#38

You steps into the office, and sees Susie, Your mom, and Your dad sitting in chairs. Susie stands up and grabs Your shirt. Her face looks like hell; a scar is cut down the flesh to the side of her left eye, with some smaller ones on her cheeks and chin. Some of her hair has been burnt off. It breaks Your heart, and You realizes that You must look the same way to her.

“Get out of here,” she whispers desperately. “He's—”

“I'll take care of it,” You replies, and Your dad walks up and takes her back to her seat.

“Dad, mom. Are you okay?”

“I'm fine, You!” Your mom cries out. “But Susie's right! You—”

“Where's Earl? He's behind all this, isn't he?”

“He's behind something, You,” Your dad says. “Behind that door.” He points towards a door at the back of the office. You and Klaus run forward and open it up. It's time for the final...

...confrontation?

Susie's stepdad is in there, alright. But he's not in a position of authority. He's chained to a table, covered in burns, scars, and blood—same as You and Susie. He cranes his head upward, weakly. “You?” he moans. His eyes become distant. “Oh no, they've got You too.”

You turns around. Susie has stood up again.

“I tried to tell You,” she says. “It's...dad.”

You looks at Your father. “Dad...?”

His face is unmarked; he has not been tortured, as You has, as Susie has, as Your mom has. He is fine.

“I'm sorry, son,” he says. “I had no other option. Susie found out who I was, and began to have an inkling of what I wanted. I wish You could have come with; it would have saved You some pain and travel. I have to admit, though, I'm impressed with Your reflexes; though I did lower security to help You out.”

This doesn't make any sense. “You're E?”

“I am.”

“But...your name. Your name doesn't have any E's in it. Is it just an arbitrary assignment?”

He smiles then. “It's not arbitrary. Quite the opposite, really. Everyone in this building calls me E. It's a rather important name.”

The brief thought of what this could mean enters Your head, but it's too absurd, and it passes by without deep consideration.

“Do you give up?” he says. “Do you want to know what it stands for?” He tilts his head back. “I am the Emperor.”

The thought comes back then, like a boomerang, but You starts laughing. It's a terrible, horrible laugh, because Your dad must have gone crazy. They must have tortured him and he lost his mind. You starts crying. “Dad...I'm sorry, but that's impossible.”

“It's quite possible,” he says then. “I was inaugurated on Your ninth birthday, after the death of Norton II, our previous Emperor. I was chosen by a staff as the most likely candidate. After all, Earl and I had worked together in the government side by side for years, with he in bureaucracy, and I, serving in the Ultramarine Guard. I retired to start a family and be a simple fuel farmer, still doing my part for the Empire. The inauguration ceremony allowed me to compromise.”

“Dad,” You says swiftly. “I'm sorry, but this is all in Your head. I don't know what they did to you, but I've seen you at the house every day of my life, and unless you somehow teleport here at night and never sleep and Mom and I have never woken up on the nights you're gone, this is impossible.”

“The current project I'm working on is also impossible. Theoretically.” He begins to walk towards a door. “The inauguration ceremony was agonizing, and took a good deal of time, but it worked. And I learned how to be in two places at once.”

He opens the door, which stands opposite to the one that Earl is in now. A perfect copy of Your dad, wearing the costume, sans helmet, of an Ultramarine Guard steps out. He grins at You.

“You knows now that cloning is possible. And probably guessed the fuel can do much of anything, because it isn't from this world. Even I don't know it's fullest extent. There was a device they built in me, allowing me to control my clone remotely—and vice versa. I was completely inconspicuous, and the Emperor never makes public appearances anyway. I could work in secret, on the Ultimate Project, to work towards once again expanding the Empire.”

Your APPLE senses that he's capitalizing “Ultimate” in that last sentence. You thinks back to Lord Kletus and his Brotherhood, how they found some sort of corrupt power, something that turned them into cavemen and filled their home with ghosts.

“You's brought the Ultimate Project, or its last pieces, to me, You. Thank You. I'll take You and that component to the Engine Room, where You can make me proud as my son. However, there's something I need to do first. I have no further need for a secret identity...”

You looks at the clone in armor, who is now suddenly wielding a pistol. He's aiming it at Your dad's head.

“No...!”

But it's too late. There is a flash, and the last remnant of the man You knows as Your father burns away. Suffice to say, Your sanity goes with him, shattered at long last.