Jules Hinton's Strange Trip: Chapter 15 by JCH and Kas

         He and Tim were sitting on the front steps to their house.  It was a breezy summer day.  They were talking about getting the band back together, after Jules had told him of the jams in Texas, and how he had felt, sans passing out on-stage.  It had become a running joke between them since he had returned.  Too many Tom Collins.
         Tim patted him on the back, then stood to leave.  He walked in the house, leaving Jules alone watching the cars go by on streets that were so familiar to him.  Tim had said something about getting a couple of glasses of lemonade that was in the refrigerator.  It was good to be back, Jules thought, after so long on the road.  Back among friends and those that loved him.  Where he was safe.
         The door opened behind him again.  "I've been thinking of calling Nikki," he said.  "It's been long enough, don't you think?"  He looked over his shoulder, but Tim was not standing there.  It was The Face.
         "Come on, man.  I'm going to get you out of here."
         Jules was being lifted out of his hospital bed and placed into a wheelchair.  Were they going to run more tests on him?  And why weren't they moving him onto a gurney as they had done before.  The orderly was being rougher on him this time, it seemed.  And then the smell.  The same smell from the desert, an unwashed body.
         The man huffed when he tried to push the chair toward the door.  Jules feet were getting in the way.  He tried to lift them, but to no avail.  That was when he caught a glimpse of the man who had picked him up.  It was looking into a mirror.  His heart jumped; it was The Face.  But why?  He put Jules feet up onto the rests, then pushed him toward the door.
         It was dark in the room.  The curtains were drawn, but he could tell it was night out.  As they moved closer to the door, The Face kicked at something lying in the way.  Someone was lying on the floor.  Jules didn't want to know what had happened to them.  Now they were through the door and speeding down the hall.
         They were going faster now, running into walls.  Jules could hear the man cursing. They took a side hall.  The place seemed empty.  Was it the middle of the night?  Many of the rooms seemed closed, or unused, as they flashed by.  They crashed into a cart, spilling containers of some sort out across the floor.
         Jules saw the elevator ahead.  Still no one.  Where was Nikki?  Where were the doctors and the orderlies?  Into the elevator.  He was facing the back, unable to see anything.  Suddenly there was a shrill sound filling the air.  An alarm.  The Face was cursing now.  Jules heard him fumbling with a gun, making sure the clip was loaded, he guessed.
         The elevator bumped to a halt and the wall before Jules slid away to reveal what looked like the back of a kitchen.  There were all sorts of boxes stacked along the hall, dried goods and napkins and utensils.  He was being pushed toward a pair of double doors at the rear of the room.  The alarm seemed to be growing louder, adding to the unreal fogginess of everything.  He winced as they slammed headlong into the doors, then through them.
         The room they had entered was crisscrossed with many large tables and areas for preparing food.  The Face seemed to have an idea where they were.  He pushed Jules through the lines of tables toward a series of doors near the back of the room.  Then, The Face suddenly stumbled, jerking hard at the handles of the wheelchair until the whole thing tipped, rolling him out onto the tiles.
         Rough hands jerked him up as the Face slung his limp form over a shoulder and staggered past the overturned wheelchair.  From where he was hanging, Jules could see the man's gun, sticking out of the back of his belt.  If only he could...  But it was useless.
         Fresh air brushed his face.  The sound of the fire alarm dropped off, but he could still hear it distantly.  Concrete all around.  A loading area.  There were several hospital vehicles there.  They were heading for one.  A van.  The Face fumbled with the door latch and yanked it open, dropping Jules into the back of the van.
         A gunshot made the man jump suddenly and he spun around and out of Jules' vision.  There was another shot, this one closer, from The Face's gun, and then he was scrambling in over him, one shoe crunching down painfully on Jules' left arm.  He clambered to the front of the van and into the driver's seat.   The van lurched into motion.
         They were leaving.  Why?  Jules felt a little stronger.  He tried to shift his body to look toward the front of the van.  He could hear the Face shouting as he constantly checked the rearview mirrors.  He wasn't sure what the man was yelling about, though he guessed they were being chased by someone from the clinic, or where ever Jules had been held.
         There was another loud grunt from the front if the van.  Then the van swerved broadly and Jules slid across the back of the van against the side.  For a moment, Jules thought the van was going to flip over, but it straightened out for what seemed like several minutes.  The Face was silent now.  Which told Jules that they had got away from who was chasing them.
         The van skidded to a stop.  The Face hopped out of the front.  Jules listened to get a better idea of what was happening.  Was that the sound of a car cranking up?  Doors opening and shutting?  In a moment, the van's back door slung open.  The Face dragged Jules by his feet until he could get a better grip of him.  Then, he was being put in the trunk of a car.  Jules tried to protest, but to no avail.  The Face looked at him for a spilt second before closing the trunk.  In a moment, Jules felt the car lurch forward and onto the main road.
 What was going on?  Why would The Face take him?  And where?
 
         The lights were on in the house.  Jules was feeling stronger now, but he went limp as the Face started dragging him toward the front door.  He didn't see any other cars.  The yard didn't look well tended either.  They were somewhere just outside of Bishopville, and the first light of dawn was shining through the thick trees.  He felt the man's grip on his arm.  His fingers were trembling slightly.  What was he afraid of?
