Previously on Twin Dilemma...
I awoke on my own couch, Awesome [aka Devon], Ellie's boyfriend, hovering over me. He was an attractive blond haired nurse, with blue eyes and a nice smile. Almost like a typical jock, but he was a doctor, and a really good one at that.
"Em." he murmured, waving a little flashlight in front of my eyes, testing for pupil response I supposed.
I groaned. "Did they get the ninja?"
He flashed me a confused look. "You mean the robber?"
I squinted. "There was a ninja. He was in my half of the apartment, tried to take..." my mind swam. "Tried to take Chuck's computer."
Devon helped me into a seated position and draped a blanket over my legs. "They got away, but I guess Chuck's computer got destroyed in the process."
I sighed, sinking down into the pillows and blankets on the couch. "Do I have a concussion?"
He waved the flashlight again, then nodded. "A little one, and you busted your head on the wall, Morgan said."
My fingers prodded my forehead, and I found butterfly tape right above the end of my right eyebrow. I winced. "Where'd they go?"
He shrugged, and sat on the coffee table across from me. "He left mumbling about buying new locks."
I nodded uncertainly, yawning widely a moment later. "Is it okay if I get some rest?"
"Yeah. Want to sleep over on our couch? Or will you be okay here?"
I glanced at my bedroom door, which was down the short hallway to my left. "I'll just sleep in my bed and lock my window."
"Alright." he stood up, and helped me up. "Ellie's on her way home now. I called and told her what happened."
I smiled faintly. "Thanks Devon."
He helped me stagger into my room, and I plopped onto bed.
I looked down at my jeans and shoes. "I got the rest, thanks Awesome." I smiled thankfully, yawning again.
He nodded once, and left.
I changed into my pajamas, took the Advil he left me, and fell right asleep.
The next morning, I called in sick to work, due to the splitting headache I still had, but ended up going over to Buy More with Chuck's lasagna lunch Ellie had left in the fridge from last night.
When I arrived, a blonde girl was at the counter again, and when I got closer, I saw it was Sarah.
I nodded politely at her, and she smiled back, studying me curiously.
"Great." she replied to Chuck, and left.
Chuck and I went back into the break room, and ate our lasagna.
"What was that all about?" I said in between bites, smiling curiously at my brother.
"I have a date." his cheeks grew slightly pink and he chuckled nervously.
"AWWWWW!" I almost shrieked. "Chuckie's got a daaatee!" I teased in a sing song voice. "Chuckie's got a date!"
He chuckled nervously again and told me to shush it.
I laughed and we talked about this Sarah girl for a few minutes longer.
"Chuck." Big Mike stuck his head into the break room. He eyed me, always a bit annoyed when I was in the employee section of the store. He never said anything though, because I would occasionally bring the Nerd Herd and Big Mike doughnuts if I was near a Krispy Kreme.
"You can head home if you want. Store's slow." he shrugged and headed back to his office.
"Let's go get you ready, buddy!" I leaped up out of my seat, ignoring the tipsy turning of my vision, and ruffled his hair.
He shook his head, grinning. "I'm not a Ken doll you know."
I grinned widely back at him. "You know I hate Barbies."
We headed home, Chuck and Morgan in his Nerd Herder, and myself in my little Mini Cooper.
"GUESS WHAT!" I squealed, running into the living room to jump up and down.
Ellie sat up, excited. "What?"
Chuck walked in behind me, rubbing the back of his neck. "He has a date!" Morgan announced, leaping onto his best friend's back.
"Way to go, Chuck. That's awesome." Awesome said smiling at Ellie.
"Who?" Ellie asked, and Morgan opened his mouth, probably to rant about how hot and blonde she was, but I cut him off.
"Never mind who, what's he going to wear!" My sister and I met eyes and we dragged Chuck into his room, and spend the next hour throwing clothes at him and messing with his hair.
Ironically enough, my nerdy yet amazing brother was technically older than me by two minutes, but it didn't matter.
While we got him ready, he was a bit nervous, and our twin connection we always had made me nervous too!
He just met the girl, and I had gotten a weird vibe off of her at first...
No Em! I chided myself. Stop being paranoid and let the poor kid go on a date!
~0~
Chuck was wandering outside in the courtyard, when Ellie threw flowers in my hand and shooed me towards our brother. "Hey!" I handed him the flowers. "Ellie says these are leftovers from your birthday party." I adjusted his shirt, and smoothed out the collar before patting his shoulder once. "She says to remind you, no talking about Jill."
He nodded once. "Got it."
Jill was Chuck's college girlfriend. They were both into the same thing, and were really close, until his roommate and close friend, Bryce Larkin slept with her and got him kicked out of Stanford. Let's just say he was super sad for a while and they aren't friends anymore either.
Ellie walked up behind us and we shared a smile. "They grow up so fast." I pretended to wipe a tear from my eye and Ellie laughed.
