44

The Other Paul was the first by the Other JC’s side. No one saw him touch his brother’s temple where a dataport opened to receive his palm mounted access cable. A fractal of no more than 2 gigabytes uploaded in less than 10 seconds to Paul’s brain, which had been reprogrammed in Hong Kong by SHODAN herself. She realized JC would not remain hers for long and needed the more controllable Paul, who lacked the Helios fragment she detected, to carry out her objectives upon JC’s demise. Paul was infected in seconds and under her total control in minutes. Everything would proceed as planned.

Medical personnel swarmed around the fallen outworlder trying to pry the Other Paul’s hands from his brother’s head to no degree of efficacy. The Other Paul was sobbing, clutching his brother firmly while the fractal took hold transferring essential data and objectives to his own mind. Techs connected monitors and ran electrical shocks. Emergency medical techs ran EKG, IRT, PLM, and SVV scans; coming up negative signified all brain functions had terminated.

The Other Paul released his grasp, rose abruptly and spun away, then fell to the floor weeping. He kept repeating over and over, "Dead. Dead. All, Dead…" JC looked down trying to fathom the oddly peaceful look on his twin’s face. "Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes to kill that cybrid bitch, we’ll do. Everyone, get whatever equipment Carter and Tracer tell you to get; it’s time to severe her connection."

And lying on the floor in shock, the outworlder’s sobs turned to hysterical and uncontrollable laughter –laughter like his mother’s.