Blowfish Fugue -008- "Reflections"
Okay, so there are two of me. Maybe more, actually, now that I think about it,
since it's taken me this long to notice the duplication....
Of course, the way this I found out was to find that note in my journal.
So that other me is either quicker on the uptake or it has all the clues.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I left that message during one of my dead-end
jaunts and I was just mistaken. How can I tell?
This isn't supposed to happen. I mean, the only way it can happen is if I was dead
long enough for the monitoring station to trigger the replacement process and some emergency service found
enough to work with to bring my corpse back online and repair it. Or maybe there was a screw-up back at the reload
center and they reloaded me instead of some other poor sap. Or maybe their system is Tainted.
I don't want to think about that.
So what do I/we do? Can the reload center shuffle us back into one body? I mean,
which ever way it goes, it was their fuckin' screw-up. Or maybe the n of us can just get
together and rochambeaux to see who gets to stick around and the rest of us can off ourselves.
I know I would be okay with that, so the other me(s) should be, too.
This smells so much like a Taint thing, though, this kind of fuck-up. Reload systems
are supposed to be fairly tight. That's way too scary. Since I'm basically immortal for the duration of
my contract -- you know, the one where I get paid to live the world's most dangerous lifestyle so that cowards at
home can find out what real life is like without screwing with their insurance premiums -- the Taint is really the
only way for me to die die.
And it's not a particularly great way to go.
I'm sure there are plenty of people who follow my antics who would love to find out
what it would be like for me to be taken apart by the Taint. Fuck them sideways with a saguaro. If I get the
Taint, I could leave it somewhere where the next me could get it. The Taint is hideously transmissible.
Oh, wait. I've already been killed by the Taint before. But that was under
controlled conditions at the CDC.
Wasn't it?
Good God damn. How fucked am I? Hopefully there are just too many of me for my
income to support at the level to which I/we are accustomed and that's as far as it goes.
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