As for his menagerie? They can’t copy, and though they don’t go down easy, I’m no longer worried. The millions of me will finish them off. I’ve got all the time in the world.
Milo 53
Bodies litter the room. My own selves know better than to experience death if they can help it, but his golems made no such effort. My doppelganger’s corpse is present, too. He knew there was no safety net if he died. He hung onto life with the desperate sense of preservation common to everyone but me. His new strength left him lesser for it. Somewhere in the chaos, Foolsfire lies battered and bruised. There’s no fight left in him.
My other selves all reach the decision at the same time, of course, and wink out of existence. The blue fog clears. Eli is crumpled at the base of the steps, bloodied and beaten. My other selves must have done a number on him.
I tower over him, feeling, for the first time in my life, that I’ve beaten him.
‘Now it’s just me and you,’ I say.
‘Was it ever?’ Eli spits, bitter words that even now sound strange from his mouth. It comes out as a challenge, but a moment later he kind of collapses, and shrugs. ‘So you win. Time to die, then.’
I blink. ‘Are you crazy? I’m not going to kill you.’
‘Why not? I would have killed you.’
‘Hey, how about that. We’re different people, just like I’ve been trying to tell you. And you’re still my brother. This isn’t like you, though, you’ve always got a back-up plan. What gives?’
Eli looks defeated. Honestly, genuinely defeated.
‘No, there’s no plan. You disappoint me too much for that. I was sure you would unlock your powers yourself, faced with a version of you that could achieve so much more.’
‘Well. You know me. Speaking of which, if I know Ash, she’s on her way back now with the authorities. The Bureau won’t go easy on you, and they’re ready for a fight right now.’
‘I wasn’t in this for myself. They can do their worst.’
‘Whatever.’
Ash burns into view on the stairs behind Eli. Sirens wail and blue and red strobes split the evening night beyond the high factory windows. I look again at Eli.
‘You disappointed me,’ he says, ‘but I think we both know that this isn’t over. Having seen what you’ve seen, you’ll change. Maybe in smaller ways than I’d like, but you won’t forget what happened here. That’s my back-up plan.’
I stare at him, and for the briefest flash of a moment, I actually want to kill him. I want to cut the smug edge from his voice and leave him bleeding out on the ground.
Ash appears by my side. She must’ve seen it in my eyes. As SWAT and undercover Bureau agents breach the room, Ash grabs my hand, and we jump away.
We reappear in the park, at Cloud Gate, the mirrored bulbous sculpture known affectionately as the Bean. The first thing I see is my reflection in it. I recoil, closing my eyes.
‘Thanks for that. That’s just what I needed.’
‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘You usually like this place.’
I open my eyes, and stare into my reflection. ‘Not today.’
I’m quiet for a long time. Finally, Ash says:
‘What’re you thinking?’
‘I’m thinking exactly what Eli wants me to think,’ I reply, idly scratching my ear. ‘I’m thinking people like me and you created this society. The kind of world where my own brother tries to kill me to make a point. Only people like me and you can end it.’
I turn to face her, finding comfort in her familiar expression.
‘I don’t want that responsibility,’ I add, and it comes out sounding so pathetically childish it makes me want to cry.
‘I know,’ Ash says softly.
We’re quiet for a while longer, just looking at each other. Eventually she speaks again.
‘He’d been through hell,’ she says, ‘but you saw a lot of your potential in there. So many skills you could develop. You could stand against them.’
‘After today, you think I want those skills? No way. I’m not Eli, and I’m not who I was under the COG’s power. I refuse to be! I don’t care what happens to me, I’ll forgive myself. But I don’t want to be responsible for anyone else. Whether that’s creating things that aren’t me, or fighting the system and causing harm to innocent people.’
‘In the end, the COG will come for us all. You’ve got to do something.’
‘Something?’ I smile weakly at her, not even convincing myself. ‘I can do everything, all at once.’
‘But seriously, Milo. You need a plan.’
There’s a growing numbness in my legs, like my brain has decided I should never move again. I want to slump to the ground and just stay there. And…I want to be alone, for maybe the first time in my life.
‘I could go all out,’ I manage to reply, ‘Use my powers in the most amazing ways I can imagine, but what do I become, then? I’ll lose who I am along the way, just like my copy in there. Could you do that?’
I realise what I’ve said and who I’ve said it to just a second too late to stop myself.
‘Yes,’ she says. She blinks, rubs her forehead. She can’t remember how we got to this point. She made four jumps just getting us out of there, and the burn is still chewing through her memory. ‘If it was for a good reason, yes I would.’ For all the moments for her memory to fail, it’s the one that most twists the knife.
I turn away, unable to look at my own cowardice reflected in her eyes. I incarnate a street away, casual, without expense of effort and know that for all my power, for all my ability to be born and die and arise again, for all the many potential millions of me, I’m ultimately powerless. Just quantity without the quality.
I think again of Eli, of what he said about the warning signs before the COG takes someone. I think of Ash’s illness. But hey, for all I know, Eli was bluffing that night. Bastard was probably just improvving a cover story for poisoning me. It seems so crazy, even now, talking about Eli like that. Almost like I’m talking about someone else.
He did it, though. My own brother tried to kill me.
‘C’mon,’ Ash says into the silence. ‘Things used to be a lot better than this. We used to make a difference.’
She’s right, you know. Remind me to tell you about it someday. But she’s right. Even Eli had a point. Hell, he always does. That’s my brother. He always did the morality lectures, when I was younger I never even had time to listen. But that was then, this is now, and I remember how it felt when we watched Silver Lake city torn apart, brick by brick. We may have failed that time, but I remember how it felt to stop things like from happening.
‘Just…give me some time.’
‘I’ll do something without you,’ she says quickly. ‘Even if you decide not to do anything. I can’t live like this any more.’
‘Then I guess I’ll see you around,’ I say.
‘Not if I see you first,’ she replies. I can hear the soft smile in her voice.
But hey. That’s a whole other story.
END
About the Author
Daniel Masterson is a full-time procrastinator from the UK, forever in danger of actually writing something. Some day, it is to be hoped, he'll stop scribbling and write for real. In the meantime, he hopes you enjoyed this sample of his brain and would be most grateful if you could take the time to leave a review at your chosen retailer.
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The Millions of Me Page 6