Point And Shoot Part 3

"Who," Hardie said, "the f.u.c.k are you?"

"I told you, I can explain."

"Explain quick."

Hardie stared down the long, silver metal tube at his double. And the longer he stared, the more his whole body seemed to rebel. Tingling and trembling and going numb in random places. The resemblance was more than uncanny. It was freakish. Hardie had always hated looking at himself in a mirror, but this was even worse than a mirror image. Mirrors flipped you around, showed you a skewed version of yourself. Now Hardie was faced with how he looked in real life, to other people. Never mind that this was a physical impossibility. He couldn't be in two places at once. The very thought of it was frying his circuits.

"I'm not going to hurt you," the Other Him said, his voice trying to approximate a soothing tone. "I'm here to help you."

"Don't-" Hardie floundered for the right sequence of words. He settled for: "Don't you move!"

"I work for the U.S. government. Intelligence. I'm here to save you from the Cabal."

"The who?"

There, for a second, the spell was shattered. Hardie never used words like "cabal." No, he'd use something like "creepy p.r.i.c.ks who meddle in people's lives and force them to have accidents and shove them down into secret prisons and shoot them into outer freakin' s.p.a.ce." Never cabal. Sissies used words like cabal. Abrams, the b.i.t.c.h who'd sent him up into s.p.a.ce, had used the word "cabal."

Still, the Other Him pressed his case. "You know exactly who I mean. The people who sent you up here."

"They seem to have many names."

"Well, they've evolved."

Hardie mulled this for a second. Then he said, "I thought I told you to explain quickly."

The Other Charlie Hardie explained quickly.

Six years ago, the lawyers who ran the Accident People were a group of problem solvers, working in secret for the most exclusive and powerful clients in the world. (Usually, huge corporations.) Over the past few years, however, they'd evolved to become the powerful, with their claws sunk deep into the U.S. government at the highest levels.

"But you started to change all of that when you escaped from Site Number 7734," the Other Charlie Hardie said. "All of those people popped out of that secret prison just jonesin' for some payback, and they've been attacking their interests all over the world. Your buddy Eve Bell especially."

"You say you know her, huh?"

"She sent me to find you."

"You're telling me she's behind all of this?"

"She's working with some others, but yes. We want what's in this satellite so we can deliver the killing blow. Dismantle their operations permanently."

"What's in this satellite?"

"They never told you this ... h.e.l.l, why would they? But you're up here guarding information hidden in this satellite. The most dangerous information in the world, as a matter of fact. It's too dangerous to keep on earth, where it could potentially be stolen or hacked. But it's also too important to destroy."

"That doesn't make any sense."

The Other Him sighed. Swear to Christ-he sighed. Like he was troubled by all of this pesky explaining. Hardie decided right then and there: The Other Him was an a.s.shole.

"Let me give you a quick example," the Other Him said. "You ever hear of the Borgias?"

Hardie paused for a moment, then replied: "You talking about the casino?"

"No, the cutthroat Italian family. They ... wait, you're totally messing with me, aren't you?"

"Go on."

"The Borgias apparently came up with the most lethal poison on earth. A poison they only dared to use once, and vowed to never use again-the potential to wipe out the entire population of the earth was too great. Even back then, there was the fear that someone who possessed the poison would lose his or her mind long enough to try to kill thousands. The poison was that powerful."

"Uh-huh. So you're saying there's a deadly poison on this satellite."

"No," the Other Him said. "I'm saying whatever you've got locked up in there has the potential to make the Borgia super-poison seem like salmonella. You're guarding the one thing powerful enough to destroy them. Let's find it ... then destroy them."

Hardie turned his gaze away from the Other Him. s.h.i.+t, he needed to stop referring to the Other Him as ... well, the Other Him. He needed to give him a nickname, because it was truly freaky to see yourself on a small monitor. A slightly younger, slightly more handsome version of you. One who hasn't had his a.s.s kicked to h.e.l.l and gone.

But what should he call the Other Him?

Chuck?

Phil?

Jimbo?

a.s.shole?

For now, "you" would just have to do.

"Anything else I can explain?" the Other Him asked. "Like I said, time is fairly critical here."

"Oh, just one small thing. Why the f.u.c.k do you look like me?"

See, that was the weirdest thing to Hardie.

It wasn't that somebody had somehow, against all odds, managed to dock with this allegedly top-secret satellite. And it wasn't that he was stuck inside a top-secret satellite to begin with. It was the fact that Eve Bell (allegedly) had sent someone who looked exactly like him. Why? Hardie had watched dozens of movies where long-lost twin brothers or sisters or even clones were the catalyst for implausible, harebrained plots. And, except for The Parent Trap, stories with twins or doubles or clones often didn't turn out too well for at least one of the twins. So what was this? Was this guy up here to save him, or kill him and replace him?

"I can explain."

"Dazzle me."

"It's the satellite itself. They made me look like this to fool the biometric sensors. Everything in this craft is tuned to your biometrics. If somebody else tried to open the wrong compartment, it would result in complete shutdown. They left absolutely nothing to chance. Only you can be in this capsule. So I went through a series of procedures to look exactly like you."

Hardie stared at him-himself?-for a good long while before finally saying, "Bio-what?"

But Hardie remembered the weeks of prep leading up to his "mission." They did take thousands of measurements, snap what seemed like a million digital photographs of his entire body, from the top of his head to the skin between his toes. Which freaked him out to no end, and more than once Hardie was prepared to say, "You know what? I changed my mind. Why don't you skip the eighty-seventh photograph of my right nipple and just shoot me in the head." But he thought of Kendra and the boy, and he endured it. At least they didn't catalog his junk. Whoever this Other Him was, he probably got to keep his own twig and berries. Hooray for individuality.

