Ric Campbell was sitting in his agent's office when he walked in.
It was very odd to be staring at himself, and he understood, better than a mirror could have ever told him, why there was such a frenzy over him. God. Pretty.
"Whoa. What the hell?" he said.
The lamp on his agent's minimalist desk suddenly brightened and dimmed, and another person was standing in front of him where his döppelganger had been before, a man about Ric's age, close-cropped blond hair over light brown eyes, nondescript. Ric turned to his agent, Tom Wilhoit, and said, "This is what you mean?"
Tom nodded. "It's kind of important that you understand that this guy won't actually be you. He'll just look like you. Okay?"
"Shit." Ric sat back, then turned back to look at the new guy. "What's your name, dude?"
"I'm Duncan."
"How do you do that?"
Duncan shrugged and smiled. The lamp brightened again, and he was standing in front of himself. Ric rubbed his eyes, stood up, and walked over to himself--no, Duncan, he had to remember. It was just an illusion.
Ric ran his hands over Duncan's shoulders, felt his arms. He touched his twin's face and hair, and the twin grimaced and flinched, moaning, "Dude. Come on." The mannerisms, the voice, the eyes, everything was a perfect copy.
"God damn," Ric breathed, admiring the spectacle. He was
pretty. And this guy was
good.
---
It had been a strange week. He and Duncan were together every minute of every day, and Duncan's illusion had been useful more than once. Ric had even avoided getting shot when Duncan projected his image six feet to the right and rendered Ric himself invisible. The copy, intangible because of this very reason, had just kept walking, and Duncan had led the cops right to the shooter: a twelve-year-old girl angered over his lack of response to a particularly fruity fan letter she had written.
This meant Ric could enjoy the normal perks of stardom. The red carpets. The parties. The women. The illusion covered more than sight--sound, touch, smell, even taste could be manipulated.
Really, this particular aspect had given rise to a sort of camaraderie between the two of them. Duncan's constant presence, even in Ric's private moments, and its necessity since the Saudi debacle, had forced Ric to get used to, and even like, Duncan himself.
They had long conversations, deep into the night, being each other's only company most of the time.
--
He was in a very exclusive club, known only as The Draft, somewhere in Vegas, lounging on an expensive designer couch with a group of hangers-on. Duncan was sitting next to him, disguised as a leggy blonde girl (what they privately called his Barbie), and some oil heir asshole was hitting on her like crazy. Privately, Ric was amused, watching Barbie shoot this guy down over and over.
He leaned over. "Hey," he said. "I'm gonna get a drink. Wanna come?" Barbie nodded vigorously, her long blonde hair falling in sheeny waves down to her perky breasts, and she stood up.
The oil heir--Ric rather thought his name was Alex, he was big and blond and kind of dumb-looking--looked angry and grabbed Barbie's arm. "C'mon, baby, forget this guy. You too good for me?"
Ric sighed. "Dude. She's not interested in
you. Let it go."
Mistake. Alex was also known for his propensity for rugby, and he was a big guy. Ric worked out conscientiously, of course--his female fans wouldn't have it any other way--but he was in no way a fighter. Alex advanced, and gave Ric a significant shove, pushing him back a step or two.
Before he could do anything, a tiny voice spoke in his ear.
"Just stand still and stare at him. Let me take care of it."
He schooled himself to remain perfectly motionless, his eyes fixed on Alex's.
Alex sneered, then did a double take. "Hey..." he said, and trailed off.
"Smile real sudden," the voice said.
Ric grinned abruptly and Alex startled. There was a large crowd watching the two now, and Ric could hear the whispered speculation at what the hell was going on.
"Take one step forward," the voice said.
Ric stepped forward, and Alex grew wild-eyed and vanished into the crowd.
"Time to go," said the voice. "Laugh a little, wave at everyone, say so long, and we're outta here."
Back at the hotel, Duncan sighed and settled into an armchair while Ric flopped down on the bed.
"What the hell happened there, dude?"
Duncan chuckled and morphed back into Ric. "I just embellished some stuff, little things to freak him out. It'll add to your legend, and people will think he was on something if he says anything, because I made sure he was the only one who could see it."
