8FOLD: Daylighters # 9, "Robot Duplicate"

[Tom Russell]

As humanity prepares to join the war in space, alien agents work with
fifth columnists to weaken the earth's defenses. They are opposed by a
decentralized network of superheroes and specialists, the DAYLIGHTERS,
whose efforts are guided by the sophisticated AI network MEDUSA. But
Medusa, and the Daylighters, have been compromised...

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              |___/     |___/  [8F-198] [PW-43]

      # 9 - ROBOT DUPLICATE

------- MISSION: DOUBLE DATE ---------------

Claire Belden, RAINSHADE, age 31.
Metamancer. A double agent concealing the existence of The Company,
responsible for FEVER's compromise of Medusa. Currently impersonating
Shimmer.

Melody Mapp, DARKHORSE, age 21.
Speedster and full-time superhero. Has quit the Daylighters over their
treatment of Medusa.

Simon Morgan, age 20.
Brother of Shimmer and the Mighty Inch. College student and animal
shelter volunteer. Romantically involved with Darkhorse.

Jonah Jacobs, KLUTZ, age 26.
Catastrophic probability manipulation (bad luck). Sporadically employed.

------- FEATURING --------------------------

Pam Bierce, LOOP, age 31.
Chronomancer. Isolated for six years during which she was presumed
dead; still adjusting to her new life and mystical time travel
abilities.

Derek Mason, BLUE BOXER, age 26.
Accident-prone gadgeteer largely retired from field work. Founder of
the Daylighters, concentrating on big picture solutions.

Fatima Tarif, DOCTOR FAY, age 41.
Mad scientist.

Kate Morgan, SHIMMER, age 29.
Phases through solid matter. Concert pianist. Presently trapped on the
other side of a mirror by Rainshade.

Bethany Clayton, KNOCKOUT MOUSE, age 32.
Controls the density of her right hand. Geneticist.

--------------------------------------------

The first thing Pam sees when she opens her eyes is the gorilla
floating in the water tank beside her hospital bed. He stares at her
for a moment, blows some bubbles through the gills on the side of his
neck, and then begins to manipulate a joystick. The cylindrical tank
does a one-eighty, and then wheels out of the room.
   Pam takes this opportunity to assess her situation. Gown, check. IV
drip, check. Some kind of sticky things on her forehead to monitor
something or another, check. Her right arm is exposed, and covered in
glowing mystical markings from her fingertips up to her shoulder,
check (I guess).
   A moment later the tank and its occupant returns. Behind him trails
Derek, all awkward smiles, and an older woman in a lab coat,
headscarf, and glasses.
   "You must be Dr. Fay," says Pam.
   "I don't think we've had the chance to meet," says Dr. Fay. "Though
we have a lot of mutuals. This is Alistair, my assistant." She
gestures toward the water tank. The gorilla waves politely. [1]
   Pam waves back. "So, uh," she points at her arm, "this is new."
   "So I gathered," says Dr. Fay. "So, disclaimer: normally Rainshade
is my go-to for magic stuff. But she's incommunicado."
   "I left her some messages," says Derek.
   "But I did get to talk to the new Queen of Lemuria. Not how she
wanted to spend her wedding day, but she owed me a favor."
   A grumbling noise emits from Alistair's tank.
   Dr. Fay explains: "Apelantis, Lemuria, they don't get along."
   More grumbling.
   "Hush, you," says the doctor. "Anyway, Cascade says this is
something that happens when a mancer overexerts themselves, uses too
much magic."
   "What is it that's happening, exactly?"
   Dr. Fay frowns. "So, big picture basics. Your body's not meant to
be doing any of the things it's doing. It puts stress on your body. A
lot of mancers after they get their magic, they are tired more often,
sleep less, they're less, uh, regular, you know, in the bathroom."
   "Okay, yeah," says Pam. "I think I noticed it more, you know, six
years ago, but yeah."
   "So, that's wear and tear. Like an athlete might have, just from
being an athlete. This, though," she points at Pam's arm, "this is
more like tearing a muscle. And so your body needs time to heal. So,
that's clumsy metaphor number one.
   "Metaphor number two, think of your magic as being like nuclear radiation."
   "That doesn't sound great."
   "It's not," says Dr. Fay. "But your mancer's mark is kind of like a
container that's holding it in one place (kinda sorta; like I said,
it's a clumsy metaphor). So, what's happened is that you've punched a
hole in that container and you've got a radiation leak. Your body is
now exposed to a lot more of that mystical energy from Venus. Which is
going to put a lot more stress on it, and potentially make you sick.
   "So, the key thing here is that we want to mitigate that, give your
body a chance to heal itself, help it along if we can, and monitor to
make sure the markings on your body don't spread."
   "So," says Pam, "you're not a magic expert."
   "No."
   Derek pipes up. "As soon as Claire's back, we'll have a magic expert."
   "But you're also not a medical doctor."
   "Me?" says Dr. Fay. "No. Just basic mad science. Which, by the way,
this whole situation is incredibly fascinating and I'm going to be
taking a lot of notes. No, Alistair's the MD so he'll be treating you.
I mean technically he's a veterinarian, but Apelantians consider
humans animals. Huh. Guess that makes me his assistant this time. High
five, buddy!"
   She puts her hand against the glass. He gently thumps his palm on
his side of the glass.

