Dead Waters - Anton Strout [104]
“Sorry, Mikey,” she said. She grabbed Darryl as he pushed his way through the crowd over to where Mike was pinned. Blood was already running thick down the pinned student’s arm. Darryl shoved his phone into the stream and a flair of energy sparked from it. A scene flickered on the screen. It was footage of me from the other night when I had come across the students saying their good-byes to the professor at Eccentric Circles. Something looked different about me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I leaned in closer to the tiny image, avoiding Elyse’s kicks with my bat.
“Do I have a goatee?” I asked, caught off guard by what I was seeing.
“Computer-enhanced,” Elyse said. “Actually, I think it helps hide your weak chin.”
Something in my mind snapped and I reared back with my bat. “I do not have a weak chin,” I said and swung for her.
A loud crack rang out, accompanied by a blinding flash in front of me, and my bat hit something solid, although it wasn’t Elyse. The young actress/gymnast/killer was standing at least five feet away now. My bat had connected with another figure wearing a leather coat identical to mine.
“That wasn’t nice,” a familiar voice said to me. It was my own. Standing in front of me was another version of me, complete with its phony goatee.
“How ‘Mirror, Mirror’ of you,” I said, looking past him at Elyse. “But I don’t get it. How can I be reborn when I’m not dead like the professor was?”
Elyse laughed. “We’re pioneers in our industry. He’s just a cheap carbon copy. Death isn’t a requirement to summon a quick you on the fly to kick your own ass. Just blood.”
The other Simon punched me in the arm. “Stop hitting yourself,” he said.
“Okay,” I said, focusing back on him. “This is . . .”
“Weird,” Doppel-Me finished. He pulled out his own bat and extended it. “I know, right?”
“This is going to hurt me more than it’s. . . You know what? I think this is going to hurt me just as much as it is you.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Right.”
I swung my bat, going for his knee, but he came around with his bat and blocked it.
“You think you’re going to get one over on me?” he asked. “Think again.”
“Don’t think this is going to be an issue,” I said. “I’ve had years of experience beating myself up.”
I swung low, but Doppel-Me jumped high. When I lunged for him, he feinted back perfectly, avoiding the blow or countering it. If I faked left, he faked right, countering my every move.
It was no use. Other than the shoddy goatee, this Simon fought like I fought. I couldn’t get an advantage over him no matter how hard I tried.
“Give up,” I said.
“You give up,” Doppel-Me repeated. “I can do this all night.”
I shook my head. “No, you can’t,” I said. “You’ll eventually come apart at the seams like all these other playthings.”
“Actually, he won’t,” Darryl shouted out from somewhere behind me. “Like Elyse said, we’re pioneers. He’s got a better shelf life.”
“Well, crap,” I said. “Not the answer I wanted to hear. I guess we both can do this all night, then.”
The other me craned his head and I knew what he was looking for.
“Uh-uh,” I said. “There’s no way I’m letting you up the aisle and out through those curtains. You’d have to go through me to get out of here and I’m not going to let that happen.”
Doppel-Me backed away down the aisle, heading toward the door leading into the offices. Of course! I knew the only other way out was through the creepier parts of the catacombs in the far recesses the Gauntlet, and that meant he probably knew it, too. If he made it down there, I’d never catch up to him in all its twists and turns.
In the hall behind him, something stirred in the darkness.
“I do have something you don’t have, you know,” I said, pressing toward Doppel-Me.
“Me, too. I’ve got this stylin’ goatee that you don’t have. What have you got?”
The shadow in the hallway moved even closer to my doppelganger.
“Friends,” I said, and charged him. With one of my fellow agents behind him, I’d be on the dark version of myself in no time, clashing bat to bat.
Evil Simon spun around to run for the door back