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Why?
It’s the first coherent thought you have that isn’t just screaming inside your own head. You’re on a retail space station orbiting Hon Grii, buying more power cells. Or at least, that’s the plan, to buy more power cells. You know that. You know that’s why you’re here.
But you have to clean up first.
The Griivaar Worlds are largely family-friendly. Squeaky clean. They’re not gonna be okay with a hulking super soldier walking around covered in blood. So you’re leaning over the sink in a single-stall restroom, door locked, wiping your brothers’ blood off your face with a wet paper towel.
Why did I do it? you plead, hands braced on the sink, staring into the mirror at your own eyes. Green and bright, like one of the lime-flavored popsicles that Syx was carrying when he got back from the snack stand. Why w— ?
(Inside, you’re trembling. Inside, you’re weeping and bashing your fists against the porcelain sink. The man on the other side of the glass is calm. His lower lip doesn’t quaver, and his eyes don’t water.)
Sevyn told you once that you can’t see yourself in a mirror in a dream.
Well, you can see the mirror perfectly now. But it can’t be you in the reflection. (Right?)
Why couldn’t I stop?
Your mouth opens and answers you. “Because I didn’t want to stop,” you say. “They were slowing me down.” You cough and try again, rougher, lower. Like you’re auditioning for a play. “They were slowing me down.”
No, you try to scream, seeing it all again— the life draining from Barry Three’s eyes, the frantic struggle as Fyve tried to keep Eyght’s guts from spilling out onto the sidewalk. I would never, I would never fucking do that.
“I did it,” you say into the mirror, “because I wanted to.”
Fucking asshole, you think, furious and broken and as angry as you can be without being able to clench your jaw or make a fist or even make your eyebrows scrunch down. Who are you?
He smiles (You smile) at himself (yourself) in the mirror. “I’m Barry Nyne.”
And then it’s dark and quiet for a long time.
Barry Nyne is a savage and ruthless mercenary.
He functions mainly in the shadows, at first, putting distance between himself and the carnage at Uncle B.O.B.’s Fantanimalland. It was all over the news when it happened— the Barry Battalion, a force for good in the galaxy, slain at one of the system’s premier amusement parks.
It’s bad PR for good old Uncle B.O.B., which works out in Barry Nyne’s favor. None of the higher ups in the Griivarr Worlds want details about the devastating slaughter getting out. The surveillance footage gets buried. (Though not before Barry Nyne manages to snag a recording of it, for reasons unclear to you. Why would anybody want to watch that?)
He’s flashy. He buys goldleaf fiber armor and dyes his hair a vivid purple. He kills for fun and for money. He has long meetings with people from the United Free Trade Planets about mining permits and recruitment programs. He rents pleasure droids and delights the most in trying to break them. He fucks over the little guy every chance he gets.
You shouldn’t be doing this, you try to tell him, one of the times he’s busting up a hotel concierge for being a ribec too slow transferring over the room passcode. This is wrong.
Barry Nyne slams the concierge’s head into the desk, grinning at the satisfying sound of this dumb fuck’s skull cracking. “‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ is beneath me,” he says, peering into the shiny service bell on the counter so you can see his face, warped in the reflection. “I’m strong enough to hurt people who piss me off, so I’m gonna do it.”
You’re also strong enough to help people, you say, weary and weak and rising to the surface of Barry Nyne’s brain like a Brazil nut. To protect them.
“How noble,” Barry Nyne sneers. “You know, all humans have a little voice at the back of their heads telling them they’re doing something wrong. It’s called a conscience.”
No, that’s not right, is it? It was different before. Barry Nyne wasn’t always like this, was he? (Were you?)
“I’m Barry Nyne,” he says, thumping the 09 emblazoned on his armor, even still, even now, now that he’s one of two Barrys left in the universe. “You’re just the preachy little voice inside my head. I’m ignoring you most of the time because you slow me down.” He smirks into the concierge’s bell. “And you remember what I do to things that slow me down?”
(Barry Two, trying to jump in front of a screaming child, unaware he was the target all along. Barry Sevyn, trying and failing to grapple you, trying and failing to reach you with words. Barry One— Dr. Barry— weeping as you approached him to bash in his skull.)
