Chapter 30
“NOW? SERIOUSLY?” I’M EXASPERATED AS the filthy, one-handed Dupe stalks toward me. “We needed, like… three more minutes?”
It throws a Ceramic at my head.
It comes fast. Bullet fast. Without my revs activated, the blade would have skewered my eye and subsequently my brain. As it is, I don’t have time to catch it, only duck. It barely misses.
I am lucky the Dupe didn’t try to throw it at my body, because that would have been harder to—
It throws another one at my body. A white handle sprouts from my shoulder, despite my best efforts to dodge.
“Damn it! Ow. Just stop for a second, will you?” I yank the blade from my shoulder and hang onto it.
“I will not stop until you are destroyed. Every. Last. One of you,” the Dupe hisses.
I recoil a little.
“Uh, Azure? Is it just me, or does the Dupe sound—”
“Utterly psychopathic?” I murmur. I continue to back away, and raise my voice to address the Dupe. “So! Friend. Comrade. Any chance we can have a nice, rational—”
The monster with my face blurs forward.
The next ten seconds are a haze. I backpedal around the lab.
Dodge, and dodge, and barely the hell dodge as my one-handed and very angry mirror image snarls and slashes and punches and generally does its best to kill me.
It throws scalpels and beakers and one time, its own damned severed hand, which is so gross and weird that I don’t move fast enough and it slaps me across the face.
Hard. Atti, who usually provides at least semi-helpful commentary during a fight, just laughs uproariously at that part.
It’s all fine, though. The Dupe got here more quickly than I thought it would, but otherwise, everything’s in place.
I’d guessed at its aggression, given the smoking crater of Sanctum.
Pretty much supposed that things might go something like this.
I mean, the hand-flinging was an unpleasant surprise.
The demented little speech even more so.
But generally, everything feels under control.
I finally skid out the thick steel door and jam it shut, barely in time as the Dupe screams and throws itself forward. Not unlike the door at Sanctum, there’s immediately the crashing echo of impact after impact on metal. Dents on my side quickly begin to appear.
“You get a holo of all that?” I ask Atti as I stride toward the Loop platform.
“Hell yes. Wow. You were so close to dead, just then.” Atti sounds impressed. “Like, completely outmatched. That Dupe is strong.”
“I think outmatched is the wrong word,” I say indignantly as the sound of rending steel screams into the tunnel from behind me. “It just arrived a little earlier than I thought. This is a planned, tactical retreat.”
“I would tactically retreat a little faster, if I were you. That door’s not holding.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I quicken to a jog.
The Loop pod is, thankfully, waiting exactly where it should be.
Another win for my eidetic cogs: I was able to recall the codes Jasa used to activate the system from the other end, and had the foresight to get it ready for use before the DNA wash wore off.
The internal logs indicate that repairs are ongoing near the house, but are complete enough that the journey back should be safe.
Probably.
“Were you the one who altered the code, when we arrived? To send our container to the incinerator instead of storage?” I ask as I step inside.
“What? Of course not. You know I wouldn’t have done something you could get out of so easily.” She’s offended. “That was helpful, though. They had me looking for you, and the on-net sensors in the tunnels were just enough to flag that you’d gone to Themis.”
I sigh. So Jasa’s recode was really just that sloppy. “Well, can we please make sure that there are no similar surprises on this trip?” I secure the door, buckle in, and start tapping the confirmation code into the pad on the wall.
Through the glass, a hundred metres away, I see the steel door to the lab finally shatter from its hinges.
“Uh, Azure?”
“I see it.” The Dupe is bounding toward us. Teeth bared, like an animal. Eyes locked on me through the window. I tap the last digits, and the screen glows green in acceptance. My copy’s about thirty metres away now.
I very deliberately raise both hands to the window, and wave goodbye.
The capsule slams into motion, and the Dupe’s gone from sight.