         Once inside, he was abruptly dumped onto a couch near the window.  He could hear the man's boots moving away through the house.  Jules raised his left hand from where it was bent beneath him.  And had to drop it.  Still not enough strength.  He felt dizzy.
         And then the man was back again, dragging a chair across the wooden floor and propping his boots up on an antique stand near the end of the couch.  Jules could see an elderly woman in a gold-rimmed picture frame beyond the boots.  Who was she?  He tried not to think about it.  She could be dead.
         The Face was smoking, sitting uncomfortably close to him.
         "What..." Jules muttered with a thick mouth.
         "What are we doing here?  That's what you want to know, isn't it?  Am I the Angel of Death, or your guardian angel?"  The man chuckled, his eyes unblinking on the window.   "Don't think I haven't asked myself that same question a thousand times.  Hell, maybe I'm both.  Maybe I'm neither.  But aren't you glad I got you out of that death trap?  Of course you are, bubba."
         Jules stared at him intently, at the cold lines in the man's face.  Abruptly he wondered if the same lines were in his face.  The thought added to the numbness the drug had created.  He felt like he was staring at a ghost of himself, seated comfortably before him, smoking with a tense casualness.
         The Face took a pocket watch out of the front pocket of his jeans, something that Jules found disturbing.  The watch looked like one that his father had given him when he was a little boy, before...  Well, before everything.
         "Six o'clock," The Face said, returning the watch to his pocket.  "Shouldn't be long now.  I'd offer you something to eat, but I haven't been keeping the refrigerator stocked.  I guess I'm just not a good host, now am I?  Besides, I can't have you regaining your energy, jumping up and running around now can I?  You might even try to switch on me or something.  And then I'd have to shoot you.  But you already knew that, didn't you?  Only I wouldn't hit you in the arm like you did me.  Still have a nasty scratch from that shot."  He rolled up his sleeve to show Jules a revolting patch of raw skin.  Then, just as Jules' eyes were focusing on that, The Face bent down closer to get in Jules' face.  "Don't think for a second that I won't shoot you in the head.  I will kill you without thinking twice about it.  Just like those National Guardsmen back in Texas."
         Then, he bounced out of his chair, pacing around the room, trying to get the last draws out of an already short cigarette.  "Do you feel her yet?" he asked, glancing at Jules out of the corner of his eyes.  "Or did she tell you about that?  What did she tell you anyway?"  He was watching for some reaction from Jules, any change in his demeanor.  "She's good at telling you what you want to hear, isn't she?  Good at a lot of things, if you know what I mean.  And I think you do.  That was one of the ways she said she was going to get you.  Of course, you're a good enough looking guy, I guess.  But did you really think she was sleeping with you because she wanted you?"  He laughed out loud, watching Jules carefully.  "Hell, man, she had already had me.  That's all it was with you.  Just reliving her past, the past she had with me.  Shit, man, I had had all I wanted from the whore."
         He chuckled to himself as he walked up to the window to scan the front yard.  Then, his expression changed dramatically as he stretched to get a better look.  He reached for his gun, but did not draw it, then looked over at Jules and smiled broadly.
         "Just a deer.  I could have got it if I had had my shot gun.  I guess I'll have time for that later."  He took his seat again, then stood right back up.  "Maybe it's time I make a phone call."  He started to walk out of the room and then paused, his back to Jules.  "Don't go anywhere, bro.  As if you could."  He walked into the kitchen.  But Jules could feel the strength that had been out of him for so long returning.  All he had to do, he thought, was wait.  Wait and watch for an oppurtunity.  He knew that oppurtunity would come.
 He could hear The Face's voice coming from the kitchen.  He guessed that was the intention.  "Yeah, you know who this is.  Didn't think I could do it, did you?  Didn't think I'd be able?  You should have more faith in me, old man..."  He walked back into the doorway, trying to make it look like this wasn't a show for Jules.  "I'll tell you exactly what I want.  I want to see the life leave your wretched body.  I want to see you take your last breath on this earth and go to whatever hell is suited for you.
         "But a guy can't always get everything he wants, now can he?  So I'll settle for a couple million dollars.  And you know what I'll do if I don't get it, don't you?  Yeah, that's right.  I'll kill him.  I'll shoot him through the head, through the heart, through the lungs, the liver.  And then, just for good measure, I'll burn his wretched body.  He won't be of any use to you or anyone else."  He got the pocket watch out again and looked at it.  "I'll give you until two to get this money to me.  But I'm warning you, anything funny, and the Prodigal Son dies and I'm gone.  You got that?  Good.  A few things before I let you go.  I know you've been tracing this call.  I don't care.  But if I see anything out of the ordinary, the deal is off.  If your girl comes, I'll take her with me.  Killing her is too good for that bitch.  Just have the money here at two.  No sooner, no later."
         He slammed the phone down on a table behind him and looked at Jules.  "I guess it's just me and you for the next few hours, bro."
         "I'm not your bro," Jules said weakly.
         "Shit, man, you can talk.  Good.  We can catch up.  You can tell me about your life, the memories of your father, that sort of thing."  He came back and sat in the chair, turning it around and facing Jules.  "I can't imagine the shock you must have felt when you heard that he was your old man.  Man, what a surprise.  Or, then again, maybe I can.  All those years I thought he was my old man."