"Like what?"
Duncan waved his hand. "Aaah."
"C'mon, man. What did you do?"
He sighed. "Okay. I'll show you." The lights brightened and dimmed again into The Draft. The music pounded and the lights flashed, and Ric jumped to see himself and Duncan, back inside Barbie, sitting on the couch, while Alex was doing his thing.
Ric got up to get a drink, Barbie stood up, Alex grabbed her arm, and the scene shifted, bringing Alex's back around and forward, so that Ric was seeing the events of earlier that night through Alex's eyes.
He watched himself stumble backwards from the shove, pull himself erect, and freeze, staring expressionlessly into his own eyes. Suddenly, visible in the clear irises, Ric's pupils shrank into tiny pinpoints, leaving almost nothing but glassy blue, like the eyes of an incomplete doll. A spectral skull showed itself over Ric's face for a split second, and when he grinned, his teeth were abnormally long and sharp.
The effect was of a feral demon, soul-shrinking in its beauty and horror. It stepped forward suddenly, and even Ric, knowing that he was looking at himself from a few hours before and that it was all Duncan's illusion, wanted to crap himself, turn tail, and run far, far away.
The lights brightened, and he was back in the hotel room, Duncan appraising him from his perch on the armchair.
"You okay, dude?" he asked.
"Jesus Christ," said Ric.
---
Several weeks after the incident at The Draft, Ric and Duncan were in London for the European premiere of his latest movie,
Crying Shack. It was two o'clock in the morning, but neither had adjusted to the time change. Duncan was reclining on the chair-and-ottoman set, while Ric lay on his back on one of the beds, clicking through the strange English channels he kept finding.
"So you're against the war, huh?" Ric said.
Duncan sighed. "Haven't we already talked about this?"
Ric shrugged. "About the war itself, yeah, but I've never really heard what you actually thought about the whole thing."
"Eh."
"Come on."
"My mama said never to talk about politics or religion."
"Fuck your mama."
"Already did." They laughed.
"No, seriously," Ric rolled over on his side. "Come on. What do you think?"
Duncan sighed. "I'm against it. It's just
wrong."
Ric nodded. "I figured, but...well, dude, what's your range?"
"Huh?"
"Like, how far can you project an illusion?"
Duncan shrugged and pointed straight down. "About eight thousand miles that way. Why do you ask? I mean, this is kind of off-topic."
"Hang on," Ric said. He thought, and his eyes widened. "So you can make an illusion all the way around the planet?"
"Yup. Why?"
"So why don't you just make Allah appear and tell all the Muslims that it's bad to kill people and stuff?"
Duncan was quiet for a few minutes. "Because," he said finally, "that is such a huge violation of my personal ethical code that I would probably kill myself afterwards."
"So you'd rather let all these people die?"
Duncan sighed. "Look--" but he was interrupted when two Middle-Eastern men entered the room, carrying suitcases.
Ric jumped up. "The fuck?"
Duncan shrugged. "Relax. There are seven of you inhabiting various rooms in this building. Those guys don't know we're here."
"They can't see or hear us?"
"Nah."
"You know what room he's in?" a vaguely French accent asked.
The other one nodded. "Twelve thirty-eight. Just down the hall."
"Good." The man picked up his suitcase and laid it on the bed, unzipping it and rummaging through the nondescript clothing inside. He pulled out various pieces of what looked like a formidable weapon, and began twisting and slotting it together. A large handgun with what seemed to be a silencer tube began to form quickly.
"How do we get in?" the other man said.
"The window," said the man with the gun. "There's a ledge about a meter wide all around the building we can use. Let me see the picture again."
The other man tossed a piece of paper to him, and Ric moved around behind his shoulder. The gunman unfolded it to reveal a large picture of Ric, printed in black and white. It had clearly been downloaded off the Internet, he saw.
"This is the target?" the gunman asked.
The other man nodded. "His Holiness wants a message sent to the West that we will not tolerate their idolatry. That man is one of the most famous people in America, and cleansing him will guarantee our place in paradise."
