TUELLER: “Meet a copy of Alejo who didn’t die.”
STORY: Ryo stands, tilting his head. After a long beat. “Huh.”
ALEJO: Alejo waves.
STORY: He extends his nonbroken hand.
TUELLER: “He’s the original, as original as any of us are. We’ll all copies, if we’ve gone through a relay.”
TUELLER: “I think I’m probably Tueller 23.”
ALEJO: Alejo shakes it. “I’m still Alejo. So, we’ve met.”
STORY: “That’s incredibly upsetting. Sorry about your, uh. Nose.”
Chapter 86
STORY: Millie, Calixta steps into the back area. “So. The bodies are still everywhere, and also the crew knows now about them. And us. Basically they know everything important.”
TUELLER: “That was me.”
TUELLER: “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
STORY: “Well, actually they don’t know about this,” she waves to the rows and rows of bodies.
MILLICENT: Millie lets out a breath.
TUELLER: “I have some good ideas.”
MILLICENT: “Interesting.”
ALEJO: Alejo nods. And keeps nodding. “Okay. Okay.”
TUELLER: “I just can’t tell the difference between them.”
ALEJO: He’s still nodding.
MILLICENT: “Well. Okay, that advances our clock.”
TUELLER: “The good ones and the not good ones.”
MILLICENT: “So, let’s review and then brainstorm.”
STORY: “It was a good speech.”
TUELLER: “Thank you!”
ALEJO: “So, about an hour?” He looks at Cali.
Chapter 85
MILLICENT: “You’re okay, Tueller. You’re here with me. Alejo and Noma cleared out the other Nikaus. They’re headed down to the basement to get the last one.”
TUELLER: “Oh shit.”
TUELLER: “I just sent the entire security force down to the last one.”
MILLICENT: “…”
TUELLER: “To get here.”
MILLICENT: Millie is speechless
MILLICENT: “Buh buh buh”
MILLICENT: She shakes her head, reaches her hand behind her ear and activates Alejo’s speaker, “ABORT ABORT OH GOD ABORT”
STORY: Alejo!
STORY: You step into the cafeteria on B1 and see the following:
STORY: Manaaki, dead, sprawled on the counter.
STORY: An open deck, still running some kind of program.
STORY: Roughly twenty security guards, who are all standing in this room and in unison turn around when you enter.
STORY: What do you do?
STORY: Oh also, Millie’s yelling in your ear about aborting, and you’re pretty sure you know why.
ALEJO: Alejo does the Han Solo slide to a stop. “Oh, hiya.” He says weakly and waves as he takes a very quick pause to look around for the nearest cover or exit, which he moves towards at top speed.
STORY: There are a few tables just to your right.
ALEJO: He puts it between him and all of them, and assesses what sort of weapons they have.
STORY: All standard issue, they’ve got stun batons that will also hurt a lot if you get hit with one. No guns, from what you could see. You hit the deck behind a table to the sound of most of them removing said batons and powering them on, and then one guy in the back saying, “isn’t that the guy who cleans the toilets?”
Chapter 84
TUELLER: “After your last talk with him, what is our plan here?”
TUELLER: “Are you going to get what you need out of him, or do we need to shift tactics? And get out of here if we can.”
MILLICENT: “I don’t know, maybe. He wants to convince me.”
TUELLER: “I would like to not be here where they kill people for knowing what we know.”
MILLICENT: “I think that’s how we went wrong in our initial encounter. We threatened him.”
MILLICENT: “He wants to know what I would do in his place. What’s the right thing to do here.”
MILLICENT: “It’s a very good question.”
MILLICENT: “The AI are as close to unbeatable as it’s possible to be. They’re taking a price most people would prefer not to know about and the remainder would likely agree was worth it.”
MILLICENT: “Are we right to be so aggrieved about this?”