"How long did that take?" Hardie asked, gesturing with his chin. "Being made to look like me."

"I had the final surgical procedure a few days ago. My ears are still a little tender."

"They saved the ears for last, huh?"

"They heal the easiest, apparently. And I needed to get up here as soon as possible."

"So before you were me ... who the h.e.l.l were you? Why did they think you'd make a good me?"

The Other Him paused. "n.o.body special. I was chosen because of our similar body types, ages. Though I'm a little younger."

"Naturally. So what now?"

"Now comes the part you're not going to like."

5.

If they told you wolverines would make good house pets, would you believe them?

-Del Griffith, Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

YOU DIDN'T LIKE it, either, but what choice did you have? This was part of the mission.

You're a spy, doubling as a man named Charlie Hardie.

A few hours ago you had been stuffed into a small metal box-not unlike what that crazy Yogi Coudoux used to do on that early 1980s show That's Incredible!-and launched into s.p.a.ce, hoping that the rocket carrying the box would be able to guide itself to the Cabal's mystery satellite and dock with it. When you first heard the mission directive a few months ago, you asked a tech guy if this c.o.c.kamamie scheme could possibly work, and the tech guy said-yes, he actually said this-"You know, I like your chances." Which wasn't exactly the most rea.s.suring thing you could hear from an astrophysicist, but, hey, death and danger was all part of the job. The life of a spy.

However, the trickiest, most precarious part of the operation was next.

If you're perfectly honest with yourself, you don't like your chances very much at all.

There is little chance Charlie Hardie is going to go for it.

But you have to try anyway.

"Go ahead," Hardie said. "Lay it on me."

"Okay," the Other Him said. "For this whole rescue operation to work, I need to search the entire craft."

"To find that Borgia super-poison or whatever. Yeah. So you said."

"Thing is, there can't be two people in the main module at the same time. Otherwise, the automatic controls kick in, resulting in total shutdown. So ... uh, you're going to have to wait down here in this tube while I do my search."

Hardie looked at his double, smirked for a moment, letting nonsense words like automatic and controls and total and shutdown dance around his head. And then all at once the words really sank in, Hardie realized what this guy was asking, and ...

Well, the guy had been right. Hardie didn't like it at all.

"No," Hardie said. "No f.u.c.king way."

"I know how it sounds. You have very little reason to trust me. But I'm telling you, the sooner I search the module, the sooner we can both get out of this thing. The sooner you're back with your family."

"They'll kill us all anyway," Hardie said. "You think they won't find out?"

"Not if I find what I'm looking for. The moment I deliver it to my handler, it'll cripple them. Instantly."

"What is it? What could possibly shut them down instantly? Now you're just bulls.h.i.+tting me. Do you know how long I've been tangling with these a.s.sholes? Your precious Cabal?"

"Yeah, I know exactly how long."

Hardie looked around the module, as if he'd see something he hadn't already spotted in his nine months trapped on this spinning tin can. Maybe a little hatch with stenciled letters that read TOP SECRET STUFF INSIDE!!! WHAT TO DO IF SOMEONE SHOWS UP ASKING TO SEARCH THE CRAFT.

"And I," the Other Him said, "am not bulls.h.i.+tting you."

The tone of the guy's voice kind of said, Yeah, I'm not bulls.h.i.+tting you. Hardie could tell. It was the tone he used when he was trying to convince someone that he was not bulls.h.i.+tting them. Whether or not he in fact was trying to bulls.h.i.+t them or not. The truth would be impossible to untangle.

"Tell me where to look," Hardie said. "I'm sure I'll be able to find it for you. This place isn't that big."

"This whole thing will go much faster if I do the search. And like I said, we're up against a ticking clock here."

"And like I said: no f.u.c.king way."

But Hardie's mind was already considering the possibilities. Let's just say this weirdo lookalike was telling the truth, and his best weapon against these "Cabal" a.s.sholes has been at his fingertips the entire time he's been stuck in low earth orbit. In a sick way, it all made sense. They didn't stick him in this tin can just to keep it running; there were thousands of other resilient monkeys who could do the same time. No, they wanted him to guard something. Because that's what Hardie was good at: guarding s.h.i.+t. Mansions in the Hollywood Hills. (Well, aside from the Lowenbruck place, but you could hardly blame him for that one.) Secret prisons buried beneath old military forts. And now, precious secrets inside this satellite.

And holy Christ on a crushed pepper cracker-that's why communication was one-way. Just on the off-off chance that Hardie did find these little secrets.

Okay, Hardie, he told himself.

Keep your head together.

You don't know this dude. He might be here to save you. He might be here to mess with you. There might be an Option C you're not even considering. Doesn't matter. He's down in that tube and you're not. You've got the upper hand. This is rare, so enjoy it.

Hardie repeated himself, just to drive the point all the way home: "No f.u.c.king way."

"Okay, Charlie. I understand where you're coming from. None of this makes sense to you, I get it. But let me at least tell you what you're looking for. Can I come up a little further? I need to show you something."

Hardie was struck by the surreal sensation of hearing his own voice blasted back at him. His whole swagger, his att.i.tude, the way he used to talk a perp down from a ledge. Of course, Hardie was usually just lulling the perp into a false sense of ease so he could either grab him or cold-c.o.c.k him.

"Why don't you just show me from there."

"It's on a handheld device. You won't be able to see it from there."

"Throw it up to me, then."

"And then it slips out of your sausage-link fingers and shatters on the side of the tube here and we're both completely screwed."

"Hey," Hardie said. "My fingers are not sausage links. Come to think of it, blow me. You've got the same fingers!"