Chapter 258: Book 4 Chapter 24.2: Sleep When You're Dead

“Your interference is expected, noted, and uninvited,” a Board member gasped. The interferers held their ground anyway. “We are expecting a visitor.”

“We know,” Kim said. “We have some history with Edison. I wouldn’t exactly call him reliable.”

“Or punctual,” Hawke added.

“Or likable,” Samson concluded.

“Your input is, again, noted,” the Board member croaked. “But not wanted. You are excused.”

“They will remain until such time as we no longer value their opinions,” Einstein’s Brain said. Just like the first loop, the Einstein’s had invited them to join the discussion as a much-needed third party. “You are attempting to change the way this school is run, that warrants input from the students whose lives you would be affecting.”

“What are you planning anyway?” Kim said. She knew it was something to do with commercializing the school, thanks to the previous loop, but not any specifics.

“The school’s research efforts suffer from a lack of focus,” the Board said. “We are planning a long-term overhaul to focus on a blend of medical sciences and commercial products.”

“Oh, so in other words, exclusively to benefit you,” Kim said. “Medicine to keep you alive and commerce to make you even more money.”

The Board were apparently getting more and more scared of their impending mortality as time went on. In years past, their quest for immortality had been a pipe dream even to the most deluded of them, but now, with Vell’s rune and Quenay’s game dangling in front of them, there was more hope -and more reason for the Board to do whatever they had to do to live as long as possible.

“It’s a strategy of long-term benefit,” the Board said. “Look at how much money we spend on entomology research. What benefit does studying bugs provide, really?”

“Food and reproduction data that revitalized global bee populations and prevented a crop crisis of apocalyptic scale?”

“Other than that.”

“Controlling the spread of insect-borne diseases like malaria?”

“Other than-”

“Creating eco-friendly pest control methods to improve public health and prevent environmental damage?”

“Perhaps the entomologists were a bad example,” the Board said.

“Science is science, it’s all useful,” Alex said. Even the most obscure fields benefited the world in small ways that often went underappreciated by the general public, and especially by greedy, self-interested bastards like the Board of Directors.

“Spoken like a true scientist,” Einstein’s Clone said.

“We founded an institution of research, not a phone factory,” Einstein’s Ghost added. “If you want to make more money, open a McDonald’s, don’t co-opt the future of science.”

“We have a stake in the future of this school, and we-”

“Sorry I’m late!”

Undedison shambled through the door, half-open briefcase shedding papers as he went. He made it a few steps in before locking eyes with Alex. She raised an eyebrow at him.

“Actually, I’d better go,” Edison said. He turned around and shambled right back out. Hawke picked up one of the papers that had fallen out of his briefcase. It was a coloring book page of an apple, crudely scribbled on with crayon.

“Not even inside the lines,” Hawke mumbled. “Anyway, your new hire is clearly a flake, so-”

“Sorry I’m late!”

Edison barged right through the door again, briefcase shedding even more papers.

“Edison, you were just here,” Kim scolded.

“No I wasn’t, I-” Edison locked eyes with Alex again. “I’d better go.”

He turned around, and a paper fell out of his briefcase. It was a coloring book page of an apple, scribbled on with crayon, outside the lines.

“Huh,” Hawke said. “That’s probably not good.”

“Sorry I’m late!”

This time Edison didn’t even make it into the door.

“Fuck off, Edison!”

From outside the door, they could hear Edison turn around, followed immediately thereafter by a loud thump and Edison letting out a grunt of pain -twice. At the same time.

“That’s definitely not good,” Hawke said. Since the loopers were closest to the door, they stepped out to look, joined shortly thereafter by Einstein’s ghost, who phased right through the wall to peek. Einstein’s Zombie also tried to phase through the wall, and walked directly into it with a heavy thud before walking around to the door. There were two Edison’s sitting in the hallway, having apparently collided as one retreated and the other ran in.

“One of you is bad enough, Edison, two is unacceptable,” Kim snapped. “What did you do?”

