Chapter #17Double Crossed by a Doppelganger by: Seuzz   You answer in Taylor's voice, since you don't see any way of getting rid of George Moore: "Is that you, Conniff?"
"Oliver?" she says after a momentary pause. "What the hell's going on?"
"We got a mess here. I was about to call you."
"Where's Moore?"
"In front of me," you say. When it doubt, it's always best to use as much truth as possible. "We're in the bathroom at Boswell's, and he's in no shape to talk. At least I think it's Moore."
"Make sense."
"I gave your guys a description and we split up. I was checking out the bathroom and-- Well, I saw Moore heading toward the front of the store just before coming in. But there's a guy in the stall here who looks just like Moore. Except he's naked and unconscious." You cradle the phone in your ear and pull at your victim's pants.
"Are you saying--?"
"I don't know what I'm saying, because I don't know what I'm seeing. Naked guy, looks just like Moore. He's out cold, but there's another one who looks like Moore who I think was going out the front door."
"Damn it! Get Parker, make sure no one gets into that rest room. I'll be back there in fifteen."
"We won't be going anywhere," you say, but the line's already dead.
You put your hand to Moore's forehead and get a full copy of the Fane agent while knocking him out for a full week. You think about giving him a hard crack against the back of the skull to make it look like a physical attack, but that might be too dangerous to the health of the man. He's only a goon, and innocent of anything except basic goonery. You pull off the rest of his clothes and stuff them down deep in the trash bin before going out to find Parker.
* * * * *
Conniff wants to keep things quiet, but it's not really possible to pull a naked, unconscious man out of a large department store without causing a stir; it takes the better part of thirty minutes for EMS people to arrive and can carry him out in a stretcher to Conniff's Range Rover; she has to flash some credentials--provided by who, you have to wonder--to get it all handled.
In the meantime, you manage to track down your own set of wheels. It's been towed, but Conniff's mysterious credentials are again enough to get you into the impound lot and retrieve it. Conniff fumes the whole time, and barely looks at you. "What now?" you ask when everything has been straightened out. "Maybe you want to tell me who these guys are--" You nod at the four remaining Fane agents. "And how you got so goddamned connected?"
"Best if I show you," she says. "I haven't been totally honest with you."
"Uh huh," you grunt. But she doesn't expand. She just directs you to follow, with Parker, in your ride while she drives ahead with the other three agents and the unconscious Moore.
* * * * *
Parker takes the wheel, which is fine with you, for it leaves you free to check and send text messages to Frank and Hal: Their last message says that they've hidden in some old digs that Hal keeps near Oxford; you tell them you're still traveling with Conniff under Koudelka's face.
You worry slightly that Parker will challenge you over the texting, but he says nothing. Nor does he reply when you ask him for his story. So it's a long, silent two hour drive back into London along the M40.
You spend all of it thinking through the events of the last twelve hours. Conniff's behavior is alarming. It's not just that she is now working with Fane agents; it's that she's been calling you "Oliver" ever since you called her last night on Oliver's cell. She's acting--
Well, she's acting like an impersonator trying to bluff her way through an impersonation on the basis of incomplete (and in your case badly wrong) information. Only rarely have you been caught in a position where you've had to wear a face without a mind to go with it, and she's doing exactly what you've done in those situations: Avoiding acquaintances and affecting a distant, ill-tempered mien to further put them off.
OIC thinks that Fane has a shapeshifter on its staff; you and your colleagues know they've mistakenly inferred that you are Fane's shapeshifter. But is it possible that Fane really does have such a thing, and that they pulled off a switcheroo with Conniff?
You absent-mindedly tap the window with a knuckle. Hal can get into the OIC system; it wouldn't strain credulity that Fane could too, and for a long time has been watching OIC's watchers. IMS is a Fane front; they'd have gotten the same video of you changing your face. They'd be better able to add up the numbers right: They'd know that OIC was tracking an independent shapechanger. And how better to screw up OIC than by using one of OIC's own operatives to grab the shapeshifter and hand it over to Fane?
How much does Fane know about you? They caught you once before, ten years ago, on your first trip to London. You accidentally killed the chief Fane operative--a Cambridge University professor named Hyde-White--but not before he'd learned what you could do, and had copied the basic sigils you carry on your body, that let you alter your form. Hal had done his best to erase that information, but data can never be entirely erased, only marred and disfigured past the point of recoverability. But they've had ten years to work on it.
And they're not the only ones with disguise techniques at their disposal. Several years ago you and Joe had stumbled onto a pair of low-life tattoo artists with an arcane machine that could copy imago onto specially prepared golems. Nash had taken the machine apart, and found it couldn't copy mental imago, and that it couldn't be used on living people to craft disguises. But it showed that magical technology like what you've got is certainly out there.
So it's not implausible that Fane should have a shapeshifter of their own, and you have to suppress a shiver at the way that hypothesis would explain Conniff's behavior.
* * * * *
It's early afternoon when you pull into a basement parking garage at a large, nondescript building not far from the Thames. Moore's memories tell you that it's a Fane distribution center: exactly the kind of place where grotty stuff can be hidden. Medical personnel are already waiting, and Moore is taken off in a freight elevator. Conniff gestures you over to her side.
"This is a top secret facility," she says.
"Bullshit," you interject. "OIC hasn't got--"
"No, it isn't OIC," she says. "It's the British equivalent. Part of an inter-service cooperative agreement. But you're not cleared inside, so I need you to put this on." She holds up a black scarf. "Blindfold yourself."
You stiffen, feeling very vulnerable with the other four Fane goons around you. But, slowly, you comply, taking the scarf and raising it to your face.
You've just got it to your eyes when strong arms seize you in an headlock, pinning your hands in the air. You swing and lurch, trying to lever yourself out, but more arms seize your torso. You're pinned in place. And then something long and sharp and hard jabs deeply into the side of your neck. You grunt and grasp as the poison shoots into your system. The world goes soft and gray and hazy and dark.
* * * * *
But you don't lose consciousness, not really. You just fall back into your secret recesses, where it is only you and Sulva and Malacandra and your constellations of imago, hanging in quiet, peaceful blankness. You still have Taylor's imago wrapped around yourself, so there will be no shifts on the surface. To the outer world, Taylor Koudelka will just sink into unconsciousness; you will sit inside yourself and wait. But neither can you see what is going on outside.
It's very peaceful--this is where you go to meditate--and with no external references time can pass very quickly or very slowly. You rest, wrapped in the crystalline cloak of Sulva, beneath the throbbing, pulsing, blood-red light of Malacandra: waiting, and watching. You hold Taylor's imago close, fingering it for the first signs that the narcotic is wearing off, so that you can "wake up" again.
It's fortunate that you're playing such close attention. The first sign of something amiss comes when you feel a twitch at Taylor's imago. You grip it more tightly. Another tug.
And then something very strong is trying to wrench it from you. You grab it with every fiber of your strength, and draw on the iron strength of Malacandra. For a moment your hold on it wavers before the fit passes.
The hell? You force Taylor's imago back into action, and ignore the screaming in your body as you force your eyes open against the still-powerful poison the Fane operatives forced into you.
You can only see a ceiling, and a figure in a white tunic and face mask bends over you. You gasp, and try to writhe, but your limbs are dead. The man grunts, and numbly you feel another prick at your neck. You fall back within yourself.
Time passes. You continue to hold tight onto Taylor's imago against further monkey business. It blazes into brilliance at one point, as though illumined by a nearby supernova, but you see nothing, and there are no more attempts to take it from you.  You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
| Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author