Replication

by Kevin Hardman

  “Well, in that case, why didn’t you kiss me then as well?” I asked.

  “Ha!” she snorted derisively. “I’m supposed to kiss you after you’ve been swapping spit with Vestibule?”

  “There was no spit,” I countered fiercely. “Just a little tongue…”

  “Shut up!” Electra screeched as she reached out with a grin and grabbed a handful of chips, then shoved them at my mouth. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

  Chuckling heartily, I reached for her hand as she – laughing as well – pressed the chips around my mouth, grinding most of them into crumbs that went showering down onto the table and my lap.

  “On second thought,” I said, making an exaggerated chewing motion, “your chips are a little bland. They could use some salt.”

  There was a set of salt and pepper shakers on the table; I reached for the former – and then froze. Almost of its own volition, my head suddenly spun around – towards the kitchen’s rear door, which led out to a patio. The door was mostly glass, covered with a set of blinds that were currently open. It was dark out, but after telescoping my vision (as well as cycling it through the light spectrum until I could see almost as well as in daytime), I caught sight of what I expected.

  “What is it?” Electra asked anxiously, following my gaze to the door.

  “Nothing,” I said, trying to keep my voice emotionless. “But I have to go. I just remembered something I need to do.”

  “Huh?” she murmured incredulously. “You just got here.”

  “I know, and I apologize. I’ll make it up to you.”

  “You’d better,” she huffed.

  “You have my word,” I declared as I came to my feet. I then gave her a quick smooch and teleported.

  I reappeared about a block away, with a clear line of sight to the back door of Electra’s house.

  Waiting there for me was Jack.

  Chapter 73

  Wearing a pair of khakis and a light jacket, Jack really wasn’t dressed for the weather. However, if he could tweak his bodily systems like I could, he could make himself comfortable in any clime.

  “I see you got my message,” Jack said with a smile.

  “Stop,” I interjected heatedly. “We’re not doing this here.”

  Jack suddenly looked confused. “Doing what?”

  “Whatever you call this. Meeting, chatting, congregating… We’re not doing it within shouting distance of my girlfriend’s house.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m fine with finding another spot to powwow. I can teleport us some place, but I don’t think you’d let me. And needless to say, I’m not keen on you teleporting me.”

  “Maybe that’s an indication that there’s nothing for us to talk about.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” he countered. “Plus, I think I can find us an alternate venue. Follow me.”

  With that, he went floating straight up into the air. I was momentarily caught off guard – I’d forgotten he could purportedly fly – but then I quickly followed suit, rising up after him.

  We moved up to a height of about fifty feet, and then Jack zipped away laterally. As before, I followed close on his heels, noting that he had impressive flight speed.

  “This should be good,” Jack declared after about half a mile. “High enough to avoid notice from anyone on the ground, but low enough that we don’t have to worry about bumping our heads on any planes. And, of course, out of shouting distance of Electra’s house. Any complaints?”

  “It’ll do,” I grumbled.

  “Now, I was asking if you got my message.”

  “If you mean the salt shaker, then yes, I got it. Would I be here otherwise?”

  Jack smiled. “You have to admit it was pretty clever, though.”

  I grunted, but didn’t immediately say anything. When I had reached for the salt shaker on Electra’s table, I had seen it floating – just as I’d seen happen earlier in the day at the grill. I’d immediately known that it was Jack’s doing – that he was around and probably had a direct line of sight to us. Once I looked out the glass door, it hadn’t taken me long to peg him.

  I gave him a frank stare. “Look, I’m going to make this perfectly clear: stay away from Electra. Stay away from my family. Stay away from my friends.”

  He smiled. “Why would I do that? They’re my friends and family, too. So what’s the issue – you’re afraid they’ll prefer the upgrade over the original?”

  “The issue is that you’re dangerous and unpredictable. I don’t know what you’re going to do, like what happened in the teen lounge today.”

  “Oh, that,” he scoffed. “That was nothing – basically just horseplay.”

  “So you’re not looking to get even with anybody about that little scuffle in the lounge?”

  “No,” he stated solemnly, shaking his head. “Electra’s peers saw one of their own in distress and came to her aid. It’s what I would expect, and I don’t hold it against them. Plus, I’d never hurt anyone close to us. I mean, I tossed some people around telekinetically, but just to keep them off me, and I made sure nobody got more than a minor boo-boo.”

  “You shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” I noted. “I don’t like having my friends in harm’s way.”

  “Well, as I keep stressing, I’m not a danger to them. Even if I were, it’s pretty evident that they can take care of themselves.” He chuckled, apparently reminiscing, then added, “Our girl actually packs quite a wallop – that other one, too.”

  “She’s not our girl!” I hissed. “And you’re lucky Atalanta didn’t tear your head off. Just stay away from us.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment, then cast his eyes down.

  “Don’t you think I would if I could?” he asked somberly, and I sensed an odd sadness and longing in him. “But being you is all I know. All I was ever taught. All that was ever drilled into me.”

  “But that’s not your path anymore,” I stressed. “The people who molded you for that purpose are gone now. You need to own up to the things you’ve done, but you’re free to be your own person.”

