“You said this would be easy!!” Lucy huffed.

“Yeah!” Alex puffed.

“I thought it would be!” Eirik said in defense, also out of breath. Ryan, Hogan, Ben, Danielle, and Adam were all running madly with them down the narrow path through the woods behind the Penitentiary of California at Santa Cruz. These people were all out of breath too, except for Adam, the android. Occasionally, the sound of howling could be heard behind them.

“I don’t see why we’re running!” Hogan called from the back of the line. “The eight of us could easily take on a few werewolves!”

“Thirty werewolves are not a few, Hogan!” Danielle called back. A shadow darted past them somewhere off the path.

“I apologize, I had not realized that the infestation was so pronounce already!” Adam said. “My information puts the first werewolf here only two months ago! I was only thinking that that there would be ten werewolves or so.”

“We’re not blaming you Adam. It’s Eirik who thought this would be easy!!” Lucy yelled. Another wolf howled.

The group emerged presently from the woods into the moon lit meadow of upper campus. In another world, the world most of this group came from, there would be a drumming circle going on right here.

But in this reality, there was only a group of werewolves charging after these eight 18-20 year olds, who were all holding odd, futuristic guns.

A werewolf leapt and Alex fired his gun. The bolt of phased energy collided with the creature in mid-air, and it fell to the ground yelping. Another werewolf trotted to its side and, looked up at the group and growled.

“Remember, we can’t kill them, even if they are prisoners 27 and a half days a lunar cycle!” Adam called while firing at the ground in front of a few approaching werewolves. They stopped advancing, as did the rest of the monsters. But they were still too close for comfort.

“Okay, we went off to get rid of a group of deadly monsters that we’re not allowed to fight?” Alex asked. “What were we going to do to them?” Alex turns and notices Lucy and Danielle on either side of him, looking at him with wide glassy eyes, while their guns were still trained at the wolves. “What?”

“We love hearing you talk!” The girls said in unison. Alex shook his head.

“What were we going to do? Damn, don’t any of you guys remember the plan?” Adam said, disgusted.

“No,” Several of them said in unison. “You never told us of any plan.”

“Oh…” Adam sighed. He turned and fired at a daring werewolf. The pack was starting to gather together for one group lunge. “Well wait! I know I gave Hogan that solar bomb!”

The red haired Ryan blinked a few times. “Oh! Right!” he reached into the inside pocket of his heavy jacket. He drew out a round orb. It was white, with gray lines encircling it that looked like vines. Hogan pressed a small button on the device and hurled it at the pack of werewolves.

The device hit the ground and burst, the entire device turning to dust as a bright flash of light that illuminated the entire meadow. The werewolves collapsed to the ground, yelping and howling in pain, trying to hide their eyes with their paws.

“That is sooooo cool! I want one!” Ben cheers.

“Quit drooling and get moving!” Danielle said, grabbing Ben by the shirt collar and dragging him back down the path with the others. She let go of Ben as the group entered the large firebreak through the woods back towards the main campus.

The seven college students soon met up with Adam who had run off ahead of them. He stood at the edge of the woods and was signaling them.

“Ryan! Cut through here!” the android called. Ryan nodded and pulled out his phase dagger as he ran. He could tell that a few werewolves were following the group since Adam was drawing his dagger and his phase blaster.

The dagger ignited in hid hand as he halted his run and slashed through the air. Not knowing how close the wolves were he didn’t bother to make an accurate doorway cut. Instead, Ryan slashed once in a large circle, using his ability to see the edge to know when he had made a complete cut in space.

“Okay, everyone jump through! I made it as large as I could!” He called back to the others before leaping through the doorway into his own world. The others soon followed after him.

Hogan and Lucy took up the rear of the line. He quickened his pace and did a dive through where he guessed the doorway would be.

“Lucy’s right behind me!” Hogan called as he landed on the ground in UCSC. As soon as he said that, Ryan could see the Lucy begin to appear in the red ring hanging in the air. She looked like a ghost.

“Close it!” Ben yelled and Ryan obliged. He released his grip on the dagger, giving the mental command to turn it off and the blade, as well as the doorway, vanished.

Lucy landed on the ground, stumbling a minute.

“Ow… shhhhhhh, I think I hurt my ankle,” she said, her face contorting in pain.

Hogan and Alex walked up to her side and helped her up. She smiled and thanked them, and the three of them headed off down the hill towards McLaughlin Street as they made their way back to Cowell College.

Lucy landed on the ground, stumbling a minute.

“Ow… shhhhhh, I think I hurt my ankle,” she said, her face contorting in pain.

She looked up and realized that the others weren’t there, so she stood up and hobbled out into the parking lot near the firestation, hoping she could catch up with them. But they were no where to be seen.

“Damn them not waiting for me!” She put some more weight on her leg and it did not hurt as bad, so she decided she would hurry down the hill and meet the others back at Cowell.

