The Protagonist System
363 Multiples

Having two streams of consciousness was a little weird. I had my Atlas persona flying around the world and stopping crimes, a landslide in Peru, and shifting a growing sandstorm in the Middle East from one of the cities to go into the desert instead. At the same time, Mark sat in class and it was a breeze.

Even without Sarah there, I was still allowed to sit with the popular girls at lunch. Gail gave me a few pointed looks without saying anything, so I didn't say anything, either. If Sarah told her about what happened, that was on her. Although, I was pretty sure both her and her mother were going to keep quiet about it. Neither of them seemed like they wanted anyone else to know they had been so close to sharing a lot more than a mother and daughter should.

I went to work at the Global Defense Agency that afternoon as Atlas, reporting in like usual, and also showed up as Mark Grayson a short time later. I didn't have an official work ID for Mark and only had visitor status. That meant I was heavily restricted in where I was allowed to go. I made an appointment with Cecil and it wouldn't be for hours, so I spent the time taking the tour of the Pentagon.

Cecil thought it was a joke, of course. When I showed up in his office as Mark, he asked me what I was doing by shirking my patrol duties. I just sat there and tapped my ear, letting him know he could use the government earpiece Atlas wore during official work hours. He humored me and connected the call, only to stare at me as Atlas answered him and asked if it was an emergency, since he was currently flying over Berlin in Germany.

“You're not fucking around with time, are you kid?” Cecil asked without hanging up.

Both Atlas and I softly chuckled and I shook my head. “No, we're the same person. One mind split into two different bodies.”

Cecil gave his phone a look and then looked at me. “How are you doing that?”

“Osmosis?” I asked with a smirk and he huffed.

“Are you intentionally confusing fusion and fission?” Cecil asked.

I laughed. “I can't pull anything over on you.”

“You need a lot more experience to fool an old dog like me.” Cecil said and sat back. “How are you in two places at once? Is it another aspect of your growing gravity powers?”

“That's why you asked about time first.” I said in understanding and he nodded. “No, you guessed right. It's binary fission.”

Cecil gave me a searching look. “Just the one?”

I nodded. “Having two streams of consciousness is weird. It's easy to pull off, as long as I ensure I don't crisscross the thoughts across the two personas.”

Cecil nodded back. “How did you pull it off? It's not a common ability or power.”

“Isn't it?” I asked and smiled.

Cecil leaned back and thought about it. He needed a few minutes and then his eyes widened. “Dupli-Kate and Multi-Paul can both split themselves multiple times. They claimed it was a curse that took years to get a handle on and you spent a bunch of time fixing the curse Monster Woman was suffering from, where she has a normal form and a monster one.”

I tapped the tip of my nose to tell him he got it. “They're similar and different.”

“Damn, kid.” Cecil said, impressed. “Can you duplicate it?”

It was my turn to sit back and think about it. Should I tell him I could? Would he want it for himself or did he have specific people that he wanted to split and have them work on more projects for the government?

“It might take me a while to set something up, since doing it to myself was a lot easier, thanks to my natural resilience.” I told him and he nodded. “They would need to be really smart and disciplined mentally, too. Using two bodies at the same time needs a lot of mental flexibility and compartmentalization. If they can't think about two things at once, I won't even try to split them into two halves of a whole.”

“I have two people that need extra hands that they can trust.” Cecil said right away.

I didn't need any other prompts to figure out who he meant. “Justine and Sinclair.”

Cecil chuckled. “You barely even had to think about it.”

“They're two of your most prominent scientists.” I said with a shrug. “Plus, having another sexy scientist like Justine around here couldn't hurt.”

Cecil huffed. “Do I have to warn you about thinking with your dick?”

I smiled knowingly at him. “I'm pretty sure it's the secretarial pool you need to warn.”

Cecil couldn't stop his bark of laughter. “Carol can't stop talking about how personable Atlas is.”

“She framed his autograph and it's in her top drawer.” I responded and grinned at him.

