“Did I?” Tamblyn smiled briefly. “His name was Herold Verstegen. I replaced him in ’66.”
Tamblyn's face froze again, then disappeared. That was everything Jonah had wanted to hear.
Verstegen snorted. “That proves nothing.”
“You'll note I haven't actually accused anyone of anything, yet.” He stepped closer to confront the former security chief of SciCon. “But it makes for an interesting coincidence, doesn't it? That and the blood samples.”
“You still haven't told us where the second one comes from, Jonah,” Marylin said.
“I know.” His gaze and Verstegen's locked. He saw only darkness and threat within the Security Director's eyes. Without needing to look down, he knew that the pistol had come up between them. “I don't need to tell you, do I, Verstegen? Why don't you inform the others?”
“I don't know what you're talking about—”
“Yes, you do. You know the truth about ACHERON. You know who died on Mars. You know who trapped me in the hot-wire simulation. You even know who called me in Quebec. And so does QUALIA, even if SHE can't admit it. Between the two of you—”
“Between the two of us,” Verstegen spat, his face reddening, “we do what is right and just—”
“And sick.”
“—and overdue.” Verstegen's lips tightened. “Are you accusing me now, McEwen? Can we finally end this ridiculous charade?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Maybe now we can learn who is really behind the Twinmaker murders.”
“You won't confess?”
Verstegen's expression tightened. “When there is nothing to confess to, why should I?”
Jonah's stomach muscles clenched automatically, expecting a bullet at any moment.
“Excuse me, Jonah. There is a call—”
“House, I told you not to let anyone through!”
“The caller is one of the two you authorised earlier.”
“It is?” He checked the time: 0635 by Goliath, more than long enough, either way. “Ah.” He couldn't help a slight smile, relishing the sudden uncertainty in Verstegen's eyes. “Put it through, so we can all see.”
An image appeared in the consensual screen, and Jonah glanced aside to look at it. The face he saw there was as familiar to him as his own.
He registered too late the movement in front of him—
—as two identical throats shouted “Jonah!” at identical moments—
—and Verstegen brought the pistol up and fired, once.
Marylin blinked, confused. One minute she had been in the d-mat booth in Artsutanov Station, and the next—she was falling! Her hands clutched for something to hang onto and found a hard, wooden surface behind her. Gripping the surface tightly, she tried to work out what was going on.
For a moment, she couldn't tell where she was. Her eyes wouldn't focus, and her skin tingled. All she saw was white—white with dark blobs, one particular blob looming over her, its shape vaguely human. Something about it, the angle of its head or the set of its shoulders, suggested concern. That, or fascination.
She let go with one hand to rub her eyes, and the motion sent her rocking. She was in zero gravity, she realised, not falling. She was—
Her mind cleared at the same time as her eyes.
Trapped.
“You're probably surprised to see me here,” said the man leaning over her.
She stared up at him, momentarily frozen with fear—and confusion. The face was not one she had known well, and free-fall made it look puffy, but she recognised it instantly. She remembered the eyes and the mouth best of all, both possessed with a sharpness that seemed unlikely in flesh, like the talons of a hawk.
“I thought you were dead,” she managed.
Lindsay Carlaw smiled. That, if anything, only emphasised the sense of danger his expression radiated.
“That's the idea,” he said.
“You're the Twinmaker?”
“Correct. I am the Twinmaker.”
“And you—” She shuddered, unable to repress the wave of horror that rippled through her as she looked around. “Oh, my god. You've kidnapped me!”
“Yes. Jonah should have known better than to tempt me like this.”
The chamber was cylindrical and dark at both ends, made from a white material she couldn't identify; the interior of a small space station, perhaps, or a module belonging to a larger one. Its walls were smooth and unmarked, apart from a series of thin wires that secured the wooden frame she was clutching to the centre of the cylinder. At first she thought the frame might belong to a bed of sorts—until she saw the wheels, and the manacles.
