“Charles? You?”

  “Bullied. My whole life. Last month I got mugged by some middle school kids. They knocked me down and took my wallet. I wet my pants.”

  Shit.

  “How about we run?” SoJo suggested.

  “He’s between us and the exit.”

  “We can go back to our cell, lock ourselves in,” Charles suggested.

  A tempting idea. But not practical.

  If we give in to fear now, we may never get another chance to escape.

  “Not happening.” Weejy switched her grip on the gun, holding the warm barrel, raising it to use as a bludgeon. “We need to get past this guy. Three on one, we can take him.”

  Probably. Maybe. Hopefully.

  “Sorry… I’d like to help, but I’m weak.”

  Charles turned and ran.

  “Charles, you cowardly asshole!” SoJo screamed after him.

  Okay. Two on one. Still doable.

  Possibly.

  “You go low, I’ll go high,” Weejy told SoJo.

  “Sure thing, Hillary. You remember she lost, right?”

  Tork descended upon them, reaching out, and Weejy swung hard, trying to bash his face in. He batted her hand away like she was a child, but the industrious SoJo got between his legs, sticking her head under his leather apron.

  Tork’s eyes bugged out and he made a sound like a squeaky door. He brought his hands down on SoJo, and Weejy had free access to his face.

  She took advantage of it, bringing the butt of her gun against the huge man’s nose.

  It burst, a squeezed tomato, splashing everywhere.

  “Ankles!” Weejy hollered, and assuming SoJo could hear her and follow her suggestion, Weejy threw herself at Tork’s chest.

  Weejy must have grabbed the man’s ankles, or at least his feet or legs, because Tork folded backwards as if hinged. He sprawled onto his back, and Weejy scrambled onto his chest, striking him in the face again and again until he grabbed her arm and tugged her forward, yanking the woman over his head.

  SoJo got to her feet, leapt over him, and then she and Weejy were tearing down the corridor, coming to another intersection.

  Weejy went left, they flew past a closed door, and then she stopped, caught SoJo’s wrist, and pulled her back through the door, running into—

  “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

  The shriek sounded as if had come from a child.

  But it came from Charles.

  “You scared the stuffing out of me! I’m… I’m glad you guys made it.”

  Weejy recovered from the surprise and pushed past him, dragging SoJo behind her, Charles loping behind them both, and they went left, then right, then arrived at a pair of stainless steel doors.

  “It’s the elevator.” Weejy stated the obvious. “The one we came in.”

  But she couldn’t find any handles or latches or buttons.

  How the hell does this thing open?

  From the hall behind them, an anguished, animalistic howl.

  “He sounds pissed I bit him in the junk.”

  “You think?”

  “You’re the one who told me to go low. He should be mad at you.”

  Charles hurried to the wall next to the door, and pressed a panel, which popped open and revealed a button. “I saw this when they brought me in. Come on!”

  The doors opened automatically, and Weejy closed the slide on the semi-automatic.

  No bullets, but if those guys in beige show up, I might be able to threaten them.

  Happily, the elevator wasn’t filled with mercs. It was blissfully empty.

  Charles led the way, pressing buttons until the door closed and the lift began to rise.

  “If we’re still in the middle of the damn desert, where we supposed to go?”

  “They have vehicles parked on the top level. Maybe my rental car is still there.”

  Could we actually be that lucky?

  Weejy held her breath. She thought about Bert.

  I need to see him again. I need to tell him how I feel.

  I must be bold. Like SoJo. Let him know that I like him. A lot.

  But is that all? Do I only like him?

  Or do I actually love him?

  I think I might love him.

  I think I love him.

  Shit. It’s not even a question of thinking it.

  I love him. Holy shit, I love the man.

  I just hope that I get to—

  The elevator stopped, and when the doors opened, Charles shrieked.

  BERT

  30 Kilometers East of Kirkstown, New Mexico

  The Tumbleweed Motel had seen better days.