Cecil shook his head. “Get out of here and go bug Sinclair for a while with your tech ideas.” He ordered and I stood and saluted. His hand twitched to return it before he stopped himself, so I counted it as a win. “I'll have Carol issue you a work ID to help you maintain the ruse.”

“I don't have to fill everything out again as punishment?” I asked.

“I should make you do that.” Cecil said and waited for a moment. “Then again, you filled everything out as Mark the first time, so technically Atlas didn't.”

I had to laugh at that and had another idea. “I'll have Justine pop an error in the paperwork and give Carol the good news when my shift is over. She should enjoy getting to spend a few hours with her favorite hero redoing his paperwork.”

Cecil nodded and I left his office, told Carol I was going to the White Room, and made my way there. I had the entire afternoon and part of the evening to assist the scientists there and to slip in a few of my ideas into the general conversation.

*

Carol really had been excited about having Atlas all to herself after their shift. She refused to wait to handle the mistake during normal work hours and ordered him to stay after everyone else besides the skeleton crew of the night shift had left the GDA.

Carol printed off the stack of paperwork and both she and Atlas meticulously went over it all in one of the meeting rooms and eventually found the discrepancy. It was only a small thing, barely worth all the trouble, and it gave Carol a sense of satisfaction anyway. She lived for those kinds of things and she was very good at her job.

It took only a moment for Carol to fix the error and she gave Atlas a very hungry look. He took the nonverbal hint and pulled his suit off, giving her a look at his physique without the thin cloth in the way, and she jumped on him.

Carol was a strict professional, so even though she had let him use two of her holes liberally, she didn't want him to think she was some kind of wanton woman. One night was all she could really afford to spend with him. Her life was too busy for more than that and she would remember their time together fondly for the rest of her life.

Atlas regretted her decision and told her she deserved more than a single night of happiness. If she ever changed her mind, he wouldn't hold it against her and would make her happy again.

“You are too much of a temptation.” Carol informed him and gave him a chaste kiss. “If I don't say no now, with your fluids dripping out of me, I'll never say no again.”

Atlas accepted that and agreed to limit himself to light flirting that wouldn't cross the line while they were at work. Carol was quite pleased with that promise and gave him another chaste kiss. They went their separate ways to clean up and then left the Global Defense Agency.

*

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Sinclair asked his girlfriend as he started up the machine that used some weird esoteric energy that didn't exist that morning. Mark's idea of splitting them like mitosis had bloomed into creating a huge machine that had a one-time use.

Justine gave him a searching look, as if assessing him of worth, then nodded. “Our work timetable will be cut in half if there are two of us.”

“It's not two of you.” Mark said and adjusted the settings. “It's you in two bodies.”

“We can move them independently?” Sinclair asked and slipped the helm on.

Justine put her own on and laid back against the inclined surface.

Mark looked thoughtful for a second. “You know how your brain has two sides, with the left side controlling the right side of the body and the right side of the brain controlling the left side? This machine makes it so that the right side of your brain will control an entire body and the left side another completely separate body. It'll be automatic and you just need to get used to the sensations.”

That explanation settled the two scientists down.

“Why haven't you done this for yourself?” Justine asked.

“You saw the components and exotic materials that went into this thing and the sheer work it needed to be completed. Heck, you could probably buy a small island with the precious metals it needed.” Mark said with a chuckle and would never tell them it was all just a tinkertech abomination that merely duplicated his duplication power. “Plus, it'll only work once and that's why we jury-rigged adding the extra helmet and doubled the components. We can't waste this chance by duping only one of you.”

Both scientists nodded and told him to initiate the process. Mark did so and used some of his powers to ensure it actually worked like it was supposed to. The entire thing glowed like a bright noonday sun and both Sinclair and Justine slowly split apart and two bodies formed for each of them.

The machine whined and started sparking, thanks to Mark using the information from the Mauler Twins on how to do that, and he grabbed all four of the scientists and pulled them away from the machine just before it blew up and wrecked half of the vacated research lab. The two Sinclairs blinked their eyes together, then independently, and turned their heads to look at their girlfriends.

The two Justines did a similar thing and blinked her eyes at the same time, then independently, and turned her heads to look at her boyfriends. “Physical research?”

