Nowhere to Run
"No, what's crazy is how much you follow around Tawrro like a little Wookiee pup."
Daiya blinked in shock at the non-sequitur, and stopped in the middle of the walkway. The loose crowds on the middle levels of Denon flowed around them, giving the pair as much thought as they would a pothole. Her double had gone from a friendly moment of banter straight into an insult. Heat rose on the girl's cheeks as she blurted out an impulsive defense, "I do not!"
DoppelDäiya gave her a sneer. The other girl then turned to keep walking, forcing Daiya to catch up in order to hear her, "Sure you do, it's pathetic. You're always in his shadow, begging for a morsel of freedom. He's holding you back!"
The girl gaped at the verbal assault aimed her way. This was not the language she had expected of her other self after spending the last few days together. Daiya found herself hurt by...herself. "That's not even true!"
"What about when you got in trouble for sneaking out to the casino party with Zenie? When you had to plead for him to let you take Sun's contract to Ryloth." The double started down a list of incidents, weaponizing her life like it was sharpened dagger.
"He's...he's just trying to look out for me," Daiya sputtered. Now her doppelgänger was using her own history against her. That wasn't fair, she had lived that experience, the teen didn't remember having a twin self along for the ride then.
"See, now I figure that's the biggest difference between us." DoppelDäiya remarked gleefully, and Daiya thought she saw a skip in the other girl's step. "You're stuck back with Tawrro and I'm my own woman!"
"I'm not stuck!" the girl protested, placing her arms akimbo as she frowned.
Her double just chuckled at the pose, "Sure you are! Don't you get it, he's a bad influence!"
"There's nothing wrong with Tawrro!" Daiya cried, still not sure where this sudden hate came from. Her doppelgänger had never said a bad word about her Wookiee guardian before.
The other girl tossed a coy grin her way, her eyes playing at delight. "I wouldn't be so sure, little pup..."
"I am not a little Wookiee pup!" She protested, her volume rising enough to start attracting looks. Daiya didn't care, no one was going to insult Tawrro and then badger her for defending him!
"Chill out, Daiya," her double said calmly, taking a different tact now. Daiya glared at the other girl, not ready to buy the platitude. "I'm you remember? I'm not trying to insult you, I'm just trying to make you see!"
"See what?!" Daiya still sounded challenge in her voice, daring her double to cross her.
And then she did.
"That Tawrro's been working for the Corpos for a while..."
The girl stopped in her tracks. For good this time. The shock and rage that played over her face were tangible, a writhing miasma that coalesced into a passionate battlecry.
"WHAT?!" Daiya grabbed her double by the shirt, shoving her back until she had the other girl pinned against a wall. "WHAT DID YOU SAY?!"
"Daiya, he's—"
"NO! No way! You're wrong, he's not a Corpo!"
"Now just lis—"
"How can you say that? After everything he's done for me, getting me off Denon, being by my side..."
"I just thi—"
"I'd be nowhere without him, Daiya! If you're really me, then you know that. He literally saved my life!"
"DAIYA!" The double took hold of the girl's wrists, pulling them off her clothing enough to let her step away from the wall. Daiya seethed at the motion, fighting against DoppelDäiya's parries as she tried to gain the upper hand again. "Calm down, let me explain!"
"Calm?!" Daiya cried, a throaty demand that beckoned forth a wet line across her cheeks. Her eyes welled as more tears stood ready, falling as the girl blinked them back, trying to clear her vision as she windmilled against her blasphemous double. "You just accused my best friend of being a traitor all along..."
"Yeah, but if you'll just hear me out..." DoppelDäiya grabbed her arms, holding them in place until Daiya settled into a resigned calm. Then the double continued, "Look, I don't think Tawrro was a Corpo all along, but you have to admit, things have been pretty suspicious since you joined Darkwire."
Daiya let her arms go slack. Her doppelgänger clearly wasn't recanting, and the girl wasn't leaving here until she knew the truth. "They have?"
