Despite your best efforts, you couldn’t trap the impostor. Instead, they trapped you. They’re holding you at gunpoint, taunting you with your brother’s face, and it’s only by their grace that you’re not dead.
But there’s something about their warning that makes you think. Did Silva tell their partner about you? If not, that can only mean...
“Silva?” Your shock turns into bile on your mouth. “No. Epsilon.”
“Should’ve thought it was you.” He releases you, helping you stand.
“What the hell’s that about? You’re betraying your organization?”
“Why should you care if I do?” he asks, spitefully.
“You asked me to help you find whoever stole the blueprints. Said you couldn’t trust anyone on your organization.”
“And I know why now.” That claim doesn’t feel like a response; that much is obvious. “You can’t help but be curious, aren’t you?”
“Maybe. Then again, if I wasn’t, I’d probably be dead by now.”
“You’re wrong.” Silva – Epsilon – crosses their arms, leaning on the washing machine. “I was gonna ask my partner to spare you.”
"When I hear ‘dealt with’, I think of something more permanent. What made you do it?”
“Once the Organization’s gone, we’ll be able to live our own lives. Not the ones they assign us.”
“But you still want to be Silva, no?” You look at Epsilon’s eyes, and their furtiveness proves you touched a nerve.
“Adrienne is only another face to me.”
“Because this doesn’t make any sense to me. You say you want to be free, that she's another face to you, but that’s not what I’m feeling from you.”
“What do you want me to say? That I’m sentimental about her?” (That was easy.) “I won’t lie – I'm worried about Clark. He’s in love with Silva. He deserves to be happy.”
“He? Not you?”
Epsilon chuckles, shaking their head. “If I can be free, maybe I’ll be able to be with him. Maybe our love will transcend our identities.”
“So, you are a couple.”
“Wasn’t that obvious?”
“I thought he was a patsy,” you confront them with their own words. “Too easy to manipulate.”
Epsilon leers at you, snarling. “Have you considered, perhaps, that the man you saw was Clark all along?” That puts a dent on your hypothesis. “Maybe he was always masquerading as Clark. Maybe--”
“Maybe you’re trying to bluff me.” That shocks them deeply. “Or maybe not. But if he was your partner, you wouldn’t be speaking in hypotheticals.”
“Maybe they’re not hypotheticals.”
“Why not tell me you were against your own Organization from the very start? There are a lot of contradictions in your story, Silva. And when I call you ‘Silva’, I mean it.”
You must have broken them, for they refuse to respond to you. “There are only two things that come to mind. One, you’re playing the double agent. You’re doing this without your organization’s approval, to infiltrate and dismantle them. But because you didn’t tell me, I’m making it harder for you.”
“The second,” you posit, “is that you’ve got a beef with them, and something that... whoever told you clicks. You want revenge for living your life as they want you to. But they allowed you to be her. Why betray them? Can’t be your relationship with Clark, because if you follow through with it, you’ll lose her. It must be something else, otherwise it makes no sense.”
“You have it all figured out, don’t you?” That’s Epsilon’s only response.
“Can’t say I do. But that leaves me with one question. Why drag me in to this? Why tell me you’d apprentice me if you’d betray the Organization?”
“You’re a smart kid,” they tell you. “You’ll figure it out soon.”
You stop them before they leave, clenching their arm tightly. “I’m not leaving you without an answer.”
“You made getting the C-Sets easier.” Epsilon shakes their arm free, snorting. “How does it feel to know you were the patsy after all?”
“Then why didn’t you kill me after I helped you?”
“Because, maybe, I still have a need for you. But that’s for you to figure out.” Epsilon pats your cheek, echoing their previous words. “You’re smart, David. You’ll figure it out very soon.”
You stop them again. “Maybe I’m the patsy. Maybe I helped you fuck up the world.” You squeeze their arm, driven by intense anger. “But I’m not gonna let you fuck up my family.”
“That was a fuck-up from Sigma’s part.” That must be their partner’s name... “We needed untraceable faces to meet up. It was a coincidence they chose your brother.”
“And now you’re wearing him.”
“You’re wearing your sister. Is it different because she shares your blood?” Epsilon shakes their arm free, storing the gun while leaving you baffled. “You still have a chance, though.”
“What chance?”
“You can go back to your old life. Be David Anderson again. Or, maybe, you could stay as Tina if you want. Maybe switch into Nick. Maybe relive your youth as Claire. Or maybe you want a stabler life as Marie?” The way Epsilon treats your family as objects disgusts you. “Or maybe--”
“Shut up!”