“I have done nothing,” both Edison’s said in unison. “This is clearly an impostor! I’m the impostor? You’re the impostor!”

Both stood up and held their fists at the ready.

“I’ll make you regret that!”

The two Edison’s cocked their fists and threw perfectly symmetrical right hooks straight to the other’s jaws. Both of them were knocked out at the exact same time.

“Well, they’re both definitely real,” Samson said. “Only the genuine article could be that stupid.”

“That doesn’t tell us where they’re coming from, or why,” Hawke said.

A third Edison walked around the corner, saw the two knocked-out versions of itself, and the gang of loopers standing over the two unconscious doppelgangers.

“I’d better go.”

He went, and the entire gang of loopers went after him. Einstein’s Ghost and Einstein’s Zombie followed after them, just because they wanted the excitement.

“Get back here, Edison!”

Undedison continued skedaddling at an impressive pace for an ancient and undead body.

Kim wasn’t in the mood for a chase scene, so she dashed forward as fast as her robotic legs would allow (very fast) and went for a diving tackle. She was right on target, until she wasn’t. With a loud clang, Kim collided with something metallic mid-air and bounced off it, giving Edison all the room he needed to flee. Kim rolled on the ground and then hopped to her feet, finding herself face to face with her interloper.

“Aw fuck,” said two Kim’s, as they looked at themselves.

“God damn it,” Alex said. “Now we have to deal with finding out which Kim is the real one.”

“We’re both real, Alex,” one of the Kim’s said. They both tapped their heads at the exact same time. “Internet connections in our brain. We have all the same memories up to one of us being slightly to the left when we jumped.”

“We’ll figure this out later,” Hawke said. “We need to catch Edison -Edison’s.”

There were now three separate Edison’s running in slightly different directions. Even as they watched, one of the Edison’s split into a fourth, all of which kept running.

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“Which one do we follow?”

“We Scooby-Doo,” Einstein’s Zombie suggested. “Split up, gang!”

“No, wait, I have an idea,” Alex suggested. She watched the trail of the most recently-divided Edison, and then lined it up with the trajectory of Kim’s attempted tackle. She made a quick dash in that direction, and midway through the dash, she split in two. The two versions of Alex grabbed each other by the shoulders, nodded, and then pointed in the direction they’d been running.

“People start dividing when they head this direction,” Right Alex said.

“Whatever’s causing this is probably this way,” Left Alex concluded.

“Fantastic,” Hawke said. “So, since we’re all probably going to have several dozen versions of ourselves by the time we get there, do we want to organize ourselves into squads of ourselves, or groups of one of us each?”

“We might not all end up with the same number of ourselves,” Right Alex said. “Let’s stick with ourselves, that way no one feels left out.”

“I’d hate for all our fucked up clones to feel emotionally neglected,” Samson said.

“Well, about that,” another Samson said.

“Fuck.”

----------------------------------------

By the time they made it to the epicenter of the disaster, they were up to several dozen versions of each party member. Zombie Einstein had had the bright idea to designate a “prime” Kim by drawing a mark on her forehead, but every subsequent Kim-clone spawned in with the same mark. Nobody made any attempts to organize the ranks after that, especially once one of the Hawke’s noticed a single crucial detail: Einstein’s Ghost was not dividing.

“It might be because I don’t have a physical body to divide,” Einstein’s Ghost said.

“Maybe because you’re undead?”

“If that were the case, Zombie wouldn’t be dividing either, and yet-”

Several versions of Zombie Einstein put their game of patty-cake on hold to look up at the Ghost.

“-well, there must be something else going on,” Zombie Einstein said. “We can find out more soon. I think whatever’s causing this is right inside this door.”

The dividing had become more rapid the closer they got to a supposedly-empty physics laboratory, and now they were right outside the door. Einstein’s Ghost turned and pointed at several individual duplicates of the loopers.

“Alright, the four of you come with me,” the Ghost said. “Everyone else stay outside. No offense, we just don’t need the crowds.”

The four loopers became seven loopers as they walked through the door, and Einstein’s Ghost shoved the extras out. The room was already a bit crowded thanks to the Edison corpses.

