In the depths of INL's Biotechnology Research labs, Carolyn Wheeler hefted a metal pipe and swung at the Typhon that looked like Dr. Morgan Yu, CEO of TranStar.

It felt wrong, even as the pipe went wide when the Mimic threw herself backwards. This Mimic had saved her life several times over in the last thirty six hours or so. What's more, they'd followed a trail of evidence from TranStar's Yakima Facility to INL's Critical Infrastructure Test Range Complex. Evidence that suggested Dr. Yu was the responsible party. The CEO had tried to kill her with a hacked Operator who smuggled in a Mimic, all to presumably frame Alex Yu's experiment. An experiment she now had to kill.

It didn't make sense. Killing this Morgan didn't make sense. But when Dr. Yu went around one table to flank Morgan, Carolyn went around the other way to help box her ally in.

"Why?" Morgan asked, and though her eyes tracked Carolyn, the question was obviously meant for the CEO wearing a TranStar Uniform Suit.

"Only one iteration of me ever thought Project Cobalt was a good idea," Dr. Yu answered. With another gesture, she tugged a pistol across the room. It slapped into her palm like it'd been reeled in by non-existent fishing line. "The real me thought it would be a useful diversion for Alex, though. Keep him busy and out of the way."

"Why the Mimic in the Operator?"

Dr. Yu smiled. It was Morgan's smile, except at the edges. "He hadn't terminated you yet. I needed to give him a push. I-"

Evidently, Morgan had just been stalling for time. For even as Dr. Yu was in mid-sentence, the Typhon swept her arm up and sent a crackling burst of energy into the ceiling. Lights fizzled, Sparks spattered and then everything went dark.

Carolyn lunged for Morgan but her pipe swept through empty air. A torch on Dr. Yu's suit snapped on, providing just enough illumination for the PR Director to see the Typhon Morgan slam a kick squarely into Dr. Yu's chest. The CEO flew backwards before the back of her legs caught the edge of a worktable. The impact flipped the woman upside down, dropping her across the floor.

Blinking fiercely for a line of sight in the near pitch blackness, Carolyn staggered when Morgan suddenly appeared in front of her. Another impact, felt but not heard. And Carolyn swayed, her head pounding, caught in the vise of two competing pressures on her will.

What were these powers? She wasn't an expert in Typhon abilities, not the ones that weren't marketed commercially anyway. And these certainly weren't. Through the song in her head, she could hear another melody now. Sang in the same voice but with a different imprint, a sweet lullaby from Morgan to counteract the aggressive appregigos of Dr. Yu's march.

A pistol rang out, deafening in the enclosed space. Carolyn slumped against a wall, just as the lights came back on. She saw Dr. Yu up again, pistol still firing at Morgan. For her part, the Typhon simply kicked again, hooking her foot under a workbench and literally flipping it end over end. The massively heavy metal table slammed into Dr. Yu, pinning the woman to the floor.

"Don't kill her!" Carolyn shouted as Morgan crouched.

"What?"

"We need her alive!"

"I have no intention of killing Morgan Yu," Morgan snapped as she closed upon her original, still pinned beneath the table.

But then the Typhon glanced back at Carolyn. The distraction almost killed Morgan. Dr. Yu punched through the steel composite workbench, grabbed Morgan by the front of her corporate uniform and yanked her face first into the table's surface. Then the CEO shoved hard and toppled the table back over the Mimic.

"Dr. Yu!" Carolyn called out, desperate to stop a conflict she still didn't fully understand.

Then Dr. Yu did the incomprehensible. She raised her pistol, pointed it at Carolyn and promptly shot her squarely in the chest. Unbelievable pain followed as the round punched through her breast bone and hit vertebrae. Carolyn barely felt it when her body dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. Scattered spare Operator parts and pieces of hard drive littered the floor from the upturned workbenches and she involuntarily tumbled a few more when in her body fluttered feebly in reaction to the trauma.

Why in God's name had she not blacked out? Why couldn't she black out? Surely unconsciousness had to be preferable to this misshapen alertness.

An irresistible force suddenly swept over the room. It felt like...well, like nothing Carolyn had ever experienced. An audible clamor rang out and purple seemed to spiral in all directions from the CEO as Morgan tossed the table aside. Dr. Yu's face went wide in shock.

And then the CEO of TranStar turned into a Mimic.

A second later, Morgan lifted the steel workbench and brought it down atop the other Mimic with overwhelming force. The first blow staggered the already stunned monster. A second toppled it. And by the fifth impact, there was nothing more than ink-like greasy blood spread everywhere.

"Morgan…" Carolyn breathed.

But the woman who knelt by her wasn't really Morgan Yu. Neither had been the Morgan Yu already at this facility. It didn't make sense. It didn't make the smallest bit of sense.