"Aces, Charles. You're aces." my big sister quoted Dad, and I smiled a bit.
"A dad quote." I mumbled.
"I'm impressed, Love you two." Chuck hugged us and we wished him luck.
Morgan came up and sniffled, flashing my sister a wide eyed puppy-dog face. He always had a crush on her. I thought it was silly, and Ellie always thought it was disgusting. Poor Mor.
"Go home, Morgan." Ellie said, she held up her hands, and shooed him away. "Go home."
He glanced at me and I chuckled. "I have...stuff to do. See you tomorrow."
He frowned a bit but waved and headed over to his bike.
That was partially true, I did need to get some laundry done.
Morgan rode off, and Ellie and I went back inside.
"I'm so happy for him!" Ellie squealed and grinned widely at me. "Now if we could only get you someone!" she nudged me.
I groaned and slapped my forehead, running my hand down over my face. "Ellie!"
"What?" she batted her eyes innocently at me and laughed. "I'm going to go read, see you in the morning." she gave me a quick hug and retreated to her room.
I went to mine and dumped my laundry out onto the floor so I could separate it into colors to wash.
Better get started...
About an hour later, my phone rang. I dug in my purse for it, before giving up and dumping the contents onto my bed.
Bingo.
"Chuck?" I asked, wondering why he would call me during his date.
I barely heard Sarah's voice in the background. "Listen to me, Chuck. Those men will hurt you. They're from the NSA, and they're after you."
My eyes widened and realized he must have pocket dialed me.
"Me?" I heard my brother respond incredulously. "Why, why, why, why me? I'm nobody. I'm a supervisor of the Nerd Herd at a Buy More. Maybe one day I'll be assistant store manager and I don't even know if I want that job! You – you know what? That's not your problem. But that is."
She gasped and the sound of crunching metal and glass breaking filled my ears.
What should I do? Call the police? ...I don't even know where they are!
What follows next is only what I am told later on.
Chuck stumbled out of the car and staggered around, shocked that he flattered a CIA agent. While the other car was racing towards them, having backed up after the impact, Sarah threw a knife at the 'emergency blockade button' and the car skidded into it. The other car was effectively stopped and destroyed.
"Request emergency evac. Track location: we're on foot." Sarah panted out, and I heard her shout, "Let's go!" at my brother.
The sounds of their feet hitting the pavement and just running in particular was all I heard for a few minutes.
"How well do you know Bryce Larkin?" she suddenly seemed to ask.
My mouth dropped open again and I turned the volume up, curious and desperate to hear more.
"Wh – how - how do you know Bryce?" Chuck asked in disbelief.
I couldn't exactly make out everything she said, but all I could hear was worked and CIA.
The next few sentences were jumbled too, but then I heard rogue spy and the connection seemed to get better.
"He - he sent - he sent me an email." he panted out, and I could picture a look of terror on his face.
"Did you open it?"
"Yeah. It was - it was, uh, a line from Zork-"
Zork? I gnawed on my lip. Why did that sound familiar? Was it one of his many played computer games?"
"What?" Sarah voiced my confusion, much to my surprise.
"Zork. It's, uh, it's a video game that we used to play. There was a riddle and I solved it and, uh, pictures. Lots and lots of pictures." My vision blurred and I remembered standing behind my brother, the millions of pictures flashing before our eyes and seeming to sear themselves into my brain.
"You saw them?" the blonde agent seemed to be absolutely flabbergasted. "Your computer - did you back it up? Is there an external drive?"
"It crashed a week ago." all was quiet until my brother managed to stutter out, "Wait, wait. Wasn't I supposed to look at those pictures?"
Sarah sighed, and I heard the wind howl. Were they on a roof?
"I may have to aim my gun at you, so just don't freak out." her voice was so gentle and soft, I barely caught it.
"Why?"
I heard another male voice, and the line went dead.
I blinked rapidly, trying to figure out if this was all some crazy dream, or if my brother really did have a gun aimed at him on top of a roof.
The washer's loud beeping blared from the small closet in the hallway, and my heart jumped.
"I guess I could just go watch TV, and wait for Chuck to come home..." I mumbled aloud.
If he comes home...
I turned on the television and found the news was on, talking about some General Stanfield. At the mention of that name, I blurred again.
I saw the schematics to a building, the face of some random demolition expert from Serbia, what looked to be a bomb, more schedules, even more pictures flashed and then everything came back into focus.
Was someone – the Serbian? - going to blow up that building?
The adventurous side of me screamed to go do something. If there were CIA people with Chuck, then he would tell them about this, right? He watched the pictures too, and Ellie said he didn't feel good...
Did we both have these...flashes?
I leaped up from my bed and snatched the keys off my dresser, running to my Mini Cooper.
