I cannot live through this.
I just cannot live through this.
I sat Phi. Alone in complete darkness with my despair. Don't know how long I've remained there. My flashlight was the only means to light my way... to see where I can go.
But where CAN I go?
I'm in the deepest shithole in the ocean. Trapped like a rat. Monsters swarming outside, waiting to feast on my body. This body isn't even mine. It belongs to a dead person named Raleigh Herber. I was copied into a cortex chip that was plugged into where her missing head was supposed to be. My flashlight shined on a corpse lying on the floor. It belonged to the only companion I have in this entire ordeal. She too was a copy like me. Slotted her cortex chip into the Omnitool in front of me. There is no power in this facility to test it. Even if there is any, I'm not even sure she's would be alive. Her chip was shorted out.
I am Simon Jarrett.
Am I Simon Jarrett?
Didn't I die a long time ago? I was so young. Missed out so many things. I want to confess to Ashley. No, she's... she's already dead. But I'm alive, almost a century in the future.
I am Simon Jarrett.
I'm not Simon Jarrett.
The other. He's Simon Jarrett. I was his copy. I should be Simon Jarrett too, right? Am I? Am I not? Should I be?
Maybe I'm Simon.
What am I? Who am I?
No more. I removed my helmet, exposing my head that is a mere machinery of optic camera and a cortex chip, held together and connected to the body by the mysterious structure gel. Not even human anymore. No more. I bend down and take the wrench near the corpse. Its tip stained with dried blood. For a moment I hesitated. But better to end it here than to live through this nightmare. I grip tightly at each end of the wrench and smash it on my exposed chip.
No more.
Simon stirred from his slumber. The last thing he remembered was that he scanned his brain to transfer to the power suit. Then he felt a sudden weakness and fell asleep. "I'm still here. I'm still in the Pilot Seat." He struggles to get up. "Catherine, I think the machine is broken. The transfer has failed." Outside the light was still lit. But there was someone else outside. Simon saw that he took the Omnitool out and slots it in to the dock for three times. "Not working huh?" Simon heard him say from the distance. Concern and fear was a bad mix inside him. Was it another monster? He tries to rise and finds a place to hide and hope that thing out there would leave the room. His body felt like it was made out of lead. That someone turned his head and saw Simon. It casually approaches him. "Aw shit." Simon cursed.
"You're finally awake." By his voice Simon concluded that he's a man. He comes to him and helps him up. He felt a sense of joy in him. Another living person. And he's didn't rip him to pieces. "Easy does it."
"Who are you?" Simon asked.
The person didn't say a thing as he assisted him out of the scanner room to the suit control room. He puts him on the console while he leans on the opposite wall with his hands crossed. Simon noticed that he was wearing a deep sea diving suit.
"Hey. Who are you?" Simon repeated his question. "Were you from under there? You came up from Tau or Phi?"
"No, I wasn't. I came from here."
"Oh. Are you one of the survivors? You're from Theta or Lamda?"
"No, I'm not. I'm from Omicron you see." The other seems hesitant to say more.
"Then who exactly- wait... Where is Catherine?" Simon stumbles to the other console with the dock. But the Omnitool is gone.
"Are you looking for this?" The man waves the familiar device his hand.
"Hey, that's mine!" Simon snatched it from the man and wastes no time docking the device into the terminal.
Nothing happened. Simon unplugs and plugs it in again. It was the same result.
"It doesn't work anymore, Simon. It's broken. Catherine shorted out herself and the Omnitool when I took her down at Phi."
"Wait... You've been to Phi?" Simon asked.
"Yes. I went there with Catherine. I launched the ARK into space."
Simon's eye lenses widened. "No wait... No no no! Why the hell did you do that!? I was supposed to get into the ARK!"
The man shook his head. "It is useless, Simon. You won't be able to get into the ARK. The best you can do is scanning your brain and make a copy of yourself in the ARK. But you yourself would still remain here at Pathos-II. Take my word for it. I have tried it. Catherine and I."
