Murderer in the Mirror

Yancy Shane had a tough murder case to solve—the one she committed!

 

(F, MF, FF, bond, fam?)

By: Punchinello for Pulp Erotica

 

Seattle, Washington, 2099

The city was quiet, sleeping. A soft rain fell thru a darkness to muffle the noise of late-night drivers and graveyard-shift mopes scraping out a living. Yancy Shane peered down on the city from a 16th-story window of the Caladine Hotel. She wasn't looking at the city, tho. She was looking at the 16th-story window of Ravi Tesurna, a Seattle businessman who was funneling money from his company into the hands of his mistress. At the moment, he was cheating on the mistress.

"Oh, ohhh. Ah, oh, go slow. Slow. Oh, ohh."

The girl had a smooth, narrow brown back and small tits. That's all Yancy had been able to see before she'd started fucking Ravi Tesurna. She could hear it all, tho, with the robot mic she'd sent in under the door. The tiny thing even had a camera of it's own, but it was no good for serious surveillance, only for navigating the furniture and find a good spot to hide.

"Yes, oh yes, please. Oh yes, like that. Oh! Like that!"

The real surveillance was being done with the camera Yancy had pointed out her window. It could see a broad spectrum: visible, infrared—even make out human figures thru the solid wall by the window.

The lean detective had the camera feeding thru the room's video center so she didn't have to look thru the little display. She dropped her shoulder holster on the side table and sat down in the armchair across from the vid.

"Ahh, ahh, ahh...ooooh."

"Oh, God, you're beautiful," Tesurna's voice said.

All the vid was showing was the enhanced infrared/sonar image of two bodies rumpling the sheets. But the sound of the girl's moans was making Yancy a little warm. She peeled off her white cotton blouse and bra and let her tits out. She began massaging her thighs, raising her skirt all the way to her waist. She put a hand on her panty crotch and massaged in slow, firm circles.

"Yes! Oh yes! Oh please! More!"

Yancy slipped a finger into her panties and found her pussy wet and willing. The girl's soft whimpering and blurry gyrations got inside her and made her tremble with sympathetic pleasure. They were getting fucked together, both their bodies warm and flushed, spread and wet, gyrating in unison. Yancy fingered her pink slit faster and more feverishly, raising the tempo to keep time with the lovers she was eavesdropping on.

"God, yes! Oh please! Now! Oh now! I'm coming! Make me come!"

Yancy's fingers pounded her clit and slapped lewdly at her wet hole, making her moan with the girl, shaking her tits. "Take it, you little slut," she muttered, "Oh fuck." A wonderful heat spread thru her, making her slender body tremble. She shuddered in the throes of orgasm, whimpered, and finally sighed a heavy sigh. The couple on screen had parted. The girl looked like she was kissing the man's chest, caressing his body.

Yancy snapped off the camera feed. Let the camera record the rest.

The blurry lovers were replaced by a newscast. For a long, dim moment, Yancy Shane stared dumbly at the vid, half-naked and disheveled. Then the image registered. It was her own face.

"Police say they have identified the alleged killer as Yancy Shane, a Seattle-based security consultant. They've issued an arrest warrant for her and urge anyone with knowledge of her location to call emergency services."

Holy shit. This had to be a mistake.

But there she was, in vivid color caught by a security camera, pumping four rounds from an automatic into some hapless sap. "Police have not identified the victim as yet, but are running his DNA thru the national database."

Son of a bitch.

Yancy got up and hurriedly put her clothes back on, leaving her bra on the floor. She flipped channels, trying to find some news with better film of the victim, but no luck. Who was the guy? And they hell was the girl? Jesus, it looked just like her. No wonder the cops fingered her; she had worked with enough of them.

 

The slim woman grabbed her handbag but left the camera and other equipment. It wouldn't be long before the cops tracked her credit account to the hotel. They must have already ransacked her apartment or else they wouldn't have given her name to the news. In the lobby, she slipped out the back and into the garage. The automated garage brought her air-car up. "Thank you for staying at the Caladine Seattle. Please, have a safe drive," said a pleasant electronic voice. The black BMW had even been washed. Nice hotel.

Yancy drove out of the garage and locked into the traffic grid. The autopilot took over and pulled the car smoothly out into traffic and up into an sky-lane. She touched the tiny telephone mounted on her ear. "Mark Dover," she spoke.

Mark's line rang. "Dover Labs. This is Mark."

"Mark, it's Yancy; sorry to call so late. Have you been watching the vid?"

