Presently Vincent knew one thing, and one thing only: he was running again. His legs burned from strain. Just a little farther, and he’d be back inside the golden zone, where he could pause and teleport closer to Chamber so they could cobble together a plan.
There were at least ten security officers on his tail, each of them no less than twenty feet behind. He lifted his wrist and wiped away the sweat rolling down his forehead, pumping his legs faster. Something whizzed past his head on the right, causing him to jerk to the left. They were shooting at him again.
He rounded a corner and fell to his knees. Still in mid-slide, he pulled Headhunter from his arm, came up on one knee, whirled, and fired directly into the face of one of his assailants. Then he scrambled up, not pausing to watch the man drop dead, and continued down the hall. Just a few more yards…
Another bullet zipped past his eye; his feet pounded the floor. “They are so dead!” he growled. Holding both hands up and parting them a little, he brought out Tour de Force. The sniper rifle twinkled and gleamed as it formed in his hands, and he turned, firing as he ran backward.
One shot… That was all he needed: one shot to anywhere on the upper body. Another pursuer was down, while the ones behind him paused a moment, realizing just who they were chasing.
Vincent heard cries of “Fall back!” and “That thing is a one-shot weapon! He hits you with it, and you’re dead!” He couldn’t help but smirk as he ran on. Yes… Yes, that is true.
“There’s two of them!” That came from farther back.
Oui, there are also two of us.
Vincent slid into the golden zone and straightened, turning to face his attackers. He fired another shot at them.
“One less!” he cried into his earpiece as he snapped his fingers.
He felt the blaze that spread through his body as each part of him vanished, and like every time he teleported, he prayed that this would not be the time it didn’t work. Maybe one day he’d snap his fingers and end up on the other side torn apart or inside-out. This had never happened, but the fear was always in the back of his mind.
He quieted those thoughts, opened his eyes, and saw Chamber approaching him, his own Headhunter pistol aimed at the ground between them with perfect trigger control.
Vincent leaned over his knees, trying to catch his breath as he drew his teleporter back with a roll of his hand. “That could have gone better,” he deadpanned.
“Oui,” Chamber replied, puffing his chest out.
“I think you miscounted,” Vincent quipped to his double, pressing himself against the wall. “There are definitely more than five.”
“Eh, five.” He juggled invisible objects for a second. “Twenty-five?”
Vincent rolled his eyes and blew out a quick breath. “What’s the play here?”
Chamber pointed outside the rocky area. “There’s a place up there where we can zip line down to get into the lower half if we do it right.”
“Over the basement?” Vincent scrunched his eyes up and shot Chamber a glance.
Chamber nodded. “Near the bac— You know what, I’m going to call left B, and right A. I think if we go B, back, we can work our way down into that area.”
“Then what?”
Chamber shrugged glibly. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. This is recon.”
Vincent glared at Chamber. “Why does that not surprise me?”
Chamber matched his intensity, leaning against the wall and peeking around the corner. “You’re me. Nothing I do should surprise you.”
Vincent raised an eyebrow, considering this. “That is the strangest point I’ll ever agree with.”
“There,” said Chamber, pointing over Vincent’s left shoulder. Simultaneously, Vincent saw someone over Chamber’s left shoulder as well, and both men grabbed one another’s wrists, whirled, fired, and killed each other’s attackers with their pistols.
There was a pause as both men drew their guns back into their bodies, then began the process of reloading, which meant pulling a vial from their pockets, inserting a needle, and plunging several billion nanobots into their arms.
“You still haven’t told me what we’re doing here.”
Chamber sighed and pushed his glasses back up his nose. “I suspect that this particular facility has the teleport system up and running,” he explained. Chamber raised his arm horizontally across Vincent’s chest and fired, killing a man who’d popped around the corner to try to take them out.
Vincent’s eyes widened, and for a moment he stared into nothing. “So Cory’s already been here.” He cut his gaze to Chamber.
“Not only has he been here, mon jumeau… he’s already working with Kingdom in this world. He’s definitely trying to bring other doppelgangers into this fight.”
Vincent passed his hand over his hair, he knew what that meant. Clearing his throat, he casually changed the topic. “Marielle says hi.”
Chamber rattled off a long phrase in French at lightning speed that essentially meant, “Hotter than the fires of hell, that one.”
Vincent met eyes with his double, and his tone became serious. “You know why I did what I did.”
