City of Ports

by Jeff Deck

Eventually we’re on our merry way. They even let us keep both of Jeong’s guns. Though I can sense Jeong’s trepidation at the piles of paperwork that will await him after tonight’s adventures. At least that’s one duty I’ve escaped, having been stripped of my own badge long ago.

  Evil Allard is silent as we walk toward Jeong’s car, picking at the bandage on her ear. But I’m full of stuff to say, for once, forgetting my own loathing for chatterboxes. I’m too amped up to stop.

  “So I guess I don’t need a lawyer anymore,” I say. “But do you think Evil Allard does? What kind of interdimensional jurisdiction do you guys have? Oh shit, and speaking of the Port, do you really think we’ve got this ritual down? Should we make a pit stop for some coal? Do you remember the—”

  “Stop.” Jeong opens the back door and shoves the unresisting doppelgänger inside. “We need to take this one step at a time. First, we need to get this—thing—into a safe place, where she can’t hurt any more people. A specialized place. I happen to know one, because of the, uh, specialized nature of my office.”

  He eases into the driver’s seat. It’ll be a short ride to Daniel Street from here, but as soon as Jeong starts driving, he forgets his plea for me to shut up. Curiosity wins out, and he says: “Now. You didn’t seem at all surprised to face down an exact duplicate of yourself. Give me the abbreviated version: what the hell happened tonight? Where did she come from?” He jerks a thumb at the backseat.

  “You ready for a story?” I say.

  11

  Did I know Graham Tsoukalas? No. It’s too late for that. But I can give you my best guess at a sketch of the kid’s life.

  Graham was a thoughtful guy, a dreamer, a philosophy major. An open-minded lover. The big questions tugged at him, as they begin to do for most people of college age: what are we doing here? Is this all there is? If not, what’s out there to find? For most of us, these questions remain unanswerable, because we’re stuck in our orbit of the ordinary. But someone gave Graham Tsoukalas a key to a door, behind which an answer might just be found. How could he resist?

  Who knows who it was. Someone from the Tenacious Trainers? I’d like to find out, but let’s focus on Graham right now, our intrepid seeker. Armed with knowledge from an unknown source, he went to open this door to elsewhere. Were Wallace and Neria there for the first opening? I don’t think so, not from what Neria told us. I see Graham as the kind of guy who would want to check out the scene all by his lonesome, at least at first. Remember the “Backup” DVD: he didn’t fully trust his intimate friends.

  So he stole out to Prescott Park, probably at night, and went into the Sheafe Warehouse. He performed the ritual: speaking the weird words, walking a triangular pattern, and flinging coal at the designated spot. And then the door—the Port, let’s call it, since that’s what Neria said—opened.

  Cue his first glimpse of that other place. Graham wouldn’t have walked through, not then. He probably closed the Port again in a hurry. I’m sure he had no fucking idea what he was doing. As would be the same for most of us, messing with gateways to other universes. The difference being, I think most of us would have the sense not to mess with said gateways, especially not more than once.

  But Graham was a seeker. He might have been terrified the first time, but his mind eventually came around to the idea of opening the Port a second time. This time, he would have to walk through. He would have to see what was out there. But maybe he didn’t want to do it alone.

  So his fellow bedroom explorers Wallace and Neria got an invitation. Maybe they were all having one of those late-night dorm room conversations that seem so consequential, and Graham turned to them and said, “There’s a place I need to show you.” And the words he then spoke, combined with the utter seriousness on his face, gave his two lovers grand dreams of the possibilities that lay ahead.

  Tonight, the three of them waited until dark fell and the crowds thinned. They sneaked into the Sheafe Warehouse. For the second time, Graham performed his little ritual to open the Port. But if he was hoping for them to accompany him through, he would end up disappointed: Wallace and Neria were simply too terrified to even approach the thing, never mind step through it.

  Maybe they begged him to stay away from it, too. But Graham was determined. He’d already made up his mind, and with an audience he had to go through with his exploration.

