by Anton Strout
“Really?” Connor asked, a fixed look of skepticism on his face.
I shrugged. “Something like that,” I said. “I’m out of my element there. You’ll have to ask the technomancer.”
The credits were rolling now and Jane was finally able to take her attention away from the screen. She nodded. “It was easy peasy,” she said. “Even without my power, I could have done it.”
“Awesome,” Trent said, agitated. “Can I at least get a popcorn or something?” He leaned forward, looking over at Jane. “Is he a cheap date? He is, isn’t he?”
“Don’t get fresh,” I said, pushing him back into his seat. “I’m not going to get you a popcorn. This isn’t a date.”
Trent looked at me, horrified. “You’re so not my type.”
“What?” I asked him. “Not evil enough for you?”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said. “Just the wrong set of chromosomes. Sorry.” He turned and looked off into the darkened theater. “What if they notice me?”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ve got the situation under control.”
“Oh,” he said, nodding. “Like when you tried to capture them last time? No offense, Mr. Canderous, but I take very little comfort in that.”
“No,” I said. “This time we’ll get them. Your friends know more about the reborn professor than they let on about, maybe even the water woman. Look at it this way—at least you’re not tied up this time. That’s an improvement for you already.”
Trent looked around the half-full theater. “What about the rest of these people?” he asked.
“We shut down the theater for the day,” I said, “and filled it with any available agent we could spare.”
“It’s far emptier than I’d like it to be right now,” Jane said.
“Elyse is so going to catch on to this plan,” Trent said. “She’s going to sniff them out before they even sit down. She’s smart like that.”
“Don’t worry about your old friends,” I said. “Right now, you should be more worried about all of us in here.”
“Great,” he said, but sounded unconvinced.
“Fine. If you want to worry about something, worry about your pals not showing up. If they don’t, there’s going to be trouble for you.”
“I’m with Simon on this one,” Jane said. “I don’t think they’re going to show. Why would they come out for this at all when they can just watch them on television?”
“It’s not quite the same,” Trent said.
“Exactly,” Connor said from a few rows ahead of us. “Movies were meant for the big screen …”
I shushed him as the coffeehouse curtain opened and Trent’s three friends walked in. Jane, Trent, and I sank lower into our seats, doing our best to keep unnoticed, hopefully so we could get the drop on them once they settled in.
The three students were still in the clothes they had escaped in the other day. Elyse wore her hair pulled back in a short ponytail, but Mike and Darryl both looked like they hadn’t showered. I could have been wrong, though. Maybe bedhead was all the rage at NYU right now. Mike looked like he was trying to pick the best seat in the house, which made sense considering the fact that he was always carrying a camera on him and probably planned to bootleg the film. He found what he considered to be at least a passable viewing spot, and then started into the row before Elyse and Darryl did. “Hurry,” he whispered. “The credits are already rolling.”
“So what?” Darryl asked, ducking down as they worked their way across the aisle.
“It’s the best part!” Mike said, practically spilling his drink as he tripped over something.
“Shh!” Elyse said, and sat down once Mike stopped.
As they finished settling in, the new film began and the screen filled with a shot of a graveyard. It reminded me of Good Mourning: How to Tell a Funeral Party from a Zombie Horde, the short training film I had been shown during my initiation into the Department.
Jane grabbed my arm. I turned to her. She looked worried. “This film is clean, right?” she asked. “I don’t want to have a repeat of Mason Redfield’s resurrection.”
“Looks like we’re going to find out, I guess,” I said.
Trent leaned forward in his seat, staring ahead at his old friends. “I don’t believe it,” Trent whispered. “Is Mike… bootlegging this?”
“Oh,” I whispered, “is that where you draw your criminal line now?”
“Stop bickering and get ready,” Jane said, standing up. Connor was already up, right behind the group of them, and had his hands on the back of Elyse’s seat.
