Six

8 - Parallels

"Are you alright?"

Gates nodded numbly, not quite looking Gray in the eye as she did so. "Y-Yeah. I'm fine."

The infirmary was relatively quiet, considering the circumstances. There had only been a handful of wounded, and the damage was minimal at best. Even Gates was here more as a formality than anything, suffering no more than a few cuts and scrapes to show for her presence in the now-destroyed interrogation room.

But that was a good thing- it meant they had a chance to talk.

"You sure, El?"

The former captain looked like she was about to affirm her status again- then she lost her composure, and held her face in her hands. "I j-just ... after so long, I never expected to hear his v-voice again ..." Her voice was muffled and wet, betraying her true emotions as she hid them and her tears from the lieutenant.

Gray had no experience in handling these sort of situations. There were only two times she'd seen Gates break down like this; once after the rest of the 6-4 had died, and once when Spyglass had falsely announced that Four had been killed. The woman was a statue most other times, an iron rod of sheer will and grit who defied all that dared to challenge her.

Seeing her like this only brought home the impact of just how truly disturbing their discovery had been.

"Could it be a brother?" she suggested weakly, hoping to find any other solution other than the one presented by Ava. "A relative, something like that-?"

"No," Gates interrupted, lifting her head up and wiping the corners of her eyes. "Four had no family, he told me when we first met. His mother's death was the reason he joined the IMC to begin with, and he n-never mentioned any siblings- certainly not a twin."

"And even then, the age gap ..." Gray continued the thought, trailing off as she realized the impossibility of such a scenario. "There's no way any identical twin could be that much younger, except ... maybe cryo?"

"Long-term cryo-stasis has side effects," Gates replied, shaking her head. "You heard the Ancillary, Six would have had to have been a teenager when Tobias disappeared, and it's been six years since- more than a decade in cryo would certainly lead to unknown physical or mental defects, not the kind of person you'd want carrying out sensitive stealth missions."

"Right," Gray murmured, trying to think of how else-

A thought suddenly struck her. "Hang on- you said Four's mother died?"

"Yes," Gates confirmed. "When he was seventeen, she was killed in the crossfire of a Militia attack. Left him orphaned."

"No father?"

"Never mentioned one. I assumed they walked out on him when he was young- he did grow up on Gridiron, after all."

Gray mulled that piece of information over, and came to a sudden revelation. "Six would have been just a few years old when Four's mother was killed, no more than two or three."

Gates tilted her head slightly. "Your point being?"

"Six was alive at the same time Four's mother was killed, and she wasn't the one who gave birth to him."

Her eyes widened. "Someone did clone Four- and they did it when he was still a kid."

"No one's trying to recreate the savior of the Frontier- Six was created before Four even joined the IMC, let alone became the Inferno."

"But why would anyone want to ..." Gates' mouth shut itself rather quickly as she began to understand what Gray was implying. "Oh, no. No, that can't be the reason-"