  On the other side, Graham found a strange temple devoted to a giant slug. Became awed, moved, inspired, etc. He’d brought his sketchpad, because Graham Tsoukalas had a touch of the artiste, and so now he sketched that mosaic of the flying beasts and the statue on the altar. Then he put the sketchbook down to investigate the rest of the temple.

  He next saw what I saw: all those windows with a prime view of a hellacious landscape. The pairs of scary, intertwining flying beasts maybe smelled him the way they smelled me, and they made their approach. Graham’s journey of wonder and discovery turned in a heartbeat to pants-pissing terror.

  He fled back into the inner chamber of the temple. In his panic, he forgot about his sketchbook still lying on the altar. The only thing he could think about now was escape. Graham ran for the Port.

  And sure, Graham made it back to our world—but something came back with him. Something that looked just like him. The major difference was that it was butt-naked, the way Graham himself came into the world twenty years ago. Free of clothes and wrist implants alike.

  I know, sounds crazy, right? Well, how about a gateway to another universe? That’s fucking normal?

  Evil Graham was a walking manifestation of the original Graham’s worst impulses. Apparently one of those impulses was self-destruction, because Evil Graham attacked his progenitor almost immediately.

  I’m thinking Evil Graham possessed a frightening amount of strength. At the very least, he had a reserve of willpower that Graham didn’t. He saw an opportunity for a new life, but he’d have to put someone else out of the picture first. Graham fled from the warehouse, over the bridge to Peirce Island. Evil Graham was probably hot on his heels, otherwise why make the poor choice of heading for a dead end?

  Sadly, in the final confrontation, Evil Graham won out and killed Graham. He then stole his clothes. After all, the dead Graham Tsoukalas that the police found was naked. That detail was mentioned in the initial version of Kuhn’s Porthole story before the police censored it.

  Wallace and Neria were too paralyzed with fear to stop what happened. The Port alone probably was enough to freak them out. So when this malicious doppelgänger came through after their friend, attacked him, and then chased him, they just stood by and watched. They were too chicken to follow Graham and his twin out to Peirce Island, otherwise their bodies would have been lying there in addition to Graham’s. Or there’d be two Graham corpses side by side. No, they ran away instead, which gave Graham’s evil doppelgänger the time he needed to change into dead Graham’s clothes.

  But Wallace and Neria still weren’t safe. Evil Graham came after them next. Given his desire to take Graham’s place in this world, he was intelligent enough to realize he had to kill the only other two people who knew of the Port.

  So he drew upon Graham’s imported memories of Wallace and Neria, and he tracked them down. He caught up with them outside the Tenacious Trainers gym, which they had probably run to for answers, like I had. A showdown ensued. Together, Wallace and Neria were able to overpower and kill Evil Graham, though the experience must have been a nightmare. They then stuffed him into the dumpster out back. This was probably happening around the time I was talking with Christine Figueroa at the Friendly Toast.

  Our poor two kids realized that there was no way they’d be able to explain the presence of two dead Graham Tsoukalases, never mind one. They decided to run. So they went back to their apartment and packed their bags. But Wallace and Neria also grabbed the coal Graham had used to open the Port, in the hopes of closing it before they flee. They’d failed to help their friend—but their consciences wouldn’t let them leave the Port ope
n to perpetuate further murder and mayhem.

  Trouble was, I was there to interfere. I grabbed Neria and caused Wallace to run off. Then, in the confusion, Neria ran off too. Then I got the fool idea to go into the Port.

  When I came back, I brought my own Evil Allard back with me.

  She came into this world naked, just like Graham’s doppelgänger had. Spontaneously generated, somehow, by the Port itself. And just like Evil Graham, Evil Allard wanted to usurp me—though I suppose my suicidal tendencies don’t run as deep as Graham’s did. Because Evil Allard didn’t want to kill me. Not then, and not at the PD either. She just sucker-punched me and took my clothes.

  Disguised as me and fancy free, Evil Allard embarked on a campaign of revenge. The targets: everyone I hate, even today, despite my new “enlightened” self forged through months and months of therapy. It’s like my id grew a pair of legs. Evil Allard embodies all the ugly stuff that still lurks underneath the surface of me.