  The cracked adobe roof cried out for repair, the faded orange exterior paint peeled off in flakes the size of banana leaves, and the parking lot almost had more holes than it had asphalt. Inside, Bert’s room bore a dusty, faded appearance, the décor two decades out-of-date. The carpet and bedspread and curtains were worn and crusty, and the TV was a vintage tube model, probably older than Bert.

  But I’m so tired I don’t care. I can barely keep awake.

  “Dooooo!”

  “I know you’re hungry, Stosh. But all I have is half a tuna sandwich.”

  Their last culinarily excursion—a gas station—had slim pickings, and tuna gave Stosh the shits; not ideal for motel living.

  “Doooo! Doooo!”

  “I’m not letting you out at two in the morning.”

  Stosh nuzzled Bert’s cheek, rubbing his bill upside his head.

  “Fine. Shit in the room. I doubt the owner will even notice.”

  Bert relinquished the tuna. Stosh gobbled it in two bites, then cooed. Bert wrapped his arm around the dodo’s thick neck.

  “Are you lonely, Stosh? Must be lonely, being the last one of your kind. Maybe I can make a lady friend for you.”

  “Doooooo-oooooo!”

  As long as we all don’t die trying to save my lady friend.

  Bert called Tom, got voice mail, and gave him an update. He also passed along the information on where to pick up Number 13, who’d left Bert a message saying he’d changed his mind and wanted to be a part of the crew.

  Which is irritating, because that guy is a tool.

  More than a tool. He’s a whole tool box.

  Bert stretched and used the bathroom, contemplating a shower until he noticed it was even more stained than the toilet was.

  In the middle of nowhere, amenities are lacking.

  He sat on the bed, surprised by how flat it was.

  Does this mattress even have springs?

  “Our intrepid hero may have reached a low point, Stosh.”

  Stosh farted. A precursor of the tuna shits.

  Which will be the perfect ending to the perfect day.

  A knock startled Bert, and forcing up a bit of courage he got up and checked the peephole.

  Frank, standing alone, holding up a bottle of whiskey.

  The guy is a mind reader.

  Bert let him in and plopped down on the bed. Belgium took the chair next to the desk and gave Stosh a pat.

  “They sell liquor here?”

  “I keep keep keep an emergency bottle in the trunk. I figured we could all use a drink.”

  “Where’s Sara?”

  “She’ll join us in a few minutes. Keeping an eye on the parking lot, watching if we were being followed.”

  Bert’s shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect things to go this bad so fast.”

  “It may not be because of you. Both Sara and I have have have pasts that might have come calling again.”

  Right. I’m not the only one with an insanely convoluted backstory. “You mentioned that earlier. Something about demons.”

  “I don’t think it’s that. But there are some things almost as bad. I met Sara under some pretty terrible conditions at a place called the Butler House, in Solidarity, South Carolina.”

  Bert blinked. “Butler House?”

  “You’ve heard of it?”

  “My friend, Tom, was there when it burned down.”

  Frank’s turn to blink. “Wait wait wait a sec… your friend Tom, his last name is Mankowski?”

  Bert nodded, and Frank Belgium grinned wide and slapped his thigh. “Small freaking world. That’s great. I really like like like that guy.”

  “Small word,” Bert muttered.

  And now instead of relaxing, my suspicion is aroused and I’m on high alert. This seems way too convenient to be pure chance.

  Frank removed the plastic wrappers from two paper cups next to the ancient coffee maker on the desk, and poured himself and Bert some generous shots.

  “To Tom.” Frank lifted his cup. “It’s about time we had a happy coincidence for once, instead of a shitty shitty shitty one.”

  Bert hesitated.

  Frank lowered his glass when Bert didn’t raise his to toast. “You look unsettled.”

