You’re real, Uri wanted to say, but his voice choked up after pronouncing the “Y”. His mouth had ceased to respond.

The assumption he had so much tried to impose himself, that his doppelgänger had been a product of his imagination, crumbled like a house of cards—and his knees were about to suffer the same fate.

There was his twin in person, standing in the doorway between the elevator and the hallway, like a dark bellhop awaiting the arrival of the guest. This bellhop, though, wore an olive-green military uniform and, of course, his expression was far from friendly.

“Who-who are you?” he stammered a little but managed to ask the question.

The stranger didn’t reply, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him out of the elevator, then dragged him toward the door at the end of the hall: that of his loft.

The girl went after them. The sound of her heels set the pace for their pace.

‘You’re too much of a ladies’ man to come here wearing a costume like that,’ Little John had said in B-Crush, and then Ruben, ‘What was wrong with the military uniform?’ Right! Just as had happened to the bouncer, the caretaker had surely allowed his doppelgänger to enter the building by confusing them both. In front of such identical faces, a beard was not a significant trait to suspect a personification.

Uri wriggled out of his twin brother—yes, by now, there was no doubt that the resemblance was more than a coincidence—but fearing a backlash from one of them, he didn’t attempt to escape. And with nerves writhing in his guts and with no choice but to go with them, he took advantage of the feet they had to walk together to watch that enigma in uniform.

What kind of soldier was he? Because of his careless appearance, he actually looked more like a member of a paramilitary squadron than an army officer. Where did he come from? Maybe from a mission somewhere wild in the world. He was carrying an old cloth backpack on his back, his uniform was worn-out, and his boots were dirty with some dry mud, as were hers.

Although the real question was, who the hell was he? Why did his twin brother know him, but he didn’t know his twin brother?

Uri had often wondered about his parents’ identity, but it was enough to know that he had been abandoned in a hospital as a baby and that no one had claimed him to suspect that he had been an unwanted child. He couldn’t investigate his origins, either; his admission form to the orphanage was so empty of data it looked like a blank one.

Now, in front of a person who could be nothing but his twin, curiosity aroused in him. Did this soldier with a bad attitude know why his parents had abandoned him? Did he have other siblings?

“Who are you?” he asked him again. He had no answer this time either. He looked at them both. “What do you guys want from me?”

His double nodded, pointing at the apartment door.

“Open it,” he ordered, and with that single word, Uri detected that the stranger not only had the same accent as her but also shared the same tone of voice with him; something that disturbed him even more than he already was.

“Great. I just became the hostage to a bitter version of myself,” he mumbled and inserted the key into the electronic lock.

“Don’t worry, cute,” she said. “We’re friends.”

Uri did not bother to look back at her; he just opened the door, and bowing to them mockingly, invited them in.

“Be my guest,” he told them.

His twin came in first; the blonde ushered him in, then closed the door behind her.

Uri switched on the light. What were those two going to do with him? His mouth and hands trembled, and his head was full of warnings and mixed emotions.

“A glass of wine? A coffee?” he offered them, sarcastic, but his doppelgänger pushed him into a corner, away from the door, and he didn’t need to advise him not to move to do so; with that look, words were unnecessary.

And damn, were they not necessary to express what crossed through the minds of the soldier and the girl upon seeing the huge picture that hung on the wall! When they saw the photograph of Uri walking in his underwear among the rocks of a cliff by the sea, the blonde covered her mouth to hide a smile, and his double pursed his lips to halt an insult.

“And what do you want me to say? Some of us were born to be stars,” Uri said. He wasn’t going to keep his mouth shut.

So, the strangers went on and carried out what Uri assumed was a reconnaissance of the house, in the style of fugitives making sure the raided site is a safe hideout or cops inspecting a site raided by fugitives.

The two evaded the dining table and split after the living room area, passing by the couches and the table. The soldier crossed the kitchen and continued up the staircase to the bedroom, climbed the first steps, enough to get a quick look at there, and then went down to see that no one was in the bathroom. Meanwhile, she snooped around the laundry room and the other bathroom, behind the kitchen dividing furniture. Judging by her movements, so coordinated and fast, Uri assumed that she too was a soldier, or a guerrilla, even if she didn’t wear a uniform.