  [Here, Evil Allard feels compelled to interject from the back seat: “Is justice ugly? Is it ugly to balance the scales?”

  “Shut it,” I say. “When I want my opinion, I’ll give it to me.”

  “Maybe the real ugliness is cowardice,” Evil Allard says, her eyes glittering, as she leans forward. “Just imagine if you’d had the courage to do what needed to be done—last year. Strap Henry Akerman to a chair in a dark room and you’d know who killed our Hannah soon enough.”

  I take her by surprise. I take her by the throat. Only Jeong’s bark of command stops me from squeezing.

  “Get on with it,” Jeong says coldly. “We’ve been sitting here too long.”]

  Evil Allard’s first big break was to run into Eric Kuhn, Portsmouth Porthole’s star reporter, who’d returned to Prescott Park to follow up on details about Graham Tsoukalas’s death. She didn’t hesitate to slaughter him, to mash his head against the whale statue, because she honestly believed she hated him to the point of murder.

  Because of me. Because of the anger and hatred that I’ve still been harboring in my mind, all this time.

  Meanwhile, Wallace and Neria had returned to the park, to try one last time to close the Port. Conscience and guilt still motivated them, even after my blundering interference. Unfortunately, they didn’t even make it close to the Port this time. The cops, who have wised up to potential suspects after the late Skip Bradley’s interviews with the Tsoukalas family, nabbed them right away. We know they didn’t reach the Port because the cops haven’t yet discovered it.

  Then Evil Allard moved on to her next target for revenge: the Portsmouth police station, full of cops who let us down and potentially covered up a murder, then shamed us and fired us for wanting to know the truth. And that idiot Bradley was her way in. She would have murdered them all if we hadn’t stopped her.

  But let me say it again: Evil Allard isn’t responsible for her actions. She may be a murderous monster, but—I don’t believe that’s all there is to her. I don’t believe that’s the extent of what she can be. The truth is, we know nothing about how that Port operates, therefore we know nothing about this little asshole’s true nature.

  That leaves me with one question: what is the FBI planning to do with her?

  12

  Jeong’s look of intent listening fades as I turn the question on him. “You say you’ve got a place to ‘store’ her. But what do you intend to do with her? I’m guessing the FBI’s interest in an extraterrestrial clone would go beyond mere containment.”

  The agent shrugs. We’ve pulled into the McIntyre Building lot on Daniel Street and Jeong has his hand on the door handle. “You’ve got me, Divya. Tonight’s the first time I even knew an extraterrestrial clone, as you put it, could even exist.”

  No, you used the word “clone” first, I think to myself. Jeong’s deflection hardly seems sincere. I say, “Wait,” and the agent refrains from opening his car door.

  “Did you guys know about the existence of Ports?” I ask, my face growing hot. “Your little office of curiosities, funded by—what was it—Project Stargate?”

  He smiles, though it’s not so charming this time. “We . . . had a suspicion. Nothing solid. Tonight was the first time I’ve ever seen one.”

  “Maybe you could have told me about your suspicions before you guys sent me out to stumble into strange alternate universes!” For the first time, I’m truly angry at Jeong. I guess I’d lulled myself into thinking he might actually be my friend. But no, just another cog in the wheel. “Or did you want me to create a killing machine copy of myself?”

  “I’m still here,” Evil Allard says from the back.

  “We didn’t know,” Jeong says. “We were 90 percent sure the Ports were a fairy tale. Or at least I was.”

  I note this subtle blame shift onto his boss, and it doesn’t mollify me one bit. “This is bullshit, Jeong. Would you send a fellow agent into danger without giving them every piece of intelligence you knew, even the ‘10 percent chance’ stuff? I don’t think so! Crazy old Divya, on the other hand? Well, fuck her, I guess, she doesn’t even carry a badge anymore. Expendable.”

  “Hey,” Ethan Jeong says. “Hey.” The concerned look on his face just pisses me off more. Don’t tell me he’s scared now. Does my current expression eerily match the one on my twin’s face as she gunned down Portsmouth’s finest?

  “You and your whole office can go take a swim in the goddamn Piscataqua,” I growl. “Right after you all give me the answers about Hannah that you promised me.”