As she began hurrying down the hill, she neglected to look behind her… where Adam was still fighting off the werewolves…

As Lucy got back to Cowell, she decided that she would just go back up to her room and drop off the ugly jacket and gun before meeting up with the others. She took a deep breath and fixed an errant lock of blonde hair out of her face before she made her way up the fire-escape.

She did not notice that part of the top of Beard building was missing, or that the door at the top was different. She would have if the door had not been open and she had needed to use her keys. For the door up there had no lock that she could have opened.

When she got to her door, she discovered that there was no lock on it, and was very confused. There was a small electronic light above the handle, but nothing else.

“What the heck happened to the door lock?”

“What are you doing out of your cell?”

Lucy spun around to come face to face with the long pony-tailed, bearded, cybernetically enhanced form of Blade, the Cowell night proctor.

“Woah! I was wondering what happened to you.”

“Produce your identification card at once.”

“What? This is really weird,” she said as she pulled out her student id and held it in front of her.

“That is not a proper PCSC identification card, please produce proper card or I will be forced to take you in…” Blade held up his robot arm and the fingers at the end sparked due to the built in stun gun feature of his index and middle fingers.

“PCSC? Oh no! I didn’t get sent back with the others!!” Lucy gasped. Her mind raced with thoughts of what she could possibly do now. But she had to cut her mental race short as Blade began approaching her quickly, asking her to produce her card or to be taken into custody.

“I… don’t think so!” she said, turning around and bolting it out of the still open door and down the fire escape.

A barrage of energy bullets began flying through the railings and cement steps behind her as Blade tried to halt her escape.

“Oh fuck this!” She yelled as she cleared the last short flight of steps and ran towards the Beard building. Blade leapt off of the stairwell and landed a few feet behind her, and continued the pursuit. Before she could get away, he tackled her, knocking Lucy to the ground.

“I am not liking this!” she yelled. Blade put his pinky against her neck and she noticed a slight pain for a second.

“Genetic sample tests positive. Subject is inmate P-----, transfer prisoner from private rehabilitation facility in Massachusetts two months ago on grounds of her needing special treatment for her condition that PC Santa Cruz’s location would be prime for…”

“I… have… no idea… what you are talking about!”

Suddenly, Lucy realized that she was still carrying the phase blaster Adam has issued her a few hours ago. She drew it from the holster at her waist, aimed it as best she could, and fired a shot into the left side of Blade’s chest. The shot knocked him off, and she managed to get up and run away.

The cyborg took the hit, and then dusted off his shirt.

“Damn! Somebody built you good!” she yelled, noticing him beginning to follow her again without any sign of having been attacked. She ran up the steps in front of Beard cellblock, and flung open the door. Lucy shot her pursuer a glance, and noticed him stop moving the second she crossed the threshold of Beard. She didn’t care much, but ran down the hall towards the room that Adam occupied in this reality.

“How is your ankle?” Danielle asked as the group entered Ryan and Eirik’s room. They sat Lucy down on the bed as Ryan got out his first aid kit.

“It’s not too bad, but it does still hurt. Ryan, you don’t have to do this.”

“Of course I do, not sit still while I find the ace bandages.” Ryan zipped open the kit and began searching. “Bandage box… matches… dehydrated crutches… small vile with the cure for the common cold… tongue depressors… ah, here we go!”

Ryan hands Lucy the bandage and she begins to wrap up her ankle with it.

“Lucy, what happened?” Alex asked, sitting up slightly from his position lying down on Ryan’s bed.

“I don’t really know, I was coming through the arch and then there was this flash of red light. I felt a little nauseous, and dizzy, and then I fell and hit the ground here. Is that what usually happens?”

“Not to me it hasn’t…” Ryan replied. Eirik agreed. “But it certainly doesn’t sound like a good thing!”

“Lucy?”

The tall girl was sitting curled up in front of Adam’s door, her head resting on her drawn up knees, her phase gun clutched tightly in one hand as both arms hugged her legs. She looked up.

“Adam!” She stood up quickly to face the robot. His gray eyes, and his even grayer clothes had amazed Lucy earlier, and they still did now. Although his clothes were covered heavily in dirt, and were badly cut up. “Where have you been?”

“Fighting off werewolves so you guys could get back to your world. Why aren’t you there now?”

“I don’t know. Somehow I guess I didn’t make it through the arch. Can you cut me a new one so I can go back?”

Adam nodded, then reached into his pocket for his phase dagger. He suddenly stopped as his eyes widened. “I’m sorry Lucy, but I dropped the dagger back in the fight! It is still up there in the woods.”

“Can we go and get it??” Lucy asked, bouncing a little, so glad that she would finally be getting out of this world.

“Are you crazy? There are thirty pissed off werewolves up there!! I’m not going back out there for anything!”

“But how am I going to get back! I need to go back! Blade is out there trying to bring me in for questioning! Did you know he’s a cyborg?”

“Yes.”

“Then get me out of here!!”

“Listen, Lucy, I am sorry, but I just can’t do that right now! I have only two working phase daggers, and Ryan has the only other one currently available.”

