I was still blind from the EMP but I heard the door of the armored personnel carrier open followed by the crunch of shoes on gravel.

"Kasha…" I rasped. "You fucking fotze…"

The footsteps stopped. "I told you before, I'm called Ruhern now."

I felt my vision return just in time to see my sister standing over me in a stolen body. It was the same as the last one, but no scars marred their perfect face. "How?" I asked, "I saw you die."

Ruhern-Kasha laughed. "Oh you saw one of my clones die. But don't worry, that one was damaged anyway."

I groaned. The Katzen had pioneered cloning before the cataclysm and my father had stolen their secrets for his research. Technically my previous body had been a clone since it had been grown from tissue samples of the original Kerner Braverhund. So I shouldn't have been that surprised to see that others had made use of the technology. I just was pissed to be blindsided by it.

The gangster crouched down over me and tapped the side of their head with a finger. "Your sister is in here too, don't you worry, but it's like a drop of white-out in a swimming pool full of black ink. She tried to overwrite me, but she might as well have tried to drink the ocean."

I winced and tried to move my arms but they wouldn't respond. The only thing that seemed to be working was my SOS beacon. Unfortunately there was nobody coming to help so that was useless.

"So you've been cloning yourself." I remarked, trying to buy time while my systems reset. "What an elegant solution."

"Don't sell yourself short, little brother." Ruhern-Kasha said. "I've seen your little party trick in action now and I think I can replicate it. That APC behind me has some wicked recording gear." I noticed then that Ruhern-Kasha was wearing some kind of black collar with a long thin cable connecting them to the armored personnel carrier.

So that was what they had wanted. That was why they had waited to trigger the EMP. They had been recording everything, trying to learn my secrets, making sure I didn't have any more tricks up my sleeves before they revealed their hand. I had been so stupid not to see it sooner.

My eyes went back to the black collar Ruhern-Kasha wore. It was some kind of direct interface with the vehicle, hardwire instead of wireless to limit interference and prevent hacking. "Are you running your wetware in stealth mode to hide from me?" I asked.

"Not from you, no." Ruhern-Kasha tapped the collar. "I've heard rumblings about a Gravekeeper taking an interest in us ghosts and I didn't want to take any chances. I believe our father had a similar idea with that isolation rig he was wearing."

"Great minds think alike." I laughed, immediately regretting it as pain shot through my body. With no wetware for pain management I was feeling everything now. "Hey, it looks like you managed to kill two parents in one day. That must be a new record for you."

My ears rang from the force of Ruhern-Kasha's backhand. "Don't be vile." They said, "Sacher was just another one of father's victims. All I did was put him out of his misery."

"Sacher killed us and our mother." I coughed. "He's no victim."

"Yes, he is." Ruhern-Kasha growled angrily. "After the accident Gershwin tore Sacher's life apart. He even sent me to murder his children." Ruhern-Kasha paused as if confused. "Sorry, Gershwin sent Kasha to murder Sacher's children." They corrected, visibility flustered by their error.

There was no doubt in my mind that father was capable of anything, but that sounded like a stretch, even for a war criminal. "Please explain for your dear slow little brother." I said.

To my surprise, Ruhern-Kasha did. They explained that Sacher and his wife had been about to start a family before the accident. Initially Sacher had gotten away with killing us. After all, Gershwin had supplied the contraband chocolate and no wrongdoing on Sacher's part had ever been proven. And who would ever believe that the great hero Wolfgang Sacher was a murderer?

But with the rise to power of the council and Döbi's new fervor for nationalism Gershwin had found himself in a position to finally do something about the humans that poisoned his family.

Gershwin had told them that adopting Kasha was the price of their freedom and he had even warned Sacher that this new addition to their family didn't like to share attention.

Years had passed without incident and the Sachers had decided it was time to finally have a baby. Predictably, Kasha had drowned the child in the tub not long after it was born, just like she had tried to do to me. Sacher had ignored Gershwin's warning and paid for it with the death of his son.

The fallout from the child's murder had resulted in Sacher's wife leaving him and Kasha being raised alone by an increasingly drunk and bitter Sacher. He had kept a close eye on her, acting more like a jailer than a parent. Then one day when she was finally old enough Kasha had run away to Möhi. She had left Sacher a note begging him not to follow her.

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Kasha had started a restaurant in Möhi. The food was excellent and money was coming in. Critics had recognized her as a rising star in the Möhin culinary scene. They had called her the next Shauna Froydenhund.

Then Ruhern had taken an interest in this new Döbian chef with a famous last name. When he learned that she was indeed related to the infamous Iron Hand Sacher he couldn't help himself. He had decided to kill her and see if he could provoke Sacher into coming out of retirement. Not to settle any grudge, but for fun.

Unfortunately for Ruhern that had resulted in his getting overwritten by Kasha when her safety protocols kicked in. A week after he strangled Kasha and threw her body underneath a passing tram Ruhern had started to realize something strange was happening to him. At first it had been subtle. He had found himself understanding Döbian, knowing things he shouldn't know, calling himself by the wrong name.