“I sure hope none of these are the original,” Kim said, as she gently shoved aside one of the bodies.

“I don’t care much either way,” Hawke admitted. “We need to figure out what that thing is.”

Hawke pointed at a jury-rigged device sitting in the center of the lab, convulsing with energy and occasionally sparking. As he stepped closer to it, Hawke split into two Hawke’s, and they played a quick game of rock paper scissors to decide who got to stay in the room. The winning Hawke took a step back.

“Okay, I think Einstein’s Ghost has to take the lead on this one,” Hawke said.

“On it,” the Ghost said. He hovered closer and examined the device from multiple angles. “It appears he took multiple smaller devices and stuck them together. Usually with duct tape. But there are some crossed wires, a connected tube, and...my god.”

Einstein’s Ghost floated away from the device and stared at it with horror.

“He’s accidentally created a quantum disaggregator!”

“What?”

“I know, I didn’t think it was possible, much less on accident,” Einstein’s Ghost said.

“No, I mean what the fuck is a quantum disaggregator?” Samson said. “Is that good or bad?”

“Well scientifically speaking it has astounding repercussions and scientific value,” Einstein’s Ghost said. “On a practical level it runs a very real risk of destroying the planet.”

The machine let out a round of sparks, and everyone in the room duplicated once again.

“What does it do? Why is it making copies of everyone?”

“It’s resonating a specific energy frequency across existence and drawing out versions of existing matter from all possible timelines and realities,” the Ghost said. “It’s starting with sapient creatures because your ability for complex thought gives you more variations across existence, but as the resonant signature amplifies, it’ll start duplicating furniture, buildings, and eventually even the planet itself, if we get that far.”

“What’s the ‘if’?”

“It doesn’t appear stable, the resonant frequency will probably collapse before that happens,” Einstein’s Ghost said. “When that happens, all the disparate duplicates will slam back together!”

“Well that’s good, isn’t it?” Alex said. “That’ll merge us all back.”

“No dear, when I say ‘slam’, I mean literally slam,” Einstein’s Ghost said. He slammed his hands together, which would’ve made a loud noise if his hands were tangible. “Once the stabilizing frequency collapses, all the disparate versions of the same atoms will collapse together and start vying for the same space. You’ll be crushed under the weight of dozens of bodies all trying to fit in one body’s space.”

“God, I don’t want to get pulped again,” Samson moaned.

“If we lower the power level and manipulate the resonant project in a stable decline, the duplicates should lose cohesion and harmlessly fade out of existence,” Einstein’s Ghost said. “I’d do it myself, but, well-”

Einstein’s Ghost stuck his hand right through the device, demonstrating his intangible nature.

“Would blasting it do anything?”

“No! No! A sudden end will cause an unstable collapse for sure,” Einstein’s Ghost cautioned. “Someone needs to do it manually, and carefully. A single slip of the hand could doom you all.”

The machine twitched again, creating another round of duplicates. This time, three variations of everyone appeared.

“I think we might be running out of time,” Kim said. “I’m just going to go for it, see what happens. Alex, every time I split, grab all but one at random and yank them back with magic.”

Kim took one step forward, and one doppelganger appeared. She took another step, and four appeared at once. Another step, another seven, another step, another seventeen. Alex tried to pull as many Kim’s away as possible, but every step closer came with dozens more Kim’s, until they were starting to trip over themselves and land in entire piles of Kim’s.

“Stop, stop,” Einstein’s Ghost said. “If one of you falls and damages the machine, you’re all doomed!”

“Well we need someone to get up there,” the Kim’s said. They looked around at the versions of themselves, and found that the Kim’s had become more divergent. Some of them had entirely different colors or body configurations than the “original”.

“Oh no, it’s starting to pull from more divergent realities,” Einstein’s Ghost said. “We need to hurry.”

“How?” Alex said. “Anybody who tries to get close to that thing is just going to split into piles of themselves.”

