Twinmaker

40

THE HOPELESSNESS IN his voice broke her heart. Clair took his hand and squeezed his cold fingers. It wasn’t his fault they had been slow. If they had been any less careful, they might have ended up like Arabelle, Cashile, and Theo. She and Jesse had done their best to keep the others in the loop, and what had WHOLE done in return? They had left without so much as a good-bye. Forget Turner Goldsmith and explanations. Forget help. At the very least, Gemma could have told them not to bother, sparing Jesse and Clair a futile end to their long and exhausting trek.

She blamed herself. If she hadn’t switched off her lenses in abhorrence at Q’s actions, she would have known. She would have seen the airship moving on the map and directed the buggy accordingly.

“It’s not over yet,” she said, trying to find some hope to cling to. Any would do. “They left the bikes. We can use them. They’ll be faster than the buggy thing.”

“You can’t drive,” said Jesse.

“I’ll learn. You can teach me.”

“Where would we go?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere a long way from here, for starters.”

Maine, she thought, tugging him toward the bikes and turning her lenses back on as she went.

The first thing she saw was a red dot right in front of her.

Then a dark figure rose up from behind the bikes and trained a pistol on the center of her chest.

“Stop right there.”

She obeyed, but not because of the order. She stopped because she had heard that voice giving her orders before. Not exactly the same voice. This time, there was a hint of another accent—British, perhaps. But even under starlight there was no mistaking the face.

It belonged to Dylan Linwood. Only he wasn’t wearing it anymore.

Jesse was two paces behind her. He stopped too, then came forward one hesitant step.

The pistol shifted left and down. A single shot cracked into the asphalt at Jesse’s feet. He jumped.

“No closer. Clair, I know you’re armed. Put the gun down where I can see it. Don’t try anything, or I’ll shoot you in the leg.”

“You’re going to kill us anyway,” she said.

“Not until you tell us where the others have gone. The gun, Clair, or I’ll call your parents. Would you like that? Would you like me to pay them another visit?”

“No.” She slipped off the backpack and dropped it to the ground. The gun she pulled from her pocket and skidded across the ground toward him. With it went her last hope.

She refused to think of the dupe as Dylan Linwood. She knew what he really was now. He was a duplicate, but not an exact duplicate. He was like Libby in Copperopolis—an exact copy of Dylan Linwood with another person inside his head. He was the puppet master hidden within the puppet.

“Who are you?” Jesse asked, and she could tell from his voice that he was experiencing every emotion she had on seeing Q in Copperopolis.

“Move over with your girlfriend.”

He didn’t move. “She’d never be my girlfriend. If you were my father, you’d know that.”

Clair joined Jesse before he could be shot for disobeying, and the dupe came out from behind the bike, picking up her gun on the way. Behind him, the sky was slowly lightening. In the pale predawn wash, Clair made out the bruise on his forehead and the reddened eye, exactly as they had been the previous day.

“We know what you are,” she said.

“Don’t talk,” said the dupe, “unless it’s to tell me about your friends in WHOLE.”

“What friends?” said Jesse bitterly. “We don’t know where they’ve gone.”

“That’s a lie. Tell me the truth.”

“Or what? You’ve already taken everything from me.”

“What about her?”

The pistol shifted to point at Clair. Complex shapes danced in his lenses. Orders? Map data? Clair couldn’t tell.

“Who are you?” asked Jesse again, rage and fear quivering in his voice.

Make something up, Clair told herself. Got to try something.

“They went north,” she said, “to Seattle.”

“That’s a lie,” the dupe said. “There’s been no air traffic in that direction.”

That was interesting. No traffic meant the airship hadn’t moved. But if the airship hadn’t moved, that meant . . .

Clair took her eyes briefly off the fake Dylan Linwood and studied the vista behind him. Something was moving against the backdrop of hills, all outline and no detail, visible because of the way the colors didn’t quite match. The patch was almost perfectly circular, and there was no way to tell how far away it was, but it was between the airfield and the hills, swinging northward and getting larger. It was already the size of a full moon. How many seconds until the sound of its engines were audible over the rising dawn chorus?

“Let’s make a deal,” she said, thinking faster than she ever had before. “You tell me who you work for, and I’ll tell you where the airship is.”

“No deals,” he said. “Tell me now, or I’ll shoot one of you at random.”

“But we don’t know,” protested Jesse.

“The longer you stall, the longer I’ll keep you alive after.”

“I’m not stalling,” said Clair. “I just want you to give me something in return. Why don’t you tell me your name, at least?”

“No.” His one red eye glared balefully.

In her lenses, an emergency patch appeared. She clicked it, hardly daring to hope.

“Gemma Mallapur says to get ready,” whispered Q in her ear. “We need you to stall for ten seconds.”

To the dupe, Clair said, “What are you afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid of anything,” he said, pointing the gun at her chest.

“Sure you are. It can’t be easy, living in someone else’s body.”

“Easier than you think.”

Inspiration struck her. Seven days. “But it isn’t permanent, is it? How many times have you died? How many times has someone like me killed you? How many bodies have you lived in now?”

His borrowed eyes widened slightly.

“Three seconds,” said Q.

“No, wait,” she bumped back. “I think I’m getting through to him.”

“Two.”

Clair took Jesse’s arm as though for solidarity.

“Come on,” she said. “Tell me who you were.”

The dupe straightened.

“I am nobody.”

His finger tightened on the trigger, and Clair braced herself.

“Get down now, Clair,” said Q.

She dropped and pulled Jesse to the asphalt with her. The agent jerked as though shoved in the back. Red mist burst out of a sudden hole in his chest. A split second later, the sound of the shot reached them, followed by another shot from much closer at hand. The dupe’s finger had squeezed the trigger as he dropped. The slug that might have killed Clair whined harmlessly off the asphalt. Two more shots in rapid succession whizzed over their heads before the sharpshooter in the airship realized that the job was done.

The dupe went down and stayed down.

Jesse was moving before she could grab him. He threw himself at the fallen body and pounded its bloody chest.

“Who are you?” he screamed. “Who are you?”