Jacob’s voice wavered -just slightly. The tiniest tremor, like a skyscraper feeling the first whisper of an earthquake. "You're here." Not a greeting. A fact he was trying to make sense of. The kind of observation you make when reality itself has decided to play a practical joke on your sanity.
In that moment, as if a certain sort of magic -a glamor- had been pierced, Jacob's perfectly tailored suit seemed to hang oddly on his frame. It was as though his body had suddenly remembered it was merely flesh and bone beneath the expensive fabric. He looked vulnerable -mortal? Of that Jack was in doubt- and subject to the same laws of cosmic uncertainty as everyone else. The carefully constructed armor of corporate invincibility was developing hairline fractures with each passing second.
Jack tilted his head, his smirk lazy and sharp. "That's right," he said. "In the flesh. Though I've got to say, your reception could use a little work. No balloons? No 'Welcome Back From Another Dimension' cake? I'm wounded."
The words carried the easy confidence of someone who had long since learned that mundane worries meant nothing in the face of cosmic horrors. Jack had long ago discovered that humor was sometimes the only sensible response to the absurd -and what could be more absurd than this reunion of identical strangers?
Jacob stared. "This is…" He shook his head, as if trying to wake from a fever dream. "Impossible. You shouldn’t be here. You can’t."
His fingers pressed against the edge of his desk, knuckles whitening as though he were attempting to anchor himself to something solid in a reality that had suddenly become fluid. The desk -three tons of rare Brazilian hardwood that had cost more than the annual salary of most of his employees- now seemed insufficient protection against the anomaly standing before him.
Jack chuckled. "A lot of things are," he said, then shrugged. "But I am here. Deal with it. I've seen creatures with sixteen eyes and teeth that can chew through reality itself. Compared to that, this little reunion is just another Tuesday."
Jacob's gaze darkened. His jaw clenched. The initial shock hardening into something closer to calculation.
It was a transformation Jack recognized -the survival instinct of a predator realizing it might not be at the top of the food chain after all. The mental recalibration from "this is impossible" to "how do I adapt to this new threat?" Jacob was a bigshot businessman, after all. A corporate tycoon. His entire existence was built on turning challenges into opportunities.
Jack let the silence stretch.
In the Otherworld, silence was often used as a weapon, a canvas upon which others would paint their worst fears. He applied that experience now, watching Jacob's mind work behind his eyes.
Then, something flickered in the air between them. A subtle shift. Barely perceptible to human senses -but Jack had left those far behind. While he may have been brought back down to mundane human -disempowerment in exchange for a new life- his baseline was orders of magnitude higher than the average man.
Jacob’s fingers twitched. The air grew thick for a moment, the lights overhead dimming by a fraction. There was a shimmer, a distortion, like heat off pavement -but colder, stranger. A ripple of Fae'Ri power trying to claw its way into the room, to assert itself.
And then it fizzled. Pathetically.
The energy collapsed in on itself like a miscast spell in Ultima Online, sputtering with a hiss of wasted potential. Jack almost pitied it.
Jack's eyes narrowed. He recognized the attempt for what it was. A reach for power. For control. For validation.
Of course.
Jacob was a changeling afterall. A Fae'Ri replacement. His doppelganger. A puppet installed to fill the void of his absence. To become him -as if he’d never left. There had always been stories in the Otherworld -of stolen lives, of fae-born shadows cast into mortal molds. Now he was looking at one. Looking at himself, twisted by ambition and enchantment and time.
His smile deepened.
"Oh, now that's not very nice," Jack said, voice smooth and amused. "I mean, a part of me was concerned. 'Maybe he still has power. Maybe I'm the only one without it, now that I've returned to Earth.'"
He leaned back, savoring the moment like a well-earned drink.
"But I've tested the waters, thoroughly. And I'm glad to see that you have no juice either."
Or at least, he thought, nothing that can affect me.
“Why are you here?” Jacob practically growled.
Jack shrugged. “This is my home.” There was a lie in the words, but Jack was nothing if not persuasive.
Then, finally, Jack smiled, slow and deliberate. "And I'd like my old life back."
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The words fell between them like wishing stones into well water, each ripple carrying implications that threatened to drown the carefully constructed reality Jacob had built in Jack's absence.
Jacob visibly flinched. A slow shake of the head.
Denial. The first stage of grief for a life about to be upended.
His composure -that carefully constructed facade of corporate imperviousness- cracked ever so slightly.
Jack saw the panic creeping in.
The fear tasted metallic in the air between them. Not the simple fear of a man confronting an unexpected rival, but something deeper -the existential dread of someone who suddenly questions the authenticity of their own existence. Jacob had spent years becoming "Jack Emrys Summerlee," and now the original template stood before him, calling into question everything he had built.
∞
The argument had started almost immediately. They railed against each other, verbal blows landing like well-placed strikes in a duel. Two master swordsmen testing defenses, probing for weakness.
The room, designed for corporate diplomacy, now contained a conflict for which there was no precedent, no protocol. The temperature seemed to fluctuate with each exchange, the very air growing heavy with unspoken threats and half-worded accusations.