“Oui. I won’t judge you for it.” Chamber checked the barrel on Headhunter. “She’s beautiful. Hell, maybe I’ll just kill you, and we’ll call it a day.” Vincent rolled his eyes. “So, zip line?”
Vincent lifted his hand and seesawed it quickly. “Risky… But we’re running out of options.” He gestured upward with his head. “I think we have to go up there.”
Without warning, he lifted Headhunter and fired straight behind him without looking. A man in a hard hat went down, and Chamber cocked his head, incredulous. Vincent shrugged. “I heard him coming.”
Chamber looked from the smoking barrel to the dead man, then back to the gun again. “That’s a trick I need to learn.”
“Because of the O’Fallons, I’ve learned it quite well.”
The two began to move in step, side by side.
“How’s that?” Chamber asked, then stood aside and pointed, indicating that there might be men hiding up ahead. Both moved a little more slowly.
“Black Out, the sister—she makes you entirely blind for a few seconds.”
Chamber cursed in French. Vincent aimed and fired, and another helmeted figure collapsed. “There’s a lot of killing going on.” Vincent sighed, checking his barrel, then snapping Headhunter shut and sucking it back into his arm.
“Oui. What else is new?” Chamber took aim and fired again. The bullet glanced off the wall, and the man who had been trying to sneak up on them ducked out of range.
Vincent turned to him in disbelief and raised his arms in an exaggerated shrug. “What was that? You don’t miss!”
The attacker peeked out again only to be met with Chamber’s bullet between his eyes. “I missed on purpose. He got cocky.”
Vincent gave him a sharp nod. “Makes sense.”
He followed Chamber as they moved toward the exit of the facility. The two made their way back outside and began a slow climb over the rocky, forested terrain.
“I’m not dressed for bouldering,” Chamber muttered as they scaled a bulbous, porous rock.
Vincent was already sitting on top of it. He squatted and helped him up. “Mon Dieu, and I am?”
Chamber took Vincent’s hand and began trying to find his footing. “Why do we dress this way again?” he sighed.
“Because it’s sexy, and you know it.”
“Merde, you are correct.”
Vincent finished pulling Chamber up over the rock, and they went on to a railed-off area and snuck over the partition. The sun was bright and hot, causing both men to glisten with sweat.
“You look good.”
“Thank you. I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
Vincent rattled off a curse in French at the bad pun.
The place where they stood was an open veranda littered with a smattering of glowing boxes that presumably contained radianite. A short ramp to Vincent’s right led to the facility’s glassed-in security office, but the area was blocked off by the translucent shimmer of a force field. To the left, an open area with a control tower and a grassy knoll was also blocked off with a shimmer. Beyond the force field, Chamber could make out the triangular, light-blue glow of a pair of teleportation chambers. Both were active, and he could see one shining as if someone had used it recently.
Not thirty feet in front of them were two zip lines. Vincent narrowed his eyes, crouching down near the one on the right to stay out of sight. “Why is this even here? It makes literally no sense.” He narrowed his eyes at Chamber, suspecting that he’d obtained plans for the facility long ago.
Chamber shrugged and squinted against the bright sun. “You know I don’t make the rules.”
“You… are… powerless…”a deep, robotic voice boomed all around them, startling both men.
Chamber’s eyes widened, and he looked at Vincent in alarm. “Intuition tells me this isn’t good.”
Vincent nodded. “I’m thinking something similar.”
“Familiar voice?”
Vincent nodded. “That would be the confirmation that they’re using the teleporters as you said,” he replied quickly. Then he gestured behind him with his head. “Back over the partition!” He jumped back over the railing, chanting, “Get out of range, get out of range, get out of range!”
Chamber followed him. “Great, more rocks,” he grumbled under his breath, slipping over one of the smaller boulders as Vincent scrambled after him.
“How do we know what the range is?” Chamber asked over his shoulder, clambering down the rocky mountain.
“Let’s say… twenty meters?”
“Sounds good.”
The first rumbling wave struck from beneath them, destabilizing both. Vincent grabbed Chamber and tugged his double against him before he teetered off a rock. He held him steady as the ground shook. “This is awkward…”
“Gay,” Chamber growled, pushing him away.
“I’m comfortable enough in my sexuality that I’ll allow it… but only from you.”
They crawled down another boulder as the second wave hit, flattening themselves against the rock face to avoid detection. There was a pause as the ground stopped rumbling. Vincent went left and began his descent again.
“Wave three coming,” he announced.
