DOUBLE

All that's left to do is to use this immense power. Reactivate your double. Clone your consciousness.

"I was supposed to have a double, but he was zeroed before I even got here. I'm alone. I can't do this without you."

The boatman folds his arms and regards your double cautiously. He knows something is wrong, but not what.

But when you emerge at the other end, there is nothing. You have no idea where your double is.

"Right." A sigh. "The stress of the job seems to have left your double somewhat..."

It seems your former double and the richest man in Portofiro share a similar taste in literature.

Anything about reviving a catatonic double?

Consider his giant double sword. (Proceed.)

A mild, yet regrettably symmetrical case of double-strabismus.

You alight on a double-page spread of poems. The first is about an ungrown hawthorn tree, another tries to force 'razor' to rhyme with 'demisemiquaver', while one is simply blank -- a non-poem.

Red-eyed, cloaked in black with a huge, spiked pauldron on one shoulder, the plastic wolf leans on a double-headed axe.

"Double-murder, couple months ago. The man was a baby-faced boevik in the Azzurri mob."

DISABUSE HER OF WHATEVER INANITY SHE'S CONCEALING IN THAT MAGAZINE. SHE HAS INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR DOUBLE.

He was at Foto 24 and your double is incapacitated. This is now your prime suspect.

"I've lost track of a colleague of mine -- double breasted Superbloc jacket, glasses."

Carmuna. The name on PSEUDOPOD's purchase order. Your double owes this woman a minuscule shipment of socks.

"The music man wears glasses! And sometimes double glasses. It looks dumb."

Good chance to ask her some questions about your former double... and his discontents.

As you spill his secrets, your former double's face flashes across your mind.

"What?" A pause, then she tuts. "I said you're enough to deal with, CASCADE, without the return of your former double."

"I'm a professional, Ramses. I have double guns."

Wait -- is Ignatz a double agent?

Your former double stiffens.

Your former double stares at you, his head at an odd angle.

Your former double brings his hand to his mouth and goes completely motionless.

Your former double readjusts his luminous visor and smooths over his dark mass of hair with a practised hand.

Your former double gazes around the shrine. The light wind seems to circle it, not move through it.

Your former double stares at you for a long moment, the top half of his face illuminated in vivid yellow light from the plastic visor.

You leave your double alone in your locked room.

All you can make out are muffled sounds, frantic and high-pitched. Your double's voice, no doubt.

Double: LOST IN-THEATRE. Status: Captured. Interrogated. Loyalties: Non-existent. Conclusion: Failure, brackets, Inevitable.

"The man you killed was only a body double."

"The man I killed was only a body double."

"You know that isn't so, otherwise you'd have left poor Dante the unfortunate body double where you found him."

They were officially cautioned by an EMTERR operant. As was your double, it seems. With prejudice.

"I know you killed my double."

Double gasp.

"Mm... CASCADE... Did you-?" Your former double mutters in a drug-heavy voice.

No response. Your former double is out cold. The empty syringe falls from his grip and rattles across the floor.

"Which... one is the Small Controller?" Your former double seems deeply troubled at your offering.

A tiny crescent moon of blood forms on your former double's forehead.

Immobilised like a torture victim, your former double just gives you a firm, unwavering stare.

You are not going to find any Controller with your mind, no matter how Small. But you may yet be able to reach your former double...

There is no response... but a shadow dips across your former double's expression.

There is nothing more to be done here. Your former double is gone, and maybe happier for it.

Maybe it's just a random nerve firing, but a smile flutters at the corner of your former double's mouth.

You put the book away and set your former double to rest. There is nothing left to do here.

The body of your former double ragdolls in the cockpit chair. Blood runs from the hole in his head, brushing his eye on the way down, and drips in irregular patterns on the floor.

The dark interior of your former double's skull awaits.

There is predictably no outward response from your former double as you finish reading.