“You know what this reminds me of?” Joel2 said once his eye was covered.
I knew immediately. “Halloween.”
“Yeah. That party senior year in college. I—”
“We—”
“We went as the Dread Pirate Roberts from The Princess Bride—”
“Nobody knew who we were supposed to be,” I finished. “I remember. Wearing the eye patch didn’t help.”
“Can’t be a pirate without an eye patch,” he said reasonably. “Sylvia got it, though.” We both smiled at the memory. “Even though we’d never met her before, when we asked if we could fetch her a drink—”
“She lifted our eye patch and said, ‘As you wish.’” I shook my head, still impressed that she knew the obscure 1980s movie well enough to quote it. “We knew right then, didn’t we?”
“We did,” he said, and nodded. “Also, it didn’t hurt that she was hot.”
“Brains, beauty, and a knowledge of 1980s pop culture,” I said. “She was the whole package.”
We both grinned sentimentally for a moment. Then Joel2 grew serious. Contemplative.
I took my hand off his face. “We’re going to get her back. We’ll worry about what happens after, after.”
“Right. Maybe she’ll just copy herself so Frankenstein can have his own bride.” He turned back to the mirror, pretending to adjust the eye bandage so he’d have something to do.
“We will figure it out,” I promised him. “If anyone can grapple with something like this, it’s her.”
He seemed like he might say something else, but instead he simply nodded. I realized then that nobody had ever experienced what the two of us were going through at that moment. Sure, we’ve all been alone with our thoughts plenty of times, but we’ve never been face-to-face with our independent three-dimensional selves. As I regarded the injured version of myself, a man who, like me, had been forced to question his entire existence but was still managing to soldier on, all I could feel was pride. Pride at the strength and resolve that Joel2 was showing, and the knowledge that that strength must also be hidden somewhere in me.
I clapped my doppelg?nger on the shoulder, smiling at our two cleaned-up reflections. “Not bad for two unholy twins birthed from the valley of Gehinnom.”
“Yeah, I totally don’t look like a guy who was blown up, reconstructed from a partial backup, kidnapped, half blinded, and almost killed twice.”
“At the very worst, I’d say you look like you’ve only been half blinded and almost killed just once.” We shared another grim smile.
“Okay, I guess it’s time to put on our big boy pants again,” Joel2 said. “Do you have any idea where we’re going to find this Moti guy?”
“I do,” I said, repacking the first aid kit. I was rolling what remained of the bandage back into its dispenser, when—Is that what I think it is?—my eyes landed on a white metal box. It had a lightning bolt prominently printed on its bottom front panel.
WARNING: ELECTRIC SHOCK.
ONE-HUNDRED STEP SOUL CATCHING
“SHESH-BESH!” Zaki yelled with perhaps more excitement than Moti thought rolling a six-five on the dice should merit, especially given how badly Zaki was losing.
They were sitting by the window in Kafene, one of a few authentic Levantine coffeehouses, which was also conveniently only a block away from International Transport headquarters. The place had all the trimmings of a cozy bazaar that one might imagine after reading too many romance novels set in the Ottoman empire. Wine-colored Persian rugs hung from the walls, silk scarves were draped as canopies, and mismatched cushions in various shades of burgundy and maroon surrounded tables of varying materials and heights.
“You know why I like this place, Zaki?” Moti asked, lighting up a TIME cigarette and taking in the aroma of the place. The smoke of the paper and tobacco embers smoldering between his fingers delightfully augmented the scents of soaps dangling from the ceiling, incense sticks in earthen pots, and, of course, the scorched cardamom scent of brewing Turkish coffee.
“No printers, boss?” Zaki asked.
“It’s not just no printers, Zaki, because everything here was printed. We are not surrounded by true antiques, just replicas and re-creations. Even the name of this place refers to the generic kafene, just ‘coffeehouse.’ What I like is that it’s modeled after the original kafenes. They were small, crowded places where men sipped Turkish coffee and played tavla like us. It doesn’t try to attract clientele who would not appreciate its simple purpose: the appreciation of time.”
Zaki stopped toying with the dice and looked over the coffeehouse. “Is that why it’s always empty?” he asked, a smug half grin forming on his face. It was true: they were the only patrons. Even the owner was in the back, watching a Levantine football match.
“Maybe,” Moti said, tapping his cigarette tip on the ashtray. He glanced at the wristwatch bump beneath his sleeve, and took another drag. “Speaking of time, Zaki, you should go. There is work to do.”
Zaki nodded, grunting quietly as he raised himself from the cushion on which he sat. “They have belly dancers at night,” he said. “It’s much busier then. Maybe people appreciate beautiful dancing girls more than the passing of time?”
“Go!” Moti yelled, bemused despite himself.
The copper bells atop the front door of the café jingled as Zaki walked out onto Second Avenue. Moti didn’t turn to watch him leave. He placed his cigarette in the ashtray, then gently but quickly flipped his small coffee cup over its saucer—clink.
He let it sit for a few seconds, allowing the grounds to settle. Then he flipped it back over and looked inside, lifting the cup close to his eye. The copper bells jangled again, but he ignored them. His forehead creased. Moti rubbed his fingers against the ornate blue serpentine patterns painted on the cup’s exterior. “Hmm,” he grumbled, stroking his chin. Something he saw was bothering him. He leaned back and moved the cup around in his hand by the window, trying to get more light on the wet coffee grounds distributed therein. Then he gently placed the cup back on its saucer.
“Hello, Yoel,” he said, then looked up to see Joel2. “What happened to your eye?”
“Name’s Joel, asshole,” said my double as a rising electric tone whistled to Moti’s left. He rotated in the sound’s direction to find me holding the defibrillator mere inches from his face.
He seemed more annoyed than scared, considering his brain was a button push away from becoming scrambled eggs. Moti picked up his cigarette from the ceramic ashtray and put his arms up in an I surrender pose.
“You got me,” Moti calmly told us. “Now what?”
EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD