Repeat Rewind: Tales of Time Travel

Mirror, Mirror: Part 3

"So what happened after you found out about your other doubles?" Agent Roxanne Craig asked, in a manner that fell just short of neutral. Maybe it was the rigid tension in her shoulders that gave the act away... maybe it was the fact that she was still staring at Agent Cortez, with pure, cold focus.

Either way, Cortez sighed. "You think you have something here, Agent Craig—I mean, you just got me to confess to a triple murder. You've already gotten more out of me than the Inspectors could." A pause. "You also don't believe a word of what I'm saying, other than me admitting I killed those women."

When Cortez met her eyes, Roxanne saw a faint, mocking smile curve over her fellow agent's lips. It told her that whatever was showing on her face had just confirmed Cortez's accusation. She shrugged anyway. "I have to say that it does sound a little fantastical."

Cortez snorted. "We're time travelers, aren't we?"

"I think you missed the theoretical physics course explaining how that was possible," Roxanne retorted. "But what I think of your story isn't important. You said you wanted to talk to me about this for a reason, didn't you, Agent Cortez? How about we cut the bullshit back-and-forth and get there?"

Cortez's mocking smile turned sharper at the words, at odds with the way her clasped hands were still shaking on the desktop, but after a short, tense moment where nothing was said... she nodded. "As you wish."

***

Getting to my second double wasn't as easy as the first, and I didn't expect it to be. I could have tried to grab her here at HQ, of course—but I wasn't about to risk someone else finding out that there were a few more of me running around than usual. You're probably wondering why I didn't tell Tenebris about my doubles and let Internal Management or maybe Research deal with it, but... to tell you the truth, I was afraid. I was scared shitless. I know as well as you do that every single documented case of a doppelganger turned out to be an alternate self. What happened to me was not that, and I wasn't really sure how the higher-ups would handle it. I wasn't too keen on the thought of being turned into a lab rat for this marvelous new scientific phenomenon I just discovered. At the time, I still thought I could deal with it on my own.

The problem was that she was at my workplace, and I had no idea what a double of mine going through a portal would result in now. More copies? The rest of us fusing together? I still don't know, and I didn't want to find out at the time. I had to make sure she wouldn't be sent on a mission before I could deal with her... so I did something I'm not very proud of. It was the only thing I could think of to lure her away from HQ in the middle of a shift.

I called the HR office pretending to be my sister, Carla, and told my double that our mother fell down at home and got hospitalized.

We'd been dreading that happening for years. I barely had enough time to hang up and book it back to the house, and then I saw her step in, eyes cried out. She went straight to the bedroom, to pack some clothes for a trip to our hometown. I was hoping I could get her from behind, without her seeing me, knowing who killed her and why, but... I'd forgotten to oil the hinges on that door. When I pushed it in, they creaked. She turned around.

I wanted to make it a quick mercy kill. It got a lot messier than that—I'll spare you the details. At least I didn't have to do too much work on the corpse afterwards to make it harder to identify. When I killed my first double, the only thing I was thinking of was to protect myself, to get rid of that intruder any way I could. Planning a killing, seeing my second double crying over her— my mother right before I put a knife in her gut... It made hurting her a lot harder.

***

"Do the dates line up?" the tall, dark-haired man asked behind the two-way glass, and Inspector Nina Kristoff nodded, frowning at the women on the other side.