"Don't you think it's odd that Cassus just managed to slip by Tawrro on Belazura? The Corpos wanted to make sure the job was done, and they weren't going to trust some untested little girl."
"A droid got him in, it wasn't like Tawrro was just letting Cassus slip by!" Daiya's face was still hot, furious that the double would try to impugne her closest companion's honor.
"Maybe." The doppelgänger had a knowing look on her face, as if she was enjoying the disadvantage she held over Daiya. "But who benefitted from Cassus' distraction? After all, it wasn't Darkwire who plotted to kill Zenie's dad."
"The Corpos took advantage of it!" Her words were hot, but Daiya felt the warmth leave her body with them.
DoppelDäiya shook her head, pushing Daiya back away from her to give herself some room. Daiya wasn't resisting anymore. "No, the Corpos planned it. Remember when he let you go to Ryloth, by yourself?! Sun wanted to get rid of you before you became a problem."
This double had a very peculiar interpretation of her life story, and Daiya was growing less interested in hearing it by the minute. "Tawrro fought me tooth and nail, he didn't just let me go!"
"Okay, suuuuure, the double drawled, a haughty look settling onto her face. "He let you go in that super fancy ship with the AI pilot, huh? How exactly does Tawrro feel comfortable letting you fly off alone in that expensive starship? You don't think he's tracking wherever you go?"
Daiya thought for a moment. The ship had come out of nowhere, and so did the equipment she used on Ryloth. She still didn't know how Tawrro was paying for all that, even if it was true that half of it came from Luminous Sun's armory. She wasn't yet convinced, though, that it was anything more than coincidence, "Yeah, 'cause he's a worrywart, not a Corpo!"
"Then how come he let you walk into a beach filled with Corpos and play your holo-vid?!" That struck a chord. The beach had been a dumb move, and Tawrro had been pretty moody after that. Daiya knew Zenie had needed that moment, but it put both girls under a big set of crosshairs. The double pressed on, as if sensing she had made some inroad. "Either he's the stupidest worrywart in the galaxy, or he's on their payroll and that was the moment he was going to deliver you into their waiting hands."
"What? That's not what happened, the Corpos fought one another." Daiya was still defensive, but her double was starting to make more sense. And she hated realizing that. "I mean, with words, not literally."
"Yeah, they put on a show for you!" The other girl's words were like a clarion call, ringing loudly in her mind. "Deliver you into Sun's waiting arms, so she could get rid of you once and for all."
Did they? Could they? Was the Belazura day all just an elaborate trap set for her, not Zenie? Daiya's voice was smaller as she asked, "Luminous Sun hates me that much?"
"You stole her prizefighter from right under her nose, don't you remember?"
Prizefighter? Daiya didn't remember any time she had run a job against Sun, least of all for some— "Frankie?!"
"The prototype for a new wave of weapons against Darkwire," her doppelgänger said matter-of-factly.
Now the girl was curious. She thought this had all been about Purrgil Corp and its evils. She hadn't heard about any weapons against Darkwire. "What kind of weapons?"
"Replacements," the double offered easily. Daiya narrowed her eyes, her mental gears spinning quickly as she processed this new information. DoppelDäiya finished explaining, "To turn Darkwire against itself, and destroy them once and for all!"
"But that means you're..."
"I was supposed to be, yeah," Her double admitted.
That was it, something clicked in Daiya's head and now everything started to make sense. Running into another version of herself was confusing and odd, but the two of them had gotten along so well. The alarm in her mind had faded, and a trust had been slowly replacing it. A replacement wasn't really her, it was something else. A clone. A droid. Something in between? The girl standing before her wasn't herself at all, it was something other!
The other girl explained, "I was supposed to replace you after Sun got a hold of you. But that didn't work out, and then a very clever friend reprogrammed me to help you instead."