  “You’re an idiot if you think they’re gonna tell you a damned thing,” Evil Allard remarks.

  I glare at her. “That’s enough out of you, Body Snatcher. One more fucking word—”

  “Divya,” Jeong says, holding up his hands. “Please. I would have never let you go out there if I knew about the danger you’d be in. Believe it or not, I took this job to protect people, not to sacrifice them to extraplanar monsters. I should’ve stuck with you from the moment you made your deal with SSA Marsters. I’m . . . sorry.”

  My anger wants to keep raging. But a glance back at Evil Allard is enough to make me feel sickened and exhausted, and slowly the anger drains back down into its dark reservoir. “To be fair,” I mutter, “I wouldn’t have tolerated a babysitter anyway. I would have shaken you off before we even reached the Tenacious Trainers gym. I know how to lose people.”

  “You certainly do,” Evil Allard says.

  I take a deep breath. She can’t hurt me if I don’t let her.

  “I promise,” Jeong says, “it’ll be full disclosure from here on out, Divya. Everything we’ve learned from the Stargate initiative will be yours to peruse. You’ve earned that much after what you’ve been through tonight. Just let me talk to—”

  His phone rings.

  As he answers the call, it occurs to me Evil Allard is still wearing my jacket.

  “Take off my jacket,” I command. I lean into the backseat and encourage her by yanking on the collar.

  “All right, I get the message,” Evil Allard mutters. She wriggles out of the jacket and I pull it into the front with me, slip it on, and pat the pockets. My phone, my wallet, the dead kid’s sketchbook: it’s all there. Miracles do happen. Oh, and the DVD of Graham and Wallace doubleteaming Neria. To think that almost ended up in the slippery hands of the police and therefore the media.

  I have several missed calls and a voicemail from Sol Shrive. I’m guessing he was rather confused about what he saw tonight.

  But I don’t get the chance to listen to the message. Jeong rings my internal alarm as I hear him say: “Stay there. Keep guarding the Port. I’m headed up to the office now.” He hangs up. “We’ve got a huge problem.”

  “Even huger than our other problems on this most fascinating of evenings?” I say.

  “I’m fucking serious,” Jeong says. He jumps out of the car, and I follow suit.

  “Allard, stay here with your evil twin,” he barks at me.

  I shake my head. “Uh uh. You ju
st told me you wouldn’t be shutting me out.”

  “No. This—this is different—”

  “And you clearly don’t have time to argue with me,” I say. I pop open the back door and grab Evil Allard by the cuffs.

  “Fine,” Jeong snarls. “If you let her escape or harm anyone, I’m sending both of you to containment.”

  “Yes sir.”

  He hurries up the three flights of stairs. I follow at a slower pace, keeping a close eye on the other Allard the whole time. She won’t catch me unaware with a sudden kick or a strategic dive and dodge. As it happens, Evil Allard doesn’t try. She plays along for now.

  I catch up with Jeong in the main room of the FBI office. He’s staring in shock at a figure lying on the floor amid a carpet of knocked-over papers. It’s Agent Ramirez. The woman is groaning in pain, blood pouring down her temple. She momentarily focuses on the two of us through the haze of her head wound but says nothing. Her eyes flick in the direction of the next room.

  I say: “Ethan, what—”

  He brings his finger to his lips. Then we all hear the noise from nearby. Three voices—three incredibly similar voices—are all chattering and barking orders at the same time.

  “Jesus on a cherry popsicle,” Jeong says, paling. He unholsters his gun and rushes in.

  13

  Three SSA Kat Marsterses are busy at work in her office. None of them are naked, thankfully—she must keep a couple of extra outfits in her closet—but the sight of them still unnerves me. One’s on a cell phone, another’s on a desk phone, and the third is sitting at Marsters’s desk typing furiously at her computer. The two on phone calls are having Very Important Conversations, mostly involving the Marsterses shouting curses and commands in alternating order.

  “No, you must,” says Cell Phone Marsters. “I can’t just wait around for you to see this thing. Once you see it, you’ll be convinced, but we need additional personnel here at once.”