Gemini: Part Five

by Alryssa


"Well," the other Bob said, "let's do it."

The three tapped their icons.

"Reboot!"

A moment of disorientation, and the trio were all rebooted into army fatigues. The doppelganger Bob immediately took charge.

"All right, let's get this show on the road." She turned to Dot. "You, go find us some explosives. Bob, you come with me to rustle up some friendly game sprites - "

Dot coughed, politely. The two Guardians looked at her. She pointed smugly to the stripes on her sleeve. The sprites looked puzzled, then glanced down at their own uniforms.

"Hey! How did you get to be the sergeant?" the other Bob frowned. She wasn't keen on the idea of a complete stranger to her system taking command.

Dot grinned. "I guess being in charge just comes naturally."

"It's OK," Bob said. "She's experienced at this. I'll vouch for her."

Silence, as the other Guardian assessed the pair of them for a nano, then sighed, turned, and walked away down the rocky path.

"Where are you going?" Dot called after her.

The Guardian froze in her tracks, and swivelled slowly to face them. "I'm going to locate some explosives for the bridge." She paused, realising that Dot was the one 'in charge'. "Unless you have something better for me to be doing...?"

"Take Bob with you. I'll go and find some troops."

The other Bob gave a half-hearted salute, and continued on her way down the path. Bob shook his head.

"This is not good," he murmured.

"Oh, so you have an issue with me being in command?" Dot narrowed her eyes at him.

Bob held up his hands in mock surrender. "Whoa! I'm not saying anything!" Her half-serious glare didn't abate. "All right! I'm going!" he said, and followed his counterpart at a jog. Behind them, Dot chuckled to herself.

* * *

Bob caught up to the other Guardian some way down the path. She glanced at him.

"Hey," he said, trying to be friendly.

"Mm," she answered, noncommittally, then stopped and turned to survey the treacherous landscape. The rough-hewn path ran, zig-zag, down the mountain. The bridge stood not far from them now, a huge expanse of steel and wire almost a mile long and wide enough for a truck to cross.

"Oh boy," he muttered.

"You read my mind."

He checked the Game stats again quickly. The User was five levels away. They had to work fast if they wanted to rig anything. He told his counterpart, who nodded.

"There're a lot of caves here. There's got to be something in one of them..." she replied, gesturing to her left.

Bob peered into the blackness, then checked his uniform's utility belt. "Ah-hah!" he said after a moment.

"What - ow!"

"Sorry!"

Bob quickly turned the flashlight's beam away from the other Guardian as she raised a hand to shield her eyes, blinded by the sudden light. She made a minor sound of annoyance as she fished out her own flashlight, and then followed him inside the cave. It seemed like several nanos before his double yelped excitedly and grabbed his arm.

"Bingo!"

* * *

"I hope this is going to be enough," Bob thought aloud, a worried expression on his face as he surveyed the five crates. The other Bob looked up from the dynamite she was unpacking.

"We just have to use it wisely," she replied. "Put it at the weakest structural points on the bridge."

He frowned, and inspected the bridge once more. "I say we go for the midsection," he said after a nano. "The most structural strain will be there."

She grinned. "You read my mind again. Here, take this." She thrust a bunch of dynamite at him, wires exploding from its top like some bizarre kind of carrot.

"Wonder where our backup is," he murmured, as he took the explosives from her carefully.

"Right here!"

Bob turned to see Dot, and waved cheerily at her. She had five binomes in her wake, all in army camouflage.

"Bob..." Dot said, then as the other Bob looked up from her work she trailed off. "Uh... not you... the other Bob. Whatever." The double shook her head and redirected her attention back to the dynamite.

"Got a plan, Dot?"

"Yes. Take these guys with you, and start setting the charges at the midsection."

"Aye, sir!" he grinned. "You, you, get that crate - carefully!" he winced as the two binomes hefted the explosives just a little too roughly.

* * *

Bob paused a moment in the centre of the bridge, and gazed out at the ravine stretching away in either direction. The gusting wind moaned as it whipped through the canyon. So peaceful, he thought. So hard to imagine time was against them. They had two thirds of the charges down so far, and were waiting on the last batch.

He turned quickly as he heard the sound of a car engine approaching. It couldn't be the User already! He was about to check Glitch when his counterpart pulled up next to him in an Army jeep, a big grin all over her face.