Ric felt cold. He looked over and saw Duncan standing next to the suitcase, rummaging through its pockets. "Dude, what the hell are you doing?"
Duncan looked up. "Relax. They won't see anything I don't want them to see." He pulled out a small piece of paper, and showed it to Ric with a significant expression. It was a photograph of an older Middle-Eastern woman, smiling at the camera. Her eyes were loving, and he flipped the photo over.
"Nasreen al-Habibiyah," he said, reading the back of the picture. "1946-2005. Hmm."
The lights brightened, and dimmed again. The other man looked at the gunman and said, "What is that photo you keep in your suitcase anyway?"
The gunman started. "How do you know about that?"
The other man shrugged. "I've seen you looking at it."
The gunman looked doubtful, then sad. "My mother. I loved her very much. She died in the Parisian riots, because the fucking West would not give us what we wanted. She was shot by the police on her way home from the market. They thought she was part of a group of people who were setting fire to some cars in the street." His expression hardened. "I do this for her."
Duncan gave Ric a significant look, and the other man turned away as the lights brightened and dimmed.
There was a knock at the door. The gunman startled and shouted, "Who is it?"
"Complimentary room service," a female voice called. "For all first-time guests."
The two men looked at each other and shrugged. The gunman stashed the handgun back in the suitcase while the other man went to the door.
In walked a motherly, middle-aged Middle-Eastern woman, pushing a cart.
Ric choked. The gunman sprang up.
"Mother!"
"What--?" said the other man.
The woman started, then looked closely at the gunman, and her eyes filled up with tears.
"Oh, oh--" she gasped. "Is it truly you, Aman? My son?"
"It's me, Mum," said the gunman, his own eyes watering. "Where did you come from? I thought you were dead!"
They embraced, laughing and weeping with joy. Neither let go for a long time.
Finally, they disengaged, and the gunman, his face flushed and his eyes bright, led her to the bed, where they sat down.
"The police," he said. "They told me you had been killed in the riots!"
"No, darling one," she said. "I was carried off. Kidnapped by the police. They told me
you had died and that my life was in danger. That's why I'm here!"
The gunman's face darkened, but he looked at his mother's face again, and he laughed. "I can't even get angry anymore," he said. "This is too wonderful, too amazing!"
Ric sidled up to Duncan. "Dude," he hissed. "Is she an illusion?"
Duncan looked at him as though Ric had missed something very obvious. "Uh,
yeah."
"Why the hell are you doing this?"
"He was going to kill you. It's my job to prevent that, Ric."
"But. But isn't she going to...disappear?"
Duncan shrugged. "She will, when I stop caring."
"But what about him?"
"What
about him?"
"He thinks his mom's still alive, dude," Ric said. "This is fucking
cruel. It's cheap and exploitative and just...Jesus Christ, man, stop it. Please."
Duncan was dispassionate. "I'm just doing my job."
"But..." Ric looked at the happy pair, sitting on the bed, at the other man hanging around uncomfortably, unsure of whether or not to leave or stay, to say something or remain silent.
The man and his mother were sitting on the bed, laughing and weeping, holding each other and remembering.
"For God's sake, Duncan," he finally hissed. "Stop this!"
Duncan looked at him. "Okay." And the lights brightened and dimmed and the two men and woman melted into air.
"What the--? What the hell?" Duncan only looked at him. "What--was
all of it an illusion?"
Duncan settled himself wearily into an armchair. "And now you see why I won't be a voice in the sky, exploiting some people's deepest, truest beliefs just to stop them from doing something I don't want them to do."
Ric stared at him, mouth open, incredulous. He stuttered, then said, "That's totally different." At Duncan's quizzical expression, he advanced, his voice rising. "It's not the same at all, asshole. Not the
fucking same at all! God isn't real! That mother was!"
"No, she wasn't," Duncan said, calmly fixing his eyes on Ric's. "But you thought she was. You thought it was all real. The key here is your belief. Same thing with the foks who pray five times a day, who go to the mosque, who listen to their imam when he preaches kindness and simplicity and ignore him when he talks about the Great Satan, who just try to live their normal lives from day to day. And I will
not cheapen them just because of a few bad apples." His voice had become a monotone, his face expressionless, retreating behind a sheath of illusion. "Do you understand?"
