The first thing she did once she got out of the building was search out a place to change. A nice alley did the trick. Amelia stripped out of her bulletproof straitjacket with a hint of reverence. It wasn’t pretty, and went with absolutely nothing, but it had saved her life. The second thing she did was walk briskly into the first sports clothing store she came to on the street, and pick up some things. A duffel bag, clothes. After all the time she had spent locked away on SUPER premises, her clothes felt dirty. She needed to change. Not just for cleanliness, but for the blending in, too. SUPER knew what she had been wearing. There might even be tracking tags on the clothing. Plus, she needed a bag to stash her new toy.

Amelia stuffed the straitjacket into the duffel bag while she was holed up in the changing room. The jacket had been hidden under her shirt when she’d entered the store. She’d passed it off like she were some pregnant woman, out shoe shopping. They’d sure be surprised when her belly looked flat on the way out. Or else, suspicious. That was fine. Amelia hadn’t exactly been planning to pay for the red and black running shoes she had grabbed, or the black sweatpants and blue hooded sweatshirt. Or the other little clothing items, either. Socks, undergarments, undershirt, et cetera. It was terribly illegal. As a law enforcement officer, she should have been shocked! Having just escaped from what Amelia figured was some form of this world’s “law enforcement” group, Amelia had decided that maybe this world’s rules could go to hell, and a little shoplifting here and now would hurt no one at all. No one that mattered, at least. And if it inconvenienced her evil twin... all the better.

Once she was well and truly dressed, Amelia briskly walked out of the shop like she owned the place. The clerks tried to stop her. She spun to glare at them, then turned and mentally shoved a mannequin into a rack of clothes. I’m the resulting confusion, she easily slipped through the door. It would have been more distracting to fling it out the glass front window, but... that sort of thing draws a lot of attention. And she was starving. It took energy, too. Food... Amelia’s mind turned to her next task.

—

She passed through the rip between worlds eating a donut. Say what you will about cops and pastries, there isn’t much better junk food for a quick burst of sugary alertness and greasy energy than a chocolate frosted cake donut with sprinkles. And if there was, she didn’t want to meet it.

Security had been tight, but she’d managed to slip in with a crowd of people as they’d passed over. She’d worn the camouflage of blandness, ducked her head and looked unobtrusive. She’d thanked whatever god there was for her demure height, and made a mental note to bite his ankle whenever she met him. Godly ankles make lovely teething rings.

Her first action after passing over was to get as far from the rip as humanly possible. Then, she’d given her hooded sweatshirt to a homeless person on the street in exchange for a handful of grubby dollar bills and quarters from his upturned Yankees cap. It was a steal. Amelia hit up the first pay phone she spotted... which was harder to locate than one would think.

Amelia called the last person on this side of the rip she’d spoken to, and when Gawain’s phone went to voice mail, she silently cursed him, then left a cryptic message that went something like this: “God dammit, Maya. You aren’t answering. This is Amelia. Don’t trust me. Well. Don’t trust the me you see. I’ll give you a code word. The word is pumpkin. Shove me in a mirror and don’t let me out until the sun freezes and the oceans turn to ice if the next time I see you, I don’t call you pumpkin. I’ll explain later. Be safe.” She hesitated a moment, then reiterated. “Don’t trust me.” She hung up.

What a pain. That message had been crap but she’d been pressed for time on the spot, and they might’ve been listening. Hopefully, the next person she called would pick the hell up. Amelia called Rebecca. The unnamed god would evade ankle biting for another day; Rebecca answered her phone.

“Rebecca. It’s Amelia.” She said. “We need to talk.”

—

Unknown to Amelia, her other self had kept in contact with her friends and family. She’d done well at infiltrating the other woman’s life. In point of fact, Rebecca and this other Ami had spoken on the phone just recently. Nothing important, just keeping up with a friend. Dramatic phone calls in the middle of a weekday afternoon would seem out of place for someone who had seemed put-together on last talk. But maybe the fact this other Ami had stopped talking to her GIRLFRIEND Serena might have something to do with it? Probably not, but who knew? It sure hadn’t made any sense to anyone else. It had almost seemed out of character, like she’d suddenly stopped liking girls. But that was silly. It had to have been something else.

Rebecca walked into her apartment and was greeted by Gavin slipping between her ankles, brushing his fur against her. ”Raine?” she called out, only to be met by silence from the apartment, Gavin’s purring notwithstanding. She bent down and picked up the cat, nuzzling her forehead against his head. Gavin took the opportunity to nip at her damp strands of hair, suggesting his water bowl was empty.

