Berret opened his eyes to find himself staring at - himself!
"Well, its about time you woke up," said the mirror image as it informally patted him on the chest.
The figure was crouched over him and it moved out of the way as the ex-assassin bolted upright.
The man gave the Shrike a lopsided grin that Berret strangely felt looked out of place on his own features and went on, "Good to see you're a fast recoverer, bucko. You had me worried for a few minutes there. Thought maybe you kicked the bucket or sumthin' on me."
Berret narrowed his eyes at the apparition as he recalled several tales that John Crichton had told him about beings using images from his past in attempts to trick or drive him insane. The ex-Enforcer quickly decided that he was most likely in some similar situation, but he could not remember how he had come to be there.
Never-the-less, he determined the best way to get answers was to make a preemptive strike and force what he need to know from his apparent double.
Without warning, Berret rolled to his feet and sprang at the other man, catching him off guard. The Shrike's hand locked around the other's neck as he used his weight to bear the doppelganger to the ground.
Berret applied what he thought was enough pressure to restrict the specter's airflow. Oddly, he immediately felt as if some invisible hand were choking him in return. After it's initial look of surprise, the clone's face settled into a look of mild amusement.
"Are you having fun?" it asked with no apparent distress despite Berret's iron grip on his throat.
The Shrike squeezed harder and felt the invisible hold on his own neck tighten in response.
The other Berret rolled his eyes. "In case you haven't figured it out yet, bright boy. Hurting me won't help. You're just hurting yourself."
The ex-assassin loosened his hold and the grip at his throat did likewise.
"This is not possible," Berret said. "Who are you?"
The other image made a strange face and then twisted his lip up as if in deep thought.
"Ahhhh.... Just a guess," he finally said in a light mocking tone, "You maybe?" His eyes narrowed somewhat as if to say he thought Berret wasn't very smart. "Who the hell do you think I am?" it asked sarcastically.
Berret tightened his hold a bit and felt it again in his own neck. He ignored the feeling and leaned in to snarl in the other man's face. "I know who you are suppose to appear as, that does not make it so. Tell me who you really are and where I am, or I will twist your head off."
The other him smiled. "Go ahead and try," he said with little concern. "And when you wake up again maybe you'll think twice before trying self-decapitation another time. As for who I am, I'm you... or rather the you that use to be before you got lost in space." The man grinned wickedly up at him and hummed a strangely familiar tune for a few microts. "A word of advice," the lookalike said when it stopped humming the tune, "If you run into a guy named Doctor Smith - don't trust him. As for where we are? I dunno... you'll have to tell me, you're the one who brought us here."
"I've never been here nor have I ever seen you before," Berret spat back.
The other Berret rolled his eyes again. "What? They got no mirrors where you are? And of course you've never been here before, brain surgeon. Here's nowhere, look around, all you see is black."
The Shrike took a moment to study their surroundings. Indeed all he could see was a black space around them. No sound echoed back giving the hint of a room. Instead all he got was a feeling of a vast open space that he couldn't see nor make out how far it extended.
"That still does not explain you," he told the prone man.
"Let me up and I'll tell you what I can," the double offered.
Grudgingly Berret let him rise. The double made no sudden or threatening moves, but he did rub dramatically at his throat as he sat upright.
"You know, you have a real anger management problem, bub," the clone complained. "You should go see a head shrink and get them sorted out."
"I'm waiting," Berret said with a displeased frown. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"
The man smiled like he had a secret again.
"I've already told you, I'm you," he replied, "And I'm here cuz you've been looking for me?"
"That is a lie," Berret said.
"Really?" answered the other Berret with a mock look of surprise. "You and that hot blue babe haven't been mucking around in your head looking for who you use to be? Well... surprise!" the doppelganger said with an exaggerate flourish of his hands, "Here I be in all my splendor!" He then extended his right hand outward in the greeting Berret had seen John and Sean use on occasion. "I'm Jared by the way," he added.
Berret ignored the offered hand. "That's impossible," he said.
"Why?" asked Jared as he withdrew his hand, not at all looking offended by the rude snub. "Too Twilight Zone-ish for you?"
"People do not meet their past selves," Berret replied.
"Well, in case ya ain't noticed," Jared said and than lowered his voice to a stage whisper, "We ain't exactly ordinary people."
Berret frowned again at his mirror image.
"I have had enough of this," he growled lowly. "Tell whoever sent you that I am through with playing whatever game they have in mind."
Without waiting the Shrike turned and picking a random direction, strode purposely away.
"Where ya going?" asked the being who called himself Jared. He began following a few paces behind the irate Enforcer.
"To find away out of here," was all Berret would reply. His image halted in place.
"You're wasting your time," his image advised.
"Its mine to waste."
"Suit yourself," Jared called after him. "Nice leathers by the way!"
Berret kept walking and for the first time looked down at his own appeared. He was indeed wearing Peacekeeper leather as he sometimes did aboard Moya. His apparition he had noted wore trousers made out of some sort of blue canvas material, a long sleeve shirt apparently made out of a darker blue cloth, and heavy boots similar to those Crichton wore. He set the observations aside and concentrated on finding a way out of where he had been brought against his will.
