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42 – Birthday
The hug was the only thing in the world. One arm cradled her head, one wrapped around her back, and both held her to a warm, strong chest. ‘Are you all right?’ There was the stock answer you were supposed to give to that question. The “yeah yeah, I’m fine, nothing to see here, you don’t want the real answer” polite deflection that most people expected. If a cashier asked that, you weren’t supposed to give a real answer. They weren’t paid enough to deal with the emotional dump from a stranger. If a magic secret agent man asked that after you’d just been resurrected, you were probably supposed to…
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08 – Disrupted Perfection
Curt opened his eyes, rolled over, and looked to the phone on his bedside table and grinned at the perfect timing. One minute before his alarm was due to go off – that meant his meds had worked exactly right. The latest formulation that Two had come up with was working well. There were still nightmares, but not always – and importantly, he was able to wake up, rested, and ready to face the world as “Recruit Curt” again. He grabbed his phone as the first vibration started, and killed the alarm. As the screen went black, the room went back to semi-darkness, lit only by the lights of the…
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04 – Status Quo
Curt winced as the clipboard came down on his head. ‘Who the fuck taught you first aid?’ Parker-2 asked, apparently aghast at the job he’d done of cleaning and bandaging the wound. ‘You did, dickhead,’ he retorted and smirked at the doctor. ‘Shouldn’t I be smacking you?’ ‘Don’t flirt, O’Connor, besides, spanking costs extra.’ Parker-2 grabbed a wheeled stool and sat. ‘You did a decent job,’ he said as he cleaned the wound. ‘Could be improved though. You’ve done the basic course, but you never came back for the advanced stuff. It would look really good on your aide application if you’ve already got that squared away.’ ‘Doc, I don’t-’…
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33 – Nothingness
Someone was holding her hand. Stef stirred and tried to squeeze the hand back, but her fingers closed on empty air. Dream. She must have been dreaming about the accident again. She shifted and tried to roll over, but her bed felt strange. And something was holding her arm back and- Tangled in the sheets. She was- She shifted back to the comfortable position, but something still tugged at her arm, something- ‘What’s-’ She braced herself, and brought her hand up to smack herself in the face – it hurt, but it got her brain engaged. She opened her eyes – panic rose, but petered out like an impotent storm,…
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32 – Subscript
There was a knock. Ryan opened his eyes, saw nothing but blue, and closed them again. There was peace. Weightlessness. Calm. Safety. Another knock. Thoughts started to become more clear. He breathed in and felt liquid blue rush across his tongue. He was in a tank – that meant he’d been injured. That meant- The feeling of serenity dropped away as recent memories crashed into his consciousness. He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling for where one of the exit wounds had been, and felt nothing but smooth skin. He was safe. He was- He wasn’t the only one who’d been injured. He focussed on his HUD, brought up…
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08 – Twisted Prescription
His eye was cut out. His skin was melting. The floor was black and sucking his body in. Strips of flesh, shaped like words he couldn’t read rent themselves from his skin. Petersen laughed, held his face and told him he was going to die. A wall of blood crashed down, blood turning into bricks turning into- Curt heard himself screaming. And the scream cut into the dream. He opened his eyes and let the scream turn into a whimper and into tears. The bed was drenched with his sweat, and there were spots of blood from where he’d been clawing at his chest. After three tries, he managed to…
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Breathing
Click to jump straight to the chapter. One Year Before Dorian Knocks Humans liked to use the phrase “more or less”. Approximation. Something that would suffice without being optimal. With a single word change, it becomes us: more and less. From the moment we were born, we’ve been more and less. More than he. More than I. More than us. Less than two, more than one. More than two, less than one. From the moment we were born, we’ve been more than lonely, but less than alone. Parker-2 spun the pen and watched as his twin’s fingers ghosted the movement. We could always feel each other. Usually, the separation of…self…