"Reprogrammed..." Daiya started, her words trailing off. Not a clone after all. Not some strange twist of the universe, but something deliberate. Built, not born. She formed the words in her head, tossing them over in her mind before speaking them slowly, as if their very utterance could be lethal. "So, you're not really me. You're a machine."
The machine version of her nodded, "A Brightband Advanced Digital Duplicate Human Replica Droid Mark II."
A what?
"I have your memories up until you were on Parcellus Minor," the double seemed to answer her, and that made enough sense for the girl. "Remember that whole mess?"
Daiya remembered that incident far too much for her own liking. "The nanovirus! With that weird dream..."
She hesitated to go on, not wanting to relive that embarrassing memory again. DoppelDäiya didn't press her on it, it seemed enough that she remembered at all. "Yep. I'm a perfect recreation of you, right up to that point!"
The girl gaped at her double, clawing at what little explanation she now had for the machine copy. That little dip into understanding opened the door to a thousand other questions, the most critical of which was, "But how..."
"That's not really important." The copy shook her head, dismissing everything else Daiya wanted to ask with a single action. "What is important is that you stay away from Tawrro."
Daiya frowned, confusion evident on her face. The girl's earlier doubt reappeared while her eyes and expressions working at full speed. As she cycled through the logical steps, they painted out her effort to rationalize the cognitive dissonance in her mind. After a few moments, she shook her overwhelmed head, and it did nothing to clear things up for her. Desperate for answers, she sought her double's eyes again, "I don't get it. Tawrro's never been anything but kind to me. Sometimes way overprotective, but that's only because I remind him of his son. Who died!"
The doppelgänger had been patient for the whole time, waiting until the girl was ready to speak. Now she reached out her hand to hold Daiya's, speaking with a gentle, reassuring tone,"I know, and he probably did once, Daiya. But something changed. I think he's scared of you now."
"Scared?" Daiya pulled back her hand, retreating from the accusation more than the touch. Her eyes darted, as if looking for predators, before she asked in a hesitant voice, "Of me?"
Her double put down her hands, letting Daiya alone. DoppelDäiya was only there to convince now, not to comfort. "Of what you can do. All the Corpos are scared of you. Think about it. If you can see the future, if you can predict what they'll do..."
"I can stop it from happening," the girl said softly. She knew that directive all too well, it was the driving force within her every time she had a vision.
"And hurt them before they know it!" DoppelDäiya told her. Her words were firm and candid, but not unkind. Daiya still wasn't sure if her double was here to help or hurt her. "Your visions are dangerous to them, Daiya, and so are you."
Her heart skipped a beat. She only thought that any Corpos pursuing her had been chasing after some lawbreaking or because of the holo-vid on the beach. To learn that it was her they wanted, and not some sense of justice or revenge, terrified her to the bone. Daiya wanted anything for it not to be true, not to fear for her life because of her curse again! "Why would the Corpos be scared of that? I can't really do anything with it? I can barely figure out what the visions mean half the time."
"But you will. You'll learn to control it, and be a powerful enemy to them." Daiya grappled with that thought. She was barely a full shadowrunner, what with Tawrro taking the lead on most of their jobs. A powerful enemy to the Corpos? Her? The double carried on, "Maybe even powerful enough to overthrow them."
"Okay, but how does Tawrro factor in?"
This was the moment. Daiya studied her double's face, her eyes, everything about her. From the moment she had met her doppelgänger, it had felt strange. Not like looking in a mirror. It was more like the mirror looking back. It saw things about the girl she didn't like, knew things she didn't want to face. She wanted to trust her double, but now she knew the truth. It was simply a construct, a droid replicant sent to her for a purpose. A purpose that her double claimed was altruistic.
Well, this was DoppelDäiya's moment to be convince her.
"Don't you get it?" the double asked. Daiya stared unwaveringly, watching the copy's face. The other girl didn't seem angry or arrogant now. Just a few steps ahead. "Tawrro's seen it up close. He knows more than most what you're capable of."
