Strange but Not a Stranger

Eight am Monday I was at the security office with Jess's driving licence explaining that I'd left my pass at home in my other coat, and I needed a day pass. At ten past I was swiping in through our lab doors. At eleven minutes past I called Professor Cole's PA to book time with him to run through something that happened during the MRI scan. She gave me ten minutes at ten which wasn't too bad but meant Jess had to wait in the car for two hours, there were too many potential problems with having two of us in the same building covered by CCTV. It might make a good sitcom though.

At five to ten I went to the Professor's office, Rebecca the PA waved me through early and went back to the Daily Mail online.

Professor Cole was on the phone, he pointed at one of his guest chairs and held a finger up in the air.

"I'll admit it's a bit of a coincidence that the Plasma reactor kicked into life at double the anticipated output at the same time that there was a power surge in your hospital, but the two buildings are what, fifty miles apart? We aren't even in the same suppliers area."

The other end sounded thin and reedy; I could make out a few words ".... FIVE Gigawatts... Nine Fifty-Seven for eight minutes... Ostrich Soup..." OK, the last bit may have been something else.

"Yes, it's a coincidence but explain to me how the power surge got from Oxford to Euston Road? And what the Five Gigawatts for eight minutes did, if all that happened was some links tripped out? That level of power would have reduced all the wiring in your building to liquid copper."

".... MP...." My heart sank, if they were taking it to their MP we'd have parliamentary oversight committees and cross-party working groups coming out of our ears for weeks and nothing would get done. Fortunately, I'd misheard.

"What d'you mean an EMP wave the size of Hiroshima? I've got Japanese students working for me, that's in incredibly poor taste."

The professor's veiled accusation of racism seemed to get whoever was on the other end to back up a bit. They started talking in more measured tones, I heard dates and times being exchanged with a final agreement by my boss to review everything at his end and they'd meet in three days for lunch to discuss.

He put the phone down and turned to me, annoyance on his face. "And you haven't helped. What were you doing in UCH? I thought we sent you to the John Radcliffe for the MRI. Why am I getting reports from the admin team about missing clothes and credit cards?"

Jess and I had spent part of Sunday shopping with the bulk of our remaining winnings. I was wearing a stripy white Breton style top with black skinny jeans and short heeled ankle boots. We'd also bought a pair of walkie talkies and I spoke into mine at that point.

"Now would seem good"

Professor Cole started saying something angry, he'd reached the point where he was about to tell me off for playing games in his office when through the open door I heard Rebecca say, "I thought you'd already gone in, go on through, he's waiting."

I interrupted the beginnings of a tirade with, "Professor Cole, I think this might have something to do with the power surge and Electro Magnetic Pulse at UCH," and pointed to Jess.

We'd bought identical outfits and arranged our hair in an identical style to emphasise the point.

He was silent, which was better than being shouted at, for the whole ten seconds it lasted before he jumped to the only sensible conclusion. His Cork accent really emphasised in his anger.

"Do you really tink I've got time to be messin' about like this? The bloody Ministry of Defence are on my chuff about releasing an EMP in central London, UCH want me to find funds to pay for their MRI scanner that got burnt out and on top of all that your name keeps coming up to really piss me off. UCH want to know why you were using an unauthorised scanner, their admin office has copied me on a Police report for a stolen car and another for personal possessions, then this morning security here tell me one of my team has forgotten her Swipe Card."

He paused for breath. Jess tried to speak, but he had another lungful and continued where he'd left off.

"Whichever one of you is Jessica is feckin' fired and will be lucky I don't chase you for the lost budget. UCH can have you for the Scanner for all I care. Now get out."

I was close to tears; this wasn't how it was supposed to happen. In our prepared script he was supposed to look at Jess, then me, then slowly realise what had happened and with stirring music in the background he'd take us both by the hand and say something like "Girls, I don't know how it happened, but we are going to put it right. Jess, you'll be on the citation list for the Nobel Prize we get out of this. Other Jess, I promise we'll get you home." In that version he was played by Liam Neeson and Jess and I were Lily James. This version seemed to be Brendan Gleeson, and a shouty Brendan Gleeson at that. I'll stick to being Lily James though.

Other Jess spoke first, she had a wobble in her voice as well. "Professor Cole, it's not a joke. Can we take a DNA test? That should prove it's not."

He paused, I hoped not to regroup ready for another blast. To my relief he stopped, "A DNA test.? A feckin' D. N. A. test? How's that going to help?"