         "He's not my father."
         "Tell me, how does it feel knowing that the man whose sperm you came from is the same ruthless son-of-a-bitch behind all of this?  I mean, I imagine you've been thinking how you and I are so different from each other, that I must be my father's son, in other words.  Well, bro, looks like the joke is on you.  It may turn out that you and I have more in common than either one of us would have thought."
         "We don't have a thing in common," Jules said.
         The Face broke out into a big grin.  "Yes we do.  Nikki."  He got up and walked around the house, looking out of all windows, before returning to his seat.  "Tell me, Jules, how was she in bed?"
         Jules just glared at the man.  His strength was returning a lot faster now, the adrenaline flowing through him with every word his double spoke.  "She screamed a lot," Jules said.  "Said I was the best fuck she'd ever had."
         The Face turned stone serious, just staring at Jules.  Then, he got up and walked back into the kitchen, and out of sight.  He was on the phone again in no time.  "Yeah, it's me.  It went as planned.  No more hitches.  I think I killed a man though.  No big deal."   And then he was there in the doorway, peering in at Jules and the front window again.  The way he was watching Jules while he was talking made Jules wonder if he was talking into a dial tone.  Who else could he be talking to?
         The Face walked out of sight and out of ear shot.  Jules tried to sit up.  And then Nikki was standing there.  Just for a second.  And then she wasn't.  She had just flicked in, then back out again.  She had come for him.  And she wanted him to know it.
         "Yeah, I know it's not what I said, but things have changed," the Face said.  Jules could barely hear the sound of his voice from the other room.  But it seemed to stop there suddenly.  He could no longer hear the murmur.
         Glass shattered at the back of the house.  It sounded as though the kitchen was exploding.  Bullets.  Someone was shooting into the house.  Jules tried to slump down further into his seat.  He had no idea who was shooting or where the next spray of bullets might come from.  With a tremendous effort he forced himself to slump to the edge of the couch.  And came crashing down onto the floor as another spray of bullets seemed to be tearing through the kitchen.
         Silence everywhere except for the sound of falling glass.  In his mind's eye, he briefly imagined the Face lying in the other room in a pool of blood.  The image soured--it was the image of himself.  But he could not hear the other man moving.  Or cursing.  Maybe that was the giveaway.  And who had saved him?  He was half-lying on his side when he heard a crash against the front door.  It was giving way as someone kicked it.
         Jules glanced to see a man in a dark suit, pistol in hand, suddenly standing inside the door.  His gun was trained on the hall leading to the back of the house.  He glanced at Jules.  It was one of the men that had been with Nikki in the parking lot, one of the men who had abducted him on the train.  Glass crunched under the man's shoe as he moved slowly into the hallway.
         Still nothing from the kitchen.  The man moved to stand a few feet away from where Jules lay, his sites still trained on the hallway.
         "You okay?" the man asked casually.  He wasn't even blinking.
         The Face blinked into sight beyond him, standing just inside the doorway, a gun in each hand, firing.  Jules wasn't sure how many shots hit the man from the train, or which one killed him.  But he came down heavily onto the floor, sprawling across Jules' legs.  Blood was everywhere.  He could see the holes in the man's chest and one in his head.
         The Face glanced at Jules, then jogged to the back of the house.  Nikki was in the room again.  She had two guns in her hands.  She handed one to Jules.  Wordlessly, he took it.  And then she was gone again.  He didn't have time to check if it was loaded.
         The Face burst back into the room just as Jules put the gun out of sight.  He quickly pretended to be shifting the weight of the man off of his legs, sluggishly.  Best to let him think he was still helpless.  The Face glared at him.
         "Where is she?" he demanded.  He stepped back through the door and looked around, his back turned to Jules.  "I know she's here.  Where the fuck is she?"  He was screaming at Jules now.
         "I don't know," Jules said, slowly gathering all his strength and standing.  The gun was heavy in his hand behind him.  Jules raised it.  Could he shoot him?  Another version of himself?  He waited for the man to turn and step back inside.  He had no choice.  As soon as the man saw him with the gun, he would flip.  Probably coming at him from an unexpected angle.  Shooting to kill.
         Jules tried to control his shaking hand.  The seconds crawled.
         "Damn," he heard the man say.  He was turning to come back inside the house.
         Nothing.
         Jules stepped away from the body quickly, slipping in the dead man's blood.  He shot out a hand to catch himself, but came down painfully on his backside.  The gun.  He had to hold onto it.  He could almost feel the familiar tickle run across his scalp.  The man had switched.  But Jules knew he could reappear at any moment.  Probably playing cat and mouse with Nikki.  How many others were there?  He glanced back at the staring eyes of the man on the floor, then pulled himself up and into the kitchen.
         Jules stepped across the glass and wood shards and pushed open the remains of the back door.  There was a typical backyard beyond with a high wooden fence encircling it.  He didn't see a way out.  But there was a shed back there.  If he could get to that, maybe he'd have an advantage.  He'd at least have a place to hide, a place to plan a course of action.  He staggered down the back steps and into the yard.  He made his drunken dash, trying not to feel the bullets that might come at any second.