Several microns of walking revealed nothing new to the Shrike. No matter how far he traveled, he was still only able to discern just a few drec in any direction around him. Only the ground appeared to be solid and it never changed from its dark gray color. Oddly enough as dark as it was, his augmented sight had not kicked it. He idly wonder if something had been done to effect his microbe enhancements, but remembering the strength he felt in his arms as he attempted to throttle the fake Berret, he disregarded that apprehension.
A little further on, he saw a dim shape start to form ahead of him. He quickened his pace as he realized it was somebody reclining on the ground. He uttered a burning curse when he discovered it was the mirror Berret once again.
"Back so soon?" asked Jared casually as he cleaned his nails with a similar device he's seen Chiana use in the past. He folded the small bit of metal up and slipped it into a pocket before rolling over on his side to prop himself up on one elbow to gaze at Berret. "I told you, you were wasting your time," he said.
Berret glanced around, he was sure he had traveled in a relatively straight line. There was no way he could have circled back without knowing. The other man must have some way of traveling around that allowed him to get ahead of the Shrike.
"How did you get here ahead of me?" Berret demanded to know.
Jared shrugged casually. "I didn't," he said, "You left about ten minutes ago in that direction." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the area behind him. "And you just walked up from that direction." He than pointed toward were Berret had appeared from. "I've been waiting right here where you left me."
"That is not possible," the ex-assassin said.
Jared shrugged again. "If you say so," was all he replied.
"There has to be a way out of here," Berret said more to himself.
"There probably is," Jared agreed, seeming to lose some interest in the conversation.
"Then where? How do we get out?"
"Dunno," the double replied, "I imagine we'll get out when's it time to get out."
Berret looked at Jared with a look of growing frustration.
"And do you have a idea of when that will be?" he asked.
Jared sighed heavily and rolled up into a sitting position with his legs crossed.
"I suppose when our business is finished here," the fake Berret responded. "For a guy full of questions, you certainly enjoy asking all the wrong ones."
"You don't seem to be too concerned that we are trapped here - wherever here is," Berret said.
A small sphere made out of some rubber substance appeared somehow in Jared's hand and he began to bounce it on the ground before him. He'd drop it and let it bounce once off the floor before catching it, and then repeated the process.
"I have nowhere to go and all the time in the universe to get there," the double said, "So I'm not in any hurry at all."
"How nice for you," Berret answered dryly.
"Thems' the breaks," said the other. He then looked back up at Berret and smiled, still bouncing the small ball and catching it without looking. "You on the other hand should be in a big hurry to get back to the real world."
"Why's that?" Berret asked with some curiosity now.
Jared gave him a wolfish grin. "Come on!" he said. "We're both guys here. If I had a hot gray babe like Chiana waiting for me... do you think I'd be sticking around here wasting time talking to myself? No offense meant."
"Well, you have failed miserably there," Berret told him.
"Yeah, subtlety was never one of my strong points," Jared admitted, "Still, if I were you, I'd never leave the bedroom with that chick." The double wiggled both eyebrows suggestively at the Shrike.
"I am NOT having this conversation with YOU," Berret said firmly and than turned as if he meant to walk away again.
"Okay, have a nice walk. See ya back here in another ten minutes."
Berret paused and decided the clone was right, it would be no use to try walking away again. Whatever was holding them there would just bring them together once more.
"I would rather we did not talk about Chiana any further," the ex-assassin told the other man when he reluctantly turned back. The double smiled at him with that lopsided grin again.
"Hey, just teasing, dude," Jared replied, "Lighten up a bit. Besides admit it - she is smokin'. And you both got the hots for each other."
Berret faced off with the image of himself, verbally pouncing on the other man.
"And your comment only goes to prove you are not who you claim to be... or you would know..."
Jared snorted contemptuously and cut him off.
"... Would know that Chiana couldn't care about me," the double finished in a deep voice meant to scorn Berret. "Boo-hoo and whine - whine. God, do you know how sick I am of that crap? It gets old after awhile."
Jared's face actually had a look of minor annoyance on it. The first serious emotion Berret had seen the other man display since waking up and meeting him. "Yeah, the Scarrans screwed you big time - get the hell over it!" Berret's eyes opened a little wider in surprise at the retort. "What? You think you're the only one who got the crappy end of the stick from the scaly bastards in this deal. Look at me. I've lost everything - I'm never going to get be me again. I'm just some faded memory locked up in the back of your pointed little head, a few scattered neurons bouncing around and occasionally misfiring. Do you see me bitching about it? No! I had a life too, a beautiful girl who loved me, a home and family, a job I enjoyed and was good at. And then one day some wombats in space suits decided to beam me up and take me for a little joyride on their space ship... and then I stopped being me when some Scarran toad locked a collar around my neck."
Jared had stood up sometime during his speech and was standing face-to-face with the ex-Enforcer. Berret suddenly had the feeling this moment is what the mirror image of himself had been waiting for.