“Then call him up on the phone like you did last time!”

“I can’t. The line’s fried. I was going to call you guys today, the hook-up system went haywire and melted.” Adam walked up to the door and put out his palm. The little red light flashed on and off a few times before he grabbed the handle and opened the door.

“Damn.” She followed him in and paced around the room a little. “So what am I going to do?”

“Well, your friends should realize you’re gone and will cut through to find you.”

“Well, they haven’t yet!”

“Okay, listen, if it will make you happy, if no one cuts through for you by tomorrow, we will go get the phase dagger back and I will send you back through. Okay?”

“I’ll need somewhere to crash tonight.”

“You can stay on that bunk if you like.” Adam pointed at the bunk that was in the same place as Ryan’s bed in he other reality. Lucy flopped on it.

“Damn this thing is uncomfortable!”

“It’s a prison bed, what did you expect?” Adam said, changing shirts.

Lucy felt really uncomfortable in the heavy jacket, but knew it was necessary to keep her from mutating in a reality different from her own. Lying on the bed, a thought came back to her.

“Adam, why wouldn’t Blade follow me into this building? And why has the roof partially collapsed on the fourth floor?”

“Oh, the roof is a result of an explosion caused by an experiment of my inventors. It was an early attempt of his to build a doorway into another reality so he could try to send the demons back to the space between realities. Unfortunately, he was killed in the experiment. And he let in a pretty powerful demon into our world. Although the demon escaped the building and flew off, people felt his ghost was still in the building, and that other demons could still be here, so no one ever goes in here.”

“Weird. Even though no one has any evidence that there are actual ghosts in here?”

“What do you mean? There are ghosts here. Daryl. He’s up on the third floor.”

“What?” Lucy bolted upright.

“Yeah,” Adam laughed. I gave him that whole floor if he agreed to occasionally help me out by terrorizing guards who came by. Poltergeists have this remarkable gift for interfering with proctors cybernetic implants!”

“Weird,” Lucy said before letting out a big yawn.

“Hmm, looks like you could use some sleep. Why don’t you go get some sleep while I finish up my report, and try to figure out some more info on these werewolves…”

Lucy tried to remember what Blade had mentioned about werewolves earlier. But she was half asleep already, and could not get the words out.

Adam’s form was completely motionless, lying in his back on his bunk. His left arm had a panel open, with wires from it connecting to his computer station. His eyes were shut. If someone had not known he was a robot, they could have sworn he was dead.

The monitor beeped and chimed, a message flashed informing anyone who cared to read it that said the nano-repair process and the energy cell replenishment process were both complete. The beeping stopped, and Adam opened his eyes.

He sat up after disconnecting his arm wires. The room was surprisingly not silent, as it usually was after his repair cycle. His robotic eyes moved to where Lucy sat, on the floor next to the bed she had slept in. Her hair was a mess, her cheek was still covered in dirt, and that one lock of hair had fallen back out of place.

The television monitor was on, and Lucy was sitting cross-legged on the floor with a pile of pieces all around her. She was hunched over and tinkering with some of the parts.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m watching the Senator Cleo trials on C-Span. She’s a Congresswoman here?”

“Yes, elected because of the mage empowerment act, one of the nations acts of token friendship to mages living in the country. However, it recently came out that she has no magical powers at all.”

“Weird,” Lucy said, smiling and looking back up at the screen for a minute. She got bored again quickly and began to work on installing some computer chips into the metal casing of the device.

“What are you doing with my box of random broken parts?”

“Fixing them… and building a robot.”

“How the hell could you build a robot!?!” Adam said in amazement. He swung out his legs so he could sit on the side of the bed before leaning over to get a better look at her work. “That is remarkable. You seem to have quite the knack for that!”

“It just… sorta came to me… like I always knew this glowy energy thing went into this metal disk thing that fit inside this hollow drum shaped body.”

“Amazing… Although I am sorry to inform you that it won’t work! The motor servos are all fried, and there is no power source.”

Lucy looked up at him and smiled. She grabbed a few pieces that looked like they were a head and attached it to the partially finished body, which she closed up. But there was still a round slot in its back open. Lucy grabbed up a phase dagger that had a cracked casing, and whose blade would not ignite, and jabbed it into the slot.

Suddenly, the little mechanism began to light up in places. Its eyelids opened and the sockets themselves were glowing a little. Its arms began to move about. Lucy twisted the dagger handle slightly and it fell still again.

Adam blinked a few times, then applauded Lucy’s work.

“Ugh, I hate writing papers!” Ryan sighed as Eirik walked into their room.

“I know! I’m going to sleep though. After battling werewolves till eleven at night then writing until four a.m, I am extremely tired!”

Eirik flopped down on his bed right as there was a knock on the door. Ryan got up and answered it. Ben walked in.

“Hey guys, whatcha up to?”

“Sleeping,” Eirik said, pulling his marshmallow like comforter over himself.

“Working on a paper,” Ryan sighed again, dropping his head and shaking it a little.

