The illusion was uncanny…
Iris Alcazar emerged from the restroom and strode back to the teller’s window, wearing identical clothing to Cassie’s dark linen shirt, pants, calf leather shoes, and carrying the forest green bolero jacket. It was her, but at the same time, she was decidedly not Iris. This doppelgänger had everything down perfectly, even the subtle swagger of her hips as she walked. She spoke confidently to the teller, without a trace of fear or doubt, and convinced the kind woman to sign over a money order to the imposter.
Ryan rubbed at his eyes until they blurred from repeated pressing against his eyelids. No matter how hard he tried, the vision remained true. Cassie, or Cassandra, or whatever her name was, could create a perfect replica of Iris, effectively walking around in her skin. The double made her way outside the automatic bank entrance doors, and she lingered inside a bus shelter for the next bus to arrive.
That’s the best d*mned makeup I’ve ever seen in my life. Ryan marveled as he made his way outside. She looks just like the real thing. It’s incredible…
An elderly woman approached the bench inside the shelter, and “Iris” scooched over for her to have a seat in comfort. Cassie’s mannerisms, verbal tics, and gestures were flawless; she was a perfect copy, no doubt about it. If Ryan hadn’t seen her enter as one person and leave as another, he might not have believed it was possible.
The magic of makeup was not lost on the young man. He’d had plenty of girlfriends and one-night-stands who harnessed the amazing power of contouring that bordered on the occult. Each one of them had entered his lofty apartment on lonely nights as perfect “tens” only to leave as disheveled “sixes” and “sevens” by the morning after. If he were to compare the most skillful transformations in his dating life to this new development, Cassie’s abilities were of a much higher class.
Ryan struggled mightily as he weighed his options. Should he confront Cassie and demand to know what was going on, or would that make things worse? If he called her out as an imposter, she could get in serious trouble with the bank and the law. Did this count as impersonation if Iris knew about it? A torrent of questions addled Ryan’s brain and he missed his chance to make a choice at all.
Iris’s identical twin boarded the city bus after her elderly companion, and sat comfortably on the passenger side, in the seat nearest to the door. She looked down briefly, typed a number into her phone, and made a call as the bus lurched back to life.
Ryan cursed his hesitation as he stood out on the busy sidewalk by the bus shelter. The summer heat stung his back, and his shirt soaked through with sweat. He frowned at the notion that he might smell off-putting if he returned to the office in his current state but rationalized that the city was more guilty of offense than he was. It was strange though, that this block should smell so much like a chlorinated pool.
Frustrated and overheated, Ryan ducked under the protective shade of a nearby tree and felt a rumbling vibration from his cellphone. It was a call from Javier’s office number, with a frowny faced emoji next to his name. A quick glance at his watch told him that lunch ended nearly an hour ago.
Sh*t. Ryan shook his head and answered the call.
“Yes, I’m here.” Ryan wiped the sweat from his brow and listened to Javier peddle some nonsense about “timely lunch hours” for a minute. The acrid chlorine smell intensified, tickling Ryan’s nose. “Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Keep your shirt on, it was an emergency, Javi.”
Ryan meandered to a cab stand west of the bank entrance, hopped into an available taxi, and called out his destination to the driver. “GC&S building, Office District, please.”
The cab sped off towards the affluent side of town, leaving a concealed, skulking Augment behind. Cruxuss was too severely damaged to catch the human woman earlier, but this worked out for the better. A jagged smirk trailed across his splotchy face, and he remained undaunted by losing sight of the redheaded man he saw with Iris that afternoon.
Praise the Makers. Cruxuss emerged from an alcove with a strained limp. Finally, a stroke of luck.
It was a gamble, canvassing around the space between the Office District and Financial District bus shelters, but it paid off for him this time. Cruxuss had spent considerable energy trying to get closer to the friendly woman he’d met on that rainy night with Khazmine, but couldn’t pinpoint exactly where she worked. Plus, the woman stopped using the bus system altogether after that night, exacerbating his search.
That foolish brat gave himself away. Cruxuss shambled into a disused alleyway away from noisy passersby. GC&S, eh? It shouldn’t be hard to find…
Cruxuss was fortunate that his hearing was still excellent, despite taking damage from Khazmine’s power cables, but he had no way of knowing that a pungent stench of chlorine followed him wherever he went. Much like other Augments in his class, Cruxuss had a notably poor sense of smell, and was unaware of the strength of his odor.
<WARNING: Coolant leak detected. *crackle* … in hydraulic assembly detected. Compound failures in *static* and primary support systems detected. Spinal nodes 11, 14, 15, and 17 not responding.>
He had long since abandoned paying any attention to his system diagnostic warnings. If Cruxuss still listened to every wretched word, he was sure to have lost his mind from the constant nagging and pleas for repairs. He didn’t even have enough reserve power to add color to his skin or hair, which gave the starved Augment a blanched, ghostly-pale appearance. Every step was a chore, and every alley an agony, as Cruxuss made slow, deliberate progress towards the Office District.