"You have no idea of what's been handed to you, do you?" Jared questioned. The double made a slow circuit around the ex-Enforcer as if inspecting him for visible flaws. Berret sensed Jared wasn't really expecting an answer to the question so he remained silent and listened, feeling he was going to have the answers he sought soon. Jared smiled as if he recognized that Berret was finally catching on to the objective of their meeting. "I would give anything to be in your place," he went on to say, and then sadly shook his head. "But it's too late for that. My time is over, and my life no longer exists. There's only you now... and you have a chance to make a life for yourself. Listen close, because this is the most important... the only answer, I have to offer you. That beautiful soul loves you and you love her. Don't let it pass you by and make everything that I have lost for nothing."
Somewhere along the line the doppelganger went from a clownish annoyance to some sort of educator for Berret. Still it was hard for the ex-assassin to make himself believe in what the other man was telling him.
"You're beginning to understand," said the clone with a sincere smile that time.
"Chiana deserves..." Berret started to say, but Jared held up one hand to halt the comment. Despite his will to debate the issue with the image of himself, the words died on his lips as the Shrike found he couldn't continue on with his refutation for some reason. Something deep inside him was in-tune with the double and its message, whether he understood it totally or not.
"I know... but it doesn't matter," Jared told him. "Death is part of living. What has happened, what will happen, is not all your fault. Someday, probably not today or anytime soon, you will come to believe that."
The man calling himself Jared beamed easily at Berret.
"You think I can change that much? That I can believe what you've told me?" Berret asked.
Jared shrugged and an impish grin reappeared. "Well, I'm betting the farm on it that you can. After all, why are you and the sexy blue chick trying to dredge me up for if you don't want to change somewhere inside yourself? Some part of you believes there is something better inside you."
"I wanted answers as to who I once was," Berret replied. "Perhaps now I will have them."
Jared shook his head and gave a lopsided smirk. Around them the area started to lighten, though Berret could still not see anything noteworthy.
"I'm afraid it's still not going to be that easy for you," Jared said to him.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well, you're quite deep in your psyche... way in the part that's still locked away by the collar's affects and that wall you've put up to protect yourself. It's only a messed up twist of fate that's landed you here for this short time," Jared explained. "I'm afraid you're not going to be able to recall most of what when on here when you wake up - at least, not consciously."
Berret looked betrayed, his anger started to rise once more at the other man and the unfairness of the situation.
"You're telling me I'm not going to remember any of this!" he almost shouted. "What good is telling me if I'm not going to be able to use it?"
"I don't make the rules, dude... I just play the game," Jared said.
"That does not help," Berret responded, "I will not even remember meeting you here? I'll forget everything?"
Jared cocked his head in a Chiana-like way and grinned.
"Well, not it the way you're thinking about remembering me," he explained. "Bits and pieces of me and what we talked about will come through time-to-time. You probably wouldn't understand where they come from... but I'll be that little voice in your head whispering advice, or that feeling that makes you jump and do something without thinking it through. You'll have to learn to trust me and believe I'll never steer you wrong."
"That will be difficult," Berret admitted.
Jared chuckled. "You got that right, chum. Have you been inside your head lately?"
Despite his frustration, Berret found himself cracking a grin with his splitting image. He indeed had a very good idea of how muddled up his mind could be at times.
"All of your answers don't reside in who you were," Jared went on to say, "The important ones rest in whom are you going to be? What you make is the true judge of the man."
The light around them was growing stronger and Berret instinctively knew that it was time to leave.
The Shrike looked at the other man and for the first time realized that all his suspicions had left him long ago. Jared seemed to sense what the other man was feeling and his eyes narrowed in tight pleasure that Berret had finally accepted him for what he appeared to be.
"Who are you really... exactly?" Berret asked as he felt himself being pulled out of the world he was in.
Jared grinned widely and let out a joyous chuckle. He held up his left hand. Something warm glowed at his fingertips with a blurry light.
"Haven't you guessed?" he asked gently. Berret shook his head. The double's gaze turned warm and full of fondness, he held the ball of light at his finger up to Berret's forehead. Berret felt no danger and instead a wave of calm settled over him. "Hope. I'm what's left of your hope."
Saying that, Jared touched Berret's forehead with the radiance at his fingers and then Berret felt himself whisked away to somewhere else.
Something stung his face and Berret felt sudden annoyance at the irritation.
The minor pain came once more and the Shrike opened his eyes getting ready to swat at something.
"Retty!" Chiana seemed to shout just hentas from his face.
"What?" Berret replied while staying his hand from striking. His voice sounded groggy and his arm felt filled with lead shielding compound. Something told him that he doubted he could lift the limb to hit anything if he had too at the moment.
"He's awake," Chiana said to someone off to one side and out of his view. Malika appeared in the edge of his vision peering downward at him, a pair of cardiac paddles in her hands.
"Well, its about time," the young Delvian said, "If I'd up the voltage anymore, we'd been cooking him."
Zhaan's head poked into view next.
