07 – Interview with a Mimic

Erika stepped into the clone’s interrogation room, accompanied by The Maid. Her eyes trailed over the fake Anna, searching for any hint of deception, of any sign of a beguiling nature hidden under those familiar features. It was the first time she had seen this Anna without the mirrored glass in the way.

Not a single twitch on Anna’s annoyed face looked out of place.

“Finally. I need to get back to my mother,” Anna said, pressing her hands to the table as she stood. Arcing her back, bringing her arms up and over her head in a long, shuddering stretch, she even broke into a yawn. “Ah. Didn’t realize how stiff I was until I moved. You guys sure took your sweet time figuring things out.”

Erika and The Maid glanced at one another.

She thought something might change in person; Erika walked in here fully expecting an attack from an angry mimic, revealing its true colors now that it had something to throw itself at. If it really was a mind-reader, it should know that every test The Fixer gave it, including the ones Erika had not been privy to, pointed toward this Anna being the fake.

Yet she didn’t attack. She didn’t unveil some hideous, monstrous form. The Anna in front of Erika looked back and forth, relieved smile slowly drooping to a frown. “What?”

“We’ve got one more test,” Erika said, wondering if the clone was only maintaining the charade because Erika was.

“You’re joking, right? We’ve been at this for hours.”

“We have to be absolutely certain.”

The Maid slinked around the table, flashing a cheery smile. “You know how it always goes: the evil doppelganger shows up and pretends to be the good guy only to ruin their counterpart’s life. You don’t want that to happen, we don’t want that to happen, I don’t even know that the evil doppelganger wants that to happen, they’re just too upset over not being the real one to care.”

Anna sighed, rolling her eyes. “That always happens?”

“Always. Oddly, neither of you has a sharp goatee, so it’s a bit hard to tell who is who.”

“How strange,” Anna said, tone flat as she looked to Erika for some assistance. Erika couldn’t do anything but offer her a shrug, leading to a heavy sigh.

She was so normal that Erika genuinely found herself doubting The Fixer’s assessment. Which might have been the whole reason she was still keeping up the act. The Fixer was not some godlike, infallible being, and a mind-reader would know Erika’s general disposition toward them, as well as her history of… light conflict with practically every decision they made.

To have them come in here, point at an Anna, and call it a done deal certainly did leave a sour taste in Erika’s mouth.

“Alright, what test have you got this time.” Anna clasped her hands to her thighs, fully resigned.

“Sorry,” Erika said, lightly patting Anna on the shoulder. “Something a bit more invasive, unfortunately,” she said, ushering her to the door.

“The Doctor mentioned taking a deeper look at me when he took my blood,” Anna grumbled as they exited into the endless maze of the asylum. “But I’d have expected him or The Orderly.”

“What, don’t want to see a familiar face?” Erika said.

“I want to get out of here. Your face is irrelevant.”

“Rude,” she huffed, shooting Anna a grin. It felt so easy to fall into a regular bout of banter. The doubt at the back of her mind was easily overpowered by the apparent reality of the situation. Still there, just smothered.

Erika turned a corner, then another almost immediately. She didn’t have a clue which way to go, but The Maid skipped on ahead, humming lightly to herself. One door in a hallway where Erika was confident she had never been before and she found herself back in that laboratory. Bubbling vats of strange liquids, mechanical contraptions whirring and flexing, and strange electrical sparks flying between diodes overhead still drew Erika’s eyes despite this being her second time through this room.

Anna started to look a whole lot more worried. “When you said invasive…”

“You aren’t being chopped up or anything like that,” Erika said. “Maybe next test.”

“Erika…”

“Just through here.” Erika followed The Maid through the opening in the back, stepping into The Mind’s chamber once again.

The brain in the jar turned, eyes swiveling to face the newcomers. There were no pleasantries, comments, or quips this time around. The Mind stared, and an instant later, Erika blinked.

