Faller

by Will McIntosh

  As Melissa turned away, Storm whipped her arm around Melissa’s throat, put her in a headlock. “Drop the gun.”

  Melissa grabbed Storm’s wrist, tried to break free. Storm tightened her grip until Melissa gagged. Faller considered intervening. If Storm had been the one in the headlock, he would have, but he thought maybe Melissa had this coming.

  Melissa dropped the pistol. Storm stepped on it, then released Melissa, who stumbled, clutching her throat.

  “We’re not shooting people just because we can,” Storm said. “I get it—we’re fighting for our lives. Some lines you don’t cross, even if you’re fighting for your life.”

  “That sounds just like something I would have said before the war.” Melissa was looking at Faller, pain in her eyes.

  “Oh, I’ve seen plenty of people die,” Storm said.

  “Evidently not enough,” Melissa shot back.

  47

  FALLER EYED the meager supply of food beside the Harrier. After that, they’d have to rely on foraging, or trading with the locals.

  “I wish I could go with you,” Storm said.

  “So do I,” Faller said. Actually, he didn’t. This was likely to be a one-way trip. He didn’t want anyone else to die, least of all Storm.

  Penny was holding a sketch she’d made on the back of a piece of paper she’d found in the Harrier. It was a map of Ugo’s world. “If you and Melissa do need to parachute in, there aren’t many places you can drop without being noticed, even at night. There’s a forested area over on this end that would be your best bet.” She pointed it out on the map.

  “Faller, you’re not going to be able to move around unnoticed, after you take credit for killing Peter Sandoval,” Penny went on. “Sandoval duplicates are scum in this place, but you’re going to be king of scum.”

  “Sounds delightful. Maybe I won’t want to leave.”

  Penny ignored the crack. “Don’t speak to anyone who doesn’t speak to you first. Not even me. Once you and I land, I’m going to treat you like a complete stranger. No offense.”

  “Fair enough.”

  XXV

  WITH IRON Lives howling from the CD player, Peter sped up. He was doing close to a hundred miles per hour, but there were no troopers lying in wait for speeders, so the only risk was an accident.

  His mind needed to be focused on the situation at hand, but he kept thinking about Harry. He didn’t know how to grieve. He hadn’t grieved much for his original self, either, because he hadn’t felt gone—only moved. The same with Harry, although from the original Harry’s perspective, he had in no uncertain terms been shot, suffered, and died.

  Lifting his hips, Peter pried his phone from his jeans pocket and dialed Harry’s number.

  “Hey, Doc.”

  “How are you holding up?” Peter asked, fighting the feeling that he was speaking to a stranger, an imposter. How ironic that he of all people should feel that way.

  Harry’s duplicate took a big, huffing breath. “I’m hanging on by my fingernails. This is all so messed up; there are two other mes walking around, and I’m not really me. The real me is dead.”

  “You can’t think about it that way.”

  “How can I not think about it that way? It’s true. I’m not me. Me is dead.”

  “You’re you. It’s just that there’s more than one you now. Try to focus on what you need to do.”

  “That’s what I’m doing. One of the Harrys is already gone, in the Harrier with the original Melissa and Kathleen, so we’re shorthanded. Hey, you just walked by! You want to talk to yourself?” Even hanging by his fingernails, he was still a comedian.

  As he headed around a gentle curve, the George Washington Bridge came into view.

  “I’ll pass. I’m just getting into Manhattan. Tell me I said hi.” He disconnected, wondering if Melissa, Kathleen, and the Harry duplicate got out before the blackout virus hit, if Ugo had released it at all. Peter wondered if he got out in time. He’d know soon enough.

  The lanes leading out of the city were clogged, while Peter nearly had the incoming lanes to himself. Many were afraid New York was going to get hit again soon, although it was of little importance militarily. Maybe word was getting out that deposed President Aspen was hiding in Manhattan, and they were afraid General Elba was going to bomb it to finish her off. Peter wished Aspen had chosen a hiding place closer to his home; he hated being so far from his friends at this crucial moment.

  His phone buzzed, alerting him to an incoming text.