"At any rate, it worked and his heart started beating again," the older priestess said. "Jared, how many fingers am I holding up?"
The woman held a pair of blue digits in front of Berret's eyes and moved them back and forth. The Shrike automatically tried tracking them and felt the motion make him abruptly dizzy.
"Two," Berret answered and weakly swatted at her hand, "Stop that, you're making me sick."
Zhaan smiled with relief. "I believe he will recover," she told the others.
"What happened?" Berret asked.
"You tangled with one of Moya's main Caloric feeds and came out on the loosing end," Chiana told him.
"Did I?"
The room had come into better focus and Berret was able then to see Crichton when he spoke from across the room.
"Oh yeah," said John, "Fifty-thousand hietc'-volts worth of positive direct current. Blew you clean across the ion backwash chamber. You're lucky the current shunts weren't in cycle-mode or there would have been nothing left of you to scrape up. Arc's like a son-of-a-bitch as it was. I told you - red cable to hemmond-side juncture, not blue."
"Sorry," replied Berret, "How did I get out?"
John held up his hands, both of which had been freshly bandaged for some unknown injuries.
"Let's just say, you owe me one," the human answered.
Berret nodded in understanding. "Sorry again," he said and let his head fall back on the med-bed's pillow.
"That will teach you to pay better attention when somebody tells you something," Chiana scolded. "You don't always know everything."
"That would be the wise course," Zhaan added.
Malika was storing the paddles away in a nearby cabinet.
"Unless you really feel like killing yourself next time," the younger Delvian muttered.
"See?" the Nebari asked, letting her face relax into a familiar smirk now that the emergency had passed. "We all agree - you're a lunkhead," she teased.
John sighed and stretched out and then rubbed at the small of his back with the back of his fists.
"You'll get no argument there from me," he told the group, "Andar and D'argo got the shorts fixed in the backwash chamber's power grid and Moya wasn't hurt, so if you're done with me Zhaan... I'm heading for my quarters for a little shut-eye to rest my battered body."
"Perfectly fine, John. I am finished with your treatment," replied the Delvian.
Crichton and Malika left the med bay, followed shortly by Zhaan, who left instructions for Berret to get some rest.
"How are you feeling?" Chiana asked when they were alone.
"Fairly well flattened," replied the Shrike wearily.
The gray girl smiled lightly from her seat beside the bed. "I can imagine, you give us quite a scare... especially when we thought you might have blown Moya up."
The ex-Enforcer became visibly distressed at the comment and almost tried to sit up. Chiana pinned him back down before he could rise.
"Sorry! Just teasing... Moya wasn't in any danger of exploding," she told him.
"As Sean says... 'Your bedside manner sucks'," Berret said with a frown.
The girl laughed easily. "If you don't like it, I can send Rygel down to sit with you."
Berret snorted. "He's probably upset that I'm still alive."
Chiana shook her head. "No, he said you have no possessions worth taking... and he knows I know where you keep all the good ones anyway."
"Your concern is touching," the Shrike replied sarcastically.
Chiana giggled. "No, I think I'd rather have you around for a little longer instead of all your possessions. I'm not tired of you yet." Berret snorted at the comment. "Do you remember much about the accident?" the woman asked, changing the subject a bit. The ex-assassin frowned as he thought.
"No, I don't remember much at all," he finally concluded. "Just that Crichton and I were working on routine maintenance in the ion backwash chamber... and I was suppose to connect a bypass. Nothing after that."
"How about while you were..." Chiana started to say and then paused.
"Dead?" the man offered.
Chiana half-nodded and half-shook her head in only a way that the Nebari girl seemed able to do, whenever Berret had tried to copy the gesture, it left him with a slight headache.
"I prefer the phrase 'stubbornly refusing to breathe'," the girl supplied with a hint of unease.
Berret felt an unusual warm feeling at the Nebari female's concern. He hadn't intended to alarm her by doing something foolish he was sure, but her worry over him gave him a strange feeling of security. Something about the way she was looking at him just than triggered another thought that fluttered just outside his mind's grasp. He struggled internally to pin the sensation down but it eluded him.
"No, I don't remember anything while I was 'unconscious'," he said.
"Maybe that's for the best," Chiana told him as she brushed at a lock of hair on his forehead. She noticed the slightly out of the ordinary expression on his normally passive face. "What's wrong?" she asked him. At his raised eyebrows to indicate he didn't know what she was asking about, she elaborated.
"What's the strange look for?" she defined.
Berret realized then that he had been gazing at her in an uncharacteristic fashion, and that he suddenly felt what was a tiny smile on his lips. For some unknown reason, he felt more content that usual at the girl's presence... and with the touch of her hand.
"I do not know," he confessed honestly, "I have a feeling that..."
"A feeling that what?" she asked after he'd paused for a few microts.
Berret suddenly shook his head. "Nothing... it is probably the effects of my injury. The microbes need more repair time before I'm fully recovered," he suggested.
"Yeah, maybe that's it," Chiana agreed and smiled warmly down at him once more. "Maybe you'll remember what it was another time."
"Perhaps," Berret replied, "Perhaps some other time."
