Chapter 77 - The Mirror Match
The service conduit opened into the facility's lower turbine sector—a cavernous, rumbling underbelly filled with steam pipes, churning cooling fans, and the hum of an subterranean geothermal generator. Condensation dripped from overhead conduits, hissing as it struck high-voltage transformer banks.
They ran along an elevated metal catwalk, the floor vibrating violently beneath their boots.
Suddenly, the lights along the catwalk went dead.
Emergency sirens shifted pitch, descending into a low, wailing drone. From the darkness ahead, the hiss of a hydraulic door cycling open signaled that they were no longer alone.
"He bypassed the service shaft," David whispered, pushing Leah and the children into the shadow of a massive concrete turbine housing. "He took the express lift."
"David, don't leave us," Leah pleaded in a harsh whisper, clutching the baby whose faint whimpering she desperately tried to muffle against her chest.
"He’s hunting my heat signature," David said, his voice deadly level. "If I stay with you, he kills all four of us. When you see the catwalk clear, you run for that green exit beacon at the far end. There’s an industrial hoist to the surface."
Before she could argue, David stepped out onto the open catwalk.
From the steam twenty yards ahead, Julian emerged. He had discarded his graphite coat. His dress shirt was stained with sweat and his own leaking blood. In his right hand, he held a heavy titanium crowbar stripped from a generator terminal.
"No weapons left, brother?" Julian asked, his voice echoing eerily over the turbine roar. "Just two brothers, settling an inheritance."
"You're not my brother," David said, walking forward steadily, his hands empty, his center of gravity low. "You're just a ghost in a suit."
Julian screamed and lunged.
The blow came fast—blindingly fast, driven by the frantic, chemically induced adrenaline of a dying man. David ducked beneath the sweep of the metal bar, feeling the wind of it graze his scalp, and drove a vicious straight right into Julian's ribs.
It was like hitting a brick wall. Julian didn't flinch; the cellular degradation had burned out his pain receptors. Julian swung his left elbow around, catching David square on the cheekbone.
David stumbled back, his head ringing, blood filling his mouth. Julian pressed the attack, driving the blunt end of the crowbar into David’s stomach.
David hit the steel grate, gasping for breath, as Julian brought the bar down in a two-handed executioner's strike.
David rolled violently to the left. The crowbar smashed through the metal grating, wedging tight between the steel mesh.
David didn't hesitate. He surged upward from the deck, wrapping both arms around Julian's neck in a guillotine choke, driving his weight backward to crush his doppelgänger's windpipe.
They crashed together against the safety railing. Julian thrashed like a wild animal, gouging his blackened fingers into David’s face, clawing at his eyes. David felt the cold, necrotic skin tearing beneath his fingers, but he tightened his grip, screaming through clenched teeth, pouring every ounce of love, rage, and parental fury into the hold.
"You... won't... save them..." Julian choked out, his face turning purple, blood leaking from his nose.
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"They're already saved," David growled into his twin's ear.
With a final, desperate twist of his hips, David vaulted his weight upward, leveraging the safety railing. Julian’s boots left the grating. The momentum carried them both against the rusted bar—and with a sickening shriek of tearing bolts, the railing gave way.
