Minutemen- Parallel Lives by David Danforth

Author:David Danforth [Danforth, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Story Inside Press
Published: 2020-04-25T22:00:00+00:00

EARTH 156

T he first 155 Earths weren’t that much different than Kaylan’s own. Using her personal history as a touch point, she was able to find the majority of Kaylans on each Earth reasonably easily. One hundred and twenty-two were working at TriPharmaCorp, some in the R&D facility in Chicago, some in a “top-secret” project Kaylan could only assume was the Minutemen team, and a few in other positions. The strangest of which was Kildere’s admin. Kaylan could never imagine a world in which she would be satisfied working as an admin for anyone, let alone Kildere.

Thirty-three Earths contained dead Kaylans. She managed to find obituaries on only five of those—died in a car accident with her father at ten years of age; died from an epic outbreak of influenza when she was fourteen; died from drowning when she was six; died from a gunshot wound when she was twenty; and died from leukemia when she was twelve.

To occupy her mind, she came up with exotic, inventive reasons for her demise on the other twenty-eight Earths. Her favorite was death by decapitation—she slipped on a banana peel while walking next to a skyscraper when a window on the twentieth floor broke. A shard of glass found its home in Kaylan’s neck.

She thought that one would have been really problematic for her mother, who Kaylan believed would have wanted an open casket memorial.

This Earth, though, this was the first one that threw her a curveball. She knew where she was—or rather, where she should have been. Right outside the front gates of TPC. The mountain range Kaylan was used to seeing outside her living quarters was there.

But there was no TriPharmaCorp. No front gate, no concrete walks and buildings that made up the campus. No white marble tower that stood, holding its own against the impressive mountaintops. None of that was here.

Just a grassy field and thinly dispersed pine trees.

“Where the hell do I go from here?” Kaylan muttered to herself.

As if in answer, a group of children suddenly appeared, all smiles, and encircled her.

“Found you,” one little girl shouted.

“You didn’t do a good job hiding, Master Smith,” a little boy added.

“Did you think those weird clothes would fool us?” a third child with amazingly bright emerald eyes asked.

“Anastasia found you, Master.” The boy pointed to the girl with green eyes. “A translocation spell. We didn’t think it was going to work. It was one of the first spells you taught us.”

“Look, she used an alteration spell to change her hair too,” Another girl tugged on Kaylan’s hair.

“You said you weren’t going to make it easy for us,” Anastasia said. “Why did you change your mind?”

“That’s because she’s not me.” A familiar voice came from behind her.

Kaylan turned around and saw herself dressed in a white shirt and black skirt. She wore a brown tabard with an orange design on it that reminded Kaylan of the Phoenix shape TriPharmaCorp used for its logo. Her double’s hair was longer, reaching down to her calves.

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