"Hey! I've got the last of the charges. Look what I found!"

Bob managed to slow his heartrate back down as she peered at him, concern on her face. "Are you all right? You look like you've seen the User..."

"Well, for a moment there, I thought I did," he admitted, sheepishly. He checked Glitch once more on the User's current location.

"How long?" she asked.

"Not long. Two levels now."

She nodded, as she hopped out of the jeep. "Right."

"Where's Dot?"

"She's wiring the detonator," the Guardian said, as she hauled a crate from the back of the vehicle. She handed it off to him, then gave him a hard look. "You'd better hope she gets it right, or we'll all be deleted."

Bob frowned at her in vague annoyance as he passed the crate to a waiting binome. "Trust me, OK? She'll do it!"

His counterpart pulled another crate out, then paused to catch her breath before responding.

"Put yourself in my position for a nano, OK? This is my system, my responsibility. You three show up out of nowhere with a shaky story at best, and now your friend is in charge of a Game. Yeah, I know, you say she's experienced - but I don't know that. I don't know that you are, for that matter. Think about it." "Look, for what it's worth... I'm sorry that we weren't exactly truthful before. But between us, we can deal with the User. I mean it, though - we know what we're doing - both of us. I wouldn't lie about that."

His double moved to haul a reel of fuse from the back seat, and met his earnest gaze as she looked up. She couldn't suppress a slight grin.

"I guess it'll be all right." A shrug. "You know her better than I do." She glanced over her shoulder at the small troop of binomes working furiously on the charges. "Where are we at?" she called.

"Four more and we're ready!"

The two Guardians nodded. "How are we doing on time?" she asked Bob. He looked at Glitch's readout screen, and his expression changed rapidly to one of near panic.

"The User is now one level away, and getting here fast!"

She paled. "Oh, boy. Guys..."

Bob took the reel from her. "I have an idea. I'll attach the wiring..."

* * *

The jeep pulled up beside Dot in a cloud of dust. She glanced up, coughing and waving the dust away, to see the two Guardians and the binomes all piling out. One of them handed a fuse reel to her. She looked at it, and then saw the fuse snaking back across the bridge.

"Charges set, Ma'am," it said.

She nodded, then narrowed her eyes at the two Bobs. "Wait... did you guys just do what I think you did...?"

"It was his idea," the doppelganger gestured to him with a thumb, smirking.

Bob grinned. "Fastest way to lay wire I could think of." His expression became more serious as he added, "the User is on this level now. He could get here any nano."

Dot tossed a set of binoculars at him. "Right. Go and keep an eye out for the User. I've got everything set. I just have to finish wiring the detonator up and we'll be ready to go."

He nodded as he caught the binoculars with one hand and moved off to a good vantage point near the bridge.

"Here, I'll help," Bob's counterpart offered, as she threw her gloves into the back seat of the jeep.

Dot moved over to allow her access to the detonator. The two worked in silence for a while, before the Guardian spoke up.

"I'll put a five-second delay on this thing, just in case."

"In case of what?"

Dot didn't get to hear the answer, because at that moment she glanced up to see Bob waving his arms around like a windmill. He was yelling, but with the gusting wind it was hard to hear what exactly he was yelling about.

"Bob? What the - "

The other sprite had already jumped up and was running to Bob's side. He turned to her as she approached.

"Is it the User?" she asked, He froze, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. The Guardian narrowed her brown eyes at him. "What is it?" she asked again. Not getting an answer, she took the binoculars from him, raised them to her eyes and looked for herself.

She saw the User - albeit distantly - for the first time, also in Army fatigues, but of a different colour. It was heading towards the bridge, machine gun in hand. All right, she thought, what was the big deal? No. Wait. There was a small buggy just ahead of the User, crossing the bridge, but awkwardly, zig-zagging from side to side like it was dodging...

Bullets! The User was firing at it! She squinted, tried to make out who was in the small vehicle. As she watched, the buggy barely reached the midsection of the bridge before a bullet hit a tyre, shredding it instantly, forcing the vehicle to tip over onto its side. Two small sprites tumbled out, then dove for cover behind it as the gunfire rained down on and around them.

"What in the 'Net..."

She stared for a nano, not certain she could believe her eyes, then - "ADENA!!"



[ Part 6 ]

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