  “Why would I want to be anyone else?” he demanded. “Why would I–”

  Jack was cut off as a colony of bats abruptly swooped towards us, squeaking loudly. I instinctively phased, allowing them to pass harmlessly through me. I glanced at Jack, expecting him to do the same, and was caught completely by surprise by what I saw.

  Rather than phase, my evil twin still appeared to be solid. Moreover, I saw a hazy blue glow forming around his eyes, and – knowing what was about to happen – I was immediately filled with dread.

  “Jack!” I bellowed. “No!”

  My shout came too late, however, as azure light shot out from Jack’s eyes in several short bursts. Each beam hit one of the bats, which then seemed to simply vanish.

  Inwardly, I cringed as the meaning of what I had witnessed became clear.

  Jack had the Bolt Blast.

  Chapter 74

  My father, Alpha Prime, was the most powerful superhero on the planet, and the deadliest weapon in his arsenal was his Bolt Blast – powerful beams of energy he could shoot from his eyes, and which would instantly vaporize, disintegrate, and obliterate anything they made contact with. My brother Paramount had inherited this incredible ability, and now Jack had somehow developed it as well.

  Shock and fury welled up in me at what my doppelganger had just done. As the remaining bats scattered, chirping madly, I dashed towards him.

  Gripping him by the collar of his jacket, I screamed, “What the hell is wrong with you?!”

  “What’s your problem?” he shot back, shoving me away. “They’re just bats – flying rats, to be honest.”

  “And you just casually killed them, when all you had to do was phase or get out of the way!”

  “Everybody wants me out of the way,” he retorted. “My handlers. You. Bats… Well, maybe I’m tired of getting out of the way. Maybe it’s time for the rest of the world to get out of
my way.”

  “Or what?” I asked. “You’ll blast them?”

  “Maybe,” he said hotly.

  “And that’s exactly what I meant earlier. You’re dangerous, Jack. You’d rather kill an innocent creature than step two paces to the side. What does that say about you? About your character?”

  “No,” Jack contended, shaking his head. “You’re wrong.”

  “On the contrary, I’m absolutely right – and you proved it by what you did to those bats,” I insisted. “You’re a menace. You need to step away – get help – before someone gets hurt.”

  “I disagree,” Jack said. “You can’t take what I did to some pests and say I’d do the same thing to people.”

  “Oh, I’ve seen what you do to people, and it’s worse. At least the bats didn’t suffer.”

  “Any people that I’ve harmed had it coming,” he argued. “I’d never do that to anyone we cared about.”

  “You mean anyone I cared about,” I corrected. “And there’s no telling what you’ll do, which is why I don’t want you around my family and friends. And if you actually cared about them as much as you say, you’d keep your distance.”

  Suddenly his eyes narrowed, and empathically I felt ire and exasperation building in him.

  “Why do you have to be so selfish?” he demanded. “It’s always your family, your friends, your this, your that… Why does it all have to belong solely to you?”

  I shook my head. “I never said that it did.”

  “That’s precisely how you make it sound – like when you say they’re your friends and not mine.”

  “Because you want connections and relationships with people that are usually built up over time. Friendship and trust are things that have to be earned.”

  “Earned?” he snapped. “What have you ever earned? Everything’s just been handed to you on a silver platter, and it’s still not enough.”

  “Huh?” I muttered. “What are you talking about?”

  “Think about it,” he said. “You’ve got enough powers for two supers, you’re a prince in two different kingdoms, you’ve got a knockout girlfriend and a beautiful fiancée. Basically, your entire existence is a buy-one-get-one-free special.”

  “Most of that stuff – my powers, being royalty – is an accident of birth. It’s not anything I had control over.”

  “And yet somehow you end up doubly-blessed in every way imaginable,” he grumbled, “with enough for two people in almost every arena, and you still want it all for yourself. And to top it all off, you end up as king of an interstellar empire.”

  I was slightly stunned by his statement, and then I remembered: he’d had a dossier on me, including the fact that – in the future – I allegedly end up sitting on the Caelesian throne.

  “I’m not trying to keep anything to myself,” I professed. “The simple truth is that you’re a walking hazard, Jack, and that’s why I don’t want you around the people I care about. Sooner or later, you’re going to hurt somebody, just like you did those bats. As to me being king, the future isn’t set. That story about me ruling Caeles could be entirely wrong.”

  As I finished speaking, an unexpected gleam appeared in Jack’s eye and an impish look settled on his face.

  “Maybe the part about you being king is wrong, but not in the way you imagine,” he suggested. “Maybe it’s not you sitting on that throne.”

  And then, looking crafty and exuding smug self-satisfaction, he vanished.

  Chapter 75

  I teleported home in a somewhat disturbed state. It hadn’t been direct or overt, but Jack had seemingly threatened me. (Or at least threatened to replace me, which didn’t seem to bode well either.)

  I popped up in my room, immediately collapsing onto the bed. Telepathically, I picked up on the fact that everyone was safe at home now (which gave me a sense of relief), and they – at least my family – sensed me as well.