  The message read: I sent you a box of chocolates. The sender was blocked.

  “Oh, no. Oh, no.” Peter dialed Harry.

  “I just got a text from Ugo. He claims he released the blackout virus.”

  “Shit. How widely? Did he say?”

  “No. At the very least, he’s releasing it right at you. The message was personal, meant to let me know I was about to get it. Are you ready to go?”

  “Just about,” Harry said. “Minutes away.”

  “As soon as you do it, get everyone out. Cut everyone loose, tell them to run and hide, far and wide. Hopefully some of you can avoid being captured if this doesn’t work.” If the blackout virus ran its course and Ugo’s group took complete control, Peter had no doubt Ugo would come after not just him, but Harry and maybe Kathleen and Melissa as well.

  “I have to go. I love you. Tell the other Harrys and Kathleens and Melissas I love them, too.” Peter disconnected. He was flying down the Henry Hudson Parkway, the river on his right, no one shooting hoops in the parks he passed, no one walking a dog or rollerblading. Everyone was inside, watching the news, or fighting in California, or China, or Saudi Arabia. Or they were dead.

  He took the Thirty-ninth Street exit. President Aspen was at U.N. Headquarters, on Forty-second Street along the East River. Hopefully she’d managed to get a television crew inside to air the announcement that the energy supply was in place. Whether that announcement would restore Aspen to power, Peter didn’t know.

  A wave of longing hit him unexpectedly, for Melissa to be here with him. One of the Melissas. Any of them.

  A billion stars exploded outside. Peter hit the brakes.

  * * *

  PETER WAS alone, in black space that wasn’t space. It felt as if it were pushing in on him, suffocating him. He was seeing in every direction at once, surrounded by vast, twisting ladders comprised of ink-black spots. The ladders twisted in on themselves, shot off in straight lines to pinpoints. They filled the black, starless void like endless strands of DNA.

  * * *

  HIS BMW thumped over the curb and onto the sidewalk. Peter braked to a stop just in time to avoid slamming into a building.

  Back in the direction of the river, people were shouting. Screaming, really. Peter wanted to sit in his car on the sidewalk and try to make sense of what he’d just glimpsed, but it sounded like there were people who needed help. He got out and jogged in the direction of the screams.

  Singularities. Those billions of spots he’d glimpsed in that instant had been singularities, strung together in an elaborate fabric.

  Passing in and out of the long shadows of high-rises, he crossed Eleventh Avenue, spotted a crowd a block away, on Twelfth, staring out toward the river.

  Only as he drew closer, the Hudson wasn’t its usual dark grey-green—it was light blue, blending perfectly into the sky. It had to be an illusion; some strange reflection of the sky that camouflaged the water … and the shore of New Jersey beyond.

  Peter slowed as he drew closer. The people seemed distraught beyond all reason, and the illusion of the powder-blue sky existing where the Hudson should have been only grew stronger. A big, billowy cloud drifted serenely where Hoboken should have been.

  He reached the crowd, clumped together a dozen feet from the ragged edge of a seemingly endless drop that began halfway across what had been Twelfth Avenue. There was nothing beyond but sky.

  Peter kept walking, through the crowd, over broken chunks of Twelfth Avenue until
he’d gone as far as he could without falling.

  He looked out at what he’d done.

  Then he turned and headed to the right along the drop-off, threading his way past thousands of sobbing, screaming, terrified people. Twice, he stumbled and fell.

  Peter picked up a fist-sized chunk of concrete and hurled it over the edge. He watched it plummet. Which was impossible, because he was standing on a chunk of Manhattan that was not plummeting. By all rights it should be plummeting.

  48

  DEAFENING MUSIC filled the cockpit, making it difficult to concentrate. Faller needed to concentrate. His head ached, trying to remember everything his doppelgänger had taught him about flying. It would be a miracle if he was able to land the thing without raising suspicion, or killing himself and Penny. When he was practicing he’d been more relaxed. And there hadn’t been loud, shitty music playing.

  “Can you turn that off? It’s terrible.”

  Penny killed the music.

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s not terrible,” Penny said.

  “It’s terrible.”

