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Morgan hadn't ever spent much time analyzing his own facial expressions, but if the look the alien version of him was giving was any clue, then no wonder he'd always been able to send everyone else scurrying.
It was a very unimpressed look.
"Your plan is to wreck Alex's plan, which you don't even have any reason but gut feeling to assume is a terrible plan, by attempting time travel. Untested time travel which could end up just killing us," not-him said.
"It could end up killing me, you'll probably be fine. It's meant for Typhon." He shrugged, keeping a careful eye on the not-technically-an-alien-not-technically-himself looming over his shoulder. It had been tempting to tie the other man up after sort of kidnapping him, but he knew himself. His instinctive reaction to anyone trying to trap him somewhere was to nope that and focus on getting free before all else.
Maybe that was because of waking up into a literal apocalypse. It didn't matter, both him and this other him were on even ground there. The memory simulation had worked well enough that the other version of him was basically...him.
And a Typhon. One who always seemed just a little uncomfortable about the idea of destroying all the Typhon, and a little skeptical of all the plans Alex put forth. And sometimes, when the two of them were out trying to figure out how to make Alex's half thought up plans actually work, the other him would reach out and touch the coral and seem to be elsewhere for a moment.
When Morgan asked what he saw when he touched the coral, the other him had just shrugged it off as not important. Which, if Morgan knew anything about himself, meant that it was very important.
"Unless the shuttle explodes. I doubt I'll survive an explosion." Other him countered, finally slipping into a seat instead of hovering behind the pilot's chair. They wouldn't have to fight it out, at least.
Morgan was almost disappointed that they hadn't gotten the chance to spar. He hadn't been sitting static since everything on Talos I, but there was only so much he could do differently without...well without the same experiments that had gotten them into this mess. This other him had a whole realm of abilities to pull on with none of the same limitations.
The fact that Morgan had only seen him using abilities that he knew Morgan could use just added to the impression that the newest version didn't trust them.
Alex hadn't noticed. Alex seemed to think everyone was fully on team whatever-the-fuck-even.
Morgan wasn't surprised.
"Won't that replace your original personality with your current one?"
"That's the idea." Morgan checked on the settings on the dash. This had never been his expertise, and even a few months of cramming based on half understood alien technology was a risky thing to use.
"Have you thought about the morality of erasing a person?" that other version of him asked, shifting anxiously. "If you're right about when we go back, his personality will be almost unchanged from how it was originally."
Morgan hesitated, because he had. Of course he had. He'd almost certainly thought about it more than someone who had been sort of human for about five minutes.
Unless this other version of him was thinking of something very different.
They could go back to Alex. It was probably the wiser thing to do. They could go back, and if this other version of him decided that he wasn't okay with whatever their ultimate plan was...they'd probably be screwed.
Or they could go back, and maybe stop this from ever happening.
Time travel seemed more likely than actually being able to do anything to save an earth that was mostly destroyed anyways.
Time travel seemed more likely than this other him actually staying on their side long term.
Morgan fired up the ship and held his breath.
Unexpected things sometimes happened on a space station. Gravity went out, someone fucked up the supply lists and they all ended up eating ramen for a week, someone after that had the bright idea to raise eels and they ended up eating that as a major food source seemingly perpetually…
A carbon copy of himself falling onto him out of fucking nowhere, in his locked room when he was just chilling on his damn bed, was not something Morgan ever expected to be one of those things.
Before he could react, that other version was across the room, looking focused and wary and smoking a little bit at the edges.
They stared at each other for a moment, sizing their copies up. Morgan was regretting not sneaking a gun into his room like he'd been contemplating doing.
It had seemed like a really paranoid thing to risk pissing off Elazar over. Clearly he had misjudged the risk.
This other version of him wasn't armed either...but he knew what that sound was and it wasn't a sound he was used to experiencing without some very thick glass between him and it.
"You didn't come through, did you?" The other him asked, which was nearly as confusing a question as his appearance had been.
"The door? Sure. Anything more metaphysical? No." Morgan carefully got off the bed on the other side, keeping an eye on the intruder. "So, the Typhon mods worked?"
Other him blinked, and then laughed.
