Two biococoons were stacked in the corner. He recognized the Jovian Special Forces insignia of a snake and a sword. These were military grade medical pods, ready to treat combat trauma. He stumbled towards one and flicked it on. It started to power up, whirring.
He looked up and saw five bodies floating in translucent pods. They drifted gently in milky liquid, tethered to nervewires, their eyes closed. He put bullets in all of them to be sure they couldn’t be used.
He approached the virtual desk. Its fifteen holoscreens hung in the air. The array stabbed him with a surge of light. The word “decrypting” blazed on one of the screens. Not good. It knows me. It’s letting me in. I could be one of him. It didn’t matter. He would see the truth no matter what and it was in here somewhere.
Something behind him.
He lunged to the right on instinct and a blast exploded next to him, shattering one of the pods, its amniotic fluid spraying.
Hoskin whirled around and fired. He missed. Someone moved with astonishing speed. Hoskin ripped off full auto rounds, trying to track the body that was darting and moving like it was made of smoke and light. Shelves and equipment erupted. Dolls exploded as Hoskin’s bullets bit in.
The attacker rushed him, weaving left and right. Hoskin’s shots zipped past, the bullets struggling to lock on. The attacker leapt and knocked him back. They crashed through a pane of glass, the shards spraying around them. The guy was on him, choking him, fingers pressing into his windpipe, knees on his arms and chest. Hoskin saw his own face looking down at him again.
“I’m you,” shouted the Morph. “I got your memories. I’ll steal your life.”
The guy was incredibly heavy, pinning Hoskin down with a fully augged body that weighed as much as a block of steel. Hoskin could barely move, the attacker’s legs trapping his arms. Warnings went brilliant red all over his innervision. He was going to die. He could feel himself slipping away, disappearing, as the fingers dug into his neck, cutting off his breath.
Hoskin refused to die.
He willed an arm fee.
He slashed up with an elbow and then got just enough leverage to shove the guy back with everything he had left. The man crashed into a table, spraying memory cubes and painting supplies into the air. Hoskin scrambled up fast and fired true, hitting the clone in the stomach. He fired again at the guy’s legs, blowing apart both knees so he couldn’t move. The false Hoskin screamed. He tried to get up, but couldn’t, his legs shredded.
Hoskin kept his gun arm raised. He could barely see. He scanned the room. His backbrain was going crazy, looking for any visual anomalies, looking for holostealth. He didn’t see anything. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could stand. Only the surge of adrenaline was keeping him on his feet.
The man stopped screaming. He’d probably cut off his pain receptors. He breathed erratically, heavily.
Hoskin couldn’t hold his arm up anymore. He let it drop.
“I have your memories,” said Venadrik. “I broke into your mind. I am you now.”
And that’s when Hoskin knew for sure that he was no Morph. He was Hoskin. Always had been. Always would be. Venadrik was nothing but a poor imitation.
“You still don’t get it,” said Hoskin, talking slow, his words a little slurred. His good eye was starting to close up. Everything was spinning wildly. He forced himself to focus. “We ain’t our memories. We’re not what happened to us. What can’t be stored or copied or stolen. Take all of it away and still, there I am.”
The fake Hoskin said nothing for a moment, his labored breathing echoing in the silence. The adrenaline was wearing down but Hoskin willed himself to stay upright.
“Do you remember when we first met, my love?” said Venadrik.
Hoskin thought about when he first met Daniels at the Farm. He thought about Sakura in the club, her hand so soft and her pixie ears peeking from her flowing hair. Then with a flash of insight he suddenly knew neither of those was the first time. He remembered something else now, long ago: a little kid crying on the street, his friends had ditched him in the city.
“You were lost. I took you home,” said Hoskin.
“You remember. I knew…I had to be you then. You were the only one that cared. Why were you the only one?
“I can see myself. So…little… so weak, crying on the street. Stupid little Venadrik. Stupid Venadrik who everyone hated. Except you. Everyone but you.
“I see through your eyes now. I am you.”
“No. You see ghosts. There’s only one Hoskin—”
“—and that’s all there’ll ever be,” said Venadrik.
The saying triggered Hoskin’s memory of his mother’s face. It was more brilliant that he’d ever seen it, filled with light, and he felt like he could sink into it and drift forever upwards. He could see the tiny laugh lines around her smile and the color dancing in her eyes. Her face seared through the red warnings on his innervision like the sun bursting through the clouds, and he knew he was in real trouble now. He looked down at Venadrik but he couldn’t see him anymore.
Hoskin stumbled back towards of the med pod. He fell but willed himself up, moving on nothing but instinct now, everything blurry and surreal.
“One question, my love,” whispered Venadrik behind him. “Are you sure you got all of me?”