  She folded her brightly tattooed arms. “I happen to know Iron Lives was one of your favorite musical groups before your memory was wiped.”

  “Then I had terrible taste.”

  Something smelled bad. He wondered if it was the bodies. Did corpses start to smell after only three days? Probably if you were closed in with them, they did.

  “What else do you know about me, apart from my being the biggest mass murderer in history?”

  “You were brilliant. You took a razor, sliced open the air, and pulled a god out through the wound.”

  How lyrical. “But I didn’t know the god would do this, when I set it loose?”

  Penny shrugged. “Melissa says you didn’t. Woolcoff tells everyone you couldn’t stand losing, so you unleashed the furies of hell on everyone—your friends as well as your enemies.”

  If that was true, he was a monster. Of course, all of Penny’s information had been filtered through Ugo Woolcoff, who most definitely was a monster.

  He took out the walkie-talkie.

  “What are you doing?” Penny asked.

  “Calling Melissa. I want to understand why I unleashed the furies of hell. I need to practice using this anyway.”

  Melissa answered immediately.

  “How did I end up wrecking the world? I want to understand.”

  Melissa’s voice grew uncharacteristically gentle. “We were trying to stop a war, before Ugo unleashed his blackout virus. You ran out of time, and took your best shot. You’re an arrogant asshole, but you’re not a psychopath. Far from it. Ugo is the psychopath.”

  Peter laughed. “I never thought I’d feel grateful to someone for calling me an arrogant asshole.”

  “Well, you’re welcome.”

  He envied and pitied Melissa for remembering all of this.

  “What did I do to make you hate me?”

  She tsked. “I don’t hate you. I’m angry at you. You were so impulsive. You are so impulsive. I guess it’s hard to learn from your mistakes if you can’t remember them.”

  “We divorced before I made the big mistake. What did I do? Why did we split?”

  When she finally answered, her voice was thick with emotion. “You lied to me.”

  Faller nodded, then remembered Melissa couldn’t see him. “I’m sorry I lied to you, even if I don’t know what I lied about.”

  “You didn’t have much choice. It took me a long time to understand that.”

  They were getting close to their destination. “Can I speak to Storm?” Faller didn’t want Storm to think he’d called solely to speak to Melissa.

  He could hear Melissa choke up, across all those miles. Her voice got very low—so low he could barely hear her words. “Do you have any idea what it feels like for me, to see the two of you together?”

  Her words startled him. “I don’t, Melissa. I honestly don’t.”

  “Hold on.”

  “Melissa, wait.”

  “Hey.” It was Storm.

  Faller struggled to compose himself. “I just wanted to hear your voice before I do this.”

  “It’s so strange. I’m talking to you, but you’re not here.”

  “I know. Meanwhile I’m flying in a machine that actually works. I’m not sure if this is better or worse than the world we met in.”

  “Me, neither.”

  “This whole plan is probably going to fail. As Melissa points out, I’m a simpleton compared to them.”

  “You’ll figure it out. If you don’t, run and hide, and we’ll come and get you.”

  * * *

  UGO’S WORLD hung a thousand yards below, a mix of smallish buildings, roads, a few wooded areas.

  “Well, I’ll say good-bye now, because once that hatch opens, I can’t speak to you again,” Penny said.

  Faller reached out, squeezed Penny’s hand. “Thank you.”

  Penny handed him the Harrier’s microphone set. “They’ll expect you to call in before you land.”

  He used the voice-responsive feature, as One-Thirty-one had taught him.

  “Hello?” Faller said into the mic.

  “Who is this?” an annoyed male voice snapped.

  “This is One-Thirty-one.” Faller tensed, hoping his look-alike hadn’t fed him false information about their referring to themselves by number, despite Faller’s promise that he’d come back and cut off his feet if he did.

  “Well, hero or not, since when is hello proper hailing protocol, One-Thirty-one?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not myself since the injury. I hit my head when I went down. I’m experiencing some disorientation and memory loss.” Step one of the plan was now implemented. Whenever he appeared ignorant, he would blame it on a head injury.