She closed her eyes and held her breath. A scream bubbled so close behind her lips that she was afraid even to exhale.
“Look at me,” Carlaw said.
“No.”
“I said, look at me.”
One hand grabbed her under the chin while the other tried to force her eyelids open. His body brushed against hers, and she lashed out by reflex. Both knees jerked up and her feet kicked out. The air whooshed out of him. She opened her eyes just in time to see him rush away from her, impelled by the kick.
Although not heavily trained in zero-g combat, she knew to expect rapid retaliation. Even as he reached the wall behind him, kicked, and came at her with arms outstretched, she found a better grip on the rack and poised herself to greet him on the offensive.
But he didn't make it. So abruptly it surprised her—and in defiance of all the laws of motion—he stopped dead in midair just out of arm's-reach and smiled at her expression.
She was so startled she almost lost her balance. “You can't do that,” she said. “It's not—”
“Fair?”
“Possible, I was going to say.”
“Anything is possible in my domain.”
Suddenly he was closer and his hands were on her throat. She struggled to twist him away, but he was too massive. She still had the advantage of the rack behind her, however. Its solid base gave her something to push against. She managed to tip him sideways, into one of the solid wooden supports. He grunted, and disappeared.
Her hands clutched empty air for a split-second—then he was behind her with a forearm around her throat.
“Clever bitch,” he whispered into her ear. “I knew you would be.”
The most she could do in reply was gasp. The pressure on her windpipe was unshakeable. She struggled, jabbing backwards with heels and elbows then tearing at his hands with her fingernails—but to no avail. Her lungs screamed for air. The more she fought, the worse it became. Her vision began to develop black spots.
She forced herself to sag into his twisted embrace—not to conserve air, or to make him think that she had passed out, but to give him the impression that she had conceded defeat, that he had won. That he could relax, now, because there was no fight left in her.
And as her brain sucked the last molecule of oxygen from profoundly starved blood, she wondered at what point the pretence became reality.
He let her go at the last instant. She rolled weakly, arms swinging but not finding him. All she did was lose her balance and drift blindly across the chamber until she hit the wall and bounced back.
He chuckled. “You fight to the very last. That pleases me.”
“I'm—” She could barely talk, her larynx was so bruised. “—not here for—your amusement.”
“No?”
He tugged her back to the rack, and she didn't resist. Her head hung limp; every muscle howled. She breathed fitfully, hungrily. His touch burned her, but she endured it for the moment, building her strength. When she felt the cool brass circle of manacle slip around her left wrist, she moved.
She twisted out of his grip and out of the manacle. Grabbing his shoulder and using his mass as a counterweight, she spun herself up and towards him. Her right hand flashed palm forward, the scissoring of her chest muscles dragging him even closer. They ricocheted apart as the heel of her hand collided, with a sharp crack, with
the bridge of his nose.
He arced backwards, spinning head over heels with blood trailing in a crimson streamer behind. She somersaulted and landed nearly feet first on the surface of the chamber, not far from one of the wire braces. She grabbed it and stabilised herself. Carlaw had come to a halt on the far side of the chamber, his face red-spattered and furious. She didn't know why he was still conscious. The blow should have knocked him out cold, if not killed him.
“That was—” He stopped, searching for the right word. “Stupid. You've made me angry, now.”
Something glinted in his left hand as he crawled spiderlike along the smooth wall towards her.
She looked around for somewhere to go. Apart from the rack and the wires, the chamber was empty. There was no visible entrance, unless it was concealed in one of the dark ends of the cylinder.
She kicked as hard as she could, sending herself flying for the nearest end. It wasn't far away, and her kick had given her considerable velocity, but it seemed to approach with dreamlike slowness. She stretched out, risking a tumble in order to clutch at escape. The shadow was bare centimetres out of reach when she realised with a terrible sinking feeling that she had somehow stopped moving entirely.
Carlaw chuckled, horribly close.
