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Going up.
The elevator pulsed every half second as if not sure it could make it to the surface, recording a slight drop before going up several more feet. Darkness turned gray as he rose higher, causing the pulsing hesitations to spike deeper, thumping dull pain as it reached the light of morning.
Billy’s eyelids flicked open.
The surface below his cheek was hard, cold and slick. He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. The taste of iron slid to the back of his throat.
The headache continued.
The elevator was within reach. A deep inhalation stung his lower lip and whistled between his teeth. He pulled back scarlet-painted fingertips. The tip of his tongue revealed an angular opening between two teeth.
A pearly piece on the floor.
What’s my name?
He knew this was home, that there were kids. The drone was in the corner like an escaped balloon. It was like he didn’t have a name.
And never did.
There were several sublevels belowground. He was going to the lab sometime early in the morning. It was still dark, but the sun was up. Something was wrong.
Something bad.
Rot sank deep in his belly. He leaned over and dry-heaved. He went to his hands and knees and continued, twisting his empty stomach until a string of saliva dangled.
What have I done?
That thought felt different. He usually felt like there were two parts of himself, one talking to the other. Now it was just him. Something was missing. The inner voice was quiet.
It was missing.
He fell on his back, panting. His past was hidden in the dark recesses of his mind like monsters under the bed. He couldn’t remember what he’d done or what he was going to do, but the urge to weep swelled in his throat.
He was probing his chipped tooth when a bone-crashing clatter echoed from outside. It sounded like trains colliding. He propped his weight against the wall. A profound numbness settled like grains of frozen sand. He shuffled to the foyer.
Out front, the circle driveway was empty. Snow was tracked with shallow ruts from days ago. Icicles hung from a mountain of antlers. The collision came again, followed by a hoarse cry that jarred loose a memory of an oversized reindeer struggling in a tangle of binding straps.
Ronin.
He leaned on a table. A vase shattered on the floor. Ronin was a distant memory, a car disconnected from a locomotive of thoughts and no longer part of the trip. Like a memory that didn’t belong to him. But he was there, he was part of it. He had trapped the reindeer, had lured him onto the mountain.
He kicked through the vase. The office door was ajar. The mountain was flaming with morning light. He stumbled to the glass wall, pressed his hands against the cold and smooth surface, and watched an enormous reindeer gallop across the horseshoe. Snow flipped from his hooves as Ronin lowered his head. Multiple points of a massive rack raked through the snow as he charged two figures hunched low to the ground.
He’s going to impale them.
Instead he snagged one of them like a giant coat rack sweeping the back of his heavy coat. Arms and legs waving in panic, he tumbled like a lead kite and was followed by the girl. Ronin lurched beneath them as his belly swelled. The strides grew longer, the hooves gliding and stirring the snow. The boy fell onto his back first. The girl behind him.
And then they were off.
Long strong legs reaching for the sky, loose hide billowing like sails. Ronin surged toward the mountain.
And over it.
A sense of relief filled him. It started at his toes and rose to his throbbing cheek with tingling joy. Ronin was free. He had escaped with two of the children.
Someone else was still out there.
The barn looked meteor-struck. Shards of debris had showered the horseshoe. William watched Ronin soar out of sight. There was another reindeer at his side.
My older brother, William. My mentor. My sibling.
Billy looked at his hands, turning them over as if the truth were written in the creases. The sick feeling squeezed his empty stomach.
My brother?
He had never questioned his reclusive sibling. Their past seemed so ordinary, the memories bleached by time. Now as he looked out, the old man felt like someone else. Why would we have the same name?
William walked to where the children had been hunkered down. The hitch in his stride was more pronounced in the morning. He dropped to one knee and picked something up, dusting it off before pocketing it. The reindeer didn’t move.
A clone.
They’d brought Ronin off the mountain and immediately began building a matrix. Billy didn’t think it would be ready for another day, but there it was. Waiting for a command.
The old man marched stiffly toward the remains of the barn. An opening was blown in the side of the chaos like a tractor-trailer had escaped. William limped into the shadows.
Billy followed.
Without a coat, the wind sank its frozen teeth into his belly. A sharp inhale stabbed his exposed tooth. The clone swung around at the sound of the door, snow dropping from the rack. Puffs streamed from his flared nostrils as Billy approached. A peculiar smell grew stronger—a fuzzy odor that clung to his tongue.
