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The acrid aroma of smelling salts startled me awake and my bleary, sleep-filled eyes struggled to open. Someone gently tapped my cheeks. Tired though I felt, I was also well-rested, for a change; whatever drug that’d been used to knock me out had inadvertently given me the best sleep I’d had a in a long time. Nothing hurt, no aches, no pains. Although I was certain it wouldn’t be long before the analgesic effects of the drug faded away. Damn it.
“Jack,” said a voice. They shook my shoulders and my vision focused.
“Greene,” I said. I was tied up. Again. “Or is it Smith?” Bondage seemed to be goddamned theme of my life lately and it wasn’t even the fun kind.
“Call me what you want.” The Emerald Killer, head of the Church of the Third Encounter grinned. “It doesn’t really matter, not anymore.”
We were in Dionne Bex’s secret lab; the one below her office. The large machine, the one which Regan had so vigorously smashed, had already been repaired; an ominous mess of metal and plastic that consumed one wall of the lab. As my eyes began to adjust to the bright, fizzy lighting, I looked around and took in my surroundings. The desks and tables, along with any other equipment, had been pushed and moved back out of the way, leaving me exposed in the centre of the room. I would be the centre of attention, but Smith and I weren’t the only ones in the room. About thirty cult members lined the edges of the room, grey robed and zealous, anxious. They were here with their god, Augustus Smith. They watched. Leered. Guarded.
I realised I was still coated in red, my clothes were still covered in Regan’s blood. Damn it.
I was on display for the culprit of his death, tied to a chair in the clearing, and I had company. Regan’s mother, Dionne Bex, the CEO of Tribeca Systems, was unconscious to my right, tied to her own chair.
“Why?” I asked.
“It’s just feels... right,” he said. He wore a smart white suit and was leaning against a table facing me. “Especially since you and I are the only survivors.”
“What?”
He walked closer and leant down near my face. He whispered. “It was you who followed me into the Tribeca Corp building all those years ago.”
“I know,” I said. He didn’t look surprised. “I know you’re the Smith from my universe. I know you’re a... you’re fake like me.”
Smith straightened up. “’Fake’ isn’t the word I would use.” A sly smile crept up his face. “’Upgrade’ maybe. And, from your perspective and mine, this world isn’t the real one; this world is the fake.”
“Uh... I wouldn’t say that.” I pulled on the bonds that held me the chair. Cable ties grasped my wrists and ankles; not the easiest things to break or escape from, and there was no way I was going to pull off the same trick I did in the basement of the warehouse. Not with all these eyes on me. “If this world is fake, then all the people I’ve lost since I arrived here were damned fake too... and that’s not something I can believe is true.”
“It doesn’t matter what you believe, Jack; it’s the truth.” He raised his hands in the air. “We’re the chosen ones.”
“Bullshit. Absolute crazy bullshit. You’re insane.”
Smith laughed. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“He’s got a point,” interrupted a voice. “This is a little bit insane.” There was a man, with his back to us and who’d I assumed was one of the cult members despite the lack of grey robe, typing away at one of the consoles for the machine. He stood and turned to face me.
“Gary?” I said.
Gary Emmerson, hacker and tech wizard, a man who I’d trusted, was working with my enemy. I shouldn’t’ve been surprised... but I was. I’d always thought Emmerson had some sense of morality, but this proved otherwise. Goddammit. Two- faced bastard. At least this explained his presence in the warehouse a few days ago; he was working with Smith. Damn it.
“Jack,” he said with a nod. There was a hint of guilt in his face as he walked over to Smith, or was it Greene, and stood next to him. I hadn’t noticed before, but they were the same height. Odd. “I... er...”
I glared to silence the man. He was another betrayer in my life, along with Queenie; I wondered for a moment where she’d escaped to, but I had more pressing concerns to worry about.
“Is it ready?” said Smith to the man at his side.
Emmerson nodded. “As it’ll ever be,” he said.
“Good, good.” Smith grinned ear to ear. “Wake our other guest, will you?” He handed Gary a small bottle of smelling salts. “She needs to bear witness.”
The other man did as he was told and leaned down the wake Dionne Bex. She came to with a start.
“What...?” She shook her head to wake herself. “It’s you,” she said. “Both of you.”
“You know Gary Emmerson too?” I asked. “I thought it was Greene who attacked you?”
“Yes, it was Greene,” she said. “And I know who Emmerson is.” Her voice was groggy, and she wasn’t fully awake yet, unlike myself; if she’d been more alert, I’m sure she would’ve been angrier than she seemed right now, and she wouldn’t’ve hesitated to make it known. “You think I wouldn’t keep tabs on someone like him? You should know who he is.”
I looked back to the pair of men as Emmerson returned to his position next to Smith. They both stood with their hands on their hips, and then it hit me; the realisation smashed into my brain like a ton of bricks. Damn it. I don’t know why I’d never noticed it before. I should’ve seen it, should’ve worked it out. There’d been three face changes in the hospital database. One had been the Victor. But two... two had been funded by Tribeca. Two. Damn it. How could I have been so stupid? It all seemed so obvious now that they were stood next to each other.
Goddammit.
Same height.
Same build.
Same posture.
Different faces.
“You’re both Augustus Smith,” I said.
“Not quite,” said Greene with a smirk. “I’m the original... the ‘true’ Augustus Smith if you will. Ha ha. Just as you are the ‘true’ Jack Gemini. Ha. Gary Emmerson,” he pointed to the man at his side, “is the Smith from this universe.”
“Same difference.”
He shook his head. “No. No, we’re very different. Gary abandoned our cause a long time ago; he’s only here today because he thinks he’ll somehow convince me to do the same.”
“And by cause you mean...?”
“Murder,” said Gary. “I asked you before about forgiveness, back when you came to me for help breaking into the hospital databases, and I even talked about people changing for the better. I’ve changed. I changed after I watched the other Jack Gemini, the other you, fall into the time vortex. I saw you both. Saw the potential of change, the majesty of the multiverse. I changed.” An awkward smile graced his lips. “Do you forgive me, Jack?” He leaned a little forward on his toes, hands clasped together. “For the misguided deaths I caused in the long distant past?”
“Long distant past?” I said. “A decade isn’t a long time ago, Gary. It’s nothing in the grand scheme of things. And misguided. Ha! Murder is still goddamned murder, whichever way you want to dress it up!”
“You’ll come around, I’m sure of it,” said Emmerson. “Just like I did, when I saw the light of the vortex.” His hands unclasped and his arms folded. He shot a glance to the other man at his side. “Just like I’m sure Emmett Greene will come around.”
Greene, my Smith, laughed. “We all have a part to play! Destiny! It’s my destiny to destroy them all, all the unworthy. But I can’t do it all alone. That’s why I needed my Church, and of course, my alter ego; he was destined to help me bring about change for this world.”
“You’re insane,” I said. “And you’re a damned idiot, Gary! Don’t you know what paves the road to hell? You think you can change him, because you changed, but you can’t; things have gone too far now. You, we, need to stop him before he begins whatever crazy plan he’s got up his sleeves. You must know what he’s up to, must know that whatever you’re doing to help him is only exacerbating the situation!”
Smith clapped his hands. “Enough!” He pointed to the terminal where Gary had been working. “It’s time. Activate the machine.”
“Wait!” I tried to stand, forgetting my bonds, and the chair scraped forward a little. “Whatever you’re doing, don’t! My other self, the other Jack Gemini, messed with this stuff and almost destroyed everything! Damn it! Don’t make the same mistake he almost made!”
“Ha! But don’t you see, Jack? Dionne Bex is living proof that the technology works!” He gestured to the woman to my right; she glared at Smith with an unrivalled ferocity. “Literally! The fact that she’s here, alive, proves it works!” He shrugged. “I’ll admit that I forced her hand, it was risky, necessary, but I forced her to use the technology that brought me here. Brought you here! That’s enough for me to know it works.” He grinned, ear to ear, toothy and predatory. Insane. “And this is only the beginning! I’ll start with this universe... and then, who knows?!” He giggled.
I didn’t know what he’d planned, what nefarious and dangerous thing he was up to, but I knew it was going to end in disaster. And I couldn’t do anything to stop it. There was nothing I could say, no way I could get out of these ties to stop this goddamned bullshit myself. My only hope to stop Smith was Smith, the Smith from this universe: Gary Emmerson. I did believe he’d changed, and although not completely reformed since he still worked in the criminal underworld, he was no longer a killer. I’d trusted him. But what could I say to him to get him to help? Could I trust him enough to stop Smith?
I watched as he moved back to the terminal where’d been working. He sat down and looked back to Smith for guidance. Idiot.
“Are you ready?” said Smith.
“Fuck you,” said Dionne Bex. “Fuck you both.”
“Oh, come on,” he tutted, tongue in cheek, “there’s no need for any of that language, is there?” The man laughed. “It’s not too late to repent for your sins, Ms Bex.”
“What about yours?” she replied.
“There’s no sin I can commit,” he said without even a damned ounce of irony. “Every action I take is all for the greater good.”
I snorted. “You don’t honestly believe that crap, do you?”
Smith ignored me and clicked his fingers at Emmerson, gesturing for him to start up Bex’s machine.
I looked over to Ms Bex; she was worried. So was I. I had an inkling of what Smith was about to do and, if I was correct, it was goddamned insane! And there was nothing I could do, nothing anyone could do in this moment, but to watch as Smith fulfilled his dream.
The machine whirred and beeped, coming alive, and a glow grew from the glass capsule nestled amongst the equipment.
Smith jumped up and down, giggling like a child with his hands clasped together.
A shadow formed behind the frosted glass door of the tube.
Something was coming through.
Someone was coming through.
Smith.
Another Augustus Smith.
The machinery trilled an alarm, there was a hiss of steam, and then, silence.
The door opened.