Splitsville (Unedited Draft)

Chapter Eleven- Mary and Anne and the Dead Cat in a Box

THE REMAINS OF THE PHYSICS BUILDING...

"So, what are we doing here again?" Mary complained to Matt for the thirty-seventh time since they had gathered just before nine that night- the earliest Matt had estimated Moores could reintegrate himself by his new best guess. It was now 1:56 a.m. and she was tired of waiting in the dark and the cold and the damp of the place where so much bad crap had gone down- the basement laboratory where Maryanne had become Mary-Anne.

"Come on, sweetie," Anne coaxed, "you know how important this is. If we don't stop Moores from doing whatever he's planning next, one or all of us may be dead in the next three days. And then he might just move on the bigger targets." When Matt had told them of the decidedly crazed and misanthropic tone of Moores' writings, Carrie had determined that he was a threat to homeland security and that put even more pressure on them to succeed at capturing him.

"Look, I'm sorry, but this is the best place for us to set up all this equipment and not have to answer any questions." He gestured to the large duplicate sets of scientific equipment and generators that he had stacked in each end of the room. "Nobody is coming down here until the demolition starts and that's months away."

"I know, I know. I just wish he'd hurry up and try to kill us already. I wanna go to bed and curl up inside Annie." Mary responded with a shiver.

"Mare!" Annie scolded her. She didn't like when Mary said things like that- even to Matt or Carrie.

"Well, I hope he doesn't hurry. Carrie's really late and this could fail if we are divided," he told her and went over to check on the equipment on the east side of the room.

"Where is she anyway?" Anne asked pouring another cup of java and handing it to Mary- she was more sensitive to the cold than Anne was ever since the fire and ice thing they did while the building they were currently camped out in burned to the ground. Annie was so good to her.

"Getting muscle is all she'd tell me," Matt answered as he walked to the west side of the room to check on the other set of gadgets.

"You don't think?" Mary gasped at Anne before starting to giggle.

"Seems a pretty logical choice to me. They might not do it for Carrie, but they might do it for us," Anne surmised.

"Who? You two have some idea who she's bringing? It's not far is it?" Matt asked, suddenly more interested in the conversation than his very expensive borrowed equipment.

"No, we have no idea," Mary lied, giggling even more- she was so tired that the thought of seeing the Bronxes was making her unreasonably happy. Was it weird that she missed them when she hadn't every actually met them?

"Mary!" Anne scolded her again. "Matt, if Carrie has some reason to keep them a surprise, we're not going to spoil it."

"Just tell me it's a good idea- her bringing whoever she's bringing."

"Yeah- they'd be perfect."

"Good." Matt came and sat down next to them on the makeshift bench they'd made from some charred machine parts. He looked tired and smelled a little funny with the not bathing for the last few days trying to get this trap for Moores together before he showed up again. Mary wrinkled her nose, but decided that it was noble instead of gross that he had done that.

Twenty-three minutes later, Mary had to pee, but she wasn't allowed to leave because she had to keep holding onto the grounding wire that Matt had sunk twenty feet into the ground through a large crack in the foundation. Anne took a quick jaunt over to the next building to go for them. While she was gone, Carrie arrived with the cavalry. And the Bronxes it was. Mary abandoned her ground wire and scampered across the room to hug Nunzio.

"Hey there, Little Girl. Agent Carrie says you're in a little trouble, you and her," Nunzio asked her as he pealed Mary off and she hugged the other brothers in turn.

"You look real good there, Maryanne," Little Tony added.

"You guys are such a welcome sight," Mary gushed. It was strange to see them outside of the veil of Anne's memories- like meeting fictional characters come to life.

"So, Matthew Godunov," Carrie introduced, "meet the brothers Brown-"

"Otherwise known as the Bronxes, but you don't know that," Nunzio interrupted. "Normally we wouldn't trust anyone with information of that nature right outta the gate, but since you got the seal of approval from both Agent Carrie and the Little Girl, we figured you oughtta know who exactly is on your team."

"Well, thank you. Not that I know who you are but, your trust is appreciated. So is your considerable size," Matt said, standing on his tiptoes to peer over Nunzio's shoulder to see his even larger brothers behind him.

"Thank you. So, I'm Nunzio, that there is Little Tony and the baby boy's name is Francis, right, Ya Mook!"