"Well, its about time you woke up," said the mirror image as it informally patted him on the chest.
The figure was crouched over him and it moved out of the way as the ex-assassin bolted upright.
The man gave the Shrike a lopsided grin that Berret strangely felt looked out of place on his own features and went on, "Good to see you're a fast recoverer, bucko. You had me worried for a few minutes there. Thought maybe you kicked the bucket or sumthin' on me."
Berret narrowed his eyes at the apparition as he recalled several tales that John Crichton had told him about beings using images from his past in attempts to trick or drive him insane. The ex-Enforcer quickly decided that he was most likely in some similar situation, but he could not remember how he had come to be there.
Never-the-less, he determined the best way to get answers was to make a preemptive strike and force what he need to know from his apparent double.
Without warning, Berret rolled to his feet and sprang at the other man, catching him off guard. The Shrike's hand locked around the other's neck as he used his weight to bear the doppelganger to the ground.
Berret applied what he thought was enough pressure to restrict the specter's airflow. Oddly, he immediately felt as if some invisible hand were choking him in return. After it's initial look of surprise, the clone's face settled into a look of mild amusement.
"Are you having fun?" it asked with no apparent distress despite Berret's iron grip on his throat.
The Shrike squeezed harder and felt the invisible hold on his own neck tighten in response.
The other Berret rolled his eyes. "In case you haven't figured it out yet, bright boy. Hurting me won't help. You're just hurting yourself."
The ex-assassin loosened his hold and the grip at his throat did likewise.
"This is not possible," Berret said. "Who are you?"
The other image made a strange face and then twisted his lip up as if in deep thought.
"Ahhhh.... Just a guess," he finally said in a light mocking tone, "You maybe?" His eyes narrowed somewhat as if to say he thought Berret wasn't very smart. "Who the hell do you think I am?" it asked sarcastically.
Berret tightened his hold a bit and felt it again in his own neck. He ignored the feeling and leaned in to snarl in the other man's face. "I know who you are suppose to appear as, that does not make it so. Tell me who you really are and where I am, or I will twist your head off."
The other him smiled. "Go ahead and try," he said with little concern. "And when you wake up again maybe you'll think twice before trying self-decapitation another time. As for who I am, I'm you... or rather the you that use to be before you got lost in space." The man grinned wickedly up at him and hummed a strangely familiar tune for a few microts. "A word of advice," the lookalike said when it stopped humming the tune, "If you run into a guy named Doctor Smith - don't trust him. As for where we are? I dunno... you'll have to tell me, you're the one who brought us here."
"I've never been here nor have I ever seen you before," Berret spat back.
The other Berret rolled his eyes again. "What? They got no mirrors where you are? And of course you've never been here before, brain surgeon. Here's nowhere, look around, all you see is black."
The Shrike took a moment to study their surroundings. Indeed all he could see was a black space around them. No sound echoed back giving the hint of a room. Instead all he got was a feeling of a vast open space that he couldn't see nor make out how far it extended.
"That still does not explain you," he told the prone man.
"Let me up and I'll tell you what I can," the double offered.
Grudgingly Berret let him rise. The double made no sudden or threatening moves, but he did rub dramatically at his throat as he sat upright.
"You know, you have a real anger management problem, bub," the clone complained. "You should go see a head shrink and get them sorted out."
"I'm waiting," Berret said with a displeased frown. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"
The man smiled like he had a secret again.
"I've already told you, I'm you," he replied, "And I'm here cuz you've been looking for me?"
"That is a lie," Berret said.
"Really?" answered the other Berret with a mock look of surprise. "You and that hot blue babe haven't been mucking around in your head looking for who you use to be? Well... surprise!" the doppelganger said with an exaggerate flourish of his hands, "Here I be in all my splendor!" He then extended his right hand outward in the greeting Berret had seen John and Sean use on occasion. "I'm Jared by the way," he added.
Berret ignored the offered hand. "That's impossible," he said.
"Why?" asked Jared as he withdrew his hand, not at all looking offended by the rude snub. "Too Twilight Zone-ish for you?"
"People do not meet their past selves," Berret replied.
"Well, in case ya ain't noticed," Jared said and than lowered his voice to a stage whisper, "We ain't exactly ordinary people."
Berret frowned again at his mirror image.
"I have had enough of this," he growled lowly. "Tell whoever sent you that I am through with playing whatever game they have in mind."
Without waiting the Shrike turned and picking a random direction, strode purposely away.
"Where ya going?" asked the being who called himself Jared. He began following a few paces behind the irate Enforcer.
"To find away out of here," was all Berret would reply. His image halted in place.
"You're wasting your time," his image advised.
"Its mine to waste."
"Suit yourself," Jared called after him. "Nice leathers by the way!"
Berret kept walking and for the first time looked down at his own appeared. He was indeed wearing Peacekeeper leather as he sometimes did aboard Moya. His apparition he had noted wore trousers made out of some sort of blue canvas material, a long sleeve shirt apparently made out of a darker blue cloth, and heavy boots similar to those Crichton wore. He set the observations aside and concentrated on finding a way out of where he had been brought against his will.