         Halfway across the yard the shots began.  Somewhere in the house.  He heard a woman's voice scream out--Nikki!  But not in pain.  Had she hit the Face?  More shots.  Jules made it to the little shed and crept around to the back, peering back at the house.  He felt a momentary pang of cowardice.  But what hope did he have in his condition?  Besides, should he be helping Nikki at all?  He grimaced at the thought.  Of course he should be helping her.  It was the right thing to do.  And because it was The Face she was up against.
         He stepped out from behind the shed and tightened his grip on the pistol.  He had to do something.  As cold as it sounded to himself, if Nikki was distracting the man, maybe he had a chance to end this.  He felt stronger now.  That had to be enough.  He stumbled to the side of the house just as a loud series of crashes erupted from the living room.  He skin was crawling now.  Jules stepped up to the edge of the window, half-standing on the stump of shrub growing there.  He grimaced.  It had just been planted.  He peered inside the house.
         Flash.  Nikki with blood on her face, her shirt ripped.
         Flash.  The Face there and gone.
         Flash.  Back, kicking her against the far wall.
         Flash.  Nikki with a knife, staring around the room frantically.  And then gone again.
         A strobe light effect.  Movement seemed unreal.  Time seemed to slow, to almost stop.  They were switching so fast, he could not follow what was happening.  How fast could they go before one of them made a mistake?
         Jules waited a long second to see his double reappear.  The man waited for a spilt second, then vanished again.  Jules smashed the window with the butt of his pistol the instant the man was gone again.  The glass shattered onto the floor inside.  He strained to pull himself up and through the window.  Nikki was across the room, staggering, holding the side of her face.  Gone again.  The Face diving out of thin air for her, missing her and landing near the dead man on the floor.  Blink.
         Something was happening.  He felt the tickle on his scalp.  Once.  Twice.
         Nikki again, suddenly, throwing herself to the other side of the room, The Face right behind her.  Neither noticed he was in the room.  Something was wrong.  Nikki had made the first mistake.  The Face had his gun trained on Nikki, about to pull the trigger.  Jules was cool, did not allow himself to panic.  Or to think about what he was about to do.  He felt the gun kick, firing into the room toward The Face.  Away from Nikki.  She was still there, lying on the floor against the far wall.  She was covering her head with her hands as the gun was firing, expecting to be hit at any second.  The Face had started to turn toward Jules, his face contorting in a strange mixture of shock, bemusement and... the realization that he was about to die.
         Jules didn't stop firing until he was out of bullets.  The Face.  He got his gun, then went through the house.  No one else around.
         She was sitting there in the middle of the floor, staring at nothing.  The body of the man in the suit was almost touching her.  But that wasn't what she was looking at.  He allowed himself to go over to where The Face was sprawled out on the floor.  He checked for a pulse.  Nothing.  He had just killed a man.
         "You just saved my life," Nikki said, finally.  She seemed shocked.  "Why?  Why didn't you just run?"
         "Nikki, we have to go.  The police are probably coming.  We can't stay here."
         She snapped out of whatever she must have been feeling.  "Can you...?"
         "Can I switch back?  Are you kidding?  When did I ever figure out how to do that?"  She looked past him out the broken window and then made a grab for his hand.  Jules surprised himself by letting her pull him along.  Out of the back door.
         "If they find you, they'll think you did this.  That you were him.  Even Hector couldn't save you then, even if he wanted to."  She pulled him to the fence.  The door leading out had been partially obscured by a bush.  Through the door, Jules saw the elderly woman from the photograph.  Lying on the hard ground, staring at nothing, her mouth gaped open.  It didn't seem real.  The Look of Death.
         "Jules, listen to me!  You have to do it!  You have to go back to your own world!  You have to do it now!"  She was just standing there hitting him in the chest with her fist.  There were bruises forming on her face and where he could see her skin beneath her torn shirt.
         "I can't, Nikki."
         "If you don't go, there's nothing I can do!  He'll get you one way or another and..."
         Jules tried to move toward the woods, but she was gripping his arm hard.
         "Please don't think I did everything for him."
         "It doesn't matter anymore."
         "It does matter.  You don't know what he wants.  He's dying.  He thinks he can...  Jules, he wants to use you to keep himself alive.  He wants to replace the parts of him that are dying with yours!  Think about it!  He says he's so close to finding a cure for cancer.  If he's right, then he can't afford to die.  And as crazy as it sounds, I think he might be right.  When he found out he was dying, he tried to use his own double's son, the Jules in this world."  She motioned toward the house.  "But he had corrupted his body with so many drugs that he couldn't wasn't any use to him, at least not how he had hoped.  That's when he started looking for others like him and his son, his double's son.  Me.  I was supposed to help find you and bring you back here.  But, I just couldn't take it anymore."
         "And my father, my father's double in this world?"
         "Hector removed him a long time ago," she said coolly.
         Jules just stood there taking it all in.  It sounded reasonable to him, everything that Nikki told him.  That was what sounded unreasonable to him, the fact he had no doubt she was telling him the truth.  It was insane.  His father was alive and was behind everything that had been happening.  In fact, his father wanted him dead.  What had the man said to him?  'You're going to help me.  When I'm on that stage accepting my Nobel Prize, your name will be mentioned.  In fact, your name will go down in history.'