When she opened her eyes, she found herself in a fairly comfortable sitting room. The wooden furniture looked hand carved, some of the paintings on the wall were clearly famous—she could only name Starry Night, but she vaguely recognized several others—and the aroma of perfectly steeped tea permeated the air. It was not the grandiose starscape that The Mind used for her meeting with The Castle.

The goal here wasn’t to dazzle and overwhelm the potentially fake Anna.

“Teleportation?” Anna asked, head whipping back and forth as she stared at the stone hearth and its warm fire.

Erika looked her over again, searching for any hints that this wasn’t Anna. Here in The Mind’s mindscape, people apparently manifested according to their own self-image. That self-image was not at all congruous with reality, but The Mind did some passive smoothing over to get things to more or less align. Erika had already sat through a brief mindscape interview with the other Anna, but knowing she was allegedly the real one, Erika hadn’t been surprised to find her looking normal.

The fact that this Anna still looked like Anna and not some mimic raised… implications.

“Not exactly,” Erika answered eventually, gesturing to the table. It was a much smaller table than the one from the starscape, set up for only two people. The Maid was not present, sticking back in the real world to ensure Anna’s body didn’t go homicidal despite her mind being trapped here.

Anna took her time sinking into the high-backed seat. That hadn’t changed.

“There aren’t any doors or windows,” Anna said, searching the room.

“There wouldn’t really be anywhere to go.”

“Nowhere to go? Is this some weird realm again?”

“That brain in a jar was The Mind, and if you are Anna, I know you’ll catch on quick.”

Anna narrowed her eyes, taking in one last sweep of the room, of Erika, and finally of the teacup placed in front of her. “I think I’m going to need something a little stronger,” she said.

Between the blinks of her eyes, the teacup turned to a tall glass of beer, topped with a quarter-inch of foam.

“That’ll do for now,” she said, bringing it to her mouth without hesitation.

“It isn’t real.”

Anna wiped a little foam from her upper lip. “I guessed. The Mind is sending signals to my brain, telling me that it is cool and refreshing, and if The Mind is actually good at what I suspect they’re good at, they’ll give me a little buzz to go with it.”

Erika drummed her fingers against the table, then did something she hadn’t done when the other Anna gave basically the same speech. She held up her teacup, stared at it, and wished for something else. A short, fat glass appeared in her hand; one large sphere of ice sat in a thin layer of amber-colored liquid.

“You aren’t old enough to drink.”

“It isn’t real,” Erika said again, this time with a small smile. It burned her throat on the way down despite being fake. She let out a clipped breath, setting the glass down. “So,” she said.

“So,” Anna echoed.

“I trust I don’t need to explain too much.”

“The Mind is reading my mind right now, probably looking for anything out of place while we talk.” She placed a hand lightly over a seam on her arm. “I was in The Castle’s care for a long while, so I imagine they have a good idea of who I am. Which just makes this whole thing more frustrating…”

“That’s almost exactly what the other you said.”

Anna snorted, bringing the beer to her lips again. “In a proper experiment, you shouldn’t tell me anything about the other subjects.”

“Probably shouldn’t tell you this either, but we think you’re the clone.”

Anna’s face flickered—surprise, shock, hurt. After another sip of beer, she settled into resignation. “The Fixer?”

Erika nodded. “The Fixer thinks the clone can read minds, but not their mind. Your answers to our questions were almost identical to the other Anna’s, but were wildly different when they asked their questions.”

“If they’re wrong, the clone just tells them what they want to hear while I’ve got no idea.”

Erika nodded. She pointed that out as well… and so had the other Anna after Erika told her that she was the clone. The Fixer didn’t believe it was possible; their mind didn’t exist in reality. A compelling argument, but Erika had to be certain.

“You can’t just break the illusion?”

“If I knew what to break, sure. I’ve touched both of you and I don’t feel any magic on either of you.”

“There’s got to be something,” Anna said, brow furrowed. “Say ‘I hate to break it to ya,’ and then tell some objective truth.”

Erika rubbed her chin, trying to decide if that was a valid application of her power. While she could break more ephemeral concepts, she usually liked some physical manifestation to hit, and truth didn’t really have that. After The Director’s warning before, she wasn’t going to try it now lest she give The Mind a stroke.

