Twins

by Francine Pascal

  She’d left him more than eight hours ago. He hadn’t heard one word from her since. He’d run through stacks and stacks of maybes in his head. Maybe she never found her uncle or her father and she’d finally forced herself to skip town. Maybe she found Sam and rescued him and they’d run off together for a life of wild romance on some Caribbean island. Maybe the whole Sam kidnapping was a hoax or a practical joke or something and now she and Sam and her father and her uncle were laughing about the whole thing over a couple of cold ones….

  Each maybe had to be more ludicrous than the last. It had to be crazy enough to keep Ed’s mind occupied; otherwise he would have to consider the most obvious maybe. The maybe he’d been dreading and avoiding for the last three hours. The maybe he had to avoid at all costs. Allowing it to enter his mind would be like voluntarily submitting himself to Chinese water torture. He’d just finally confessed to being completely in love with her—and she’d promised him that she would be back. They still had a conversation to finish. Ed had to believe that Gaia kept every one of her promises. Of course. He knew she did.

  But that thought only served to bring Ed right back to the worst-case scenario.

  Given that Gaia kept all her promises, given that only a sadist would let Ed pour his guts out, then leave him hanging without a word … there was no way her disappearance could have been by choice. None at all.

  By the time he reached the lobby, Ed was drenched in sweat. He practically fell into the elevator, panting until it opened on his floor. Then he dashed to the apartment. He left the key in the lock as he swung open the door.

  “Gaia?” he called out hopefully. “Gaia, are you here?”

  Silence.

  Ed paused in the middle of his living room. She wasn’t here. He had no idea what to do. He should call someone—the cops, Heather, even his parents upstate (wherever the hell they were). But all he could do was stand there in the oppressive and ugly quiet. The apartment had never felt so empty. He’d always loved having the place to himself, but now that Gaia had lived with him for a day, it felt wrong without her. As far as Ed was concerned, it had already become her home, too.

  And he was getting the distinct feeling that she wouldn’t be coming home.

  The most obvious maybe … The thought of it began weighing him down, crushing him toward the floor like excess gravity, causing his shaky legs to ache and nearly buckle from the pressure. All the wishes and fantasies and complicated scenarios faded away. There was really only one thought that remained.

  Just please be alive, he prayed silently.

  He could survive if she didn’t love him the way he loved her. He could survive if she ran off with Sam. He could even somehow survive if he never saw her again. Barely—as long as he knew she was all right. But if Gaia hadn’t survived, then neither could he. It was as simple as that.

  Contradictory Purposes

  WHITE CEILING. BRIGHT LIGHT.

  The room darted in and out of focus like a television on the fritz. As she crept back into consciousness, Gaia tried to gather as many visual details as possible. But she could still only keep her eyes open for a few seconds at a time. Her head was lolling. It felt like it had been filled with rubber cement and left to dry. The need for sleep was more powerful than any other force on earth. She was sitting somewhere….

  Flowered vase. Silver candlestick holders. Medical tray. Latex gloves. The random images weren’t adding up. Moroccan rug. Mahogany desk. Scalpels. Syringes. Two microscopes. Was she in a medical lab or a living room? Or was she still asleep?

  She tried to massage her temples. She couldn’t move her hands. Once again she forced her eyes to flutter open—and even though the dry, stinging retinas begged to be tucked back under the lids, she fought back. Gradually her vision adjusted to the blinding sunlight from the windows behind her. Her paralyzed hands swam into focus. No … they weren’t paralyzed. They were restrained, strapped firmly to the arms of her chair with two buckles. Her feet were restrained, too, ankles bound against the front legs of her chair. She used what little strength she had to try to wrench her wrists free of the restraints, but it was pointless. Her resistance only served to cut off the circulation, turning her flesh different shades of purple and crimson.

  She was trapped.