  I spent a moment rubbing my temples as I stared at the ceiling. Dealing with Jack was incredibly frustrating and left me mentally drained. It wasn’t just that he was clearly a menace; it was also the fact that my options for dealing with him were absurdly limited.

  As previously noted, I couldn’t just teleport him, as I could with most bad guys. His own teleportation power prevented that, so there was no taking him into custody, popping him into a nullifier cell, or anything like that.

  A true telepath – someone like Esper or my grandparents – could probably incapacitate him, assuming they could get into his head. Jack, however, had incredibly robust mental shields; if he was anything like me (and, as much as I hated to admit it, he was), getting into his mind was highly unlikely. Moreover, anyone making the effort was apt to give themselves away, and if Jack somehow managed to pin down their location (which wasn’t entirely out of the question), all bets were off.

  The option of taking him physically, in hand-to-hand combat, was also out of the question. Although I’d had years of martial arts training and didn’t doubt my own skill in that arena, there’s almost nothing you can do to a person who can phase.

  At that moment, I suddenly grew pensive as an odd thought occurred to me. But before I could pursue it, I felt my grandfather reaching out mentally.

  he asked.

  I answered.

 

 

 

 

  I broke the telepathic connection and closed my eyes, intending only to rest them for a moment. A few seconds later, I was fast asleep.

  Chapter 76

  I slept fitfully that night, continually tossing and turning, as well as waking up with a start half a dozen times. When I finally woke up for good, I found myself plagued by vague but disquieting images from half-remembered dreams that left me with a sense of alarm and dread – and at the center of them all was my evil twin, Jack.

  It was early and still dark out, but I decided to go ahead and get my day started. After a quick shower, I got dressed and then spent a moment contemplating what to have for breakfast. In all honesty, however – despite missing dinner the night before – I wasn’t really hungry. It might have been the early morning hour, but I just didn’t have much of an appetite.

  With the decision to forego breakfast made, I sat down on the edge of the bed and turned my thoughts back to the problem at hand: how to handle Jack. Within minutes, however, I was right back where I’d left off the night before: other than talking to him (which hadn’t paid any dividends that I could see), there didn’t seem to be a reasonable way to deal with him.

  I groaned in exasperation, increasingly vexed by my inability to come up with a solution. I was confident that there was an answer somewhere, but for some reason I just couldn’t see it. I really needed to clear my head.

  And with that thought, I decided to do the one thing that always seemed to relax me. I phased and then flew straight up, going vertically through the embassy until I found myself in open air. I continued on, flying high up into the sky.

  I stopped when I was several hundred feet in the air. Taking a moment to glance down, I took note of how far away everything seemed: buildings, houses, cars…all the signs of humanity’s presence – and its problems. It all seemed so distant now.

  I looked above me and saw the stars, twinkling merrily. As always, I found myself fascinated by them – how bright they were, how distant…how boundless and infinite the universe itself was. In the face of all that, it almost made my problems seem trivial.

  Now feeling a bit more lighthearted, I zoomed away, smiling slightly as I zipped through the sky.

  *****

  I spent about an hour soaring through the sky, simply reveling in the majesty of flight. As I had hoped, being aloft relaxed me by allowing me to leave my problems on the ground – at least for a little while. Soon enough, though, i
t was time to head back. Dawn had broken, and my family was probably awake and wondering where I was. Reluctantly, I decided to hurry back to the embassy before they started to worry. On the bright side, however, we’d all be able to have breakfast toge–

  My thoughts were cut off by something akin to an explosion on the metaphysical plane. It was a psychogenic wailing of pain and anguish, but on a scale I’d never seen. On a supersensory level, it was the equivalent of a ten-point-oh-magnitude earthquake; mentally, it rattled everything in sight, and literally knocked the wind out of me.

  Having experienced something similar in the past, I recognized the sensation and knew exactly what it was: the death throes of a powerful telepath – most likely as the result of some massive trauma. Psychic or not, almost everyone for miles around had surely felt the impact, and it continued to mentally reverberate.

  As the telepathic keening lingered and echoed, I picked up the hint of something familiar about it – and then froze, reeling in horror.

  Oh no…

  Chapter 77

  I teleported back to the embassy, popping up in my room. Almost immediately, I picked up on extreme anxiety and duress, among other things, coming from several sources. At the same time, my mother and grandmother both began telepathically yelling at me – Mom almost hysterically. Although they were mentally talking over each other, I was able to make out where they were: the main living room. A moment later, I had teleported there and stood, dumbfounded, by the scene before me.

  My grandfather was lying on the floor, with my grandmother cradling his head in her lap. Gramps seemed to be muttering something, but I couldn’t make out what it was. My mother was on the floor as well – on my grandfather’s right side, holding his hand, while Myshtal was on his left side doing the same. All three of them – my mother, grandmother, and Myshtal – were sobbing.

  I dashed over at super speed, and then stared, completely aghast at what I saw.

  The right side of my grandfather’s head was caved in, liked someone had smashed him in the temple with a sledgehammer. However it had happened, the trauma had been so forceful that it had caused his right eye to pop out of its socket, and it lay dangling on his cheek. Beneath him was a widening pool of blood – my grandmother’s clothes were soaked with it. And his brains. I could see his brains…