April 30 2051

A terrible thing has happened, there's another soul trapped in that poor child's body and it needs to get out. Rubik doesn't know, I prefer that he doesn't or else he'll torture his son more then he already will in the future. God, I should have stopped the nurse from making that mistake. Now he's interested in the girl which I was afraid he might do. The future is telling me she'll be his 100% which wasn't like that before. I can't let that happen. I must change the future for Demitri's sake and the original self trapped inside. Rubik has ordered me to clone Zoya, 'to see what she looks like'. I've taken both blood samples from each child. Mr. McDowell will be cloned twice and this twice cloned being needs a soul. I know perfectly well who the soul is. I know he'll be frightened at first but, he'll soon come to like his new condition. Oh yes, he'll be perfect.

-Virgil

I'm cured. With my new friends being generous enough to play Beethoven for me I was in heaven. My mind was racing with pretty pictures of ultra-violence when suddenly the music turned off. I was back into reality, no music, no government, just me sitting in the hospital all by myself. It was silent, dead silent as if every living soul was wiped off the face of the earth. Sitting alone in this unnatural silence I was afraid.

"Does this feel familiar to you, Alex?" asked a voice in the dark. If I wasn't bound in casts I would have been able to pull the sheets up to cover my eyes. Childish I know, but hearing a voice like that in the dark you just hope to God it goes away. "Who are you?" I asked trying to sound brave but failed. The tall figure appears out of the dark. He was wearing a grey suit that a stock broker would wear but it was his face that got my attention. He had black curly hair and goatee that defined his elegant pale face. His eyes were blue green but I could have sworn they were gold earlier.

He took a drag from his cigar and exhaled the smoke. When he exhaled that smoke I thought I saw that same gleaming gold flash in his eyes for a second. My humble friends, if the question if I've ever saw the devil I would have said yes. "I use to be a writer."

"You were a journalist?" I asked, panic was rising again, I knew a man that use to be a writer and he tried to kill me. He smiled a friendly smile. I think the devil has the same grin. "No Alex, I use to write fiction now I'm just a humble owner of a hotel," he said walking to my bed. The cigar smoke was stronger then ever. "As I was saying, does any of this seem familiar to you?"

Now that he mentioned it to me I had this strange feeling of déjà vogue. I felt like I've been doing this over and over again the only difference was this stranger. Who was he? "I can tell on your face you're wondering about this reality Berguss and Kubrick has made for you."

"What do you mean?" I asked, a knot formed in my gut when he made his friendly grin as the cigar hovered in his hand. "You'll know once you relive your reality one last time," he said pulling out a small ax from his suit then put his hand on the railing. At first I thought he was going to hack me to pieces but he ended up cutting his own hand off. This man was out of his mind! "Nurse! Nurse! There's a crazy man standing over my bed!" I screamed, indeed this stranger was mad, he didn't look like he was in pain. In fact he looked like he was enjoying it.

I felt something crawling on my leg. I looked down to see it was the severed hand crawling up my body like a spider. "There's no cure for your condition, Alex. You are a monster." I heard the words but my eyes were on the hand paralyzing me in fear. It stopped at my chest looking at me. I know it doesn't have any eyes yet I felt it was looking at me! "And I specialize in monsters." I wanted to beg him to stop but he wasn't going to, I knew he wouldn't. I screamed as the hand jumped out leaving me in darkness for a moment then Dim was shaking me.

"Alex! Alex! Wake up!" I stood up straight gasping for breath. I looked around with that familiar feeling setting in. I wasn't in the hospital but in the Karova bar with my friends. The friends that will betray me. "What's….what's happened."

"You scared us there for a second brother," said George, "You were talking nonsense in you're sleep."

"I was?"

"Yeah, you kept whispering a name," said Pete, "I think it was Virgil. Who's Virgil?" I had to sit down trying to breathe. The name itself scared me. "I need a drink."

"I don't think you need Moloko, brother," said George, he was right but I needed something to relax. "I said I need a drink!" I hissed, George looked at me in disapproval but he went to get me a drink anyway. Even if the Moloko did calm me down I got the feeling it wasn't going to help me much in the future. Something was going to change and I didn't want to know.