away, though she wasn’t sure what they would do exactly, or where Tate thought they would go if they saw anyone.

  “You didn’t answer my question, Tate,” she said, having expected him to have said something by now and getting a little irritated by it.

  “What?” he asked, giving her a confused look, which quickly changed as he seemed to pick up the trail of their earlier conversation. “Oh yeah … sorry. Is the government still looking for me?”

  Tate furrowed his brow as they walked quickly.

  “I can’t say for sure,” he started, staring at the ground as they walked, obviously remembering something from his past. “Honestly, I don’t know why they would be. I mean, I know we all escaped from DF-23, which would be reason enough for us to be on the government’s Most Wanted list. But even when we came back to get the kids from the orphanage, nobody knew that I stayed behind.”

  Evelyn absently kicked a sludge-covered rock with the tip of her shoe and watched it skip into the stagnant iridescent green water in the center of the culvert. Her mind was going over the events of that morning years ago, and Tate was right. Marcus had been shot in the back trying to get Jane, Joseph, and two of the youngest girls out of the orphanage and onto the shuttle. But just before all the shooting had started, when Tate thought everyone was going to make it safe, he had bolted into the forest. He’d stayed behind because some of his kids from the orphanage were lost, and he knew he couldn’t leave them behind. Evelyn hadn’t seen him leave—she had been trying to stuff a hose in Marcus’s lung to keep him from drowning in his own blood—but she didn’t see how it would have been possible at that early hour for anyone to have seen.

  “It seems strange, doesn’t it? As far as anyone knew, you were with us on the shuttle or on Vista, and when we activated the Leap Frog and left, there is no reason why they should have thought you were anywhere else. The government might have reported to the public that Vista was destroyed and all of its inhabitants killed, but they must have known the truth … that all of us escaped, including you.”

  “Right. I tried to go back to the orphanage later, but the soldiers were all over Ironhead. Eventually, I found my boys from the orphanage, and they were safe. They were staying with one of their older brothers on the streets, but I couldn’t take care of them any longer, with no place to stay, and I couldn’t bring them with me. I didn’t want to bring trouble on anyone in Ironhead, and I didn’t want to give the authorities a reason to look for me, so I left town.

  “I tried to maintain my life as a priest, but everywhere I went, when I found a church and a community of religious, it didn’t take long for the rangers to show. After a few times of seeing them appear, I began to suspect that I had something to do with them showing up. I couldn’t stand the thought of people getting hurt because of me, so I left the priesthood behind, and I have been wandering ever since.”

  Evelyn was stunned. Walking in the dirt with a black T-shirt and jeans and a long day’s worth of stubble on his face, Tate didn’t look any more like a Catholic priest than she did, but she could hardly remember a time when he wasn’t one. “But being a priest is all you ever wanted to do, Tate. You just walked away from it?”

  Tate smiled at her. “In a manner of speaking, yes. I left the order, and the routine I had, and I don’t celebrate Mass or pastor a church as I did. But I am still a man of God, Evie. I still keep my vows of poverty and chastity, and I am still in service to Him … I go where He leads me.”

  “And He’s leading you down a filthy spillway in hundred-and-ten-degree heat?” Evelyn asked, a smirk running across her lips. “What do you suppose He has in mind, Tate?”

  Tate laughed and put his arm around her. For a moment, Evelyn appreciated the fact that her shoulders were getting a break from the blistering heat.

  “Well, I don’t know. He doesn’t tell me all that much about what His plans are, so I have to wing it a little … but I suspect I may have overstayed my welcome again. I just need to collect a few of my things.”

  Wherever they were headed, Evelyn still couldn’t see any buildings ahead to give her a sense as to how far they had to travel, but they had wandered to the opposite side of the spillway, which had some shade from trees overgrown at the top of the culvert. It was still hot enough that the waves of heat rising off the concrete were making it look like it was simmering, but at least the direct heat of the broiler overhead was blocked.

  “Before I forget, I need to tell you something about those rangers, Tate.”

  Tate glanced at her briefly. “Okay.”

  “I could sense them, and I’m almost sure they could sense us too. I don’t know that they realized it, but I think that’s why they stopped in the street, and maybe that’s why they keep showing up where you are … Maybe they are tracking you or drawn to you somehow. But that might also explain why you’ve been able to stay one step ahead of them too … you sense when they’re around.”