"Please, we'll pay for it. Can we go and do it now? If it doesn't prove it's not a joke we'll go and get jobs as kissograms or something."

That seemed to settle things, "Well now, Kissograms would you? Wouldn't that be something. Alright." He picked up the phone again and dialled an internal number. "Hello, Peter, yes I'm fine thanks. Listen, I'm coming down with a couple of my team, I need a quick DNA profile running on them. Can you do that for me? Grand. See you in five." The phone went down with a click, "Right. Come on." He led the way out of his office, Rebecca gave a double take as the two of us walked past her, and then we were gone.

We went to the Forensic Science lab in the Criminology department where Doctor Peter Wall was waiting with a couple of swabs and some plastic evidence bags. A dozen students were waiting with him.

"Professor Cole, if you and your assistants have no objection I'd like to make this a teaching experience and get my first-year students to do the tests so I'd like six from each of the twins if I may."

Cole agreed but asked that we do seven so the Doctor could do a control test. He also insisted Wall take blood samples as a failsafe backup test. As a second control he suggested doing himself as well, all were amenable, so Jess and I stood at opposite ends of the room and gave mouth swabs to six students each and one to Doctor Wall, who also drew 25ml of blood from us both and told us to come back in four hours.

Jess and I were sent home with cotton wool stuck in our elbows, Professor Cole was still dubious despite the potential payment by us of a thousand Euro for the tests and didn't want us around to "feck up anything else," so we went and drank tea and watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, our favourite film and I'll fight anyone that says it's not the greatest movie ever.

At three my visitors pass still worked and we knocked on Professor Cole's office. He pointed at us and exclaimed. "Aha. There she is. You've either managed to fool twelve students, not the trickiest thing in the world I'll grant you, or there's somethin' strange afoot. Come on, lets head down."

Doctor Wall was in his office with a stack of folders in front of him.

"I kept you completely separate, I made you sluice your mouths out with fresh water between each swab, I kept the swabs completely distinct from each other. The students only saw one sample each, I got one from both of you and each one is absolutely identical. I am forced to assume that you have found some way of spoofing the tests, which could break Forensic DNA testing, but I can't see how you did it. The alternative is too ridiculous to consider. You even tricked the blood tests. How?"

Professor Cole sat down. "I don't think they have been fooling us Pete. I think there's stranger things afoot here than I'd have thought possible this morning. Do you have a Geiger counter in your box of tricks?"

He did, a portable unit with a large plastic wand connected to the body by a long curly lead. Professor Cole got Jess and me to stand a few metres apart and waved it across our bodies, he and Doctor Wall then conferred for a few minutes with much nodding of heads and muttering. They grabbed an iPad and a paper notepad and pen and went to the conference table, beckoning Jess and me to join them.

Professor Cole started speaking, mainly to the doctor, "So Pete, how much do you know about quantum entanglement and multiverse theory?" Give him his due, Doctor Wall came straight back with "Probably about as much as you do about decomposition rates of human corpses in a saltwater solution."

Professional lines drawn the Irish scientist laughed and clarified. "I'm working on a quantum level communications system; it takes impossibly vast amounts of data and transmits them across equally vast distances in fractions of a second. We were aiming to send a full body MRI scan of the lovely Jessica to a repeater satellite in orbit round the moon to be received in the imaging suite of University College Hospital, London. What we got," he paused and pointed at Jess, "was the lovely other Jess."

I meekly held up my hand, "Actually you got me. What convinced you?"

He sat back sipping his tea. "When you were out while we waited for the DNA swabs to be tested I spoke to your colleagues and your former tutors. None of them thought you were capable of pulling such a ridiculous prank, nor could they, or I for that matter, see any possible advantage to you doing so. Just now when we did the Geiger test one of you, I'm guessing 'our' Jess has a lower background radiation count in their body. Was there some nuclear accident in your England?" he addressed the last sentence to me.

I thought back, "The only thing I can think of is Chernobyl, but that was before I was born."

Some Yoogle searching happened, funny, Yoogle had exactly the same colour scheme as Google and people had Ymail accounts in this version of England.

"Chernobyl, Nuclear facility in Northern Ukraine, produces twenty percent of Ukraine's domestic Electricity, due to be decommissioned in 2017, extended to 2027. A near disaster in 1986 was only averted when an alert technician shut the reactor down rather than proceed with a scheduled test. The technician was initially arrested then when it became clear he had averted disaster he was released and feted as a hero. The potential disaster could have sent a radioactive cloud across most of Northern Europe."