"I told ya don't call me that, Nunzio," Ya Mook said, elbowing his way in front of his brother. "I loved my mother, God rest her soul," he paused to make the sign of the cross before continuing, "I loved my mother, but she had lousy taste in names."

"Well, nice to meet you, Matt Godunov." He shook hands with each brother.

"Godunov, huh? Agent Carrie found herself Mr. Goodenough, boys," Nunzio teased.

"Yes, I did," Carrie agreed and stepped over to give Matt a really hot looking kiss. It looked like whatever Matt was doing was just the way Carrie liked it. It made Mary miss Anne.

Speaking of Anne- she came in just then- "Mary! Get back to your grounding wire!" Anne ordered as she came into the room. Mary hopped to and everyone else in the burned out basement room turned to see Mary's doppelganger.

"Uh Little Girl, you wanna 'splain?" Nunzio queried, looking from Anne to Mary and back again.

"Carrie, you didn't explain it to them?" Anne asked. "I'll skip the wacky physics lecture with the explosion and the dead cat box and just say- I was split into two equal but not identical women a few weeks before we met."

"At the same time," Mary continued for her, "the mad scientist who did that to me split himself into what might be an infinite number of equal men who are so divided that they are invisible."

"And, if you can’t guess for yourselves, he's just a teensy bit crazy-"

"So, he's been trying to kill me-"

"Us," they said together.

"And Matt and Carrie, too," Anne said.

"Oh- and poor Professor Drake," Mary added. "He died after Moores tried to kill us with a gas leak."

"Now," Anne continued, "we need to trap him using all this shiny equipment Matt has set up-" She gestured to the east and the west.

"So he can't take over the world or kill the pope to impress Jodie Foster or someone," Mary finished.

"You gotta be kidding me!" Little Tony replied and Ya Mook, who'd been following the explanation like a ping pong match, nodded vigorously in agreement.

"So, say we believe you and this isn't some whacked out practical joke you and Agent Carrie cooked up because your twin sister was coming into town for a visit, what's the plan and what's our part?" Nunzio asked, cutting to the chase.

"If it were up to me, you'd just stand there and look pretty," Anne flirted getting a little scowl from Mary. It gave her little thrill.

"Actually," Carrie said, "you're my back-up. We know this guy has some perception of the world as we know it because he knows to show up in the right places to attack specific people. What we don't know is how much he knows or exactly how strong he is. You're here to make sure he can't take us all out at once."

"Right, so how do we know him? We ain't ever seen this guy?" Nunzio asked.

"As I understand it, he can act prior to full cohesion, but I expect we'll have to time our actions to coincide with peak density to produce the desired effect," Matt elucidated.

"And in English?" Little Tony requested.

"He starts as a wisp that changes into a hundred ghosty guys and then they shrink together into one guy," Mary said.

"And we need to trap him when he's all together," Anne told them.

"You see anyone like that, that's the guy," Carrie added, "and he can move things around- make trouble before he's all one piece, so watch for anything strange, too."

"No problem, right, ya knuckleheads?" he asked his brothers, who nodded in accord. "We got it," Nunzio promised.

***

It was eerily comfortable, the seven of them all sitting together waiting for a superscientific perp to appear out of thin air. The Bronxes were getting along with Matt much better than Carrie had hoped- she'd been almost certain there would have been some friction there, but no- they were like four peas in a pod. Mary and Anne were being their usual airheadedly charming selves- Mary was flirting with everyone and Anne was quietly irked that her other half was so gregarious. It was some kind of game they played. Strange that- it made Carrie wonder what games she would play with herself in that situation, what games she played with herself already.

It was getting on five a.m. and they'd been taking two hour sifts so some of them could sleep, but everyone was up just then. Maybe they could all feel it coming.

Carrie was sure that she'd seen something- fog or smoke or dilute madman over by the west set of equipment, but then it was gone. A few minutes later, she thought she saw it again by the east equipment- that was no coincidence.

"Look alive, troops," she warned, "Matt, you better go check the generators." Matt hopped off the bench he was sharing with Nunzio while they played cards and went west. Anne woke Mary and the Bronxes spread out- Ya Mook following Matt, Nunzio heading for the other end of the room and Little Tony standing next to Carrie in the center of the room, guarding the twins.