Somehow, I knew the way to this building – the hotel – and knew which way would be fastest. I had to do something. I couldn't let people die. It wasn't right.
After speeding down the highway, parking in the nearest free parking lot, I was sprinting down the street towards the building. I caught sight of a dark head of hair go into the building, followed by a burly man and a blonde – Sarah – and knew that I was at the right place.
Of course you're at the right place, Em. You flashed. A voice whispered.
I finally reached the doors and ran inside, still following the mental map in my head.
"Through there!" I heard Chuck yell, and rounded the corner to catch another glimpse of the same people run into a room.
When I ran into the room, a few people turned and glanced at me curiously, but didn't seem to think much. Chuck and I both caught sight of the tray and cart with the white table cloth draped over it at the same moment. I stayed where I was, not wanting to get myself involved. Two agents and my brother should be able to deal with it...
I gnawed on my lip anxiously, staring at them.
The burly man glanced at me, looked away and looked again, narrowing his eyes. He moved his head to the side a bit, before being interrupted by a man in a suit.
The man whispered something to the other.
Stanfield, who was on stage, looking a bit flustered, said. "There's, uh, ladies and gentleman, we may have..." he trailed off and I focused on my brother again. I could tell the man was trying to see where I went, but I assumed he couldn't see, as some people stood up and tried to exit.
My brother's phone rang, and I saw him answer it, an exasperated look on his face.
I quickly made my way around the crowd, finally seeing the same sort of laptop Chuck had showed me before. A Prism Express.
It was counting down, with under a minute left.
The Irene Demova virus!
I whipped out my cell, my fingers flying over the keys
use I. demova virus! I selected Chuck's name and hit send.
He got in seconds later, and his eyes widened, looking around. He seemed to notice the impending doom, and his fingers flew across the keys. The others got a disgusted look on their faces. I knew that it worked by the excited look on Chuck's face.
"I did it! I did it. I, I defused a real bomb! I defused a real bomb! I defused a real bomb!...what if I was wrong?" by this time, he looked like he was going to be sick.
I noticed them start to leave, so I ran for the exit, not wanting to be seen. Something about them seemed ominous.
I hid in the bushes, and listened as they talked.
"What about my sisters?!" Chuck demanded, eyes wide.
"We were just-" Sarah broke in, before he cut her off.
"No, no, no, you listen. You have to leave my family and my friends out of this."
The large man laughed and grabbed his sleeve. "We'll see."
He tugged his arm away, to no avail. "Look, Bryce sent that email to me. I'm the one remembering all your secrets. Which means you have to listen to me. Both of you. And right now, I'm gonna go home."
"You, you need me." he took off, and once the agents were a bit away, I ran after Chuck.
"CHUCK!" I hissed, panting.
He turned on his heel, and he gave me a huge hug. "Em!" he pulled away to look at me. "What are you doing here?"
I swallowed, and looked down. "I flash too..."
His mouth dropped open into a small 'O'.
"What?"
I nodded slowly.
"We can't let them find out!" he looked around the parking lot in paranoia. "Where's your car?"
~0~
When I woke the next morning, I knew that Chuck had probably spent the whole night at the beach, staring into the distance. He was having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that his life was probably going to start falling apart, what with the government stalking him practically.
I got up and yanked out my braid, my hair falling in waves. I didn't feel like putting on any makeup, but I put on some chapstick before getting into my car and driving the block to the beach. When I reached the beach, I saw Sarah getting into her own car, flashing me a charming smile.
"Hey, Emily, right?"
I nodded once. "Sarah, right?"
She nodded back. "He's down there still."
"Okay, thanks." I replied, and locked the car, walking down to the beach.
"Hey." I said softly, sitting next to him. "How are you?"
He shrugged, "As well as I can be, considering I – we -" he said the we softly, before continuing. "Have a government computer in my brain, and a CIA operative telling me to 'trust her'." he sighed, raking a hand through his curly mop of hair. "I just met her, and she wants me to trust her? I mean-" he scoffed dryly. "Come on."
I nodded in agreement. "I don't think I've really come to grips with the fact that I have it too. I haven't been really thinking about it, if I can help it."
His brows were furrowed. "They don't even want you to know, or Ellie – anybody, really! I don't know how they expect me to keep this from the people I love! I mean yeah, they're probably going to be safer that way, but I'm me, I'm not used to keeping secrets! Especially ones this dangerous!"
I glanced at my watch, which read 9:30. I started work in an hour, and so did Chuck.
"I don't know what to tell you." I stood up and offered him a hand, smiling slightly. "C'mon bro, lets get you cleaned up and ready for work."
His dark hazel eyes met mine and he stood up, hugging me tightly.
"I'm so glad I have you as a sister."
I beamed at him. "I'm glad that we're the same age, too! It makes it easier to talk to you."
He nodded in agreement, and we headed back to our cars.
~0~