Two Graves

“This is not right!” Forty-Seven cried out loudly, turning to the crowd. “Deep inside, you know it’s wrong! Open your eyes! We are all brothers—sisters—twins! We share the same blood!”

The world-lines whipped and curled about in Alban’s mind, a sudden five-alarm fire. He saw it, felt it: the great turning of the wheel. This couldn’t be happening, not with their careful indoctrination, their years of pla

“We can stop this!” Forty-Seven shouted. “Now!”

Alban took a step back, the pistol leveled at his father. Oberführer Scheerma

“Go back to your fields!” cried the Oberführer. “Or we shall fire!”

But Alban knew that they would not—could not—fire on the defectives. Except for a handful of the latest iteration of twins—the best and most advanced, like himself—the others could not, if push came to shove, actually kill their siblings with their own hands. And if the Nazi officers, their minders, tried to shoot the defectives… It was all coalescing in Alban’s mind with horrifying clarity. It would be the end of the program, the colony, an abrupt and shocking end to more than half a century of scientific research. The defectives, for all their hideousness, were essential. For the first time, he realized they were as essential to the project as he was. One could not exist without the other. Why had he not seen that before? Why had nobody seen that before? The whole plan had been based on a false hypothesis—a bluff. And now his own twin was calling that bluff.

This realization, this sudden reversal of fortune—unexpected and dreadful—left him stu

The crowd of defectives continued to jostle forward toward the line of soldiers, less tentative now, shouting, gesturing with their crude tools. Alban could feel the heat of their fury.

Now. He squeezed the trigger and fired at Pendergast.

But his father had anticipated it. Somehow, he had begun to move even before Alban fired, like a flash, incredibly quickly and unexpectedly—how did he do it?—evading the shot. Alban fired a second time but this shot was ruined by a volley of stones that came flying out of the crowd toward him, striking him and forcing him to fling up his arms in self-defense.

Pendergast had veered away and now lunged at him, launching himself in the air. Alban evaded with a pirouette, his father just striking him in the side. He fired again, but it was impossible to aim with the pelting rain of rocks and he was forced back, turning and hunching, his arms raised to protect his head. He could hear Scheerma

It gave the defectives pause in their headlong rush. They halted in a kind of confused, chaotic milling, and the incipient fight abruptly turned into a standoff. Alban cast about and found his father, back up again, standing next to his twin, Forty-Seven, at the head of the crowd. Once again, he raised his weapon. But as he did so he saw in his mind the inexorable turning of the wheel, the crooked pathways of time growing straight… and he backed up, horrified by what he saw, as Pendergast stared at him with those terrible eyes. It was useless: every branch, every road of time led to a dead end, a checkmate at the end of every time line.

All at once he turned and fled, ru

And to warn him of what was about to happen.

82

PENDERGAST WATCHED ALBAN RUN, AND HE UNDERSTOOD why. Alban’s own gift had allowed him to see far enough ahead to—in essence—defeat himself. His genetically enhanced ability to sense just far enough into the future to carry out the Hotel Killings with such success, to elude his father’s pursuit with ease, to kidnap his brother from the Riverside Drive redoubt, to survive and prevail in almost any imaginable confrontation—this gift had now turned against him. Knowledge of the future—even a brief, ten- or fifteen-second glimpse—turned out to be a double-edged sword with the keenest blade.

Meanwhile the standoff continued. Tensions were escalating to the breaking point: the defective twins were lined up on one side, furious, disorganized, raging; and on the other side was the Twins Brigade, lined up in disciplined ranks, silent but deeply rattled. And in the middle, the small cadre of Nazi officers who were only now realizing their dilemma as the two sets of twins, each about a hundred strong, faced each other in a standoff.

“Submit!” screamed Scheerma

Tristram, at the front of the crowd, cried out: “Touch my father, and we attack!”

A murmur of assent. The Oberführer hesitated. Pendergast waited. And then he saw the moment had arrived.

Without warning he strode toward the lines of twin soldiers and seized one by the collar of his uniform, as a teacher might seize a truant schoolboy.

“Stop him!” screeched Scheerma

“Meet your brother!” he cried at the soldier. “Your own brother!” He turned to the groups of twins facing each other. “All of you, right now—seek out your brothers and sisters! Your own flesh and blood!”

And he could see the eyes of the twins roving despite themselves, locking one after another on their opposites. There was a restless muttering, and the orderly lines of twin soldiers began to slacken, grow loose.

“That’s enough,” Scheerma

“Lower your pistol or we attack!” cried Tristram.

“You, attack? With hoes? You’ll be slaughtered,” Scheerma

“Slaughter us—and there ends your grand experiment!”

Scheerma

“These men—” Pendergast pointed at the Nazi minders—“they’re your real enemy. Dividing brother from brother, sister from sister. They’ve turned you all into guinea pigs. But not them. They haven’t participated. And they remain in charge. Why is that?”

The Oberführer’s pistol hand was shaking ever so slightly. The seething crowd moved toward him. “Fire and you die!” came a voice, and another.

“Go back to your brigade, soldier,” Scheerma

The soldier did not move.

“Obey or face discipline!” Scheerma

“Lower your weapon,” the soldier said slowly, “or we’ll kill you all.”

The commander’s face was white. After a moment, he dropped his arm.

“Step back.”

The Oberführer took a careful step back. Then another. Suddenly his arm flew up again, and he fired into the soldier’s chest. “Attack the weak twins!” Scheerma