Chen was still there. Chen had been lying in wait. Chen had never ambushed them before. Chen had either been there or not been there. That was all.

An evil star.

Perhaps they should have aborted the mission right then, moved on, found another City, another Company.

viii.

like two people trying
to become one person

Chen ambushed Chen in a corridor distant from their apartment, near the swimming pool. Chen did not reach out to Moss or Grayson, who were already in the apartment; the danger seeped into their minds instead as an unease, took a long time to coalesce. Then burst forth as a star as radiant as Chen’s hand drifting bright across the horizon.

It happened too often. This withholding by Chen. This self-sacrifice. They could not tell if this was out of loyalty to his other self, from his pervading guilt, or the simple logic that it made no sense for all three of them to risk harm. Yet each time was more dangerous, for it had come to seem the Company sensed their presence, their mission, on some subconscious level. Thus cast out all Chens, or, in some cases, killed them, snuffed them out. Or made them more belligerent.

This Chen roared, brought down heavy fists on Chen’s back, cursing his own name, as Chen smashed into Chen’s midriff, already enraged by his termination.

They remained close as wrestlers, clasping each other’s shoulders with meaty hands. The sweat, ache of muscles, and desperation that choreographed their movements. Chen was confident and resigned; he knew from prior experience he likely must fight to the death, as much as he wished not to. Locked now in a fatal embrace, both sets of legs churning, wide stance, looking from above like some bizarre crab or starfish in two parts or like two people trying to merge and become one person.

“Submit,” Grayson’s Chen muttered in Chen’s ear.

“Never. Abomination. Traitor,” came the reply.

“Get out. Stop helping them. Stop the hurting.”

“Die die die.”

Felt the dissolve, fought it, came back into focus.

Chen, between grunts, tried to tear off Chen’s left ear with his teeth. So he let his ear fall off, spin across the empty ground, pick itself up, and lurch out of harm’s way.

Grayson’s Chen knew the panic, understood it: that this Chen could not conceive of the truth but knew another truth. The Company could make people if it wanted, and the thrashing, terrible intensity of attack, the visceral nature of it, meant that Chen, seeing Chen, understood this, too.

All the memories of Chen—of family continents away, of work history, of hobbies, of relationships—that this was a sham and a shame and that the only way to keep some sense of personhood was to destroy the invader. In some Cities, some Chens might fold under that weight, but most of the time it made the Chens fight long and hard and dirty.