At first, she didn't see him- she only saw what he did- just like when she had watched Anne fall in the alleyway- Matt crumpled because he was struck square in the stomach by a large piece of blackened timber wielded by an invisible attacker.

"Matt!" It wasn't her voice, but Mary's that called out as he fell. Ya Mook, on the alert, looked around for Moores, but didn't seem to see anything. Carrie was there in a moment- later she wouldn't even recall crossing the room. Matt was coughing on his hands and knees- bruised and winded.

"I'm all right," Matt croaked and then he was pointing behind Carrie with a panicked look on his face. Ya Mook had seen it just before Carrie- that being both Anne and Mary clutching their cheeks with blood oozing from between their fingers, a large bloody shard of glass at Anne's feet. Then Carrie registered that the sound she had been hearing, but not comprehending was Mary and Anne keening. Little Tony was down, too, lying on the floor behind the twins, but by what cause Carrie couldn't determine.

Ya Mook fell next, hit from behind with a brick that cracked as it hit against his skull. That was just five feet in front of Carrie and she still didn't see anything of Moores. Nunzio was next to Carrie as she dropped to see if Ya Mook was still breathing. He was.

"Agent Carrie, this guy's a lot smarted than you figured isn't-" Nunzio started, but then his throat stopped working due to the electrical cord that was winding itself around his neck. Carrie saw him then- Moores was all but clear and the room was filled with hims. Why wasn't the positive and negative charging working- he was supposed to be congealing into a normal man?

"Carrie!" Matt yelled hoarsely at her and she turned, feeling something whoosh past her head. "He's disabled the equipment! You have to try and get that set working." He pointed to the east end. Carrie raced over there, bobbing and weaving in the hopes that, if Moores was targeting her, he'd miss as she zigzagged. Something sharp hit her in the back of the shoulder, but it didn't stop her. She reached the tangle of equipment, but couldn't make sense of what went where.

"Matt, I don't know what to do!" she shouted, turning towards him to see that he was again on the floor, this time unconscious or worse. Everyone but her was wounded, but the twins were still standing and Nunzio, though he'd freed himself from the cord, was gasping and trying to catch his breath. Oh, God! They were screwed. Moores must have seen everything, known everything they planned. Carrie felt something hit her above the left knee and then the floor was rushing up at her.

***

Anne held the slash on her cheek- the pain was less if she covered it and held the edges together. Mary was looking at her, terrified and Anne couldn't keep one thought out of her head- the cat was dead- the boxed cat- the one with the poison and the decaying isotope- that sick fuck Schrödinger had killed that theoretical cat the moment he put her in that box. The theory didn't matter- the cat was dead even before she ceased breathing with her little kitty lungs. Maryanne was the cat- she was dead the moment Moores had turned on that jerry rigged particle accelerator- the fact that Mary and Anne hadn't stopped breathing didn't change how dead they were. They could mew and hiss all they wanted, but they were still a stinkin' dead cat.

Anne saw Carrie fall and she knew that dead or not she had to stop Moores- take him with her. Mary, let go. Let go. Let go. Anne concentrated. Moores couldn’t know their plan. Mary let go of her grounding wire and then, Anne stepped into Mary and they felt stronger- more than the sum of Mary and Anne, much more than Maryanne had ever been.

"Hey, Moores, you prick, get your ass solidified already- fight like a man!" Mary-Anne called in unison.

"Don't think so, Blondie. I know what you planned and it wouldn't have worked, the theory isn't sound. Godunov really isn't," the thickening forms of Moores replied together.

"Doesn't matter!" Mary-Anne said and stepped closer to the center of the Moores.

"Guess not to you- you put on a hell of a good show in bed, you know that?" the Moores commented. "If I'd know how damn kinky you were, I'd have taken you with me instead of putting you behind the wall. Too bad there'll be no repeat performances- Maybe I can find something interesting to do with your corpses- you'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"You really are a sick fuck, just like Schrödinger- a coward and a perv- the gals must have loved you," Mary-Anne distracted Moores from her stepping closer still to his center. She wasn't sure her idea would work, but she was a pair of dead cats screeching in a radioactive box so, what the fuck- she'd try.