         "I'm not going to let him get away with this," Jules finally said.
         In the background, miles down the road, they heard sirens.
         "Go," he told her, still clutching the empty pistol in his hand.
         "No."
         "Nikki, I'm not going to argue with you..."
         Her eyes were distant, Jules thought.  She was thinking again, weighing the options.  "We can't leave without the body," she said.  "Hector will ask why.  He may even flee, though I don't know where he thinks he would go.  The police know that his son, or who they think is his son, is around here.  Hector has told them he doesn't know where he might be, but if he turns up dead so close to home, the first place they'll go is to Hector.  And then that would be just too strange to explain.  So Hector would probably just have them killed.  We have to take the body.  It's the only way."  And although he was sure he shouldn't, he listened to her and did what she said.

         "Don't speed," he said.  "We don't want to draw any attention to ourselves."  It was an insane plan.  But this whole situation was insane, Jules reasoned.  They had gone back for the body then carried it through the woods to where Nikki had a car waiting.  There had been a lot of blood, but most of it seemed to have finished running out.  They had put him into the trunk, out of sight and mind.  That was the part of the plan they had come up with so far.  Or the part that Nikki had let him in on, he knew.
         "I have to call in," she said.  "He'll be expecting me, especially with the police on the way.  He would have had someone listening in on the police scanner."
         "What are you going to tell him?"
         "I don't know," she said, but he knew she was lying.  He also knew she was aware that he had picked up another gun off of The Face.  He had made a show of picking it up and putting it under his shirt.  People were much more trust-worthy if they knew you were carrying, he knew.
         "I have to change clothes," he said, not telling her anything she didn't already know.  The Face's clothes were too dirty without the bloodstains, but taking them had crossed his mind.  He had taken the man's jeans, but they were too tight on him.
         "Well, what do you want to do?  Go to a store?"  It was a joke, he knew, as if either of them would walk into a store looking like they did at the moment.  She pulled into a store parking lot.  Jules got out with her and went to the phone.  He gave her the money to make the call.
         "It's me.  Put him on...  He's dead.  Your son is fine, a little shaken and bruised.  But he's alive."  Nikki was looking at Jules as she said this.  "I'll bring him in as soon as I can.  They saw the car leaving the house, so they're probably looking for us.  I don't know if that would go out over the scanner.  We'll find another car, and be there as soon as possible.  Don't worry, Hector.  I'm not like him.  You can trust me."  She put the phone on the hook.
         "We can't be too long or he'll know something is up.  If he doesn't already."
         "Let's don't keep the man waiting that long then."
         "You have a plan."
         "Not really," he said.  "But I do know where we can get some clothes."

         It looked just as he remembered.  Of course it did, Jules reminded himself.  It hadn't been that long since he had been here.  Just a few months.  He was glad that no one was there.  They must have taken his advice and left town.
         They had parked the car a few blocks away, then went behind someone's garage.  He knew what he was going to do but not how he was going to do it.  They made a show of standing facing one another.  Nikki was looking at him as he closed his eyes.  He tried to picture the car that was sitting behind her, a red Volkswagen Beetle that looked like it had just been repainted.
         He opened his eyes a second later.  The Beetle was gone, simply not there.  Vanished.  Or rather he had.  Nikki was smiling.  "You did it, Jules.  You switched on your own."  She looked like she wanted to hug him, but didn't.
         They walked to the house through backyards, avoiding the barking dogs and a few sunbathers and were there within five minutes.  There was a key under the flower pot just like always.  Jules smirked.  He had told them time and time again how that was not a good idea.  But now he was glad they had not listened to him.
         They walked down a hall.  "I have some clothes in my room.  You can have one of my t-shirts.  That's my room there."  He opened the door but kept walking.  Nikki followed him into the next room.  "This is my brother's room."  He looked under the bed.  "Ah-hah.  Some people never change."  He pulled out a pair of jeans and looked at the tag.  "Looks like your size.  One of the girls Tim dates always leaves some of her clothes here.  Tim said he thinks it's so she'll have a reason to come back."
         "How did you know my size?" Nikki asked, as they went back to his room.
         "I looked one night in Texas."  He went through a chest of drawers and pulled out two t-shirts.  He tossed one to Nikki, who then tossed it on the bed.  She went to take her shirt off.  Jules instinctively turned away from her and took the hospital gown off.  It felt good to get rid of it.  He threw in on the floor on the opposite side of the bed from the door.
         "Why are you going back?" she asked.
         "Are you kidding me?" Jules responded.  "I didn't even tell the old man good-bye."  He tried to laugh as he changed into a pair of his own jeans, then found a pair of old shoes in his closet.  Nikki was looking at a picture on the wall.
         "I was six years old," Jules said.  "Mom took that at the river.  It's one of the last memories I have of the man back then.  We used to go there all the time to have picnics.  Man could cook out like hell."  He snickered a laugh as he looked at the picture over Nikki's shoulder.  "The typical all-American family, eh?  That's what Mom wanted me to think."
