wbw | Welcome

You awake on the grass. When you open your eyes, you see that you in the Wood. It is calm here. Quiet. There are no birds singing, nor any other sight or sound of animal life. The sky between the branches is an eternal twilight that lightens and darkens without ever becoming true day and night. Interspersed between the trees are the Pools. Each Pool is only a foot deep at most--enough to splash in, but certainly not deep enough to swim or drown. They are oddly uniform, aside from the occasional Pool here and there that has inexplicably dried out.

As you look around, you notice that a short distance away is what appears to be the remains of a small camp. When you approach, you can see that there are a number of tents that seem to be in excellent condition, and in the middle, a campfire circle with plenty of food supplies around it.

The food replenishes itself when taken.

The fresh water never runs dry.

The sleeping bags and mats within the tents are oddly comfortable and restful.

Welcome to the Wood Between the Worlds.

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She bites her lips and tugs him down so they can sit, leaning against the tree. How does she even begin?

"The Ryman campaign." Her words are brisk and chopped. "You know by now that there's been sabotage, right? Eakly. The Ranch. We're being fucked with. By someone with access to live state Kellis-Amberlee and no qualms about weaponizing it."

"Yeah, obviously. We found proof of the sabotage in my shoe," he reminds her, frowning a little. "George, this is review. We know all this. What is going on? Why are you looking at me like I'm about to start freaking out?" And she still hasn't explained what the fuck if going on with her eyes.

"Because that wasn't the last needle we found." She swallows thickly. She can remember it as vividly as if it had actually happened to her, not the girl she used to be. "There's--a lot's happened. But the big, important thing you need to know is that the CDC stopped being the good guys a long time ago, Governor Tate was in their pockets, and I--"

A prick, barely noticeable until she stopped running. The trailers blowing up. Locking the van door. The feel of Shaun standing behind her, the gun pressed to the back of her head. Begging him to pull the trigger.

Waking up in a room with white walls.

"One of them hit me."

"No." His answer is reflexive. He can't believe that. She'd be dead. He knows what was in those syringes. The concentration of the virus. There's no way she'd survive getting hit by one of them. He'll believe it about the CDC, and definitely about that asshole Tate, but not that she was hit by one of those syringes.

She gives him a weak smile. "This would be a really shitty thing for me to start lying about. But I guess, technically, it didn't happen to me. It happened to a girl whose genes and 97% of her memories I share." She glances away, resisting the urge to let go of his hand. "I remember it as though it were actually me, though."

He shakes his head. "I don't understand." And he'd like to hide in that confusion--forever, if possible. The idea that anything could happen to George, leaving him the only child... It's impossible. Even when they joke about something happening to one of them, it's always him. He's the idiot. He's the one that does dumb risky shit.

But if he were as much of an idiot as he pretends to be, he would have gotten himself killed a long time ago. His mind is already working on her words and the sight of her in front of him. Her eyes.

"Cloning isn't real. Not on the scale you're talking about."

"Look at my eyes, Shaun." She turns her hand over in his, showing her blank wrist. "Look where my tattoo used to be. I know you know all my scars. None of them are there anymore."

She knows he's smart enough to grasp this. She also knows how big it is. Telling him the nightmare they never even dared to have came true, telling him that even after it did, it wasn't the end, that she's a clone. She doesn't know if she'd be able to believe herself either.

But she has to tell the truth. It's what she does. Especially where Shaun is concerned.

He runs his thumb over her wrist, frowning at the unmarked skin there. The facts are mounting to support her story, and he's never hated that more in his entire life than he does right now. "Okay." He doesn't say anything ridiculous like "assuming you're telling the truth" or "if I believe you." She's George. She tells the truth. Of course he believes her.

"How did this happen?"

She smiles softly, bringing her free hand up to cup his cheek. "You made so much trouble they couldn't think of another way to shut you up than to try and use me against you." Her expression falters, and she looks down. "Not me, exactly. I was never supposed to leave the lab. They made a much more believable version to try and tempt you with. Right eyes and everything. Only difference was she was tailor-made to be a puppet of the CDC."

Well, that he can imagine. He's never even considered what life without George would look like, but he can absolutely imagine wanting to burn down the people who made it happen. He hopes he made trouble. He hopes the whole world knows how pissed he is. He hopes the CDC absolutely hates him.

"So what were they going to do with you?"

Because it's not too hard to figure out what they were going to do with the other version. A George who reported directly to the CDC? Probably not this accurate, right? She'd have to be able to lie, and George has always been a shit liar. So she infiltrates, causes trouble, wrecks their investigation from the inside all while pretending to be on their side. That makes a horrible sense to him. What doesn't make sense is creating a George who's not that. Why?

She exhales and looks away, out at the trees surrounding them. She can't and won't lie to him. But it's hard to talk about. It's somewhat better out here in the sunshine, away from white walls and doctors and all those things that cause her to panic these days. But it's still hard.

"I was the showroom model. Proof of concept before they started fucking with me to make a less accurate version. When I was no longer useful they were going to..." she swallows. "The word they used was decommission. Sounds nice and clinical and bloodless, doesn't it?"

Welcome

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