  Any remotely normal person would be terrified at this point. Strapped down. Vulnerable to anything and everything that Loki had in mind—grotesque genetic experiments, mutilation, torture. She might as well have been blindfolded, given a cigarette, and placed in front of the firing line. She was, for all intents and purposes, dead. Without fear to occupy her mind, however, all Gaia could feel was sickeningly angry. And groggy. And most of all, foolish.

  She’d gathered such a vast wealth of knowledge in her short life. She could match wits with experts on any number of topics—calculus, chaos theory, Eastern European history, molecular biology … but her instincts? Without fear to inform her decisions, her instincts were still those of a goddamn four-year-old. She could have taken on Josh and those goons. She could have taken them all on. Why the hell had she gotten in that car? Why couldn’t she see that it was Loki and not her father? Why—

  The sound of a turning doorknob put her questions on hold.

  Gaia raised her bleary eyes, watching as her uncle stepped quietly into the room, like a concerned father trying not to wake his baby. She wondered for a moment just how deeply deranged he might be. His look of concern was repulsive. But the moment he saw her, his expression shifted. His eyes narrowed. His lips tensed into a livid scowl. He ducked his head back behind the door and spat out some inaudible complaint.

  “Now!” he finished. “Get in here now!”

  Two faceless thugs—as nondescript and familiar as every other she’d encountered—rushed into the room and dropped to their knees directly in front of her.

  “Get them off,” Loki barked. “I never said to use restraints.” He turned to Gaia. “I’m so sorry,” he murmured gently. His ability to completely change his demeanor from one moment to the next was disturbing, fascinating. But this was hardly the time to indulge in a psychological profile. She had to size up the situation and figure a way out of it.

  Her senses were still slightly numb, but she could feel the thugs’ thick, calloused fingers digging into her skin as they tugged at her restraints and unbuckled them. Finally the blood flowed freely through her wrists. Strength surged back into her limbs. Yes, she was coming out of it now—all the while taking mental notes for a potential escape. The men untying her were armed with nine-millimeter pistols. Not a surprise.

  Gaia turned back toward her uncle and studied his eyes suspiciously. She couldn’t help but wonder if Loki hadn’t prearranged this little episode with the restraints. It did, after all , seem to serve Loki’s two very contradictory purposes perfectly. He could present himself as the caring father figure, insisting that they “free” his niece. That would demonstrate his “compassion.” But without ever openly threatening her, he could also send a very clear message: she was free to run, but there was no point in trying to escape.

  emotional lexicon

  She’d begun to feel like a hollow plastic Ping-Pong ball, incessantly bounced, batted, and spicked back and forth between them.

  The Same Phrase

  GAIA FELT LIKE THE ROOM WAS slanting on its axis, her entire perception dipping into a forty-five-degree angle and then snapping back upright like a seesaw. She was ninety-eight percent sure that she was awake, but anything was possible. She needed to sharpen her focus and clear out the cobwebs in her head.

  Her weakness and physical exhaustion were beyond her control, but physical force wasn’t how Loki did most of his damage. It was mental strength she would need if she wanted to survive this unfortunate tête-à-tête. She had to go on the offensive before Loki found some way to psychologically corner her.

  “You’re not making any sense” she croaked, clearing her throat to sound less meek and helpless. “If you want to ‘give me my life back,’
then call off the firing squad and let me go.”

  “Gaia,” Loki began, his voice tinged with rancid sweetness. “You simply don’t understand—”

  “What’s there to understand?” she snapped. A jittery anger was bubbling up from her sternum and taking over. “I understand that any kind of life I had, you’ve stomped out completely. You killed my mother, you tried to kill my father, and now you’ve killed Sam. So exactly what part of my life are you planning to give back?” Her throat was raw and burning. (Maybe it was from straining to raise her voice, or maybe it was just the acid erupting in her stomach and shooting up through her esophagus.)

