Planning

Chapter 71 - Planning

Mike pushed himself up from the concrete and leaned against the warehouse wall until his breathing began to settle. His chest was rising and falling too quickly, and he could feel his heartbeat in his ears. He forced himself to take several slow breaths before looking through the window again.

The sight inside immediately brought the tension back.

Sam was still there, and Danny was still with the woman. Mike could not see her face because her back was turned toward the window, but he could see enough to know that whatever was happening inside was not something he could simply ignore. He watched for several seconds, trying to understand the situation and looking for some obvious way to help her without putting himself in danger.

His first thought was the police.

Mike pulled his phone from his pocket and unlocked it. He opened the emergency dialer and looked at the top of the screen.

There were no signal bars.

He stared at the phone for a moment, then raised it toward the window as if moving it a few inches higher might somehow change the situation. Nothing happened. He walked several steps along the outside wall and checked again. Still nothing. He tried another spot near the corner of the building, then another, but the result remained the same.

The warehouse district had almost no reception, and the thick walls around him were making it even worse.

Mike looked toward the road. If he left the area and ran far enough, he could probably find a signal and call the police. The problem was that he would have to leave the warehouse behind while doing it. He had no idea how long it would take for the police to arrive, and he had even less reason to believe Sam and Danny would still be inside by the time they did.

He looked back through the window.

The woman was still there.

Mike lowered his phone.

He could not leave her alone in there.

At the same time, he knew charging inside without a plan would be stupid. Sam was clearly capable of fighting, and Mike had no idea what Danny would do if he realized someone was interfering. If Mike went inside and got himself beaten, he would accomplish nothing except giving them another person to deal with.

He needed something that could give him an advantage.

Before doing anything else, he decided to get evidence. If he managed to get the woman out, the photographs would still be useful. If things went wrong, at least he would have something to show the police when he eventually found a signal.

He switched his phone to the camera and crouched near the window. The glass was dirty, but there was a clear enough section for him to see into the warehouse. He held the phone close to the glass and adjusted the angle until he had Sam in the frame.

He took a photograph.

Then another.

Mike zoomed in slightly and took a few more, making sure Sam's face was visible. He shifted the camera toward Danny and captured several pictures of him as well.

Then he tried to photograph the woman.

That was more difficult.

Her back remained toward the window, and her hair covered part of her head and neck. Mike moved a little farther along the wall and tried again, hoping she would turn around. She didn't.

He zoomed in as far as he could without making the image useless and took another photograph.

Something about her looked familiar.

Mike lowered the phone and stared through the glass instead of at the screen. He watched the way she moved and the shape of her shoulders, trying to place the feeling that had appeared in the back of his mind.

Had he seen her before?

He couldn't tell.

Maybe it was nothing. The lighting inside was poor, and he had never had a clear look at her face. He could have been recognizing something that was not really there.

Still, he took several more pictures.

Once he was satisfied that he had enough, he slipped the phone back into his pocket.

Now he had to figure out how to get inside.

Mike moved along the outside of the warehouse, keeping close to the wall while he searched the area around the loading dock. There was plenty of junk scattered around the building, but most of it was either too light to be useful or too awkward to carry. He checked behind some old boxes and looked beneath the edge of the loading platform, finding nothing that would help.

He continued searching until he noticed an old metal bucket lying near the loading dock.

Mike picked it up and tested its weight.

It was heavier than it looked. The metal was thick, and the handle was still firmly attached. He gave it a small swing, feeling the weight travel through his arm.

A hard strike to the head could be enough to put someone down.

He looked through the window at Sam.

That was probably the only way he was going to deal with him.

Danny was another matter. Mike had never fought either of them before, but from what he had seen, Danny did not seem nearly as dangerous as Sam. If Mike could take Sam out quickly, he thought he could handle whatever came next.

He placed the bucket on the ground and looked at the warehouse again.

There was still a problem.

One Mike against two men was risky enough. One Mike against two men while trying to protect a woman was worse.

Then he remembered the item sitting in his pocket.

Mike reached inside and pulled out the Doppelganger clay.

The small block of cool gray material rested in his palm. It looked harmless, almost like an ordinary piece of modeling clay, but Mike knew exactly what it was capable of doing. The system shop had explained its purpose clearly enough.

Create a duplicate.

For a moment, Mike simply stared at it.

He had bought the thing because it sounded useful, but he had never expected to actually need it this soon.

He glanced toward the warehouse and then back at the clay.

There was no reason to wait.

Mike moved to an open section of concrete beside the loading dock and held the clay between both hands. He followed the instructions the system had given him and activated it.

