The Gemini Effect

by Scott Jarol

  Everybody turned to look. No more than 10 feet separated Ezekiel from Zeke. His mother’s legs buckled. Margaux caught her before she collapsed and eased her down to her knees.

  Nate looked up at Zeke, then at Ezekiel, and then again at Zeke. “Okay, that’s weird. I mean, weirder.”

  Ezekiel’s mother lifted her head and called out. “David, what have you done? How could you let this happen again?”

  Doc replied without taking his eyes off Ezekiel. “I’m sorry, Sarah, it was an accident. It wasn’t meant for Zeke.”

  Ezekiel and Zeke looked past Doc to study each other in the light of sparking void.

  “Why are you helping him?” Ezekiel asked Zeke.

  “Because he asked me to,” said Zeke.

  “You guys look exactly the same,” Nate said. Nate walked up the first staircase. Not watching his own step, he stumbled and grabbed the railing as he squinted at Zeke and Ezekiel. “I think you may be twins. Separated at birth?”

  Ezekiel’s mother pulled Margaux closer for support and comfort. “I was there,” she said. “I know I may seem a little odd at times, but I’m absolutely sure I never gave birth to twins.”

  “Indeed you did not,” interrupted Dr. Willis. “I’m afraid it’s not that simple. Perhaps Dr. Freeman can explain.”

  Ezekiel’s face burned. He felt the blood rising. “Don’t you know what he did?” Ezekiel asked Zeke.

  “It was an accident,” said Zeke.

  Ezekiel snapped his attention toward Doc, seething. “First my father, and now me. You tried to get rid of us both.”

  He charged and tried to power past Doc, but Doc captured him in his bulky arms. As Doc’s scarred left hand pulled against his chest, rage blazed through him. He threw his elbows backward, trying to break free.

  “I know what he’s told you,” said Doc. “Don’t do it.”

  “Let me go.”

  “Doc,” shouted Margaux. She crushed her eyelids shut, bracing herself. “You said they couldn’t get close to each other.”

  “As long as they don’t touch each other, we’re safe.”

  “And if they do?” asked Nate.

  “Bad things,” chorused Doc and Margaux.

  Doc tightened his grip. “That’s exactly why we need Zeke back in one body. Multiply a fly by the mass of a full-sized boy—one accidental bump and it’s doomsday.”

  Ezekiel could hardly breathe.

  “Willis,” Doc said, “I’ll give you what you want, but not until I put things right. Once Zeke is back in one piece, I’ll use my own mass to close the void.”

  Ezekiel’s mother had been holding her breath. “David,” she gasped finally, her voice shaking, “you can’t put Zekie in there. What will happen to him?”

  Ezekiel resented Doc for all the suffering he’d caused his mother. He wasn’t about to let him do it again.

  “I’m sorry, Sarah,” said Doc. “It’s the only choice.”

  Ezekiel heard the hard soles of Dr. Willis’s shoes clanging on the steel walkway as he circled around and stopped well behind him.

  “Your proposition seems only fair,” said Dr. Willis to Doc. “Perhaps, in a way, it pays the debt owed to this boy’s father.”

  Powered by the energy of the particle beams, the rising corona flared over the void’s entire surface, like a sheet of blue flame.

  “It’s nearly time,” Doc said to the boy standing behind him.

  Ezekiel stared over Doc’s shoulder into the complacent eyes of his other smiling self and understood what Willis was offering.

  “You can’t help it, can you?” said Ezekiel. “You’re so stupid.”

  Doc began wrestling him closer to the corona. “This is for your own good, Ezekiel.”

  “You mean for your own good, You stole everything from my father, and now you want what’s left.”

  Doc shook his head. “I know what you’re thinking. At first you’ll be happy, free from the things you hate most about yourself.” Doc’s breath hit the back of his neck.

  “What would you know?”

  “Cut out the bad stuff. Keep the best parts. It’s a bad scene, man. Everything’s connected, even inside you. If you cut out your heart, your brain, your liver, you die. It’s the same for your soul. The parts add up.”

  “Don’t the fittest survive? I don’t need him. He’s just weak and useless.”