A memory bobbed to the surface.
A room with large drawers and glass doors. The soles of bare feet facing out from a dark recess in the wall. Billy sitting at computers and pecking at keys, writing commands in elaborate scripts uploaded to a large noisy room, scripts that were orders. Commands. Programs that told the children what to do, how to behave.
Good boys and girls do what I want.
Billy knew what made boys and girls nice. But that wasn’t him sitting at the computer. It felt like William. Billy looked to his hands. The barrier hiding his memories dropped another webby veil. The rhythmic sound of machinery. Waves of heat in a tubular oven. Three-dimensional webs of neural pathways spontaneously stringing together, each connection linking thoughts into concepts and memories.
Me.
His knees were weak. It was a memory of coming out of the replicator. Billy remembered inventing the replicator. He remembered using it to create Figgy. Now he remembered crawling out and picking up his own body. He’d carried it to the storage room and put it in a drawer.
No.
He fell in the snow. Memories swirled in the light. The world spun viciously. Billy wanted to find the truth. He took in children who needed a home. He was a philanthropist who used his mind and money to make the world a better place. He was building something on the other side of the mountain that would show the world he wasn’t insane.
I’m a lie.
He stumbled into the rubble. The walls and rafters had collapsed. The distinctive odor of synthetic stem cells, the clayey odor of his very own flesh, wafted out.
“What have you done?” he said.
William jerked around. He peered out from the special room where the clone of Ronin had been spun up. They stared at each other with hesitation. Shivers danced on Billy’s chin. His fingers twitched.
He remembered an accident that took two fingers from his right hand. It had happened on a climbing expedition. He’d spent the night with tourniquets around his knuckles. Billy remembered the agony lasted for months.
But Billy had all ten fingers.
“Get to the lab,” William said. “Wake the children.”
He finished gathering things into a bag and buttoned a thick coat. Billy didn’t follow him. The compulsion that had yanked him around all of his life had been cut. It was just words now.
“You did this to me,” Billy said.
William replaced the cowboy hat with a fur-lined cap and nodded for several seconds. Understanding was coming into focus. Something had changed between them.
“You’ve always known, Billy.”
“You lied to me.”
“About what?” William turned. “We’re brothers. We have the exact same DNA. It’s no different than coming from the same womb. Now stop arguing and—”
“You lied to me!” Billy was quivering. “You made me do those things. That was you! Your voice in my head, your demands. I didn’t want this, William.”
He grunted. “You’re upset I gave you life. You’re upset I made you ageless, made you the envy of the world. Do you understand what I’m saying? You and the dog were the first ones.” He jabbed his finger at the ground. “You are an impeccable creation!”
William’s face was flush, his eyes dark. He minced tobacco between his teeth and spat with force.
Creation.
“No one has the right to question their existence,” William continued. “You were born like the rest of us, but I gave you purpose. I gave you direction. What would the children give to be you? Think about that, what would they give to have such riches, to have purpose, brother? You are the envy of the world because of me. If it was my voice you heard, it was because you were listening. If it was my direction you felt, it was because we are alike. Don’t whine about your life. You are what you are, brother. You’re no different than the rest of us.”
William threw a bag over his shoulder.
“I want you to remember what we’re doing. We saved children, we gave them a home. And we created life. The truth is near, brother. And the elven is trying to stop us.”
“Gallivanter.”
“We never should’ve monitored his thoughts, that was our mistake. We had everything we needed. We should’ve locked him up and forgotten him, but it’s too late for that. He’s awake, brother. And he put you to sleep.”
“We?” Billy tongued his chipped tooth. “We?”
“We’re in this, there’s no way back. We move forward. The truth is out there.”
“I see the truth, William.”
“Don’t let him put thoughts in your head. We’ve been working for fifteen years—”
“Him? Putting thoughts?” Billy laughed sickly. It was the first time he could remember his head so uncluttered.
“This is his fault.” William swept a heavy arm at the destruction. “Ronin escaped because of him, you understand? Everything we’ve worked for is gone, over that mountain, and I’m sure they didn’t stop there. If he reaches the Pole, he’ll destroy our life’s work. We are on the verge of discovering a centuries-old myth. Don’t let him destroy that.”
