Free Crossover by Jack Heath

senses, and she realised that her phone had been
vibrating in her pocket for some time. She looked at the screen.
Benjamin.
    What will I tell him?
she wondered.
    She answered the phone.
'Hi.'
    'Ash, where are you?
The soldiers will be back in ten minutes!'
    'Benjamin,' Ash said.
'If something really bad happened, and there was nothing you could
do about it, would you want to know?'
    He laughed nervously.
'No. We've had this conversation before.'
    Ash said nothing.
    'Why?' Benjamin said.
'What's happened?'
    'Nothing,' Ash said.
'It was just a hypothetical – everything's fine. I'm coming out.
I'll see you soon.'

 
     
     
     
     

Chapter
Nine: Awake
     
     
     
    Six's eyes snapped
open. He let out a long, desperate gasp. His heart thumped
painfully against his lungs as the cold air washed over him. The
world inside the index hadn't felt fake, but now that he was in
reality, he could feel the difference. The dim light of the fallout
shelter was so vivid. The acrid smell of the concrete left him
gagging.
    He lifted his arms. The
chains were gone. Kyntak must have freed him before going
under–
    Kyntak. Six looked
around, but could see no sign of his brother.
    He rolled off the
table, and hissed as a set of needles was yanked out of his scalp,
and presumably his brain. Depending on the size of the holes they
had left behind, blood and airborne parasites could be leaking into
his cranium. Without prompt medical attention, he might die.
    But if Soren Byre
activated her time machine, the resulting explosion could kill
thousands of people. There was no time to see a doctor.
    Six staggered to his
feet, alarmed by the shaking of his limbs. How long had he been in
the index, without food or water?
    'Kyntak,' he
rasped.
    There was no
response.
    Six clamped his mouth
shut. What if Soren Byre was still here? What if she had come back?
She had learned all she needed to from Six. She had nothing to lose
by killing him.
    He staggered across the
dusty concrete toward the door. Opened it. The only sound was the
whirring of the servers, as the duplicate Ashley Arthur and her
friend and her father and billions of others ran around inside.
    Did they cease to exist
when I left? he wondered. Or is she still in there, knowing that
she's fake?
    Six had known for most
of his life that he was artificial. It wasn't so bad. But knowing
that everyone else was, too – it would be enough to drive someone
insane.
    He stepped into the
corridor, turned right–
    And then heard a noise
to his left.
    He whirled around,
fists raised.
    The corridor was empty,
but there was a door. A room adjacent to the one from which he had
emerged.
    He crept closer. Tried
the handle. Unlocked.
    He pushed the door open
and jumped back, in case Soren Byre was inside, waiting to
attack.
    She wasn't. Instead,
Kyntak lay face down on the floor in a puddle of blood.
    'Kyntak!' Six ran over
and crouched beside his brother. 'Can you hear me?'
    Kyntak groaned.
    Six turned him over,
gently. Kyntak's face was streaked with blood, but the only wounds
seemed to be a pair of tiny holes on the top of his head.
    'No-one to put me in,'
Kyntak mumbled. 'Had to do it myself.' He smiled, revealing pink
teeth. 'Think I did it wrong?'
    'Damn it,' Six
muttered. He tore some of the rubbery fabric out of Kyntak's outfit
and used it to plug the holes. 'You need a doctor.'
    Kyntak
let out a gurgling chuckle. 'We both need doctors. But, no time.
Right?'
    Six nodded
reluctantly.
    'Always no time,'
Kyntak groaned. 'Let's go.'
     
    * * *
     
    Neither of them could
run, but they could jog through the debris-strewn plains. Six's
head pounded with every shuffling footstep. He could only imagine
how Kyntak felt.
    'Once Byre has the
ununoctium,' Six panted, 'is there any chance she could get her
machine working?'
    'I don't think so,'
Kyntak replied. 'It'll just explode. And the further in time she
tries to go back, the bigger the blast radius will be.'
    'But if it worked–'
    'Even if it worked, it
would still