“No go?” Anna asked.

“It’s something to think about, but I’m not sure how I’d go about it now,” Erika answered honestly.

“Damn. Well, I’m not sure what I can say to convince you at this point. You or The Mind or anyone else, apparently.” She paused, taking a heavy drink of her beer. The liquid level never seemed to drop. “I don’t suppose Rick or Leslie or my mother can be brought in?”

“Your mother is with Piper. Rick and Leslie are on their way… bringing Delilah.”

“Ah. Hoping Nya can point to one of us and definitively end this?”

“More or less,” Erika nodded.

Anna let out a long, slow sigh, turning to an inward contemplation. Erika watched with curiosity… that was a different reaction. The other Anna complained that Nya probably wouldn’t be able to tell either, since nothing else worked. This Anna let out a small huff. “That’d probably do it.”

Erika’s eyebrows crept up her forehead. “You think Nya can point the fake out?”

“Why not? She pointed out the Carrion █████ and showed awareness of the birds. I’m not too much different. Just a sliver of The Mummy,” Anna said with another casual sip of her beer. “Damn.”

Erika blinked, not expecting a plain and clear admission. This had gone so far off script that she wasn’t sure where to go from here. “You admit it?” was all she could blurt out.

“I mean, fake is a matter of perspective.” Anna held up her beer, staring through the yellow-brown liquid at Erika. “I don’t think I’m fake, but I know I’m not the Anna you’re expecting. Therefore, I must be the wrong Anna.”

“I’m not sure I understand the distinction. Unless it is like Daniel said and you both think you’re the real one. Except you obviously know you’re not.” Erika started grinding her fingertips into her temples. She wasn’t sure how it was possible to get a headache in The Mind’s mindscape, but she was well and truly managing.

“Daniel’s a bright boy.”

“Yeah… wait.” Erika shook her head, focusing. “Never mind the what you are. Just… why? Why give it up now instead of holding out to see if Nya can’t or won’t point you out? Why go cosplay Anna in the first place? Why drag all this out?”

“To answer your final question first… I wanted to live.” She swirled the beer around in her glass, staring at it before flicking her eyes up like she had a sudden epiphany. “I want to live. But I fell into a trap and now here we are. I hoped to get away, but that doesn’t look likely.

“I didn’t know about Nya—or anything, for that matter—until her name fluttered about in your minds and I dug a little deeper to find out what she was. I didn’t realize my mistake until I was already trapped in The Castle’s asylum.” Anna—the fake—let out a small sigh, still maintaining Anna’s mannerisms despite the admission. “You don’t fully trust Nya, and I can’t guess at her goals with what I know, but there doesn’t seem to be much reward in throwing away the trust she’s gained with you by concealing me.”

Erika brought her hands together, resting them on the table just to keep from fiddling with her temples. She stared, trying to figure out what angle there might be in just coming out and admitting everything.

“You still don’t trust me even when I’m telling the truth.”

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to trust anything right now.”

“Well, trust this: I’d rather not be left with The Castle. Their minds are harder to penetrate, but of what I can see, I don’t like. They’re kind to you now, but the moment you aren’t useful to them, I would watch your backs.”

“Were you sent to sew discord, or something?”

Anna shrugged, taking another drink of her beer.

Erika glanced to her empty glass, noted it had been refilled, and took another burning shot of the amber liquid. It wasn’t real, but The Mind made it real enough.

“I don’t think I really existed as an independent entity until a few hours ago. I was tossed out, told to get close to you, and left behind. You were with Danny and The Stalker at the time.”

“Who sent you?”

“I don’t know his true identity, but your memories call him The Monk.”

Erika nodded, figuring as much. “So what, we ran off with The Prescient before you could get close?”

“Exactly. Knowing what we know about him, I wonder if he knew. This whole charade could have been orchestrated by The Castle to get their hands on me. That’s rather disturbing.”