Eventually Kasha had asserted herself but Ruhern was more than she could handle. She wasn't strong enough to completely take over yet. So instead the two murderers had merged creating the monster that now stood over me. Ruhern-Kasha had been born.

But there was a problem. Sacher was coming to kill them. He wanted revenge on whoever had murdered his adopted daughter and Ruhern had already made sure Sacher knew about Kasha's death, if not who had done the deed.

Ruhern had cloned himself before. It was illegal and expensive but he had done it anyway because at the end of the day he was the only one that he trusted. And clones were useful surrogates. They allowed him to take a more hands on approach to business and could be rigged with suicide vests in case something went wrong or they got captured.

So Ruhern-Kasha had cloned themself and set a trap for the fearsome Iron Hand, a trap which I had stumbled into through sheer bad luck and coincidence.

Apparently Ruhern-Kasha had sent a thug to collect me and explain things, that was why the Möhin bruiser had been parked outside my apartment. But in my anger I had killed the messenger and the Bone Syndicate had responded without consulting Ruhern-Kasha first.

Against all odds I had survived and reactivated my Warhund tech, awakening Gershwin in the process. Ruhern-Kasha had known that Sacher would use me like a hunting dog so they had arranged our little reunion on the bridge to flush Sacher out of hiding and remove Gershwin from the board. They had ignored the remote sniping platform and waited until the human revealed his true position to strike.

"Now Sacher and Gershwin are both dead and you are at my mercy. So you see, I'm more than happy with my current situation." Ruhern smiled. "But things can always be better. Now I've got your little trick up my sleeve. Imagine how much fun I can have with that!"

I groaned as I realized the flaw in Ruhern-Kasha's plan. They were used to dealing with clones, it was different with imprints. Imprints weren't direct copies. They had agency. They didn't have to obey. "For someone so smart you really are an absolute fucking idiot." I said with a grimace. "You want this so bad but it won't work."

Ruhern-Kasha laughed in my face. "You think I'm missing something?" They asked.

"I know that you are, but that's ok I had to learn the hard way too." I tried to sit up and failed. I was still too scrambled. My motor functions were shot but at least my SOS function had managed to form a connection with the Döbian spy satellite overhead. My Warmaster subroutines were still offline but the satellite had software of its own, and right now it had something very important to tell me.

"Father didn't want us to rule the world. He just wanted us to have good lives and to be happy. He loved us too much to make us slaves, even to each other." I explained, continuing to buy time. "You won't be able to control them. They won't listen to you."

"How touching." Ruhern-Kasha replied. "I think I'll take my chances."

"So did Kasha, and look how things turned out for her." I remarked, throwing salt into the still recent wound.

"This thing inside of us is insidious. It grows slowly over time. You might identify as Ruhern now but one day you will look in the mirror and only see Kasha. All of your copies will, in time. Then it will be a rush to kill them before they kill you. And you will kill each other because each of you knows deep down that you're an envious little bitch that doesn't like to share."

Ruhern-Kasha's smile faltered as I continued. "You think that you have this all figured out because you've been walking around for what, a month? Maybe less? My imprint took years to fully integrate. You're like a pup, sure of themselves but blissfully ignorant of your own shortcomings."

Now it was my turn to laugh and even though it hurt it was so worth it to see the look on Ruhern-Kasha's face. They were less sure of themselves now. "You say you're too strong for Kasha to take over, but she has the rest of your life to finish what she started. She's going to eat away at your mind one bite at a time until the Ruhern you know is gone forever. You're a dead hund walking, no matter what you do, just like Gershwin said."

At the mention of our father's name Ruhern-Kasha sent a brutal kick to my ribs. The body armor I was wearing underneath my jumpsuit went from flexible cloth to as solid as steel in an instant. I heard the sound of toes breaking followed by a yelp of surprise and pain. They hopped around on one foot cursing angrily in Döbian.

"If there ever was a metaphor for your life dear sister, that was it." I rasped. "You haven't realized it yet but you're still doing father's dirty work. It was poetic how you killed your adoptive father. Gershwin couldn't have planned it any better if he tried."

The next kick was to my face and it hurt but I laughed it off. I needed them angry. I needed them to not be thinking straight and most importantly, I needed them focused on me so they wouldn't hear what was coming until it was too late. A countdown timer triggered in the corner of my vision. Thirty seconds to intercept.

"There's the sister I remember!" I coughed. "Do you know how I got in this body? Apparently Edel has a homicidal streak too. She sabotaged Kerner Prime's parachute. The poor fucker hit the ground at terminal velocity. Splat! Gone! Erledigt!"

"I'm Edel, you little pest, not her! I was the first!" Ruhern-Kasha shrieked as they raised their foot to stomp down on my head before suddenly stopping mid strike. Surprise registered in their eyes as they turned to face the armored personnel carrier. They could hear it now, the whine of four high powered electric motors putting out an ungodly amount of torque. Sally was on her way back and she was coming in hot.

"Too late." I said before the roar of the auto-cannon desperately trying to stop Sally's armored car drowned me out. "You lose."