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I broke away from his warm lips. I didn’t how long we’d kissed, how long we’d embraced on the rooftop; it didn’t matter. The heat of his body had been comforting against mine, his perfume familiar and cosy. He’d inundated my senses. I’d revelled in him.
And I’d felt no guilt at betraying Queenie. There were some regrets, but no guilt; I’d promised myself I’d changed, that I wouldn’t cheat. But I didn’t feel guilty.
Regan leant in for another kiss, but I stopped him. His eyes betrayed his hurt feelings, only for a moment, before he smiled and hid his grief at the loss of my lips.
I smiled to comfort him.
“That was...” he said.
“Yeah.” I placed my hands on his shoulders and gently separated us. “We need to get back inside.”
“You think those robots have gone?”
“Probably. But we can’t stay on the roof all night.”
“Oh?” A sly grin crept up his face. “I can think of something to keep us busy.”
“I bet,” I replied, “but I... we have cases to solve. And they’re connected, all of it’s connected.”
“How so?”
“One of the people who underwent the face change? It was Emmett Greene.”
“What?”
“Emmett Greene. He’s not what he seems. I saw the patient record before we had to make a run for it.”
“Why would someone like him need to get a face change? Do you think he’s The Victor?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But I didn’t see who the other patient was.”
“Still... Emmett Greene?”
“It’s something that connects your case to mine, connects Tribeca to the missing Delartes and the Church of the Third Encounter.”
“And connects my mother to everything too.”
I nodded. “We might be able to find something about her in the hospital database.” I led Regan from our hiding space and to the roof access door. “There has to be something incriminating.” I craved a cigarette but resisted; I wanted to keep the taste of his lips on mine.
“She’s good at hiding that sort of thing.”
“I know but it’s worth a try,” I said. “I want to know how she recovered so quickly from her coma.”
“After the copycat killer...?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t believe she was attacked?” said Regan. “Or you don’t believe she was attacked by the copycat?”
I shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out.” I flashed a grin and wink at my partner in crime before grabbing hold of the door handle. “Ready?”
“I think so.”
“Stay back.” I eased the door open a crack. Nothing. Nothing but the grotty railings. There was no sign of either of the damned robots.
I slipped inside and Regan followed. A finger on the lips was the only gesture I needed to communicate to the other man for him to keep quiet, although it was difficult to do so perfectly on these rickety steps.
We reached the bottom, and I performed a similar procedure with the access door as I had on the rooftop; I opened it a crack and peeked out into the hall. Nothing, again. The mechanical sentinels had moved on, hopefully to another floor, and permanently away from where we needed to work. There was no sign or sound of the robots in the rooms on the floor either.
We returned to where we’d hacked into the database.
“Don’t connect,” I whispered. “Keep an eye on the doorway for me.” Regan leaned against the desk next to me as I returned my SmartBoy to the terminal connection. “We don’t want to get caught by surprise again.”
“We should’ve done it this way the first time.”
I nodded in agreement. Hindsight was a bitch.
“It wasn’t as if I found anything,” said Regan, dejectedly.
“I was lucky, that’s all.” The blue screen flashed open and entered the search criteria. Dionne Bex. The face changes were something I needed to return to later, especially since only one of three patient names had been revealed. Emmett Greene. But, for now, it was time to look into the CEO of Tribeca systems. Files loaded in front of me, and I started clicking into them; there was a good chance that some of the information was beyond the access Emmerson had given us, but perhaps luck was on our side. “I found something.”
“About my mother?”
“Sector Three hospital records, where your mother was treated for her injuries.” I tapped into the medical report. “Wow. They did quite a bit of work on her. Sorry,” I squeezed Regan’s thigh sensing his reaction. “Organ and tissue replacement, even brain tissue. She was in surgery for about thirty hours.”
“I haven’t spoken to her since she was attacked,” he said. “In fact, it’s been months since I last spoke to her.”
“She’s fine now; I told you I saw her recently.”
“I just don’t understand what she was doing with that copycat killer. She cautious, well-guarded; she wouldn’t have allowed anyone like that to get close to her.”
“Sometimes these things happen.” They didn’t. Not to someone like Dionne Bex. I tapped into the surgeon’s report and tried to make sense of the technical language and medical gobbledegook; it was almost like reading through Professor Howard Lowe’s research all over again. It had made no sense then, and made no sense now, not even after a year for my brain to cogitate and ruminate on the long words. This report about Dionne Bex was similar, not as heavy, but full of confusing nonsense to waylay the layman. Still, after years of working as a private detective, and before that a cop, I could understand some of it, even if only a small fraction. The documents linked to other documents, and I followed the breadcrumb trail of links. Something wasn’t right. Something stunk. “Damn it.”
“What’s up?” said Regan.
“Access denied.” Even Gary Emmerson’s hack couldn’t get passed the denial; I’d hit a wall and needed to backtrack. I’d followed more links, links that lead to the organ and tissue donor, but the identity was hidden. “Tribeca,” I said. “They provided the donor for your mother, but I can’t see who it is. The person’s identity is on their servers, not the hospital’s, which I can’t access. Goddammit.” I clicked another link. “What a minute...”
“Found it?”
“No, something else...” I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “The main surgeon, the person who operated on her, has left a strange comment; he mentions that the organ and tissue donor was a perfect match for your mother which meant that there were no dangerous anti-rejection drugs needed. Too perfect. Exact. Very odd.”
“Is that important? Surely, that was a good thing.”
“The only way it would be such an exact match is if your mother was a twin.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” said Regan. “She’s an only child.”
“I know, and cloning is illegal.”
“You know that wouldn’t’ve stopped her,” he said.
“Cloning wouldn’t have given a perfect match either; the tech is too unstable and it degrades.”
“Wait, does that mean...?” He turned and squatted next to me. He glared at the screen, trying to confirm his own suspicions. “Oh my god.”
“I thought myself and the other Jack Gemini were the only ones, but this proves otherwise,” I said. “You know, she told me she’d been meddling with Lowe’s work again, told me that it was just to solve the power crisis.” I slammed my fist into the desk. “Goddammit!”
Regan grabbed my arm. “Keep it down,” he said quietly. “The robot guards remember?”
I nodded. I wanted to scream, I wanted to drink myself into oblivion. “How could she be so stupid?”
“Maybe you’re wrong?”
“I’m not.”
“But...”
“Transdimensional conduits; it’s why I’m here, why I’ve stolen another man’s life. Me, a fake Jack Gemini.”
“You’re not fake,” said Regan.
I wasn’t listening to him. “I warned her, but she had to, she had to keep messing with it. Damn it! I should be the only one.”
“What else could you do?”
“Last year... that should’ve been the end of it. I shut it down, that damned experiment, and it was the expense of my alternate self’s life.”
“Jack, I...”
“Parallel worlds and parallel people.” I sighed and placed my head in my hands. “I should’ve known, Regan. I should’ve known she would take advantage of the technology.”
“If it’s true, it’s... it’s... horrifying.”
“It’s true,” I said. I lifted my head from the desk and looked into Regan’s eyes. “Your mother...” I grabbed his hand and squeezed it for comfort.
“I know...”
“Dionne Bex had to die for Dionne Bex to live, just like Jack Gemini died in order for me to live. A parallel Dionne Bex.”