If Barry Nyne got rid of you the way he got rid of the rest of the Barrys, would it be over for you? Would everything be quiet and dark forever? Would you get to go away? Be done?
(It’s not all that awful a thought.)
Barry Nyne dings the bell and swipes a few credits off the concierge before going upstairs to raid the minibar.
You feel bad sometimes, when you’re awake enough to feel it. (Well, you feel bad all the time. You feel fucking terrible, all the time, and you’ve never been able to stop it but at least some of the time Barry Nyne lets you hide from it.)
But you feel bad for all the years you were tricking the Barrys into thinking you were like them.
A good guy. A friend. A brother.
If they knew what you were really like, they never would have gone to the zoo with you. They would have known how nasty you were inside, how violent and vicious. They would have been prepared for the attack.
They would have fucking fought back. Why didn’t they fight back? (Why couldn’t they have just fought back?)
“Humans are weak,” Barry Nyne tells you, catching your eyes in the rearview mirror of the skiff he’s stolen. “Clones are weaker. Evolution only happens when the best genetic specimens push forward and take what’s rightfully theirs.”
Barrys aren’t weak, you argue back, barely a whisper in the back of your mind.
Barry Nyne scoffs. “Then why was it so easy to destroy them all?”
All but Syx, you can’t help but force out, feeling the bite of grim satisfaction. It is too late for you. It is too late for everyone else. But it’s not too late for Barry Syx. One of the Barrys survived. One of you made it out.
You can’t mourn your family properly, not when you’re the monster who took them out, but at least Syx is out there, somewhere, representing the best of the Barrys. At least something remains. Even you can’t scrape the Barry Battalion from the face of the galaxy. Something remains. Something survives.
“You think so?” Barry Nyne says, gazing coldly into the mirror. “You think Barry Syx survived, really? Or do you think he goes back to that damn zoo every single day, in his mind, reliving it? Knowing that he couldn’t protect the Barrys? Knowing he couldn’t stop me?”
You don’t know. You’ll never know.
“He hates me,” Barry Nyne says proudly. “He hates you.”
He’s allowed.
“He’s going to try to kill you dead if he ever sees you again,” Barry Nyne says. “But we’re not going to let him, are we? We’re going to blast him to dust. We’re going to blast his head clean off his body.”
There’s an impulse, something old and dormant, something beaten down into a soft and pliant leather, butter-soft and useless. Don’t hurt him.
Barry Nyne laughs. “You’ve been trying for a very long time to get me to stop doing what I want to be doing,” he says. “And it’s still not going to work.”
You’re on a ship, staring down the sight of your laser rifle at an Aguatunesian you just blasted with a psychic gun. Or, no, Barry Nyne did that. You’re just here, stuck, along for the ride. There’s a voice in your head. How well do you think this interaction is going?
No.
You’re the voice in your head.
(Or are you the finger on the trigger of your gun?)
There is another voice. A voice coming over the comms device wedged into your ear.
It’s your voice. It’s Barry’s voice.
“Listen, you piece of shit Barry,” you hear through the earpiece. “You’re not the real Barry. Barry’s inside.”
Wait—
“Barry, if you can hear me, I’m coming for you,” Barry Syx says. To you. Not to the man who slaughtered the Barry Battalion. Not to the body you inhabit. To you.
Are you— ?
He’s going to come and get you. That’s what’s going to happen. Maybe he’ll kill you.
(Finally. You need to be stopped.)
For the first time in cycles, you have a mouth that can move.
Not hands or feet— you try to work the muscles, to reach for your blaster pistol, to do something— but you can’t move from the neck down. It’s just your face, on Barry Nyne’s body. And your mind races. Barry Syx is here, and the responsible thing to do would be to tell him the truth— that there is no saving you, that Barry Nyne is a monster, that Syx needs to get his crew and get the fuck out of here.
Like it always does, your voice betrays you. “Barry,” you whine. “I’m scared.”
“We’ll get you out,” Syx swears.
No, fuck, he doesn’t understand. There is no saving you. You need to make him understand that.
“I’ve been having a really bad dream, man,” you tell Syx, which feels stupid as shit because you already figured out so long ago that it’s not a dream. But here, with Syx looking at you like you’re anything other than a murderer, all the dumb little-kid feelings come rushing back. “Where’s Barry? Where’s Dr. Barry?”
