Listen to the episode here.

Pretty much every tenant who took a room at the Motel Americana did so with the singular intent of coupling carnally with a human being to whom they were not lawfully wedded or otherwise betrothed, but almost none of these lodgers needed to contract two rooms in order to do it. Our present, most curious hero, one Oliver Oliver Adkins, stood as the sole exception to this rule. 

Or co-exception, depending on your interpretation of what transpired in rooms 11 and 22 on the night in question, September 9th, 1988. 

As we enter standard issue number 11, we find him sleeping peacefully in the desk chair under the silk blue light of a zygote moon. 

Hear Olly snoring loudly as he dreams of peaceful, faraway places. 

Behold the large welt raised on the shiny surface of his prematurely bald head. 

Perhaps this knot is the physical location housing Olly’s faraway dreams. Perhaps it’s the fleshy matter comprising this newly-formed goose egg that provides the fresh soil garden bed for Olly’s merciful delusions to bloom and usher forth the intoxicating bouquets that are now so sweetly delivering him from his psychic and physical trauma.

Yes, sweet dreams notwithstanding, Olly’s had better days. This goes for anyone found in a place like this, but for Olly, especially. In addition to the welt, a rash of panic-induced hives has also broken out on his neck in clusters like swarms of angry bees. His clothes are filthy and torn. His pores exude a smell distinctly akin to that of grilled onions. 

Also, another man stood in the room looming over Olly as he slept that evening. Aside for the absence of Olly’s signs of abuse and dishevelment, this man was Olly’s exact physical double in every discernable way right down to the long thin nose indented at the tip, the ever flickering muscle in the perpetually clenched jaw, the non-dangling earlobes that gave each man a somewhat test lab rat aspect, and the abdominal scar where appendixes had been removed some twenty years prior. 

For the record, Olly was an only child. 

So was his double. 

For the benefit of his sleeping audience, the Double, also, incidentally, named Oliver Oliver, tapped an imaginary watch in the universal gesture of out of patience. He held the invisible timepiece to his ear to check that it was still ticking. He nudged Olly with one of his identical feet. He cleared his throat… once… twice…

Then reared back his right hand and brought it crashing down across the side of Olly’s slumbering face. 

Wake up! The show’s about to begin, he screamed.

Olly’s vision and left cheek flared crimson against the blow, bringing forth a tide of nightmare-strewn consciousness swelling to the frontal region of his already war-torn lobes, along with a high piercing ringing.  

He said, Ag,I didn’t do it!

The Double clicked on an ophthalmoscope and shined it directly in Olly’s bleary right eye, exacerbating Olly’s general disorientation. 

Hold still now, the Double said.

Where am I? Who are you?

The Double clicked off his instrument, took a deep, frustrated sigh, and said, I’m not going to go through this every time you decide to regain consciousness. You’ll need to make a better effort than this.

My god. It’s like looking in a mirror.

The Double crossed the room to where the brown embroidered ice bucket had been sitting for some time. He delivered the bucket to his charge and flung its contents into his face. A hailstorm of somewhat melty ice cubes and cold water pelted him. Olly gasped as if he were drowning in an ocean of water.

Now hold still, the Double said. 

Please. Wait.

The Double grabbed Olly by the jaw and shined the light into his left eye.

This is bad. Very bad, he said.

What is it?

You’re barely alive. 

You can tell that by my eyes? This isn’t even a doctor’s office. 

The Double clicked off the instrument and said gravely, You know, you’re the worst case I’ve ever had. I may vomit your lunch. That’s how disgusted I am. 

I’m… Look. I’m sorry but-

Yes, that’s accurate. Very sorry indeed. But, you work with me, we’ll get you fixed up in no time.

The Double reached into an instrument bag he had at his side and this time extracted from it an auriscope. He jammed it into Olly’s left ear and took a look.

He made concerned clucking sounds with his tongue, then said, Just what I thought. Clogged. Something like the consistency of grape jelly. You might not make it after all. Anything bothering you? Any pain anywhere?

Might not make it!?

Olly jolted to turn and face his Double but the movement sent a shock of pain from the welt on his head all the way down through the sciatica nerves. He was finally waking up. 

My head, he said, Yes. The pain. It’s in my skull. It feels like it’s been shattered by a bullet. 

He tried to rub at the goose egg but found that both his hands were cuffed to the arms of the chair in which he was sitting. 