Chamber cursed under his breath, but followed. They slipped, and Chamber grabbed Vincent’s wrist as the third wave blurred his vision, making his limbs feel as though they were moving through thick, viscous liquid. The tremors nearly sent him over the edge.
Chamber helped him back up. “Gay,” he retorted between breaths, panting as he crawled back up to the ledge. “I think it’s over.”
A silver figure glinted in the sun as it leaned over the railing above, blinding them for a moment. “What are we looking at?” Chamber asked, squinting upward.
“It’s an android,” Vincent answered dismissively. Chamber narrowed his eyes at him, skeptical. “A humanoid robot.”
“Did he come from your side?”
“I have to assume so.” Vincent took a deep breath and arched his back for a moment, stretching his spine. “They call him KAY/O.” He smiled at Chamber. “It’s just machinery, really.”
“Seems pretty dangerous.”
Vincent nodded. “I wouldn’t underestimate him, no.”
Something sailed through the air and landed between the two of them. “Go, now!” Vincent shouted.
He pushed Chamber over the edge of the rock and jumped after him just in time to miss the explosion. They tumbled down the side of the mountain for a few hundred yards and landed roughly in a clump of bushes. Both men sat up, groaning.
“‘As…youuuuuu… wissssh,’” Chamber quipped, pulling a twig from his hair.
Vincent pushed shakily to his feet and pulled Tour De Force from his arm. “Well, this suit is ruined,” he snapped. “What was this plan of yours?”
“Give me a break.” Chamber raised his arms in mock surrender. “I didn’t expect there to be a lethal walking toaster after us.”
Vincent gazed up the side of the mountain and looked down his sights. “Fair…” He no longer saw any bright flashes of silver. “I don’t think he’s there anymore.”
Chamber’s eyes fixed on something hidden in the cleft of the mountain. “There.” He pointed at a gray metal door set in the rock face.
“You don’t think…” Vincent began.
“I do,” Chamber broke in.
They stealthily approached it, Vincent watching the area above with his rifle trained at the railing. Nothing approached or showed itself, which troubled him. Once at the door, they discovered a control panel on the side.
“Ideas?”
Vincent glanced at the control panel, then scanned the space where they had last seen KAY/O. “Obviously a code of some kind.”
“Brilliant, we can go home.” Chamber rolled his eyes.
“No, I think we can get in.” Vincent bent down so that he was eye level with the panel and studied it for a moment, taking in the numbers. Which ones were worn? Which were the brightest and least used? “We have a three, for sure.”
“D, E, F…” Chamber noted aloud.
“A seven, a two…”
“Seven’s tricky,” Chamber said with a nod, scratching his chin. Now that Vincent was occupied, he was keeping watch for their robot friend. “Four letters: P, Q, R, S…”
Taking a handful of dust, Vincent blew some against the numbers and then brushed the excess away to see what stuck. He shook his head. “Three letters.”
“Three?”
“No one uses passwords with the letter Q. It’ll be P, R, or S.” Vincent looked deep in thought for a moment. This made sense. Even if a password was someone’s name, the likelihood of coming across a name with a Q in it was minimal at best. “The most worn numbers are three, seven, and two, and three is definitely first. So… one word, starts with F, six seven letters.” Vincent stroked his chin, then gestured upward with one hand, giving the cliff another quick glance for attackers. “Maybe seven or eight.”
Chamber shrugged. “Try ‘frontal’?” He was watching all around them. He could hear shouts in the distance.
Vincent punched it in, and a red light flashed twice. Shaking his head, he casually tried “freezer.” No dice. “I have a feeling we have several tries before big guys with guns show up again.”
Chamber paced for a moment, rolling his left hand as he thought. He paused and turned to Vincent. “Try three-seven-two-two-eight-seven-three. ‘Fracture.’”
Vincent narrowed his eyes at Chamber, who shrugged. “You know how good I am at crossword puzzles,” he quipped. It was true: they were both good at word games.
Vincent keyed the word in. A green light came on, and there was a click at the door knob.
Both men pulled their teleport anchors from their wrists and flung them to two different locations kitty-corner to one another. After setting up the teleporters, they pushed their way into the hub, guns up.
Vincent threw his Trademark card just inside the door to one side so the little camera would pick up any movement coming from that area. “A gift,” he whispered.