  “Coincidences… they bother me.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I’m… not quite sure.” Bert frowned. “I guess I adhere to order and math and reason. The only non-scientific trope I like is the concept of karma, because it has a symmetry to it. But coincidences… they make me think I’ve missed something.”

  “So me knowing Tom, one of your friends, rather than be a comfort to you, is a concern because you think there has to be more to it.”

  Bert nodded.

  Did I just show him my cards? Should I have hid my paranoia until I had proof Frank has ulterior motives?

  “Do you know Carl Yung?” Frank asked. “His concept of synchronicity?”

  Psychoanalysis. Ugh. “Yung and Freud were pseudoscientists who did more harm than good. Egotists, making shit up and incorrectly interpreting the psychological disorders they studied to fit their preconceived notions of how the brain works.”

  “I agree with you to a point. But there’s some truth to synchronicity.”

  “Synchronicity is based on subjective observation. It isn’t science.”

  “There is a scientific, genetic component to it. As a species, we’re connected by biology. And homo sapiens’ minds all work in largely the same way. We can pick out patterns. We can remember and recognize. Yung’s observation is that we give significance and meaning to occurrences that that that are perfectly reasonable mathematically.”

  “How so?”

  “Do you know the Birthday Paradox?”

  “I think I’ve heard the term. Explain.”

  “If you take twenty-three random people, there is a 50% chance two of them have the same birthday.”

  That doesn’t make sense. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “On the surface, no. Seems statistically improbable, if not impossible. But the math bears it out. Take fifty random people, there’s a 97% chance two of them have the same birthday. We would consider that a coincidence, but it’s consistently predictable. Expected, not coincidental. It just doesn’t fit into our preconceived notion of statistics. That’s our brains’ faults, not the actual odds.”

  “What’s the math on that?”

  “Part of the problem with understanding this is that we have a weighted relationship with the date we were born, and because it only happens once every 365 days, it appears logically unlikely that if we visited the DMV, one of those fifty people waiting in line shares our birthday. And it is very unlikely, if we’re trying to match our own birthday, which is egocentric. But but but… it’s 97% likely that any random pair of those fifty people share a birthday. We just wouldn’t recognize it unless it happened to us.”

  Bert puzzled it out. “You’re saying that what we call coincidences are actually mathematically predictable and happen all the time. But because they happen to other people, we don’t notice them.”

  “Things happen. If you’re alive, there is a 100% certainty that something is going to happen to you. But when you throw in a lifetime of recognition, we ascribe undue significance to certain things we have encountered before, or things we think about. Ever run into an old friend in an unlikely place?”

  “Sure.”

  “It always feels weird. But everybody has to be somewhere, and out of the endless possibilities of where people are at any given moment, anyone can be anywhere. Go to a public place, you can see thousands of people. The only thing that doesn’t make it a coincidence is that they’re strangers. Ever hear a new word, and then you keep hearing it everywhere?”

  “Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.”

  “Right. The frequency illusion. You discover there is a nation called Tuvalu, and then you hear about Tuvalu the next day. Seems like synchronicity. But the fact is, you probably heard about Tuvalu before, and you didn’t find it important enough to remember it. So the frequency of you being exposed to Tuvalu is consistent and mathematically predictable, but your recognition of it is why it seems odd.”

  “You don’t find coincidences unsettling?”

  Frank laughed. “I find them very unsettling. This conversation with you is freaking me out. Do you have any idea how many hours I spent in the physics lab when I was in school? And then randomly, in the desert I run into a clone of Einstein, the Father of Modern Physics. I studied Einstein, and now I’m in his motel room. That seems a lot more improbable than both of us knowing Tom.”

  Unless it isn’t improbable. Unless Frank is somehow part of this.

  Bert hated conspiracy theories. Reptile people do not control the government. Vaccines work as advertised and have prevented millions of deaths. The moon landing was real.

  But at the same time, I’m a clone, and people have died to protect this secret, and it stands to reason that more bad things will happen.

  I just need to figure out if Frank is one of those bad things.

