Chapter 17
Sam A opened the front door of Bobby’s home, letting Brenda wander inside unsteadily, and turned to Sam B with a smug look. Or, at least, that’s how Sam B saw it.
“How long are we supposed to keep up this charade?” he whispered.
“Well, that all depends,” Sam A shot back. “You wanna take it from here, or do you want to go downtown and find the supplies I came here to pick up?”
“What supplies?”
“Well, the commune has a stream that flows through the ranch, and I’m building a hydroelectric turbine to reduce reliance on fossil fuels for the generator, and it’ll reduce carbon emissions, which I’m sure Al would approve of.” He smirked. “You know what parts to get, don’t you?”
Sam B narrowed his eyes. “What, you think you got all our brains too? Of course I do!”
“I didn’t mean it like that. Relax.” Sam A reached to him, patting his shoulder. It was probably meant to be reassuring, but it felt condescending instead.
“I haven’t relaxed a day since I stepped into the Accelerator,” Sam B hissed, and marched into the house.
Brenda was reclining on the couch, her shoulders slumped as she frowned up at him.
“What’s with the getup, anyway?” she asked, eyeing his clothing. “Bobby said you were living on a commune, right? You look a little straight-laced for that.”
Sam B flicked a glance to Sam A, who was entering the house. “I’m incognito. Bobby figured if I dress like him, nobody’ll notice that I’m the missing twin.”
“So those are Bobby’s clothes,” Brenda said with a dawning understanding.
“Well, I won’t be needing them for a while, right?” Sam A said a little too cheerfully as he moved to sit beside Brenda on the couch. He put an affectionate arm over her shoulder and whispered into her ear. She nodded in response to whatever he’d said, and the two of them looked up at Sam B.
“Guess you get to be one of the first to know that we’re having a baby,” Sam A said with a surreptitious wink.
He’s really enjoying torturing me, isn’t he?
“Oh, that’s great,” Sam B said in a less-than-enthusiastic tone. “Congratulations.”
Brenda frowned. “You could at least pretend to be happy for us.”
“Oh, I am,” he said defensively. “So. So happy. For you.”
“Richie loves kids, you know,” Sam A said smoothly. “Back at the commune, he’s working on building a classroom for the children there. Isn’t that right?”
“Yeah,” Sam B said, making close eye contact with his other half. Like he knew anything about this classroom. “Nothing better than kids learning.”
Brenda seemed to sense the tension in the room, and stood from the couch.
“I’m gonna go make us some lunch,” she said, and headed to the kitchen, tripping over her own feet as she went.
“You wanna switch clothes while she’s gone?” Sam A asked, his hands moving to the top button of his shirt.
“Why?” Sam B asked flatly. “You seem to be handling all this. I might as well go get your supplies.”
And maybe I won’t come back, he thought. It started out as a stray idea, but he wondered if it was possible to just… kind of take the place of Richie. After all, setting up a water wheel at a hippie commune sounded a hell of a lot more relaxing than going to Vietnam.
Never mind what the real Bobby and Richie thought about it.
But, he decided, it was best not to bring that up just now.
“Well, if you say so,” Sam A said with a shrug. “But we need to switch back by sundown. The bus leaves then and I can’t miss it.”
“No sweat,” Sam B said.
“No sweat?” asked Al, who emerged from his glowing doorway at that moment. “What no sweat?”
Sam gestured to his blithesome twin. “Mister Perfect here is sending me on his errands. You know where I can find electrical supplies around here, Al? And I’ll need some strong magnets, too. And tubing. Maybe bicycle wheels? A junkyard would be a good start.”
“Hold on,” Al said, smacking his handlink in the side. “I’ll ask Ziggy. But I’m glad to see you’re getting along better with, uh, yourself.”
“Not really,” confessed Sam B. “I just want to get out of here. Scavenging for parts sounds like a lot less effort than this… domestic purgatory.” He gestured to Sam A. “He can deal with Miss Margarita in the kitchen.”
“My pleasure,” Sam A said gleefully. “Like I said before: soft touch. Trust me, I know exactly how to finesse this situation.”
“God, am I normally as smug as this, Al?” Sam B asked. “Because if I am, I’m sorry. It’s insufferable.”
“Well, I for one am sorry if I complain as much as he does,” Sam A said.
“Oh boy, you’re both gettin’ on my nerves in different ways, okay?” Al admitted. “You know what, the two of you might be better off spending some time apart.”
“No argument from me,” both Sams said in unison.
* * *
“How are you feeling, Bobby?” asked Verbena as she returned for her umpteenth check-in with her patient lying limp in the bed.
The unstable twin, wearing Sam’s face, rubbed a shaky hand over his moist brow.
“A little less tunnel vision, ma’am,” he said politely, his voice punctuated by cautious outward breaths. “But other than that, no change.”
“I’m glad you haven’t gotten any worse. This is something you’ll have to ride out, I fear.”
“What’s wrong with me?” he asked, gazing up at her with fearful eyes. “Will I be fit to serve?”
“That remains to be seen, soldier,” Verbena said, giving him a ghost of a smile. “You have a rare illness, which I’m confident will resolve with bed rest.”
Well, that wasn’t exactly the truth, but it was the best she was going to be able to give him at this point. Ziggy’s best estimation was that once Sam leaped, the twins would return to their natural, separated states, and the sickness would clear up. So this was nothing more than a waiting game. She just hoped things wouldn’t deteriorate.
“But don’t worry about that, okay?” she continued. “Tell me more about yourself. You have a twin brother, right?”
Bobby looked away, his face souring. “Yeah. Richie’s a real piece of work.”
“Doesn’t sound like you get along with him.”
“Well, I haven’t even seen him since we both got drafted. He just left. Asked me to come with him, but I’m not a coward, dammit.”
Verbena nodded in sympathy. “Did he tell you where he was going?”
Bobby shook his head. “Nah. He left with some girl he met at a party, said it was somewhere he could disappear, but that’s all he told anyone. I figured he probably crossed the border.” Bobby licked his lips, suddenly looking unsure of himself. “Or maybe he went east.”
“East?”
“Yeah. Like into Arizona. Joined up with some commune, or…” he shook his head. “I don’t know, man. That old ranch seems like the kind of place he could hide out a while.”
“What ranch?”
“Moonstone Ranch.”
“I thought you said you didn’t know where he went.” Verbena tilted her head as Bobby’s face clouded with confusion.
“I… I don’t.”
“So how do you know about Moonstone Ranch?” Verbena pressed.
“Marsha told me.”
“Who’s Marsha?”
“Weren’t you listening? She’s the one who invited me to the commune.”
Verbena squinted. “Invited you?”
Bobby paused a moment, mouth ajar. “No, Richie. Invited Richie.” He went pale in the face. “I think I’m gonna…”
Verbena handed him a sick bag, and he promptly filled it. As he recovered, he took deep breaths, his brow heavy over his eyes. And a moment later, he looked up with a frown.
“Marsha… I never met her, but—” he squeezed his eyes shut. “Why do I know she has a tattoo of a peace sign on her butt?”
Verbena wasn’t sure how to answer this truthfully, so she concocted a response that would have made her psychiatry professors blanch.
“Well, you know, sometimes twins can share a psychic bond. You might be experiencing some kind of telepathic communication with your brother.”
Bobby glared at her, clearly unconvinced. “What kind of a doctor are you anyway?”
Verbena grinned at the incredulous man who looked like her boss, but was actually two identical twins occupying the same space at once because of God or Time or Fate’s meddling in a grand time travel experiment.
“One who’s about as open minded as they get.”