Chương 178: Act 3, Chapter 32: When two become three

Day in the story: 14th January (Wednesday), past midnight Alexandra May There was something wrong with me. Since the first freeze, my body had refused to move on a few more occasions, each time stopping me in my tracks. And it wasn't related to any particular activity.

"You've overworked your body and your soul," Gertrude noticed, extending my new and improved leg toward me. She had spent most of the evening and early after midnight at Victor's place, helping him with projects and giving me a lot of insight into how this whole artificial Authority manipulation worked. I was no expert on any of it yet, and probably never would be, but in principle it was pretty simple.

You had to use proper Authority, either drawn from the core concept of the crystal or from a soulmark, and move it through Shadowlight led by optic fibers. From what Victor explained, properly placed, strung, and laid fibers—due to their shapes, lengths, and myriad other factors—would produce a desired effect from the combination. It was all meant to simulate how a soul instinctively guides Authority.

Maybe if I had more time, bodies, or energy, I'd focus on that as well, since it seemed very artistic in its application. But not now. Just like my other self suggested, I was wrung dry.

"Scratch that," she said, noticing I was completely lost in thought.

"You are totally out of a supply of fucks to give." I forgot she had access to my thoughts. Of course she was entirely right.

"Yeah. Gimme that leg, will you, smartass?"

"You put it on yourself," she said, handing it over. The hole she had painted on it was already covered with proper skin texture, with enough freckles to satisfy the need for full verisimilitude.

"You outdid yourself on the nails," I said, noticing the way light caught on them. They were painted with tiny human eyes as well—something I had recreated in the meantime on my living leg, following her idea. I could never have too many eyes on me, even if most of the time they would be hidden inside a sock or a shoe.

"Whatever. I prefer simpler forms, but it had to be done, so enjoy your new toy."

"You won't help with painting the other us?"

"You know full well I don't have the patience for that. You be the paintress. I need to organize a proper warehouse for us, and then an armory. Equinox is great and dandy, but he can't really make use of painted bullets too well, so I'm going to get some normal handguns for that and work on some new bullet designs."

"You're going to train shooting while coating bullets with Shadowlight, right?" I asked.

"Of course. Should be easier on the joints than Equinox's kickback, and it's not like I can fit into that silver rabbit pajama of yours. I am not a lanky girl."

"Can't believe people put up with me," I replied, trying to force a smile onto her pretty face, but I imagined her far too serious for that. She just waved me off as she turned and left.

"Bloody hell. I am awesome!" I shouted to myself.

"It's not only you," a cat licking her paws in the corner said to me. Her fur was mostly white, with a few patches and stripes of orange and brown, and fully brown, slightly elongated ears. Her main eyes were green like mine in proper light, just without the brown undertones. Her other eyes were completely black, with a thin crack in the middle to let her see through any illusion worth seeing through.

Funnily enough, they hadn't been there when I painted her fur, but they had existed in my imagination when I breathed life into her through my animation and identity powers. So when Anansi took over this body, she opened them without issue.

"I'm doing a pretty good job too."

"Better than your other body, that's for sure. It's a shame I'll have to send you back to Earth."

"It will be good to help you there with some information gathering," she replied. I intended for her to let the body lie there most of the time and only come alive when additional smaller hands were needed or a cat's presence would not raise suspicion. But above all else—"I can't wait to put my hands on the internet." Yes, above all else, I wanted her to use those opposable thumbs and small paws to handle technology when I couldn't look something up quickly enough.

I placed my stump into the prosthesis and unfolded the strap my Monkey self had painted oh so beautifully. Shadowlight shone briefly throughout the entire thing as my need for it to become my own real—flesh and bone—leg settled into its soul, connecting it to mine. The slightly visible fold animated in a way that seamlessly blended with my skin, and as I looked at it and then at my right leg, I could not tell that the left one hadn't been there all along.

"Well done," the cat mused, coming closer to inspect it and poke it with her paw.

"How does it feel?"

"You know how," I said, then corrected myself.

"Sorry. The courtesy of speaking is important, even when you know full well what's in my head. I understand it more wholly with each passing second."

"Yes, it is. Knowing something and voicing it are different things. There will be a time and place for nonverbal communication between all versions of you, but there is also merit in keeping at least a semblance of your own personality and identity among them. Otherwise—""I risk becoming some form of hive mind, yeah. It's not that difficult to let Trudy do her own thing without focusing on it, but when I do focus, it's like her hands are mine too—her eyes, her heart—everything becomes mine as well as hers."

"Yes. You had good training with additional eyes, so your mind is used to ignoring unnecessary input at any given moment. Additional external brains—and of course me—also help with that. You could probably make use of creating more of those minds in the future to help you manage additional bodies." If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"But they all have their own brains too," I protested. I didn't want to overwhelm myself with too many thought streams, but on the other hand they all felt like one mind that was simply better at its job, and only when I needed to think in parallel lines did they separate. I exhaled in surrender.

"Yeah, I might have to do that. I'd need some place here to properly store them. My little treasure room might not be the best idea."

"Focus on the task at hand. Rest and expand all of that later," Anansi said, licking her paw. I stood up, placing all my weight on the new leg without much hassle.

"Seems to be working just right." I raised the knee up in front of me, sending Shadowlight through myself and down into the leg, granting it Authority to do its own thing. A barely visible shimmering platform appeared beneath it, and I stepped onto it. After about a second, it shattered like glass and disappeared into thin air, dropping me onto the actual ground.

"Not bad," I said.

"Works exactly as demonstrated by Victor," Ani reminded me. They had tested it with Gertrude to check whether it did what was advertised before she brought it to me.

"It does," I replied, focusing on another statue standing in my Art Palace. Its hair was digitally sculpted into a short bob, before she'd been printed. Her frame was a bit more frail than mine, in much the same way Monkey's was thicker.

