My Less Than Humble Return

Ok.  So I've been off the radar for awhile...again.  While I have an excuse this time, in that I was away at Basic Training, that really only covers two of the six months since my last blog post.  Rather than dwelling on my inability to maintain a committment, let's just move on shall we?

One of the first things I did when I got my computer back after Basic was to catch up on all the sites I follow, when I got around to checking out Chuck Wendig's Terribleminds blog (It's awesome, read it, now, that's an order http://terribleminds.com/ramble/blog/) I saw his latest Friday Flash Fiction Challenge and decided to partake.

This week the challenge was to pick one of a list of twenty psychic powers.  Like I usually do I hem'ed and haw'ed until finally biting the bullet...and letting a random number generator pick for me.  Anyways, I ended up with the power Bilocation - the ability to be in two places at once.

I'm actually somewhat pleased with myself on this one, I had fun sitting down and brainstorming an idea map before finally coming up with this story.  I'm particularly fond of the pronouns, that came to me halfway through and I reworked everything to fit the new style.  So all that said, here's my entry.

Disposable

            Cloning hurts.

            Well, cloning by itself doesn’t really hurt.  The process is pretty quick and mostly painless, I just concentrate for a bit, sorta like stretching a muscle just past where you’re supposed to until it pops.  Then there I am, standing right next to myself.

            And it’s not really cloning either, but I don’t know what else to call duplicating myself and splitting into two bodies.  ‘Mass cellular replication’ I heard once or some bullshit.

            No, what really hurts is when I go and die on me.

            You see I know I’ll only last the day, twenty-four hours on the dot actually.  I timed it once.  I made a clone and I just stayed in my apartment all day while I went to work, drinking and watching the game until I had a heart attack and keeled over…waste of good beer.

            I know I’m working against the clock, so I really don’t give a shit and just do what I’ve got to do.  Say I see like…a fire.  I see a building on fire right?  It’s pretty easy for me to agree with myself that the people in there need saving and when I don’t see the fire department in sight right?  So I’ll drop a clone and I’ll run in there to haul people out while I watch from the alley until the fire burns me to a crisp.

            So great, I saved the day.  Rescued all the little kids and their teddy bears and shit.  Too bad I can feel everything that happens to me.

            You ever been burned alive?  I have, sucks worse than being shot.  Not as bad as drowning though.  My favorite is probably falling.

            How do I know what drowning feels like?  Well that’s a funny story too.  See some of the local underground don’t like me too much.  They think my trick would be a great work-around for some laws and most common security.  They’d be right too.  A decoy guaranteed to die before due process even begins?  Why the hell not?

            You see I tried the hero thing at first.  I ran into flaming buildings and got burned.  I stopped muggings and robberies and got shot.  Eventually some thugs realized they were shooting the same guy every few nights and told their bosses.  The bosses decided to track me down.  Didn’t take them long either since I did a lousy job disguising myself.

            Clothes don’t clone.

            Most of the times I’ve died?  They were thanks to the mob.  They didn’t like that I didn’t want to be their gopher, and they made that clear.

            After that first meeting I stopped leaving my apartment alone.  I’d usually drop a clone and I’d either leave together or I’d head in the opposite direction that I went.  Then when they caught on to that I’d stay behind whenever I left so I wouldn’t be at risk when I got caught and killed…again.

            Then yesterday my family called about some people who were asking around about me.

            So why am I telling you all this Detective?  Because I want those assholes gone.  That packet I gave you?  It’s amazing what people will say and do when they’re about to kill you.  I’ve been tortured and killed so often and in so many places I probably know more about their operation than they do.

            And as for why I don’t want witness protection?  That’s because right about now I should be stepping out the window of my apartment, I live thirty-seven floors up.  I told you that falling is my favorite way to die.

            Gives you time to think.