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“I’m going to kill you.”
“Sure you will, darling. No moving now.”
Wifies tried to wrench away, gritting his teeth even as he fought not to snap like an animal. The scientist pulled their hand back for a second, eyes cold behind their goggles, then pressed their fingers to the side of Wifies’s neck, pressing too hard for him not to flinch again.
“That many invisibility potions really isn’t good for you, you know. You’ve done some permanent damage to your body.”
“It’s your-“
“My body too, I’m aware. But you chose what you did with it. And, well… you certainly did something.”
Wifies hissed, forced to look up at the scientist the exact same height as him by the way his hands were tied above his head, keeping him just about on his knees, too high for any manoeuvrability. It hurt, and his fingers were going numb, and the collar he’d had wrestled around his neck the moment he arrived here had been bad enough.
“Words, if you would. I’m not taking you apart just yet.”
Wifies wasn’t giving them the satisfaction. He just glared, sullen and silent and furious, furious beyond words, because he’d had a terrible day already. He didn’t need this.
He hadn’t even known this was going to happen. That was irritating him, a constant tug of failure at the back of his mind. He’d thought everything had been perfect. But two mistakes, just two, at the hands of the only two people who could ever claim to control him, and it had all come apart.
He hadn’t even known this one of them existed, this morning. Wifies could have coped with one mistake. It was Parrot he’d been dealing with, of course his bird had something up his sleeve. Wifies had accepted it, even if he couldn’t bring himself to watch Parrot run.
He’d accepted it, when he got to hold that spyglass one last time, eyes screwed shut so, for the first time, he wouldn’t see the final act of his great plan coming. Wifies had thought the bombs would kill him then.
But no. Something had buzzed, such a mundane sound when it sounded like an orchestra exploding around him, and Wifies had felt his eyes open half a second before he saw blackness, the vertigo that came from being kicked from a server without warning.
He’d seen Parrot. He liked to think. In that last moment, the very last, when his bird had won it all, and Wifies was on his knees, real terror coursing through him as the narrative was wrenched out of his hands. He’d opened his mouth, tried to scream, but Parrot wouldn’t have come back anyway.
Now… Wifies was here. Nowhere near Parrot, not even knowing what Parrot might be doing. Hiding, hopefully. Wifies could give him that, as a parting gift. Show him not to trust, to take care of himself, to lay low and stay safe lest he attract the attention of something worse than he’d been.
Like this. They smiled, as Wifies seethed, tilting his chin up like a dog.
“Can’t believe I ever lost you. There was always something wrong with you. Just… there.” Their fingers trailed backwards, through his hair, pressing on a spot just on the back part of the top of his head. “In the cortex. I’d call it a defect, but, well. You’ve made something of yourself, haven’t you, twenty-one?”
Again, Wifies hissed. More of a growl, really. They’d all called him a dog, Parrot’s dog, so long he’d forgotten if he was or not. He’d lost a lot of himself, towards the end. But he could still bare his teeth, still shake off cold fingers in his hair, still fight back not for himself, but for Parrot, who needed him.
Whatever good humour the scientist had evaporated, and their smile vanished. Just emptiness, as they crouched down, and met his eyes. They were his eyes. Wifies felt his throat move, as he stared into his eyes, and tried not to throw up. He needed to keep Parrot safe from this. He’d never been this.
“I’m going to study you, twenty-one. Then I’ll dissect you, if you can’t tell me what’s going on in that head.”
They weren’t lying. Just telling him the facts. Wifies could see it, hear it, even, because it was his voice, his eyes, his words, but they weren’t. They couldn’t be. If this was him, really, then Wifies didn’t want to know what Parrot had really thought of him.
He wished he had a retort. Anything. But there was nothing to say to himself that wouldn’t come out pathetic or weak or overdramatic, so Wifies just held eye contact, fierce and violent and held back only by ropes and fear.
It went on a long time. They didn’t seem to be getting bored. Wifies almost faltered, except he didn’t give up, not on things like this. Not when he was on the back foot, unknown terrain, precedents to be set. He could work this, control it, even if he couldn’t really.
He’d forgotten what it felt like, to feel human. Helpless, and angry about it. Wifies had been flying for so long, so far above them, he’d lost track. Now he was back to earth, chained down, not much enjoying the view from below.
The scientist sat back a little, hands crossed on the knee they was bracing themselves on, an eerily knowing look in their eyes.