Walking to the kitchen and the cat’s bowls, Becca set her pet down and wrung out her hair. Her visit to Gawain’s place ended with a shower and evidently, the redhead did a worse job of drying her hair than she assumed. She was holding the bowl up to the sink when she heard a ringtone-- oddly enough, not her own ringtone.

A quick probe of her purse turned up not one but two cell phones. ”Dammit, Gawain, hoo did ye e’en manage ‘at?” She looked at the screen and saw Amelia’s name. Rebecca knew logically that Gawain and Amelia had not dated in a very long time. She also knew her own relationship with the gendershifter was nothing committed or serious. That did not stop a flash of irrational discomfort as she wondered what Amelia’s missed call and subsequent voicemail could be about, particularly when Ami and Serena seemed to end their relationship out of nowhere.

After feeling a moment of temptation, Rebecca returned to her senses. Ami and Gawain were still friends, and Rebecca was not going to be the jealous friend with benefits who listened to her lover’s messages. She was better than that.

Her patience was rewarded by a call of her own from “Supercop Amelia.” Maybe Ami was just trying to phone in an X-Man and Gawain was before Rebecca alphabetically? She breathed a petty sigh of relief and picked up the phone. ”Hey Ami, good tae hear from ye again!” Her cheery tone faded as it sounded like Amelia had something serious on her mind. ”Is somethin’ th’ matter?”

The glances over her shoulder every few moments weren’t unreasonably paranoid ones, because she had every reason to justify the fear. She was on the run. The line wasn’t secure. She could sigh with relief that she had reached an actual swear-to-God Xman, but that didn’t mean she was safe. Even from herself.

Amelia started in a hurried whisper. “I’m on the run, Rebecca. If you’ve spoken to me recently, don’t trust that Me. I don’t know if anyone’s figured out the hidden dangers of the rip yet, but—“ Louder, and cupping the pay phone’s mouth piece close, Amelia said conspiratorially “There are doubles of us. Probably all of us. Maybe just me. And they’re bad.”

There. The dark secret was out and every listening NSA officer or bad guy at a shady government organization could zero in on her and find her within minutes. Amelia needed to go. And soon. Once the call was done.

Rebecca was not sure what she expected for Amelia’s call, but her first anxious admissions were nowhere not on her radar at all. She was on the run? ”On th’ run? Dinnae trust ye?” She was equal parts worried and confused.

The confusion escalated and she was genuinely perplexed when Ami explained the alternate universe versions of people as a new revelation. ”Whit ur ye gabbin’ abit, Ami? We know abit th’ doppelg…”

Becca froze midsentence. Midword. It hit her suddenly. Ami told Becca not to trust her and she was worried about doubles because hers was bad. ”Oh no. Th’ Ami here isnae ye.” Or maybe the Ami on the other end of the phone was the doppelganger seeking to sow confusion? Suddenly, Becca was reminded that not everyone’s doppelganger was part of the X-Men. ”Christ, Ami, how? Whaur hae ye e’en been? Are ye safe?” When was Ami bodysnatched?

Rebecca kept repeating the things she said, like she couldn’t believe them. Which was understandable. But then the realization hit her, and Becca understood. So caught up in her own things was Amelia, she completely missed the start of the word doppelgänger.

“No, she is not.” Amelia confirmed brusquely. The Amelia was certainly was not her.

Becca asked questions, and Amelia didn’t have to worry about paring down a long story. She’d been basically the same place for months. “SUPER captured me and held me in a cell for months.” She said hotly. “Months. Basically had to learn how to make myself bulletproof and busted out. Hear that, NSA? Bulletproof.”

Amelia heard a faint click in the background, but thought nothing of it.

“They ran experiments and watched for differences. I smashed some people into walls on the way out.” Amelia smiled wistfully at the thought.

It was so easy at times to see the goofy fun of learning about otherworldly versions of people she knew, but Rebecca now had to face the horror that SUPER had access to “copies” of her friends. Suddenly, she might have to get antsy around anyone who she had not already met the doppelganger for.

Amelia’s experience sounded horrific, but totally in line with what she had heard about SUPER’s methods. Rebecca covered her mouth, taking in her friend’s explanation. ”Tha’s terrible. Ah mean, yer awesome, bit what ye went through is terrible.” It was not easy to escape SUPER, particularly with—

”Amelia, have ye been able tae remove yer tracker yet? If nae, we know people who can. If ye hae, dae ye need a place tae lay loo?” She would gladly provide Amelia shelter or a place to hide, but it would be more dangerous to do so if she was still tagged.