“Can you tell me what you’re looking for?” he asked from the corner, and again, he got no answer.

The soldier turned off the lights, leaving only the lamp hanging on the living room table. The whole loft went somber.

Uri felt a scary stitch. “What are you gonna do with me?”

“They haven’t come this way—still,” said the girl.

Uri pursed his lips. The nervousness went up to his throat and burned in his head. He was about to burst. “Who hasn’t come? Who are you talking about?”

They both ignored him again.

“All right, that’s it! Who are you two?!” He went towards his double. “Who the hell are you?!”

The man in uniform faced him. Uri’s attempt to hide his distress was notorious.

“I’m your twin brother,” said the stranger.

Uri’s anger dropped a couple of degrees.

“Well…” he murmured. “That’s pretty obvious.”

“My name is Juzo. Juzo Romita.”

Uri felt an unexpected rush of emotions, and his breath got stuck in his chest.

“So, you have a last name! Do you know…?”

Juzo stopped him.

“I was a foundling too,” he said, nipping in the bud any hope Uri might have had of knowing anything about his parents. “I was abandoned shortly after I was born, just like you.”

Uri shrugged.

“Well, that saves me several questions. And you, blonde, what’s your name?”

“Malin Viveka, pretty boy,” she smiled. What was funny about all this?

“Good… Juzo, Malin, you’re gonna tell me what the hell you’re looking for and who you are or I’ll call the freaking police.”

Juzo Romita took off his backpack, yanked it open, and reached into it, preparing to reveal whatever he was carrying there.

Uri felt a nervous itch from the back of his head to the tip of his heel. Weapons! He’s gonna pull out a gun!

Juzo withdrew two pairs of black bracelets, shiny like chrome, and left them on the table. He took out two weird chargers, and under Uri’s confused gaze, looked for a nearby outlet and plugged them in. The power of the only light on dropped; the spotlight on their heads creaked as if at any moment it was going to burst. A beep sounded, and a light blinked on the bracelets.

What were those two things that sucked electricity with such voracity? Uri worked for one of the market leaders in new technologies and had never seen artifacts like that.

“What do they do? What are those bracelets?”

“They’re called Auriga,” Malin clarified, and putting her hand in Juzo’s backpack, pulled out something else.

When Uri wanted to see what it was about, his brother got in his way.

“Sit down,” he told him.

Uri had no choice but to obey and took a seat in the living room under the only lamp on.

At what point had his home become the setting for a Noir movie? Of course, no one was questioning him—not for now, at least—but the rest of the elements were there: the lamp on his head, the table, the thugs surrounding him; everything.

Out of the corner of his eye, he tried to see what Malin was doing, but a thump frightened him: Juzo had just thrown a bundle of files on the table.

They were folders with files and photos peeking through the papers. He wanted to check them out, but his brother rested a hand on them.

Thousands of assumptions surfaced in Uri about the content of these files, from a military investigation related to Homam Enterprises to a follow-up to his time as an underwear model.

“You grew up in an orphanage, didn’t you?” Juzo said. “So am I.”

“Oh. I was gonna ask you if someone adopted you,” Uri said. “I mean, because of your last name. But I guess not.”

Juzo shook his head.

“I never knew I had a brother out there,” he confessed. “Until I had access to this,” he tapped the files. “Recently discovered records of a scientific project already canceled. The Binary project.”

“And what’s that?”

“You and I have been a part of it since our conception. They separated us shortly after as part of the experiment.”

Uri raised his eyebrows. “Experiment on what? Check if telepathy between twins is really a thing or something like that? If that’s what it was about, then the project has failed.”

“Create a human weapon,” Juzo said.

Uri sighed, annoyed. Did they take him for an idiot?

“Oh, yes! If it wasn’t about telepathy, it was option B,” he said and pointed to Juzo’s uniform. “Let me guess: Create some kind of super-soldier, right? Wow, those scientists from way back when; they did like to waste resources on those things, didn’t they?”

“It was more than that,” Juzo said, withdrew two small photos from one of the files, and put them on the table.

The oddness returned to Uri. He took them and brought them closer to see them better.

In the first one, he appeared as a child, smiling; his hair was like a golden helmet over his head. He looked happy in front of a big cake with a burning candle, surrounded by other children equally cheerful. That day he had turned ten.