Billy scanned the horseshoe, the building, and destruction. It felt so foreign now. He didn’t want any of it.
“What’s my name?” he said.
“What?”
“My name, William!” he shouted. “What is it?”
A frown knitted the old man’s brow. He hiked the bag over his shoulders and snapped the buckles then reached into his pocket. A shadow stretched behind him. The reindeer clone snorted. The thing dropped to its knees.
Billy clutched William’s coat. He wasn’t getting on the reindeer, wasn’t going to follow Ronin. He knew what the old man was planning. He once wanted the same thing.
Not anymore.
A shiver of gooseflesh turned his bones to metal, muscle to stone. An electrical pulse lit up. Billy was as stiff as an ice carving, fingers still clawing the coat. William held up his hand. Cradled between two fingers and a thumb was a black phone.
The screen was alive.
“I don’t have time for this.” He buttoned the top of Billy’s shirt. “I would fix you when I get back, but I’m afraid you won’t last that long. I’ll start over, print another one when I get back. It won’t be you, though. I think you know that.”
He climbed onto the clone’s back. The space warped around the antlers. A strange energy almost pushed Billy over. The clone anxiously pawed the frozen turf. Something hissed like a gas leak. The belly began to swell.
William patted the beast.
The antlers hummed and the air wrinkled. With a great growl, the clone leaped forward and nearly jerked the old man over the backside.
Two steps and they were airborne.
***
The shivers went deep.
Bones turned into titanium and quivered like cold steel struck with a mallet. His skin withered across his cheekbones. The biting cold burned. His whistling breath stabbed his chipped tooth.
Thoughts slowed.
Churning in a flurry of panic, one by one they fell like bricks until only one remained. I’m going to die.
Could he die if he was never born? Life began in the replicator. He was a copy, a clone. No different than the reindeer. These childhood memories weren’t his.
Did he have to be born to be alive?
William was right. His mind wasn’t right. He couldn’t remember much, like his memories had been thrown behind a fence and he was peeking at them through a knothole. Somewhere beyond the barrier were all the things he’d done, every awful thing hidden from him. Those were his memories, the things he’d done. Whether William made him do them or not, he’d still done them.
Tears left hot tracks on his cheeks and disappeared in his beard. They gushed from a well of guilt and shame, a salty brine seeping through whiskers and coating cracked lips.
I want to live.
The bone-quivering cold turned warm, as if his organs were melting. Hypothermia had begun. It wouldn’t be long now. He would end up a statue staring at the naughty wing. A fitting end.
“Hi, Bill.” One of the boys was in front of him, hands in his coat. “You shouldn’t go outside without a coat. You know that.”
He was joined by another boy, who stood eye to eye with Billy, perhaps even a few inches taller. A snarling scar patched his left cheek and misshapen ear.
He knew these boys. He should know their names—he’d brought them here; he’d fed and clothed them—but the memories were behind the fence. The big boy leaned in. A faint whiff of body odor followed.
“Is he okay?” the big boy said.
“He’s sleepy, that’s all.”
“His fingers are blue.”
“He didn’t wear gloves. You should wear gloves, Bill.”
The big boy threw Billy’s arm over his shoulders and heaved him off the ground. The world jostled as he plodded through the snow. They were halfway across the horseshoe, the building drawing closer with each step, when the big boy spun around.
“You coming?” he called.
The smaller boy was looking at the mountain. He marched toward the door, his eyebrows knitted, lips set in grim frustration. The big boy followed him inside.
Billy’s lips began to quiver as they stepped into an elevator. His pulse quickened. They were going to the lab. He was afraid the fence barricading the bad memories would come crashing down and all at once he’d face the things he’d done. The doors opened to a hallway instead of the lab. It led to a glowing room.
“He’s like ice,” the big boy said.
He gently placed Billy in a rocking chair and draped a blanket over his lap. The room moved like the deck of a ship. Stockings hung across a mantel, festive decorations of holly and garland above them. A warm fire crackled. Somewhere beyond the fence, there was a memory of telling a story.
The boys warmed their hands at the fire. They mumbled to each other, looking over their shoulders every once in a while. Something in the hall grabbed their attention. The smaller boy tickled the end of Billy’s nose. It turned into an itch.
The silence of their departure was filled with popping embers and settling ashes. Billy melted like a block of ice. Sensations returned on sharp edges that squeezed his fingertips. He was able to curl his toes.