And kept laughing.
Talk about rude.
"That a no then?" he asked, annoyed. As far as potentially evil clones or dimensional travel went, this wasn't very intimidating so far.
"That heavily depends on your definition of 'worked'," the other version choked out, rubbing a hand against his face.
"It can't have been that bad."
"Your world is ending." The other him sobered up a bit, frowning at him. "And honestly, I'm not convinced that me being here is going to do anything to stop it from happening again. Either you or Alex always seems to be pushing forward into something while going 'damn the consequences' and that's not even getting into what the board will do if you try to shut it down."
"'Your' world?" Apocalyptic doom aside, that was enough to catch Morgan's attention. "Isn't it your world too?"
The clone or whatever the hell it was stared at him for a moment, considering, then sighed. "Telling you that would probably be smartest option, considering. But no. I'm not you. I'm a Typhon that got reverse-neuromodded and shoved into a simulation of your greatest fuckup in order to give me human emotions."
"And a human face." Morgan said, mind rapidly trying to classify all the 'probably not possible' things that would have happened for this to be true.
There were a lot of them.
"I can shapeshift into a cup and you're surprised I'm holding the form that all my memories took place in?"
"Kind of, yeah. No Typhon memories?"
"None."
"Really?" Morgan watched the Typhon's face carefully, looking for clues of a lie.
It would be easier if he actually could recognize any of his tells. This man with his face was just slightly different; enough that it made him harder to read than if he had just been a proper stranger.
The Typhon just shrugged, so Morgan moved on to the more important question. "What happened to that other version of 'me'?"
"I don't know. This was his plan and he didn't exactly share any details. He's like that. Every detail when it's most confusing, no details when I could use some."
"Yeah that sounds like me." Morgan wasn't really paying attention to what was coming out of his mouth, too busy thinking. "I need to run some tests."
He needed to verify what this other him--this Typhon--was saying. And then he needed to figure out how to replicate it. Fuck, he was supposed to go into testing in two days and--well maybe he should pause that anyway. Start later with better data, hopefully, from this Typhon. And also information about whatever went wrong so badly in the first tests that it sent this guy into laughing fits about it.
It couldn't have been that bad. Sure, apocalypse, whatever. They'd be more careful this time.
"What data do you have on you?" he asked. If the Typhon had any, it would help a lot.
"You know," the Typhon said, sighing heavily, "the usual response to being told that you're going to destroy the world isn't to keep doing that."
"Yeah, whatever. Data will help avoid that too. Answer the question."
The Typhon let out another sigh. "I have some basic data that was supposed to help me settle into having human emotions."
Morgan eyed him. "You said you only had my memories?"
"Yeah?"
"Then hand over the data, you liar."
The Typhon looked offended, which made it really hard to keep treating him like a Typhon since...that was a very human emotion there.
Morgan congratulated some other version of himself on some work very well done. Took an alien species without mirror neurons and turned it into a functioning human.
If it was close enough to another Morgan, then he might actually be able to live out the fantasy about having more than one of himself to do things. At least for unimportant things like data prep and meetings and responding to emails.
Also other fantasies. Maybe. Maybe not? Had other him been so overrun by caution that he hadn't gone for it?
The Typhon rocked back onto its heels, watching Morgan carefully, "If I give it to you, are you going to actually attempt to fix things or are you just going to launch into another direction of being the stereotypical evil scientist?"
"This isn't evil, we're making the future here!"
"Yeah, I know. I've got several recordings of your sanity slowly degrading in pursuit of that future and very clear memories of the day the world ended."
"Well then, hand those over." May as well start somewhere, chip away at the resolve.
It...wasn't a bad idea.
He kept still as he watched and listened to some other version of himself unwravel at the seams.
Yeah, the tests had gone badly. Some future version of him losing his absolute shit about the experiments in Psychotronics then deciding to blow up the station and go down with it was evidence of that.
Except, he hadn't. This Typhon had expected that version of him to travel back as well. The final Morgan hadn't gone down with the ship.
That was important.