Asteras… When I get my hands on that d*mned woman… Cruxuss slammed his hand down into the lid of a trashcan in the alley, crumpling it under his fist. I’ll tear out her cables and see how she likes it…
The Augment stormed off, passing by the lifeless carcasses of two pigeons, a mangy tabby cat, and a flea-ridden, chestnut-colored mutt. Each one was disfigured beyond recognition with electrical burns on their mangled bodies. It would have drawn too much attention if a human went missing, but no one would bat an eye if stray animals were drained dry. Cruxuss resented having to stoop so low to replenish his power reserves, but he had little choice after Khazmine damaged his recharging assembly.
I’ll take back my missing components and rip every single plate off her miserable frame. Cruxuss grimaced as he shuffled through the backstreets, favoring his undamaged leg over the caved-in one. There won’t be enough left for spare parts.
An eerie quiet settled in the living room, with only the whispering sounds of muted breathing to punctuate the silence in Iris’s apartment. Mr. Cavendish perched on Khazmine’s stool and leaned in to get another look at the sleeping Iris. Her pale face nestled into Zayne’s embrace, with eyebrows pitched in mild discomfort. Zayne could feel her slow, rhythmic pulse and clammy cheek against his smooth, olive-colored skin, which encouraged him to hold her more tightly. Neither one of them spoke above a whisper, as not to wake the weakened woman.
“Her breathing is better.” Zayne muttered. “But she’s still cold and shivering.”
“We should take her to the hospital.” Mr. Cavendish reached out for Zayne to hand her over, but the Paxoram slowly stood up in defiance of his suggestion. “What are you doing?”
“Making her more comfortable.” Zayne padded carefully to the bedroom, followed by Mr. Cavendish. He avoided turning his back on the human entirely as he dropped Iris off in her queen-sized bed. “This is the best we can do for her.”
“What are you talking about?” Mr. Cavendish’s voice rose in hushed indignance as the pair returned to the living room. He only felt comfortable speaking at his normal volume once Iris was out of earshot. “Why aren’t you getting her proper medical care?”
Zayne squinted fiercely at the audacity of this human. Was he so out of touch with Iris’s reality? Did he even know she was ailing?
He doesn’t know anything about her, yet presumes to tell ME what to do?
“And how are we to pay for such care, hmm?” Zayne tilted his head to decipher the human’s imminent response.
“What do you mean?” Mr. Cavendish struggled with the question. It seemed so obvious to him that he was surprised Zayne had even asked. “If she’s unwell, then you take her for care. They can bill her insurance and—”
“—And put her even farther behind on bills, rent, and food? No, she wouldn’t want that.” Zayne declared confidently. If he still had his crest of cranial feathers, they would have puffed up proudly at his insight into her preferences. “You don’t have any idea how badly she’s doing, do you?”
“Do you know how hard she works, just to afford food, medication, and a place to live?” Zayne couldn’t stop himself. Once he’d started decrying the downfalls of this wretched human society, he laid into Mr. Cavendish as the avatar of everything wrong with Earth’s social hierarchy. “…And we don’t need some self-important blowhard who’s never known hardship lecturing us on what’s best.”
That struck a nerve. Mr. Cavendish’s expression darkened, with his pale blue eyes resembling the Augment’s icy stare, and jaw clenched tight to rein in his displeasure. He considered himself a patient man, but this roommate’s fixation on money over her wellbeing was intolerable. How dare he count pennies when his roommate was sick?
“Listen here, buddy.” Mr. Cavendish fumed. “You’d better get your head on straight and stop with the—”
The front door flew open behind him, startling the office manager and breaking his chain of thought. Behind him were two men; one was an overweight, affable chap with sandy colored hair and reddened face, and the other was, for lack of another phrase, some kind of titanic demon person.
“What the ever-loving hell?” Mr. Cavendish’s eyes widened at the sight of the magenta-colored archfiend. Neither the short newcomer nor Zayne seemed bothered by the monstrous figure, prompting a confused response to this stranger’s appearance. “Who are you?”
“Oh, terribly sorry.” Byxx offered a friendly wave. “Byxx Malignar, archfiend champion of the Forgotten Wastes, at your service.”
“Not now, Byxx.” Curtis interjected sternly. “We got your message. Where’s Iris?”
“Message?” Zayne asked.
“Yeah, from Cassie. She told us you were here with her.” Curtis snooped around the room before traipsing back to the bedroom. “Just give me a minute, okay?”
Curtis closed the door behind him, leaving the trio of human, Paxoram, and archfiend men to wallow in their own awkwardness. Byxx was likely to perish from over-curiosity and broke the tension between Mr. Cavendish and Zayzann with a question.
“So… How do you know Iris?” The archfiend gestured to the human to make himself comfortable in a guest chair.
“I’m her office manager at Gabriel, Cavendish & Sparks. We work in the same building.” Mr. Cavendish offered a business card to Byxx, who took the tiny cardstock in his colossal hand. “She was being followed by some stalker during her lunch break and felt sick when she got here.”
“Oh, you must be Alden!” Byxx smiled brightly with crinkled eyes filled with warmth. “She speaks very highly of you indeed.”
Zayne had just enough time to glower at Byxx for the glowing review when Curtis re-emerged from the bedroom, toting a handful of pill bottles.
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