  Doc whispered into his ear so his mother wouldn’t hear. “I know what you’re thinking. There is no guarantee you will survive. What does it mean to kill half a person? Do you know? Does Willis?”

  Doc must be trying to confuse him. “And what if it does work?”

  “I can’t let you become a monster.”

  “Maybe you’re the monster.” Ezekiel squirmed, trying to break free.

  “I get it. Everyone wants something from you—your mother, Cynthia, the Chairman, Willis. You can hardly breathe. You’re tired of being pushed around.”

  “I don’t need your sympathy.”

  “It’s not all about you.”

  “At least I’m not a murderer.”

  “Not yet,” said Doc.

  With one last elbow to Doc’s gut, Ezekiel twisted out of Doc’s bear grip. He had to get as far from Doc as possible. He had no intention of playing guinea pig to more of the man’s experiments.

  “Ezekiel, I knew your father—and yes, I was there.”

  Ezekiel turned back and locked eyes with Doc, as if probing his soul for the truth. If Doc had wanted his attention, he’d gotten it. “It’s true, then. You killed him.”

  “It was an accident. Bad math.”

  This was all Ezekiel needed to hear. The rage that had been smoldering in him since Willis had recounted the story of his father’s death flared up. He ached to lunge at Doc and shove him over the railing into the void, but couldn’t give Doc another chance to grab him and toss him in first along with that freak he’d cooked up.

  “Ezekiel, I know this scene is a drag, but you must trust me,” said Doc.

  Trust? Before Ezekiel could find his own words, Dr. Willis responded for him.

  “I’m afraid you’ll need a more convincing argument than trust,” said Dr. Willis. “You’ve betrayed this boy more than once. Ezekiel, you are an unfortunate victim of Dr. Freeman’s reckless stupidity. Through no fault of your own, you’ve become an alien in your own universe.”

  Ezekiel turned to face Dr. Willis, whose disabled eyes, masked by opaque glasses, offered no guidance or acknowledgment. “This is really why you brought me here.”

  “I can only show you possibilities,” said Dr. Willis. “You must choose for yourself, and you must do so promptly. In a matter of minutes, this facility will be fully operational. Once Dr. Freeman and I close the void, the energy produced in this chamber will be great enough to vaporize those of you still present. I suggest we finish our business and you retreat to safety.”

  What should he believe? Who should he trust? He turned and watched Doc place his hand on Zeke’s shoulder, positioning him at the railing as if he were posing him for a photo. Down below, his mother buried her face in Margaux’s shoulder. Schrödinger seated himself at their feet.

  The beams continued to bombard the void with high-energy protons, which disintegrated at the boundaries. Trapped by the QuARC, their remnants escaped annihilation, captured in a bubble between reality and nothingness. As Doc had calculated, when enough particles had accumulated, the corona expanded around the void.

  “It’s now or never,” Doc announced.

  Ezekiel remained rooted facing his doppelgänger. Were he and Zeke really parts of a single being? Dr. Willis was a real scientist, the genius behind Triton. Everyone seemed to fear him, but only because he was so fiercely brilliant he couldn’t tolerate mental weakness. Had Dr. Willis meant that Doc’s mistake could free Ezekiel to strip away his own weakness, the part of himself that slaved to profit the Chairman, that suffered Cynthia’s scheming, and—worst of all—that accepted Doc’s blood- and guilt-tainted friendsh
ip? Or would destroying Zeke make him less human? Would he lose as much as, or more, than he gained?

  “Hey, the tingling quit,” Ezekiel heard Nate say. Suddenly conscious again of his own skin, he realized the high frequency electrical field had vanished.

  The QuARC had failed.

  Chapter 32

  Triton Core, North Star Laboratory

  Ezekiel leaned as far over the railing as he dared to see what had happened to the QuARC, when he spotted Cynthia crawling out from under the void on her hands and knees.

  “Cynthia, stop!” Doc shouted.

  “I’m not going anywhere without this thingy,” said Cynthia.

  Ezekiel clenched his teeth and went after her, pushing past Dr. Willis and practically tripping his way down the stairs two and three at a time.