"Carolyn, how do you feel?"

It was a ridiculous sentence on the face of it, given she'd been shot. There was surprisingly little pain now, though. Just coldness. And a spreading numbness. Mostly, she just felt surprise. Surprised at a second Mimic. Surprised to be a pawn in all of this. But mostly surprised at how real and raw the look of concern on Morgan's face seemed.

"First class," Carolyn replied. It was hard to get the words out.

"I don't see a medic kit and I'm not sure I could treat your wounds as easily as I was able to regenerate my own." Morgan shook her head, frustration vying with the fear in her expression. "Do you know how I can save you?"

"Am I that bad?"

Morgan sighed, then cupped her face in one palm. "You're perfect."

"Flatterer."

"I don't think any incarnation of Dr. Yu was much given to flattery," Morgan said, the fear giving way to a faint humor.

"Perhaps not," Carolyn allowed. "I suppose that makes you the perfect Morgan then."

"Now who's the flatterer?"

"Would you mind awfully doing me a favor?" Carolyn swallowed once, worked her jaw muscles and continued. "Sam. I have a nephew, Sam. In London Camp. Would you kindly give him a message for me?"

"...Yes.". Morgan's face slipped away from fear and amusement into some kind of impassive mask.

"Just tell him I love him, won't you?"

"There may be a way for you to tell him yourself."

Carolyn's shoulders twitched. If she had to put a name to it, she'd unconsciously tried to sit up a little straighter. Given she couldn't really feel her body, though, she didn't think the intent amounted to much. Still, a leading statement like that deserved asking the obvious question.

"What did you have in mind?"

"As you're aware, Neuromods were originally developed to allow connectomeres to be imprinted on the brains of other humans, using exotic material as a kind of conductor to create the foreign memory. They found other applications, though."

"Such as?"

"You're aware of their medical applications? Treating physical, neurological conditions? Enhancing lifespan? Even augmenting the natural limits of what a human is capable of. Such as stamina and capacity for damage."

Carolyn managed a nod. "Right. I don't suppose you have one of those handy, do you?"

"...Only in a manner of speaking."

"Morgan, do I look like I have the time to play Twenty Questions with you?"

The rather lovely Chinese-German woman smiled. It was still Morgan's smile, as much as Dr. Yu's smile had been Morgan's smile. But this smile was special. Only by looking at this woman did Carolyn realized none of the smiles she'd ever seen on Dr. Morgan Yu had ever been genuine. For this was the first to reach her eyes.

Then the smile slipped away and Morgan bent over her, speaking with fast, fierce intensity.

"I don't have the coding instructions on me to program that Fabricator to create a Neuromod with exactly the right sequence to enhance your body. I could fabricate a blank Neuromod but that won't help you either. So let me tell you what I believe I can do."

"I have the...memory, if you like, of every Neuromod I remember injecting in the Looking Glass simulation that actualized the mirror neurons from Dr. Yu's cell lines. They're a part of me still, as you've already seen. All I can do is make them a part of you."

Carolyn blinked in surprise. "How?"

"I can make myself into a Neuromod, Ms. Wheeler. A Neuromod of my essence, of what Alex made of me and what I've made of myself. If you inject me, it could save you."

That was mad. That was proper mad. How could a Mimic emulate a Neuromod so well as to provide material that could purposefully reprogram a human's mind and body without the weeks of manufacturing the real product had required? To say nothing of the fact that Morgan wasn't actually a Neuromod! What would happen when the Mimic turned back into a human, or any other shape? Would the material she'd left behind in Carolyn's brain change too, killing her?

But beggars couldn't be choosers.

"What will happen to you?" Carolyn asked. The question came out barely more than a whisper. It felt like the edges of the world had begun to close in on her, like the width of her perception was closing in.

"I've never done this before, if that's what you're asking," Morgan said, forcing a chuckle to hide her evident impatience. "I doubt it'll be more harmful to me than, say, a blood transfusion might be to you. Will you?"

Carolyn Wheeler took a deep breath, then nodded. She didn't have time to think this through or argue or ask more questions. The bullet hadn't been immediately fatal but blood loss was blood loss. Even a Neuromod couldn't fix things past a certain point. A point she was rapidly reaching.

"Sod it. Shall we?"

A second later, a Neuromod dropped into Carolyn's waiting palm. Despite the numbing cold in her limbs, she could still lift her arm at least. Good. She hadn't actually known that was still possible.

The cup of the Neuromod Injector fit around her eye socket reasonably well. Ideally, placement was critically important but there was little chance of steady hands here. Really, the only reason she would attempt this folly was that there simply was no other choice.

A faint puff of air preceded a familiar, unwelcome sensation as the Neuromod Injector's needles plunged in.