The next photo showed him as a teenager. The first facial features that now characterized him showed there, especially his smile. He was dressed in his orphanage’s soccer team T-shirt, posing with the other players. That was the last Intercollegiate Championship of Proxima City’s orphanages he’d played, twelve or thirteen years ago.

“And you pretend to exemplify the project with these?” Uri threw the photos back to the table. “All it proves is that there’s someone interested in my life and with free time to dig into my little orphanage memory chest. Don’t get me wrong, dude, but I gotta tell you; I’m as far from being a super-soldier almost as much as you are from being a librarian.”

And there, an idea struck him.

“You need a transplant, right?” Of course! Everything was so clear now. “You pretend to use me as a donor, you piece of trash!” He grabbed the files and shook them. “These are your medical tests, aren’t they?” He pointed to the photos. “That’s why you’ve been investigating me, to make sure my organs are compatible!”

Malin couldn’t help but chuckle.

Juzo took a deep breath—Uri wasn’t the only one losing patience. He opened another of the folders and showed a stack of files. Most of the pages were painted with long black stripes.

“I’m sorry. I can’t read the censorship language,” Uri said.

“You don’t have to read everything to know what the story is about,” the girl commented.

From between the pages, Juzo pulled out other photographs. They were reprints, although he could see the originals have been taken a long time ago because they were somewhat discolored and had mold stains.

Uri watched them. The photos showed different shots of two babies, each sleeping in a crystalline incubator-like container, with thousands of tiny needles attached to their body, in what appeared to be a horrendous acupuncture session.

Feeling a deep contempt for whoever had been the sick man who had made such an atrocity to these little ones, Uri took one photograph, shook it with disgust, and threw it among the others.

“What about these?” he said. “Apart from being morbid, what is their contribution to this?”

“Those babies are us.”

Juzo’s response wasn’t the greatest revelation ever. In fact, Uri expected something like that. The earliest photo of him he knew of was taken when he was found abandoned in the hospital at about a year old, according to the report of the doctor who treated him. And yes, he couldn’t deny that there were many similarities between him and either of those two babies. On the other hand, many babies looked alike. And to add more fuel to the fire of mistrust, there were several factors that played against his better judgment; such as the poor quality of the images, and of course, the obvious possibility that they were tricked photos.

“Let’s say I believe these two are us,” Uri said and paused. He was truly debating whether to believe it or not. He glanced at the babies covered with tiny needles. “What kind of disgraceful bastard would do this to a pair of babies?”

“To several babies,” Malin corrected. “These files, these photos, are the ones that belong to both of you. You weren’t the only ones.”

“So—What?” Uri crossed his arms, outraged. “These people trafficked babies, turning them into lab rats, and then tossing them in the first orphanage they found, hoping that some of them would grow up developing super strength or something like that?”

Juzo nodded. Malin, too.

“Something like that.”

Uri looked at Juzo.

“Well, you and I, together or apart,” he shrugged; “that doesn’t matter anymore. You said the project’s canceled, right? So, what do you intend to do now with these documents? You want me to help you take those who were behind it to a court or something? I know good lawyers.”

“Those who conducted it have been dead for five years,” Juzo replied. “An accident in the lab wiped them from the map.”

Uri looked at him, more intrigued than before.

“So, what’s the deal?”

Juzo didn’t answer. Neither did Malin.

Uri took one last glance at the photographs.

“Look, I’m glad to know I have a brother,” he said. “But if you were just trying to get my attention… I don’t know, man. A few beers would have been more effective than trying to scare me with secret projects.” He tossed the pictures and shook his head. “If you want, we’ll talk about it another day, okay? Now you’d better get out of my house. I’m serious.”

Juzo leaned closer to Uri and raised his fist. Wait! Was that overbearing man going to punch him? Uri braced himself for the fight. But Juzo opened his hand as if he were about to show him something he had hidden.

“Now what? A magic trick?”

Juzo put his hand into a claw and contracted his fingers twice, and suddenly, in the center of the palm, there was an electric spark. Threads of blue light danced between his fingers until they became a mass of crackling blue flames.

Uri let out a scream of terror, and shielding himself with his hand, leaped backward and knocked over the chair; wanting to back away, he tripped over the chair’s legs and stumbled until he regained his balance.