by Jake Bible
“There are other ways besides hexes to get the job done, Harper,” the doppler said. “I didn’t get to where I am by being predictable, now did I?”
The doppler held up a hand and shook his head.
“Don’t bother asking about the process. It’s proprietary and something I have been playing with for a long while now. Isn’t it lucky I perfected it right before we had to make this little trip? Fate favors the bold.”
“And my foot favors kicking you in the nuts,” Harper said.
The doppler laughed then looked around.
“I will say that I didn’t plan very well with the comforts of the ride. Would either of you be willing to give up your recliner? I can add a hefty bonus to your payment for being so kind.”
“Suck it, One Guy,” Harper said. “You’re standing. Deal.”
“I’m with Harp on this, asshead,” I said. “You put your mind inside a moron, you have to handle the consequences on your own.”
The doppler, or the One Guy now inside and controlling the doppler, frowned. Then shrugged. That gave me an idea.
“Full transference or are you linked to the body in the box?” I asked.
“Oh, no, full transference for me,” the One Guy doppler said. “This gentleman to my right is linked to the mind in the box. Dopplers must share a mind or they collapse under the weight of a single thought.”
“You have no problem with your body being controlled by a doppler brain link?” Harper asked. “Ballsy. Or imbecilic. Probably both.”
“I prefer ballsy and brilliant,” the One Guy doppler said. “And you both should be thanking me. I could have stayed silent and eavesdropped on your conversations the entire ride.”
“Yeah, no,” I said. “There was no way you could stay silent the whole trip. Not you.”
“Probably not. But I could have gone on much longer than I did. I felt that it was more beneficial for you to be in the know, especially since you have been tasked with keeping me safe. Secrecy would have made your job that much harder.”
“What’s making our job harder is that you changed the plan, dumbass,” Harper snapped. “It was a really fucking simple plan. Chase make box, you go in box, we deliver box. No need to switch minds or anything. You’re as dumb as the doppler you replaced.”
“That’s not true. The mind switch is brilliant, really. Would you care to guess why?”
“Oh, I love playing guessing games. Right, Chase?”
“It’s her favorite type of game to play,” I said. “Right next to stab an asshole in the eye and pluck it from his skull.”
“Ooo, let’s play that game,” Harper said, a very sharp blade in her hand. I didn’t see her pull it. It was simply not there then there.
The other dopplers began to move towards Harper, but the One Guy held up his hand and they stopped.
“How do they know to listen to you?” I asked.
“They do. That’s all that matters,” the One Guy said and nodded at Harper’s knife. “Are you done with your show, Harper? May I explain myself now?”
“Explain away,” Harper said, but didn’t put the knife away.
“The mind switch is beneficial on several counts,” the One Guy explained. “First, diversion. Second, I get to keep an eye on you. Third, I fully expect the DEX to betray my confidence and make a move to keep me locked up forever. They’ll be locking up the wrong body. Fourth”—
“Oh, get on with it!” I snapped. “I didn’t sign up to listen to you listing bullet points.”
“Fourth,” the One Guy insisted. “When the next blood ghast attack comes, which it will, I’ll be ready and watching.”
“You aren’t worried about that fuzzy mug of yours getting destroyed?” Harper asked. “I’m all about bait, but you aren’t exactly leveling up with this doppler meatsack.”
The One Guy only smiled, which made him look dumber than any doppler I’d ever seen before. It was nice camouflage. I had to give him that. No one would suspect in a million years that his mind was inside that doppler’s idiot brain and body.
“Wait. Is that really your body in there?” Harper asked. The One Guy continued to smile, but didn’t offer up any explanations. “Suit yourself, dickface. You do realize our job is to protect the One Guy, right? Transport him to DC. Not protect and transport one of his dopplers. If you die in that body, not our fault.”
The smile faltered that time.
“She’s right,” I said. “The job is the body in that Dim box, not you in that doppler box.”
“You know it is me, Chase,” the One Guy replied. “Do not try to play a loophole. That is a game neither of you want to play.”
“We’ll see,” I said. “Harper?”
“On it,” Harper replied and clicked the walkie four times rapidly. There were two return clicks which Harper replied to with four more rapid clicks.
The truck began to slow and the One Guy looked around, surprised.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “This stop was not scheduled.”
“Listen, pal, you can’t throw wrenches into well-oiled machines and expect nothing to break,” I said as I waited for the truck to come to a complete stop. “Black Box Inc. needs to have a quick company meeting.”
“I will join you.”
“No. You won’t,” Harper said in a voice that even the One Guy couldn’t argue with.
The back of the truck opened and Lassa peered inside.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“This guy,” I said as I moved past the One Guy’s doppler body to the sliding door.
“The doppler?” Lassa asked.
“The One Guy in a doppler,” Harper said, joining me.
Lassa growled and shook his head. “Dude . . .”
15.
“GODDAMN ONE GUY,” I said as I paced back and forth by the side of the road. The truck was pulled well off the shoulder of a heavily wooded two lane highway, and only one car had come by since we’d stopped. “Is this shit better or worse for us? I’m voting goddamn worse.”
