Shapeshifters

"I want to deal," Bell says, after AlterBell shoots him full of a solution that seems to ameliorate his phase-sickness. The exit triangulation of Bell's gateway sits cozily in the AlterLab, but the possibility of an enemy incursion doesn't bother him: there's nothing (yet) that the Other Side needs from his own.

"I don't know how you can be me and still be unable to accept reality," AlterBell says. "This isn't an issue on which we can compromise. The risk to our universe is too great." He paused. "But you do understand our offer? We can bring you here: you, and Nina, Walter, Elizabeth, Peter..." AlterBell ticks off names on his fingers. "No one who matters to you needs to die."

The offer holds too many unsavory implications for Bell to find it comforting in any way. "All I want is what you know," Bell says. "Information. Maybe we can solve this thing for both sides."

"You don't want to know what I know. Trust me, I'm you."

Bell tries not to narrow his eyes. "I brought you something," he said, opening his fist. "A peace offering. Or a bribe, however you want to take it. It's a prototype."

"Of what?"

William Bell held up a box with a dangling three-pronged extension. "I can make your 'hardware' a little more versatile." It's a calculated move to buy time, to steer AlterBell's attacks in a direction they could see and detect, and he's sure his Alter will see that. But Bell hopes the leap from clones to shapeshifters will be too tempting to pass up.

It is.


The next batch of mercury men shows up in Montauk looking like schoolteachers and bus drivers. Nobody even knows they are mercury men until they try to infiltrate Brookhaven National Lab on a school trip to the National Weather Service. Under detention they suffer seizures until silvery blood runs out of their ears.

Walter finally takes Bell's dire warnings to heart. He starts to ponder ways of making soldiers.