“I really like you, David. You’re a quick thinker. Clever, too. But way over your head.” Epsilon adjusts Nick’s jacket, straightening up. “Here’s the deal. I’ll need to be inside Nick for a little while. I’ll keep these--” He shows the gun and the pen to you. “--in my room, and you can spend the night as Tina. Tomorrow, we’re gonna decide your destiny. You can think about who you wanna be. But I want you out of my sight.”
“And if I don’t want to?”
“Like I said,” they insist. “You won’t be missed. So choose wisely. What’s it gonna be, Davey? Your family? Or an organization that couldn’t care less?”
He leaves you in the dust as he steps up, and when you finally return, you notice he’s mellowing things with your mother.
David – your replacement – approaches you, genuinely curious. “What was that all about?”
“False alarm,” you tell him. “I’ll be off Tina tomorrow. Cover me up until then.”
--
You could barely sleep, and you wake up lethargic only as your mother wakes you up. “Tina! You’ll be late for class!”
“I’ll skip Marston’s class, Mom.” (That’s her Economics 201 class, and someone you know she loathes.) “I’ll go later. Where’s Nick?”
“He left first thing in the morning.” That asshole! “Said he had something important to do.”
“I told him to take me to MTSU! What’s wrong with him!?”
“You know your brother,” your mother replies with a jaded tone. “He does what he wants.”
You’ve been tricked. Epsilon promised he’d let you choose, but he left without a warning. You’re penniless, weaponless and – most importantly – without the black pen. You can’t restore Tina or Pandora if you wanted to.
“You want something to eat?”
“After I take a shower,” you tell her. “Guess I’ll have to find a way to Tyneside on my own.”
“I can always ask your father to take you. You know he won’t mind.”
Yeah, I know. For as long as she’s been in college, your father has taken Tina there. It’s only at occasions when she travels there by other means, such as carpooling with Sadie Saunders, a close friend taking the same classes as her, or Becca Bentley, her best friend from elementary who also studies at MTSU, though not in Business.
But why Mom woke me up? If she's waking you up, that means your dad must have left for work already; hence, he couldn’t get you to college. Tina usually calls an Uber for when that happens. If your mom claims he’s there, then... Could it be that Epsilon sent Nick away and is waiting for you as your dad? Or did they your mom?
You think about it as you grab a towel and move to the bathroom. Claire and your replacement left for school already, so you take an easy, light shower. You tear off Tina’s skin once inside, confirming that Pandora is still part of your collection, and after a little more digging, so does Ross and Silva. You resort to shower on your sister’s skin, though, patting yourself dry.
Once in your room, you notice a strange tone coming from your phone. Except it’s not Tina’s phone. It’s your burner, which is still there. The call’s from an unknown, private number. Could it be Epsilon?
“Hello?”
“DID YOU GET THE ANSWERS YOU WERE LOOKING FOR?” It’s the same deep, synthesized voice from two days ago – the one that connected you to Epsilon and Sigma’s conversation.
“If you’re looking for Epsilon,” you tell the voice, “you’re out of luck. I lost their trace. All I know is--”
“WE KNOW THAT YOU ARE NOT EPSILON.” That silences you. How could they get access to your burner, if they didn’t know you moved away? Does that mean...?
“You were tracking me?”
“WE HAVE BEEN ALWAYS TRACKING YOU.”
“How? I threw the phone you called me in, by the way. This is a--”
“SEARCH DEEPER.”
Of course! “You tagged Silva’s duplicate skin, isn’t it?”
“THAT IS ABOVE YOUR CLEARANCE.” (That seems to be a trait of the Organization, it seems – not enough clearance to know what matters.) “WE WILL OFFER YOU A DEAL. IN EXCHANGE, WE WILL ENSURE THE SAFETY OF YOUR FAMILY.”
Wait. How do they know? “What’s the deal?”
“YOUR LOCATION IS NOT SECURE. TRAVEL TO HEINLEIN PLAZA. YOU WILL RECEIVE A CALL THERE.”
“And what if I don’t comply?”
“WE CANNOT ASSESS WHETHER YOUR LACK OF COMPLIANCE WILL MAINTAIN THEIR SAFETY. WE CAN ONLY ASSESS THE POSSIBILITY IF YOU DO. HEINLEIN PLAZA. EXPECT OUR CALL ONCE YOU ARE THERE.”
As it ends, you wonder how they could have contacted you. Was the store where you bought the burner a front for them?
Just then, your phone buzzes. A text message, except it has no text. Only a photo of Nick, holding a piece of paper written in Silva’s cursive.
“Choose wisely. Your family, or them.”
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