Elsewhere's Twin: a novel of sex, doppelgängers, and the Collective Id (Divided Man Book 3)

by Rune Skelley

  Rook stopped trying to shield herself from the onslaught. She could use all the strength she could get. She struggled to her feet, feeling stings on her bare soles.

  She watched the rooks land. Some lined up precisely with her existing tattoos, making them darker, their outlines crisper. Others chose fresh landing spots, expanding her flocks. They wriggled under her clothes before burning and burrowing into her flesh. They nested in her hair and marked her scalp. The flurry around her right ankle now reached to her knee. Rook was in agony, and yet she welcomed it. The pain restored her.

  This Rook knew who she was, would never again hide while someone else lived her life. She and Fin were going to get out of this awful place, have their babies, and live happily ever after, dammit.

  Rook kicked the spinning wheel over and hobbled to the window, receiving more tattoos on her feet along the way.

  Below, on the far side of a seething moat of green fire, she saw Fin fending off a crowd of unstable, mutant copies of her. He looked up.

  “Rook!”

  Rook touched the bars on the window. They felt soft now. Velvety.

  NO!

  *** *** ***

  Fin clapped his hands over his ears, gritting his teeth against the Id’s thunderous exclamation. Around him the faux Rooks disintegrated, their tattoos released in a choking cloud. The tower drew most of them in, its surface inhaling them to strengthen the rook-of-rooks design.

  The tower was a jigsaw of ebony birds, each frozen in mid-flight. They rustled and jostled, then all their wings unfroze. The rook of rooks exploded into a flock of startled birds, leaving only a burst of jet feathers and a rush of wind.

  Rook plummeted, screaming. Fin screamed, too. He leapt into the moat, now a pond because nothing stood at its center.

  Fin landed awkwardly on the roiling surface.

  Rook plunged through it with a splash of green flames and sparks. Ripples spread, leaving the surface calm and smooth.

  Fin scrambled to the place where she went under, and saw her rising, rising with a cruel sluggishness that matched the merciless velocity of her fall.

  He looked helplessly into her eyes.

  *** *** ***

  Bubbles of light surround her in the thick, gelatinous darkness. The darkness clings like it is alive, caressing her skin in a smothering embrace. Slowly, slowly she rises, through layer upon layer of excited, clamoring bubbles.

  She can’t breathe.

  The bubbles of light, all electric green and pure, brilliant white, say one word over and over: Chimera! Chimera!

  She knows they are talking about her babies, knows they are dangerous.

  She struggles for the surface. It’s not like swimming, not at all.

  Tears sting her eyes, washing away the film of darkness. Far above, far, far above she sees Fin. His face shows worry and fear before the darkness intrudes again.

  Every time she blinks, her tears clear her vision and she sees him reaching.

  More bubbles, new bubbles, are rising all around her, appearing at a furious pace. Something is coming. Something big.

  She hopes she is close enough.

  She reaches.

  Her hand encounters resistance.

  She blinks and sees Fin, just for a millisecond.

  She smiles for him one last time.

  *** *** ***

  Fin pounded on the green barrier. He stood and stomped on it, cursing. It felt as solid as stone, as smooth as glass.

  The tattoo swarm began to collect around his feet. Tiny birds clustered over Rook, and he tried to chase them off. Some landed on him, but this time he resisted the urge to slap.

  Rook lay still in her green prison. She looked serene, in contrast to Fin. He threw himself across her body, protecting it from the flapping invaders, using his arms to sweep them away.

  A few seemed to etch themselves onto the surface, but then he saw their movement. They got through and swam like minuscule manta rays toward Rook.

  Fighting to compose himself, Fin watched to see how they did it. Some of the birds crashed against the surface and were rejected, while many landed and walked on it. But a few of them hovered gently, lowering themselves bit by bit, until they hovered under the surface.

  Fin tried to give her his hand, slowly. The surface refused to yield. He wanted to use brute force, to shatter, to pummel. He wanted to scream. With a slow breath, he steadied himself and tried again, slower.

  He watched Rook’s face, not his hand. If he watched, he knew he would feel the moment of contact and be stopped. He willed himself to believe there would be no such sensation. He wondered if the Id stuff would be warm or cool, thick or watery.

  Even though it already seemed he wasn’t moving, he made himself slow down further. He stared into Rook’s eyes, ordering her not to give up.

  An enormous dark shape moved in the green depths below her.

  This had to work, and soon.

  Fin forced himself not to hurry, focused on holding her gaze.

  Would the stuff be sticky? Would it tingle?

  At last he felt something brush his fingers, and in a giddy moment he realized it was Rook’s fingers intertwining with his. They clasped each other’s hands, and Fin pulled with all his strength. Rook’s arm, then her shoulder, and at last her head came up into the air, and she gasped in a huge breath. She had many, many new tattoos.

  The dark shape was closer now, and growing.

  Fin wrapped his other arm around Rook’s torso and hauled her free of the tie-dye fire. She clung to him, heaving more deep lungfuls of air. He dove for the edge of the moat.

  A massive reptilian head on a long, serpentine neck shot up. The creature’s body remained submerged, far too large for the moat’s confines, and its arrival displaced the liquid in a surge that carried Fin and Rook up and over the stone lip. They lay panting on the flagstones, regarded coldly by Nessie.

  Fin kissed Rook and she urgently kissed him back.

  “Can you run?” he asked her. She nodded.

  *** *** ***

  The white glow intensified and the all-seeing-eye came up a dozen yards ahead, between Brad and the dubious shelter of the city.

  The pyramid moved slowly, methodically, only the eye showing above the surface, like the periscope of an occult submarine. Brad backpedaled from its searing heat, from its patient scrutiny. It wove side-to-side, toying with him. Letting him truly understand his doom. He’d know the whole time he was going to roast. He’d know and be unable to change it.

  His heart thudded so hard he wondered if he might cheat the white-hot monster by dying of a coronary.

  His soggy knees gave out, dumping him on the ground.

  The pyramid accelerated, riding higher to expose its intolerable heat, its inferno of banked energy.

  Brad dug his hands into the green strangeness, negating it, shoveling up as much as he could. He flung the clods of dull, sandy filth into the eye.

  Arcs of electric agony enveloped the orb. With a piercing feedback scream the monster lurched, kicking up waves as Brad tried to rise. He staggered, fell, rolled, staggered, fell again. The eye plunged down, vanishing.

  Brad gained his feet and took two shuddering breaths in the sudden, creepy quiet.

  He bolted for the grinding city.

  For the first half of the race, he thought the thing had given up. Then he heard it behind him, steam whistle shriek plus earthquake roar. He poured on all the speed he could manage, not looking back and trying to ignore the fire in his chest. He tumbled down an embankment, onto the glassy smooth zone ringing the crazy city.

  Before him, Brad saw a pair of tall columns flanking a sloped avenue that rose out of the green plain like a boat launch. Behind him, he knew, the pyramid was lining up. The pillars changed as the structures around them were unmade and replaced, but the entry they defined remained stable.

  The gyrating buildings made a rumble he could feel in his chest. Over that, he heard the roaring, rising pursuit note of the pyramid. He felt
its heat on the back of his neck.

  He was on the ramp. Just a few more steps!

  Two figures lurched into the street. Fin and Rook!

  They dashed out between the columns. Brad saw them spot the pyramid and freeze.

  He spread out his arms and swerved into them, dragging them with him off the ramp. They sprawled on the smooth green surface.

  The pyramid scraped the concrete incline as it passed above them. It pulverized the pillars and the adjacent structures, plunging into the cityscape beyond.

  The impact sent a shockwave through the green sea. The sound left Brad deafened.

  He raised his head and watched the pyramid careen through more buildings before embedding itself in one of the largest ones.

  With a blinding flash, lightning leapt from the swollen eye, discharging the ocean of energy stored in the pyramid’s white-hot stone slabs.

  The bolt crawled and writhed and leapt among the ruins, the noise like cannons firing straight into Brad’s ears. When it was spent, the pyramid’s glow and heat vanished.