Venadrik’s breathing stopped and Hoskin knew he was gone. Hoskin was fading too. He thought fast. Quinlin was still growing a body in medwater. Sakura was gone. Dispatch would never get someone here in time. Every cop was already out on the street.
Childress.
He flashed out. Childress answered on his private innerphone.
“Think…I…need help,” said Hoskin, dragging himself towards the med cocoon. It opened like a flower in the late morning. He fell inside. It sealed around him and gas sprayed up, filling the chamber.
“Are you all right? Where are you? We’re coming. Stay there.”
Hoskin sent him an address.
“We can stop this now. We can—”
He lost consciousness.
***
Hoskin woke up in a medvat, floating calmly, nervewires twisting out of him. The alerts on his innervision were gone. They’d stabilized him.
He opened his eyes and saw small medballs hovering outside his pod, scanning and whizzing around the interior of the soft-edged hospital room. There was nobody else in the room.
A tiny army of healing spiders crawled over his face and body, but he barely felt them. His head swam with a narcotic. He imagined he could feel the flurry of mites swimming around in his system, repairing burst capillaries and wrecked tissue, filling in bits of bone and knitting it together.
A familiar voice flashed into his mind.
“There he is,” flashed Quinlin
“They let you out of that tank yet?” flashed Hoskin.
“Still puttin’ Humpty back together again. But they got my brain running.”
“Looks like they got your mouth running too.”
“Lucky for everyone.”
“How long was I out?”
“Two days.”
“What did I miss?”
“Everything. It’s over,” flashed Quinlin. “We dumped all kinds of stuff out to the newsstreams. We can’t release it fast enough. Got it all from the files in that room we found you in. Childress got there first, called us. Our guys got on the scene and linked me in on a remote view. Venadrik’s arrays were wide open, unencrypted. I got in and took root fast.
“That guy had a lot of lives, a lot of identities. And he was playing them all at once. Dynasty Security and the CII and us are going through everything in there. We’re actually working together. Nobody is getting in anybody’s way. Never seen such fuckin’ cooperation.”
“When was the last time that happened?”
“Probably never. And probably never again. Good while it lasts though. Even with expert systems pounding at it, there’s a lot more to dig up. But th
ey got enough. The people saw what he did. He was stirring up the poor folks and the rich too and the religious, setting them all against each other. People calmed down, went home. A lot of damage done but it coulda been a lot worse, if not for you. Don’t let it go to your fuckin’ head though.”
“I always do. Listen, there’s something else—”
“I already know.”
“You know—”
“I’m one of him, yeah. Been hard to take. Not sure what to… I don’t know. There’s stuff that ain’t right. I can’t see my mom’s face.”
“Whaddya mean?”
“I mean it’s not there. It’s just gone. I kept looking at her amulet thinkin’ it would spark something but it didn’t. I couldn’t remember what she looked like. It’s ‘cause she never looked like anything. She’s a lie. She don’t exist. Whole thing is made up. And some pieces just never got filled in when he faked up my life.”
“We’re not our past.”
“Easy to say when you got one. Not sure I can… I don’t know… then sometimes I just think who gives a shit? What’s it matter? I am who I am. I mean I think I am. You know?”
“Yeah. I do.”
“Cap said they have to go through it all, make sure I wasn’t involved, but they know I broke the case. That counts for something at least.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry.”
“It is what it is. Least I know why I was hearing things and all that. That’s something. And maybe, you know, maybe they cut out the Morph bits, just leave it on the chopping block when they fix me up. Then maybe I’m just me. I know how you feel about relifing. I know you think it ain’t me really, not for real anyways.”
“What do I know? Maybe without the Morph link you’re more you than you ever were.”
“You think?”
“Sounds good anyway.”
“You really know how to lift someone up, huh?”
“My specialty. Motivational speaker. Anyway, what the fuck does it matter what I think? Do you feel like you?”
“Yeah.”
“Then we work with that. Who the fuck knows? Maybe every iteration you get better? Figure out all the shit you didn’t the first time. Maybe the copy turns out better than the original?”
“Hard to beat the original. That guy was one slick motherfucker. And good with women too.”
“Blind women.”
“Easier that way. Less drinks to buy. So when you getting out of that hospital tank? We got shit to do.”
“You ain’t even got a body yet. And what if I don’t wanna come back?”
“Oh yeah, what else you gonna do? Retire?”
Hoskin thought for a moment and then smiled.
“That don’t sound too bad right about now.”
“Man, you ain’t never gonna retire. Who you kiddin’? You’re a cop. That’s what you are. Always were. Always will be. You’re not that, then who are you?”
“I’m just Hoskin.”
END
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