  “Not me, Gaia,” her uncle insisted, kneeling before her, eye to eye. “I’m not the one who did those things. Loki’s got you completely confused—”

  “No!” Gaia shouted. It came out far more desperate and defensive than she had planned, but she couldn’t possibly endure this game again—the never-ending game of oppositional accusations being hurled back and forth between her father and her uncle. Both had proclaimed their innocence so many times, insisting that the other was the true Loki. She’d begun to feel like a hollow plastic Ping-Pong ball, incessantly bounced, batted, and spiked back and forth between them. But her uncle didn’t seem to understand that the game was over. It had ended in his loft hours earlier.

  “I know now,” she said, trying valiantly to stare him down, hoping she might somehow be able to spit some of that stomach acid directly into his face. “You may have drugged me, but do you think I’ve totally forgotten all of last night?”

  “What are you talking about?” He stared wide-eyed at Gaia as if she were somehow the crazy one in the room.

  “God, don’t you ever stop?” She groaned. “We were all in the same room, Loki. I watched you aim a gun at my father’s face and tell him you wanted him dead. I watched you fire a bullet through Josh Kendall’s head. And somehow Josh isn’t dead. Maybe you want to explain that, too—”

  “You’re so wrong. That boy wasn’t talking to me; he was talking to your father. He worked for your father. And that boy had a gun, Gaia—he was pulling another gun from behind his back. He was going to kill you. I had to shoot him before he shot you. I had no choice.”

  “Stop it,” Gaia insisted, finding the strength in her legs to rise from her chair. She wobbled away from her uncle’s eerily convincing eyes and steadied herself by the window. “I know the truth now. I know it for myself, not from any of the bull the two of you have hurled at me. I know, Loki.”

  “Please don’t call me by that hideous name,” he snapped. He rose to his feet and glared at her. “You don’t know anything.”

  He looked so offended and emotionally wounded, his expression bordered on angry. Gaia turned to the window, shielding her eyes from the harsh sunlight. But she was starting to feel more like herself. Her strength was returning in minuscule increments. Maybe she could at least place herself geographically. Maybe there was a deep enough ledge to climb onto or a fire escape. Maybe they were only a few stories up.

  The sun-blurred landscape shifted into view. She stifled a sigh of disappointment. Not only was there no ledge or fire escape, but she was high above the vast downtown skyline. This room, this apartment or whatever it was, must be at least twenty stories up.

  “I meant every word I said to your father” her uncle continued from behind her as he closed in. “I did want him dead. That is true. Because he’s killed or mangled everything I love. He lives for no other reason than to damage and destroy people. And then he places the blame on me. Can you imagine the kind of anger that has bred in me? Can you imagine the depths of resentment—”

  “Can you imagine how much I want you to shut up?” she interrupted as she dropped her forehead against the hot windowpane.

  Oliver slammed his hand on the window, sending a wicked vibration through her skull and down her spine. She probably would have jumped from the shock of it if shock were part of her emotional lexicon. He clamped his hand on her shoulder and turned her toward him so that they were face-to-face—practically nose-to-nose.

  “Don’t belittle this,” he snapped. “Don’t belittle what he’s done to me. And to your mother, and to Sam Moon. Don’t belittle what he’s done to you.”

  For the slightest millisecond Gaia felt a wave of belief rush over her like a bolt of electricity. His eyes were so unquestionably sincere. But there was no way. There was no way he was telling the truth. She was through listening to either one of them. She reminded herself of that ten times over. You’re half awake. You’re trapped, and you’re at rock bottom here. Close your ears. Ward him off. Keep him away.

  “Move back,” she ordered, staring into his eyes with cold defiance. He seemed confounded by her warning, so she clarified it for him. “Take … a step … back.”

  He stared at her for two full seconds and then honored her request.

  “I know what you’re doing,” she said. “I’ve seen the CD already. I mean, for chrissake, I can see we’re in a medical lab. This must be part two of Clofaze, right?”

  His eyes gave nothing away. His expression was compassionate but blank. Gaia went on, anyway.

  “I know all about your plan,” she said. “Clofaze. My father gave me a copy of the disk. So the way I see it, part one was to capture me. Well, congratulations, you’ve done that brilliantly. So what’s part two? I’m not up on the latest advances in cloning. That’s where your dementia comes in.”