  Stillness descended. The city ceased its gyrations, its waterfall of buildings frozen in mid-plunge.

  Brad let Rook and Fin sit up. They seemed okay. Rook was enormously pregnant.

  “Something’s different.” Fin’s voice was cottony in Brad’s traumatized ears.

  Brad stood. The sky lightened, turning golden. The ground’s green tones warmed too, until the entire landscape glowed a soft, golden red, like a beach at sunset.

  Fin helped Rook to her feet. He said, “You’re huge!” and held her belly in his hands.

  She nodded, smiling. “It’s twins. Thumper is two babies now. That’s why things didn’t feel right with only one. It had to be both.”

  Fin goggled, then hugged her. “Twins?” He leaned down and kissed her swollen abdomen. Twice.

  Turning to face the stilled metropolis, Brad was surprised to see Fin’s lava lamp. The portal to their living room hovered inside the demolished city gates. The oval hole in reality slid to the left without taking the lamp along.

  The lamp sat on the dusty pavement, glowing and flowing.

  “Vesuvius?” Fin said.

  “Hello, Fin,” came a sleepy voice. Brad had the unmistakable impression it came from the lamp. “It’s good to see you’re all okay,” the voice continued. “But you’re not out of danger. You must go home now.”

  Fin said, “You bet! Let’s go, buddy!”

  “Is it the lamp?” Brad asked. “Are you talking to the lamp?”

  As Fin nodded, the lamp said, “Greetings, Brad. You can hear me because we’re in the Id, but all of you must get out now. Please, go. Hurry, before it recovers.”

  *** *** ***

  Vesuvius relished the energies feeding him here. His warm light spread into every corner of the collective, which already stirred faintly.

  Fin, Rook, and Brad ignored the portal not four feet away.

  “Run!” They had to move while the Id was stunned. “Run, now. Through the portal.”

  Fin came forward to pick him up.

  “No,” Vesuvius said. “I’m staying.”

  Fin stopped, and the three exchanged blank looks.

  Rook said, “We don’t understand.”

  “I know,” Vesuvius replied. “Sorry, there’s not time. We’ll speak through the portal, but go.” Brad pushed Fin backwards through the opening, and only then did Rook step across.

  “What’s happening?” Fin asked. “Why?”

  There was too much to say, and little time.

  “Someone has to babysit over here, or this will keep happening. The Id didn’t get what it wants, so it will try again. And again. The answer isn’t to give the Id what it wants, because it will just want something else. The answer is to give it what it needs: a companion. Like you said, you can't be yourself without someone else. I’ll be perfectly at home here. I won’t even need to be plugged in. The only problem is that I’ll miss you.”

  Tears streamed down Fin’s cheeks, and he made a move to come back, so Vesuvius constricted the portal to the size of a dinner plate.

  “You’re not too different from everyone else,” Vesuvius assured him, “whatever you might like to think. You’re just different enough. Believe it or not, you’ve taught me about people. It’s… instructive… to see things in contrast. Thank you.”

  Fin reached through the tiny portal, still crying.

  “You have a family now,” Vesuvius said. “That’s your new job. Leave this weird stuff to me, because there will be plenty to keep you busy. I will miss you but I won’t be lonely. And this way, neither will the Id.”

  Fin wept while Rook comforted him and she cried, too. After a minute, Fin drew his hand back into the physical world and wiped his eyes. “Goodbye, Vesuvius,” he said. “Goodbye, friend.”

  “Goodbye, Fin.” The portal winked out.

  The fractal pattern of the fires began to undulate, and the rolling hills to sway. The landscape’s verdant hues returned, and the buildings shrugged lazily back into their dance.

  “Hello,” the lava lamp announced. “My name is Vesuvius. What would you like to talk about?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE BACK YARD

  The mournful tones of La Cucaracha rang out. Fin headed to the front door, grumbling about his own handyman procrastination.

  Before he reached the door he was nearly knocked over by the whirlwind arrival of the birthday girls.

  “Can I open it, Daddy?” asked Sage, her kaleidoscope eyes aglitter from too much sugar.