         A wave of anger rose from within him.  All of these years he had grieved for a man who was not dead, for a memory that was not real.  The man was a monster.  But what did that make his mother?  Why had she let him believe that the man was a victim?  The man was no victim.
         "I don't know what you're thinking," Nikki said.  "But whatever it is, don't.  Biologically, he may be your father, but you are nothing like him.  You are your own person.  And nothing that has happened these past few weeks has changed that."
         Jules sat on the end of the bed.  "Everything has changed.  I went on the road to find myself.  But I don't like what I found.  I was a lost man who should have stayed lost."  Nikki took another picture from beside his bed of him as a pre-teen with his mother and new family.
         "I take it this is your step-father and brother."
         "Yeah," he said, without having to look at the picture.  "My mother and sister had this huge fuss that day, but when it came time to take the photo, they smiled like we were the perfect family.  Another lie, I suppose."  He took the picture from her.  "Maybe it was the only way Mom could bear the thought of who her children's father was."
         "What are you going to do when we go back?"
         He shrugged.  Why did she keep asking variations of the same question? he wondered.
         "I think you know," she said.  "What is it?"
         "It has to be bigger than me, right?  I mean, you say he has a cure for cancer.  Or is close to finding one.  Or thinks that he is.  How did he get his research money then?  Don't the people backing him realize he's insane?  Or do they even care?"  Her face was unreadable and he thought maybe he shouldn't say anymore.  "What do you know about it?"
         "It's not what he's doing that's insane.  It's how he's doing it, his research.  There's things going on that I'm sure he is the only one who knows anything about it.  He never told me much.  I was there simply because I had the ability to switch."
         "But why you?  Or how did he find you?"  And then it hit him.  There must be others.  Of course.  It was that simple.  To think he was the only one--with Nikki, The Face and Hector--that had had this ability was ludicrous.  There had to be other people.  And he must have used her to find them.  "How many?"
         Nikki shook her head.  "I never met them all, just the ones I was supposed to find.  I never asked why I was doing this.  I guess I was afraid he'd tell me."
         "Why did you do it then?  Money?"
         "Does it matter?  I didn't know how evil he was at first.  Maybe I was naive.  Or just greedy.  But I came a long way and have done a lot of things for that man.  And he's used that against me ever since.  I couldn't have gotten away if I had wanted to.  If I tried, he would have just sent someone to come and get me.  Then he'd have me where he wanted me."
         "What do you mean?"
         She looked at him for a long minute.  "Whatever we're going to do, don't you think we need a get a move on?  You'll find out everything you need to know once we get there."
         He motioned for her to leave, then followed her.  Before he left the house, he went through the kitchen.  There was always some Gatorade in the refrigerator.  He opened the door.  Ah.  And his favorite flavor.  He opened the bottle and took a large swig.
         "Go-go juice," he explained, as they headed for the door.

         "Where are all the cars?" Nikki muttered, gesturing toward the small parking lot off to the left of the main gate.  Jules glanced.  He didn't see anything out of the ordinary.  "Where is everyone?"  The guard at the gate had offered no resistance at all.  He had made no move whatsoever to step outside of the guard station.  Jules expected to see movement from the main building of the hospital as they drove through, but no one had emerged.
         "How old is this place?"  Jules asked, staring at the old buildings.  It looked just as he had imagined it, but he felt sure that the place didn't exist in his own world.  They pulled slowly through the empty lot, finding a spot near the front entrance. Still nothing.
         "I don't like this," she said.  Jules felt for his pistol for the hundredth time since they had started out.  A strange fluttering concentrated in his stomach.  He felt as though he was walking on air as they go out and walked up to the front of the building.  Nikki reached the doors first, shooting him a glance before opening the old door and stepping inside.
         At the far end of a long hall, Jules saw a woman in white at a desk, placing a large stack of papers in a box.  She glanced in their direction for less than a second before returning to her work.  The computer screen behind her was black and had the look of having been disconnected.  They stood there in the hall, looking at each other, each waiting for the other to make some sort of decision.  The silence seemed to push them down the hall and they started for the woman at the desk.
         "Where will he be?" Jules asked.  She scratched her left forearm and seemed to be staring off blankly for a moment.
         "I don't know Jules.  Something's obviously happened here...," she began.
         A man in a dark suit came around the corner from the room at the end of the hall, stopping Jules dead in his tracks.  Short, cropped blonde hair.
         Nikki missed a step, but moved forward, nodding to the man when he looked up.
         She turned to Jules and said, "I think you two know each other."
         The man turned an unimpressed eye on Jules and then arched an eyebrow at Nikki.  Jules wondered if he had some way of knowing that his partner had been killed.
         "Something's going down.  Somebody knows something.  I'm trying to find out what.  We're looking for the old man, but no one seems to know where he is."
         Nikki let out a long breath through gritted teeth.
         "I think you should leave," she said at last.  "There's no reason for you to stay."  Jules was watching the woman pack up the computer not far from where they stood, seemingly oblivious to them.  She didn't look particularly rushed.
         "Is he still here?  How do you know he hasn't left the building?" Jules asked, impatience cresting over his fear at returning to the hospital.