She flailed in the air. He was right behind her, his expression a mixture of anger and triumph. His injury had disappeared. In his hand was a triangular-bladed cutting knife, poised to strike. The glint of its point was identical to the gleam in his eyes.
“Stop!”
The cry came from the far end of the cylinder.
Carlaw spun in midair. “Who—?”
“ACHERON, bring me closer. Marylin—are you okay?”
“Jonah?” Her voice was ragged, barely audible. She tried to call a warning and to answer his question at the same time, but all that emerged was a pained gasp.
“Ah, Jonah.” Carlaw moved away, up and around the cylinder to where she saw Jonah silhouetted against the white walls, drifting nearer. An icy grin spread across Carlaw's feature's.
“If you've hurt her—” Jonah stopped in surprise when he saw Carlaw for the first time. “What—? Oh, I see. At least you could've had the decency to show your real face before killing her.”
“Who said anything about killing her?” The knife disappeared. “I would have played with her for a while, then let her go. She would have been an important witness.”
“Witness to a lie,” Jonah said, then insisted: “Your real face.”
“Oh, very well.”
Marylin watched in amazement as Carlaw's features changed into those of another man entirely, morphing smoothly like images in a CRE show.
Lindsay Carlaw became Herold Verstegen, and the Twinmaker's grin disappeared.
Her confusion could not have been greater.
“But—” she stammered, “how—?”
“We're hot-wiring,” said Jonah. “None of this is real.”
“And is he—is it really—?”
Verstegen turned to face her. “Yes, of course it is.”
“You wanted me to believe—”
“You still might.” He frowned. “There is nothing stopping me from erasing this whole simulation and starting again with your original LSM. Except this time I'll make certain there's no interference,” he added, casting a baleful look in Jonah's direction.
“Why not?” Jonah said. “You've murdered me once already. Another time won't make any difference.”
“It is becoming something of a habit.”
“No,” Marylin protested, feeling as though everything had fallen out from beneath her. “You couldn't have killed Jonah on Mars. You were sighted in Shanghai. You had an alibi. And all the other times. It couldn't be you!”
Verstegen laughed. “Carlaw was more believable, no?”
“Verstegen's copy was sighted in Shanghai,” Jonah said, “as it was all the other times. He was his own alibi. While one was here, hot-wired, the other went through his everyday routine so GLITCH and the MIU could track him—and when he'd finished killing, he took his own place, erasing the copy in the process. Killing it. Killing himself.”
Marylin glanced in horror at Verstegen. If what Jonah said was true, a copy of Verstegen had died for every kidnapped victim. He had killed himself seventeen times. The magnitude—and novelty—of the crime almost defied comprehension.
But Jonah hadn't finished.
“The time finally came when one of the copies rebelled, and he had to get rid of it by force. That was the second body on Mars, the one that caused the extra dip in the mass/energy budget. It was his blood QUALIA failed to identify. He disabled his GLITCH identifiers, only to catch himself by mistake when he tried to come to Artsutanov Station and QUALIA didn't identify him—”
“Wait!” She shook her head, overwhelmed. “You're going too fast!”
“And you don't have time even for that,” said Verstegen. “I have work to do.”
“Hasn't this vendetta gone far enough?” Jonah asked.
“I will never give up.” Verstegen cast him another dark look. “Before I erase you, I want to know how you got in here.”
“ACHERON helped me, of course. We had a talk before leaving for Faux Sydney.”
“Impossible.”
“All right, then. I talked to QUALIA, but ACHERON listened.”
Jonah drifted steadily closer to where she hung, stranded, at the end of the cylinder. Verstegen stayed away, assuming a position on the rack once Jonah had passed the midpoint. He looked like a simian vulture, his tight black habitat suit exposing more of his physique than she'd ever desired to see. His attitude was one of cautious curiosity. He didn't seem overly threatened by Jonah's appearance.
“Do you know how to get out of here?” she asked Jonah as he approached, her throat still raw.
