"Performance" by A.M. Todd
A sheepish brother is forced through an experimental program to take on the overbearing traits of his crime boss twin.
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"Performance" by A.M. Todd
“Wait here,” the guard said as he shut the door behind him, leaving me by myself.
The floor inside the lab was polished and the air smelled of disinfectant, and yet the room felt unclean. Leaves shook on a tree outside the window, making shadows on the floor that shifted when the leaves did. Branches brushed against the glass, but I heard no noise, not one sound from outside coming through the hard metal walls. I would’ve welcomed some noise to break the quiet. I would’ve welcomed anything to distract me on the night when I might sign my life away for two million dollars.
It felt as if I should do something to prepare myself but I didn’t know what. Taking a seat at the table, I noticed the cot and washroom in the corner. They hadn’t told me they wanted me to live out here. Perhaps I shouldn’t have come. It never turned out well when I took chances.
A buzz sounded from the front door. The lock was scanning someone’s eyes, as it had for the guard when he brought me in. The door opened and a well-dressed woman in her thirties strode towards me, her heels clicking on the concrete.
“Alistair Briggs?” she said. “I’m Dr. Larson’s assistant, Jean.”
“Yeah, I’m him. I’m Alistair.” The awkward reply seemed to slip from my lips onto the table like an ugly worm, writhing between us. To calm myself, I fiddled with my watch and adjusted the strap. My fingers lingered on the plastic, scuffed from overuse. I wore the watch everywhere. It brought me luck. Back when I had a job, my male colleagues mocked me for wearing such a cheap plastic thing, but I didn’t care what those brutes thought.
Jean sat on a chair across from me and surveyed me with hard, distant eyes. “Thank you for agreeing to move to a secure location,” she said. “Our staff couldn’t tell you the full details of what your work will involve, not at your apartment. The information is too sensitive.”
“I haven’t agreed to sign anything yet.”
“Of course,” Jean said, nodding in the manner of someone who knew she was in total control. “We’re willing to pay a high fee for your help. But you’ll understand shortly why you’re the only person who can do this job.”
I didn’t answer.
“Your task will be to work undercover for us and gather information about the Sixth Cartel, a group of organized criminals. But first, Dr. Larson will need you to do one thing for him.”
“What?”
“He’ll need you to be someone else.”
“He’ll need you to be someone else.”
Jean pulled a flat, touch-screen device from her pocket. As she activated it with a retinal scan, we sat without speaking, the air of the lab hanging stale and stagnant around us. The room felt too hot. But at least it was small and contained.
“You’ll understand what I mean when you see the footage of the suspect,” Jean said. She folded one leg over the other, her neatly manicured fingernails resting on one thigh. Jean was attractive. This situation was already stressful enough without that. I fiddled with my watch to calm my nerves.
She tapped the surface of her device, and three screens turned on in the metal walls behind her. The inside of an office building appeared from a different angle on each screen. Employees in cubicles worked their way through small, unremarkable tasks. At first, the scene looked drab and routine. But then a man leaned in to whisper a few words to a woman and she laughed, the sound anxious and stifled, as if laughter were a forbidden thing. When that laugh came out strangely like it did, I knew that something in that office felt wrong.
The elevator doors opened, and a tall man in a suit stepped out into the hallway. When I first caught sight of him in the distance, I thought he was me, but I dismissed that thought. I’d never been in that office--I knew that perfectly well. The man strode towards the cubicles. The fear that he was me came back again, growing more persistent as he approached the camera. He stopped beside an employee’s desk. His face was plainly visible now. There was no way to mistake what I saw.
I recoiled instinctively from the screens, stood up, and began pacing the lab, wiping sweat from my forehead. Behind the window the leaves shook, but still they were mute, no sound in the lab but my hurried footsteps. Jean paused the footage and waited for me to calm down, her face expressionless. The black holes of her pupils, rimmed with green and yellow flecks, watched me closely.
I pointed at the man on the screens. “What is this, then? Some kind of joke?”
“This is something very simple. It’s something biological. This man, Travis Findlay, is your twin.”
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