“Ah. Well, I came by to ask you, can I borrow that phase dagger or yours? I know that I can’t use it, but I was thinking, maybe it is malfunctioning, and that is why Lucy had that weird experience when she came through last night.”

Ryan turned and looked and Ben, then nodded. “Sounds like a good enough idea to me. I’ll get it.” Ryan got up out of his seat and pulled the dagger out of the drawer under his bed where his jacket and gun were kept.

“I hope you can fix it Ben, I would hate for this to keep happening!” Eirik said, covering his eyes with his arm.

“I hope so to. But if its not broken, I have no idea what could have happened.”

“I stand by my claim that I am a mage in all respects of the word… and I shall continue to work hard to the best of my ability as a leader and a shaman!” Senator Cleo was still defending herself.

Lucy shook her head and looked back down from the television set. The mess of robot parts wasn’t making too much progress. She was stuck.

“All I could really figure out was what I showed Adam… I have no idea what else I can do… Dammit, and having a robot of my own would be soooo cool!”

The door lock buzzed for a moment and then the door opened. Adam walked in smiling and brandishing the phase dagger he had lost.

“Alright! I can go home now! And give them all an earful about not coming and getting me!”

Adam closed the door, and then looked at her again. “About that Lucy… could you tell me what happened when you went through, or thought you went through the arch?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I know I saw you a split second before you entered the arch, and you couldn’t have missed it the way you were jumping. Did you feel anything?”

“Actually… now that you mention it… yeah!” Lucy said, tilting her head to one side and furrowing her eyebrows. “I thought I was going through the arch and then there was this flash of red light. I felt a little nauseous, and dizzy, and then I fell and hit the ground here. I just thought it was vertigo or adrenaline, or something, and because I fell, and then noticed the others weren’t there, I didn’t give it much thought.”

Adam’s face sunk, and almost looked like it got paler, which was hard since his skin was always pale.

“Uh oh, that’s not a good face.”

“You’re right. Come on, you can take the box of parts with you. We need to get you back now, and see if I am correct in this theory.”

“What theory?” Lucy asked, collecting the parts into the box they came out of and standing up.

But Adam didn’t respond. He had already ignited the phase dagger and had cut a line across the bottom of the ground and was now making an incision up into the air.

In his room, Ryan was banging his head against his desk.

“Stupid, stupid essay topic… makes… no sense! But… must… find… another… supporting paragraph!”

Ryan stopped suddenly and titled his head to the side. Eirik, who was sitting on his bed now, reading a book, looked up at Ryan.

“What’s wrong Ryan, you’ve got the weirdest look on your face.”

“Either the repetitive banging of my head is making me see things, or Adam is cutting through again!”

“What?” Eirik said, standing up. It was unmistakable now; Ryan could make out the distinct red line of a doorway appear in the middle of the room.

A moment later Adam stepped through, followed by Lucy carrying a box filled with machine parts.

“Lucy? When did you go back to PCSC? And why did you?”

“Go back? I never left Eirik! You guys left me there!”

“What are you talking about? You came through with us and hurt your ankle. We came back here and I gave you that ace bandage!”

“You did not! I didn’t hurt my ankle that badly and went back to my room, which wasn’t my room, and got attacked by Blade the cyborg!”

“No, no, no, no, no!” Eirik reiterated. “Ryan is right, you came back through with us, it must have been some sort of dream!”

It was at this time that the door opened, since Ryan had the doorstop in.

“Hey guys! Look whose back it’s…”

Ryan, Eirik, and Lucy all turned around and gasped in unison.

“LUCY!”

“This is so weird, so very weird,” Danielle said as she looked over from her seat on Eirik’s bed, towards Ryan’s bed where there sat two Lucys. Alex nodded from his place next to her. “Adam, please explain why this happened?”

“It is actually not that complicated. You closed the arch when Lucy was still moving through the doorway. Consider these two scenarios. If Lucy is three/fourths of the way through the archway into this world, she will arrive safely in this world. However, if she is only a quarter of the way into this world, then she will remain unharmed in PCSC. So then, what do you think would happen if she was half way through?”

“That?” Alex said, pointing at the twins.

“So, which one is the real Lucy?” Hogan asked.

“They both are?”

“Wait, how is that possible?” Alex added.

“Yeah!” Ben adds, “There used to be one of them, now there are two, one of them has to be the real one, and the other a copy!”

“No they don’t have to be,” Adam said, pointing at Ben with his index finger. “Think about amoebas. When they divide into two amoebas, each one is identical to the original in every way. They are not clones, unless you want to consider both of them to be clones of the original. The best definition would be, she became twined.”

“Cool! I’ve always wanted to have a twin!” They both said in unison. “Jinx!”

“This is soooo weird!” Ryan, Eirik, Hogan, Ben, and Danielle all said.

“I’m going to the bathroom so I can clean up a little. I am such a mess,” the Lucy who had landed in PCSC said, before getting up and walking out of the room.