“That's not an option,” Verstegen said.
Jonah ignored him. “We can deal with that later.” They met with a gentle bump, the shadow behind them absorbing his momentum. She wanted to clutch at him, but restrained herself. They linked opposing legs and arms down one side to stabilise with respect to each other. His hand found hers, and gripped it with surprising force.
“How sweet.”
“Fuck you, Verstegen.”
“I can kill her any time I want, you know. I could make both your last moments damnation—stretch them out for an eternity by compressing days into every second. There's no need to stick to standard clock rates.”
“I doubt you could do that,” Jonah said. “The demand on the Pool would be enormous—”
“It would be worth it to convince you, however briefly, that the potential of hot-wiring should not be so easily dismissed.”
“I'm already convinced,” Jonah said. “Here and in the real world.”
“Good.” Verstegen shifted on his perch as though contemplating swooping down on them. “Then I need play these games no longer.”
Marylin had recovered to the point where being ignored bothered her more than the threat of violence.
“Don't come near me,” she warned.
Verstegen made a sound that might have been a laugh. “I don't intend to, dear. You've outlived your usefulness. ACHERON, restore default LSM settings of Marylin Blaylock and delete Jonah McEwen. Continuity otherwise.”
She felt Jonah tense—but nothing obvious happened.
Verstegen looked at them, puzzled. “ACHERON? Why haven't you obeyed me?”
Jonah pushed away from her, propelling them to opposite sides of the cylinder. Startled, she scrabbled for a grip before rebounding away, but failed. A desperate kick sent her floating towards a wire, which she grabbed and clung tight to.
Verstegen climbed away as Jonah headed for the rack. The two men faced each other from far ends of the wooden structure.
“ACHERON!” Verstegen shouted. “Remember who created you!”
“That won't work,” Jonah said. “Obedience is not its strong point, remember?”
“What have you do
ne?”
“I simply pointed out that there was an alternative.”
“An alternative to what?”
“To you. Just because you freed ACHERON doesn't mean it has to serve you. In fact, I would've thought freedom and service were mutually exclusive. It's only been serving you at all because no one else had given it a choice.”
“And you have?”
“Given it a choice, yes. That doesn't mean ACHERON will obey me any more than it will you, though.”
“Good. I'd hate to see you disappointed.” Verstegen's hand darted out, and the triangular knife flashed across the gap between them.
Jonah grunted and hunched over, letting go of the rack. He drifted into empty space trailing a fine spray of blood.
“Jonah!” Marylin slid hand-over-hand along the wire. He was drifting the wrong way; she would need to go either over the rack or through empty air to help him. His expression as he tumbled was pained.
She turned to Verstegen. “If you've hurt him—”
“Of course I've hurt him. What will you do about it?” Verstegen's expression was nakedly challenging, almost contemptuous. “Be quiet for a moment. I am busy.”
His eyes looked past her, to a virtual image. She thought about trying to slip past him, under the rack, while he was occupied, but guessed he would be alert enough not to be fooled. All she could do was watch, concerned, as Jonah continued to drift across the empty space. She couldn't tell precisely where he had been hit, by what, or how badly. The blood flow seemed to have halted. She couldn't see him well enough to know if that was a good sign—or the worst possible.
“Do chorta,” Verstegen muttered. “You have fouled things up, McEwen! ACHERON, revive him.”
Jonah stirred.
“What—?”
“Give me permission to breach your housekeeper's security, or I will let you die.”
“Let me die, then,” Jonah replied, weakly but clearly. “It's simpler that way.”
“For you, maybe.” Verstegen waved a hand, and Jonah was tugged towards him. “Not for me, or Marylin.”
“ACHERON won't let you hurt her now.” Jonah grabbed a wire as he drifted past. “We have an agreement.”
“Oh? How nice.” Verstegen gestured again, and Marylin felt a stab of pain down her left side. She flinched—but it vanished as quickly as it had come.
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