There’s an idea, the Double said. It can be arranged. 

What?

The Double rounded his patient and looked into the right ear, then continued: The bullet. Gentle as a whisper. Clean as a prayer. We could agree to call it suicide, eh? I mean look at us. There’s a solid argument for that. Might even hold in court. You’ll be free of yourself. I get to keep my perfect record. Can you hear what I’m saying through this gunk? 

You better unshackle me. The room’s filling with smoke. In case I need to evacuate.

Smoke did appear to be billowing up from the floor register and through the wall vents, but the Double ignored this. 

You know, over ten years in this game and not a single dissatisfied customer. Now you’ve got me worried. Threatening to evacuate. Disgusting. Truly worried. You’ve got to pull yourself together. She’s ready for you. 

Who? 

The Double stood, genuinely surprised.

Jesus. Are you serious? The Double looked up at the popcorned ceiling and bit his fist. God, what have I done to deserve this man!? I can’t take it anymore. 

The Double walked away from Olly and turned his back to him. He parted the curtain and stared at the turnpike and the massage parlor neon beyond. The refineries expressing their malodorous rot, the endless snake of traffic. He pulled a rosary from his pocket and thumbed it while having a deep, pained consultation with his God. I should have never taken him on, he confessed. I should have listened to you. I knew he was a mistake the minute I saw him. 

Olly said, Sir, I’m sorry… Is it Doctor?… If I did anything wrong, Doctor… If I somehow gave you the impression that…

The Double nodded and muttered responses to the divine advisement he was receiving. Yes, you’re right, he said. I will. I won’t fail him. I’ll find the strength. The courage. I will not fail you, Lord.

Meanwhile, Olly’s screed of incoherency continued: But, you see, by the same token, I don’t remember… don’t recall… requesting… that is, asking for your help…. When you just showed up unannounced… well… and to be honest, I’m not quite certain, not precisely sure– 

The Double rushed back to Olly, grabbed him by his lobeless ears and stared into his face. Look at me, child!

But Olly did everything he could to look away. Since the moment they’d met, Olly found prolonged eye contact impossible with this man. He’d never had enough self-possession to hold anyone’s gaze for longer than two or three seconds as it was, but with his double, a debilitating wave of nausea consumed him every time their eyes touched for even the briefest of instants, a deeply and morally unsettling sensation akin to that of performing the act of incest. To look into your doppleganger’s eyes, Olly learned, is like tongue kissing your mother.

I’ve tried to be lenient, the Double said, A kind teacher. 

Olly broke down into a near blubber: I’m handcuffed to a chair! 

But I see my magnanimity has gotten us nowhere. Fallen on clogged ears, if you will, a mind too jammed with grape jelly for coherent thought. 

The Double inserted fresh batteries into a stun gun.

I can’t think straight, yes. That’s true. I’m confused. 

Befuddled, of course. 

But it’s gone too far and-

And now, I’m afraid we’ll have to switch to an alternative method of treatment. 

Treatment?

The Double pressed the button to test the stun gun. It crackled to life.

The tough love method. 

Tough love?

A kind of reverse electroshock therapy. Completely safe and tested by the proper medical boards and all that. Nine out of ten what have yous. Now, think. Take a minute and think hard. You’ll want to answer this next question correctly. What do you remember last?

I don’t know. 

Wrong answer.

Olly howled as the Double pressed the gun to his supraclavicular lymph nodes and electricity coursed through his nervous system. In oblivion’s instant a vision or perhaps a memory came reeling back to him with heart attack clarity:

Night rained like nails falling on asphalt. Rusted iron grate wrenched up from the gutter that sent him splaying into the banshee scream of combustion traffic. He’d just been humiliated in a client presentation, his work destroyed in the company boardroom of a make-or-break client, and a plummeting elevator ride to the surface of the earth later, he tripped lost in the blaring lights and searing horns of some deviled crossroads, the venom voiced street raging at him, God fleeting in the glass reflections everywhere, smearing smirked, he was struck in the street and flew and skidded to a black from which emerged a ring of grimed sidewalk faces pantomiming concern to mask their morbid desire for a glimpse of fresh deformity. The deformed found his feet eventually and followed them out of the chain of faces into a scuffling orbit, thrusting along the contour of an ellipse, one revolution, two, until the door expelled him bodily and he was deposited in the threadbare carpeted foyer of a two and half star hotel somewhere dug deep into Newark’s secret lore. The nightwatchman, just returned from wherever he’d disappeared to, came after him from outside, hands hungry and snapping like crab claws, so Olly fled deeper into the bowels and into a seminar room where he found a chair in the back row among other shadows gathered before a projected presentation of baffling sort. Something about self realization. A man sitting in the front row turned back at the commotion Olly had been making, a man with striking physical similarity to Olly. But it must have been a mistake. Olly was woozy. He wasn’t thinking straight. He fell asleep.