“On behalf of this theater’s management,” Connor said with some volume behind it, “you’re under arrest… mostly for being dicks and attacking us the other day.”
“Shit,” I heard Elyse hiss out. The three students jumped up out of their seats, but Connor grabbed Elyse with both hands. Mike climbed over the seat in front of him. It was like watching a blubbery baby trying to escape its crib and would have been comical if not for the fact that he actually was getting away. Darryl turned toward Connor and swung for him, bringing his arm down across both of Connor’s. His grip on Elyse broke and the girl pulled away, crouching forward.
Using the agility I had witnessed during her last escape, she pressed herself into a handstand on the seat in front of her, knocking Connor back over the seat behind him as her legs swung up.
“Stay here, Trent,” I said. I stood and pulled out my bat, extending it. “Try not to get stabbed this time.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said. The young student looked stunned by the chaos erupting all around him and stayed in his seat.
I ran down our row after Jane until I hit the aisle, then started down toward the fight in front of me.
Mike had made his way to the front of the theater now, gracelessly but effectively. Elyse continued walking on her hands along the tops of the seats after him. She flipped off the last one when she hit the front row and stuck her landing like a pro before running to join Mike. I ran after her as Darryl ran down his row toward the aisle leading up to the coffeehouse.
“Heavy Mike,” Darryl shouted. “Memory card… now!”
Several agents were trying to subdue Elyse and Mike, but they were pulling their punches since they were dealing with humans for once. Elyse was a scrapper and gave them as good as she got, her gymnastic flourishes holding them, along with a knife she now held in her hand. Mike was doing his best to push off any of the attackers who got past her, all while holding his camera over his head and out of reach. He popped open a slot on the back of it, pulled the memory card free, and flung it across the theater, aiming high. Darryl, tall as he was, had no trouble plucking it from its trajectory while he reached down with his other hand into his front pocket. He fumbled out his smartphone. The glow of its display along with the film playing gave him enough light to slot the card. He slammed it into his phone and held it straight out in front of him while he backed up the aisle.
Several short movie clips flashed onto the phone’s screen—scenes of Central Park and several different shots of subway stations. With each bit of film, the screen gave an audible pop and crackle, producing a steady stream of creatures into our world. Birds from the park and shots of rats on the subway tracks. The aisle started to fill with them, adding to the chaos all around us.
“That works,” Darryl said, examining his work, “but I meant the other card.”
“I already gave it to you!” Mike shouted.
“Oh, right,” Darryl said with an embarrassed shrug. He popped his memory card out of the phone while he fished around in his pocket for the other one. It came out in his hand and he slammed it in the phone. Darryl pressed on the keypad, then, backing away, held the phone out in front of him. I stepped back, waiting for whatever monstrosity they threw at me next.
Nothing happened.
“Crap,” Darryl said. He reversed direction, heading back down the aisle and making his way over toward Elyse and Mike at the front of the
theater. “Elyse! We’re out of juice!”
Elyse looked panicked and her face sank, but only for a moment. She adjusted her grip on the knife in her hand before swinging it around in a wide arc.
It stabbed into the wall of the theater, but not before passing through Heavy Mike’s hand, pinning it there. His video camera tumbled to the floor of the theater and shattered to pieces as a howl of pain erupted from Mike. “Elyse!” he shouted in a mix of surprise, shock, and anger.
“Sorry, Mikey,” she said. She grabbed Darryl as he pushed his way through the crowd over to where Mike was pinned. Blood was already running thick down the pinned student’s arm. Darryl shoved his phone into the stream and a flair of energy sparked from it. A scene flickered on the screen. It was footage of me from the other night when I had come across the students saying their good-byes to the professor at Eccentric Circles. Something looked different about me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I leaned in closer to the tiny image, avoiding Elyse’s kicks with my bat.
“Do I have a goatee?” I asked, caught off guard by what I was seeing.
“Computer-enhanced,” Elyse said. “Actually, I think it helps hide your weak chin.”