         "Where else would he go?  This is his life,"  Nikki said.  The man nodded, checking his watch.  Then he just walked past them.  That was it.  Nothing else was said.  Jules turned to watch him go.  But there seemed to be a tenseness in his step that wasn't there before.  Nikki was walking on ahead, speaking in a low friendly voice to the woman behind the desk.
         "Any ideas where he is, Paula?"
         "No."  She barely looked up.
         Nikki turned to him, frowning.
         Jules spotted the elevator.  Without speaking to Nikki, he went to it, leaving her where she stood.

         He walked carefully down the hall.  He was no longer concerned that he might be caught and taken back to his room.  It had long been apparent that the people still here were far too concerned with themselves than to care about him.  Whatever uprising had occurred and whatever sides these people had taken, none of them seemed to even bother with him.  Jules put the gun in the back of his jeans, still visible and still easily accessible.
         The nurses desk at the end of his hall was empty.  He expected that.  There were telephones ringing constantly; at least two or three of them.  As he got closer to the desk, he saw that there were television monitors behind the desk.  Four of them, each showing the halls leading to the desk.  Jules took a look around, then jumped easily over the desk.  Each monitor had a control panel on it.  Jules hit a button labeled Room 1.
         There was a person lying in the a bed in the middle of a darkened room.  Jules couldn't tell what sex the person was or if they were dead or alive.  Room 2 showed the same thing.  Every room was a virtual carbon copy of the last.  Jules searched through the drawer directly under the monitors.  Keys.  He went down a hall to the first room.  There were only a few keys on the chain.  Jules was hoping one key unlocked all of the rooms.  He found the key that unlocked the doors on the third try.
         He slipped inside quietly, hoping not to disturb the person in the bed.  No sign of that happening.  There was a chart hanging on the end of the bed.  John Doe #1.  Jules didn't know enough about medical lingo to understand the chart.  But what struck him was the complete lack of personal information on the patient.  Only an obvious fake name.  A casual glance at the patient told Jules that this John Doe was, in fact, a man.
         He went to the next room.  John Doe #23.  A closer look at the patient indicated that he was in the same condition as the first patient.  Still alive, though perhaps just barely.  He was hooked to a number of machines, one of which was helping him breath.  As Jules went from room to room, one thing became apparent.  All of the subjects were young.  All were in the same condition.  And all had their heads shaved.  Also, although he couldn't be sure what he was looking at, he did notice a similarity in the medical jargon of all the charts.
         Not all of the rooms on the four halls were occupied, but most of them were.  But Jules was not ready for what he encountered on the last hall.  Female subjects.  All with Jane Doe on the medical charts.
         He almost didn't go to the last room.  Either it would be empty, or there would be someone who looked like they were as close to death as one could be and still be alive.  But he heard someone coming down the hall and slipped inside.  That was when it occurred to him that someone somewhere was probably watching him on a monitor in some dark room somewhere.  He listened at the door, but could hear nothing.  A glance at the patient stopped him in his tracks.
         Dark hair growing back in.  A thin white scar on the side of his head, similar to the other patients.  .
         He checked the chart.  John Doe #17.  No more information than the other charts had given away on the other patients.  But the man's face gave it away.  Even though the hair was as closely cropped as the other patients and the cheeks were sunken in, Jules felt as if he was looking in a mirror.  Again.  He walked to the side of the bed.  It obviously wasn't The Face.  The Face was dead and in the trunk of the car.
         Another double from another world.
         Of course.  It made sense.  There had to be more realities than the two he knew.  It was something that had been at the back of his mind since he had accepted what was happening to him.  Once he believed what Nikki and Hector had told him, it was somehow more ridiculous to believe there were only two realities than not to believe.  But where had this person come from?  And who had brought him here?  The possibility existed that he had come here by himself, but that seemed far-fetched.
         The door opened behind him.  Hector was pushing through still in his wheel chair.  A rifle was in his lap.  "I thought you'd be here," he said.  "Looks like what was supposed to be the best day of my life has turned sour.  Most of my staff have left.  And the others have turned on me."
         "I'd say you got what you deserved."
         "No, I wouldn't say that at all, son.  I was destined for great things.  I was going to be the one.  But then I met this pretty little girl with a gleam in her eye... I should never have even looked at your mother.  It was plain to see that she could never fathom what was going on my mind, the plans I had and the goals I had set.  Silly me.  If it hadn't been for the woman getting pregnant, I would have left her a long time before I did.  But I thought I was supposed to do the right thing.  And then I became complacent.  And Rita was next.  Stupid whore.  But Jules, I thought we could forget all of that.  You and I, father and son."
         "I'm not your son, old man.  When you left me and my world for your this, you did die.  You're as dead now as you were the whole time I was growing up."
         "But Jules, how can you say that?  You look just like I did when I was your age.  Did you know that?  Is that something your mother would have told you?  It was a long time ago, but I remember..."
         Jules made a cut-throat motion for the man to stop.  "Are you going to kill me now?  I mean, I'm not drugged up anymore.  I'm not hooked to any of your machines.  And if you shoot me, who are you going to get to do the procedure?  It looks like all your people have left."
         The old man smiled.  "I may be down, but I'm not out."  He picked up his walkie-talkie that was lying in his lap partially obscured by the gun.  "Come in," he said.  A moment later, the door opened and she walked in.  Nikki.  She smiled at Jules.  But it was in her eyes, the way she felt.  And what she was going to do.