“How am I going to explain this to student housing? I bet we both have an id card, how are we going to work out meals?”

“Hey, what is everyone up to today?”

Everyone looked up and groaned. Robb had just walked into the room.

“I was wondering, does anyone want to go to lunch with me?”

“We’ve already all eaten.”

“Oh, well fine then.” His bottom lip extended until it looked three times its normal size. “Fine!” He huffed out of the room.

“I’m going to go use the bathroom too,” the Lucy who fell into UCSC said. As she walked out, the other Lucy walked back in, taking UCSC Lucy’s seat.

Robb walked back in.

“Did I leave my cell phone in here?”

“I don’t think you had your cell phone in here Robb,” Danielle said back.

“Wait… Lucy? Weren’t you in different clothes a minute ago?” Robb asked, scratching his head.

“No Robb, I’ve been wearing these clothes for a while.”

“Oh…” Robb scratched his head again, and walked back out, and off to lunch.

As soon as he left, Lucy walked back in. She stopped, shifted her weight a little, and pointed at the door.

“Did Robb just come back in here?” she asked.

“Yeah, and he asked if I had changed clothes in those few seconds he was gone,” the twin answered.

“You know… this could get fun!” They both laughed at once.

“You know… this could get confusing!” Alex said.

“He’s right. We need some way of telling the two of you apart,” Hogan said, placing his fist in front of his mouth for a minute.

“We could call one of us LC, Elsie, like our sister calls us.”

“Yeah, I guess I’ll be Elsie,” said the one from PCSC.

The door to Morrison 407 opened; the two Lucys walked in.

“Oh hey Lucy…. And Lucy?” Jen said, looking up from her book in shock. “What is happening here?”

“Um, we’re going to be having another roommate for a while,” Lucy said.

“I don’t get it, you never told me you had a twin!”

“Well, I didn’t,” Elsie said, “Until last night…”

“Hey, I got a question, how are we going to decide who sleeps where?” Lucy says, turning to her doppelganger.

“Take turns?” Elsie offered. Lucy nodded. “May I have it since last night I slept on a metal prison cot?” Lucy smiled and nodded again.

“This is way too weird. Maybe I shouldn’t have poured so much whip cream into my mouth at once!”

“So what’s in the box ‘sis!” Lucy laughed.

“Oh, a robot I started building this morning in Adam’s room…”

“A robot!!! How cool is that!” Lucy sat down quickly and began sorting through the box of stuff. “This is amazing!! It is almost like the stuff is just falling into place in here!”

“I know! But I can’t figure out for the life of me what I can use to make the legs work, or what to use for his neural net.”

“Oh, here, we can use this! It will need a little reworking, but we can piece together this wire mesh frame to conduct stuff through these circuit boards and these little gem like things…”

“You are so right! Geeze, you are so smart Lucy!”

“Why thanks Elsie! But keep in mind that you have to be just as smart too!”

“Werewolves?? Now that’s fitting!” Ben groaned as he read the Talisman card.

“Oh boy, the game is imitating life, now that is creepy!” Eirik laughed.

“And… I lost to it… crap!”

“Oh good, my turn!” Robb cheered, picking up the dice. “Two! Okay, where can I go… hm, the graveyard, or to the chapel… graveyard or chapel.”

“Robb, you’re a character of good alignment, the graveyard will kill you, the chapel will heal you fully….” Eirik informed him. “No, that’s the graveyard… no, that’s the portal of power… no that’s the graveyard again…. Robb!”

“WHAT?”

“That would be the radzone on the timescape board!” Ben laughed.

“Oh, and I can’t go there?”

“No!” They all yelled.

“Well excuse me for my bad eyesight!” And with that, Robb got up in a huff and left the room after putting his cards on his space and putting his character card away.

“My turn, is it?” Elsie said. She rolled the dice and moved around the board. When she was done, she covered herself in Eirik’s comforter, murmuring her joy at being a Marshmallow again. Lucy walked in then, and sat in Ryan’s chair.

Robb wandered back in. Ryan checked the clock. “Three minutes, Danielle wins.” Everyone handed a dollar bill to Danielle, who wiggled with glee.

“I don’t get that…” Robb said, sitting down on the floor.

“Old school joke, sorry.” Eirik replied. Ben finished his turn and they handed the dice to Lucy.

“Wait, but isn’t it Robb’s turn?” She said, holding the dice.

“No, I quit, don’t you remember? And I swear you changed clothes again! What’s going on?” Robb said loudly. Everyone laughed, so he scoffed, got up, and left.

Elsie pulled off the comforter. “This is way too easy!”

“I forgot my soda,” Robb said as he walked back in again, before stopping, and freaking out. “What’s going on? Who are you two?”

“Um, well,” Lucy said, “I’m Lucy one…”

“And I’m Lucy too!”

Robb let out a noise like a growl mixed with a gasp and left once again.

“Ya know… I think we need to do something to tell the two of us apart Elsie.”

“Yeah, any ideas Lucy?”