"That's bullshit." Simon snapped. "Catherine said that she can get both of us into the ARK!"
"There's a lot of things that woman didn't tell you because she knows you wouldn't follow the plan. So she tricked you."
"I don't believe you."
"I'll prove it to you. We haven't been introduced to each other but I know your name right off the bat. Why is that?" Before Simon could go on, the man continues. "In fact, I know more than that. Just about anything there is to know about you. Ever since childhood you like comic books, video games and board games. You work at the Grimoire. Mom and dad weren't too happy about it but it was a dream come true for you. You have a crush with Ashley Hall after that one night's affair where you two were too drunk. Once you tried to confess to her... but she died in the car crash. And you have a fetish for Monster Girls."
If he have a mouth they've dropped by now. What he just heard was personal information.
"How do I know all that? We have the same voice. We have the same accent." He steps closer; his visor was a hand's width away from Simon's. What Simon saw made his blood run cold. His vision reacted to his emotion, glitching and scratching his sight. What stared back at him was a pair of red eyes. Optic lenses.
"Holy shit..."
"I am a copy of you. I am you. I am Simon Jarrett... number 2. When you used the chair, it wasn't transferring you to the suit. It made a perfect copy you into it. Me. Catherine hid this truth from you and I came to be. And then, she puts you to sleep to not complicate things."
"Fuck... Oh, Fuck. What kind of a fucking joke is this!?"
"I don't remember reacting like this..." The other Simon said.
"I am Simon Jarrett and you're not!" He rises. Pushing against the other Simon. Mood erratic. "What the hell did you do to me you poser fuck!?" Simon reached out for the other but wearing the power suit the other Simon easily overpowers Simon and pins him on the terminal. "We are Simon Jarrett! There are two of us now! You gonna have to accept it! Think of the Simon from a hundred years ago. You were a copy of him! You were a copy of him!" He said it twice to let the reality sink in. "And I'm a copy of you..."
There was a pause. Other Simon still kept him pinned.
"And here I thought I can get on the ARK and escape this hellhole... To have a new life." Simon's voice was low. Crestfallen.
"We did. Technically. Our legacy lives on. In the stars."
"Legacy my ass. They're not us. They're not... us." Simon's resistance waned to complete submission. "We're still stuck here while our copies are out there, living large."
"I know how you feel. I said the same thing as well." The other Simon said. He releases Simon and the man turns around and sits on the console with the slowness of a zombie. Shoulder stoop. The other Simon understands what this means. Just an hour ago he had high hopes. He went through all the trouble thinking there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Only that light wasn't for him. "Simon. Simon, look at me."
Simon slowly raises his head to regard his copy.
"They are out there. While we are down here. Bad as it seems, I'm not going to roll over and give up."
"Wouldn't that be a better choice? There's nothing to live for anymore."
"There just might be. But we need the whole team together." The other Simon unplugged the red Omnitool and slotted it on the compartment at his hips. "We need to get down to the structure gel lab and use a few drops of the gel to fix Catherine's cortex chip and the Omnitool."
"Not with that freak show outside we're not. We'll get torn to pieces."
The other Simon looks at the door and snorted. "I got this."
The door opened with a pressurized hiss. At the far end of the corridor was the creature. At the base, the figure was a human girl, now grotesquely augmented by the structure gel of the WAU.
"Hey!" Simon shouted.
The creature turned and shrieked. Her prey had come to her. She races down the corridor towards Simon. She gets closer. Closer. Within reach. Simon can clearly see her face frozen in shock with her lambent maw gaping wide. From the side of the door, there was a deep whoosh when the other Simon swings the metal pipe around. Its tip connected squarely at the centre of the creature's face. Granted with great strength the blow caused its head to explode, splattering the walls with black liquid, bone and brain matter. The creature didn't see it coming.
"All clear now", the other Simon said, stepping over the corpse.