Several microns of walking revealed nothing new to the Shrike. No matter how far he traveled, he was still only able to discern just a few drec in any direction around him. Only the ground appeared to be solid and it never changed from its dark gray color. Oddly enough as dark as it was, his augmented sight had not kicked it. He idly wonder if something had been done to effect his microbe enhancements, but remembering the strength he felt in his arms as he attempted to throttle the fake Berret, he disregarded that apprehension.
A little further on, he saw a dim shape start to form ahead of him. He quickened his pace as he realized it was somebody reclining on the ground. He uttered a burning curse when he discovered it was the mirror Berret once again.
"Back so soon?" asked Jared casually as he cleaned his nails with a similar device he's seen Chiana use in the past. He folded the small bit of metal up and slipped it into a pocket before rolling over on his side to prop himself up on one elbow to gaze at Berret. "I told you, you were wasting your time," he said.
Berret glanced around, he was sure he had traveled in a relatively straight line. There was no way he could have circled back without knowing. The other man must have some way of traveling around that allowed him to get ahead of the Shrike.
"How did you get here ahead of me?" Berret demanded to know.
Jared shrugged casually. "I didn't," he said, "You left about ten minutes ago in that direction." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the area behind him. "And you just walked up from that direction." He than pointed toward were Berret had appeared from. "I've been waiting right here where you left me."
"That is not possible," the ex-assassin said.
Jared shrugged again. "If you say so," was all he replied.
"There has to be a way out of here," Berret said more to himself.
"There probably is," Jared agreed, seeming to lose some interest in the conversation.
"Then where? How do we get out?"
"Dunno," the double replied, "I imagine we'll get out when's it time to get out."
Berret looked at Jared with a look of growing frustration.
"And do you have a idea of when that will be?" he asked.
Jared sighed heavily and rolled up into a sitting position with his legs crossed.
"I suppose when our business is finished here," the fake Berret responded. "For a guy full of questions, you certainly enjoy asking all the wrong ones."
"You don't seem to be too concerned that we are trapped here - wherever here is," Berret said.
A small sphere made out of some rubber substance appeared somehow in Jared's hand and he began to bounce it on the ground before him. He'd drop it and let it bounce once off the floor before catching it, and then repeated the process.
"I have nowhere to go and all the time in the universe to get there," the double said, "So I'm not in any hurry at all."
"How nice for you," Berret answered dryly.
"Thems' the breaks," said the other. He then looked back up at Berret and smiled, still bouncing the small ball and catching it without looking. "You on the other hand should be in a big hurry to get back to the real world."
"Why's that?" Berret asked with some curiosity now.
Jared gave him a wolfish grin. "Come on!" he said. "We're both guys here. If I had a hot gray babe like Chiana waiting for me... do you think I'd be sticking around here wasting time talking to myself? No offense meant."
"Well, you have failed miserably there," Berret told him.
"Yeah, subtlety was never one of my strong points," Jared admitted, "Still, if I were you, I'd never leave the bedroom with that chick." The double wiggled both eyebrows suggestively at the Shrike.
"I am NOT having this conversation with YOU," Berret said firmly and than turned as if he meant to walk away again.
"Okay, have a nice walk. See ya back here in another ten minutes."
Berret paused and decided the clone was right, it would be no use to try walking away again. Whatever was holding them there would just bring them together once more.
"I would rather we did not talk about Chiana any further," the ex-assassin told the other man when he reluctantly turned back. The double smiled at him with that lopsided grin again.
"Hey, just teasing, dude," Jared replied, "Lighten up a bit. Besides admit it - she is smokin'. And you both got the hots for each other."
Berret faced off with the image of himself, verbally pouncing on the other man.
"And your comment only goes to prove you are not who you claim to be... or you would know..."
Jared snorted contemptuously and cut him off.
"... Would know that Chiana couldn't care about me," the double finished in a deep voice meant to scorn Berret. "Boo-hoo and whine - whine. God, do you know how sick I am of that crap? It gets old after awhile."
Jared's face actually had a look of minor annoyance on it. The first serious emotion Berret had seen the other man display since waking up and meeting him. "Yeah, the Scarrans screwed you big time - get the hell over it!" Berret's eyes opened a little wider in surprise at the retort. "What? You think you're the only one who got the crappy end of the stick from the scaly bastards in this deal. Look at me. I've lost everything - I'm never going to get be me again. I'm just some faded memory locked up in the back of your pointed little head, a few scattered neurons bouncing around and occasionally misfiring. Do you see me bitching about it? No! I had a life too, a beautiful girl who loved me, a home and family, a job I enjoyed and was good at. And then one day some wombats in space suits decided to beam me up and take me for a little joyride on their space ship... and then I stopped being me when some Scarran toad locked a collar around my neck."
Jared had stood up sometime during his speech and was standing face-to-face with the ex-Enforcer. Berret suddenly had the feeling this moment is what the mirror image of himself had been waiting for.