Because if this Typhon had the final Morgan's memories, that meant the Typhon had the memories of someone who would choose to live as well, even knowing he was filled with Typhon genetic material and carrying it back to earth. There was enough of a self serving thread there that Morgan could use that to keep him in line, as long as he was careful and compromised where he could.
"Hand over the Typhon neuromod data," he said, once the last recording wound down.
The Typhon sighed behind him. "All that, and you're still jumping right into it?"
"If I'm going to delay testing then I need an excuse. The best way to find that excuse is to look at the work that's already done and find common threads to show that the mods will cause unprecedented personality shifting."
"It's not really unprecedented. There was evidence of it, it was just mostly dismissed."
"Yeah? Then give me that with the data and I'll see if it's something I can justify having access to."
"Don't you want to…" the Typhon waved a hand, "I don't know, verify my story or something?"
"All you've done is insist I'm going to doom the world and refuse to give me data, which seems like what a boring version of me that's focused on saving the world might do. The data will prove the rest."
The silence stretched a long moment, but once it ended Morgan finally got his data.
And it turned out having another version of him to go through massive amounts of data and compare that with the existing neuromod data was incredibly useful.
He was going to need to boost up the computing power in his room, maybe set up a proper server farm. Without alerting Danielle. Whatever he did, he had no intention of telling anyone else. The moment he did, Alex would try to set the whole thing, including his fancy new Typhon, on fire.
The next day was entirely hellish. Morgan was running on no sleep and a secret that he couldn't tell anyone. Alex had been unsurprisingly relieved for an excuse to postpone the tests, and while Morgan's team had been disappointed, everyone was happy to have a potential issue identified before it affected Morgan.
And then he took all his insomniac energy down to Pyschotronics and put the fear of him into everyone, requesting an exact accounting of every Typhon that had been generated. At least ten people were stuck going over surveillance video for the next couple of weeks, but it would be worth it. As long as none had escaped, which they probably hadn't yet since Morgan couldn't imagine they would have the self control to lay low for months, then everything would be fine.
More importantly, he could calm his Typhon down about the impending apocalypse and get him working on something important.
Unless his Typhon was already gone to destroy the world and this was some sort of self fulfilling 'you left an alien alone in your room and now you're surprised at the outcome?' thing.
Probably not.
Hopefully not. He'd idly considered tricking the Typhon down into Psychotronics so that they could capture him run some proper tests...but if this guy was supposed to be some sort of empathetic mega-Typhon then that wouldn't go well. Could they even manage to keep him?
That, and Morgan really didn't want to set a precedence for anyone locking anything with his face up anywhere. Better to just work with any time travelling other versions of him.
Once Morgan got back to his room, he was glad he hadn't bothered worrying. His Typhon was taking a nap. He didn't even move at the sound of Morgan tossing his boots by the door.
Well fuck him, who said he got to catch up on sleep while Morgan was running around all exhausted trying to save the world and do science?
He did look pretty cute while sleeping. That was nice to know. Not quite 'model faking it for a photo' but at least acceptable.
Morgan considered him for a moment, tempted to be petty and shove him off the bed, but in the end he just walked around the bed (to the wrong side because this asshole was taking up his usual side), got in, and flipped the trailing edge of the comforter up over him because unlike certain aliens he actually wanted some covers.
Not enough to bother taking a shower or change, so this would have to do.
He wasn't sure how long he slept, but he woke up again as the Typhon slipped out of bed. Which probably meant that the alien was a liar and had absolutely noticed Morgan getting back. It was sort of comforting, actually.
Morgan watched through narrowed eyes as the Typhon moved towards his computer...and just straight up pulled a datastick out of nowhere.
What?
"Did you just pull that out of some sort of alien hammerspace?" he demanded, shoving himself upright.
The Typhon didn't jump, exactly, but he did tense in a way that said he had been right on the edge of it.
"...Not exactly, but close enough."
Morgan shoved away the urge to complain about the non-answer, mentally redesigning his plans. "How much mass can you fit in there?"
The Typhon turned back to look at him, clearly doing some mental math. "I've got about three operators worth of mass in there right now. Not sure what the limit is. I think if I forget about it then it'll disappear and honestly who knows what it does to the data."