They met no one inside. The metal grating of the curving, egg-shaped corridor clinked beneath their feet as they walked, setting both on edge. The hall stretched on for about fifteen to twenty yards. At the end, they came to an enormous, dome-shaped room. To their left was a glass-walled room full of small berry shrubs and a few palm trees. Markers around the vegetation indicated that the scientists here were experimenting with the effects of radianite on plant life.
In the center of the room was a deep cement pool, not unlike the one that had been at Valorant during the accident, except this one was round, and fitted with steel compass bars around the outside. In the middle of the pool, a beam of blue light extended twenty feet into the air, dancing and swirling as it formed and perpetuated itself from nothing.
Both men walked around it slowly, eyeing it like a jungle cat that might pounce on them if they turned their backs. It was beautiful but dangerous and full of life, and it sang gently in a high-pitched tone nearly inaudible to the human ear.
An office tucked away to the right stood out to both of them, and they headed for it together, watching one another’s backs. On the other side of the door lay a large room with file cabinets and metal desks. One of the cabinets was labeled “KINGDOM” in big, bold letters, and Chamber gestured wildly to it.
“Is this what we’re looking for?”
Chamber nodded, and Vincent began leafing through folders, eventually stopping on one in particular. He drew a ragged breath as he read through the papers inside. “Cory is in contact with the other worlds.”
“We knew that, though…”
“Yeah, but it’s bigger than we thought.” Vincent ran a shaky hand down his face. “He’s got several on his side. They’re trying to stabilize interdimensional teleportation.”
“What’s his goal?”
Vincent sighed and looked at Chamber. “After he destroys me? Control of the dimensions or some bullshit like that.” Vincent’s chest deflated. “But right now, he’s trying to stabilize the field with fusion and…” The color drained from Vincent’s face. “And some kind of organic matter. It is what I thought.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Vincent noted that Chamber blinked once and glanced away. He knew this look well. Chamber was hiding something.
Vincent snapped the folder shut and glared at his double with a brusque nod. “What do you know?”
Chamber took in a deep breath and let it out slowly as their eyes met for a beat. Then his gaze flicked away to glance at a clock on the wall. “You know that when I blew the Kingdom facility four years ago, it was to get the plans and information that took me to you.” Vincent nodded as he listened. Chamber let out a long sigh. “Shortly after you ran from them, I went back to your world to talk to you, not knowing you’d already left.”
***
Chamber ducked behind one of the tubes in the chemistry lab as a pair of shadowy forms approached, unaware of his presence.
A glowing ball of pink, purple, and blue energy danced over the concrete pool. As it died down to nothing, it revealed the figure of a black-haired girl at the center. Her head fell forward with a low groan, and she collapsed to her knees, spent. She rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling high above her, and let out a long breath. Her head rolled to the side and her gray eyes glazed over. To Chamber, she looked dead.
The other figures stepped out of the shadows, revealing themselves to be Cory and Iselin. Cory stared down at the girl with a look of disgust. “Well, that didn’t work,” he growled.
He lifted his fingers and snapped, and Chamber watched several men come to lift the girl’s body and take her away.
Iselin put her hands on her hips. “I just want to get in there after him already,” she said through gritted teeth.
Cory raised a hand as if telling her to shut up. Chamber watched as the other men carried the young woman past his hiding place. She seemed to breathe in deeply, glow for a moment, and revive from the dead. Her eyes flicked to his briefly, and she said something in a Scottish accent that sounded like “waiter,” but no one was listening to her. They continued to drag her away, dazed and confused, until Chamber couldn’t see them anymore. Although he knew he had not been discovered yet, he quietly drew Headhunter just in case.
Clearly agitated, Cory shifted restlessly, running a hand over the waves of his red hair as he turned to glance after those who had left the room. “Fuck all. If we can’t bridge the dimensions with organic matter somehow, we’ll only be able to do one teleport at a time with the stupid arm pieces ‘til… I don’t know, the end of time.” He squeezed his fists until his knuckles turned white. “We have to figure out a way to use human tissue to stabilize it,” he seethed, pacing around the blue beam of light emanating from the concrete pool and eyeing it closely as he stroked his chin.
“Someone who can bridge gaps, then,” Iselin said, looking off in thought.
“Yeah.”
Iselin glanced around the room as if to make sure no one was listening. “Could we use John?”
