Tourist Trap

Chapter 34

"This isn't possible!" Sarah gaped at him uncertainly. "I saw you get eaten with my own eyes." 

"Well, yes I did," Dr. Octavius said. "But then again I didn't. May I come in?" 

"Yes, of course," Sarah stood aside as he entered the room.  

He looked over his shoulder and then shut the door carefully behind him. "We should be safe here for the moment, but we may need to retreat to my secret lab soon. Trevor Mastodon knows you're here and he may come after you." 

"Thank god you're alive!" she said letting her tears flow freely as she threw her arms around him and buried her head in his chest. "But how?" 

"Well, you see, there's been two of me for quite some time now," Dr. Octavius said as he stroked her hair gently. 

"I don't understand," Sarah looked up at him questioningly and blinked her tear-streaked eyes. 

Behind them Max sat up suddenly in the bed. "Hey keep it down, would you? We're trying to sleep here!" He lay back down and instantly resumed snoring. 

"About fourteen or fifteen years ago I invented a cloning machine," Dr. Octavius explained. "After creating exact duplicates of several rats I decided to try it out on myself. It turned out to be quite a success, but unfortunately the machine was destroyed in the process." 

"So are you the original or are you the clone?" Sarah asked. 

"I'm not really sure," Dr. Octavius shrugged. "Perhaps both, perhaps neither, perhaps a bit of each." 

"So which one of you died? The clone or the original?" 

"It's difficult, if not downright impossible to say which of us was the original," Dr. Octavius explained. "You see, I had originally intended to make a copy of myself to do all the stuff I didn't want to do. You know, do all the heavy lifting, make the bothersome personal appearances, and just do the dirty work in general. It was going to be a subservient individual because the copy is usually inferior to the prototype. I walked into the machine as one person and two of us walked out. But what I hadn't taken into account was the fact that the clone was an exact duplicate of me down to the very memories we possessed. Both of us recalled inventing the machine and both of us recalled walking into it as the original. At the moment we emerged we were identical in every way. Rather than making a copy of myself it was more like I split into two. We only began to differentiate ourselves as time passed and we each began to experience individual events. So if I ever seemed flighty to you it's because you may have been talking to one or the other of us who would have had increasingly different memories as time passed. We tried to keep each other informed, but we couldn't cover every little detail." 

"Why did you keep this secret from me?" Sarah asked. 

"For a couple reasons. First, we didn't want word of the technology spreading as it might have become dangerous in the wrong hands. Just imagine an army of Trevor Mastodons terrorizing the world. Speaking of Trevor Mastodon, as we became increasingly aware of his hatred towards us, we realized it might be good to keep one of us on backup at all times as an ace in the hole in case he tried to pull a stunt like he did yesterday. This way even though Trevor Mastodon believes me dead I can still carry on our work. We had been switching off with each other six months here in Quartzwater six months on Earth so that we could maintain a presence in both places at all times. When Trevor Mastodon began to invade Earth I was forced to beat a hasty retreat here to warn my counterpart. He's the one you met at the cloud factory and just before he gave his speech he visited me and informed me you were here. He also suspected something might happen to him and as soon as I heard about his misfortune I came here to find you."