"That's no big deal. You know me. I'm still working. What's up?" A huge commercial shuttle passed overhead, the late-night zeppelin to Portland.

"So you haven't been watching the vid?"

"No, babe. What's on?"

"Never mind. Do you mind if I come over? I need some help with something." Yancy had to set down somewhere. It wouldn't take the cops long to trace her car or her phone.

"I'll let the guard know to let you in."

Flashing lights got her attention for a moment, but they were construction vehicles, not police. "Mark? Do me a favor and just shut it off."

At Dover Labs, Yancy entered thru the employee gate. The automated guard didn't respond as she approached; she slipped inside and up the stairs. She found Mark in his lab coat, tinkering with machinery. Yancy had never understood Mark's work; of course, he had never understood hers either. He worked on physics problems; practical experimentation to prove or disprove heady theories about black holes, sub-atomic particles, and gravity-time distortion.

"This is an extra late night," she said, coming up behind him, "even for you."

He turned to greet her and took her hands in his, pulling her close for a small kiss. "Nice to see you. What's this all about?" His tone said he was wondering if she had decided to advance their friendship to the friendly-fuck stage.

"I've got a problem," she said, dropping her handbag into a chair. "And you're so good with problems."

"Fire away. All I'm doing is researching dimensional anomalies."

"Sounds like fun. I'm being accused of murder."

"What?"

She told him the story. They turned on the vid and caught some film. They curled up together on the sofa in front of the video center. It was a good laugh. Apparently the police were hot on Yancy's trail; they weren't actually anywhere close to catching her, but the security cameras around the city had picked her up and were following her movements. "Yance, this is live coverage. That's you." Indeed it was.

"Fuck. She does look just like me." Then she was gone. The security cameras lost track of her.

Yancy turned it off and looked Mark in the eye. “I didn't really kill anyone,” she breathed.

"The police will sort this out. They'll pick up her fingerprints or something, and they'll realize it's not you. It only looks like you."

They were very close now, filling each other's eyes. "It's nice to have a friend who will hide me even if I'm accused of murder." They came together in a gentle kiss; a little timid at first, but warm and wonderful. His mouth devoured hers, and she admitted his probing tongue. She caressed his back and ran her fingers thru his dark hair. He stroked the back of her neck and kissed her throat. He undid the top buttons on her blouse and let her breasts spill out, pushing the thin fabric aside. He kissed each small, soft nipple and then caressed them as he kissed her throat, cheek, and lips again. She pushed off his lab coat and pulled off his shirt to stroke his chest, kissing him again and again.

“I want to fuck you,” she whispered huskily. “Make love to me. Make love to a fugitive from the law.”

He murmured a chuckle as he further did away with her blouse and skirt. She tossed them aside and stood up to slide her panties down over her hips. They fell at her feet, and she stepped out of them, revealed completely to his admiring gaze. He pulled her slim, naked body toward him so he could kiss her hardened nipples, her flat, muscular stomach, and down her pelvis to her pink treasure, located at the bottom of a narrow strip of dark thatch. She moaned as his lips tasted her wetness. "Oh! Oh, Mark. Mmmm, yes." The moans of the little slut that she had watched get off earlier echoed in her head. "Wait," she said.

Yancy bent to unbuckle Mark's belt and pull down his pants. She moved down his body and tugged off his shoes and socks, tossing them onto the floor and pulling off his pants entirely. She slid back up his length and into his arms, kissing and caressing.

“I've wanted this for a long time,” he said.

She answered back, “And I wanted to do this.” She pulled down the briefs that his erection was threatening to break thru and kissed his warm rod on its very tip and licked it lightly all down its length. The sensation sent shivers thru his whole body.

“Lie down,” Yancy said, and she pushed him down on his back and mounted him. “Oh yes,” she moaned as his cock slid deep into her hot wetness.

Mark thrust upward gently, getting into her rhythm and pulled her down to nibble her hard nipples. He kneaded her small breasts with his strong hands as she caressed his chest. “Oh, oh,” he sighed.

“Fuck me, Mark,” she begged, “Oh, God I need you. I love having you inside me.”

She rode harder, raising herself up higher and bouncing harder, until at last he gave a heavy groan. "OH! Oh, yeah. I'm coming, Yancy. I'm coming inside you!" He cried out and froze in a spasm of ecstasy as his jism spurted into her warm, wet hole.