  Cynthia was dragging the QuARC by its wires like a pull toy. It bounced and clanged against the steel platform. Before Ezekiel could thread his way through the beams to reach her, she had stepped over one of the beams that angled up through an opening in the floor, hoisted the QuARC over, and ducked under the next one, retreating to a spot against the wall near the exit. She held the QuARC in her arms.

  “Sorry I can’t stay,” she said. “The Chairman is waiting for this.”

  “Well, Freeman, I’m afraid we may need to consider a change of plan,” said Dr. Willis ominously.

  Once again unconstrained by the QuARC’s protective field, the void flashed and then swelled a few more inches, pressing out on them and thinning the remaining shell of safe space between itself and the outer walls.

  Cynthia had become trapped in a cone-shaped cage of particle beams. As the void continued to expand, Ezekiel edged toward her, clinging to the wall. It would be no problem to get the QuARC away from her.

  “This is so inconvenient right now,” she said.

  “Cynthia,” Doc called. “Stand still.”

  Cynthia pressed herself against the wall. “Okay okay okay. I’m getting a teeny bit scared now.” She plopped the QuARC down at her feet with a clang. “And look at me. My coat is all gross. I hope this comes out.” She used one of her gloves as a rag to swipe the dark streaks across the front of her coat. “Is that worse? I think that just makes it worse. I hate this grimy thing.”

  The void lurched an inch closer. Ezekiel saw that she was beginning to panic.

  “Did I do that? Did I make it mad? Help!”

  He stepped over three more beams to get as close to her as possible.

  Ezekiel tried to reach in and grab the QuARC, but his arms were too short to get past the beams. “Pass it through,” he demanded.

  “I know, it should be simple, shouldn’t it? I mean, if I don’t give it back, we’re all going to die. Isn’t that horrible?”

  “I think you should give it back, Cynthia,” called Nate. “It’s not even yours.”

  “Gosh, I hadn’t thought of it that way,” said Cynthia with fear-tinged sarcasm. “I just don’t know if I should. I mean, are you going to just leave me here?”

  “It won’t make any difference if you don’t hand it over,” said Ezekiel. A red rage was building behind his eyes, closing his view of her overly animated face. She was smiling that infuriating, fake smile that meant she was about to make some sort of generous-sounding offer that really served only her own interests.

  “If you get me out of here—right now—I’ll tell Principal Fairchild that all of you are ready to go back to classes. No more mud and stinky cow poop. I think that’s a pretty fair deal.”

  “That would be nice,” said Nate. “Thanks, Cynthia.”

  Ezekiel cringed at Nate’s gullibility. Cynthia had been using him all along, yet he still believed her nonsense.

  “Don’t be so stupid,” he shouted. “She’s not your friend. She’s nothing but a lying brat.”

  Like a commando dodging artillery fire, Margaux left Ezekiel’s mother to join him. He had no idea what she hoped to accomplish. His mother covered her eyes, terrified Margaux might accidentally cross one of the beams.

  Margaux pulled up beside Ezekiel with a final hop over a low-lying beam. “Cynthia, give it back. Now.”

  The void swelled again, boxing Cynthia in so tightly she could no longer move more than a couple of inches in any direction.

  “Unless you give it back,” said Margaux, “none of us are getting out of here. You’re just so super smart,” she said, mocking her again. “I’m sure you can imagine how super icky it will be to have your body sliced away little by little.”

  “Okay,” Cynthia said, finally defeated. “Here’s your stupid cat toy.” She kicked the QuARC under the beams. It tumbled, clanking across the platform and grazing another beam, which sent it spinning it like a top. Schrödinger dove for it, skidding under two beams. He and the QuARC careened off each other, both narrowly missing the void.

  Cynthia tipped backward against the curved wall, sliding down to her backside. The toe of her right boot had passed through one of the beams, slicing it off and hurling it into the void with a silent flash. She crushed her eyelids shut. “My foot. Is it still attached? Anyone?”

  Ezekiel couldn’t take any more. He dropped down on his stomach, gripped Cynthia’s ankle and started to pull her under the beams. She shouted for him to let go.

  “Zekie!” his mother commanded. “You will not harm one hair on that little girl’s head.”