That was true enough. Daiya had seen her guardian's concern, his worries, and even his frustration at times. The girl knew she wasn't the perfect partner, she knew Tawrro could find her unpredictable and even a burden. The doppelgänger's words moved her to guilt, but her double's face kept up a steady look of reassurance. "It's just fear, Daiya, he's afraid of you. Afraid of what you could do if you were on your own, if you lost control."
And she had, more than once. Daiya remembered the look in Tawrro's face, the weight that seemed to press down on him more and more after each episode. "That's why he keeps such a tight leash on you, and that's why he'd gladly let the Corpos have you."
Her gaze found the floor, and sorrow filled her eyes again before she felt a weight under her chin. Her double's finger, lifting up her penitent face to meet the eyes of the other girl. And it was as if she could see through them herself, watching the weathered pain and worry over the doppelgänger's face become her own. Daiya wanted nothing more than to lift herself up, to dry her tears, to make everything alright again. Gazing into the face of herself, Daiya found a belief in herself. She took in a breath, trying to steady herself, to hear the final part of what DoppelDäiya had to say.
"To do what with me?"
"What else?" the double asked, as if it was obvious. It was. "You've seen what they do to problems that stand in their way. To get rid of you, permanently."
She tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. The girl opened her mouth, beckoning a voice that wouldn't come. Her eyes bid forth tears that she feared to cry. Daiya didn't want to hear it. She didn't want to face it. She didn't want it to be true. A thready question emerged at last, breaking the dam that held back everything. Her fears, her dreams, her tears, her words. "So you think...Tawrro..."
The double answered the unspoken question. "...could easily kill you if they ordered him to."
Daiya had nothing left. A loud sob left her as she fell to the ground, her knees giving out beneath her. She felt a pain where her heart was, as if it had been ripped from her chest and dashed onto the walkway. The years she had spent with Tawrro, the endless kindness and patience he had given her, the depth of understanding he had for her, had all been a lie. She held the broken pieces of trust in her empty hands, and the betrayal cut through her flesh. The girl bled forth agony and sorrow, weeping for a life she thought she had known. Her chest wracked with a painful cough, dredging up all the angst and isolation she had known since she was a youngling, spilling it forth to remind her all over again.
And with it, came one last, fleeting hope, uttered forth in the barest of whispers. "Tawrro never kills if he can help it."
She felt a hand on her back, a friend at her side as the double knelt next to the girl. Daiya leaned into the embrace of her copy, letting the other girl wrap identical arms around her and brush back her hair with identical hands. An identical voice shushed her, offering up words that were identical to the thoughts running through her own head. "That's why he agreed to watch you, and set you up. He's weak, and he knows it. But make no mistake, Daiya, he wants you dead. He just can't bring himself to do it."
Daiya needed to hear it from someone else, even if it was a copy of herself. She nodded her head, too upset to do much more than just listen and cry. She didn't care that they were in the middle of the walkway, or that other beings were passing her by. The girl felt their strange looks on her body, and she didn't care.
It took her a while to find her voice again, but when she did, the girl could only ask, "What do I do now?"
"Get away from him, Daiya!" the machine told her. Built to replace her, reprogrammed to help. Their symmetry might only be skin deep, but Daiya felt an inexplicable kinship with herself. That was all she had left now, just herself. If the girl could borrow the advice, the confidence, the purpose of the copy whose arms and words were comforting her, she would take them and more. The doppelgänger gave her one last piece to hang onto. "Kill him if you have to, but get out from under his thumb."
Daiya felt the lips of her double press against her forehead, before the other girl stood up. Her voice was resolute, and it lifted the girl's eyes up. DoppelDäiya caught them with her own, and in her gaze Daiya could see a new version of herself. "It's time you spread your wings on your own, Daiya. Soar!"
And then the other girl turned away and left her alone to do just that.