Location Unknown

VALERY KONINGSBRUGGE

"Wake up."

My eyes greet the day shine, my heart and lungs expand. I stop in the middle of a snore, exhaling sharply. A man's head cranes over me, dispersing the sunlight into spikes of brightness.

"Yeah, you're awake." The man begins to drag me by the shoulders. It is Earl Briar. Ben's father who I beat to death. How is he alive? I have no clue, but I intend to catch some breakfast before I deal with hallucinations.

"Let go of me please, I want to catch breakfast."

"With what? You don't have a fishing rod."

"What is a fishing rod?" He sighs and continues to pull me off the dock. "Where are you taking me?"

"I have been tasked with escorting you out of here."

"Where is here?"

"Xyler Dachshund's imagination."

"But I must kill this elligaytour."

"Pardon?"

"An elli - gay - tour."

"Are you speaking of an alligator?"

"That's what I said."

"Why would you want to kill an alligator?"

"If you didn't notice, I am without legs."

"Then you cannot possibly kill an alligator."

"Will you help me?" He dropped me onto the dirt abruptly. He walked around to face me.

"If I kill this alligator for you, will you cooperate with getting out of here?"

"No, I must kill the alligator. You can help."

"How can I help?"

"Glad you asked. I have a plan." I couldn't believe I was hallucinating. "Can you still compel water?"

"I have never compelled water in my life. I think you may be mistaking me with someone else."

"There is no mistake. You are Earl Briar, yes?"

"No, but I have heard the name. I know I look like him. But I am not him." I sat up from the ground, the hot soil scorching my hands.

"Wait, so you're not a hallucination?"

"Far from it, Mr Koningsbrugge."

"How did you know my name?" He plopped his bottom down onto the earth elegantly.

"We have been watching you, observing you. It would be rude not to remember the names of subjects." He sat with upturned knees and lanky arms hanging off them. He rubbed his dry hands together. There were streaks of silver in his hair that became invisible in the sun.

"Subjects? You're Fifty-One?"

"Technically, yes. We are their special weapons."

"We?"

"The clones. You are a clone of Val Cobuge. I am also a clone of Earl Briar. My name is simply Early. Jenny is a clone of Jennifer. Molleigh is a clone of Molly. Benny, rest in peace, was a clone of Ben."

"What are you on about?"

"Oh, I might as well tell you now. You were to find it out sooner or later from the Fifty-One. They're listening to us right now I imagine. I'm wearing a wire." He loosened a strange accessory around his neck and chucked it into the river. "The world that you think you come from, is a part of this world. It is an isolated area in the North Atlantic Ocean, which is somewhere over there. People call it The Bermuda Triangle. The Fifty-One was first called upon by the American government to investigate unusual disappearances in the Bermuda area in 1950. They sent in their own operatives in boats and planes, in submarines and helicopters, and none came back. But with each trial, they came closer to working out the exact dimensions of the Bermuda Triangle. They set up watchtowers on huge ships - which are big boats. Scientists analysed each piece of visual documentation that the watchtowers captured and they found signs of civilisation living above and under the water. They engineered mechanical fish that were remote-controlled with cameras in their eyes. To keep a watchful eye on the Wayfarers and Floaters. The Fifty-One kept themselves hidden from the water civilisations. Of course, there would be the occasional lone Wayfarer or Floater who would wander far and wide and teeter on the border of the Triangle to catch some fish, but that was nothing a little silenced gunfire wouldn't fix. Protterer-fire, if you will. But now the Fifty-One could see what had happened to their operatives. They had been killed for being Compellers. And the water somehow affected the engines of their transport, leaving them stranded in the water to drown or be picked off by Wayfarer packs. And the population of both Wayfarers and Floaters increased with the clones of the humans. See, when a human being enters the Bermuda Triangle, they become a Compeller and are also copied into another genetic output that is either Wayfarer or Floater. Clones have some memories from their human counterparts as well. I could remember this time I was in a supermarket with little Ben, picking out cereals, but it wasn't me. I've never even been to a supermarket or eaten cereal. From then on, the Fifty-One had full jurisdiction of the Triangle so flight paths had to be changed to avoid the airspace over the area. The discoveries were kept a secret so that the study could continue without interruption. Like a large-scale science experiment, there couldn't be any uncontrolled variables. But they wanted to test whether they could successfully incorporate a human into the Bermuda Triangle without them being hunted down."

"This is where the icebergs came in. An ingenious idea. A malfeasance for an altruistic purpose. Did Ben Briar, or anyone, explain to you how they got into the Bermuda Triangle?"

"Yes. They told me on the car ride into the city of Redding. They were trying to look for missing people in Antarctica. They became missing themselves. Frozen in ice." A small creature crawled up my hamstring. I was still scared of unknown animals, so I picked it up and voraciously ate it. Its eight black legs and its juicy back. It was exquisite.

"But it doesn't make any sense for huge icebergs to drift from the Southern Ocean to the North Atlantic. It makes even less sense for you, you don't even have an understanding of geography."

He continued, "The truth is, every missing person in Antarctica became experimental subjects of the Fifty-One for the Triangle study."