Yancy ignored him and pounded on toward her own satisfaction, rising and falling, rising and falling, reveling in the feeling of fullness his cock gave her. At last she cried out to him. “Yes! Oh God, yes! Fuck yes, Mark! Yes!” And, for the second time that night, she slipped over the edge into ecstasy. The heavy rush of orgasm pushed all other feelings and thoughts aside and gripped her in a powerful shudder of pleasure.

Yancy caught her breath and heaved a sigh. They fell away from one another, breathing heavily, sweating, but their legs remaining entwined. After a time, they turned on the video center again.

The police said they would continue monitor the security network while they followed up other leads, including her registration at a local hotel, her car locator, and her phone locator. "Holy shit! Now they are looking for me! They'll track me right here!"

Mark comforted her. "It'll be all right. When they get here, I'll vouch for you. You been here for quite a while, since they were tracking the real killer."

Then the news reported a confirmation of her fingerprints. "I've got to get out of here," she said, throwing her clothes back on.

"Wait a minute, Yance. I think I can explain this—part of it anyway."

"What?" she asked. "Well, spill it. I'm up for anything."

Then he began to explain. He had been up all night studying a dimensional anomaly, a rift in the fabric of space-time that suggested movement from another dimension into their dimension. "I figured this was an energy pulse of some kind, but it was highly localized. It seemed to be centered right in this area."

"What does this mean," Yancy asked.

"We've known for year that other dimensions must exist...and that there is theoretically a way to pass between them, but nobody's done it. Believe me, I've tried. I can open a dimensional hole, but only for a few microseconds, and only a few micrometers across."

"You're babbling."

"Don't you see? The other dimension has to parallel ours in most ways. I'm trying to open a portal to another dimension. But if I can almost do it in this dimension, then maybe the me in the other dimension already succeeded."

"So the me that committed murder is some kind of evil Yancy from another dimension. But why would I...she...cross over? Why wouldn't it be you?"

Just then, another familiar face flashed up on screen. It was Mark. "Seattle PD has now identified the victim as Doctor Mark Dover, a Seattle research scientist...."

"Son of bitch!" Yancy shouted.

"Holy shit, you shot me! That means I did it! I opened a rift in this dimension from the other side. Yancy, this is incredible!"

Yancy strapped on her pistol holster. "That does it. I've got to get out of here."

"Where are you going?" Mark asked. He pulled on his pants.

"Well, if she's shooting scientists, she's gotta be some crazy bitch," she said, strapping on her shoulder holster.

He started to get up, but she was already at the door. "What? What are you going to do?"

She tossed her reply back over her shoulder. "Stop her—no matter what it takes."

"Yancy, you don't know why she's here...or what the hell's going on!" But she was already gone. His voice fell to a mumble. "Maybe I deserved it."

 

Yancy thought thru the events. The cops fingered her from the video, but they must not have tried tracking her thru her—the real Yancy's—car and credit account. They cops didn't have a lot of experience tracking fugitives anymore. They would be focused on tracking her—the killer Yancy—by the numerous security cameras around the city—both police and private—and via the getaway car's built-in locator.

She went off the tracking radar in an area called Valdemar Center, a "renewed urban center" that had lost its gleam of renewal. Yancy was very familiar with the area. The one place she might go in Valdemar was Pressia's, a shop where she could buy a gun—or sell one for cash—no questions asked. Chances were, her alternate self would know it too.

 

In the parking lot behind Pressia's, the streetlight was out. The slender figure of Yancy Shane slipped in the back door of the building. She went to the cage where the proprietor sat watching a little vid; he was watching a movie, not the news. He looked up and gave her a quizzical look. "What? You got somethin' else to sell?"

"How long ago did I come in here?"

"Wha?"

"How long has it been since I was here earlier?"

"'Bout ten minutes." She turned to leave. "You wanna buy a watch?"

She went out the front door to hail a cab. The cops would be looking for her around here and they'd surely picked up her vehicle locator by now. Another woman looked like she was waiting for a cab too.

She also looked like Yancy Shane.

Yancy pulled her automatic discreetly and stepped up as a cab arrived. "Let's share it," she said in a low tone, jamming the pistol into the woman's ribs. The other woman's head snapped around, and her hand reached for her overcoat pocket, but Yancy caught her wrist. "No. Leave it."

 

"You two twins or somethin'?" The cab driver asked.

"Something like that," Yancy said.

"Yeah, I got a brother, but we ain't twins. He's a fat bastard, my brother."