Cory scoffed. “Nah, he can’t do this. He’s not organic anymore. He can partly exist in other dimensions, yes, but he can’t take care of the organic matter part.” He shook his head, his attention briefly drawn toward Chamber, who ducked lower. Even though Cory hadn’t seen him, Chamber felt his heart slam in his chest. “I thought Clove’s resurrection ability might be the key,” he sighed, squeezing his fists again.
Iselin shrugged, meeting his gaze. “Kingdom can help with this. There’s a doctor there—Dr. Kyle. He’s been looking for a way to bridge these gaps as well. I could try to contact him.”
“Right, right…do,” Cory said distantly. “You know who figured out the science first, yeah?”
“Chamber,” Iselin spat hatefully.
Chamber felt his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed the lump in his throat. In his own world, he was light-years ahead of everyone else in this department, which was why he had been able to come in and help Vincent in the first place. No one in his own world even knew this was possible yet.
Iselin’s eyes filled with intense hatred as she lifted and flexed her mechanical arm. “I’ll take him apart.”
“Might mean your life.”
“It’s my life either way. Trust me, we can get this job done.”
Cory pulled back a little, his gaze drawn to something in the hall. Again, Chamber pressed his back to the wall behind him, praying he hadn’t been spotted. If caught, he’d only have to snap his fingers, but then it was getting out of here that would be difficult.
Cory went back to his question. “Yeah, it was Vincent. He’s the one who developed teleportation technology. That’s why I needed him in the first place.” Cory cursed under his breath. “What is the key?” he whispered. “Organic.”
“I think I know who can do that,” Iselin said, her attention drawn to the door.
Cory swallowed hard and turned his gaze to Austin, who had just entered the room with Kirra on his heels. Austin whispered something in her ear, and Kirra bristled, her cheeks flushing red. Cory took a few steps toward Austin and stared him down.
Chamber leaned against the wall as he waited for the room to clear enough to make his escape.
***
A blurred image caught Chamber’s eye, pulling him out of the memory and stopping him from recounting what he’d seen. He whirled, aiming in the direction of the blur. “We’re not alone,” he whispered, drawing them both out and back into the main room.
Vincent drew Headhunter, wishing Chamber hadn’t stopped speaking, especially since he wanted to know what Austin had been doing that day. “I figured as much.”
Both men could hear the clicking of boots over walkways in the near distance.
Chamber sighed. “Okay, the jig might be up.”
“What do we do?”
Chamber was already lifting his hand to pull out Tour De Force again. “Destroy the fusion reactor,” he said in an offhanded manner, as though he’d just told Vincent they were going to grab croissants.
Vincent glowered at Chamber, wide-eyed. “Destroy it?”
Chamber shrugged a single shoulder. “You know why they’re using it. They’re trying to advance that technology to bring more doubles here. Let’s end it and teleport out of here.”
“Mon Dieu,” Vincent growled.
Another flash of silver, and Vincent side-stepped just as Chamber lifted his rifle and fired directly into KAY/O, who was aiming at the back of Vincent’s head.
The silver humanoid jerked, twitched, and dropped its own firearm. Arcs of bright electricity covered its chest and limbs, emanating from the large bullet hole in its chest. Flailing, it fell, then finally stopped moving.
“Toaster is broken,” Chamber said, dancing toward the fallen hunk of metal. He circled it for a moment, taking in its chrome limbs and silver form. He scratched his chin as if confused.
“What?” Vincent snapped impatiently.
Chamber gave a theatrical shrug. “Just wondering where the bread goes.”
The bootsteps were coming closer, accompanied by several shouts.
“Okay, enough…”
Rushing back, Chamber lifted his rifle and aimed it directly at Vincent, who mirrored his movements and began a series of long, deep breaths. “On my count.”
Vincent sighed heavily and dragged a shaky hand down his face. “Merde.”
They positioned themselves on opposite sides of the pool, and Vincent looked up at the beautiful tower of light one last time.
“On three?” Chamber said.
Vincent shook his head. “It’s incredible,” he whispered. “That something so small can create such… opportunity.”
“Their efforts were noble,” Chamber agreed, “but sacrifices must be made.”
Vincent nodded, trying to keep steady. This means more dead…
Chamber began the countdown. “Un…”
More fathers, more mothers…
“Deux…”
More people who were someone’s children.
“Trois…”
Oh, God… Will Marielle ever forgive me?
Both men fired into the heart of the brilliant arc of light, then snapped their fingers and were gone. Seconds later, armored guards rushed into the room just in time to see the burning light of a thousand suns as it exploded and vaporized them all.