"I want to see you first, Albert. I'll probably never get to see you
again. I'll be a completely new personality when they release me from
the reconditioning processes. I'd like to have a good talk with you
before I turn myself in. Just a brother-to-brother talk, like old
times, Albert. With me, it'll be a sort of cathartic, a confession.
I've sinned, sinned terribly. I'd like to get it all out of my system,
and you're the only one who might understand. Can I come up and see you
tonight in your lab, Albert?"
There was a long pause. "Why--why, I guess so, Owen. Yes, yes of course
you may."
Gullible fool, thought Owen.
"How can you get up here without being detected by the Scanner Guard?"
"I have the identification disks of Jonathon Graem. They'll pass the
Scanner Guard. I--Jonathon Graem died in the swamp two years ago."
"By accident," said Albert Baarslag pointedly.
"Naturally," said Owen with apparent sincerity, forgetting to add:
"--after I pushed him into a bog and kept him there too long for his
continued survival."
"Very well, Owen," said the Professor of Psychometry. Then, "I'm glad,
Owen. So very glad that you're giving yourself up."
"I'll see you soon then," said Owen, and severed the audio connection.
* * * * *
The automatic electronic Scanner Guard passed him freely as the
swamper, Jonathon Graem. Professor Albert Baarslag was in his study,
waiting. The rich luxuriance, the soothing harmonics radiating from the
opaque walls--all rekindled the violent hatred Owen's paranoid mind
felt for his twin.
Albert Baarslag might have been Owen, only his dress was different. His
matted hair and beard were the same; Owen had been careful to keep that
constant similarity as he waited for this moment when it would be time
to act. A plastilex smock covered Albert, whereas Owen was dressed in
the rubberoidalls of the swamp farmer.
Albert's face was tense with conflicting strain. His eyes were flooded
with sympathetic emotion, and also with a disgust he could not conceal.
Albert stretched out a firm hand. Owen ignored it. Albert frowned, then
motioned to a chair. Owen kept on standing.
"Well," said Albert. "So you're repenting?"
"There's no use drawing out this obvious deception, Albert. I've been
waiting for this opportunity. I'm here for revenge, Albert. To me, you
are the most hated thing in the Universe. For the last five years I've
been waiting only for this chance."
Albert's face became grey.
"Owen. Owen, listen. I did it for you. You're inherently unstable.
A life in the labs would have broken you. Without perfect
cortical-thalamic integration, no mind could stand six months in these
Labs."
"Go on, Albert. Talk. That's what I'm here for. To watch you squirm."
"Listen to me, Owen! Whatever you do, you'll be apprehended. You can't
escape. If you'll give yourself up, like you said you would do, I can
see that you get special longevity treatment in my specialized Lunarian
Clinics."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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