 

They paid the driver cash-alternate Yancy's cash-when they got out at a crummy hotel. Up in the room, Yancy locked the door. "Take off your coat-slowly. Don't make me nervous. Give it to me."

"Look," said the woman as she removed her overcoat. "I know this must seem strange. You're probably a cop or something, right? You hear about this guy getting shot and all of a sudden everyone's pointing at you, only you know you didn't do it."

"Save it. Who are you?" Yancy pulled the belt out of the coat.

"That's what I'm trying to tell you. I'm you. Only I'm from a different world, a different dimension."

"Sit down." She sat down.

"My name is Yancy Shane; same as yours, right?" Yancy began tying her up. "I've been onto this guy for months. He was a scientist-a physicist-he studied all kinds of very technical stuff, black holes and gravity. He was trying to open up a kind of doorway to another world-your world-where he could do God knows what. The guy was nuts."

"Why did you kill him?" She had her hands bound behind the chair now.

"I was trying to arrest him. You see, he succeeded in opening a doorway in space-that's very dangerous stuff-and he went thru it. He was trying to create some scheme to...I don't know. He was obsessed. He had committed crimes, and I followed him thru to your world to bring him back. But he had a gun...."

"Who was he?"

"His name was Mark Dover. He worked on some military projects and then became obsessed with this inter-dimensional travel thing. He could have done permanent damage. And he killed a couple of cops back in my world."

"You're a cop? Let's see your badge."

"It's in my blouse." Her eyes went down into her cleavage.

Yancy put the gun down and took off her holster. Then she unbuttoned her twin's blouse and pulled the badge out. It hung around her neck from a chain. "Jesus. 'Lieutenant Yancy Shane, Seattle PD.' Phew. Lieutenant, no less."

"You've got to help me get back to my world...Yancy."

"Why did you let me tie you up so easily?"

Her simulacrum smiled her shy smile. "I knew you wouldn't hurt me."

"Good guess." She couldn't believe how similar they were; a real doppelganger. Different choice of skirt, slightly different hair, but otherwise she was identical-and damned good looking.

"Are you staring at my tits?"

"Yeah. Jesus you've got a hot body," Yancy said.

The alternate Yancy laughed. "Yes, we do. You're not wearing a bra, are you?"

Yancy unbuttoned the woman's blouse all the way and opened it. She was wearing a small brassiere that clasped in the front. Yancy popped it open and let her small breasts bounce free. "Whew." Up close and in person, they were more wonderful than looking in the mirror. They were smallish, but curving upward, with nipples that pointed out.

"I don't know if we should do this," the bound girl said. "But I would like to see yours."

Yancy didn't bother with buttons; she pulled her blouse over her head and tossed it aside. "Are we gonna do this?"

The alternate Yancy smiled. "It's kinky...."

Yancy kicked off her shoes and dropped her skirt. "I've never fucked another girl before."

Her other self smiled again. "It's not like we're lesbians. It's more like we're...masturbating...together. Come a little closer."

Yancy straddled her and sat down. "More like twin sisters," she said. They came together in soft, tentative girl-kiss.

"Take off my clothes," the girl spoke. Yancy pushed the blouse and brassiere off her shoulders and kissed the bare flesh. She reached behind and undid the woman's skirt. In a minute, she was pulling alternate Yancy's panties down and spreading her knees.

"Oh, Jesus," she breathed. "I never thought I would want to fuck a woman." She pulled her own panties down and stroked her pussy for a moment before sitting down on her other self's knee. Then she put her leg under alternate Yancy's and scooted hard up against her. "I saw this in a book one time."

"So did I," her other self said. They kissed again, this time more hungrily, tongues probing and lusty.

They're pussies were pressed together, gyrating gently, each one finding that special spot to stimulate the other. Yancy untied the knot that held her other self's hands behind the chair. Now they were both free to grope each other, pull each other close. Alternate Yancy squeezed her lover's hard, narrow ass and pulled her roughly against her, banging their pelvises together. "Oh, God, that's perfect."

"Yeah, oh, yeah. Right there. Uhn, uhn." They ground their pussies together again and again. Their moans rose and fell together, a lesbian duet, an incestuous ball.

"Oh, yeah! Oh, baby, like that. Keep it right there on my clit! OH!"

"Fuck it, baby. I've wanted to fuck another girl for a long time. Fuck my pussy! Unh!"