“I’ve got one,” Eirik said, smiling.

“But why do I have to be the one?” Lucy said as they stuck her head under the faucet.

The group was now assembled in the Turner Laundromat, getting ready to dye Lucy’s hair.

“Because Elsie has been through a lot already! You got to sleep in a warm bed, she was attacked by Blade!” Danielle said, trying to sound as nice as possible as she held the packet of hair dye.

“And why red??”

“It was all we had…”

Elsie smiled from atop the dryer. She didn’t really want to have red hair.

“Brrrrr,” Ben said, hugging his arms and rubbing them. “Why is it so cold in here now?”

“Probably because its raining outside again,” Ryan said, pointing out the doorway..

The rain had begun to fall again in PCSC too…

Adam had just finished up his patrol of the campus for demon activity. He had managed to clear out about five giant bats out of the Social Services building near Prison Nine, the facility for counseling for inmates who need it (It was at Prison 9 because so many of the cyber-criminals that were housed there had serious issues dealing with other members of society in constructive ways). Adam has also been able to prevent an Arango Demon from tearing up one of the secretaries as she got off duty from Hahn Prisoner Services.

As he walked across the darkened lower quad, he noticed a few of the metal bars that covered the cell windows lying on the ground outside Morison Cell Block amidst a spray of glass.

The android looked up, and noticed that the very top window on the left side of the building was missing its bars. Some prisoner had tried to escape. Adam laughed, as he bet that Blade had already nabbed the escapee.

But something else still weighed on his mind. What to be done with the twined Lucys back in the other reality.

He raced up the front steps of Beard house, and through the broken door. The wind inside the main stairwell was wicked that night, and the rain coming down in sheets. Adam was glad he did not experience cold, or he would have been miserable. And the cells here did not have heating.

He had a few ideas about how to possibly fix the problem of the Lucys, but none of them had any real proof that they would work… One even looked like it might create even more of her.

Adam transmitted the codes to unlock the coffin shaped single cell across the hall from his room. In UCSC, this was Ryan Hogan’s room. In this world, it was Adam’s coat checkroom. Hundreds of heavy jacket were hung on poles across the room. Adam put his up and closed the door.

He turned around and looked at the door next to his room. It was the only one that opened out on the floor, but Adam had no idea what was in it. Somehow, his systems couldn’t unlike it. He always wondered why this door was here.

“Such a bizarre place for a door!”

He walked into his room and clicked on his computer console. As it warmed up, he put away his two phase blasters and opened up his arm panel. He connected some wires that allowed him to directly interface with the cpu.

Adam’s screen began madly scrolling next. Words and codes, and programs flashed by on the screen. Soon, Adam had accessed his inventor’s notes on inter-dimensional properties, and the original ideas on travel between realities. Although Adam had invented the phase daggers, they were based on the research the old Cowell warden had done.

The screen suddenly pulled up an interesting set of information. Highly theoretical, it looked as if it had enough factual basis as to provide the one way Lucy and Elsie may reunite safely.

Adam transmitted some data into the computer, and up came a new program in a new window. It worked away for a moment as Adam pulled out a phase dagger and plugged it into a slot on a piece of hardware on the desk. The device lit up as the program finished connecting.

Adam began typing.

“Woah, that is so cool! Your hotmail account lists things in pounds not dollars!” Ben said in disbelief.

Alex shook his head and waited for the computer to load up. As he did, he once again noticed the bowler hat Ryan had brought up for Hogan’s Halloween costume. Even though Hogan had not used that costume, the hat had stayed here. Alex put it on.

“Your turn Elsie.”

“Thanks Lucy,” the other girl said. The group had picked up the Talisman game again. Lucy’s shoulders were wrapped in a white towel, not pink in certain places. Her blonde hair was now bright red, and her skin had a healthy rose hue to it now. She didn’t seem too happy about it.

“Um, hey Ryan, what is this weird looking box… its looks like someone is sending you a message.” Alex said, turning around in the chair.

Ryan’s gave a confused look. “That makes no sense, AOL Instant Messenger is turned off, isn’t it?” He looked at the screen, Instant Messenger was off, but there was a message window flashing on the screen.

Ryan, this is Adam, we need to talk.

Ryan replied: What’s up?

Adam typed back: I think I have a way to reunite the two Lucys.

No way? How?

Adam: I can’t explain now, but I need to cut through so we can test this theory out. From the information I have, the longer we wait, the more likely that their cells and their minds become too different to rejoin.

Okay, we’ll make a space for the arch at the foot of the bed

Adam replied, saying he understood. The android disconnected himself from the computer and withdrew the phase dagger.

He crossed the hall again and picked up a jacket from the coatroom.

He paused as he opened his door, sliding on the second sleeve. He heard something down the hall. But it was probably just the wind. So he went into the cell and began to cut through to the other world. As soon as the doorway was finished, he began to step through.

Then there was a loud pounding on the door. He turned slightly to see the door buckle at a second hit, then collapse under a third. He looked on in amazement as a large werewolf entered the room.