  “You appear unconvinced.”

  “It’s been a rough day.”

  “Look, Bert… I I I was in New Mexico because of things that happened in my past. I didn’t wander into your story. As far as I’m concerned, you wandered into mine.”

  For some reason, that makes a little more sense.

  Bert relaxed, just a bit.

  “So so so… are we drinking to old friends?”

  Bert raised his cup. “To Tom.”

  “And to happy coincidences. We need need need more of ’em.”

  The whiskey was warm and burned Bert’s throat in a very good way.

  “Thanks. I needed that.”

  “Do you you you mind if I ask you a clone-related question?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Einstein’s brain. Have you studied Einstein’s work?”

  I know where he’s going with this. “Do I understand theoretical physics and quantum mechanics and have I ever tried to advance any of my donor’s theories or come up with new ones?”

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  Where to begin?

  “I spent a few years trying to figure out how this brain works.” Bert tapped his temple. “Read a lot of Einstein’s papers. Sometimes I understood it and could intuitively know where he was headed, and I was usually correct. Sometimes I couldn’t focus and it was all just a snarl of senseless equations. And sometimes, when I’m really trying to focus, I see things.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Shapes, mostly. Three dimensional shapes that have various sides and edges and colors. Sort of like a Rubik’s Cube, but a thousand times more complicated. When I look at a number, or a long equation, it becomes a shape in my head, and for an answer I see another shape, which I can translate into numbers. So I’m doing the math without actually figuring it out. It’s more like I’m translating it. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes yes yes. You’re a synesthete.”

  Bert nodded. “Yeah. It tracks with Grapheme-color synesthesia, but with complex forms as well as colors. Tell me three different four digit numbers.”

  “Okay, 5632, 1045, and 9483.”

  “In my head, 5632 looks like a dodecahedron with pink sides and a spike on top, 1045 looks like a yellow four-sided pyramid with a base three times as wide as the sides, and 9483 is a greenish-blue sphere with seven cylinders coming out of the radius. And then there is a pink hexagonal prism with four corners shaved off and pierced through the center with a blue rod.”

  “What’s that last one?”

  “It’s 55,811,627,520.”

  “Why did you you you think of that?”

  “That’s all three of those numbers multiplied together.”

  “That’s… astounding.”

  Bert chuckled. “It’s mostly a glorified bar trick. I’ve won a lot of beers showing off like that. And I can apply it, with some success, to physics and math. But I always had to force it. And I hated it. No, not hated… more like resented it. I imagine it feels like being under the shadow of a famous parent, and trying to live up to their accomplishments. My donor, the man who changed the world, had a passion for science. I lack that passion. Einstein’s life was filled with eureka moments, extreme joy when he figured something out. I’ve never had a eureka moment. I top out at free drinks because I can multiply big numbers.”

  “Speaking of free drinks.” Frank poured another round.

  “Thanks. How about a toast to new friends. I don’t want to be weird, but for some reason it feels like I’ve known you for a long time.”

  “Not weird at all. I I I feel the same. What’s the term for that? Fast friends? Kindred spirits? Cut from the same cloth?”

  “Chemistry?”

  Frank laughed. “I’m a scientist. I should have thought of that. Here’s to chemistry.”

  They touched cups and drank.

  A firm knock, and Bert glanced nervously at the door.

  Another fine moment ruined by the threat of lurking danger.

  Being chased and shot at isn’t an experience I ever want to repeat.

  “I I I got it.” Frank went to answer the door.

  Please don’t let it be something bad.

  He opened it up—

  —Bert holding his breath, halfway expecting the Tuvalu army to storm inside—

  —and Sara entered. She gave Stosh a scratch under his bill, and the bird warbled.

  “You boys drinking without me?”

  “Only have two cups, dear. You can can can share mine.”

  Sara nodded, finished Frank’s drink, and he went back for the bottle while she coughed into her scarred fist.