“Taraval was here?” I asked in disbelief.
“Yeah, it was a real party for a second. Me, Sylvia, and the Gehinnomites. Then Taraval showed up with an antique shotgun he stole from that asshole and shot everyone. Then he bashed in my head. I think he took Syl.”
“You think?” I said angrily. “You were right here. How can you not know?”
“Maybe because he didn’t tell me his plans before he bashed my head in.”
“Shit. The people-mover!” I said, putting two and two together.
“What?”
“At the bottom of the hill, I almost got killed by a people-mover when I drove up. That was probably them. They could be anywhere by now!”
“Shit!” spat Joel2.
We glared at each other, our expressions a perfect symmetry of anger. Then, remembering we were each other’s copy, an uncomfortable silence occupied the space between us.
“Do you mind?” said Joel2, holding out a hand.
“Oh! Sorry, yeah, of course.” He hissed in pain as I helped him to his feet. “Are you okay?”
“What do you think?” he snapped.
Before I could snap back, a wet, metallic coughing sent me reeling, almost taking Joel2 down with me.
“Guess I’m not the only one who made it,” he said, limping over to lift the wheelchair off the incredibly old man. “Joel, meet Roberto Shila. Founder of the Gehinnomites, oldest man in the world. He might know where Sylvia is.” Joel2 kicked the wheelchair aside. “Well, do you?”
Roberto Shila gazed up at the two of us. One whole side of his face had swelled and turned purple with blood. He was clearly in very bad shape, though one wouldn’t know it from his oscillating cold, robotic laugh.
“Look at the two of you,” he said, then stopped midsentence to cough up some blood. “The perfect evidence of the inhumanity created by the devil’s ultimate invention.” He looked at Joel2. “You, the golem, and he”—he looked at me—“the reanimated corpse. Husbands of the harpy.”
“What’s he talking about?” I asked Joel2.
“It’s how he is,” Joel2 remarked. Then he said coldly to the old man, “At least our wife didn’t try to kill me.”
Shila’s ruined face became an ugly mask of sorrow. The old man shook his head. “I do not understand any of your kind’s motives. You, who would so willingly destroy the soul and usurp the powers of resurrection—”
“Save it,” said Joel2. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but I saw he was angry. Maybe angrier than I’d ever been about anything.
A thought occurred to me. “Wait, what does he mean ‘resurrection’?”
Shila coughed feebly. “Tell him. He deserves to know the same as you.”
“Know what?” I said. “Will someone just tell me the truth? She’s my wife!”
My doppelg?nger snorted. “Oh, she’s your wife now? Okay, Joel, let me tell you what your wife did, because, yes, it definitely falls under the category of resurrection. I take it you remember Project Honeycomb?”
Sylvia mentioned it. Moti mentioned it. I should have paid closer attention. “It’s what Sylvia was working on at IT?”
“And I assume you already know the Punch Escrow is a bullshit smoke screen, and you’ve been copied and killed a hundred times?”
“Seriously, what the fuck crawled up your ass? You want to stand there and be a jerk, fine. But I’m going to finish what I came here to do, which is save my wife and fix my life. Maybe you can bring me the fuck up to speed so we can figure this shit out together.”
“What life?” Joel2 said bitterly. “I wouldn’t even be here if she hadn’t printed me from a backup. An incomplete backup. I wasn’t supposed to make it, and for that matter, neither were you.”
“I’m fine, asshole. You’re the copy!”
Shila gurgled a metallic laugh. “Don’t be so hard on each other. You are both puppets. You,” he said, nodding at me with his ruined, bloody skull, “have you not considered what clockwork brought you to my doorstep?”
“What the fuck do you know about anything?” My tone was just as aggressive and belligerent as my other’s. “Has anybody ever told you that you sound like an evil robot on acid?”
Shila took a rattling breath. “I may be an old man, but the Friends are not without friends. Friends who foretold your arrival. You, poor thing, are a pawn. An expendable piece in a game played among International Transport and the Levant. Your role was to manifest chaos, manipulate an outcome to tip the scales such that one party gains an edge and another loses.”
“The Levant?” I said. “How do you know them?”
“Our beliefs are aligned on some matters. Their concerns are our concerns.”
“So you planned this together?”
The old man shrugged. “We share information when we find it useful.”
Information… “Moti?” I said. Shila’s lack of response confirmed my suspicion. That dick, I was really starting to believe his “Aher” crap. “Yeah, well—you’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.” It was a lie, but I hoped it sounded true.
“You,” the Gehinnomite said, and nodded to Joel2, “a puppet created by your wife’s desire to play God. And you”—back to me—“a catalyst for a nation seeking to usurp power.”
Joel2 looked at me. “Okay, now I’m lost. Who is Moti? What’s he talking about?”
The gambit unraveled in my mind: Moti’s coolness when we first met, the questions he asked me: I’ll know if you are lying. It wasn’t a spymaster’s sixth sense. Moti knew the truth—everything—all along. Why did Pema send me to Moti when I showed up at IT? She must have been working for him, another one of his pawns. He wrote down the GDS coordinates, told me to steal an ambulance, gave me everything I needed to find my way here. No wonder he knew how to operate a TC console!
We’re his blackmail. The Gehinnomites want us to be their miracle; the Levant want us to be their bargaining chips.
I growled. “That Turkish-drinking, cigarette-smoking son of a bitch. I’m going to kill him!”
“Would you please tell me what is going on?” Joel2 pressed.
I gripped my weaponized defibrillator. Game on, Moti.
“There’s an ambulance I stole outside,” I offered, by way of an answer. “I’m not sure if it’s figured out I stole it yet, but just to play it safe, we should get out of here. I’ll tell you everything on the way.”
“What about him?” Joel2 asked, glancing at Shila.
“Please. Help me into my chair,” the Gehinnomite said, reaching out his bony hand.
Joel2 bent to help the old man up. His wheelchair was covered in blood, but Shila didn’t seem to care. Joel2 tried to adjust his body so he’d be more comfortable.
“Why are you helping the guy who kidnapped our wife?” I asked, annoyed. “Just leave him!”