Ric just looked at him, his hurt and his anger plastered all over his face, his acting experience proving itself completely worthless. Duncan, the great illusionist, simply looked back.
---
Ric avoided speaking to Duncan for nearly three weeks. He grew used to Duncan's presence like a shadow, and became accustomed to the strange bending of reality around him.
As time went on, however, he began to feel increasingly isolated. The necessity of Duncan's illusion separated him from the world, preventing him from most forms of direct contact with people, and his refusal to speak to Duncan only increased the distance further.
It nettled him, but he had to admit that he missed the company Duncan provided. Of course, he was always there, next to Ric, spinning his cocoon of deception and safety, but what had happened in London had left Ric pensive with the knowledge of the true power of Duncan's illusion, his understanding of human nature and his ability to create what seemed to be reality itself. When he pressed himself on it, he had to admit that he was frightened.
He hated feeling forced to question reality. Duncan himself, for instance. Whenever he settled back into the appearance Ric always thought of as what he really looked like, he had to question whether or not it was what Duncan
really did look like.
And then there was the sheer completeness of the illusion of the gunmen. It was seamless, totally believable. Ric had been utterly convinced.
So he grew curious: could Duncan conjure up heaven itself?
He was pretending to sleep one night in the Toronto apartment he was renting while shooting his newest movie,
River's Flow, when he rolled over and looked at Duncan through slitted eyelids. He was awake--or seemed to be--and reading a book, one of those cheap sci-fi pulpblocks one found on the discount shelf at Wal-Mart. He sighed, and Duncan glanced at him, but was apparently satisfied that things were okay, and looked back down at the book.
"Duncan," Ric said.
He looked up again, as calm as ever. "Yes?" No emotion.
"Sorry for, like, being quiet and stuff."
"Sure."
"Whatever," Ric almost said. But the door had been opened. "You aren't going to apologize for London?"
Duncan sighed, irritated. Finally, some feeling. "No, I'm not going to apologize for that. You didn't understand, and you wouldn't have if I hadn't shown you what I meant. You needed it, okay? What you also need to understand is that my ability is one of the best ways I have of expressing myself, and although I won't apologize for doing it, I
am sorry you reacted the way you did." Then he sat up and said, with an audible note of pride in his voice, "Although I have to admit...it was nice to see how real I could make it."
Ric scoffed, but Duncan's words had penetrated. "Okay, then. I suppose I'm going to have to say I'm sorry for taking it so badly. It just really got to me, you know?"
Duncan nodded. "I know."
Ric shook his head. "You're
good, man." As he smiled, Ric went on, "I had a question, though."
"Shoot."
"That stuff in London...it was so real. Could you just make up anything like that? Like a whole new reality?"
Duncan's grin faded. "What are you getting at?"
"Well, could you, like, put me in a perfect world? Where there's perfect naked women everywhere and endless fields of green and natural springs of beer?"
Duncan's face froze, literally. "You probably should stop there."
"Whoa. What? What's so bad about it? Why--?"
"
Shut the hell up." The voice sounded like it was coming through gritted teeth, but he looked the same as ever, no emotion or signs of strain or, really, anything.
Ric's face closed. "Fine." He rolled over and pretended to sleep. He lay awake all night.
---
"I just don't think this is working out," he said.
Doctor Morrow looked at him, all sympathetic concern. "Why not?"
Ric explained the events in London, and the midnight talk in Toronto.
When he finished, Morrow leaned back in his chair and pursed his lips. "How much," he said finally, "do you really know about Duncan?"
Ric furrowed his brow. "Well...he's a smart guy. Funny. Has some pretty strong opinions and stuff. But about him personally? Like his history?" Morrow nodded. "Nothing. He doesn't talk about himself much at all. I thought it was a little weird, but you know how it is. Then I stopped talking to him. Then he stopped talking to me. Now...I just don't think it's gonna work out on a personal basis."
