August Sixth gives a slow nod. “In theory. If whichever one of you isn’t the August we’re after would like to come along, we can resettle you.”
“Why can’t you resettle us both?” August asks. “This makes no sense. Why are you so intent on killing one of us? We’ll just agree to stop opening portals, job done. Let us go.”
“Did you not hear the part about the bounty?” asks Navy Coat.
Here it comes. August’s sweet heart being ripped apart.
August Sixth at least shows a little empathy when he explains, “There’s a price on your head, August. And if you don’t turn up dead, they’re going to keep hunting you. You can’t get away with all that death and destruction, being a danger to humanity, and not expect to pay.”
“It’s known across every advanced universe,” August with a gun on my August continues. “Even if they don’t manage to catch you and kill you here, there’ll be so many Augusts looking for you, amongst others, it will fuck your shit up. Remember that time you caught me looking in your window?”
August’s mouth drops wide open. “That wasyou? I thought that was… August.”
My head snaps between them.
August with the gun on August corrects him, “No, you yelled at me to go, so I left. I didn’t think you were the right one anyway.”
August stares at me. “I did always wonder why you’d try pick the door lock if you knew I was home.”
“Shit,” I breathe out. “You were there that day?”
“I jumped out the window and went to the cafe.” Then a second later, his gaze shifts back to the August with the gun on him. “I went out the window. If you’d stayed, you would have got me.”
“I was close,” August with the gun on my August responds. “But not as close as August here.” He nods at Navy Coat.
Navy Coat smiles a disconcerting smile, not least disconcerting because it’s my own face and I’m not convinced I once looked at someone else with such a malevolent expression. “Ah, the concert.”
“Youshot at us?” I rasp out.
“No,Ishot at you,” Assassin August corrects.
“That’s right,” says Navy Coat. “But I froze the crowd first, so you’d hit him.”
All three of us gasp. “I thoughtyoudid that,” I yell at Assassin August.
He yells back, “I thoughtyoucaused that! With your kissing!”
“No,” Navy Coat drops back in. “And I did it again on the… What do you call those things?” He clicks his fingers. “‘Train.’ Froze them for you. You’re an incredibly shit shot, by the way.”
Assassin August ignores the jibe. “What the fuck? You were there too?”
“Sure was. And it’s lucky for you that you missed him. I’d assumed you were a regular bounty hunter, and I was going to take you out next. Steal your trophy and your reward. But then he escaped somehow.”
“Holy shit,” Assassin August whispers, eyes running over the pavement like he’s watching his own demise.
“And I,” August Sixth interrupts, as though he can’t wait for his turn, “almost caught you in… What was it? Seventeenth-century London. I had dogs and everything. But you gave me the slip too. Well done.”
“Then we all came back here,” Navy Coat concludes. “We knew this was the end of the line. So all we had to do was sit and wait.”
“Do you understand now?” asks August with a gun on my August. “We each have a price on our heads because of one of you. You’re getting a little taste of it today, but we’ve all been dealing with Augusts turning up and trying to kill us for years—bounty hunters, having to explain we’re not the right August. This is why we have a vested interest in ending this quickly.”
Navy Coat strengthens his gun arm. “Now, we’ve finally got you, so this is it, I’m afraid. We’ve done the whole ‘villainexplains why you have to die’ thing, which I think goes to show I’m not completely evil.”
“But you’re still going to kill me?” my August confirms, playing his game of pretending to be me to the last.
“You’ve left us no choice,” says August Sixth. “Two of us have lost our worlds already, and you’re about to destroy his.” He nods towards Navy Coat. “If you manage to escape from us, someone else will catch up with you, eventually. So, if you’re going to go down anyway, why not have the decency to let us take your body so we can show it to the authorities and put this whole disaster to rest?”
“The‘decency?’” August snaps.