  “It’s Emily from Montessori, Daddy,” blurted Jade. “I saw her first so I get to let her in.”

  Both girls planted themselves in his path and looked up at him.

  “If you argue for too long she might go away,” Fin said.

  Their eyes widened and they looked at each other.

  “Let’s flip a coin!” they said in unison.

  Fin fished in his jeans pocket for a quarter while La Cucaracha returned for a second verse.

  “Heads!” both girls said.

  Sidestepping his squabbling daughters, Fin pulled open the front door.

  “Emily!” the twins squealed.

  “Hi!” said Emily.

  “I’m Helen,” said Emily’s mother.

  “Fin.”

  “Emily said that Jade wears purple dresses and Sage wears blue dresses, so we color-coordinated the gift bags…” She looked with confusion at Fin’s daughters, both of whom wore black jumpers with white polka dots.

  “We allow them to dress the same on their birthday,” Fin explained. “The rest of the time they have to be individuals, no matter how much they fight it.”

  “I hope these are alright.” Helen handed two gift bags to Fin. “The invitation said ‘No licensed characters, please,’ and I wasn’t sure…”

  “Fads and licensed characters are tools of the Collective Id,” chorused Jade and Sage in unison. Each took Emily by one hand and ran with her through the living room and out to the patio, all three giggling.

  Helen looked nonplussed.

  Fin smiled to himself and led Helen out to the back yard to make introductions.

  “You’ve met my wife at the school,” he said, gesturing to Rook, who looked epically stylish in her black and white minidress as she arranged the condiments on the patio table. “At the grill is my father, Brad. My mother, Willow, is pouring the soda, because the kids aren’t quite hyper enough yet. Their daughter also goes to Montessori, so Emily probably knows her.” Fin pointed to his sister as she ran around the yard with his daughters and Emily. “Zen’s the one with pigtails.”

  The doorbell rang again.

  “Grab a drink and make yourself comfortable. I have to go let in more excitable pre-schoolers.”

  *** *** ***

  “You probably get asked this a lot,” one of the moms, possibly Maggie’s, said. “How do you tell them apart?”

  Rook did, in fact, get asked that a lot, but it di
dn’t bother her. She sometimes wondered herself. These days Fin’s signal was alone in her mind. Once the girls were born she could no longer hear or feel their unique mental vibrations, the melody and harmony that serenaded her last trimester of pregnancy. “I can’t explain it,” she said. “I can just tell.”

  “I thought I was on to something,” Possibly-Maggie’s-Mom said. “I noticed Sage has unusual eyes, sort of calico, those patches of green and blue and gray.”

  “We went through the same thing when they were born. It’s called genetic heterochromia. We tried to find differences in the patterns of their irises, but there aren’t any. Jade’s are just like Sage’s. It might sound a little weird, but we left the hospital anklets on them for a few weeks while we got to know them so we wouldn’t mix them up.”

  “I don’t know if I would have thought of that.”

  Rook looked out at the picnicking children, and watched her daughters laughing and eating hamburgers. It was interesting to try to see them as strangers did, as two beautiful little girls, identical down to their unsettling eyes.

  They both had dark auburn hair held back by black patent-leather headbands, their dresses matched, their voices sounded the same to the uninitiated. It must be baffling from the outside.

  She and Fin worked hard to treat them as individuals, and even harder to get the world to.

  The task was made all the more difficult by the twins themselves; their taste in clothing and hairstyles was as identical as their faces. Given free reign they would make themselves visually indistinguishable. To avoid perpetual tears, Jade Echo and Sage Duet were allowed to have the same haircut, but duplicate outfits were forbidden except on their birthday. The rest of the year the best Rook could do was buy the same dress in two different colors.

  Their personalities were diverging gradually as they grew and collected more experiences. Sage was a little more pragmatic, Jade showed a touch more focus. Sage had a goofier sense of humor and a love of puns while Jade honed her sarcasm. Sage preferred pistachio ice cream and liked to help Fin cook spaghetti. Jade preferred mint chip and to help make chili.