Dammit, there's no time for this. Get it to work already. It seemed possible. She envisioned it like the light somehow blasting the thinnest layer of molecules from her skin to create a paper-thin replica of her, a shell or husk, stuck to reality by the force of the blast. She could see it, think it, so why was it not working?

She tried again.

She tried again.

She tried again.

She tried again.

She tried again.

And she tried a bunch more times but every time nothing happened and she only got colder and colder as more and more snow piled on top of her. This was so stupid! She was simply not a creative person. If Clair or Delaney tried, they would make it work. There was something plain wrong with Sloan's powers of conceptualization.

Feeling foolish, she brushed the snow off her shoulders and wrenched her legs out of the snow on the ground. As she took her first step away, she noticed something in the holes her boots had left. She reoriented herself, her movements stilted and awkward in the deep fall, in order to better investigate. As she turned, she immediately realized it was not simply something strange in the snow, it was something strange in the air where she had stood.

Thin, weak, and transient, but undeniably there, was a life size image of Sloan, her face grimacing with concentration, her coattails frozen mid-flap. An immediate giddiness seized her: She did it! She made it work! She span her head in search of someone at whom to exclaim her accomplishment, but of course nobody was there. It didn't matter, she did it, and it wasn't even that hard! All she needed was the idea and she could do it. Her hyperpowered Soul Gem probably facilitated the process, but whatever. The point was, she had done a thing! She had done it!

Well, wait. Done what exactly? She scrutinized the image of herself. It looked like her, sure, but it was transparent and obviously fake, the fakeness exemplified by the its frozen lack of motion. It was a facsimile of Sloan, yes, but a facsimile all but a simpleton could see as a facsimile.

She waved her hand through her mock torso. The image broke apart and faded away after only a few swipes. Quickly she created another flashbulb and inspected the new image. The same transience, the same fragility.

What use did this have? A decoy? It would take any competent human being a fraction of a second to tell the difference. She threw up her arms in frustration. Pointless! Why fucking bother!

(Chapter 22)