“Tell me what it was like.”
“Better than you’ll ever have.”
Wifies wasn’t going down without a fight. He wasn’t going up, either, but he could claw at the walls as he fell. He’d been falling a long time. Maybe this was just his purgatory, this strange castle-laboratory, all black stone and glass and unknown crates. He’d known, the moment he’d appeared in that empty room, he’d never leave this place. But he could save Parrot from the evil that lurked here.
“How it made you feel. What changed, when it changed, why. I want to hear about it.”
They were smiling. They were on one knee in front of him, like he was some specimen, and they were smiling, like they could coax information out of him with kindness.
Wifies had never been the sort of accept kindness from himself.
“I found something to do with my life.” His voice was bitter, but controlled, all the bite at the end of his sentences. “More than making copies of myself.”
He’d worked it out. It hadn’t taken long. It had felt like the first test, as he’d been dazed and being tied here, head still throbbing. They were him. He was them. Everything here was an echo, or the start of an echo, the first deadly word that had lead to him, lead to everything he’d ever done.
“What did you do?”
Too late, Wifies forced himself quiet again, glaring resolutely up at the scientist. He’d rather humiliate himself than lead them back to Parrot.
Besides, they didn’t deserve to know. No one knew. No one knew exactly how much he’d done, the strings he’d pulled, the dominoes he’d lined up and shot down. That was his, just his, and Wifies had every intention of taking his story to the grave.
Their smile dropped again, and Wifies couldn’t help but grin right back. It was twisted, worn ragged by too much—they’d been right, he’d put his body through too much—but it was his. Something was still his, after all of this.
“Be like that, then. See how far it gets you.”
“Oh, I will.”
“By the way, twenty-one.” They stood up, unimpressed and expressionless, looking down on him for just a few more seconds. “I already know about Parrot.”
——————
They kept birds.
Wifies had only worked it out recently, and it was both a comfort and a new type of torture. He’d thought he’d been imagining it, the muffled scratching and squawking, but then he’d heard a real chirp, and it had broken through his gathering suspicions that he was going insane.
He’d been on his knees all night. Alternating between putting the strain on his shoulders and his thighs, he was shaking either way, so tired he could barely think, but entirely unable to sleep like this.
It was strange. Wifies didn’t get tired this quickly, usually. He could go nights at a time, and he had, orchestrating the perfect scene for Parrot.
But now, in the pitch-dark, staring a single blinking light on some unknown machinery on the other side of the lab, his hands long since numb and shoulders aching, Wifies felt like his body might be giving out. This was where he’d been created, maybe it just made sense that being back here would be what broke him. He’d been through a lot. Some of those bombs had gone off, before they’d pulled him off the server. He might have internal bleeding.
And he could hear birds. That was the worst part, an incessant itching somewhere behind his temples, somewhere Wifies couldn’t reach. A constant undertone of trills, half in his mind, half outside of it, surrounding him either way. It was driving him insane.
Wifies didn’t say that lightly. It was actually going to break him, if he had to be here much longer. He’d never felt weaker, just a human again, a boy tied on his knees, shivering and trembling in the darkness. But he was still him, there was something clinging on, and the birds felt so close, so close he could save them and they could save him from this place.
His mind was fraying. It would be the first thing to go, before his shoulders snapped, before he passed out. Wifies hoped it did. Leave them with nothing to work with, maybe he could smash his head into the floor, if he ever got the chance. Die a mystery, like he’d always intended to.
Only Parrot would ever have really known him. And he’d been robbed, of having Parrot in his final moments, but Wifies held on to the principle of the thing. This place didn’t count, really. This was purgatory, a waiting room, a holding cell while something out there counted his sins.
It was only ever going to get worse from here. Wifies laughed, throat tearing with the cold breath, and he could feel the mist it formed in the frozen air. It was so cold in here. He was so cold, a corpse already. Maybe he’d be dead by morning, or whatever qualified as morning, here.
It was freeing, to be adrift. Wifies envied Parrot, now. Guided by forces he could never control, experiencing each chapter as it unfolded. He’d never been a character before, at the mercy of the story writing itself around him. He was trapped, but free, for the first time in so, so long, of having to write his own path through the fog.
Another bird chirped, and Wifies took a deep, tight breath, screwing his eyes shut as he tried to block out the sound without use of his hands. Why birds? Of everything, why did it have to be birds?