"I'm a perv? Who eats herself for breakfast?" Moores rhetoriced. "That's freaking hot, by the way. And the fisting- if my dick was solid, I'd be sporting wood just thinking about that nasty little habit of yours."

She was there- Mary-Anne was in the center of the room, in the center of Moores, in the center of the damn box. She waited a beat, making sure that Mary would go the right direction and Anne would go the right direction- which was really the wrong direction from Anne's perspective. Then they did it- they clawed their way out of the box- they spun right. Mary spun to her right and Anne spun to her right- opposite directions. They passed through each other again and again rubbing their particles against each other- rubbing the same particles against themselves- transferring twin electrons. Mary charged positive- taking all Anne could give her and Anne charged negative giving all Mary could take. This was their difference- this was their strength- this was how they would die- this was how they would save the world.

"What are you doing?" Moores screamed or that's what Anne thought he screamed- it was hard to understand him as he got fewer and denser. His words overlapped each other as different portions of him converged. Mary and Anne were fully charged Anne couldn't feel anymore shimmering electrons leaving her- when had she begun to feel that so distinctly?

East. East. East. Anne thought to Mary and they stepped apart- Mary to the east and Anne to the west that felt rather easterly to her and Moores coalesced between them. Holy shit! It worked. The pain sparked through her, through them and Mary and Anne fell.

***

Matt came to not knowing how long he'd been out. He could hear Mary or maybe Anne shouting obscenities and an echo-y voice replying- was that Moores? Matt rolled himself over. Oh frak, that hurt. He could see them now- Mary or Anne standing in the center of the room and a gaggle of Moores around her. Then Mary or Anne seemed to blur- like she was a swirlish version of herself- no- it had to be both of them moving through each other. What the hell were they doing?

The hairs on Matt's arms and the back of his neck were standing up, and then the hair on his head started to do it, too. The air was almost sparking. Had Carrie managed to fix the equipment? Matt raised his head- ow- he raised his head and looked for Carrie. She was on the floor at the other end of the room, clutching her leg and grimacing in pain. The east equipment next to her was still a shambles.

A moment later a loud crack sounded as Mary and Anne stepped apart and electricity arced between them. When the flash faded, one very solid and dazed Moores stood between where Mary and Anne had been and the twins lay immobile on the floor.

And, behind the stunned Moores, stood Nunzio Bronx, something large and burnished raised above his head. He drew it down and sideways, slashing into Moores at the shoulder and not stopping until the thing was embedded in Moores' chest and blood was spurting cartoonishly from Moores' half severed neck. Nunzio, still held the makeshift blade- was that a piece of the particle accelerator's housing? Nunzio gave his blade a shake and Moores' body moved with it- his limbs wiggling loosely like he was a marionette. Then Nunzio let go and Moores fell forward dead on the floor.

"Theory that, shithead!" Nunzio said and then spat on Moores.

As Matt sat there amazed and repulsed and shockingly grateful, he looked from Carrie- who was looking nauseous and pained- he looked from Carrie to Moores' corpse to Nunzio, who was calmly dragging one of the twins around the dead body and on top of- no- into the other. Then he stepped over to where his brothers lay and took their pulses.

"Who's dead?" Carrie asked in a voice that sounded sharp as it broke the wordlessness of the room. She was crawling over to where Mary-Anne and dead Moores were.

"Just your Dr. Frankenstein. The Little Girls are healing already, I think, and the boys have taken harder knocks. They just need a couple of minutes," Nunzio reported nonchalantly. He was a horrific sight covered in Moores' blood. Carrie didn't seem to notice.

"We were trying to trap him- didn't I make that clear?" Carrie scolded Nunzio.

"So I had ta kill him a little more than we planned. Whatta ya gonna do?" Nunzio shrugged and went back to checking on his brothers. Matt got to his feet and, since his head didn't implode as he'd feared it would, he walked over to Carrie.

Twenty minutes later, Everyone who wasn't dead was conscious- Carrie and the Bronxes were working out the details of how to dispose of the body and destroy the evidence of all that had happened, Matt was seeing what if any of the equipment was salvageable- it didn't look good- and Mary and Anne were over in the far corner puking in unison. Matt was about ready to join them.

An hour later, Matt and Carrie were seeing Mary and Anne home to their dorm and then Carrie took Matt home to her place to see to their wounds and pretend they could sleep after what they'd been through that night.