Tethered Twins

Mr King

Mr King continued to stay fixed in one place, now bound by plastic wire cables that Jill had fashioned around his arms and legs.

”Ok, just stay there,” said Jill, as she carefully walked around him to move some cables from one of the servers. “What have you done Tobias?”

Jill heard her phone ring and saw the caller ID was Grace. “Hello?” she answered.

“What happened Jill?” asked Grace. “We are surrounded by tens of thousands of computers and they all just turned on at the same time.”

“The same thing happened here. Have the orange eyes come back?”

“Yes. I thought you stopped them?”

“I think Tobias was one step ahead of us. He probably had a backup in place. Damn! I should have seen it. There’s no way it should have been so easy to hack in. I just thought it was Mr King’s crappy systems but Tobias wanted me to hack in.”

“Why?”

“I got Mr King’s admin login so I could shut down the servers. Tobias must have been hoping Mr King or someone else would use his admin login and now he’s hijacked the account. It means he can control every satellite and computer controlled by the company. Which means he could turn anyone he wanted into those orange eyed freaks.”

“So he could control the entire world?” asked Grace.

“Yes, apart from The Deck, Emmie and anyone else who was born without a twin on the last day of the Siege. I don’t fancy our chances in that war.”

“All I need to know is if you can stop it.”

“Maybe. I’ll need more time. Does March still have the light from the helicopter?”

“No, it’s gone. The orange eyed people took it.”

“Then March will have to use the backup plan.”

“I won’t let him do that. Not yet, it’s too risky.”

“You may not have a choice. I’ll let you know if anything changes here.”

Grace hung up. “What did she say?” asked March. “Should we prepare the backup?”

“Not yet, Emmie may still be able to stop this. We can’t risk her yet.”

--<><>--

Emmie Keyes

My eyes scanned across the Great Wall of China and the people from all over the world who remained motionless along it.

Suddenly one of the men closest to me turned around. I remained stuck, as did everyone else but he was able to walk towards me with a large creepy smile on his face.

“Do you like what you see Emmie?” said the man.

“Tobias?” I asked.

“Who else? Everything you have seen me do today was given to me. The power to control people was given to me by your father and now this,” he motioned his hand in the direction of the motionless bodies, “was given to me by one of your friends at The Deck. When you try to play with Science there is always a cost and today I am the one who earns the profit.”

“What will you do to all of these people?”

“What was always meant to be done to them,” he replied. “The sound wave that caused my awakening and killed all those people twenty one years ago was never meant to be stopped. It was our punishment for trying to break the Tethers that bind us. That’s why it has to happen again and this time no one will be able to use me to stop it.”

“You can’t do this!” I shouted. “These people don’t deserve to die. Was there not enough bloodshed all those years ago? A billion people died! Isn’t that enough?”

“And what did the world learn Emmie? The have’s just got richer and the have-nots became poorer than ever,” he said. “The world could have grown stronger by that experience and united together but it didn’t. A billion people died and the survivors behaved worse than ever to each other. So no, it wasn’t enough.”

“They are trying. People every day are trying to survive. You can’t take away their choice.”

“Isn’t it my right?” said Tobias. “My body was used to stop the Siege so if I start it again then I’ll simply be returning things to the natural order. It’ll be like I never existed at all.”

“Someone will stop you. There must be someone else who has the power to do it?”

“There is. It’s you Emmie. Why do you think I bought you here and trapped you in this body? You are the only other person in the world who is like me and now all you can do is stay fixed to this spot and watch the world end. Goodbye.”

He turned away from me and ran towards the edge of the Great Wall, throwing himself over the side and down onto the cliff face below. “No!” I screamed.

“Don’t worry Emmie,” I could hear his voice in my head. “I won’t leave you. It can be me and you until the end of time. Now watch.”

Watching was all I could do and suddenly there was so much to watch. Every single person on the bridge, apart from my vessel, placed their head in their hands and screamed. Their cries echoed around the canyons of the Great Wall and combined together to make a horrific scream of pain.

I could feel their pain reverberating through my body and knew that this was not an act that could be stopped by me. Almost every person on the planet was dying and all I could do was watch and feel every ounce of their pain.