Stop being stupid. You know where they are. You killed them, because you’re the bad guy and you have been the whole time.
Syx is looking at you like he still loves you, and you need him to stop. “Barry’s right here,” he promises. And then he nods toward you, straining against the manacles on his wrists. “And Barry’s right here.”
“Wait,” you stammer, pathetic. He needs to know. He needs to know that you’re the bad clone, the one who turned out wrong. “I don’t—”
“Never forget,” Barry Syx says fiercely, eyes shining, “Barry’s right here!”
TELL HIM. TELL HIM HE’S WRONG. TELL HIM THERE’S NOTHING LEFT—
Too late.
Barry Nyne takes your mouth back, and you fade into the back of his brain.
You throw up.
Can’t remember the last time you did that.
You’re coughing, spitting, consciousness fluttering in and out like stars streaming past an observation window. “Shh, it’s okay,” someone’s telling you, a hand stroking your back. And you have a back now, you have a body, you have stomach acid souring on your tongue and aches in your muscles and a pounding headache, and it’s all yours. “You’re okay, now. It’s going to be okay.”
“Okay,” you agree. You peer up at who you’re agreeing with— a Rubian, long turquoise hair falling around their face. “Wait, you’re—”
“Princeps Zortch,” the princeps says. “You’re probably very confused right now, Barry. But I can explain everything.”
You nod. “Okay.”
Zortch pulls out a tablet and presses play on a video recording.
You sneak through the passageways of the Wurst, a cold clarity giving you purpose in a mind that’s been scrambled and scattered for so long. But what Zortch told you makes sense. (Not what they showed you, because what they showed you was awful, didn’t make any sense at all, a Barry killing other Barrys, all that senseless, pointless violence and death, brother against brother.)
But Zortch explained it all to you. You’re not the man in the video, even though he looks like you, even though you have his number on your armor.
No.
You’re one of the good clones.
You’re Barry Syx.
Being Barry Syx makes more sense than being Barry Nyne, because Barry Nyne was a monster who killed the whole Battalion and Dr. Barry, and you wouldn’t do that. You would never do that. It makes you sick to think about it. It makes you want to curl up in one of these rooms and bawl your fucking eyes out, but you can’t do that yet.
Because Barry Nyne’s still here on this ship, and finally, finally, you inhabit a body and you can stop him.
It doesn’t matter that you’re in Barry Nyne’s body, and he’s in your body. You’re clones. (Not brothers, not brothers anymore. He stopped being your brother that day at Uncle B.O.B.’s Fantanimalland.) Some people grow clones for the express purpose of transferring their consciousness over to them.
(Dr. Barry used to say that practice was weird and exploitative. “You’re people,” he would say, lip curled in distaste.)
So, even if you have to kill Barry Nyne while he’s in your body and you’re in his, you’ll do it. It might be kind of weird to exist in Barry Nyne’s body for the rest of your life, but at least you’ll have avenged the Barrys.
It’s easy to find which gunner pod he’s in.
Barry Nyne is loud.
The stun grenade flies from your hand, and a moment later Barry is on the ground.
You think about your brothers as you loom over Barry Nyne, the man you hate more than you’ve ever hated anyone. “Time to die, Barry.”
It feels good to fire on him. You can’t bring your brothers back, but at least, finally, you can avenge them. You’re Barry Syx, and even through the disorientation, you know that Barry Nyne needs to be eliminated. He’s a monster, plain and simple. He will not walk away from this fight— you won’t let him.
Before you can take the killshot, the android from the other gunner pod shows up and throws something at you, and you’re flooded with cold. Too cold to move, too cold to think. Another grenade goes off.
And it’s like you’re right back there at the zoo, watching your family being slaughtered. He’s going to get you next. Barry Nyne’s going to shoot you next. He’s the worst villain in the galaxy, and no amount of familiarity or pleading is going to save you. You might as well already be dead, because you’re trapped in this gunner pod with Barry Nyne and he’s going to fucking kill you like he killed the rest of them.
(They were so scared. You are so scared.)
“What did you do?” you scream at the murderer, all the rage and helplessness you felt on that day burning through you. “You killed them all! You killed them all!”