“Because?” Lassa asked. He held up his hands when I gave him a harsh look. “Playing devil’s advocate, dude.”
“Worse because we had the asshole contained. Now we don’t,” Harper said.
“That,” I said, pointing at Harper. “A contained One Guy is a safe One Guy. Having him out and about, even in a doppler body, means we’re dealing with variables that none of us can calculate. We all know he’s a homicidal maniac at his core. The goddamn son of a bitch will try to screw us over and kill us at some point.”
“We’ve known that from the start,” Harper said. “That part hasn’t changed.”
“The part about him being contained in a box has changed.”
“I still don’t get why he put his mind in a doppler,” Lassa said. “Why not bring more dopplers along to guard him if he was worried about us double-crossing him?”
“He told us his four reasons,” I said. “I told you his four reasons. They make sense.” I held up a hand before Lassa could argue. “But you’re right. He has an agenda beyond those reasons. It’s the unknown fifth reason we have to watch out for.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Harper said. “He was gonna screw us somehow. We include this into the mix and go from here. This was never gonna be an easy job. You didn’t think it was, did you, Chase?”
“What? No. But I thought it would be a job with the One Guy in a goddamn box! Not chattering away from that monkey-faced moron head.”
“Monkey-faced moron head,” Lassa chuckled. “Nice.”
“Uh, hey, guys?” Troy said as he stuck his head out from the cab’s passenger window. “We’re losing travel time here, ya know? Getting off schedule. Not trying to bust balls or anything, but I am on an hourly rate. It goes past a certain point
and we’re talking time and a half. You guys know that? Yeah?”
“We stick to the route, we stick to the plan,” Harper said. “I’ll figure out how to deal with this wrinkle.”
“I could put the doppler in a box too,” I said. “Oh, yeah, that’s what I’ll do! Put the idiot body in a box and send that to the Dim. Deal was to keep the One Guy here, but he’s not exactly the One Guy, is he?”
“He might argue with you there, dude,” Lassa said and started walking towards the cab of the truck. “But I’ll let you two work that out. We’re getting back on the road in one minute. Best get back there and get set.”
“Harp?” I asked as we walked to the sliding door and shoved it up.
“Let me handle this, Chase,” Harper said. “If it looks like the best way to deal with numbnuts and his stupid switch then I’ll let you know.”
“Let him know what, if I may ask?” the One Guy said. While sitting in my recliner. “Are you two plotting to put me in a second box? Is that it? Tsk tsk. I do not agree to that plan. Do it and you create an entirely new set of problems for yourselves.”
“Get out of my chair or I let Harper carve that doppler face of yours to shreds,” I said as I hopped into the back of the truck. I waited for Harper to hop up then yanked the door down, plunging us into that sickly green light of the glow sticks. “Harp? You cool with some whittling?”
“Always.”
“You guys get so serious, so fast,” the One Guy said. “Nothing but violence as a threat. Have you considered positive reinforcements?”
“I positively will slash that ugly mug if you don’t move,” Harper said.
“Thanks for the positivity, Harp,” I said.
“You bet.”
The One Guy made a huge production of standing up from my chair then gave a little bow like he was doing me a favor.
“Your throne, sir,” he said.
I bit back more than a few replies. I couldn’t respond to every little thing the asshole did. I’d run out of reactions before we were halfway to our destination. And the One Guy knew it. He’d been testing me since we were kids. Sometimes with violence, but mostly with the endless mind games. This shit was simply one more test.
But a test of what?
Was his endgame to see how I work up close? To see what kind of strain keeping a Dim box active put on me? Was his goal to watch me for a weakness he could exploit? To watch how I interacted with Harper? She with me?
I almost screamed from all the questions slamming around in my brain.
Goddamn One Guy . . .
The truck lurched as I sat down and two of the dopplers stumbled slightly. The One Guy whirled on them, slapping one across the face while punching the other in the gut. They shared a brain so they both grabbed for their cheeks and their bellies, oofing at the same time.
“If I wanted stumblers, I would have hired zombies as my bodyguards,” the One Guy snarled. “Keep your footing or lose your heads.”
Confusion reigned. The dopplers had no idea how to handle one of their own speaking to them like that. Even the doppler connected to the mind in the One Guy’s true body was perplexed. I could only imagine what the doppler in the box was thinking. His little mind must have been about to snap.
After a moment of some serious tension, the dopplers straightened and nodded to their boss.
“Sorry,” they said. “Forgot.”
The odd one out only nodded. The one in the box was probably nodding too, but didn’t quite know why or at what. The whole situation almost made me feel sorry for the dopplers. Almost.
The truck was back on the road and up to speed and none of us said anything, only listened to the road noise coming in through the armored walls of the cargo area. But the lack of talk couldn’t last forever. Not with the One Guy around.
“Does it hurt at all?” he asked me.
“You’re gonna have to be more specific, pal,” I replied.
“Working the Dim. Does it ever hurt to do it?”
I shrugged.
“Come on, Chase. How can answering that question possibly put you at a disadvantage?”