After the two doctors leave, Pam asks Derek how the mission went.
   "Real smooth," he says. "Called in a couple of extra hands and they
took him out quick and clean. We got some Cradle folks mulling through
the scrap now. The rex's AI looks a lot like Hotspur, so that's a
thing."
   "And no one got hurt?"
   "Other than you? No." He pulls up a chair. "I'm getting the
impression someone did? Before you, uh," he waves his hand around
inchoately.
   "Yeah," says Pam. "The girl kept dying on me. I couldn't let her go."
   Derek stares at her arm for a moment. "You know, the thing is, you
can't save everybody. Not all the time."
   "But that's just it, Derek. I can save everybody. I did."
   He frowns. "Yeah, well, another save like that will kill you."
   But that's okay, Pam almost says. She should have died six years
ago. Eight hundred thousand people were in Vegas that day, and she's
the only one who walked away from it. Doesn't mean she wants to die -
she doesn't - but she isn't afraid of it, either. Those people died
and she lived. If she dies so that other people live, she'll be okay
with that. [2]
   But she doesn't tell Derek that. Instead, she smiles and nods.

According to the book, Kate must trace the seventeen glyphs in
sequence, in her own blood (yuck), from memory. That last part is
important; if she tries to do it while looking at them, it won't work,
and may even have dire and eldritch consequences, so that's lovely.
   But earlier in her studies, she managed to conjure up a pen and
some three-by-five cards, and if there's one thing she learned getting
Simon and Cal (but mostly Simon) through school, it was the value of a
set of flash cards. At first, she kept forgetting the first glyph -
even immediately after looking at it - but now she's got the first
four memorized.
   She's struggling with the fifth when Claire taps on the other side
of the glass. Claire smiles at her with her own face.
   Kate shoves the flash cards behind her. "What do you want?"
   "I need your advice on something."
   "If you think I'm going to help you, you're nuts."
   "This isn't really about me. I'm trying to do you a favor."
   "Oh, this ought to be good."
   "You might not believe this," says Claire, "but I'm being very
careful with your life while I'm living it. I'm not going to refurnish
your house or anything, despite the fact that your decor is rather
gauche. All your bills are being paid, all your social obligations
maintained. The thing I am always asking myself is, what would Kate
do?"
   "Kate would let me out of this mirror," says Kate.
   "And I will, when the time is right, and when it is, I want you to
be able to resume your life as if nothing happened. I'm really seeing
my role here as being fundamentally custodial. I'm just taking care of
your life for you while you're indisposed."
   "Look," says Kate, "I have absolutely nothing to do, and that's
still more interesting than continuing this conversation."
   "Jonah Jacobs will be in town," says Claire. "I know you rather
fancy him for reasons I can't fathom - you are distressingly
heterosexual - and that you would like him to be your boyfriend."
   How does Claire know that? "Uh, no, I don't."
   Claire presses on, ignoring her. "He's single at the moment (no
surprise) but it occurred to me that he might find a paramour while
you're on that side of the glass, and once you come back, your
opportunity would have been missed, ships that pass in the night,
curse you Rainshade, et cetera. And that would have been unfair to
you. So naturally I asked him out on a date."
   "What."
   "A double date," says Claire, "with Simon and Melody."
   "What."
   "A double date," repeats Claire, "us and Jonah, Simon and Melody.
Try to keep up, Kate dear. Now, here's where I need your input: do you
want me to have sex with him on the first date, or should I wait?"
   "What's your game?"
   "There's no game. This has nothing to do with my objectives, and
devoting an entire evening to this is actually really inconvenient,
and puts me well behind schedule. And I certainly won't be deriving
any pleasure from being manhandled. Bad enough I have to put up with
Derek's fumbling and drooling."
   "That's more information than I ever needed," says Kate. "So, this
is just for my benefit. You're just doing me a favor."
   "Yes," says Claire, as if she's finally gotten through to a
particularly dull student.
   "I don't buy it," says Kate. "You might not understand how to act
like a human being - there is something deeply wrong with you - but
you do understand people. You know how to read them. How to manipulate
them. You're not stupid. So don't pull this 'poor little broken
psychopath, I don't understand why you're upset by this' shtick with
me. You know exactly what you're doing. You always do."
   Claire doesn't say anything for a while. She just stares at Kate.
Kate stares back, studies her own face for a flicker of remorse, of
doubt, of sly pleasure, of pain. But there's nothing there, at least,
nothing that Kate can read.
   Finally, Claire taps at her side of the mirror. The glass on Kate's
side grows black and empty.