The urge to weep threatened to drown him.
He was still unable to move. Webs filled his head. His memories, disconnected and full of holes, were still mostly hidden. His life didn’t make sense.
I gave you purpose, William had said.
Footsteps scuffed the floor like coarse sandpaper. Billy stared at the fire and waited. A very short and very round person approached the chair next to him.
A long green coat dragged behind him.
He threw an absurdly large and hairy foot onto the stool and hefted his rotund bottom into the seat. A sigh leaked through the thick whiskers. His beard lay over his belly in two tightly braided ropes.
A memory hopped the fence.
Flashes of an Arctic winter. Conifers spotted the barren land, their limbs heavy with snow. In the distance, a larger-than-life reindeer rooted for lichen. A thrill of excitement rode a wave of adrenaline through Billy’s bloodstream. He had come to the Pole in search of big game.
And stumbled onto the biggest of them all.
Sighting a mutant reindeer with a long-range weapon, he leaned on the trigger. Before the neutralizing dart erupted from the barrel, something moved into his line of sight.
Gallivanter.
He didn’t know the elven’s name at that time. He didn’t even know what he was seeing. Just that he wanted them. The reindeer searched the elven’s hand, nibbling treats from his palm.
Billy fired twice.
From that distance, there was a delay. Billy waited for a response. If there was none, he would take another aim. The first round missed, but not the second one.
The elven fell.
The reindeer sniffed then nudged him before lifting his head. His roar echoed in the distance. Billy felt it. The reindeer looked around, giving him enough time to unload a second shot. The beast swung his head with remarkable speed. Nothing happened. Billy took a third shot and a fourth. Each time, the reindeer swung his head.
He was knocking down the darts.
Billy would keep firing until the thing missed or he ran out of ammunition. It seemed to be jabbing the elven to wake him up, snagging the green tunic with an antler but having to turn his head to block incoming fire. Little by little, the elven was moved behind a tree.
Without hesitation, Billy reached for a new and untested weapon. One that was compassionate and more effective than a bullet, leaving game unharmed. Unlike the sleeper dart, it discharged like a cannon.
The canister spilled its contents as it neared the target. The reindeer had tossed the elven into the air as if to catch him on his back. The entanglement straps reached out with webby lines. Instead of snagging the animal, the elven was wrapped up.
A second roar shook snow from the branches.
The elven was incapacitated and anchored to a tree. He was waving an arm at the reindeer, shooing him away. All the reindeer’s efforts to free him would keep him there long enough for Billy to unload another web. He took aim, finger on the trigger.
And then it happened.
The animal began to inflate, its belly filling like a balloon. Billy watched a reindeer soar into the clouds like a prehistoric animal forgotten by time. He sat in stunned silence, waiting to wake up. When he decided he wasn’t dreaming, he approached his catch. The bearded elven was enveloped in a mess of entanglement straps.
That’s when it began.
Gallivanter watched the fire. When he nodded, a warm sensation melted on top of Billy’s head like an egg spilled into a frying pan. It seeped through him, sweeping away the paralysis.
“Not your memory,” Gallivanter said. “Not you.”
Billy rubbed his face. The air was suddenly thick and hot. He drew quick, stabbing breaths. “But I did... other things.”
Gallivanter stroked the beard braids.
“I couldn’t stop. He was too...” Billy trembled. Too strong.
“Your memories belong to William, most of them. He made you what he wanted. Hid you from yourself.”
A good boy.
He remembered looking at the elven shortly after bringing him home, remembered confining him to a chair and extracting his memories. The urge to weep returned. Those were William’s memories.
“Who am I?”
Gallivanter looked at him. The eyes wrinkled in the corners and twinkled in the center. He hopped off his perch and waddled over, patting Billy’s hand.
“You are this.”
Billy wiped his eyes. He didn’t have to have a name to exist, didn’t have to be born to be alive. I am this.
“Can you forgive me?”
Gallivanter shuffled toward the exit. “I will show you.”
Billy was slow to get up. His legs were newborn. He trundled into the hallway. Gallivanter was in the elevator. It went up, the smooth sound of hydraulics easing to a stop. There was chatter on the other side of the doors. They opened to the foyer and the chatter stopped.
The children were waiting.