“By giving you information. I’m not in the mood to give you anything, pal. So clap the trap shut and let’s all wait this hell ride out, okay?”
“So, it does hurt,” the One Guy continued, obviously willing to hold a one-sided conversation. I sure as shit wasn’t going to indulge him. “Is it an aching pain or a sharp pain? Every time you work with the Dim or only on some occasions? Perhaps when you are tired after a long day of playing like you actually matter in the world.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Chase. He’s baiting. Let it go,” Harper warned.
I wanted to let it go. I really did. Pushing my buttons was a specialty of the One Guy’s. I knew that. But . . . “No, what does that mean?” I asked. “Playing like I actually matter in the world. I matter. Everyone matters.”
“See, I thought you’d say that,” the One Guy said. “Despite that cynicism you work so hard to hold up like a warning sign to everyone around you, there’s an idealist inside there. You care about people, Chase. It’s sweet.”
“Nope,” I said and reached for one of the coolers close to my chair. I opened it and snagged another beer. “Harper is right. I need to let it go. You have an agenda, pal. I refuse to be part of it.”
“Chase. Chase, Chase, Chase.”
“That’s his name, dickwad,” Harper said. “How about you keep it outta your mouth?”
“Did I ruffle the killer’s feathers too?” the One Guy asked. He nodded at the beer in my hands as I popped the top. “May I have one?”
“Didn’t bring enough to share,” I said.
“Not one? Chase, come on. I promise to be nice if you share your beer with me. No more needling, or baiting as the killer calls it.” He crossed his finger over his chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die. A long time after this. In bed with many, many young women around me.”
“Cute,” Harper said.
“Do you think so?”
“No. Fuck off.”
“Chase? A beer? One beer? Come on now, don’t be a Grinch. Hey. Remember that one Christmas when you were maybe nine or so and the Grinch was on TV? Your uncle’s girlfriend changed the channel and you argued with her. What happened next? Remind me.”
I plucked a beer from the cooler and winged it at the One Guy’s head. It nailed him right between the eyes. That doppler body weebled and wobbled, but it didn’t fall down. Close, but those trunk-like legs kept it upright.
“Ow,” the One Guy said as he rubbed his face and bent down to retrieve the beer can.
“You get the beer in exchange for shutting the fuck up,” I said. “One more word and I’ll reach down your throat and syphon that beer right out.”
“That’s a graphic thought,” the One Guy said then pretended to zip his lips.
He opened the beer, put the can to his mouth, widened his eyes, then mimed unzipping his lips so he could take a drink then zipped them back up and ahhhh’d behind a closed mouth.
Every ounce of self-control. That’s what it took not to grab a pistol from Harper and put two slugs in his forehead.
The drive was going to last forever. I wasn’t going to make it.
Harper’s hand on my shoulder steadied me somewhat. I slowly turned to look at her and she was smiling.
“I ever tell you about how I was strung up by my toenails when I was nine because I stole a piece of cake from Daphne’s fridge? I had to wait for each toenail to rip off before I could fall to the floor in a bloody mess. Only way she would let me go.”
I blinked a couple of times then laughed.
“Yes, you did tell me that story. Didn’t you go steal another piece of cake as soon as you
could walk again?”
“You bet your ass I did,” Harper said then focused her attention on the One Guy. “Even Daphne couldn’t stop me.”
“Point taken,” the One Guy said and sipped more beer. “I’ll play nice.”
“No, you won’t,” Harper said. “But at least you know I won’t either.”
She fetched a beer. We drank beer in an uncomfortable and loaded silence while the tires of the truck crunched below us on a backroad highway that was in desperate need of some new asphalt.
16.
I WAS CLOSE TO dozing when I felt the truck begin to slow. Then it pulled off the road and Lassa clicked three times from the walkie.
“Gassing up,” Harper said. “Everyone stay here while I take care of that.”
“Shouldn’t the troll or the yeti handle that?” the One Guy asked. It was the most he’d said in over an hour. “It would seem”—
“It would seem like a good idea to shut the fuck up,” Harper said as she opened her crate and began stuffing her hexed pockets with pistols and blades. “Stay here and be ready. We’re hitting the road as soon as that gas gauge hits the big F.”
“F is for fun with you, Harper. We all know that,” the One Guy said as she moved past him, making sure to bump him hard with her elbow. “Oh, excuse me. Didn’t mean to get in your way there. My apologies, Ms. Kyles.”
“Damn right,” Harper said and opened the sliding door enough that she could slip underneath and was gone.
Leaving me with the One Guy.
“She’s always been so protective of you,” he said.
I opened a cooler and pulled out two pre-made sub sandwiches.
“One of those for me?” he asked.
“No,” I replied as I unwrapped one and began to eat.
“Chase, listen. I get that you feel played. Totally understand that. But, you have to look at the situation from my perspective.”
“No. I don’t.”
“Okay. You don’t have to, but maybe you should anyway.” He held up his meaty doppler hands and gestured to the truck we were stuck in. “When will we ever get another chance to sit and hash out our history? It would be healthy for us to cleanse some old wounds. We can forge a new future together. One that is beneficial to us both.”