  He gazed at her in silence. A hint of sadness revealed itself in the corners of his eyes.

  “I want to show you something,” he said, walking away from her to the large mahogany desk by the adjacent window. He took a set of small silver keys from his shirt pocket, selecting one and unlocking the roll-top cover of the desk. He pulled out a thick, weathered black binder and flipped it open. “Come here.”

  Gaia stood her ground at the window.

  “Gaia”—he beckoned—“this Clofaze is a total fiction concocted by your father. Now, I could stand here and try to refute all his nonsense and give you the real story, but I know you’re sick to death of hearing us try to convince you what’s true and what’s not. If you want to know the truth, the real truth—it’s right here. In this book. You can stop listening to either one of us, and you can see it for yourself.”

  Gaia glanced at the black binder.

  The book was surely filled with more lies. But she couldn’t fight her curiosity. Of course she wanted to see what was in that binder. Who on this planet wouldn’t? And she realized something, too. The moment he’d opened it, some part of her already believed that whatever was inside it was true.

  All at once Gaia found herself standing next to her uncle at the desk, staring down hungrily at the aging color photos inside. No matter how much she yearned to live in the present moment and focus on the future, she was still far too obsessed with all the unanswered questions from her past. She couldn’t begin to count the number of hours she’d spent staring at that one photograph hanging by the stairs of George Niven’s town house—the picture of her family standing in front of their house in the Berkshires, before her mother had been killed. Before her father had abandoned her. Before her life had turned into … well, this.

  Gaia had stared at that picture so many times, searching the faces of its subjects deeper and deeper until all she could see were the individual grains of the photo. Her photographic memory could recall facts and figures and images impeccably, but feelings? Intentions? Relationships? Those were what she’d always searched for in the picture. Why had her father held her and not her mother? Why did her father’s face seem so kind but somehow—somewhere around the eyes and the forehead—troubled? And why did Gaia seem so oblivious to all those questions, just sitting there, draped in her father’s arms, flashing that oversized, clueless grin?

  “Do you recognize him?” Oliver asked, pointing his finger at the young man’s face in the picture on the right-hand page. “He’s not me, Gaia. I know you know that.”

 
; It was true. She might have trouble telling them apart now, but this picture was from a very long time ago, and her childhood memories of her father’s face were perfect and indelible. She’d gazed at him adoringly way too many times to ever mistake him for anyone else. The man in the picture was her father.

  He was standing with three other far too serious-looking men in white coats, the four of them posed uncomfortably for a picture that appeared to be solely for the purpose of documentation. Gaia became so fascinated with her father’s youthful features, she neglected at first to look farther down on the photo. The four men weren’t alone. They were all hovering over a metal rolling table draped with a large white sterile pad. And curled up on that table, taking up barely a foot and a half of space, was a small baby—no older than six months. Gaia looked at the bottom of the photo, where there were a few words stamped in red ink.

  FILE #74-JL37 PROJECT INTREPID 1983

  Then written by hand in the bottom corner, it read:

  SUBJECT AT FIVE MONTHS, TWENTY DAYS

  “No one in the Agency was supposed to have access to this file,” Oliver said, flipping slowly through the pages and shaking his head with righteous disapproval. “This was a covert operation—cloaked from all the other agents. When I got hold of it and found out what Tom was doing to you … that was my last day at the Agency. I was disillusioned and disgusted. Certainly with the Agency, but most of all with my brother. It was the first time I realized what was happening to him.”

  Gaia could feel a toxic dread building inside her as she flipped quickly through the documents and photos. The first photo might have been of her father, but every other photo was of her—practicing martial arts from her earliest years all the way through her most recent street fights in Washington Square Park. She was too tense and frazzled to focus well on the details of the seemingly endless documents, but the same phrase kept appearing in bold letters within the extensive observations. Again and again she would read it.