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“Not really,” Reader said thoughtfully.
“Why so? I sound that average?” Christopher clearly didn’t find this amusing.
“No. But recording devices are easy to come by. And what orders did they give? Something you would normally?” Reader was playing with his phone.
“Apparently I said to pull all field imageers away from their empathic counterparts. I’d never give that order. I never have given that order.”
Reader nodded. “But you’ve used all those words at one time or another. If girlfriend’s right, and we all know she usually is, then whoever’s doing this has been around for at least six months. Plenty of time to get everyone’s voices recorded.” He flipped open his phone and hit a button.
“Pull all field imageers away from their empathic counterparts.” It was Christopher’s voice, and not ti
Reader closed the phone. “The prosecution rests.”
That sat on the air for a while. “Um, if that’s the case, then they can impersonate any one of us.”
“How long can a strong imageer keep up that kind of facade?” Chuckie asked.
“Depends.” Christopher shook his head. “Not long enough to fool someone who knows the person well.”
“What do you mean?” Chuckie’s voice was getting the knife in it again. He didn’t like the delays one-sentence answers provided.
Christopher sighed. “Okay. I’m the strongest imageer on the planet. Maybe whoever’s infiltrated is stronger, but let’s just go with the idea that they’re not, at least for the moment.” Everyone nodded. Christopher’s eyes narrowed and all of a sudden, I saw Chuckie sitting there, next to himself.
“Wow, you’ve been practicing.”
“Yeah.” It was weird hearing Christopher’s voice come out of Chuckie’s mouth. “No one else on my team can do anything to this degree, but I figured if you could think of it, I should probably make sure I could do it well and that we knew how to counter. Imitation seemed like the obvious extension to drawing on the air.”
“Thanks, I think. And, I have to say, it’s kind of creepy.”
“Glad you think so,” Martini said quietly.
“I can’t do Reynolds’ voice,” the Chuckie that was Christopher said. “But, okay, it looks like they’re two of us here, right?”
“Right.”
Christopher stood up. “Come with me for a minute,” he said to Chuckie. They both got up and walked out of the room. A few seconds later they both walked in and stood in front of us.
I got up and walked to them, and Martini came with me. I pointed to the Chuckie on the left, Martini to the one on the right.
“This is the real Chuckie.”
“Yep, because this is Christopher.” Martini gri
“I’m more interested in how Kitty knew who was who visually,” the real Chuckie said.
“Because he doesn’t walk or stand like you. Close, but you saunter and Christopher doesn’t, so he had to imitate your movements, and he was good but not quite right. Same with how you stand.”
“Fine, but you’ve known me a long time.”
“Yeah, but I think Christopher’s point is made. I still had to study you two. If he’d just walked in as you, I wouldn’t have questioned right away.” I looked up at Martini. “But now the test is, how easy is it to tell two identical A-Cs apart?”
The image of Chuckie shimmered, and Christopher was there again. “Harder, because of heartbeat signature.” All of a sudden, I was looking at another Martini. Christopher jerked his head, and the two of them disappeared into the bedroom.
“This’ll be a fun test for you,” Chuckie said under his breath.
I’d been thinking the same thing. “Yeah.”
Two Martinis walked out. I had to remind myself that having a fantasy about this wasn’t going to make the real Martini happy with me, since he knew who was impersonating him.
But it was harder. Christopher had spent his entire life with Martini. There were no differences in walk, stance, or even expression. They were both gri
Chuckie put his arm around my waist. Both sets of Martini eyes narrowed. “Huh, that didn’t work.” He took his arm away.
“Oh. Duh.” I went to the fridge and pulled out two sodas. I threw both of them at the heads. The Martini on the right dodged and caught the can. The one on the left just put up his hand and caught the can. “Jeff’s on the right, Christopher’s on the left.”
The one on the left turned back into Christopher. “Good plan.”
“Only works because I know you’re shorter than Jeff. Look, what this is proving is that whoever’s out there can imitate whoever the hell they want to, at least for a short while. And in a crisis situation, a short while will be all they need.”
Christopher disappeared and Reader was there. “Yeah, but I can’t sound like anyone else.” It was Christopher’s voice coming out of Reader’s mouth.
“That is beyond freaky. Please stop now.”
Christopher was back, gri
“Really?”
“Manipulating an existing image is one thing—I can do that for hours and not get tired. Drawing an image on the air is another. It’s harder and requires total concentration to create and keep it there. Creating a three-dimensional image that has to move and function like a living being? That’s hard as hell. I don’t want to do it again today, for example. I could if our lives depended on it, but I don’t want to discover what that adrenaline shot to the hearts feels like.”
My stomach clenched. “It would make you that tired?”
The real Martini stepped in between Chuckie and me and started to massage my neck. “Relax. He’s fine.” I saw him shoot Christopher a look.
“Yeah, just being dramatic,” Christopher said quickly, as his eyes looked anywhere but at mine.
Lorraine didn’t buy it either. She came over, grabbed Christopher’s arm, and dragged him off into Chuckie’s bedroom. “Claudia, med kit, please.” Claudia went in with her.
I could hear Christopher protesting that he was fine. “OUCH! Stop doing that!” He didn’t like it, whatever it was.
“Think they’re harpooning him?”
“No. He wouldn’t be coherent.” Martini sighed. “They’re just giving him some rejuvenating fluids. They hurt, they’re just not agonizing.”
My throat felt tight again. I had to harpoon Martini on a regular basis. I knew it was horrible, for him and for me, but I hated hearing that it was the agony I’d always suspected it was and that he remembered how much it hurt.
He hugged me. “Stop. I’d rather be alive.”
“Me, too,” Chuckie said. “And it’s starting to sound like we may have a challenge achieving that.”
“Good point. What was the goal of pulling Imageering away from Field?”
Martini shook his head. “No idea.”
“Disruption. Ability to put rogue agents in place. Ability to murder Field agents or leave them exposed.” Chuckie was saying these things as if he were making a shopping list. “Destabilizes existing structure. Creates lack of faith in leadership. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.”
“So, what is it they want? I mean, is this going to turn out to be the usual, where there are at least two plans going on at the same time? You know, one where we have a psycho in charge and the other where we have a total megalomaniac ru
“Could be,” Martini said. “My vote’s for megalomania, of course. You don’t show up on another world by choice unless you have a reason. We’re handling the good reason. That only leaves a bad reason for anyone else from the home world to make an appearance.”
“Yeah, but why are they doing all this? Are they hoping to replace you or White with a double?” Chuckie had his conspiracy hat on, I could tell by his voice.
“I’d notice if someone impersonated Jeff.”
“In time?” Chuckie shrugged. “Maybe. But in time for what? To not marry an imposter? To save his life?” He jerked his head toward Martini. “To save the world? Can’t say. We don’t know enough yet.”