Adam spun back around and rushed through the door, his finger on the dagger ready to release, as the werewolf pounced.

“He’s cutting through!” Ryan informed everyone. They had just cleared the game board, deciding fixing Lucy was more important than increasing their own personal number of wins.

“Tsss…” Eirik said, grabbing the side of his head.

Adam suddenly emerged through the archway, a large werewolf on top of him. Adam’s hand quickly flicked, and the dagger shut off and then turned back on again. He plunged it into the leg of the werewolf as it pinned him.

Ryan pulled open a drawer and pulled out his own dagger and tossed his phase blaster to Hogan. Eirik drew out his gun from its drawer as Adam tossed the beast back towards the door.

“Adam! What the hell happened?” Eirik asked, firing a shot at the creature. The shot collided with it, and it whimpered.

“I don’t know! It broke through my door and leapt at me as I was coming through!”

“How did it break through a door??” Ryan asked, aiming his dagger at the thing. Adam shrugged. Ben, having been closest to the door, had run over to his room and grabbed his gun.

The wolf was smart enough to realize that it was surrounded and began backing out of the room.

“Lucys, take my spare gun!” Adam said, handing over his weapon. “Go through the window and meet us around the side of the building. We need to get this thing away from the college buildings so we can stun it and send it back to PCSC!”

The twins nodded together and climbed out the window.

“I don’t get this!” Danielle said as the rest of the group remained in standoff mode. “How can there be a werewolf? They only come out on a full moon, and that was last night!”

“Not true,” Ryan replied, making a thrusting motion with his dagger. The wolf growled and backed up a little. “Back in High School last year, three of our four administrators were werewolves, Eirik, our other friends and I dealt with them on several occasions. They don’t just emerge on the full moon, but the days before and after too!”

As it reached the doorway, Ben, who was standing near Hogan’s door, primed his phase dagger, alerting the wolf to his presence. It slowly turned towards the side door and bolted for it.

The creature hit the handle, and pushed the door open in a burst of speed. It landed and tried to make a break for it, but paused at the site of Lucy and Elsie standing in its way, a gun trained on it.

Ryan came around behind them and aimed his gun. Adam and Eirik came up behind them, Adam carrying Hogan’s gun.

The creature growled at the two girls… then paused for a moment and gave them a questioning glance. The beast’s head pulled back and its eyes widened in shock.

“It’s staring at us. Why is it doing that?” Lucy said.

Elsie’s eyes got just as wide. Suddenly Cyborg Blade’s words came back to her head. “Because she… is… us!”

“What!” Everyone yelled in unison.

“Blade told me last night. He DNA tested me in an instant and said Subject is inmate Plackwic, transfer prisoner from private rehabilitation facility in Massachusetts two months ago for treatment that PC Santa Cruz’s location would be prime for.’ Lucy… this is the parallel version of us! She was the first werewolf!”

Lucy was just as in shock as Elsie was. She passed the gun to her doppelganger and reached out her hands.

“Lucy no!” Everyone else called.

“No guys, its alright… Elsie is right. This is us! And it won’t hurt us.”

Lucy put her hand out a little further, and touched the werewolf’s head. The creature seemed to smile; Lucy and Elsie did too.

“Lucys no!!” Hogan yelled as he threw a solar bomb over the heads of the guys in the doorway. It hit the werewolf, whose head turned for a second, snarling, before the device went off.

Once more, the whole group was flooded with light, creating for a ten-foot radius in all directions an illusion that it was noon on a very sunny day.

The werewolf howled out in pain as its body began to glow. The twins looked into its eyes as they transformed into human eyes, exactly like theirs.

Its body began to shrivel, and reshape itself. The fur vanished, and clothes re-appeared. The hair on its head grew out longer, and turned blonde, until it fell past the shoulders of the girl whose body it was now on. Unconscious, this Lucy lay curled in a fetal position.

Hogan looked down at her body, and his shoulders sank. The dust from the solar bomb he had had as backup from the night before began to settle over the ground at the base of the fire escape.

“I am SO sorry Lucys!” Hogan said, holding a flashlight like device over the unconscious girl, now lying on a large blanket in the middle of Adam’s room. The robot had rigged the device to emit the right band of energy that would prevent her from transforming to werewolf again. Ryan was holding onto that one while Adam fixed the lights of the room to do the same thing.

“Its not your fault,” Elsie said, with her hands in her back pockets.

“You were only trying to help us,” Lucy said, trying to get her heavy jacket to sit properly on her shoulders.

“Three Lucys?” Alex said, scratching the hair under the bowler hat. “This is too weird!”

“Adam, why did she revert back? And what will happen to her now?” Danielle asked, leaning down and running her hand through her long blonde hair. It was odd seeing Lucy with hair that long.

“I will explain it to her when she regains consciousness. And I will offer her help. Because she is an alpha wolf, she cannot be turned back, even though I have a remedy for the other ones. I will allow her to use one of the rooms here, that I will put increased amounts of security on, so she will not attack anyone else on those three nights a month she is like this.”