Something in my mind snapped and I reared back with my bat. “I do not have a weak chin,” I said and swung for her.
A loud crack rang out, accompanied by a blinding flash in front of me, and my bat hit something solid, although it wasn’t Elyse. The young actress/gymnast/killer was standing at least five feet away now. My bat had connected with another figure wearing a leather coat identical to mine.
“That wasn’t nice,” a familiar voice said to me. It was my own. Standing in front of me was another version of me, complete with its phony goatee.
“How ‘Mirror, Mirror’ of you,” I said, looking past him at Elyse. “But I don’t get it. How can I be reborn when I’m not dead like the professor was?”
Elyse laughed. “We’re pioneers in our industry. He’s just a cheap carbon copy. Death isn’t a requirement to summon a quick you on the fly to kick your own ass. Just blood.”
The other Simon punched me in the arm. “Stop hitting yourself,” he said.
“Okay,” I said, focusing back on him. “This is …”
“Weird,” Doppel-Me finished. He pulled out his own bat and extended it. “I know, right?”
“This is going to hurt me more than it’s… You know what? I think this is going to hurt me just as much as it is you.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Right.”
I swung my bat, going for his knee, but he came around with his bat and blocked it.
“You think you’re going to get one over on me?” he asked. “Think again.”
“Don’t think this is going to be an issue,” I said. “I’ve had years of experience beating myself up.”
I swung low, but Doppel-Me jumped high. When I lunged for him, he feinted back perfectly, avoiding the blow or countering it. If I faked left, he faked right, countering my every move.
It was no use. Other than the shoddy goatee, this Simon fought like I fought. I couldn’t get an advantage over him no matter how hard I tried.
“Give up,” I said.
“You give up,” Doppel-Me repeated. “I can do this all night.”
I shook my head. “No, you can’t,” I said. “You’ll eventually come apart at the seams like all these other playthings.”
“Actually, he won’t,” Darryl shouted out from somewhere behind me. “Like Elyse said, we’re pioneers. He’s got a better shelf life.”
“Well, crap,” I said. “Not the answer I wanted to hear. I guess we both can do this all night, then.”
The other me craned his head and I knew what he was looking for.
“Uh-uh,” I said. “There’s no way I’m letting you up the aisle and out through those curtains. You’d have to go through me to get out of here and I’m not going to let that happen.”
Doppel-Me backed away down the aisle, heading toward the door leading into the offices. Of course! I knew the only other way out was through the creepier parts of the catacombs in the far recesses the Gauntlet, and that meant he probably knew it, too. If he made it down there, I’d never catch up to him in all its twists and turns.
In the hall behind him, something stirred in the darkness.
“I do have something you don’t have, you know,” I said, pressing toward Doppel-Me.
“Me, too. I’ve got this stylin’ goatee that you don’t have. What have you got?”
The shadow in the hallway moved even closer to my doppelganger.
“Friends,” I said, and charged him. With one of my fellow agents behind him, I’d be on the dark version of myself in no time, clashing bat to bat.
Evil Simon spun around to run for the door back to the Department, but stopped in his tracks when he saw his way blocked. Two hands flashed out of the darkness, grabbed the sides of his head, and twisted… hard. The audible pop of bone and cartilage drove into my ears like daggers. A second later, the other me dropped to the floor, lifeless.
Out of the darkness stepped Thaddeus Wesker. He looked down at the body, and then up at me. He seemed disappointed. “I wouldn’t exactly say we were friends,” he said.
I couldn’t stop staring at myself lying there, unmoving. “Holy Hell!” I shouted over the dying sounds of combat all around us. Jane and the Inspectre held Elyse at bay at cane point and Connor had Darryl by the scruff of his hoodie. Most of the birds and rats had been dealt with or were already dissolving on their own. I walked over to Wesker, mindful not to step on prone, dead me. Wesker looked at me with an evil grin.