“Barry?” the killer says, squinting at you. “Barry, are you— do you have the slug in your head?” He’s going to put a bullet in your skull. He’s going to murder you like he murdered the rest of them.
“You killed all the Barrys,” you condemn this traitor.
“I didn’t kill anyone!” he shouts back.
“You did.”
He can’t talk his way out of this. You know who Barry Nyne is— he’s repulsive, he’s beyond saving, so far past the point of reconciliation or forgiveness. He’s not your brother. He’s the bastard who took your brothers away from you, and you’re going to kill him.
“What are you— Barry, what are you doing?”
He looks so confused.
You can make things crystal-clear for him.
“You’re Barry Nyne, I’m Barry Syx,” you say, jabbing your blaster toward him for emphasis. “You swapped memories with me!”
“No—”
“Yes. If you're the right Barry then I'm the wrong Barry and I know I'm not the wrong Barry ’cause I would never do—”
“No Barry did this!”
“I WOULD NEVER DO IT.” It’s the only thing you know is true, the only thing you can cling to. Barry Nyne is the bad clone. You can’t be him. You must be Barry Syx, the last good one. Barry Syx would never open fire on his family. Barry Syx would never do this. Barry Syx is still worth saving. That’s why Barry Nyne has to die.
“No Barry did this,” Barry Nyne lies again. “Truly this has all been a mindfuck.”
“Zortch showed me the video,” you shout at him, throwing the truth in his face. Because you know. You know that Barry Nyne is a cold-blooded killer. You know that he’s the bad seed, the clone that came out of the vat wrong. You’ve been inside his head.
Wait—
You watched the video of Barry Nyne betraying his family and it was like you could still feel the blood beneath your fingernails.
Are you— ?
No. Stop. You know what’s going on here. “The video showed me that you were Barry Nyne, I’m Barry Syx, and you made me believe that I was Barry Nyne,” you accuse him, knowing in your bones that you’re right. “But I’m not Barry Nyne.” And thank the stars you aren’t, because living with his memories poisoning your mind is hard enough. “’Cause the video is—” Brutal. Violent. Horrifying. “Barry Nyne killed everybody at Uncle B.O.B.’s Fantanimalland, which I would never—”
“Barry!” the killer yells, and fear, slick and slimy, grabs at your throat and your chest, because he’s going to do it now, he’s going to kill you like he killed the others, or else he’s going to try to trick you like he tricked you before. He’s going to make you think that you’re Barry Nyne, and you can’t be Barry Nyne. “We're Barry! We're just Barry, Barry!”
No. No—
“And the Barrys are gone, and there's been too many Barrys fighting Barrys,” he yells at you, and you’re waiting for the rage and the sick delight to come flooding out but there’s only your brother, trying to reach you, there’s only desperation and regret and a fierceness you haven’t felt in so many cycles.
You would never—
“We're Barry!” the other one says, and you’re waiting for him to assert that he’s of course Barry Syx, that you’re the bad one, but— he doesn’t. He says, “It doesn't matter if I'm Barry Nyne, or you're Barry Nyne, or I'm Barry Syx or you're Barry Syx!”
It doesn’t matter?
“Barry didn't do this,” Barry says decisively. “Barry didn't kill the Barrys. What we should be happy about is that there’s Barrys here now! Because they're used to just be Barry. There were Barrys, and then there was Barry, and now there's Barrys again, Barry.”
WHO ARE YOU?
WHY DOESN’T HE HATE YOU?
ARE YOU— ?
“Barry… ?” you ask him, voice wavering like a child. Barry Syx, or Nyne, or whoever he is, is looking at you like you’re not a monster, and maybe he’s not one, either. “I’ve been really scared for a long time.”
You’ve been drowning, stuck in a body that didn’t belong to you anymore, banging your fists against the walls of your own head like a caged animal.
“I’ve been scared too, Barry,” Barry says.
He’s right.
There’s Barrys again. “I missed you, Barry,” you tell him.
He nods, older and sadder and scareder than he was that day at the zoo, but he’s here. You are both here. “I miss you, Barry,” he says.
And your arms move the way you want them to, do what you tell them to, when you pull him into a hug.
Are you Barry Nyne?
Yes.
But more importantly than that, you’re Barry.
You both are.