“But hey, aren’t we forgetting that this Lucy is a criminal! Regardless of whether or not she didn’t attack our Lucys, she is still a prisoner and possibly dangerous!”

“Her crime, Eirik,” Adam answered, switching on the new light settings, “was thievery. Her parents are dead, and she stole and sold electronics to help buy food for her sister and herself. She is only going to be imprisoned for two years for all her crimes, and then will be released, and allowed to become her sister’s legal guardian with help to get her a decent job.

“But now,” Adam said, looking up, “we must not be dealing with her problems. We must deal with the problems of the other two Lucys…”

To this, everyone agreed.

‘Everything ready on your side, Ryan’ came the message on Ryan’s screen.

‘All set here,’ he typed back.

The two Lucy’s stood back to back on a chair in the middle of the room. Or rather, rooms. Adam and Ryan each placed at the same location. The only difference was that the backs of the chairs did not line up, but were facing each other. Adam and Ryan had both cut identical shaped archways at the same time, right over the center of the chairs.

The girls stood back to back, holding hands, standing in the middle of the archway. They had both changed back into the exact same clothes as they had had on the night before, down to the stuff in their pockets. Everything that was split that could possibly be reunified had to be there.

They had a very strange view of the two rooms. On one side of them, they could see Ryan and Alex, and Hogan watching. Ryan’s phase dagger had wires stretched from it, through the archway, to Adam’s dagger. Adam’s side of the room, looking much gloomier, had the android, Danielle, Ben, and Eirik, all watching and waiting. The third Lucy, though they could not see her the way the worlds lined up, was lying where Ryan’s bed would be.

All but Adam and Ryan saw the two girls as ghosts, half solid in either room.

Adam nodded at the two girls.

“Countdown!” They said in perfect unison. “Three… Two… One…. Jump!”

The two girls squeezed their hands tightly together and jumped into the air, legs together, as high as they could.

Ryan and Adam both hit the command key to shut off the dagger. But the way they were set up, linked together and to a small control console, they didn’t turn off. Instead, they flickered, on and off, and on, and off, about a dozen times.

But the changes between off and on were so fast they didn’t close the doorway. Instead, each time it turned back on the arch flashed bright red for Adam, Ryan, and the two girls. It all happened so fast, it was like a strobe light.

And in three seconds, one Lucy landed on the middle of the chair, with memories of both of them. She stepped down off of the chair into the UCSC world, and hugged Ryan, Alex, and Hogan as hard as she could as the others climbed over the chair, back into their own world. “Hey Look! Lucy still has red hair too!!” Eirik pointed out as he crossed through and Adam and Ryan shut off the archway for real.

Lucy rushed over the mirror. Sure enough, it was still red, but a little faded, which was good. She didn’t really like how red her hair had been.

“So… you guys travel into a parallel world, where here is actually a prison world, and you guys fight demons and monsters? But, two nights ago, coming back through, Lucy got turned into two Lucys?”

“Basically.” Ben answered before taking another drink of his soda.

The group was gathered around the table for Brunch at Stevenson the next morning, explaining to Robb what had been happening when he ran out of the room from the site of the giant wolf appearing out of this air.

“So I bet you’ll want to go with us next time, right?” Hogan asked, spearing a piece of sausage.

“Hell no! I don’t want to be attacked by monsters or risk getting turned into two of me!”

Everyone cringed as they all thought of what it would be like to have to Robbs.

“Hey! That’s not very nice! Stop cringing at the thought of two of me!” They all cringed again.

“So, Lucy and Alex, you guys going to give up on PCSC too?” Ryan asked the two of them across the table from himself.

“No, I kinda liked it actually. It was kinda fun running around in another world… aside from all the monsters and stuff,” Alex answered, wrapping up five brownies and a sandwich in brown paper napkins to take out with him.

“Yeah… and really, I kinda liked having a twin for a day or two… and it wasn’t too bad being stuck in there for one night. Besides, I got to help out another version of me, and we are doing good things when we are there. Why say no to a good deed because of the risk of some weird stuff happening to you in return.” She took a sip of her milk.

“Plus!” Lucy continued with a laugh. “I got to build this way cool little robot!” As she said this, a two foot tall robot flew up into the air, powered by a small anti-gravity device in his one large foot, and an air jet to propel him on his back. It blinked, and the several glass panels that made up its mouth lit up. “Isn’t he just the coolest little thing!”

“Woah! He totally is!!” Danielle said. She and a few others all got up to get a better look at it.

“I’m thinking about making him a kind of butler or something… and maybe give him some cool battle features so we can take him with us on missions! What do you think?”

“Well…” Ben said apprehensively. Everyone turned and looked at him in disbelief. Would he actually say he didn’t like it? “It’s no monkey butler…. But he’s damn cool anyway!!”

Everyone laughed as the little robot turned his head from side to side, and jetted forward and back a little ways.

…End Episode 3.