light.
NOVAK: Stay away from them.
CARREAU: Listen, Joy. Listen to the song. Let go of her.
He jerks his head toward Novak’s kneeling double. The echo-Novak’s throat bobs in a convulsive swallow.
HARDCASTLE: I’m not surrendering to any song. Come on. Let’s get out of here.
NOVAK: We can’t leave them.
She gestures to the kneeling doubles.
HARDCASTLE: Screw them. I’m not sticking around.
KAPOOR: There must be a way to wake them up.
HARDCASTLE: You’re kidding, right? We wake them up and they’re going to panic. Attack us. They won’t let us exist.
NOVAK: We aren’t real.
HARDCASTLE: Speak for yourself.
He looks down at the camera, grunts, and drops it. It hits the ground and rolls, the image going momentarily blank, but the drop doesn’t seem to have done too much damage.
KAPOOR: Will, get back here!
NOVAK: Let him go. We need to— Martin, how do we wake them up?
CARREAU: He’s right, you know. They’d kill you. And I wouldn’t want that, Joy. Oh, how he longs for you, how he loves you. You know, don’t you? And you ignore it.
NOVAK: That’s not true.
CARREAU: You string him along. You take what you need from him. From everyone. You take and you twist and you watch them dance and it makes you feel so good, so very good, that they love you so, but you love no one but yourself.
NOVAK: Stop it. Martin—whatever you are, you’re a copy of him, and there’s too much good in that man to be gone completely. Not if you were a good enough copy to fool us. Tell us how to wake them up, Martin.
CARREAU: I—
His hands clench, release, clench, release, a rhythm like the beating of birds’ wings.
CARREAU: We’re still connected. But it’s like a dream. Like a memory. I—
He jerks his head to the side.
CARREAU: Here, let me show you.
He steps toward the kneeling Carreau. He reaches for his waistband. Novak notices the knife a moment too late—a folding utility knife, just a common-sense bit of gear Carreau has probably used a dozen times in front of her, too small and practical to be remembered as anything but a tool.
NOVAK: No!
She’s too far away. She knows it; she makes no attempt to stop Carreau, instead turning the girls toward her, pressing their faces against her legs so they can’t see as Carreau grabs his double by the hair, pulling his head back, and slashes with the knife.
Blood spatters into the shallow bowl. The real Carreau topples, limbs twitching as he bleeds out without ever regaining true consciousness. The echo steps toward the next person in line—Vanya Kapoor.
CARREAU: This will simplify things.
He reaches for Dr. Kapoor. Her echo shouts.
KAPOOR [echo]:* Vanya Ellora Kapoor, wake the fuck up.
The real Kapoor’s head whips up. She sees the knife and, too fast to be anything but raw instinct, throws herself up and forward, inside Martin’s reach. Her elbow connects with his stomach and sends him sprawling onto the ground.
Her echo steps forward into view. She holds one arm out, blood dripping from the cut along the side of her arm. Her other hand grips a shard of one of the shallow bowls, broken to create a sharp edge.
KAPOOR [echo]: Pinch me, I’m dreaming.
KAPOOR: What the hell is—
NOVAK: Joy Serenity Novak, you aren’t dreaming. This is real. Sophie is in danger. Wake up.
She strides forward and slaps her double across the face. Novak—the real Novak—half topples backward, but catches herself, blinking rapidly and gaping at her echo.
KAPOOR [echo]: Look out!
Carreau’s echo springs to his feet and charges at the newly awakened woman, brandishing the knife. The echo Novak throws herself in the way. Between the light and the poor angle, the fight is a confusion of shadows. Kapoor’s echo darts across the room. She bends down beside a soldier, one of those fully dressed, and straightens up, holding a pistol.
She levels it. Waits. Carreau throws Novak’s echo off, looms over her. Kapoor squeezes the trigger.
The bullet passes through Carreau’s left eye and exits out the back of his skull. The damage is contained, orderly. A brief puff of blood. He collapses.
Novak’s echo lies on the ground, blood soaking her sweater. The real Novak steps toward her.
NOVAK [echo]: No, take care of—take care of the girls.
KAPOOR [echo]: You’re going to be all right.
Joy, looking stunned and a bit sick, turns to the two Sophias. She gathers them up in her arms and whispers to them, pressing her lips against their hair. Vanya’s echo looks up from where she kneels beside Joy’s echo.
KAPOOR [echo]: What do you know?
KAPOOR: Bits and