"Either nothing, or I'm going to shove you out an airlock later for pretending not to know exactly where the data we needed was last night." Morgan pointed out.
"I could probably survive the vacuum." His Typhon said, not sounding entirely sure but also...not sounding averse to finding out.
Maybe they'd test it later.
"Your current form is human."
"Staying this way keeps me grounded."
"Keeps you human, you mean."
"Same thing." His Typhon shrugged. "We weren't sure if me losing grasp on that would just send me tumbling back into the collective."
"You had Alex and some very strangely cautious version of me guiding you. Now you're back where the actual research can happen."
"The research that led to destroying your world?" His Typhon scowled at him.
Morgan smiled. "And now we get to destroy it, or save it, in an entirely new way."
"If you do anything but shut the whole thing down, the Apex will probably show up."
"Or it might already be on its way. We'll shut down their cell signal and cross our fingers and in the meantime get some actual discoveries done."
"You are the worst version of yourself."
"I'm the real version. Get used to it." Morgan mentally ran back over some things. "Earlier, you said you could shapeshift like a mimic?"
When Morgan headed down to his office to face the next day, he already had a cup of coffee in his hands. His assistant looked a little disappointed, but he was just going to have to get used to it.
It had been a little unnerving at first; Morgan knew what it looked like when a mimic sprang into being from an object to--well--nothing good. And here he was, drinking coffee from one.
Morgan was pretty sure that actually holding coffee hadn't been one of his Typhon's intentions, but carrying an empty mug would have looked odd.
And there was something oddly satisfying about taking a sip of hot coffee and feeling the mug shiver against his lips. He wondered what that felt like. At best, it could be an odd sort of kiss.
Almost as soon as the door shut behind him, his coffee mug jumped out of his hands and changed back into his own body. A very annoyed version of his own body. "That really wasn't what I intended."
"It was definitely what I intended. Otherwise I would have asked you to change into something I could shove into my pocket."
His Typhon blinked at him, as though that just hadn't occurred to him. Score one for the original human? "You could have asked."
Morgan tilted his head and eyed his Typhon, then reached out to gently rub a thumb down his jawline. "If you hate it that much then I can just have you turn into a pen, next time."
It was really weird, seeing his own face blush. Sort of satisfying? He kind of wanted to make a checklist and see what reactions happened.
"You could have just sent me down by myself. I know the way and I'm going to be going right back up to Deep Storage anyways."
"I wanted to get some work done." He had a giant mass of data to keep analyzing, while his Typhon was busy inflicting itself on Danielle Sho.
She was either going to be thrilled (or, well, slightly less pissed off than usual) to deal with a Morgan that was slightly more accommodating than he usually was, or pissed to deal with whatever weird tics came with a not-quite-human alien. As far as Morgan was concerned, it was her own fault for scheduling a meeting seemingly just to lecture him about something Alex wasn't doing. When the Typhon nicked the shipment of computer parts that Morgan had indicated for him, it would serve her right.
He, meanwhile, would get to sit here and keep working through the data that his Typhon had brought him.
If this went well, he might never have to go to another boring meeting ever again.
It went fine, and Morgan got the pleasure of simultaneously not having to do his least favorite thing and having people assume he was putting more effort than usual into his least favorite thing. It meant having to put more effort into meetings with Alex (he wasn't risking sending his Typhon to those), but those were always balancing acts so that wasn't too bad.
It also meant that sometimes he wasn't sure what the fuck.
"Why the hell did Mikhaila just randomly thank me in the hall?" he asked, once the door to his (their?) room was safely shut behind him. "Last I knew she still thought I was giving her the cold shoulder over her diagnosis."
His Typhon glanced over his shoulder from where he was working through something on the computer, probably 'try to stop the end of the world' stuff, because this version of him was boring and paranoid like that. The tiny server farm hadn't been that hard to steal, and once they reworked some of the wiring nobody could even tell that his room was using more power than normal.
"Well?" Morgan demanded, tossing his boots off and crossing the room.
"Her dad's a 'Volunteer'. I marked him for the neuromod testing track, with the excuse of gathering more info on how age related to the mental shifts in the normal neuromods, and for eventual release. Then I dropped her the data on his expected timeline."