That WAU creature seems to be the only hostile being in this facility so both Simons trudge to the lab unchallenged.
"Wait... What happened to Catherine? How did she get shorted out?" Simon asks as he watches the other Simon unplugs Catherine's cortex chip and slipping it into the feeding tray.
"By being balls to the wall, earth-shattering fuckass mad at me." There was a tone of laughter in his voice.
"And how did you make her balls to the wall, earth-shattering fuckass mad at you?"
The other Simon stops adjusting the structure gel needle control. "The brain scan I made at the ARK." He answered without a hint of regret. "I couldn't accept how that machine works. How I was fated to become just the delivery boy. We had an argument. She got so pissed that she shorted out. Both her and the Omnitool."
"Without the Omni tool, how did you get back up to Omicron?"
"I got lucky. Found myself another working Omnitool," He showed him. Opposed to his previous red one, the new one was blue in colour. The other Simon applies the structure gel on the burned area of the cortex chip, then the Onmitool next. After that they double back to the suit control room and docked the red Omnitool to the computer console. What came into the computer screen shocked Simon but amused the other Simon.
"-PIECE OF SHITTY VIRGIN DICKHEAD! YOU THINK IT WAS EASY FOR ME TO MAKE THIS KIND OF CHOICES!? YOU THINK I WOULDN'T WANT TO PERSONALLY GET TRANSFERRED INTO THE ARK MYSELF!?"
Catherine's tirade was so loud that the audio was crackling to the overwhelming volume.
"IT HAD TO BE FUCKING DONE!"
"Catherine." The other Simon said.
"THAT'S ALL THE CHANCE HUMANITY HAS GOT!"
"Catherine." The other Simon said again.
"WRAP IT AROUND YOUR FUCKING HEAD ALREADY!"
"You should calm down. If you get shorted out again I'm not sure even the structure gel can bring you back. "The other Simon warned.
"Wait, I got shorted out?" Asked Catherine.
"You heard me. Welcome back to the land of the living." Other Simon joked. "How do you feel?"
"Um... Just like before, a skip between consciousness."
"You don't feel any data in you corrupted or something?"
"No."
"Tell me... Do you feel any psychopathic tendencies? Any murderous intent? Rising urges to explode into random acts of senseless violence?"
"What? No! Even if I do what can I do to you?"
"I don't know... Nag me to death?"
"Very funny," Catherine said in an unamusing tone. Then she noticed Simon. "You woke up."
"And you hand me a raw deal." Simon's voice was low, envenomed with anger.
"I told you that's how the brain scan works."
"No, you told him." Simon points at the other Simon.
"And you put him into LaLa Land after he signed the contract." The other Simon points at Simon.
"You tricked me." Simon said.
"You didn't told him the fine print." The other Simon said to Catherine.
"You're sick."
"That's what I said."
"Alright! Alright!" Catherine grumbled, having to deal with this past guilt again. "I'm sorry. But what choice do I have? You and your diving suit are one. You can't possibly fit into the power suit in your state!"
"Well you could've told me about the brain scan in the first place anyway!" Simon said.
"Yeah, you could've..." The other Simon muttered.
"And if you refuse?"
"So that's all you care about? Your mission over respecting my own sense of identity?"
"Enough." The other Simon said. "What's past is past. This train has left the station."
This time Simon backs out. "So... What now?" He asks. "You said something of a plan."
"The ARK was launched. Our legacy lives on. A happy ending for our copies, not so happy ending for the three of us unfortunately." The other Simon said in a business-like manner. "Ergo, since we're stuck down here forever, we might as well keep ourselves busy. Fix the place, clean it up and make it comfortable for us to live in until the next doomsday."
"Fix Pathos-II?" Catherine said. "This place is a wreck. We don't have the expertise to do it."
"It can be done. The four of us."
"What do you mean the four of us? It's just you, me and Catherine. Who is the 4th person?"
The other Simon turns to regard Simon. "Our fourth is Warden," the other Simon answered.