“Maybe someone who is near death,” Einstein’s Ghost said. “Someone with fewer potential timeline divergences would be less likely to duplicate!”

“Yes! Exactly,” Hawke said. “We need somebody with a narrow timeline, a steady hand, and- fuck.”

Every possible version of the loopers sighed and rolled their eyes at once.

“What? Is there no one we can call?”

“No, actually, I know exactly who to call,” Hawke said, as he took out his phone. “I’m just going to feel like a real asshole about it.”

----------------------------------------

Vell Harlan had visible bedhead when he walked into the room and saw legions of his friends sitting next to each other. Eighty-seven Hawke’s waved sheepishly at him.

“That was actually a really good fucking nap, too,” Vell mumbled.

“Sorry,” said several hundred voices.

“S’fine,” he said. “Where’s the thingamajig?”

Einstein’s Ghost led the way, and Vell wandered into the empty lab. All the duplicates had left the room to minimize potential duplication mishaps, and were forced to sit on the sidelines and wait as he was once again forced to save the day.

“This is all my fault,” Alex muttered.

“Yeah,” several of the other Alex’s agreed.

“We should’ve made sure Edison left the island,” several more of them moped.

“Hey, we were right there with you, bud,” Kim said. “We could’ve thought of that just as easily.”

“I was the one who decided how we split up,” Hawke said. “I should’ve prepared us better for this.”

The different groups of loopers moped in silence for a while -and glared pointedly at the Samson’s.

“What?”

“We were largely uninvolved in the planning and execution of all this,” the Samson’s said.

“Well that’s it’s own problem,” Alex said.

“Shit. Our bad.”

“Wait, I had an idea!”

One of the Hawke’s stood up and triumphantly raised a hand.

“There’s like a hundred of us, we should do shit,” Hawke said. “Like, a lot of it! If we all split up, we can deal with a lot of cleanup, organizational stuff, and-”

The Hawke vanished mid-speech.

“Fuck.”

Various doppelgangers and duplicates started to fade out one by one, gradually culling the herds of loopers until there were only a few left. The last few remaining duplicates stared nervously at each other until only one remained.

“Oh thank god, I’m the real me,” the final Alex said, once she alone remained.

“I’ll bet all the other Alex’s thought that too,” Kim said.

“I’m not going to think about it,” Alex said.

They all turned their backs on the fading ontological nightmare and headed inside the building. Vell was just putting the finishing touches on shutting down the machine. He then shoved the entire device off the table, breaking it to pieces, and handed the shards to Zombie Einstein.

“Thank you, Mr. Harlan,” Einstein’s Ghost said. “We’ll take these somewhere safe for study.”

“Have fun with that,” Vell said, as the ghost and zombie versions of Einstein walked off. He sank into a chair and let out a deep sigh.

“Sorry we kind of fucked up giving you a day off,” Kim said.

“It happens,” Vell said. “And hey, I got in a little bit of a break, so that’s better than nothing. Thanks for the effort.”

“I’m glad it helped a little,” Alex said.

“It helps more than a little,” Vell said. “It’ll probably be easier to convince me to take a day off later, since now I know I can trust you guys to recognize when you’re in deep shit. Honestly, half my concern was that you guys would be too stubborn to ask for help if you needed it.”

“We’re not- no, okay, we’re that stubborn,” Alex said. Samson and Kim nodded along. Hawke was not at all too proud to ask for help, but he kept that to himself.

“So, since you trust us a little more now,” Samson said. “Maybe we can try to handle tomorrow’s apocalypse too?”

“I’ll consider it,” Vell said. “If you do one thing.”

“Which is?”

“Figure it out,” Vell said, as he crossed his arms.

Samson actually scratched his head as he looked around. There was very little mess to clean up, The Einstein’s could probably handle the Board, and-

“Edison!”

“Shit. Kim, you check the cameras, see if he’s already left the island,” Hawke said. “I’ll search the lab, you two see if he’s anywhere else on the island.”

The four younger loopers scampered off in different directions, tending to their hunt for Edison. Vell wondered if it was too late to get back to his nap.