“Physical research!” Both Sinclairs gasped and jumped to their feet, hauled the two Justines to their feet, and the four of them ran out of the lab without looking back.

“They are totally going to screw each other first.” Mark said with a chuckle.

“No doubt.” Cecil said over the intercom speaker. “They can have threesomes and foursomes without cheating on each other or feeling guilty about having someone else in the bed.”

Mark laughed. “That why they're so enthusiastic about it. It's self-justification and sexual fantasy combined into a perfect mix.”

“That it is.” Cecil said. “Can you rebuild the machine?”

Mark looked around the half-destroyed lab. “Maybe in a month or so. The asteroid mining operation should replenish what this used by then, assuming we can make or buy some of the other components by then.”

“We can't just throw more money at it?” Cecil asked.

Mark laughed. “If only!”

“Then you better head on home. You have school in the morning.” Cecil said.

“Do I have to?” Mark whined. “I want to help design some of the hover technology I discussed with Jerry...”

“We don't have a portable power source that can handle anything like that, so you need to go to school and finish that before anything else.” Cecil denied.

“Dammit.” Mark said. “All right, I'm gone. Bye, Cecil.”

“Have a good night.” Cecil said and the intercom clicked off.

Mark went home and cuddled on the couch with his mom as he told her about his day with the eggheads in the science department. He didn't tell her it was him that designed the machine, only that he helped build it and it had worked and then blown up. She looked scared until he said no one was hurt and another one couldn't be built for at least another month.

*

The last few days at school were just review and I could have skipped them, except I didn't want to disappoint my new friends or my mom by acting like a delinquent. It did give me the chance to teach the girls more about the subjects that would be on the exams and they were all grateful for the help.

I had the whole weekend to spend with Sarah and her mother, which I split between them. Her mother was allocated all of Saturday to do whatever she wanted and Sunday was all for Sarah. The both of them were relieved I was going through the effort to give them separate dates and they had a great time basking in my full attention.

The next week was full of exams and I made sure to coach the girls before each one, even though only two of them had an exam with me, Gail and Sarah. The grateful and longing looks were common for the whole week and we spent several afternoons and evenings studying hard.

Well, they were studying hard while I pretty much attended to them and helped as much as I could. Shoulder and back massages, providing drinks and snacks, and asking questions and helping them come up with the right answers. It was almost fun for them, because I used many of the teaching techniques I had learned years ago.

By the end of the week, they all felt like they had done the best they could, which was much better than they thought they would, and I received many kisses on the cheek and a few on the lips. The bolder girls had blushes on their faces and huge smiles, because they hadn't backed down when given the chance to thank me.

I thanked them right back, of course. They had accepted me into their group with little fuss and I felt privileged to be given the chance to be friends with them before high school came to an end. That earned me another round of kisses and none of them balked and kissed me on the lips instead of my cheek.

The weekend was a relaxing one that had nothing going on, so I spent it with my mom. She had said something about Atlas having busy weekends until he worked out a better patrol routine. Plus, we had to get ready for the graduation ceremony next week. The funny thing was, there wasn't really anyone besides my mom that I wanted to invite.

While I was receiving my diploma on the stage, Doc Seismic was being dealt with by Atlas destroying all of the man's giant lava monsters and then wrecking his underground facilities. He was then delivered to the GDA and his research and technology was bought for a dollar and he was added to the growing scientist department.

My mom clapped happily as I held up my diploma and I tossed my graduation cap up into the air. Everyone else did the same and they all cheered. High school was finally over and we had the whole summer to have fun before college started in the fall. I just had to decide if I wanted to bother with it or just go to work for the Global Defense Agency full time.

I would have to talk it over with my mother and see what she had to say about it, even if I knew she was biased with Atlas being a very successful GDA agent. He helped so many people all around the world and Debbie would probably encourage me to become a part of that, as long as I stayed on the sidelines. She had become used to me not endangering myself and wouldn't want that to change.

That meant talking to Cecil as well and I was sure I knew what his opinion would be. The safety of the human race came first and everything else could be worked out later.