Morrow sighed. "Listen. With a guy like Duncan, it's very easy to see reality as nothing but a dream. A waking dream, that he can change and control to his heart's desire. The problem is, most of the time, he knows it's all an illusion, so for him, reality is especially
real."
He sat back in his ergonomic chair. "Do you know how old he is?"
With a sinking feeling, Ric shook his head.
"He's 26," Morrow said. "Only a couple of years older than yourself. Does that make you feel better?"
Ric shrugged. "Sure, I guess. At least he's not an oldster."
Morrow narrowed his eyes, and belatedly, Ric noticed the doctor's cropped top of silver. "How about this: He was married, once."
Ric's jaw dropped. "No way. Really?"
"Yeah." Morrow sighed. "Listen. Pretty sure you're not supposed to know any of this, so sit on it, okay?" At Ric's nod, he went on, "They were college sweethearts. Got married the same day they graduated. They had a pretty good life for a couple of years, but his wife had a history of depression and suicide attempts. He knew this going in. He wasn't that much of an idiot. In fact, he was basically responsible for her being alive as long as she was."
"Jesus," Ric whispered. "That's a lot to put on someone you love."
Morrow shrugged. "No kidding, I guess. Although considering what he now does for you, maybe not so much. Could call it atonement, though."
"Atonement?"
Morrow shifted position in the chair. "Here's the important thing. He was responsible for her life, yes, but he was also responsible for her death." He sighed deeply. "It was about a year after they got married that he first began to show signs of his ability with illusion, and he spent a while playing around with it, experimenting on himself, creating all these worlds. He told me all about what he made up, a few years later, and I was totally, you know, blown away by his creativity.
"Duncan loved his wife very much. She was his world. He would do whatever it took to make her happy. But their history together had him convinced that no matter how dark a place his wife was in, he could always pull her out.
"So one day, I guess she was kind of weepy, and he made the mistake of telling her about his illusions. Right away, she asked him the same thing you did a couple of weeks ago--to show her paradise itself. He did. Singing clouds, transcendent light, happy children, sparkling water from the purest springs of Heaven. All of that. She forced Duncan to keep her in it for three days straight, no food or water for either of them, not the real stuff at least. He hadn't yet developed the ability to maintain his illusions while he was unconscious, and those three days took their toll. He passed out and only woke up when his wife poured a glass of ice water down his throat. She had slit her wrists. She wanted Duncan to be awake when she died, and told him that she couldn't take it anymore. Three days of the highest Heaven, and suddenly, it all blinks away and you're nearly insane with starvation and thirst because all the food and water was nothing but another illusion.
"Duncan had no strength, so he wasn't able to call an ambulance in enough time to save her. After the funeral, he vanished."
Ric was quiet for a moment. "Where'd he go?"
Morrow nodded. "Good question. A year or so later, we got a phone call from the Department of Defense in Nevada, a phone call which was so completely bizarre we had to investigate. We've been looking into people like him for a few years now, but the military's description of what was going on was so out-there we brought in everyone we had."
"What was it?"
Morrow looked grim. "Hell itself. An area covering nearly six thousand square miles, filled with everything Duncan could think of to torture himself with. It was a terrible place, and those of us who survived that tend to avoid talking about it. The horrible part was that the majority of that place wasn't anything like the concrete images we tend to have of Hell, where there are damned souls laboring or being tortured until the end of time. Not much sulfur or brimstone. Mostly, it was dark, with certain...
sensations." Morrow shuddered. "You get the idea."
Ric nodded. He got the idea. Still..."But if it was all his own illusion, how could it hurt him? He had total control."
"Not true by the time we finally got to him. He'd crossed over into true madness and could no longer distinguish between reality and fantasy. As far as he was concerned, it was all self-made, yes, but it had been turned loose of his own control. The more his own illusions attacked him, the more terrified and guilt-ridden he became, and the worse the illusions got--a big, giant vicious circle."
"Wait," Ric said, frowning. "You said 'those of us who survived.' People
died trying to get to Duncan?"
Morrow nodded. "The thing about his illusion is that the psychological component is so much more significant than the physical component. Duncan's strongest illusion--in a tangible sense, at least--might be able to knock you over, but it isn't capable of even piercing skin. We lost almost thirty people to sheer terror, either from heart attacks or from misguided attempts to shoot whatever was doing something to them, which wound up killing someone else."