"Oh, Goddamn, I'm coming! Make me come, honey!" For the third time that night, Yancy felt the spasms of ecstasy take control of her and burn thru her insides. Every inch of her body tingled. Her arms clenched around her lover, and her toes curled.

"Yes! Oh yes! My pussy! Fuck it! I'm coming with you! Oh fuck!" Alternate Yancy trembled with the power of the orgasm coursing thru her, shaking her soul and making her gasp and whimper.

The two collapsed together in sensual kisses, breathing heavily and giggling together musically. Yancy got up and went to collapse on the bed. "Fuck! This is some night!"

"You're telling me," her twin said, getting up and stretching her limbs. Her stretching included picking up the overcoat belt.

"Oh fuck!" Yancy shouted as the simulacrum leaped on her and began tying her wrists. But she was exhausted from her night of heavy sexual shenanigans and just didn't have the strength to fight back.

The alternate Yancy explained patiently as she tied the knots. "I'm sorry, Yance, but I've got another job to do here. I've got to find your world's version of Mark Dover and make sure he never does what my world's Mark Dover did."

"No!" Yancy shouted. "My Mark is a good guy! He's not a criminal!"

"Sorry, honey," the woman said kindly. "We can't take that chance. I should know. I've been studying this dimensional portal problem for months. It's just too dangerous."

 

The naked Yancy struggled with the knotted belt, finally finding a pointed protuberance on the heater/cooler to help pry the loose end out. In a few more minutes, she was free. Her gun and holster were gone. Her handbag was gone. She threw on her skirt and blouse and slipped into her shoes. She rushed out the door, leaving her panties behind on the floor.

On the down in the elevator, she called Mark. "Mark! It's Yancy. Look, I'm coming right over.... Don't let me shoot you! Call the police!"

The slim detective went out the lobby doors onto the street. Everything was quiet. The rain had stopped. But the whirr of a powerful air-car made her look up. A Seattle PD cruiser was settling down in front of the building. That bitch had tipped them off!

She turned away and started walking down the street casually, clutching her blouse tighter against the chill in the air and knowing she looked out of place. When no firm voice ordered her to stop, she stopped anyway. Incredibly, the cops hadn't noticed her and had gone inside. The cruiser's door was open and its lights were flashing, but the cops had gone inside.

Yancy jumped inside and slammed the door. These older models didn't have any sophisticated driver recognition system—and they did have traffic grid override. She popped it into gear and took off into the night sky like a shot. It wasn't more than a minute before another cruiser was onto her. The radio crackled to life and scolded her to return the vehicle to the ground immediately. She shut it off.

The other cruiser tried to cut her off, but the driver was tentative. Cops weren't taught to stop cars by force anymore. They could usually got the traffic grid administrators to stop the vehicle. But police cars operating off the grid were immune. So Yancy led the cops on a high-speed chase thru the Seattle night sky all the way to Dover Labs.

The feminine fugitive set down inside the Dover Labs fence and rushed thru the gate with a police-issue shotgun. The automatic guard was still off. That wasn't a good sign. As soon as she got inside, she triggered the guard. It would take a while for the cops to get a judge to grant them authority get it turned off by the security company.

Inside, there were only a few lights on—until the police lights and search lights came streaming thru the windows. Yancy went cautiously thru the shifting shadows toward the lab where Mark did his practical research.

There, in the gleaming white glow of the laboratory lights, Mark was working on part of his devices. Alternate-dimension Yancy sat behind him, wearing Yancy's holster.

"Don't move, sister," Yancy shouted. She walked toward them.

Her twin turned her head slowly, not moving a muscle anywhere else. "I should have figured I could have escaped and figured out a way to get here."

"It's too late now," Yancy said. "You're going to jail on this planet. Maybe the judge will go easy on you if you explain your theories."

"They aren't just theories, Yance," Mark said. He had turned from his machine. "She's got it all figured out. She gave me the last pieces of the puzzle. My alternate self figured out how to enhance the field that will hold the hole open. It can be a doorway between our worlds. Imagine what we can learn."

"Yeah," the doppelganger said. "We'll have two of every animal. Big deal."

"Why have you done this? I thought you didn't want a portal to your world?" Coming around the lab table, Yancy could see that her twin had had her pistol out the whole time. Instantly, the two were at a standoff.

"I need to get home, Yance. I get this tinker toy working and set a little time bomb and—poof—no more dimensional portals on either side. Case closed."

Mark pressed a button, and the machinery starting whirring. "Mark, what are you doing? Turn it off!"