When he woke a man with surreal curly brown hair and a green suit had the papers already filled out. 

It’s all been taken care of for you, he said.

What?

You just need to sign here. It’s easy. The man pointed to a dotted line on the sheet.

There’s been a mistake, Olly said.

Look. I’m not a salesman. I’m not an advisor. I’m not trying to sell you extra services. I’m just an attorney. But here’s what I know.

Olly suspected the mustache the man wore was a fake. An attorney for who? 

Whom.

What?

Well, in some sense, an attorney for you. He ran a finger along a sea of incomprehensible words set in miniscule type. This all assures your safety. Nothing shocking here. Strictly boilerplate. 

I’m… not sure.

But one thing I can tell you is that you’re not unique. 

I’m not?

Not a snowflake, certainly. You come in here.

By mistake. I had an accident.

And you have second thoughts, like so many before you. You say it’s a mistake, okay. Cold feet. And try to back out.

Back out of what?

It’s the same song and dance. I don’t get paid enough. Here’s how it goes: You try to back out. I gently remind you of all the benefits outlined in the presentation. How great your life can be. How you need our services to achieve that life.

What services?

And you sign. But as you can see, the seminar is over. Everyone else has already signed and you’re the last one left– What services? Spiritual healing. Life coaching. Attainment of your true secret dreams. Weren’t you paying attention? To the presentation? Really. If we can just cut to the chase.

You’re a coach?

I’m just the attorney for the firm. You’re not paying attention. Now, please sir. Holding out a gleaming black pen. If you don’t mind, I have a horse race to get to. 

When Olly came to again the Double was taking his blood pressure. He said, And I was sent to fix you.

I don’t need a life coach.

More of a spiritual advisor.

My life was awful. I admit it. But it’s worse now. I don’t want your help anymore. I want to be free of you.

Want and need are two very different things. I’m here to help.

Help what.

Achieve your dreams.

It’s a nightmare.

Nightmare, dream. Two sides of the same coin. It’s working already. See?

Consider our agreement terminated.

My God, 250 over 150. You’re running harder than a thoroughbred on meth.

But no matter how fast or far I run.

You’re going to explode.

I can’t get away from you. That much I know for sure. I ran all the way here… to this shithole to escape you… and here you are.

Everything you just said was wrong. I told you to come here.

No. False.

Wrong answer.

The Double zapped Olly again and the electrical storm in Olly’s brain produced the precise moment the Double appeared.

Fumbling, Olly unfurled his revised drawings of the proposed mall to the American Dream Construction Company Conglomerate, the last chance to win the bid, a week after he’d signed with Dream Horizons. The stone faced CEO of the American Dream at the head of the table took one look at Olly’s presentation and before Olly managed to say a single word in his drawings’ defense, said, These look exactly the same as the shit you brought in here last time. 

No. Look. I altered the weight of the buttresses. The width of picture windows. See the delicate balance that I struck with the…

Olly trailed off because he saw a deep gloom pass over the face of Marisa, the Verner Studios Account Manager for the American Dream account. She tried to salvage the situation.

Sir, I want to apologize on the firm’s behalf. It seems that Oliver brought the wrong drawings. The original drawings, accidentally.

No, wait. See. These are…

These are the wrong drawings, Olly. 

Olly caught the drift. He would have liked to have aided and abetted her strategy, to feign sudden surprise at his oversight and that Why, yes, he’d grabbed the wrong drawings after all, but he felt her disgust and embarrassment in the innermost chamber of his heart and was overcome with the familiar and debilitating waves of nausea and defeat crash over him. I’m sorry, was all he said, then crumbled into his seat wishing that it would swallow him up into an interdimensional vortex and spit him out in an alternate universe.

Which is precisely the moment the Double flung himself into the room, apologizing for his tardiness with a jocularity that diffused the situation almost immediately. He passed out newly pressed business cards, shook Stoneface’s hand, as well as those of his henchmen. No one seemed to mind that he was a surer, more confident, and somehow more handsome exact replica of the original Oliver Oliver Adkins.