"You have no idea of what's been handed to you, do you?" Jared questioned. The double made a slow circuit around the ex-Enforcer as if inspecting him for visible flaws. Berret sensed Jared wasn't really expecting an answer to the question so he remained silent and listened, feeling he was going to have the answers he sought soon. Jared smiled as if he recognized that Berret was finally catching on to the objective of their meeting. "I would give anything to be in your place," he went on to say, and then sadly shook his head. "But it's too late for that. My time is over, and my life no longer exists. There's only you now... and you have a chance to make a life for yourself. Listen close, because this is the most important... the only answer, I have to offer you. That beautiful soul loves you and you love her. Don't let it pass you by and make everything that I have lost for nothing."
Somewhere along the line the doppelganger went from a clownish annoyance to some sort of educator for Berret. Still it was hard for the ex-assassin to make himself believe in what the other man was telling him.
"You're beginning to understand," said the clone with a sincere smile that time.
"Chiana deserves..." Berret started to say, but Jared held up one hand to halt the comment. Despite his will to debate the issue with the image of himself, the words died on his lips as the Shrike found he couldn't continue on with his refutation for some reason. Something deep inside him was in-tune with the double and its message, whether he understood it totally or not.
"I know... but it doesn't matter," Jared told him. "Death is part of living. What has happened, what will happen, is not all your fault. Someday, probably not today or anytime soon, you will come to believe that."
The man calling himself Jared beamed easily at Berret.
"You think I can change that much? That I can believe what you've told me?" Berret asked.
Jared shrugged and an impish grin reappeared. "Well, I'm betting the farm on it that you can. After all, why are you and the sexy blue chick trying to dredge me up for if you don't want to change somewhere inside yourself? Some part of you believes there is something better inside you."
"I wanted answers as to who I once was," Berret replied. "Perhaps now I will have them."
Jared shook his head and gave a lopsided smirk. Around them the area started to lighten, though Berret could still not see anything noteworthy.
"I'm afraid it's still not going to be that easy for you," Jared said to him.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well, you're quite deep in your psyche... way in the part that's still locked away by the collar's affects and that wall you've put up to protect yourself. It's only a messed up twist of fate that's landed you here for this short time," Jared explained. "I'm afraid you're not going to be able to recall most of what when on here when you wake up - at least, not consciously."
Berret looked betrayed, his anger started to rise once more at the other man and the unfairness of the situation.
"You're telling me I'm not going to remember any of this!" he almost shouted. "What good is telling me if I'm not going to be able to use it?"
"I don't make the rules, dude... I just play the game," Jared said.
"That does not help," Berret responded, "I will not even remember meeting you here? I'll forget everything?"
Jared cocked his head in a Chiana-like way and grinned.
"Well, not it the way you're thinking about remembering me," he explained. "Bits and pieces of me and what we talked about will come through time-to-time. You probably wouldn't understand where they come from... but I'll be that little voice in your head whispering advice, or that feeling that makes you jump and do something without thinking it through. You'll have to learn to trust me and believe I'll never steer you wrong."
"That will be difficult," Berret admitted.
Jared chuckled. "You got that right, chum. Have you been inside your head lately?"
Despite his frustration, Berret found himself cracking a grin with his splitting image. He indeed had a very good idea of how muddled up his mind could be at times.
"All of your answers don't reside in who you were," Jared went on to say, "The important ones rest in whom are you going to be? What you make is the true judge of the man."
The light around them was growing stronger and Berret instinctively knew that it was time to leave.
The Shrike looked at the other man and for the first time realized that all his suspicions had left him long ago. Jared seemed to sense what the other man was feeling and his eyes narrowed in tight pleasure that Berret had finally accepted him for what he appeared to be.
"Who are you really... exactly?" Berret asked as he felt himself being pulled out of the world he was in.
Jared grinned widely and let out a joyous chuckle. He held up his left hand. Something warm glowed at his fingertips with a blurry light.
"Haven't you guessed?" he asked gently. Berret shook his head. The double's gaze turned warm and full of fondness, he held the ball of light at his finger up to Berret's forehead. Berret felt no danger and instead a wave of calm settled over him. "Hope. I'm what's left of your hope."
Saying that, Jared touched Berret's forehead with the radiance at his fingers and then Berret felt himself whisked away to somewhere else.
Something stung his face and Berret felt sudden annoyance at the irritation.
The minor pain came once more and the Shrike opened his eyes getting ready to swat at something.
"Retty!" Chiana seemed to shout just hentas from his face.
"What?" Berret replied while staying his hand from striking. His voice sounded groggy and his arm felt filled with lead shielding compound. Something told him that he doubted he could lift the limb to hit anything if he had too at the moment.
"He's awake," Chiana said to someone off to one side and out of his view. Malika appeared in the edge of his vision peering downward at him, a pair of cardiac paddles in her hands.
"Well, its about time," the young Delvian said, "If I'd up the voltage anymore, we'd been cooking him."
Zhaan's head poked into view next.
"At any rate, it worked and his heart started beating again," the older priestess said. "Jared, how many fingers am I holding up?"
