Thorne kicked the gun away and trained his own on Kelland's head as Halley pinned her, panting. "Don't move!" he growled. She glared but went still, clutching her lacerated arm.
A sudden clapping echoed in the chamber – slow, mocking applause. Thorne snapped his head up to see Dr. Mercer stepping out from cover, a syringe gun in his hand pressed to the neck of a figure he held in front of him as a shield.
Thorne's stomach dropped. The figure was a man in a patient gown – pale, weak, with two bandaged stumps for arms and terror in his eyes. Jacob Halley – the original.
Mercer had him. The doctor must have prepared a contingency plan – he'd had his people retrieve the original Halley from the hospital, likely anticipating he could use him as leverage.
Clone Halley immediately released Kelland, shock overtaking his rage. "What…? How…?"
The original Halley, breathing hard, managed to cry out, "I'm sorry… he had men at the hospital… I tried to fight…" A trickle of blood ran from a cut on his forehead, evidence of a struggle.
Thorne felt dread like ice in his veins. Mercer barked, "All of you, put your weapons down or I inject him with this and turn his brain to soup." The doctor's face was pale and desperate, the last gambit of a cornered man. The syringe gun likely held some lethal neurotoxin or a lethal dose of sedative.
Original Halley whimpered as Mercer dug the needle into his neck slightly, drawing a bead of blood.
"Easy," Thorne said hoarsely. He carefully laid his gun on the floor. Beside him, clone Halley stood frozen, eyes darting between his double and the madman behind him.
Kelland used the distraction to slink away, cradling her bleeding arm, but Thorne paid her no mind – all attention was on the hostage situation.
"So," Mercer hissed, "here we are. A detective who can't mind his own business, a failed duplicate, and the original asset who frankly is more trouble than he's worth now." His finger tightened on the syringe trigger.
Clone Halley stepped forward, hands raised. "Dr. Mercer, don't! If you kill him, you lose everything! You still need him, don't you? For… for more data?"
Mercer sneered. "We have plenty of data. And we can always make another from his backup if needed. Frankly, Jacob, one of you has enough headaches. Why not simplify matters?" His eyes were fever-bright with rationalized malice.
Original Halley closed his eyes in resignation. "Please… please don't," he whispered.
Thorne's mind raced. If Mercer fired that syringe, Halley would die in seconds. He had no clear shot; Mercer's body was mostly shielded behind Halley's.
Clone Halley exchanged a look with Thorne – a silent agreement passing. In that moment, the detective saw stark clarity in the clone's expression. He gave Thorne the barest nod.
"No!" clone Halley suddenly shouted, stepping even closer to Mercer. "If one of us has to die… take me. That's what you planned anyway, isn't it? I'm the duplicate, the unnecessary copy. Kill me, and leave him." His voice cracked but held firm.
Original Halley's eyes snapped open in horror. "What? No, you— you're me. You're as real as—!"
"Shut up!" clone Halley barked at himself – a tragic absurdity that made Thorne's heart clench. "Maybe I was made in a lab, maybe I don't have a life now... but you do. You have friends, family... I remember them, even if they're not really mine. You deserve to live."
Mercer looked momentarily taken aback by this turn. His grip on the syringe slackened slightly. "A self-sacrificing clone? How touching, if pointless."
But Thorne saw an opportunity in Mercer's distraction. Slowly, he slid his boot over the pistol he'd dropped on the floor, positioning the toe near the trigger guard. It was a crazy, desperate move, but it might be all they had.
Clone Halley took another step, now just a few feet from Mercer and his hostage. He spread his arms. "Go on then. I'm right here. Do it!"
Original Halley struggled weakly. "No… please, God, no…"
Mercer grimaced. "Suit yourself," he spat, and began to swing the syringe gun toward the clone.
In that split second, Thorne kicked the pistol on the floor. It flipped up into the air, and he snatched it in one fluid motion. Time seemed to slow as he aimed.
Mercer's eyes widened. He yanked the original Halley fully in front of him, using the poor man as a human shield.
But Thorne wasn't aiming for Mercer now. He fired twice at the ceiling above the doctor. The rounds pinged off a steel support – and with a crack, one of the heavy overhead lighting panels came loose, directly above Mercer.
Mercer had a split-second to glance upward in confusion before the panel – a thick slab of reinforced glass and metal – crashed down. It glanced off original Halley's shoulder, making him cry out, and smashed into Mercer's head and upper back.
The doctor crumpled, the syringe clattering from his hand. Original Halley sagged away, collapsing to the floor and curling to protect his head.
Clone Halley didn't hesitate. He lunged forward and stomped down on Mercer's wrist as the doctor groaned, ensuring he couldn't grab the syringe again. Mercer let out a wail of pain.
It was over. Thorne rushed to original Halley's side, dragging him away from the debris. The man was bleeding anew where the panel struck, but it appeared superficial. Pulse, rapid but steady.
Meanwhile, clone Halley stood over Dr. Mercer. The doctor was conscious, moaning as he held the side of his face – blood pouring from a scalp gash. In a fury, Halley grabbed Mercer's fallen syringe gun. For a moment, Thorne worried he'd do something irreversible.
Halley trembled, aiming the needle at Mercer. "All those lives you ruined... including mine," he snarled. His finger tightened.
Mercer whimpered, raising his uninjured hand. "Jacob… think of what I gave you – life! You wouldn't even exist without me!"
"That's not life," Halley said through his teeth, tears of anger streaming. "What I've gone through… is not living. Not yet."
He loomed over the terrified scientist. Thorne gently called out, "Jacob… he's down. Don't."
