Chapter 2

At 1 am, I stored Tigress and Val. I conjured my duplicate, and handed him a phone with a boarding pass. While he looked just like me, he was part of the Tyr collective, which included the original Thomas Detwiller, Big T, Mike and the beast warriors. He was already carrying a copy of my passport, as he had taken the flight to New York for me. I would be flying superman style, arriving back in Zurich about 20 minutes before the local sunrise.

He gave me a perfunctory handshake, and headed to the couch, my bed wasn’t going to be comfortable to sleep on until it had been thoroughly laundered. I stepped out onto the terrace, wrapped myself in a layer of energy absorption, sound absorption, and a bubble of warm pressurized air. I launched into the night sky, curving in the direction the app on my phone said to go, as it was already programmed with waypoints for home.

I landed 35 minutes later on the terrace at my apartment just north of Zurich in a place called Rümlang. Heads met me at the door to let me in out of the cold. Nora and Em were just getting up, and quickly came to give me a good morning kiss. I wasn’t hungry, as I technically hadn’t gone to sleep yet, and it was only 2 am to me after a couple days in New York. I let them get breakfast going, and conjured a Val to drive me to the company headquarters.

I still didn’t have a driver’s license, and a consultant from SecuriSwiss had suggested that I always have a driver. The electric van drove the almost exactly 2.5km to the entrance to the construction site. A distance by air of about .6km. The required u-turn was an irritation every morning. This morning Val surprised me with a new route, “only 1.6km,” she announced.

I congratulated her on cutting down our commute. I was happy to find another Val waiting for me. She had a message for me from Christian. He was ready to get twinned. I dropped down the entrance to the secret base, and headed for the Temple. I could do the process anywhere, but I liked the theater of it in the Temple. The reality of it was that the theater and spectacle of it all, and the performance of it, was responsible for the hair brained scheme in the first place.

I reached the entrance hall, and turned to the accompanying Val, “Is he ready?” I asked.

“Yes, he’s locked in his room, he doesn’t have to go on duty till noon, so he is claiming the right to sleep in. No one will disturb him.”

“I’ll conjure you there to be sure,” I told her.

I focused my power thru a gem in my ring, it took a full three seconds to pass my mind thru the pearl and come out at the right location. I still haven’t figured out how to exit at the right location consistently when more than two connections existed. I conjured Val, and she explained that she would stand guard in the room, and then I absorbed him, and conjured him into the entrance hall.

“Here, undress quickly, and put on your robe,” I told him, before he could start with a greeting.

He followed me wearing his black robe into the heart of the Temple, the Chamber of Stars. The hemisphere room was enclosed in a layer of gold, reflecting the lights in the ceiling. The center of the floor contained a large seven pointed star, in platinum. I waved my hand, and it shifted into a four pointed star with a large golden circle in the middle.

“Into the circle, Tammuz,” I said using his secret name.

I conjured a black robed Val onto three of the rays coming off the star, and stood on the fourth myself. The lights dimmed, and a spotlight lit up Christian. The Vals began the chant, and I stored him again. I split the circle into two overlapping golden circles, and conjured back two of him, without the robe, facing each other. Again, no reason, just theater!

Focusing my power, I filled him with peace and relaxation as I concentrated on creating a new pearl. Placing it directly in the brains of the both of them, and connecting the two minds together. Once the connection was made, and the neural tissue realigned, and the power flow out of me to accomplish this great task stopped, it was done. I just had one thing left to do, the failsafe.

I stored one of the twins, and knocked the second out. He dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes, and I ripped the pearl out of his head, storing it in a conjuring slot. As the unconscious body started twitching from the cruel brain damage, I converted it back to energy, and conjured two twinned Christians back.

The chant came to an end, and I escorted the pair out, after handing them both black robes. Once out of the chamber itself, I converted two of the Vals back to energy, and conjured him a seat to sit on. The whole process only took me 15 minutes, I was getting faster.

“Tammuz, welcome to life as a near immortal collective,” I began, “There are two available identities for you to choose from.” I conjured and handed him two photos of unconscious naked men. “This is Alex, a Polish construction worker, and ex boyfriend of Karl’s Amy. This is Benjamin, a Romanian construction worker.”

“My onsite twin can be either of these?”

“Yes, but you should know Doris found Benjamin to be the cutest of the two.”

“Benjamin it is, then. What happens next?”

“I transform one of you into a Benjamin look alike, then give you his memories so you can take on the role completely. Then I send a Christian back to where you were at.”

“Benjamin lives here then?”

“He can, or you can send him home to keep Doris company while you are gone. He will have his own pay, and ID, so he could rent a place, or whatever you want. I do offer room and board for anyone who is working here, the care and keeping of your other selves is ultimately your responsibility, no matter how many there might be.