  Ezekiel glared into Cynthia’s eyes, which filled with tears. Behind him, the void consumed the universe millimeter by millimeter. Spiderweb discharges crackled over its surface, the final gasps of disintegrating atoms and dark particles.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Cynthia whimpered.

  “It’s fine,” his mother said to Cynthia. “You’ve done the right thing, dear. Now you must remain calm. We don’t want you to have a more serious accident.”

  His mother was obviously not going to stop acting like a mother.

  “Why not?” he said.

  She gave him a disapproving look. “Zekie, we must never wish bad things upon another person, no matter how horrible she may be.”

  “Thank you?” said Cynthia. “I think?”

  He couldn’t decide if it was worth his mother’s disapproval to teach Cynthia a final lesson.

  “Ezekiel?” prodded his mother.

  He let go of Cynthia’s ankle. He didn’t care what happened to her. They were there for more important reasons, and she was just an annoying distraction.

  He turned away and picked up the QuARC.

  “What now?” he asked in a rough voice.

  “We’re running out of space,” Gary answered. “We’ll have to wire it to the catwalk.”

  “The catwalk isn’t big enough. It won’t pick up enough energy.”

  “The platform is attached to the walls,” said Gary. “They’re full of rebar, a mesh of steel rods inside the concrete. This whole place will work like a satellite dish twenty miles across. That should draw down enough atmospheric charge. Come on.”

  Ezekiel and the others edged up the stairs behind Gary, single file, to the middle catwalk.

  “Hey,” shouted Cynthia after them. “I said I was sorry. You promised to get me out of here.”

  Ezekiel ignored her. Above him, he spotted Doc working out something on his slide rule, while Zeke headed toward the stairs at the back of the chamber. The metallic clang of his descending footsteps gave him away to the others. He had untied Doc’s rope from the railing and carried it, loosely coiled, over his shoulder.

  “Zekie, is that you? What are you doing?” asked his mother, her voice quivering.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” Zeke called from the middle catwalk.

  “Don’t go down there, Zeke,” Doc said. “We’ll find another way.”

  “No time,” said Zeke.

  Behind Ezekiel, Cynthia was trying a new angle to gain sympathy. “How come you’re so mean and the other you is so nice? We could have been partners. I can’t believe I trusted you.”

  They reached the
middle catwalk, and he helped Gary stitch the QuARC’s wire leads through the holes in the floor grid and twist them tight.

  The potent electric current collected by Triton’s enormous steel skeleton surged through the QuARC’s intertwined wire spirals, glowing orange with heat. Gary snatched his hands away, shaking them. “That was no fun.”

  Ezekiel once again felt the tingling sensation caused by the electric field.

  “Look,” Nate said, pointing at Margaux’s rising hair. “I think it’s working.”

  “Bad news!” said Gary, holding up an instrument he’d pulled from his pocket. “It’s passed critical horizon. The resonance field may slow it down, but it’s too late to contain it.”

  “Yes,” said Dr. Willis, “we’ve crossed the Rubicon.”

  The void swelled again, clipping several inches from the inner rim of the middle catwalk, along with the connections to the angled support braces that held it level. The groaning complaints of the weakened steel frame reverberated around the shell of space between the void and the chamber’s walls.

  “Help!” shouted Cynthia.

  Zeke shouted back. “I’m coming, Cynthia!”

  Ezekiel spun around, searching for the source of Zeke’s voice. Zeke had reached the lower catwalk and was testing each step for firmness, as if crossing a frozen lake. At one point, he stepped over a beam slicing through the sagging platform.

  Ezekiel felt his face flush with the heat of anger. Zeke was trying to rescue Cynthia. Only a complete fool would risk his life for a useless brat like Cynthia. Was he really looking at himself? How could he ever go back to being just Zeke?

  Ezekiel silently slipped away from the others.

  “We need to get up top,” he heard Gary say, followed by the clomping of feet as the group headed to the next flight of stairs. Only one flight now remained securely bolted into the wall, and the void had clipped away several inches of that one, along with its safety railing.

  Ezekiel inched further toward his goal. Behind him, eclipsed from view by the void, he heard Margaux frantically asking where he’d gone.

  “Wasn’t he right behind you?” Gary asked. “How far could he have gone?”