Halley heaved breath, then slowly lowered the syringe. The fight drained out of him, replaced by exhaustion and sorrow. He tossed the gun aside and stepped back, chest heaving.
Thorne nodded, relieved. Sirens began to wail in the distance – Rios and station security, finally descending now that gunfire had been detected and corporate barriers overridden (Thorne's open channel had likely transmitted enough as evidence).
Kelland was nowhere to be seen – she must have slipped away, but with her injury she wouldn't get far. The second guard lay wounded but alive. Dr. Mercer was whimpering on the floor, and all around them the lab bore testament to the night's chaos – shattered glass, sparking machines, and those dreadful vats leaking ichor and malformed flesh.
Original Halley looked between Thorne and his duplicate, his face pale not just from injury but from the shock of seeing his own mirror image freely. "Jacob…" he whispered, unsure how to address him – himself.
Clone Halley knelt beside him. Tentatively, he placed a hand on original Halley's shoulder to steady him. For a bizarre moment, it was as if a man comforted his twin brother or gazed at a living reflection. Original Halley broke into a feeble smile, eyes wet. "Thank you," he said. It carried more weight than two simple words ever should.
Clone Halley bowed his head. "I'm sorry," he replied, voice cracking. What else could one possibly say to one's own self after trying to kill each other?
Thorne stood watch over them, heart heavy yet oddly hopeful that perhaps these two men could find some way to heal. The distant sirens grew louder; boots pounded in the corridor outside. Help was here, for whatever it was worth now.
He looked at his hands – they were shaking violently as a reaction set in. On one of them, a streak of the nutrient slime from the vats glistened, yellow-green. Thorne wiped it off on a rag, trying to dispel the sense of unreality clinging to him. The case might be over, but the scars – physical and mental – would remain for all involved.
As medics and officers flooded the lab, securing Mercer and tending to the Halley original, Rios rushed to Thorne's side. "Are you alright? Oh God—" She stared around at the grotesque scene, the leaking tanks with failed clones, the limp abominations on the floor. "We got it all recorded," she said, tapping her implant. "This will bring them down, Vic. Arcadia can't cover this up now."
Thorne gave a weary nod. Even as she said it, he saw some Arcadia personnel among the responders – likely there to try to mitigate the PR damage. It would be a hell of a battle in courts and media, but at least the truth was out, literally laid bare on the floor.
He glanced over to clone Halley, who sat quietly on a stretcher as paramedics examined the bullet wound in his shoulder and other injuries. They seemed unsure how to log him in their forms – one kept glancing at the original Halley being carried out next to him, confusion plain on her face.
For now, they'd treat them both as human beings, Thorne hoped.
As she pressed a gauze pad to a cut on his forehead, Rios gently tugged his arm. "Let's get you checked out too, Vic. You're bleeding." He realized he had some small cuts and bits of shrapnel from the flashbang peppered in his vest and arms, but nothing major.
"I'm fine," he assured her, though exhaustion weighed every cell in his body.
Amidst the bustle, Dr. Mercer was hauled up by two officers, babbling protests about intellectual property and how they'd all thank him someday. As he was dragged past, he locked eyes with Thorne, giving a last venomous glare. "This isn't over, Detective," he spat, blood in his teeth. "You think you've stopped it? Gemini is bigger than me, bigger than Arcadia. You have no idea what's coming—"
Thorne stepped forward and without a word delivered a sharp punch to Mercer's jaw. The doctor crumpled back into the guards' arms, silenced. "Get him out of my sight," Thorne muttered.
The officers complied, shooting Thorne a look that was equal parts approval and reproach for the vigilante blow.
Finally, as the lab cleared out, Thorne stood alone amidst the wreckage of Project Gemini. The adrenaline ebbed, leaving him lightheaded and hollow. One of the downed vats gurgled, its pump sputtering. Inside, the half-formed thing twitched, perhaps just a reflex in its death throes.
He found himself drawn to the server screen, where the file list still glowed. His name. "THORNE_V_PRELIM_SCAN – Completed: 98%."
98%. They had nearly a complete copy of his mind stored. Perhaps they planned to finish and use it soon. A chill crept over him. He thought of Mercer's parting words – that this wasn't over.
With a shaking hand, Thorne pulled a data spike from his pocket. He slotted it into the server console and initiated a purge script Silas had secretly given him – insurance to wipe any copies of the project data. The screen flashed red warnings as dozens of "MEM_COMPLETE" files vanished.
He watched "THORNE_V_PRELIM_SCAN" reach 100% deletion, then be replaced by an innocuous blank line. Data gone… maybe.
But could he really be sure? Perhaps elsewhere, Arcadia or some partner had backups. Or maybe an earlier copy of him was already living, breathing somewhere, unbeknownst. The paranoia that someone could have made him without his knowledge gnawed at his psyche.
Thorne pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. He needed sleep, needed to process all this when he was less on edge.
As he turned to leave, the low lab lights flickered. For a split second, in the reflection of a shattered glass panel, he thought he saw a figure standing behind him – a man with his same face, staring blankly. Thorne whirled, but no one was there. Just flickering shadows.
He exhaled shakily. Shadows and ghosts, he thought. Probably just the exhaustion playing tricks... probably.
Behind him, down the corridor, orderlies rolled the two Jacob Halleys side by side on gurneys, both sedated – two identical faces peaceful in sleep, heading toward very different futures.
Thorne hoped one day they could find peace with what they were. With who they were.
As for himself, Detective Victor Thorne had solved the case. But he suspected he might never fully solve the questions now lodged in his own soul. When he closed his eyes, he saw that brief image of a second him standing in the lab shadows – and he couldn't shake the uncanny feeling that in some sense, somewhere, it had been real.