The one fact that practically everyone who knows Kate knows about Kate
is that she never takes baths. Showers, yes, but never baths - not
since the night her mother tried to drown her in the tub. [3]
   This tub, Claire thinks as she begins to run the water. If Claire
had been Kate, she would have moved. Though honestly if Claire had
been Kate, she wouldn't really have been bothered by it; if she had
developed a phobia every time her mother had tried to kill her, she
wouldn't be able to function. It's a weakness on Kate's part, one that
Claire finds disappointing.
   Not to mention inconvenient. Claire much prefers a long, hot soak,
but for as long as she's borrowing Kate's life, she can't take a bath
without arousing suspicion. But she'll be alone for the next couple of
hours: Simon is still at work and will be meeting them at the
restaurant, and Cal is off on a mission. Claire made sure of that.
   As she turns off the spigot, her heart skips a beat. Kate's heart,
Kate's memories, Kate's sudden flush of dread and revulsion and guilt
(why guilt?). Claire closes her eyes for a moment, savoring it. No,
not savoring: the taste is bitter and anxious. It makes her nauseous.
It's not a thing she enjoys. But she gives it a moment anyway before
pushing it aside and stepping into the tub.
   Ever since she was a child, Claire found comfort being in the
water, being surrounded by the water. But almost immediately her pulse
starts to quicken and her breathing becomes ragged. Her limbs - Kate's
limbs, shorter and clumsier than Claire's - become tense. She feels
constrained, trapped. And while that's something Claire rather enjoys,
it terrifies Kate, and so now it terrifies Claire.
   She scrambles up out of the tub, pouring herself onto the floor.
She's still there when the bathroom door opens. Bethany - Knockout
Mouse.
   "Kate, are you alright? What's going on?"
   "I tried to take a bath," she says feebly.
   Bethany pulls the plug, and the water starts to drain. "That's not
really your thing, is it?"
   "No," says Claire. "It's not." (Admit the contradiction.) "I guess
I wanted to try, to see if, I don't know." (Shrug and feign
incoherence.) "It was pretty stupid." (A dash of self-flagellation;
the use of "pretty" is what holds the whole act together.)
   Bethany doesn't say anything. She just helps her up off the floor
and hands her a towel. "You want some tea?"
   "That sounds nice."
   "I'll get it on while you get dressed."

When Claire closes the door to Kate's room - locking it just in case -
Caracalla is waiting for her in the mirror.
   "Mmm," he says, "this new body is starting to grow on me."
   "Not in the mood," says Claire quietly as she gets dressed. "What
do you want?"
   "We have a data breach," he says. "Someone's exploiting our exploit."
   (That must be what Cal was up to last month, Claire realizes.)
   "We're wiping it now."
   "Don't," says Claire.
   Caracalla is incredulous. "Don't plug the leak?"
   "We'll feed them some intel, lay a trap. See who bites at it, and
we'll know the extent of the problem."
   "Because that worked out so well the last time," says Caracalla.
"Samson's missing, the circle has Sarah Avery. Some trap." [4]
   "You forget that we had that traitor Lydia Black working against
us," says Claire. "I found the leak within The Company, and I purged
it."
   "Did you? Someone told the Daylighters about our experiment in the
black hills."
   Claire was responsible for that anonymous tip. "It was a t-rex,"
she says casually. "Someone was bound to see it and report it."
   "Dr. Maddocks isn't so sure."
   "Unlike you, I don't answer to Dr. Maddocks. I answer to Mr. C."
   "Well, not while you're in Kate Morgan's body, right? Mr. C can't
see what you're up to."
   "An unfortunate side effect of the mirror spell," says Claire.
"Rest assured I keep Upper Management in the loop. If you're quite
done leering at me and wasting my time, I have things to do."