"What about Maya?" Anansi asked about the smaller figurine of me I had painted right after hers. It was me in a permanently flowing dress, shrunk down to a size appropriate for a seer. It had been a quick painting, done in various hues of silver and grey.

"I will grant her a personality when I'm sure of it. She is a new creation, and as such I have no clear image of who she is within my mind and soul. So despite the fact that she is ready for it, she'll have to wait a bit."

"Elle, then?" she continued, licking herself as she looked at the same statue I was studying.

"Yes. She is artistic like I am, but more orderly where I am chaotic. She has a keen eye for detail, so she would be perfect to go sightseeing in Paris for me," I replied, circling her blank form slowly. My hand moved carefully over the body that had once been mine before it would be hers. The curve of the shoulder, the line of the throat, the familiar architecture of ribs and hips—each contour remembered me even if it no longer belonged only to me. Soon, a shard of my soul and mind would inhabit it as well.

I had become a ghost that haunted my own selves. I slipped into them, possessed them with intention, made them rise and act. They were me and not me—extensions and obedient reflections, but with their own will and personalities. It was thrilling in a way. Daring too and a little frightening. But I had never been one to retreat from the edge simply because it looked steep.

"We all have a hunger…" I whispered, recalling Penrose's voice as clearly as in the day he'd spoken it for the first time. Mine had always been a one to test myself. To see whether I could long before asking whether I should. I chased the outer limits of my capacity the way others chased comfort. I needed to know where I ended. I needed to find out whether I ended at all. This repainting of my existence was just another trial in that quiet war.

The breath left my lips and dissolved into the air that embraced the empty shell of Elle. I reached for the paint and let my hand carve through that air, giving her skin its proper hue. With each stroke, I transferred something intangible—my memory, my will and our shared presence. Where my own skin had always been an ocean of freckles, hers was nearly clear. Only a restrained constellation remained: a few moles, a faint dusting across the bridge of the nose, inspired by Peter's own.

A reminder, an inspiration and a blatant theft. There was a saying that good artists copy, great artists steal and how could I not follow that example, when I was both a thief and an artistic soul? I added the tattoos as well, of course. They sat low along the left side of her rib cage. Hidden from prying eyes and far from the places a woman's body typically reveals. Her silver-grey eyes I painted to be sharp and unafraid.

They carried Sophie's clarity within them, that unnerving ability to see through the veils people wrapped around themselves. The hair I rendered golden, warm and luminous, like sunlight caught at its zenith. It took over eight hours to make her right. To align the outer form with the image that had lived inside me. Gertrude stood beside me as I finished, steady in her stance, with arms around her chest. She was ready to catch me though, when my body decided to fail again.

"Are we sure this is the best time to wake her?" she asked, watching the statue that now looked less like sculpture and more like a person caught in a stasis.

"Of course I'm not sure, Trudy," I answered.

"I don't know whether the freezing episodes happen because I woke you up—or because something in me resents the division. I assume it's exhaustion."

"Elle gets to live," she said evenly.

"And then you rest. Before the rest takes you instead to lay in peace."

"That's the plan." I stepped back and allowed the link to form—the invisible thread stretching from my core into the stillness before me. I declared her art. Then, without hesitation, I pushed my will through the thread and into her waiting form. Gertrude Monkey Alexa fell as soon as a wave of Authority followed the connection she established. One stream of consciousness surrendered the body, which drifted through low gravity around her as if set loose in the depths of space.

I caught her, of course, and held her in my arms. I wasn't much bigger than her in frame, but I was bigger—and yet the little that separated us felt gigantic in comparison to her complete lack of movement.

"Is she okay?" Elle's calm voice reached me as she adjusted her previously unused jaw with her open palm.

"We'll see about that. Let's hope so, or we are all fucking screwed, right?"

"Maybe. There might be some solution that remains unseen but will unveil itself in time. We have to observe and look for any anomalies that might lead us in the right direction," she said, examining her own body—even the soles of her feet as she bent down to inspect them.

"Ever the optimist, Elle?"

"I'd call myself pragmatic, Gertrude. If we are indeed screwed, then so be it. But I refuse to give up if we don't try everything to make this work," she replied, pointing at the vague space between her and me as I held Alexa in my arms.

"Good. I like that attitude," I said, turning to put my other self to bed. She had earned a long rest. Well, at least most of her soul and her body had. Whatever Authority we carried—and the minds we shared, and the ones we held for ourselves—were still up for any task we could envision.

"There is much to be done."

"I will get to work on painting anchors of all the new things into the spellbook as soon as I dress up."

"One of us should probably also make an appearance at uni, since she is indisposed."

"And you are proposing me, of course," Elle asked. There was no hint of outrage in her voice, and yet her body language suggested there should have been.

"You already have some of her freckles on your nose. Add a few more with makeup, and with the right lenses and a wig, you'd look just like her. We've postponed dealing with Peaches for way too long. She remembers, and it's unclear why. Who better to find out than you?" I asked her, opening a wardrobe and throwing her a wig with hair most similar to Alexa's own—a bit shorter and less wavy, but it would do. She caught it and, with a hand on her hip and a sigh, walked toward the makeup station.

"I will do this."

"It's amazing to watch you work as separate minds, Alexa. You're a natural at that," the cat mused, observing us from one of the desks.

"Thank you, Anansi. You, on the other hand, let one of your bodies run away fuck knows where."

"I am taking some liberties in getting to know the Domain's landscape and my own bodies."

"Whatever. How is the serpent? Does he need recalling?"

"No. He says he will go rest in Chinatown when he needs to and will spend the rest of the time hunting."

"I will do those anchors at uni, then, in some free time," Elle added, dotting her neck.

"All set then."