Nothing happened at first.

Then the clay began to warm.

Mike felt the change in his palms and looked down.

A faint light appeared between his fingers. The surface of the clay started to shift, stretching and expanding as if an invisible pair of hands were shaping it from the inside. Mike instinctively stepped backward as the material slipped from his hands and landed on the concrete.

Instead of falling normally, the clay spread across the ground.

The gray mass grew wider and taller, pulling itself upward into the rough shape of a human body. Legs formed first, followed by a torso, arms, shoulders, and finally a head. The entire process happened within seconds.

Then the light disappeared.

Someone was standing in front of Mike.

Mike stared at the figure.

It was him.

There was no obvious difference between them. The clone had the same height, the same build, the same hair, and even the same clothes. If someone saw the two of them standing together from a distance, they would have no reason to think they were looking at anything other than twins.

Mike slowly raised his hand.

The clone remained motionless. He moved closer and looked directly into its eyes.

There was nothing there.

The face was identical to his own, but the expression was completely empty. There was no confusion about where it was, no curiosity about its surroundings, and no reaction to Mike standing directly in front of it. It simply waited.

Mike raised his hand again and this time, the clone copied him.

Mike lowered his hand and the clone lowered its own.

He stepped to the side, and the clone followed.

Mike stopped.

The clone stopped with him.

A faint blue flicker suddenly appeared in front of his eyes.

Mike blinked, but the interface remained.

A translucent blue window hovered in his field of vision, displaying a set of simple controls that looked almost exactly like the controls of a computer game.

Mike focused on the first key.

W.

The clone stepped forward.

He tried A.

The clone moved to the left.

S made it move backward, while D moved it to the right.

Mike stared at the floating interface for a moment before trying the next command.

Space.

The clone jumped.

Mike almost laughed at how strange the whole thing was. He had expected something complicated, perhaps some kind of mental command system, but the system had apparently decided that controlling a human-shaped copy of himself should work like a video game.

A blue outline of a mouse appeared beside the keyboard controls.

Mike focused on the left button.

The clone immediately shifted its feet and dropped into a defensive stance. Its knees bent, its feet moved apart, its hands came up, and its chin lowered.

Mike looked toward the warehouse.

That was exactly what he needed.

He tried the right button.

The clone stepped forward and threw a straight punch.

Mike watched carefully, then tried the command again. The clone repeated the movement.

He began experimenting with combinations, moving it forward before making it guard, stepping it sideways, moving it backward, and then sending another punch. At first, Mike had to think about every command before making it, but after several attempts his fingers began to move naturally.

The controls were simple enough.

More importantly, they were precise.

Mike could control the clone's movements almost as easily as he controlled a character in a game.

He spent another minute practicing, testing how quickly the clone responded and how accurately he could make it move. The more he practiced, the more confident he became that he could use it without losing control in the middle of a fight.

There was one important limitation, though.

The clone was not stronger than him.

It had his strength, his speed, and his physical ability. Mike could control it better than he could control himself in a fight, but he could not make it do something physically impossible for him. If the clone faced someone stronger or more experienced, perfect control would only take it so far.

That was where Sam worried him.

Mike had watched enough of Sam to know that he was an experienced fighter. The clone might be able to surprise him, but it could not simply overpower him.

Mike would have to use the clone for something else.

A distraction.

A decoy.

A way to get close without exposing himself.

He picked up the clean handkerchief from his pocket and walked toward the clone. He wrapped it around the lower half of its face, covering the nose and mouth. Then he stepped back and looked at it again.

Now the resemblance to Mike was much harder to recognize.

At least from a distance.

He picked up the metal bucket and held it in one hand while using the other to control the clone.

The clone walked toward the side door of the warehouse.

Mike kept it moving slowly and steadily, making sure its footsteps did not sound unnatural. He guided it across the ground until it reached the entrance.

Before sending it inside, Mike stopped and looked through the window one more time.

Only Danny was visible in the open space now.

The woman was still there.

Mike could not see her face, and he still did not know exactly who she was, but the sight of her standing there made the uncertainty in his stomach turn into anger.

He tightened his grip around the bucket.

He could still leave.

He could still find a signal and call the police.

But every second he spent standing there was another second the woman remained inside with them.

Mike looked at the clone waiting beside the door.

He moved the mouse and clone reached for the door. Mike watched through the window as it opened.

Then the clone stepped inside.

Mike remained outside, keeping the controls in his hand and his eyes fixed on the warehouse. He did not know exactly how the fight would go, and he knew there was a chance the plan could fail, but he had finally given himself something he had not possessed a few minutes earlier.

A second body.

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