The tea has just been poured when Claire emerges from the bedroom.
   "You look good, Kate," says Bethany. "That's for your date?"
   "Yep." Claire hates 'yep' and 'yeah' - why use them when 'yes' is
standing right there? - but Kate is a 'yep' person. "So, were you just
in the neighborhood?"
   "No," says Bethany. "I had called you, you didn't answer. Tried to
have your Medusa ping you, it was turned off. I got worried.
Especially with FEVER knowing who you are. So I came to check on you."
[5]
   "I'm sorry. I didn't realize I had turned it off. What did you want
to talk about?"
   Bethany hesitates. "You know, it's not important." It almost
certainly is, but Bethany thinks Kate is in a bad place and doesn't
want to burden her. Claire's not really interested anyway, so she
doesn't press the issue. "You sure this is a good idea? Going on this
date?"
   "I gotta get out of the house, Beth."
   "Sure," says Bethany. "And look, I think the guy's a creep and a
loser and you could do a thousand times better, but I'm not judging."
   "Uh-huh."
   "It's just that you've been through a lot. The whole disappearing
thing. The space stuff. Now you're like in your bathroom reliving
serious trauma that you won't even talk to people about."
   "Kinda still don't want to talk about it."
   Bethany nods. "And to top it all off, you had your life saved by
Rainshade. Twice." [6]
   "Yeah, that's awful," says Claire. "Rainshade is the absolute worst."
   Bethany shrugs. "She's real good at her job. Put her on a team, I
know I can count on her. I wouldn't want to be friends with her. She's
so awkward and abrasive and stuck-up."
   "She's cold," says Claire. "Empty inside. If I didn't hate her, I'd
almost feel sorry for her."
   "You know what Derek told me?"
   "No," says Claire, her interest piqued, "what did Derek tell you?"
   "We were talking about robots. Like robot duplicates? And he said
he hoped that no one ever replaced Claire, because there'd be no way
to tell the difference."
   "That's so funny," says Claire flatly.
   "That's why he likes being with her. He doesn't have to worry about
saying the wrong thing or hurting her feelings because she doesn't
have any."
   "It's not," her voice cracks; why is her voice cracking?, "it's not
the great sex?"
   "Oh, she's terrible," says Bethany. "Not that he talks about it
much, he's trying not to be gross anymore which I guess is progress?
She does some kinky stuff with him I guess, but mostly it's like she's
not even there."
   "What a sad, pathetic person," says Claire. "You know, this is
going to sound weird, but I think, I think she has a crush on me.
Really! I think she, you know, is into me."
   "I believe it," says Bethany. "God, that's sad."
   "Yes," says Claire. "Yes, it is."

Jonah is only twenty minutes late. One of his shirt sleeves is
missing, and he smells faintly of gasoline. "Just my luck," he mumbles
sheepishly as he presses a bouquet into her hands.
   "Did these used to be flowers?"
   "Oh," he says, staring as the bare stems. "So that's what happened."
   "What happened?"
   "Long story," says Jonah. "You look nice, Kate."
   "Thank you," says Claire. "You look, uh." She tries one of Kate's
awkward smiles.
   He finds it charming. "Yeah," he says, rubbing his one exposed arm.
"Well, you should have seen the other guy."
   "Was there an 'other guy'?"
   "No. Just me."

Taking a cab or the bus is completely out of the question; Jonah's
powers would just cause it to crash. And so on this snowy February
evening they walk to the overpriced steak joint, one that's been
chosen more for its proximity than its cuisine.
   Claire doesn't remember the last time she got somewhere by walking
there. Slipping from one place to another - through mirrors, through
shadows, through light, through any number of mystical means - is so
convenient as to be second nature for her. Kate can't do that of
course (not yet, anyway), so as part of the act she puts one foot in
front of the other. How literally pedestrian.
   It's nice, though. The air is cold, just the right kind of bracing,
and Jonah isn't too obnoxious. There's absolutely nothing attractive
or compelling about him (she really doesn't understand what Kate sees
in him), but his life is one long never-ending string of disasters and
coincidences, of things going wrong because of course they did. It's
an excuse to be a perpetual sad sack, and he is that, but it's also an
excuse to turn the whole thing into a comedy routine. There's that old
cliche that women like men who can make them laugh. It's not quite
true in Claire's case - she doesn't really like men, and doesn't
really like laughing - but it's amusing enough in its way to make his
company tolerable.
   Maybe that's what Kate sees in him; maybe she likes laughing. Or
maybe it's pity. Even with access to Kate's memories and emotions,
Claire can't quite sort it out - she just knows that there's something
in Kate that draws her to something in Jonah.