  “Well, that’s good to know,” Tate said, an unsure smile creeping across his face.

  “Yes, but you won’t be able to do that anymore. I shut down the receivers in my nanites without thinking. It was terrifying feeling the rage in their bodies. I shut off yours too. If they were homing in on you because of the beacon in your nanites, they won’t be able to do it anymore, but you may not be able to sense them anymore either.”

  Evelyn looked back at Tate. The furrowed brow had returned, and he seemed deep in thought.

  “I just wanted you to know … I didn’t mean to worry you.”

  The flash of a smile flickered across Tate’s lips and in his icy-blue eyes—the same eyes Jane had also had. For a moment, Evelyn felt a lump in her throat at the thought she could also lose Tate if those NCG goons ever caught him.

  “No, Evie, you didn’t worry me. I was just wondering about something else.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Why?”

  “Why are they looking for you?”

  “No … why did God bring you back here to me?”

  DECEIVED

  Tate was right about there not being anyone, other than themselves, stupid enough to walk in the open during the heat of the day. For thirty minutes, they walked and nearly finished all the water Evelyn had packed, and it wasn’t until they reached a low adobe building with a makeshift sheet-metal roof that Evelyn had any sign of where they were headed.

  Mission San Antonio, it read in faded red paint along one long side. As they climbed the crumbling concrete steps out of the culvert, Evelyn couldn’t help but shake her head and laugh.

  “What?” Tate asked, taking her hand to help her over a concrete barrier inconveniently situated at the top of the steps.

  “I just can’t get over how things seem to be working out.”

  “How so?”

  Not sure her choices were going to meet with big brother’s approval, Evelyn gave Tate a sidelong glance. “I hitched a ride to get here,” she said. As his eyebrows raised and before he could open his mouth, Evelyn went on. “They were really nice, Tate, don’t worry. Three brothers and their sister. I rode with Ollie and Tillie in the bed of their truck, and they dropped me off near the market where I found you. Ollie didn’t like the idea of leaving me alone in the city—”

  “Oh, he didn’t?” Tate interrupted, his disapproving eyebrow cocked in her direction.

  “No, he didn’t. He was very gentlemanly … a little rough around the edges, but a really nice guy.”

  “Hmm,” Tate replied, not releasing his suspended brow. “Sounds like you have
more than one admirer, Evie.”

  Evelyn blushed. She knew it was probably self-imposed, but she couldn’t help but feel like she had a spotlight trained on her as she was being scrutinized by her priestly brother. “Yeah—well—maybe,” she stammered. “But I told him—them—I told them that I’d meet them down here at the mission before dark.”

  “Well, maybe they aren’t all that bad,” Tate said as the hint of a smirk edged its way across his lips. “If they were coming down to the mission, I’ll wait before I pass judgement on them,” he added.

  Stepping to the door, Tate grabbed the old iron handle, and Evelyn couldn’t help but flinch, sure it was going to pull right out of the mostly rotted and completely dried wood if he yanked too hard. Much to her disbelief, it held, and she stepped into the cool, dark room.

  It took a moment for Evelyn’s eyes to adjust, but it didn’t take her other senses more than a fraction of a second to know the building was old. The combination of odors from dirt and sweat floated up her nostrils, and weren’t so repulsive as to make her gag but were enough for her to know that bathing wasn’t high on the list of priorities for the people inside. She was also surprised by the lack of noise. Based on just the outlines and shadows, she knew there were dozens of people in the large room, but it was strangely quiet for that number of people.

  For a moment, she felt dizzy, wondering why it felt like she had been in that building before, and then as her mind and eyes steadied, it snapped into focus. The dirt floor. The low ceiling. The rustic nature. It was much larger, but the mission had all the charm and atmosphere—and the smell—of the council building in Philips Landing, and before she had time to stop herself, Evelyn had to unclench her jaw as thoughts of her archnemesis, Councilwoman Vandergaast, clouded her vision.

  Evelyn felt Tate press his hand into the small of her back. “This way, Evie,” he said, leading her toward the side and back of the room.