         She took the rifle from Hector's lap.  "Give me the gun, Jules.  The one that's in the back of your jeans where you always keep it."  The rifle was not really pointing at him, but she had cocked it for good measure.
         Jules sighed heavily, looking at his father.  The man was glowing.  He took the gun out slowly and handed it to Nikki.  She put it on the table that was beside the door.
         "Stand across the room," she told him.
         He did what she said.
         Hector grinned broadly.
         "Once again, you have come through for me, Miss Cauthen.  You have continued to surprise me since the day that I brought you in."  He glanced at Jules.  "I don't think we have to worry about him switching now, do we?  I may have been away for a while, but I do remember this building is not in that world.  A fall from this height...  Well, I don't think I have to say anymore.  I've made my point."
         He stopped speaking and seemed to gasp for a breath before continuing.  "We obviously need to relocate, Ms. Cauthen.  I have already set the plan in motion.  The trucks should be on their way to move us to the next site.  I think you deserve a bonus for your work on this one.  We can talk about that later.  Right now, we need to be more concerned with him.  I think there is a place we can put him on one of the upper floors."  He reached into his pocket and retrieved a familiar looking device.  Still finding it difficult to get his breath.
         Jules could not tear his gaze away from Nikki's eyes.  She did not go for the needle.
         "Think about where we will be in a few years from now, Ms. Cauthen.  I do.  I think about it all the time."
         Jules could hear the creek of the wheel chair as it moved forward.  A chill crossed the room.  Hector gasped and reached for his chest.  "What are you doing?"  His eyes darted madly from Nikki to Jules, then back to Nikki.  He had the needle in his hand staring at where Nikki stood.  He was trying to mouth something to her.  Abruptly, it was as though his father's features blurred.  She was pushing him.
         "Are you going to let her... do this to me, son?"
         Hector had a wild look in his eyes.  He was working the needle, hands fumbling.  He was trying to inject himself, Jules thought.  Of course!  Jules was frozen.  If he injected himself, Nikki could not push him.  What should he do?  Save the old man?  Take the needle?  And what would Nikki do if he made a sudden move?
         But it was too late.  The needle hit the floor and the wheel chair was empty.  Jules looked at Nikki, but she would not meet his eyes.  He went to her.  She seemed to cringe as he reached behind her cautiously and retrieved his gun.  It was over.

The End    Epilogue

        It was the talk of the town, how a man legally declared dead had suddenly turned up after all of these years.  And under such unusual circumstances.  The Medical Examiner had estimated time of death around twelve hours before they had found the body.  An anonymous tip had come in the night before, but a search team had not been mustered until the break of dawn.  A heart attack was not ruled out as the cause of death, though there was no explanation as to how the man had sustained the wounds from a fall in the middle of nowhere.  The general consensus of the town was that someone was trying to brush this under the rug.  Answers would be sought, but no reasonable answers would be found to any of their questions.
         The funeral was small, just a graveside ceremony.  Something quiet and simple.  Jules was not yet sure how his mother would get through this.  She was strangely silent through the whole thing.  How much had she really known about Hector?  And what might she wonder about her son?  Jules had thought long and hard about both of these questions since his return just a few days before.  But he knew he would never broach the subject with her.  And that she would not say anything to him either.
         Nikki had stayed behind to wrap up the mess left by her employer.  That was how she had put it to him anyway.  But Jules wondered how much of it was out of guilt and how much out of her own sense of ambition.  He decided he probably didn't want to know.  There had been no promises between each other.  She had told him the other patients would be taken care of or returned to their respective families.  All of them.  He was still unsure.  But it was out of his hands now.  All he wanted to do was to put the past behind him.

Epilogue II

         The blue-toned Taurus eased into the gravel driveway.  A blonde-haired girl was sitting on the porch steps, reading from a novel.  She held it in one hand, bending back the binding and squinting at the fine print.  She looked up as the car pulled to a stop.  A man stepped out of the rental, adjusting his sunglasses and grinning sheepishly.
         "Jules!" Sara smiled, leaping up and running to him.  He thought she was going to hug him, but she stopped just short of that.
         "Hi, Sara.  I wanted to make sure that you were all right.  And your dad."
         "Yeah, he's inside sleeping.  Doc Jackson says he should be as good as new in a few weeks."  She frowned for a moment, her eyes forming slits against the bright sunlight.  A smile reappeared.  "I know he would want to see you.  Let me take you to him."
         "No," Jules said quickly.  "I mean, I just wanted to stop in and make sure that everyone was okay.  And to let you guys know that everything turned out fine for me.  Just fine."
         She looked at him strangely for a moment.  "That's good.  We were worried about you, you know."  She looked past him suddenly, toward the car and the person sitting in the passenger seat.
         "My brother.  He didn't think it was such a good idea for me to take another trip by myself.  Especially back in Texas."
         She smiled.  "Smart guy."
         An awkward moment passed.  They just stood there, not knowing what to say or do.  Then he made to leave, but she stopped him, wrapping her arms around him.  "If you ever need anything..."
         "I know.  I'll know where to find you."

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