The Apocalypse Emperor

Chapter 12: The man who wore my face

"There was also a man standing beside the table. Alive. Calm. Watching me write. He had your face."

Adrian stared at Evelyn.

The words hung in the damp air of the ferry terminal, more disturbing than the certificate, more impossible than two records on a silver drive. A man with his face, watching a woman sign his death.

"Describe him," Adrian said.

"He looked exactly like you."

"That isn't a description."

Her fingers tightened on her bag strap. "Same height. Same build. Same scar above the left eyebrow."

Adrian's hand rose to it before he could stop himself. He had gotten it at fourteen, falling against a broken window while chasing a football. It was a private memory, one he had never shared with anyone in this timeline.

Either someone had copied his face, or someone had copied his life.

"Did he speak?"

"He told me not to put his name on anything. He said, If you write it down, they'll find me."

"Find him where?"

"I don't know. An alarm went off. When security came in, he was gone, through a service door behind the observation room." Her voice hardened. "You think I wasn't frightened? I had spent months watching trial subjects confuse their own memories with someone else's. Then I saw a dead man and a living one who looked identical. I didn't know which to be afraid of."

"Which did you think was me?"

Evelyn didn't answer.

That was worse than any answer.

"Evelyn."

"The one who spoke knew my name. He knew what the procedure was meant to do." She swallowed. "The body had no vital signs. I signed for the body."

Adrian turned that over. The man at the dead town had been betrayed and bitten. The man in his apartment had woken whole. And somewhere between them, a third had stood in a laboratory watching it happen.

He leaned into the ache behind his eyes and reached for her, and caught something faint, small as breath on glass.

...not the first. Please, not the first...

Evelyn went rigid.

"You thought something," he said quietly.

"I think a great many things."

"Not that."

Her face changed. A tightening around the eyes, her shoulders drawing in. She was afraid he'd heard it, and that told him he had.

"What does not the first mean?"

"Nothing."

"Evelyn."

"I told you, I don't know."

Footsteps sounded in the corridor behind them, slow and unhurried.

Adrian drew his knife. "Did you bring someone?"

"No."

The footsteps stopped. A man's voice came from the dark. "Doctor Cross."

Adrian knew it before the speaker stepped into the light. He had heard it through red-lit glass, desperate and distorted.

Marcus Hale.

He looked a decade older than he had that morning. A bruise had spread along his jaw. His white shirt was stained at the collar, and he held one hand against his ribs as though each breath cost him.

"You were shot," Adrian said.

Hale glanced at the knife. "I see you've been asking questions."

"I heard it through the wall."

"You heard a gunshot. You didn't see who it hit."

"Are you telling me it wasn't you?"

"I'm telling you assumptions are dangerous."

Adrian turned to Evelyn. "How did he find us?"

She didn't look at him. "I called him from the road. Before you got here."

"You called him."

"He's the only person who might know what the second record means."

"And you decided I didn't need to hear that."

"I decided I needed to hear it first."

Adrian let out a short, bitter breath. Everyone at this terminal was keeping something from him, and all of them looked exhausted by it.

"Who is the other man?" he asked Hale.

Hale looked from him to Evelyn, and something close to despair crossed his face. "You told him."

"He found the records himself."

"That's worse."

"Who is he?" Adrian said again.

Hale held his gaze for a long moment.

"The question isn't who he is."

"Then what?"

"Which of you came back."

The terminal seemed to tilt beneath Adrian's feet.

Before he could answer, every light in the building went out.

Evelyn caught his arm. Somewhere in the waiting hall, a door slammed. Hale's voice came out of the dark, low and urgent.

"Listen to me. Whatever you remember about the morning of September thirteenth, do not trust it."

A phone began to ring.

Not Evelyn's. Not Adrian's burner.

The sound came from Hale's coat.

He pulled it out and answered it. For a long moment, nobody spoke. Then the speaker filled the room, and Adrian's blood turned to ice.

It was his own voice.

Calm. Clear. Unmistakable.

"Marcus. You have something that belongs to me."

Hale closed his eyes.

"And if Adrian is there with you," the voice said, "tell him I want my life back."

The call ended.

In the darkness, Evelyn's breath shook beside him. Hale slid slowly down the wall. And from somewhere beyond the terminal doors, an engine turned over and began to idle, patient and low.

Adrian stood with the dead phone's silence ringing in his ears.

He had believed he was the man who died and came back.

Now he had to ask whether the man on the phone was thinking the same thing.