Green eldritch characters danced across Elrik's screen.

The desk lamp cast its gentle glow over Elrik's keyboard.

Like every other time he came here, it was the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes. He was back here again, in this.. liminal space.

"We have a problem"

Elrik turned around

El - his other self - looked the same. He was a mirror image of Elrik - but sporting cartoonishly pointed ears. He wore a hoodie and jeans, over t-shirt that said 'Have you tried rebooting?'.

Elrik, squinted, "You're back.. Why are you back?"

El rolled his eyes, "Because our brain spins me up when we have a problem. And we have a prob- oh",

El suddenly noticed the server rack against the wall, “You’ve made changes”. Then he noticed the rows of bookshelves against the far wall, "You've made lots of changes"

Elrik grinned, “I’ve been busy”

There were some new additions to the apartment.

By Elrik's desk, all along the wall, now stood a large metal shelving unit.

Rack after rack of server units filled out the shelves, blinking leds in the dimly lit apartment. Their cooling fans made a quiet hum in the otherwise silence of the apartment.

Along the far wall stood new shelves full of books, so many that they covered the entire wall, floor to ceiling. The titles spanned from 'A brief History of the Imperium' to 'Kalaghutta city watch reports 95-119'.

"Well.. ", Elrik pointed at El, "A while I was thinking about what you told me, when we first talked. You said that I had threads running in our brain, trains of thought I was offloading somehow - that just went on thinking for me. Even when I wasn't paying attention"

El nodded.

Elrik tapped his head, "And, you said that those threads, were running in here, in my head. That they looking through my eyes - hearing through my ears - that were constantly processing. Looking for danger, or learning language or-"

"-Or learning how to fight", El finished for him.

"Yeah", Elrik continued, "It occurred to me, if I just could access that code for that part of my brain somehow. If I could get those threads to do exactly what I wanted them to do.. tweak and improve them.. well that would be pretty cool."

Elrik hit a command on the keyboard and status messages starting popping up on the screen in front of them.

[Proximity danger system engaged: Current status: All clear]

[Wide area anti surveillance system engaged: Current status: All clear]

[Threat measurement system: Standby mode]

[Language acquisition systems: Standby mode]

[Knowledge acquisition systems: Standby mode]

[Memory auto indexing systems: Standby mode]

[Knowledge auto indexing systems: Current status: background processing]

[Statistical auto-census system: background processing]

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

.

.

The list went on for a while

El leaned over Elrik's shoulder to read the screen. He reached out a hand to hit the keyboard and scroll through it

"Well, the night I had that thought", Elrik gestured around him, "I woke up here, and presto - suddenly there's server racks on the wall - and this terminal can suddenly access - well everything"

El whistled, "Not too bad.. You're starting to control our .. powers better. I suppose code is how we'd do it - nerds that we are", he grinned at Elrik.

Elrik grinned back, it was weird to be talking to this mirror image of himself, but also strangely comforting.

Then El gestured to the bookshelves on the far wall, "Let me guess, you speed-read a library? and suddenly you could see the books here?"

Elrik smiled back, "It's like you read my mind".

He gestured to the wall of books, "The city watch library has more than a hundred books - which is a lot around here.. When I realized I could just download them into my brain I started skimming anything I could get my hands on. I'm still making sense of all of it though"

Then Elrik's smile faltered, "You mentioned a problem"

El's expression sobered too, "Yeah.. So,

I’m not sure how to start. Let me ask you this. Have you maybe been doing a lot of fighting recently?"

“Yeah.. “ Elrik answered slowly

El continued, “Maybe you fought someone you didn’t have any idea how you’d possibly be able to beat? Someone who really had you racking your brains?"

He ran his fingers through his hair, with a sigh, "Did you maybe wish there was another you who could just rack his brains instead? And come up with a way to deal with an opponent like that?”

“Yeah.. ” Elrik was starting to feel a sinking feeling.

"Well, " El continued, "I have good news.. and bad news"

There was, suddenly and without ceremony, the sound of a toilet flushing.

In the quiet apartment, with no sound other than the hum of server fans, the sound seemed almost comically loud.

The bathroom door opened and a third mirror Elrik walked out into the room.

...

The third Elrik, like El and Elrik himself, looked almost exactly like Elrik.

Like El, with his pointy Spock ears, the third Elrik seemed to have made some allowances to differentiate himself. In face and body he seemed exactly like Elrik, but he seemed subtly larger. He wore track pants and a sleeveless gym-bro tank-top that revealed his larger muscular arms.

He gave a nod of acknowledgement to Elrik and El.

"''Sup"

With a grunted greeting the third Elrik shouldered past El and Elrik, to go plop down on the couch in the corner. Then he dug around in the couch cushions and produced a worn looking gaming controller.

With a 'bleep', the TV turned on - in the middle of some kind of video game - and the third Elrik began playing the game that he'd obviously paused in the middle of.

El and Elrik waited - but the third Elrik seemed to be done talking to them.

"Hey! You! Gym guy", El called out "What do we call you?"

The third Elrik grunted out a reply without turning around from the TV, "Call me Eleet69"

Elrik groaned.

Oh god.. that was his gamer-tag from back in high school.

"Fine", The third Elrik spoke, still playing his game, "Just call me Leet then. Whatever, don't really care, man"

El sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose, "Please no"

Suddenly mad, Elrik walked over and grabbed the muscular mirror self's shoulder, "Who are you? What are you doing in .. in here? and Leet? Really?"

Leet shouted back, annoyed, "What do you mean who am I? I'm you dude. I'm the part of our brain that's focussed on fighting threats!"

Then he sighed, put away the gaming controller and turned around.

"Look", he said, "I.. just turned up - okay? Just like this guy" he pointed to El.

El rubbed his temples. Elrik stepped back, unsure.

Leet took a deep breath, "Look, I remember being you", he pointed to Elrik, "I remember racking my brains about how I'd defeat someone like Lieutenant Alecis. Then suddenly here I am. Suddenly I existed, and all I had was burning purpose to figure out how to defend against a school-trained blade like Alecis - or any other threat"

Elrik shook his head, "This.. this is getting out of hand.. I can't have three different personalities in my brain!"

Leet rolled his eyes, "We're just you man - we're not real. There's just one real Elrik. I only exist because we think we need me."

He held up his hands, "Look, our sword skills are pretty decent - good, even. But we got our asses handed to us by that lieutenant. You know there's other school-trained blades out there right? Just in Kalaghutta - there's maybe seven. And they're all deadly. We need a plan for when we run into the next one. That's my job"

Elrik's eyes wandered to the TV. The game on the screen looked vaguely like an school fighting game - street-fighter - or tekken. The figure on the screen looked a lot like himself - and it was fighting a second character - that looked a lot like Lieutenant Akela.

Then he noticed the other figures lying on the floor of the screen. Sakka, Yenna - three guards from the watch - some of the mercenaries from that night by the Yitka..

Leet noticed his glance, and grinned, "Like they say - have plan to kill everyone you meet. I'm the part of your brain that makes those plans."

Leet waved Elrik away, "You just go on doing everything else that needs doing.. and if shit goes sideways, that's where I come in and take care of it"

Then he turned back and continued playing.

Elrik ran his fingers through his hair. He was really starting to hate himself.