"Jesus."
"It was terrible." Morrow looked introspective for a moment, then straightened up, cleared his throat, and continued. "But their deaths contributed, after all, to his return to stability. When we got to the epicenter, we managed to trank him, and where there was bottomless horror, there was suddenly a clear blue sky and a golden desert. Everything had vanished. And there was this guy, just lying there in front of us, a dart sticking out of his arm." He rubbed his eyes. "It took nearly a year of extremely heavy sedation and intensive counseling to bring Duncan back to a point where he could face the deaths he had caused and decide to do something productive about it."
Ric saw the light. "And that's why he's with me now?"
Morrow nodded wordlessly.
Ric sat back in his chair and took a deep breath. "Look, Doctor. He's my 24-7 security detail. We've gotten to know each other. He's cool, I'm cool. But put it this way: I don't even know what the guy actually looks like."
Morrow chuckled. "Listen, kid. With someone like Duncan, the outward appearance means absolutely nothing. It's what's under the surface--the meaning, the feeling, the true nature that really matters. Like that incident you described earlier, the one that happened in London. He was trying to explain to you, in the best way that he knows how, why he won't do what you suggested. If anything, what happened after his wife died made his beliefs, that internal line that he'd never cross, even stronger. You can rest assured that no matter what, your trust is in very, very good hands with him. Okay?"
Ric sighed. "I suppose. All right. Let me noodle it a little longer."
Morrow nodded sympathetically. "I think you should. Do you still want him removed from your security detail?"
"Naw," Ric said lazily. "No use firing a warning shot."
Morrow smiled. "All right."
---
In Toronto, Ric lay in bed, wide awake for the sixth night straight. He rolled over, opened his eyes, and looked at Duncan. Duncan looked up from his book and held his gaze.
After a few moments of silence, Ric finally spoke. "What do you really look like?"
Duncan blinked. "You don't think this is how I actually look?"
"With you, who knows?
Is that--" he made a gesture that took Duncan in from head to toe, "--real?"
"Does it matter?"
Ric shrugged. "I dunno." Then he paused, and tried to pick his way through carefully. "In a life like mine, it's hard to know who to trust, you know? These last few weeks, it's seemed like you're the only person I could trust with anything at all. And I don't even know what you look like." He scoffed. "Hell, I gotta say...I'm wondering if all the palling around is just so I'll cooperate with the detail."
Duncan was quiet for a moment. "So you want to know what I really look like?"
"Sure, man. That'd be cool."
"What if I'm a four-hundred-pound 17-year-old girl with ugleface and inch-thick acne?"
Ric laughed. It almost felt normal "Then I'd get a shrinky-dink."
Duncan made a rude noise. "Relax. I'm a guy, okay? That should be enough to set your mind at ease."
"Come on, man."
He sighed. "Look. It's like you said. What
is real, with me? I could say that what you're seeing is really me, but for all you know, it's B.S. What would be the point?"
Ric sighed. Then he remembered Morrow's words. "That doesn't really matter. If you tell me it's really you, I'll believe you."
Duncan was silent for a moment. Then he stood up, and behind him, the floor lamp brightened and dimmed, and he was a nondescript, overweight man. Nothing special or even attractive, definitely not red-carpet material.
Ric looked at him for a long, long moment. This, at long last,
this was real. Duncan was clearly painfully uncomfortable. Finally he said, "Take a picture, it lasts longer."
Ric was a few minutes in answering, turning over in his mind what Morrow had told him about Duncan's past. He finally realized something: Duncan's obstinacy in revealing his true self could be rooted in lingering self-hatred over what that particular identity had done to his wife and to the agents who had had to fight their way through his private universe to save him. And now there he was, standing in front of Ric, truly naked in a way that meant much more than simple lack of clothing for the first time in a long, long time.
Finally, he stood up, grabbed Duncan's hand, shook it, and hugged him.
Just before they disengaged, the lights brightened and dimmed and Duncan was no longer there.