Erika blinked. Now that she thought about it, hadn’t The Prescient said that the clones were part of the reason he had shown up? But the meeting had been about The Monk and capturing him. And didn’t The Doctor say that they wanted a clone for experimentation?

Narrowing her eyes, Erika stared across the table as Anna looked down at her glass, body language screaming depression. She would have known they said those things because Erika knew they said those things. Bringing them up now had to be more manipulation, deliberately engineering the conversation to make Erika come up with her own ideas for what really happened today.

Of course The Castle wanted a clone as a test subject. They were mad scientists, the whole lot of them. There was nothing odd about them saying something like that.

But The Prescient’s powers, and The Prescient’s slip… the fact that he showed up today, and not on any of Erika’s previous attempts at drawing The Monk out…

Did it even matter? As it was, they probably saved Erika a whole other headache by orchestrating this whole interrogation thing. If fake-Anna showed up alongside the real one at Varn’s, it could have turned into one of those standoffs where one ends up dead and everyone is left hoping they shot the right one.

Well, until they brought Nya into the picture.

“So you were sent to get close to me? Then what?”

Anna shrugged. “Go ghost hunting, I guess. Track down The Mummy’s other aspects. Save the world? Care for my—Anna’s mother, go to birthday parties, be the cool aunt. Do whatever Anna does.”

“You didn’t have any other orders?”

“Get close to you. That’s it.”

Erika chewed on that. It was possible she was lying. That was something Erika kept repeating in the back of her mind. No matter how candid it felt like Anna was being, there was always the chance for deception layered in truth. “Did you have to obey The Monk?”

“I didn’t think to not obey the first directive. If you’re asking whether I’d obey him if he showed up two weeks from now and told me to stab you in the back?” Anna stopped and looked like she was genuinely thinking about the question. “Anna wouldn’t,” she said. “I would tell him to go fuck himself. Or try to kill him. I mean, look at what he’s done to me—her—us.” Anna looked down, fingers tracing the seams on her arms.

“But he might have a way of forcing you.”

“He might have a way of forcing me,” Anna echoed. “Which means I’m a liability. Which means you can’t just let me go even if I promise to get a distinguishing tattoo.” She slumped back in her seat. Her beer glass never drained, but that didn’t stop her from trying until she ran out of breath. Slamming it back on the table, sloshing foam over the surface, she grumbled, “Fuck.”

Erika slumped back in her seat as well, closing her eyes. She didn’t like this. She didn’t like the empathy worming around in the back of her mind. Yet it was there despite her efforts to squash it with the claim that fake-Anna was still trying to get close to her, just in another way.

“Mind!” Erika shouted.

When she opened her eyes, she found herself staring at The Mind floating in his tank. The Maid stood directly in front of Erika and Anna, watching and waiting, while Anna still had a glossy sheen of unconscious haze over her eyes.

“Was she lying to me?” Erika asked, now glaring at the brain and its eye stalks.

“I sensed no deliberate deception during the course of its explanation. That does not mean there were no lies, just that I sensed none. Given its capabilities—”

“Her capabilities,” Erika corrected.

“You aren’t thinking of taking her with you.”

It wasn’t a question. “No,” Erika answered anyway. She looked to her side, frowning at Anna’s slack face. “What are you going to do with her?”

“We’ll find out what she is, better ways of identifying creatures like her, and anything that helps us detect them remotely, whether that be signatures chemical, biological, radiological, psychological, or precog…nical.” He hesitated halfway through that last one. “Assuming her testimony is not overly deceptive, it is very likely that she will not be the last of her kind. Arming you with methods of detection will be vital.”

Erika didn’t doubt that. “Will she be harmed?”

“We’re not inhumane.”

“That does not answer my question and you fucking know it.” Erika glared up at the brain-in-a-vat. “I want weekly interviews with her. Wellness checks, if you will. And since you offered, you can give me progress reports on detection methods at the same time.”

And if the fake-Anna showed any signs of being puppeted, or being replaced by compliant clones…

“Threatening us will get us nowhere, and may make her behave differently in those interviews.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You thought it.”

Erika plastered a thin smile across her face.