You’ll have to excuse my mentor, he said, He suffers delusions of grandeur. Just joking! Ha! Actually, he’s actually a genius in disguise: His delusions are reality! No. In all seriousness, Olly is brilliant and I’m honored to be studying under him. I noticed he left the real drawings on his desk back at the office so, well, I took it upon myself- excuse me, Mr. Adkins, that was presumptuous– to get them over here ASAP. Here you go, boss.

The Double placed a roll of drawings Olly had never seen on the table before him. 

Olly’s heart pulsed at the base of his tongue. He was beside himself, yes, literally, overcome with a paralysis that brought even the flow of his blood to a stop. Then his heart stopped beating altogether and everything inside him died.    

Everyone waited for a reaction from Olly. It became more evident that that reaction wasn’t going to happen with each passing second. The lights had gone out.

The Double leaned into Olly’s ear and said, Don’t worry. I got this. I’m gonna fix everything, boss.

The Double unrolled his drawings over Olly’s and they reflected brightly in Stoneface’s charcoal eyes.

Marisa beamed diamonds in return. 

And Olly watched the rest of the meeting as if from a great distance, as if through many layers of fractured glass. 

By the time it was all over, Veneer Studios had won the American Dream bid and Marisa and the Double walked out arm in arm with Stoneface and his cohorts for martinis, shutting the lights off in the conference room on the way out, leaving Olly stunned and alone in the Newark’s closing dark. 

The next morning, he had no  recollection of how he got back to his bed. 

Deconstructivism is a fad, Olly said. It’s style designed to go out of style. 

The fog had gained in the motel room and Olly could make the Double out only through wafts of billowing haze. 

The Double unzipped Olly’s fly, unbuckled Olly’s belt, and shoved his hand down Olly’s pants.

Olly hardly noticed. He said, Built of structures conceived to be torn down. They look like they’re already torn down, actually.

The Double while fiddling around in Olly’s genitalia said, We’re not exactly identical now, are we? Christ, your testicles are the size of chickpeas. That explains a lot. A hell of a lot, Olly. 

He retracted his hand, spit on it, and wiped it on Olly’s already filthy shirt. 

It especially explains your obsession with balance and harmony, he said. Ball-less, bloodless work, Olly. Quotidian at best.

Architecture is the art of endurance. 

Bore-ing. The point is, he said, I won’t let you lie to yourself. You don’t get to control this narrative. Not anymore. I’m steering this bronco.  

I won’t let you.

You have no choice. I can prove it. I can make you do anything I want. With a snap of my fingers, for instance, I could make everything you say… come out backwards.

The Double snapped his fingers. 

Olly tried to tell him that he was insane, that his work was brilliant and will endure the test of time, but it came out as if he were speaking in tongues:

emit fo tset eht erudne llahs dna tnaillirb si krow ym!

Exactly. Or, the Double said, I could put us out to sea. 

Oly tried to tell him to wait:

Tiaw! 

And he watched as the motel walls fell away, revealing an pristine expanse of ocean and sky marred only by the shadow albatross circling above. The Double stood on a dingy taking aim at the bird with a rifle. 

Olly pleaded, Please, I can’t swim.  

The Double fired on the bird, missed, and said, that’s the point, Oliver! The first step is to admit you’re powerless. Not don’t distract me. 

But you said.

Enough delusions. Admit it!

Olly gulped sea water. I admit it. I admit it! Anything you say, I admit.

The Double fired again and hit his mark, making a blood explosion of the albatross.

Good. Very good, he said, then lifted an anvil from the boat and threw it at Olly.

In the motel room, The Double again zapped Olly, who was now soaking wet. 

Olly howled.

And goddamn it, the Double said, If I tell you that you ran here on purpose, of your own accord after I instructed you to, with the express intent of coming to this very room, then by God that’s exactly what you did.

But why? Why would I run here?

You know why.

What you’re asking—forcing me to do– I can’t do it. 

Yes, you can.

I can’t. I won’t.

Admit that you want to. Admit that at least.

But I love my wife.

What does that have to do with anything?

I won’t do it.

You want her. You said it yourself.

I love my wife.

You really are blessed you know that? 

I love my wife.