Morgan pulled in a breath, going over every interaction he'd had with Mikhaila in the past. "Did she know her dad was a volunteer?"
"It's why she's here." His Typhon shrugged. "You murdered him, last time."
"As in actively killed him with my own two hands, or are you getting dramatic about the experiments again?"
"If you say something about scrambled eggs again I will actually shove a tentacle down your throat," his Typhon complained, scowling up at him.
Morgan snorted, reaching out to run a hand through his hair. "Look, we're doing it your way by just feeding cadavers to the weavers and melting down the phantoms to limit mimic production. Just be happy about that and stop fussing about things I may or may not do."
That shift had turned out less complicated than Morgan had thought it would. He'd expected someone to freak out over him saying he needed a steady stream of fresh cadavers for neuromod production...but nobody (or at least nobody with the clearance to see that sort of request) had blinked. It had taken maybe a week, max, to get the whole system in. They couldn't order wiring with that turnaround. Some people in Psychotronics had complained, but not many. His orders to scour every second of surveillance to do a mimic count had spooked people.
That, and some of them seemed actively relieved that they were (mostly) keeping the volunteers away from Psychotronics for the time being. Morgan wanted, desperately, to find out what some of these newer and stranger Typhon did...but he wanted to figure out a safe way to give himself Typhon powers even more.
"You could go down and check yourself, if you wanted?" He offered.
"That probably wouldn't be the best idea."
"Why not? You're fooling pretty much everyone without any issue."
"It's not that, it's…." His Typhon sat back in the chair with a sigh. "Anytime I touch the coral, even in a simulation, I can hear...something. Maybe them? Maybe whatever I was before your memories? Maybe some other version of you? It's not worth the risk."
"You won't need to touch the coral. It's locked safely away."
"I'd still rather not take the risk. The further I am from any other Typhon, the better."
Morgan stared down at this double of his, wearing his body and calling itself an alien. "Is that why you never turn into a Phantom, even though you reference being one all the time?"
His Typhon shrugged. "It's better that I not confuse things until I'm more comfortable being human."
Morgan narrowed his eyes. "Guess what? Being human is being uncomfortable. Being me means always feeling like you're not quite what you want to be, and I can't imagine that changed for the version of me that your personality was xeroxed over from." He spun the chair around the rest of the way, so that his Typhon was facing him fully. "Change back, I want to see what you look like when you don't look like me."
His Typhon opened his mouth to protest, and Morgan pressed a finger against it to keep him quiet. "You know me. I'm not going to let this go. I'm going to be obnoxious about it. You may as well humor me this one time."
His Typhon tilted his head away, rolling his eyes. "It's never 'one time' with you."
And then he changed.
It was really strange, to have a literal Phantom sitting in his damn computer chair. It set Morgan's skin to tingling from the residual energy.
Somehow the lack of incomprehensible whispers just made the whole thing even more...uncanny valley was the wrong word but it was the closest thing Morgan could think of.
It occurred to him, that he was technically making an extended first contact. He had a hot alien roommate that no one else even knew about.
Morgan leaned in impulsively, pressing a kiss to the middle of that odd face. It wasn't pleasant, the smokey alien substance made his lips numb and his whole face feel like his bones were trying to vibrate out of alignment.
His Typhon jerked away, reforming into a Morgan all at once. "Really?"
"We're killing two birds with one stone here. I've always wanted to make out with myself, and I've always wanted to make out with an alien. You're both." Morgan slipped into his lap, taking his face in both hands and smiling at him. "And since you're a version of me, I know damn well that you remember exactly the same fantasies. If you didn't, you'd have insisted I get you a cot or something instead of continually sleeping in my bed."
"Maybe I just like having the comfortable mattress."
"Maybe." Morgan agreed, kissing his cheek. "But probably not." He shifted a little closer, delighting in the blush that spread over his Typhon's face. "Come on."
His Typhon frowned up at him. "If you destroy the world again and have to send me back in time for a third attempt at fixing your messes, I'm not sleeping with that one."
"Sucks for him." Morgan agreed, and then leaned in and kissed him.