"You don't understand. This is what I've been working for my whole career, Yance. It finally works! There's a whole other dimension on the other side! It's incredible!"

"Mark, don't start it up!"

He pressed the button anyway. A huge electrical charge arced across a gap in the machinery and started an enormous crackling buzz. "He's got to do it, Yancy," her twin said. "It's all he knows. He's obsessed. He's just not quite as crazy as the one from my dimension."

"Mark! This is insane!" Yancy shouted over the noise.

Suddenly, thru the arcing electricity, a large, irregular shape appeared, like a shimmering mirror of mercury. "It works! IT WORKS, YANCE!"

Then, a dark figure leaped thru the hole and into the room. He rolled to his feet and brandished a submachine gun. "Who the fuck is that?!" Yancy screamed.

"Seattle PD, honey. That's who I told to be ready in case this Mark Dover got his portal started up." More of the soldier-like SWAT team members came thru, weapons at the ready.

"Freeze!" the first man shouted.

Yancy didn't freeze. She took cover behind the lab table, which put the other Yancy between her and the gunmen. Just then, the windows high up on the walls of the lab burst inward, showering glass on all of them and sending them all for cover. SWAT police began repelling into the lab thru the windows from the rooftop. "Holy shit!" both Yancies shouted.

The alternate-dimension SWAT police instinctively fired on the newcomers, who returned fire without hesitation. Suddenly, the whole lab erupted into a hail of bullets, broken, glass, and blood. Both SWAT teams' bullets were apparently good enough to pierce each other's body armor. The alternate-world SWAT cops opened up on Mark, riddling his body with lead.

Yancy defended herself with the shotgun, pumping two rounds into on-coming alternate-world-cops at almost point-blank range and dropping them flat. But from her hiding place, she could see that they were only wounded—her shotgun wasn't powerful enough to penetrate their vests. They didn't last long, tho; death came swiftly from above from the cops of her world.

Yancy's double had found cover behind some of the machinery. She was shouting orders at her SWAT team as they continued to pour in thru the portal. Yancy started dragging the lab table toward the exit. Alternate-Yancy peeled away from her hiding place, two pistols blazing, her blouse nearly bursting open, and made it to the exit. Yancy followed, shotgun in hand.

In the dim corridor, Yancy turned a corner and came face to face with her simulacrum. Before the other woman could raise her pistols, Yancy swung the shotgun up and hit her in the jaw. The shotgun went off as the woman went down. Bits of ceiling tile showered them as she crawled away, losing her pistol in the bargain. Yancy pumped the shotgun, but the shell got jammed. A SWAT bullet had hit the action and warped the steel. She dropped the shotgun and snatched up the pistol her other self had dropped.

Smoke and shadow obscured the corridor. Yancy mopped her brow with her sleeve and crept along, pistol straight out, wary of anyone. Her own blouse had come open, making them more twins than she'd like to be. Then, her alternate self rushed past her at full run, racing out into the lab again, thru flashing lights and smoke and hail of gunfire—toward the dimensional portal. "Set the bomb!" she shouted.

Yancy rushed after her, firing blindly and broke to the side to put the machinery between her and the bulk of the SWAT battle. Her other self was taking cover behind some of her men. From behind the portal, thru a gap in the machinery, she could see the bomb now. It wasn't big, but it probably didn't need to be. "Go! Go! Go!" her twin was shouting; apparently, the bomb was set. But as the woman rose to step onto the machinery, to leap into the portal, Yancy stood up, the portal crackling in front of her. She leveled her pistol—actually, her twin's own pistol—and fired two shot at close range. The woman fell, stunned, blood soaking her white blouse.

Just then, another few SWAT team members came repelling down the wall behind Yancy. She turned, startled, and found them leveling their guns at her. But she lost her balance.

She fell backwards into the portal.

A brilliant light flashed around her for a moment. Then she found herself lying on her back on the ground, staring up into the face of a SWAT team member. "Lieutenant Shane?" he asked, gently taking her pistol—her other self's police-issue pistol.

"Yeah," said Yancy warily. He thought she was her twin.

"Welcome back. The portal machinery has been destroyed."

"It is?" Gathering her wits, she clenched her torn blouse closed with one hand.

"Affirmative. Mission accomplished. You're a hero."

"Thanks," she numbly. He helped her to her feet. Medical personnel were all around. The cops helped her to them and put her on a gurney. Her injuries weren't bad. But she'd need the recovery time. This world was going to take some getting used to.