Tracker. The word resounded in her mind like someone had struck a gong. She did not remember anyone placing a tracker on her, or in her. But she’d also been unconscious at times, and couldn’t remember every minute of the time spent in SUPER’s loving care. She suddenly felt an uncomfortable itch on the back of her neck. The NSA listening in on a phone call was one thing. Actual GPS tracking equipment was another thing, entirely.

Another thing stuck out for Amelia. She stood there silently for a second, just holding the phone. Then she leaned into the receiver and said what was bothering her.

“You seem to know these peoples’ MO pretty well, Becca.” Amelia said slowly. “You didn’t question me when I said ‘SUPER’, and brought up trackers...” Dhe glanced over her shoulder quickly. “The exact sort of crap they’d do. Have the X-men run into this group... this situation, before? Who is it you know...?”

She wanted to get out, move to a new location, keep moving and not stop until she had found her duplicate, then take that piece off the board, but at the same time, Amelia needed to know. What did Rebecca already know, who did she know, and could they help?

It felt like the line went cold when Rebecca mentioned trackers. That was cause for concern—a lot of it. If Ami still had her tracker, she could still be in danger. Ami had inside information on SUPER’s actions, but she lacked some of the outside information gathered while she was away.

”We dae, kinda. It’s mair ‘at th’ aither side’s X-Men had run ins wi’ them last year. Made a right mess ay things.” The mission reports written by Impact were quite the retelling of the raid on a laboratory facility. ”There’s a humanitarian group ‘at got pulled intae this, tay. Haven. Ain of their members, a former X, had been taken bit escaped. They had someain who coods zap, deactivate, an’ remove the tag. Ah dinnae know much abit them, but Ah coods get in tooch wi’ them.”

Rebecca was unsure how that offer would go. Ami sounded anxious, skittish, and deservedly paranoid. She might not fancy a plan relying on strangers. ”Ur… well, if ye dinnae want tae gae ‘at route, they confirmed metal components in th’ tag. In theory,” she stressed, ”Ah coods bust th’ chip wi’ magnestism an’ we coods remove it. Whitever ye wanna dae, ye gotta act fast. They micht cut their losses an’ nae tail ye; they seem guid at risk-reward.” Muse was not pursued immediately after the fact, from what she heard. ”Bit as lang as yer chipped, they hae th’ option ay trackin’ ye doon.”

Their contact was the x-men on the other side of the rip. Did that mean there were doubles of the X-men on that side, similar to these ones? A sober two-eyed cold steel with a wife and kids walked calmly through her mind, and didn’t wink at her or try to flirt as he passed. She didn’t like it. Didn’t feel right. But if they were good, and willing to help— she stuck a pin in that thought for later. There wasn’t time to cross back over and get a potential chip removed, then cross on back. She would lose any element of surprise she had.

As for haven... she had heard of them. Humanitarian organization, like Becca had said. More about helping mutants and affordable housing than it was about fighting bad guy organizations, she had thought... but then, she hadn’t really delved much into their history. All she had known other than that was that Serena had been friendly with them. The thought of Serena hit her in the gut. Another pin, another topic for another time. Broken record, that.

Both Rebecca’s suggestions were good, but the woman had thought right. Amelia didn’t want to run to anyone else, didn’t want to rely on anyone else. At that moment, she wanted to find her double and reclaim her life. Avoid SUPER, fight SUPER, that was all up in the air.

Rebecca said they could ‘get in touch with them’. Haven? Amelia opened her mouth. “I’m not su—“ She started.

Rebecca continued on. “Or if you don’t want to go that route,” Amelia’s mind translated out the accent. Then it summarized. Magnets. Bzz zap! Becca could potentially take the chip out for her. Becca’s last words stood out to Amelia and her mind latched on that, rather than the chip removal.

“Tracking down my double is my top priority right now,” she said. “If I wait to get rid of a potential chip, I lose any advantage of surprise I got. They put it in on the other side, if they put it in at all. I don’t think—“

Click. Click. She heard the sound in the background of the phone line then. Her eyes drifted over her shoulder. She didn’t see any men in Black, but that didn’t mean they weren’t present.

“Crap.” Amelia cursed blandly. “I gotta—“ She almost hung up then and there, but stuck around the extra second, for Rebecca’s sake.

“They’ve been listening...” There was a saying her dad always dropped when he told people to watch something. Watch my bag. Watch my lunch. Watch that angry Pomeranian. Her mouth kept running, and it just slipped out. “Watch your ass.” Amelia told Rebecca. “It does tricks.” There was a one second pause as she realized how bad the phrasing on that was, and how it could easily be misconstrued. “Bye.” She concluded awkwardly. The line beeped on the other side as she ended the call.