Self delusion is a merciful gift. But it’s also a curse. It’s your main problem in life– this reality/delusion polarity. That’s my official diagnosis that I’m reporting to the main office.

I love my wife.

Stop saying that!

The Double zapped Olly again. 

You can do it! These prove you can.

Through the smoke, the Double showed Olly a series of polaroid pictures, each an image of Olly and his wife making love, each more pornographic than the next, each sending increasingly intense waves of heat into the center of Olly’s loins. 

That’s illegal, he said.

So I took a few pictures.

You’ve been, what, spying on me? 

What? Quite the opposite in fact.

Invasion of privacy. I’ll report you!

Come off it. You know your wife hasn’t let you touch her in years. 

But the pictures.

Don’t you understand? That’s not you in the pictures, Olly. That’s me. 

A dread he’d never known enveloped him.

No. God. No. It can’t be. Please.

This is what you hired me for. 

To screw my wife? She would never. Could never. 

So I can show you what you’re capable of. It’s simple really. 

With a man like you. 

I fulfill your dreams for you so you realize that you’re capable of achieving them. Monkey see, monkey do. You know, her biological clock…

The doctor’s said it’s stress.

Right. Stress. You know I have more semen in my pinky than you have in both of those pebbles in your pants combined? Virulency is a state of mind. 

I love my wife.

Who has needs. Real needs you’re not man enough satisfy! Look at that face! He pointed at a photo of Olly’s wife in a particularly ecstatic moment. You’ve never seen her make that face. You know what that is, Olly? That’s the face of real love.

Take them away. I can’t look anymore.

Of course not. Because you’re weak.

You’re vulgar! Your art is vulgar. Your sexuality is vulgar. 

Vulgarity is a virtue! The human species survives on vulgarity! The problem is you pretend not to have these natural thoughts that–

No woman wants a man who—

No woman admits she wants it.

You’re wrong. Tenderness. Soft petting. Cuddling. I’m sensitive! That’s what a woman wants. I’ll go to my grave believing–

That can be arranged! The more I think about it, the more I think your suicide might be our best bet after all.

I don’t love her.

Your wife?

Marisa. 

Well you were singing a different tune a few weeks ago. Things haven’t always been so contentious between us. Remember?

The Double zapped Olly back to the day after the meeting with the American Dream Conglomerate. Olly had taken a sick day and hunkered down at the corner bar. The Double tracked him down and insisted on buying drink after drink. As the afternoon wore on, they made promises to each other. Promised to look out for one another, promised to be there through thick and thin. They walked home at sunset, arm in arm, singing Bill Withers songs. 

In Olly’s apartment, they passed out together, Olly insisting that he sleep on the air mattress on the floor himself, swearing he’d always put the Double’s comfort before his own selfish needs.

Olly could barely make out the Double for the smoke now. He said, Then… then you took the promotion. Became the lead designer at Veneer. Passed me over.

Right up the corporate ladder, sure, for your benefit, Olly. To show you that you could do it if you just think positive thoughts and set your mind to it.

Golf with the Account Executives. I don’t play golf! Yacking it up, making jokes at my expense, making me look like a fool. 

Yes, and now thanks to me, this Marisa, she likes you… Well, she likes me… but like I said, I’m here to help. 

Your help is a knife in the throat.

The old switcheroo was the plan, Olly, with Marisa. But I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news. You’re not physically up to the task. Clogged ears, slow dilation, hernias like children’s balloons, blood running like the river Jordan.

And to top it off, a conservative. A Bible-thumping conservative with Charlton Heston… privatizing… capitalizing.

Social Darwinism nihilistic Nietschian tendencies, blah blah blah. It’s the way of the world. You fruits—

Nature. The way of the world-

The big fish eats the little one-

Is change.

Change only if it suits self-interest.

Progressivism is the ideology of change. The only constant is–

Jesus. I’m talking about your secret fantasies and you’re spouting Mao Tze Tung to me. There was a day in this country you’d be– 

Peace and understanding is the next step of evolution. Enlightened self interest. We’ll perish otherwise.

Tarred and feathered and hanged and good riddance. Evolution is a matter of finance. Takes the guesswork out of natural selection. Nothing more natural than your credit rating, and driving a good car.

In thirty years, the earth will be nearly uninhabitable. We’ll live in an oligarchy where everyone but the privileged will suffer.