Melody is already eating her second appetizer by the time they arrive.
   "Sorry," she says between bites of food. "I burn approximately
twenty thousand calories a day. Gotta eat a lot. I'm Melody." She
extends her hand.
   "Jonah," he says, shaking it.
   Melody immediately withdraws her palm. "What was on your hand?"
   "No way to be sure."
   She gives him a pained smile, then shakes her hand clean at
superspeed. "Waitress should be back soon. So, Jonah, you're over here
for a while?"
   He idly scratches the scruff at the back of his head. "Maybe? I'm
kinda exiled from Belgium? Which, you know, I understand it I guess."
   "What did you do?"
   "It's a long story, but it ends with the King and Queen being
chased by a flock of vengeful geese. Honestly, I'm surprised it took
them this long. I thought for sure they would have done it after that
business with the Manneken Pis and the raw sewage."
   Simon - quite possibly the whitest man Claire has ever met -
somehow becomes whiter. "Please do not give us any details."
   "Anyway," says Jonah, "the EU put it to a vote, and unanimously
decided to eject me from the continent. Technically I'm not supposed
to be here in the States, either, but I won't tell if you don't."
   "Lips are sealed," says Melody.
   At that moment, a passing waitress stumbles, sending six entrees
into the air over their heads. There's a split-second blur of motion,
and the waitress is upright and the plates on her tray. Melody glares
at Jonah but gently kicks Claire under the table.

It's not so much that the rest of the meal passes without incident as
it passes with incident after incident averted or mitigated at
super-speed. "I get less of a workout going toe-to-tangle with King
Kudzu."
   "Sorry," Jonah mumbles into his steak.
   Something jabs into Melody's exposed arm and she falls spasming to
the floor. Standing over her is a man that Kate wouldn't recognize,
but Claire does: Flintlock. [7]
   "Just need you to sit this one out, gorgeous," he says to Melody as
he points a gun at Claire. "This one's on my list."
   Claire kicks the table into the air, pushing it into the assassin.
It sends her chair careening backward; she rolls into a flip, landing
on her feet. "Simon, get her out of the way."
   Melody is still shaking, but it's more a subtle shiver than a
full-blown fit. With some difficulty, Simon half-carries and
half-drags her away from the action.
   Flintlock is already pushing the table aside. Claire doesn't have a
lot of options. Without her umbrella to focus her magic, she's only
got access to a few parlor tricks. As a last resort, she can summon
the umbrella from the in-between space where she's tucked it, but then
the jig is up.
   Right now, she has to put some distance between the two of them.
Flintlock is a professional; he nearly killed Melody both times that
they fought.
   That's when Jonah - stupid, hapless Jonah - comes rushing at
Flintlock from the side, screaming his idiot head off. Almost
immediately, he slips on the floor, landing on his back a few feet
from the assassin. He doesn't move; he's out cold. It's at that moment
that the running gag that is Jonah's entire existence stops being
funny.
   "This yours, Kate?" Flintlock says, casually pointing the gun at
Jonah's face. He pulls the trigger.
   The gun explodes, blowing off the assassin's hand. Any normies who
didn't rush out when the ruckus started do so now. Surprisingly, he
doesn't scream. Instead, he stares at the mangled mess at the end of
his left arm with a mixture of awe and disbelief.
   "That's alright," he says. "The good Lord gave me a spare." With
his right hand, he reaches for another gun, hesitates, then draws a
machete instead.
   Okay, a knife fight. Claire can do a knife fight. She leaps
backwards onto the newly-set table behind her, grabs two of the
neatly-folded heavy napkins, and shakes the utensils out of them,
grabbing two large serrated steak knives.
   "You're feisty, girl," says Flintlock. "I like that. I don't want
this to be too easy."
   "You blow off your hand, and that's easy for you?" says Claire,
trying some Shimmer-style superhero banter. "I'd hate to see what
happens when you really apply yourself."
   "I'll probably get me a robot hand," says Flintlock, shrugging.
"That's maybe thirty or forty thousand dollars? Drop in the bucket for
what FEVER is paying me to end your pretty little life."
   That's unsettling information; Caracalla knows that she's
impersonating Kate. If FEVER is really paying for Flintlock's
services, than Caracalla (and/or Dr. Maddocks) are trying to kill her.
   Claire rushes toward him, knives at the ready. With a heavy slash,
he brings the machete down. She meets it with the two knives. They
shatter, and the force of the blow is enough that she falls to the
ground. Leering triumphantly, he raises the machete again, preparing
to strike the final blow.
   She grabs his right leg and summons her umbrella to her hand. Being
that the leg is in the way, it materializes inside the leg, cracking
bone, slicing muscle, severing tendons. Rather than bothering to pull
it through, she sends it back to the place of whispers.
   This time, he has the good sense to scream, and he collapses to the
ground, dropping the machete. Claire is still on the floor but
scrambles away from him. Flintlock grits his teeth and pulls out his
gun.
   "Kate! Look out!" Jonah dives in front of her just as Flintlock
pulls the trigger.
   The gun explodes in his right hand, sending shrapnel flying. A
piece lodges itself in his brain, killing him instantly.
   "Are you okay?" asks Jonah.
   "Yeah," says Claire. "I guess you're Kate's good luck charm."
   He looks at her quizzically. "Uh, feeling is mutual for Jonah?"
   She kisses him like she means it.