  “Don’t worry about it. Given the circumstances, you could probably say anything and get away with it. Holy shit, One-Thirty-one. You got him. You left here a dupe nobody, but you’re coming home a legend. Congratulations, man. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks.” He would have liked to use the guy’s name, or number as the case may be, but hadn’t thought to ask the real One-Thirty-one what it was.

  49

  FALLER’S KNEES felt like they might buckle as he carried the corpse dressed in his jumpsuit down the Harrier’s stairs, onto an airport runway. Dried blood from the corpse’s bullet wounds stained his tan assassin-wear as hundreds of people applauded. About a third of them, packed close together and set apart from the others, looked just like him.

  Two men in overalls took the body from Faller. A third confiscated Faller’s handgun and patted him down.

  Faller recognized Ugo as soon as he stepped forward, grinning, dressed in a shiny uniform. They set the body in Ugo’s arms. Clutching the bloodied corpse in one arm, Woolcoff raised his fist in the air. The applause grew deafening. He let the body roll to the tarmac, set his foot on its head as photographers circled.

  Faller smiled tightly, straining to keep his burning hatred for this man from showing.

  Woolcoff motioned Penny closer. She faked a wide, jubilant smile as the photographers snapped pictures. Faller stood a few steps away, not sure what to do.

  “Did he die immediately?” Woolcoff asked, raising his voice as the cameras flashed and the cheers rolled on. When Penny didn’t reply, Faller realized Woolcoff must be deigning to speak to him.

  “He was wounded. I ran up and shot him point-blank to finish him off.”

  Woolcoff nodded. “Nice work. I’m sure your comrades will want to honor you with a private ceremony.” He raised his voice to the crowd. “The monster is dead.”

  As cheers rose again, Faller couldn’t help noticing how much pleasure Woolcoff derived from them. His expression was somewhere between that of a little boy being praised by his daddy, and the smirk of a bully who’s just pushed someone over the edge.

  “What should we do with the body?” an old man with a droopy mouth asked Woolcoff.

/>   Woolcoff nudged the body with the toe of his shiny black shoe, then knelt and examined Faller’s jumpsuit before grunting and standing. “Put it on ice. We’ll take it on tour, display it island by island as we reclaim them.”

  That was all Faller heard, as his look-alikes crowded around and led him away.

  “You got him. I can’t believe it,” one of them said.

  “I can’t, either.” Faller glanced at the number on the man’s sleeve. One-Twenty-eight. He needed to remember who was who.

  “It’s not just Sandoval’s face anymore, it’s also the face of the dupe who killed Sandoval.”

  “That’s right.” Faller tried to sound enthusiastic.

  They filed through a gate in the cyclone fence at one end of the runway, crossed a field and headed down a shady street. A truck rolled past. Faller willed himself to ignore it, as the rest of the Peters were doing. The town wasn’t as clean as the clean parts of the Orchid world, but it was cleaner than any other place Faller had seen. More astonishing were the lights glowing inside buildings, the hum of machines coming from all around.

  They crossed a remarkably green, perfectly flat lawn that left flecks of moisture on his boots, then headed into one of many redbrick buildings that formed a circle around the lawn. Down a flight of stairs, they filed into a huge gymnasium. Colored lines created geometric patterns on the polished wood floor.

  “It’s been great associating with you, One-Thirty-one,” Peter One-Twenty-eight said.

  Faller opened his mouth to ask where One-Twenty-eight was going, but thought better of it. A hand rested on his shoulder; Faller turned to find a bare-torsoed Peter holding out his shirt. Faller accepted the shirt. It had the numeral 1 on the sleeve.

  “It’s yours, now,” the shirtless Peter said solemnly.

  “Oh. Okay. Thank you.”

  The shirtless Peter waited. Faller pulled off the shirt he was wearing, and donned the number one.

  Every other Peter in the room pulled off his shirt. It was not exactly an impressive display; each had the same three or four chest hairs, scrawny pecs, and bony shoulders. No one seemed to notice that they were all a bit thicker and better fed than Faller. They exchanged them with each other. The previous wearer of shirt number one pulled on shirt number two. Everyone was moving down a number to make room for him.