“Right.”
More clones that way. I was cornered.
I ducked into a room. It had once been some kind of clerical office, judging by the desk and frozen chairs, but someone had turned the desk into a bed with cushions, and there was even a wooden door affixed by new hinges attached to the steel ones on the doorway. Impressive.
I grabbed that door and slammed it closed. An arm got in the way at the last moment.
The clone grunted on the other side as I shoved, but other hands scraped around the doorway, grabbing for me. Each had an old wristwatch on them, and those snapped and broke as they rubbed on the door or wall. When the watches hit the ground, they shattered to dust.
“They’re unstable,” Tia said—she was still watching via my video feed. “The more clones he makes, the worse their molecular structure holds together.”
The clones forced the door open, throwing me backward. I whipped my rifle from my shoulder and got off one shot as a dozen of them fought into the room, heedless of the danger. Their clothing ripped easily, and when fragments fell off, they disintegrated immediately.
“ ‘Albums by Weaponized Cupcake,’ ” Tia read.
The clones piled on top of me, hands gripping my throat, others pulling my gun away from me.
“Which one?” Tia asked. “Appetite for Tuberculosis? The Blacker Album? Ride the Lightrail?”
“Kind of getting murdered here, Tia!” I said, struggling to keep the hands from my neck.
There were too many. Hands pressed in closer, cutting off my air. Clones continued to clog the room, and those nearby began to split, making it difficult to move. They wanted to trap me in here. Even if I got these fingers off my neck, I wouldn’t be able to run.
Darkness grew at the edges of my vision, like a creeping mold. I struggled to pull the hands from my throat.
“David?” Tia’s voice in my ear. “David, you need to turn on your mobile speaker! I can’t do anything. David, can you hear me? David!”
I closed my eyes. Then I let go of the hands holding my neck and forced my fingers through the press of arms. Choking, feeling as if my windpipe would collapse at any moment, I strained and got my fingers to my shoulder, where my mobile was attached. I flipped the switch on the side. Music blared into the cramped, suffocating room.
The clone directly on top of me started to shake and vibrate, like he was going to split—but instead, he began to melt, the flesh coming off the bones. The others nearby backed away in a hurry, smashing identical versions of themselves up against the walls.
I gasped in air. For a moment, all I could do was lie there, clone flesh and bones melting to goo around me.
Air. Air is really, really awesome.
The music continued unabated, a thrashing metal riff moving from chord to chord with the quality, almost, of a beating heart. The clones near me vibrated in time with it, their skin shaking like ripples in water, but they did not melt.
“So awful,” one of them said, a sneer on his lips. “Jason couldn’t write a riff to save his life. The same four chords, over and over and over.”
I frowned, then scrambled for my gun. I sat in the middle of the group of clones. Some had moved out of the room.
“That’s odd,” Tia said.
I need a way out, I thought.
“Even the ones outside are vibrating a little bit, David. I can see it on the cameras. Surely they can’t hear the music.”
“They’re connected,” I said, coughing. I stumbled to my feet, holding my rifle in one hand, ripping the mobile from my shoulder with the other. I flashed it about, trying to ward the clones off. “We need more music,” I said. “A lot of it, loud as we can get it. That—”
The clones charged me. Ignoring the danger, they piled on top of me, reaching for my mobile, trying to rip it out of my fingers. Those nearest to me started to melt, but they still grabbed at my arm, fighting even as the flesh sloughed off their bones.
I backed into a corner, then noticed a sliver of light coming from above. A window, covered with a board.
To the sound of thumping rock music, I held the clones at bay, leaving a half dozen of them melting on the floor. Others gathered opposite me in the room, faces shadowed in the dim room. “How did it really happen?” they asked in unison. “Which Epic killed Steelheart, and how did you take the credit?”
“It’s not like Steelheart was immortal,” I said.
“He was a god.”
“He was a cursed man,” I said, inching my way toward the window. The gooey remnants of bone and flesh steamed off me, evaporating, leaving my clothing as dry as if nothing had happened.
“Just like you are. I’m sorry.”
The clones stepped forward. I used the music to melt those who drew close, but they didn’t seem to care. They marched on, falling to the ground, dissolving to nothing. They kept coming at me until only one stood in the doorway, though I could see shadows of a few more waiting outside. Why were they killing themselves?
One toward the back took out his handgun. It didn’t break as he raised it. Sparks. Mitosis had just been trying to reduce his numbers to make the copies more stable.
I cried out, jumping onto the desk. I had to drop my rifle to rip the board off the window.
A large crack sounded from behind. I felt an immediate thump in my right side, just under my arm—like someone had punched me.
Back in the factory, we would watch old movies every night, after work was done. They’d played on an old television hung from the cafeteria wall. Getting shot didn’t feel like it looked in those shows. I didn’t gasp and collapse to the ground. I didn’t even realize I’d been shot at first. I thought the clones had thrown something at me.
No pain. Just heat on my side.
That was the blood.
I stared down at the wound. The bullet had ripped out a chunk of flesh just beneath my armpit before cutting through my upper arm. It was messy, all warm and wet. My hand didn’t work right, wouldn’t grip.
I’d been shot. Calamity … I’d been shot.
For a terrifying moment, that was all I could think about. People died when they got shot. I started to shake; the room seemed to be trembling. I was going to die.
Another shot bounced off the wall beside my head.
You’ll die way sooner if you don’t move! a piece of me thought. Now!
I spun and threw my mobile at Mitosis. That worked; when the music got close, his clone wavered and melted. The mobile came to rest in the doorway, warding off those outside. I still had in my earpiece, though, which was connected wirelessly.