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CARREAU: This will simplify things.
He reaches for Dr. Kapoor. Her echo shouts.
KAPOOR [echo]:* Vanya Ellora Kapoor, wake the fuck up.
The real Kapoor’s head whips up. She sees the knife and, too fast to be anything but raw instinct, throws herself up and forward, inside Martin’s reach. Her elbow connects with his stomach and sends him sprawling onto the ground.
Her echo steps forward into view. She holds one arm out, blood dripping from the cut along the side of her arm. Her other hand grips a shard of one of the shallow bowls, broken to create a sharp edge.
KAPOOR [echo]: Pinch me, I’m dreaming.
KAPOOR: What the hell is—
NOVAK: Joy Serenity Novak, you aren’t dreaming. This is real. Sophie is in danger. Wakeup.
She strides forward and slaps her double across the face. Novak—the real Novak—half topples backward, but catches herself, blinking rapidly and gaping at her echo.
KAPOOR [echo]: Look out!
Carreau’s echo springs to his feet and charges at the newly awakened woman, brandishing the knife. The echo Novak throws herself in the way. Between the light and the poor angle, the fight is a confusion of shadows. Kapoor’s echo darts across the room. She bends down beside a soldier, one of those fully dressed, and straightens up, holding a pistol.
She levels it. Waits. Carreau throws Novak’s echo off, looms over her. Kapoor squeezes the trigger.
The bullet passes through Carreau’s left eye and exits out the back of his skull. The damage is contained, orderly. A brief puff of blood. He collapses.
Novak’s echo lies on the ground, blood soaking her sweater. The real Novak steps toward her.
NOVAK [echo]: No, take care of—take care of the girls.
KAPOOR [echo]: You’re going to be all right.
Joy, looking stunned and a bit sick, turns to the two Sophias. She gathers them up in her arms and whispers to them, pressing her lips against their hair. Vanya’s echo looks up from where she kneels beside Joy’s echo.
KAPOOR [echo]: What do you know?
KAPOOR: Bits and pieces. I saw—sometimes I thought I was you. Awake. And sometimes I was here.
KAPOOR [echo]: But you know the gist of it.
KAPOOR: I think I can put it together.
NOVAK: We need to get out of here.
KAPOOR [echo]: You do. We aren’t going anywhere.
NOVAK: It’s not safe here. We all have to—
KAPOOR [echo]: I don’t know if you heard what Martin—the fake Martin—said. But what happened to him and to Carolyn is going to happen to us too. I don’t know if that means in minutes or years or what, but I’m not taking that chance. My son needs his mother to come home. And I’m not the one he’s waiting for.
KAPOOR: What about...
She looks over at the Sophias, both in Novak’s arms.
NOVAK: They’re kids.
NOVAK [echo]: She’s different. Even Martin said so. She’s not like the rest of us. You have to take her with you. Take care of her. I—I’m starting to understand the singing. You need to get them away from me. But I think—when I listen to the song, I know things. And I think I can open a way back out of the mist for you. Just get to the boat. I’ll hold on as long as I can, if you just promise to get them home.
NOVAK: I promise. Of course I promise.