“That,” he said, taking the time to relish each word, “felt good.”
“That’s disturbing,” I said, freaking out at the dead look in my double’s eyes. “You did know that was a doppelganger of me, didn’t you?”
Wesker shrugged.
“What if that had been the real me?” I asked.
He walked past me. “I guess we’ll never know,” he said, heading up the aisle. “I was going to the café to see what they had for fresh pastry. Getting to kill you was just the bonus cherry in my Danish.”
Elyse, Darryl, and Heavy Mike—still pinned through his hand to the wall—all started yelling at one another while various members of the Department fought to contain them.
“Everybody, shut up!” a voice called out. The room went silent. Trent had come out of hiding from behind his seat. When Elyse saw him, her eyes bugged out.
“Hey, pal,” she said, turning on her charm. “How are you? Glad to see you made it out of that fracas at the university alive.”
Trent came out of his row, walked down the aisle toward Elyse, and shoved her. “No thanks to you.”
“Hey!” Darryl called out from between the two Shadowers who were holding him. “Keep your hands off her.”
“Or what?” Trent exploded. “She’ll tie me up again? She’ll bleed me out to power your messed-up little project? You might want to listen to these people. They’ve got some news, and as far as I can tell, it’s true. The professor’s not dead. He’s alive and wandering this city.”
Elyse’s eyes widened, but there was too long a hesitation before it. “It worked?” Elyse said. “The professor’s alive?”
Despite the look on her face, I wasn’t buying it. “You’re going to need more acting training if you want your surprise to sound more convincing. Knock it off.”
“What is that?” Darryl said, puffing up. “A threat?”
“My boy,” the Inspectre said, walking up to him. Darryl backed away from him as best he could, but the agents holding him didn’t give him much room to move. The Inspectre looked winded from the fight, but there was anger in his voice. “There is a threat, but it is the one that Mason Redfield himself proposes. His pact for his youth, yes, but I fear it is a debt that will need constant repayment.”
Elyse’s face finally went serious. “More blood,” she said.
“Ours,” Trent said.
“Precisely,” the Inspectre said. He pulled his sword from its cane once again and started toward her. “I’m sorry, but I believe we are past the point of all civility. Now, why don’t you tell me all about this woman in green?”
Elyse stared at him. Her cocky toughness was gone. The girl was scared. Not only was she scared; her eyes were blank.
“What woman?” she asked.
The Inspectre searched her face for a moment before lowering his sword. “Bloody hell,” he said. “She doesn’t know.”
27
Given our need to avoid questions from Thaddeus Wesker, Connor and I dragged our four captives out of the theater on the basis that interrogation always went better when there was less slime to slip around in. Cramped for space and coverage, the two of us were forced to bring the professor’s students up to Allorah Daniels’s office, with Jane and the Inspectre bringing up the rear, barring any chance of their escaping. When Elyse saw our offices behind the theater, she walked through it all, looking around like a tourist in Times Square.
“What is this place?” she asked. “Are you police?”
I pointed over to a bunch of chairs along one wall. “Consider this your home until we get some answers,” I said. “Sit!”
“What are you holding us on?” she said, taking her time sitting down, prim and proper. Darryl sat down next to her, but Heavy Mike sat two chairs away holding his injured hand. Trent remained standing.
“Okay, forget about tonight,” I said. “Forget about making me watch one of my least favorite people around here—Director Wesker—take a perverse joy in killing that evil goateed version of me. Let’s put that aside for now. Answer me this: Where’s your blond friend George?”
The blank look disappeared from Elyse’s face. Concern spread across it. “I have no idea,” she said. “I think he said he was heading out of town for a few days. I think he said it was his sister’s quinceañera.”
I knelt down in front of her, staring her straight in the face. “You’re lying,” I said.
“Am I?” she said with a grim smile.
I nodded.
“He used to be a thief,” Jane said. “He knows what lying is.”