The Problem With Evil Twins is....

So I was coming back from my second date with Lt. Lambaste where I got the strangest feeling that I was just kind of there under some kind of pretense.  She was saying all the right things about being my groupie and stuff.  She batted here eyelashes.  She wore a skirt that broke my concentration at least a dozen times. She even sometimes made some of those passing remarks about being a little into women...especially if a guy was there.  Normally I wouldn't fall for that bi-for-guys crap but she was really hot.  The thing was...even in the haze of hormone carbonation she was causing in me, I got the feeling she was a lot less into things than she was saying.

Stuff just wasn't adding up.  It was one more weird thing in the seven layer dip of weird that had been covering the chips of my life all week long.  Ever since last Thursday, I've been having conversations with people that didn't make any fucking sense.  People telling me that they just talked to me a few minutes ago when I hadn't seen them all week.  People telling me they were going to do what I wanted and then talking about something I never said.  Guy Goodman St.White finally got pissed off at me for giving him mixed signals about his Cervantes article when I pretty much gave him the thumbs up from the start.

Also, it looks like someone has been checking my e-mail.  I changed my passwords and it stopped, but then I got a verification e-mail that my security questions had been used to access the new account.  So I changed the questions to things I was sure only I knew.  But the e-mail still got hacked.  So I changed the questions to things that were lies I'd just come up with on the spot.

Which is why when I got a call from the R&D department that my executive order on pLink's latest  research demands had been completed, it was the last straw.  It seems that instead of researching weapons for the war against the genocidal cephalopods, pLink has set them to creating a gun that can reveal when any wall was actually a door.  Seems that where pLink comes from there are a lot of hidden doors that require keys or bombs or musical instruments to open, but they often look like ordinary walls.  So pLink had them hard at work at a machine that makes things that aren't walls look like what they really are.  Apparently when they complained--to me--my response was to put a reversing switch on the machine.  So it could make doors or caves or anything really look like it was just a normal wall.

Well, I never said that.  Who in the name of Zues's butthole would want an illusion gun that makes doors look like walls.  How is that going to win our war???

Now, I am a lot of things, but stupid isn't until eighth or ninth on the list.

I hung up the phone and looked at Lt. Lambaste, who seemed to have developed a sudden (but slightly fake) interest in me the same week as there were multiple indications of someone masquerading as me. The same Lt. Lambaste who uses a big machine that makes clones.  I leaned forward and looked right at her.

"Let's cut the bullshit," I said.  "You know I have a girlfriend right?  You're okay with that?  I know she is."

"Of course," she said, winking and scissoring her legs.

Okay, maybe stupid should be a little higher up the list.  But I figured it out eventually.  See, later that night when we pulled into Writing About Writing's parking garage. I saw me walking towards the elevator.

I was sitting in the car...watching me walk towards the elevator.  I turned and looked at me.  My eyes narrowed.  I mean to say other me's eyes narrowed.

But then I got it.  "This is like that episode of Star Trek!"  I jumped out of the car.  "We're in a temporal loop!  You can't leave Writing About Writing.  The anomaly will destroy the whole thing and throw you back in time and we'll do the whole thing again."

"What the hell are you talking about?" he fumed.

"That episode of Star Trek..." I said.

"Yeah, I know," he said.  "I just love saying 'What the hell are you talking about' with that histrionic edge of incredulity."

"Yeah, I know," I said.  "I was actually jealous that you got to say it first."

"We should totally get brunch like Scott and Nega Scott!" he said.

"Shut. UP!" I said.  "I was just thinking the exact same thing."

"Shut.  UP!" he said.

Lt. Lambaste shook her head.  "Oh god, this is going to get so annoying."

"Hey which of us should be evil and grow the goatee?" I asked.

"I'll do that.  And I'll wear dark eye liner," he said.

"And we can occasionally argue with each other on the blog!" I said.

"This is going to be great!"