The woman held a pair of blue digits in front of Berret's eyes and moved them back and forth. The Shrike automatically tried tracking them and felt the motion make him abruptly dizzy.
"Two," Berret answered and weakly swatted at her hand, "Stop that, you're making me sick."
Zhaan smiled with relief. "I believe he will recover," she told the others.
"What happened?" Berret asked.
"You tangled with one of Moya's main Caloric feeds and came out on the loosing end," Chiana told him.
"Did I?"
The room had come into better focus and Berret was able then to see Crichton when he spoke from across the room.
"Oh yeah," said John, "Fifty-thousand hietc'-volts worth of positive direct current. Blew you clean across the ion backwash chamber. You're lucky the current shunts weren't in cycle-mode or there would have been nothing left of you to scrape up. Arc's like a son-of-a-bitch as it was. I told you - red cable to hemmond-side juncture, not blue."
"Sorry," replied Berret, "How did I get out?"
John held up his hands, both of which had been freshly bandaged for some unknown injuries.
"Let's just say, you owe me one," the human answered.
Berret nodded in understanding. "Sorry again," he said and let his head fall back on the med-bed's pillow.
"That will teach you to pay better attention when somebody tells you something," Chiana scolded. "You don't always know everything."
"That would be the wise course," Zhaan added.
Malika was storing the paddles away in a nearby cabinet.
"Unless you really feel like killing yourself next time," the younger Delvian muttered.
"See?" the Nebari asked, letting her face relax into a familiar smirk now that the emergency had passed. "We all agree - you're a lunkhead," she teased.
John sighed and stretched out and then rubbed at the small of his back with the back of his fists.
"You'll get no argument there from me," he told the group, "Andar and D'argo got the shorts fixed in the backwash chamber's power grid and Moya wasn't hurt, so if you're done with me Zhaan... I'm heading for my quarters for a little shut-eye to rest my battered body."
"Perfectly fine, John. I am finished with your treatment," replied the Delvian.
Crichton and Malika left the med bay, followed shortly by Zhaan, who left instructions for Berret to get some rest.
"How are you feeling?" Chiana asked when they were alone.
"Fairly well flattened," replied the Shrike wearily.
The gray girl smiled lightly from her seat beside the bed. "I can imagine, you give us quite a scare... especially when we thought you might have blown Moya up."
The ex-Enforcer became visibly distressed at the comment and almost tried to sit up. Chiana pinned him back down before he could rise.
"Sorry! Just teasing... Moya wasn't in any danger of exploding," she told him.
"As Sean says... 'Your bedside manner sucks'," Berret said with a frown.
The girl laughed easily. "If you don't like it, I can send Rygel down to sit with you."
Berret snorted. "He's probably upset that I'm still alive."
Chiana shook her head. "No, he said you have no possessions worth taking... and he knows I know where you keep all the good ones anyway."
"Your concern is touching," the Shrike replied sarcastically.
Chiana giggled. "No, I think I'd rather have you around for a little longer instead of all your possessions. I'm not tired of you yet." Berret snorted at the comment. "Do you remember much about the accident?" the woman asked, changing the subject a bit. The ex-assassin frowned as he thought.
"No, I don't remember much at all," he finally concluded. "Just that Crichton and I were working on routine maintenance in the ion backwash chamber... and I was suppose to connect a bypass. Nothing after that."
"How about while you were..." Chiana started to say and then paused.
"Dead?" the man offered.
Chiana half-nodded and half-shook her head in only a way that the Nebari girl seemed able to do, whenever Berret had tried to copy the gesture, it left him with a slight headache.
"I prefer the phrase 'stubbornly refusing to breathe'," the girl supplied with a hint of unease.
Berret felt an unusual warm feeling at the Nebari female's concern. He hadn't intended to alarm her by doing something foolish he was sure, but her worry over him gave him a strange feeling of security. Something about the way she was looking at him just than triggered another thought that fluttered just outside his mind's grasp. He struggled internally to pin the sensation down but it eluded him.
"No, I don't remember anything while I was 'unconscious'," he said.
"Maybe that's for the best," Chiana told him as she brushed at a lock of hair on his forehead. She noticed the slightly out of the ordinary expression on his normally passive face. "What's wrong?" she asked him. At his raised eyebrows to indicate he didn't know what she was asking about, she elaborated.
"What's the strange look for?" she defined.
Berret realized then that he had been gazing at her in an uncharacteristic fashion, and that he suddenly felt what was a tiny smile on his lips. For some unknown reason, he felt more content that usual at the girl's presence... and with the touch of her hand.
"I do not know," he confessed honestly, "I have a feeling that..."
"A feeling that what?" she asked after he'd paused for a few microts.
Berret suddenly shook his head. "Nothing... it is probably the effects of my injury. The microbes need more repair time before I'm fully recovered," he suggested.
"Yeah, maybe that's it," Chiana agreed and smiled warmly down at him once more. "Maybe you'll remember what it was another time."
"Perhaps," Berret replied, "Perhaps some other time."