It only takes a few minutes more for Melody's immune system to flush
out the paralytic. And given Flintlock's animosity toward her, the
fact that he didn't bother to actually try to kill Melody confirms
Claire's suspicion that this wasn't personal. It was work, and she was
the target.
   Caracalla and Maddocks will deny it, of course. There'll be no
record of any contract, and Flintlock isn't exactly in a position to
talk. What remains in question is why they want her dead.
   Oh, there are reasons, certainly. She doubts Maddocks knows what
she and Trini are really up to, but it's possible that he knows that
they know what he's up to. More likely it has to do with Lydia Black.
Claire had framed Lydia for her own blasphemies, resulting in her
execution. What no one but Lydia, Claire, and Maddocks knew was that
Lydia was working for Maddocks - so Maddocks has to know that Lydia
wasn't really working against The Company's interests.
   Or maybe he just sees Claire accumulating power and influence, and
wants to cut her down before she can rival his own. It's not unheard
of for the various players within The Company to try and have each
other killed.

Simon's going to spend the night at Melody's place, and Jonah walks
Claire home. At the porch, they kiss again.
   "So, uh, kind of a crazy night, huh?" says Jonah.
   "A little."
   "I don't suppose you want some company?"
   She shakes her head. "Maybe next time, if no one tries to kill me?
It kinda killed the mood."
   "Oh, no," he says. "I didn't mean that. I would just stay with you.
So you're not alone."
   "That's sweet," says Claire. "Thank you, but I'll be fine."
   "Alright. Goede nacht."

Once she's settled in, she calls Derek, using her own voice. She asks
him about his day, and he tells her about Pam, and about Flintlock
attacking Shimmer and Darkhorse, and she feigns interest. He asks her
when he'll see her again.
   The answer is never and she knows that; she knew that the minute
she put Kate in the mirror. It didn't bother her then. She's not sure
why it bothers her now. "Probably not for awhile," she says. "I've got
a lot on my plate."
   "I miss you," he says.
   "Do you?"
   He seems surprised by the question. "Yes. I do."
   "Why do you miss me? Why do you love me?"
   "Claire?"
   "You know I don't love you."
   "I know." He sighs. "Even when you've said you love me, I know that
you don't. That's okay. I still love you."
   "Then you're an idiot."
   "Probably."
   "What do you get out of it?"
   "I don't know," he says. "You make me the best version of myself.
You make me want to be good enough for you. Maybe that's all love is.
When someone makes you want to be better."
   Claire looks in the mirror, at the face she stole from Kate. "Even
when they can't love you back."
   "Maybe that's why you don't love me." She can hear his smile
through the phone. "I can't make you want to be better. You're already
perfect."
   "Maybe," says Claire.




COPYRIGHT (C) 2020 TOM RUSSELL.

Medusa created by Drew Nilium and Tom Russell.