Chapter 3

I had gone to sleep thinking deeply about the ability to self duplicate. My dreams were filled with strange images that I didn’t understand. I awoke oddly fuzzy headed, and tried to use my power to clear my mind, but it provided no relief.

It was strange, I felt like I was moving thru thick syrup, as I went about my morning routine. I was sipping my coffee, watching the morning news on TV, when I asked the girls about it. “Everything seems to be moving in slow motion today,” I said.

“It’s Sunday, everything moves slowly on a Sunday,” Em said.

“What do you mean?” Nora asked.

“I feel stuck, like I’m in molasses. Everything seems to be going slowly.”

“All the time, or just right now?” asked a worried looking Nora.

“Right now,” I replied as she held a hand on my forehead. My power already told me I wasn’t sick.

“Is it your power?” Nora asked.

“I don’t know, I got another new slot, I’m up to 2 trillion grams.”

“I don’t know how big that is.” Em said.

“It’s really big, 22 american aircraft carriers big,” I said.

“Maybe because it’s empty?” Nora said.

I grabbed onto and stored the coffee table into the big slot. “No difference.”

“Should we call anybody to see if they have any ideas? Heads probably knows more about your powers than anyone else,” Em suggested.

I conjured a Val into the room, “Adam’s feeling weird. We think it might be his power. He says everything feels like it’s moving slowly,” Em explained to her.

“Have you asked your power what’s going on?” Heads asked.

I closed my eyes, ‘Why is everything getting like it’s moving slowly?’ I asked my power.

The sensation intensified. ‘I don’t understand,’ I told it.

I got images of the first twinning, then me. Then I got an image of the coffee table. The images flickered back through all my slots, and their contents. The images were in reverse order, until finally they reached the single gram of platinum. I expected the images to stop, but there was one more.

“My power is showing me an image, it’s like a balloon swelling up and taking the shape of a person.”

“What did you ask, and is that the only thing it showed you?” Heads asked.

“No, it showed me my first twinning, then displayed the contents of my slots in reverse order, followed by this final image.”

“Is it showing you something that happened in your past, something that you just didn’t recognize at the time?”

“I don’t know, I’ve been trying to figure out how to twin myself. But, I can’t conjure something that I haven’t stored. So how do I duplicate myself if I can’t store myself?”

There was silence for a moment. Then Nora spoke, “Remember when your power shattered when you absorbed the platinum cube? What if that is what it is showing you?”

I thought back to that pivotal moment. I had just absorbed the energy of matter itself, and the backlash of power threw me backwards. I focused on the memory, finding I could rewind my own memories the same way I could others that I examined with my power. I played the sequence back, watching it carefully. I did it again, slower. The spot inside me, where excess energy went, was hit with the power of 1 gram of matter. And it exploded. I tried watching my own memories, but stepped back visualizing the event from the outside.

That spot deep inside me had been a pocket universe. It exploded outward, but it didn’t shatter. It had swelled, taking on a new shape. My shape, my old man shape. Had there been a stored copy of myself all along?

I reviewed the last image my power had shown me. It wasn’t just human shaped, it was the shape of me the day I absorbed my first matter. I just hadn’t recognized my old man shape. It had been like trying to recognize yourself in an old baby picture, but seeing it as a silhouette. I stood, contemplating what this meant. The girls just watched as I briskly marched back and forth across the room thinking.

“I think he figured something out,” Heads said.

‘can I conjure myself?’ I asked my power.

There was a feeling of anticipation, and the sensation of everything moving slower intensified.

‘will the new me be connected like the twinned people, or a duplicate like Nora and Mora were?’

I got an image of the first twinning in response.

‘how much energy will it take? Twinning, or creating a pocket universe takes thousands of kilos of power.’

I got an image of myself standing on the bathroom scale. It said 106 kilograms.

‘I already have a pocket universe?’

I got an image of my corridor of power.

“Well shit,” I said out loud, making everyone in the room jump.

“Everything ok?” Nora asked.

“I’m communicating with my power in a way beyond any previous communication. If I’m understanding it right, I have been able to conjure a copy of myself all this time.”

“Really? Since the beginning when your power first started?”

“No since I absorbed that first cube. The cube of platinum was not my first conjuring slot.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No, I was. I am slot zero, the cube of platinum is slot #1.”

“So can you conjure yourself?” asked Em.

“Yes, and I’m already twinned, so a conjure will make me a collective like the others.”

“Are you going to do it?” Heads asked.

“I think I have to,” I said, “I need to know if I’ll make a copy, or a twin. Either would be useful, just for backup and security.”

“I think you should do it somewhere secure, like in the Temple,” Nora said.

“What if something goes wrong? How would we get him to a hospital?” worried Em.

“The apartment isn’t safe if it causes a problem,” Nora said, glancing over where I had accidentally blown a hole through the roof of the apartment.

“I can conjure into the Temple from here,” I offered.

“What’s the closest hospital?”

“University Hospital next to the airport.”

“Hey! My power is much better than any hospital. You are just over reacting. I’m sure everything will be fine.”

“We need to take proper precautions. What if something goes wrong. If there was a sudden energy release of just 1% of your storage, how big would the explosion be?” Heads asked.