Maybe they weren’t birds at all. Maybe he really was hallucinating. Maybe he’d died there, and this was his hell.
Of course it was birds. Of course, he’d keep birds. Wifies was grinning, even as he tore his throat to shreds, short breaths catching every time he tried to quash a scream that would get him nowhere. Always the same. They’d spent so long, trying to find a way out of this place, and they’d both just ended up right where they started.
Always with the birds.
If only Parrot could see him now. Wifies wondered, really wondered, what Parrot would do. If he were here. Would he run? Would he take the chance, and kill him? Would he free him?
Wifies wished he could say. But, truthfully, Parrot had always been his unknown. His perfect enigma. Just and harsh, cruel and kind. Predictable, but never quite far enough. If Wifies had controlled the tides, Parrot had known how to fly, whenever he was on the brink of being swept under.
Parrot, Parrot, Parrot. His bird. His birds were kicking up a fuss again, at least somewhere in his mind. Wifies didn’t know what was his. This body wasn’t his, his mind wasn’t his. There was nothing left. Except Parrot. Parrot had his mind, and he had Parrot. It was a fair trade, in the same way his life had been a fair trade.
A long enough run to make something of himself, and a fitting consequence for what he’d done with his freedom.
Wifies was laughing again, loud enough to drown out the birds. All alone, in a dark room in a castle no one but himself would ever find him in. Just short, breathless sort of giggles, every emotion he’d rendered himself unable to show. It was all coming back now, tingling spreading back through his fingers. Set free by a cage.
Parrot hadn’t known how lucky he’d been. Wifies felt alive. No armour, no hiding, not from himself.
Just darkness, pressing around him, and the sounds of birds filling his ears.
——————
“I’m going to kill you.”
Their hand cupped his cheek, rubber against flesh, their voice soft and sweet, for the first time.
Wifies just nodded. It was dim. His vision was dim, even under the bright, bright lights of the operating theatre. He needed to bite. He needed to fight. He needed to protect, protect Parrot.
He missed Parrot. He was crying, whining, twisting away from gentle, rubber fingers wiping his tears and strapping him down. He wanted out of here. He should be dead already, why did he still have to suffer?
“I doubt it’s going to be painless.”
Dim. Too dim. He’d lost his vision days ago. Couldn’t remember how. It was fading. First his future had gone dark, now his past. Now his present was fading too, fading to black, and this wasn’t the ending he’d written for himself.
“Not quick, either.”
Wifies was crying. Ugly crying, as much as he could still do anything with a body that had never been his own. His cheeks were red, he was sure, even if he didn’t even know what he looked like any more. All he saw of himself was them, like looking in a perfect mirror, dark silver polished to a gleam.
“We’ll see. I imagine you’ll won’t stay conscious.”
He would. He could resist. Wifies really hoped he still had it in him, to resist.
Or maybe there was nothing left inside him. Maybe, when they cut into him, they’d find the hollow that had been left from the moment he started rotting, from the inside out. Wifies had felt sick every second of every sleepless day, since coming here. It was all catching up to him.
He whimpered, when he felt the blade against his skull, buzzing, buzzing and whirring, too loud, and Wifies couldn’t even move. It was dim, dimmer, going black. He couldn’t see colour. He couldn’t see Parrot’s wings, even in his mind.
He could see pain. He could see retribution, divine or otherwise, every bit of suffering he’d caused every person who’d had the misfortune to stumble across him burning itself back into his skin.
This was how he died. Wifies had written it better for himself. He’d given himself a fitting ending, he’d accepted as far as his story had run its course.
Not this. Not this, crying on a metal table under lights he couldn’t see, cut open like an animal. Wifies hated this.
He didn’t deserve this. Everything he’d done, he’d tried to make worthwhile. It hadn’t been his fault, that Parrot deserved the world. It hadn’t been his fault, that he’d been made the way he had.
But none of it mattered, at the end of the line. Wifies felt it going black, his senses failing him, as the saw moved around his head. How he was still going at all, he had no idea. There was no more sound. No more sight. No more sensation.
He could feel Parrot’s feathers. Parrot was here, at least in the epilogue to the story Wifies had written for himself. A happy one, one they both deserved, after all he’d put them through. He could hear Parrot’s voice.
He could hold Parrot’s hand, as it went dark for the last time.