Privileged. Rugged individuals who’ve pulled themselves up by the bootstraps. Let’s not quibble over semantics. It’s the eighties. The Me Me generation. Wake up. A goddamn actor’s directing this production. And the world is trickling down all around you, begging you to grab all you can get– your civic duty, really– and you… Christ, if it were raining soup, you’d turn your bowl upside down.

Soup gives me diarrhea. 

Of course it does.

Income inequality. The ozone. Greenhouse effect. Co2.

Shopping Malls. McMansions. Cordless telephones. Microwave ovens! This is a material world and you are a material–

The more you get. The more you need. It ends in self destruction. I don’t want your help anymore.

And here I’m helping you. Social benevolence. Isn’t that what you fruits cry for?

You made me vote against my conscience. My good judgment. I admit, I wanted to feel safe, secure from Cold War monsters, but–

Welcome to Rome my friend.

Rome fell.

Enjoy it while it lasts. Carpe diem, right?

God help us.

Why drag him into this?

That’s a sore spot for you, isn’t it? You say you believe in god. A god who loves capitalism, of all things. But you don’t. Your faith is nothing but brand marketing.

And you do believe in God but won’t admit it in the liberal media. Are we really that much different? You want to feel safe and guarded but don’t like the optics of what it takes to get there. Look, it comes down to this: if you blew me right now, would that be considered gay or merely a kinky form of masturbation because I’m seriously considering–

This is hell. I’m in hell.

Your wife? Twelve orgasms. No shit. I rekindled your marriage for you and now– 

False pretenses. I’m living a lie. This is how you help? 

Well, she’ll be here any minute. That’s nothing to sneeze at.

I didn’t sneeze. I wasn’t sneezing.

I wooed her in your name. 

Which one? Who?

The Double zapped him again. Olly whimpered:

Oh, god. I smell like a pig roast. 

Marisa, that’s who. That night we were drunk, singing to the moon, you told me your secret fantasy about– 

Stop. I won’t do it.

Yes, you will.

No.

Then I will. 

Someone knocked on the door. Fear struck Olly. 

The Double said, That’s her. Now shut up and listen. I knew you’d flake out so I set it all up perfect. Room 22, a hidden camera. Hard wired into the tv here.

The Double clicked on the TV and pushed Olly’s chair toward it so he could see the screen through the thick smoke in the room. His face was inches away from the image of 22, empty and identical to 11 in every way except for the fog and Olly. 

No, don’t do it. Not her too. Don’t hurt her.

Hurt her? It was practically her idea. She’s married too, you know. She’s a modern woman. With needs. And, incidentally, I happen to know she’s a client of Dream Horizons as well. I know her coach well. Very well. Looks exactly like her Marisa now that I think of it.

What… what are you going to do?

Tell you what, I’ll just spank her lightly a little for you. One of your fantasies, isn’t it? A little spanking? I have it on good word it’s hers too.

No. Please. I love her. I admit it. Is that what you wanted to hear?

What was that? I can’t hear you.

The Double unlocked one set of the handcuffs.

I love her. Okay? I said it. I love her, too.

Stop mumbling. I can’t understand a word you’re saying. It doesn’t matter. Now, you’re free to do whatever you like to do with that hand. 

But… it’s my left hand.

We all have difficulties to overcome, Olly. You have to rise to the challenge! 

Please… don’t.

Another series of knocks. Marisa, through the door said, Are you in there Olly?

The Double called out, Yes, one second dear. He leaned into Olly’s ear and whispered: In the old folk tales, a guy who saw his doppelganger, meant he was going to die. 

You son-of a bitch!

The Double went to the door and opened it.

Hey, babe… I just called and got the room switched… This one is infested with cockroaches. 

Olly called out, He’s a charlatan! An imposter!

You hear that? Lefty, pinko, wishy-washy, half-man, sperm depleted cockroaches…

I love you!

The door closed and Olly watched the TV screen in a state of exquisite torture as the Double and Marisa, or some facsimile of her, entered the room. 

Marisa sat on the bed and the Double, before joining her, moved close to the hidden camera and whispered to Olly: By the way, I took care of your wife’s biological clock for you too. Nine months there’ll be a mini-me- er—mini-you running around. No need for thanks. It’s what we do at Dream Horizons. Congratulations… pappa.

At which point the smoke completely blotted out everything in Olly’s vision. When it cleared sometime later, a whimper could still be heard in the room, but physically, he’d disappeared entirely.

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