Jacob, ever the corporate tactician, defended his empire, his choices, his life. He listed every milestone, every deal, every sacrifice that had led to his rise. A resume of ruthless ambition recited like a warrior's battle hymn.
How he had built all this from the ground up. How he had earned it. How Jack had no right to walk in after all these years and act as if he could just -reclaim it. As if ownership was a light switch you could flip back on after years of darkness.
His words carried the weight of someone who had transformed themselves through sheer force of will, who had erased every trace of weakness and uncertainty to become something formidable. In his mind, he hadn't stolen a life -he had forged one from the raw materials of opportunity and determination.
Jack, ever the contrarian, countered with a cold, undeniable fact: "I am you."
Three words that hung in the air, both simple and impossibly complex. A statement of fact that transcended legal arguments and ethical considerations, that cut through the elaborate constructs of identity and ownership down to the bone truth of biological reality.
A simple DNA test would prove it. Legally. Genetically. He wasn't some fraud, some conman trying to worm his way into the billionaire's seat. He was the original template. The source code. The genuine article that had somehow been copied and pasted into this reality.
His parents had been completely taken in by the novelty of DNA and lineage tests. Learn your ancestry! Are you royalty? Find out now! And they had run the tests on each of their children.
As a matter of fact, it turned out that Jack’s family lineage was indeed special. Something to do with the blood of royals and chieftains. And that blood had carried him far in the Otherworld.
And so they argued. Loud. Heated. Two versions of the same man, each convinced of their own legitimacy.
Their voices echoed off the walls of the office, each word carrying undertones of deeper, more primal disputes -about identity, about authenticity, about the very nature of self. What makes a person who they are? Their memories? Their choices? Their genetic code? The fundamental questions of existence, distilled into a confrontation between identical strangers.
It had only calmed when the drinks arrived. And the food.
The tension had reached such heights that it could only be diffused by the ancient ritual of breaking bread -or in this case, consuming absurdly expensive cuisine in an uneasy truce.
A carefully curated spread -steak, sushi, artisanal dishes Jack barely recognized. The kind of meal that cost more than most people's monthly rent. Expensive. Meticulously presented. Calculated. Just like Jacob.
Each dish was a testament to privilege, to the kind of wealth that separated Jacob from the common masses he employed. The culinary equivalent of a peacock's display -elaborate, impressive, but fundamentally about power rather than pleasure.
It wasn't the meal of a man who ate because he enjoyed it. It was the meal of a man who ate to maintain control. Who viewed nutrition as just another strategic resource to be optimized.
Jacob's approach to food told Jack everything he needed to know about how his counterpart approached life itself.
And somewhere between the whiskey and the third round of biting remarks, they reached a compromise.
Jacob, ever the skilled negotiator, finally leaned back against the plush couch, the tension easing from his shoulders like a snake shedding its skin.
The movement was practiced, deliberate -the physical manifestation of a conversational pivot. The body language equivalent of changing the subject to more favorable territory. He'd probably used the same technique in a thousand boardrooms, with a thousand opponents who believed themselves his equal.
And it had worked, until now.
Jack mirrored him. A deliberate choice. The predator matching postures.
There was an odd sense of symmetry between them now -two sides of the same coin, two lives that had split at a crossroads neither of them had chosen. Like a cosmic science experiment: "What happens when you take identical DNA and expose it to radically different environments?"
The universe had answered with Jacob and Jack -nature's constants placed in variable circumstances, producing results that defied simple categorization. Neither better nor worse, simply different iterations of the same fundamental pattern.
Jacob had loosened up -his business jacket discarded, tie undone, the top few buttons of his pristine white dress shirt unfastened. There was a practiced quality to his relaxation, as though even his moments of casual repose had been studied and optimized. The perfect amount of dishevelment to appear human while maintaining an aura of authority. Even in apparent vulnerability, Jacob maintained control.
Jack, by contrast, was effortlessly at ease. Combat boots propped up on the edge of the coffee table, a faded Nine Inch Nails t-shirt hanging loosely over his frame, jeans worn and rugged. Trent Reznor's striking poetry an appropriate soundtrack for a man who'd walked through hell and come back fundamentally changed.
His comfort was authentic, earned through years of adapting to environments where pretense was not merely ineffective but often fatal. In the Otherworld, artifice was sensed like a scent by predators who fed on deception. Jack had learned to be genuinely what he appeared to be, to inhabit his skin completely -a skill that made him both more honest and more dangerous than his counterpart.
If Jacob was polished dominance, then Jack was calculated defiance.
Two expressions of power -one built on hierarchy and control, the other on survival and adaptation. One refined through boardroom battles, the other forged in conflicts where losing meant more than bankruptcy.
And yet, despite their differences, they had come to an agreement. Like matter and antimatter finding a way to coexist without obliterating each other.
The compromise existed in a delicate balance of mutual self-interest. Neither fully trusting, each sensing that this accord was likely temporary, a waypoint rather than a final destination.
Jacob exhaled, swirling the amber liquid in his glass before speaking. "Here's what we'll do."
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