He looked at me again, "I'm guessing in your version it blew up and parts of Europe are a nuclear Armageddon site?"

"So far as I'm aware it's still hot and the surrounding area is uninhabitable but it's a relatively small area." I seemed to remember stories about instagrammers taking selfies in the abandoned town around the plant.

Professor Cole was on a roll now, "So what would appear to have happened is that at exactly the same time as we switched on our reactor and MRI scanner, your Professor Cole, and what a fine fellow he must be, switched on his and somewhere the two quantum streams became one and we got a quantum anomaly, you were snatched out of England 1.0 and delivered here to England 1.1

I don't know how it happened but I'm sure we can replicate it; the tricky thing will be to communicate it to Cole 1.0

The important thing to decide now is, can I put the other Professor Cole down as a co-author on the paper I present on all this."

I was speechless, as was Jess. I was a Quantum Anomaly, and Miss Drew my form teacher in year 3 said I'd never amount to anything, well screw you Miss Drew. Professor Cole continued, "Jokin' aside, we need to get the team gathered, can you two go and let everyone know, meeting in my office first thing. "

He sent us back to the labs and offices in our block with instructions to speak to NO ONE and swept off with Doctor Wall and the pile of folders to the admin offices, returning at just before five with a supremely smug look on his face.

He called us in and explained he'd secured additional funding to research the anomaly and hopefully return me to my version of Oxford. I joked that funding was much easier in this reality, where I came from it took months.

An Irish accented laugh cut itself short as he answered.

"The funding I've secured is from a non-orthodox government departmental source. The project is going to be classified above secret and at the moment neither of you two are technically cleared to exist. You'll be getting fast-tracked through the system, but it will mean a significant amount of paperwork. New Jess, I've had you registered on the security and payroll systems as Maria Newell, here's your pass."

So, I was officially Maria, the story being for all but the most securely vetted that I was Jess's twin sister with the same background and qualifications. I hoped it wouldn't have to stand up to investigation for long.

We were sent home with a pile of MOD form NSV001 (2021-V1.2) and instructions to fill in as completely as possible. As Professor Cole had said, significant. We virtually had to list everyone we'd met for ten years. The advantage we had was that with two of us being the same person it was half the work, I started at the back and worked forward Jess started at today and moved back.

We discussed what was going to happen about Carlo, whilst neither of us had minded the impromptu threeway, and we guessed Carlo had no complaints at all, we realised that long term it was not a working solution. As the non-resident I felt it was probably up to me to make other arrangements, whatever the long-term plans for Carlo and Jess were around here.

Coincidentally Carlo turned up later in the evening, he had a bit of a preoccupied air about him, almost as if the situation with Jess and me and my being in a familiar but strange place was on his mind. To be honest I was feeling very cut off from everyone I knew, the differences were starting to make me feel out of place and if he'd expressed some sympathy and empathy I'd have dragged him into bed, as it was he admitted he was very worried, and I was nearly all over him right up to the moment he spoke.

"Lukaku and Rudiger crashed into each other on Saturday and there's talk of them not being available for Thursday's game against Liverpool. I really hope they're fit."

I gave an exasperated howl, grabbed Jess's jacket and car keys and spent an hour driving past places that had been important to me, or were important to me. I still can't really get my head around the reality. The maths was something I could work with, a principle I could understand. The reality of being somewhere that was home but not home had me sobbing into a Moonbucks latte.

The next morning back at the Lab Professor Cole gathered everyone in his department together, Doctor Wall had joined us, largely because he was already in on the situation, so it was easier to get him on the team than clear another research medic and we needed someone to look at the MRI and medical results.

The Prof showed why he is one of the most popular TV science presenters with a bit of showmanship. He'd asked Jess and me to wear the same clothes again and had us sitting on lab stools, I was behind a large mirror on wheels facing towards the team.

He started by congratulating everyone for the efforts they'd put in and went on to explain that an unexpected result of the MRI data transfer was driving the next phase of research. He may have primed the response because when Julia interrupted to say, "Could you explain what you mean by an unexpected result?" he asked Jess to come and sit on the stool in front of the mirror.

I was hidden and heard, "Turn around Jess, face the mirror. Now what we have here is the very lovely Jessica, as you all know she was our MRI volunteer on Saturday. Here she is, checking her mirror image for any discrepancies. Now, as I'm sure you're all aware a mirror is a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional object, not that I'm objectifying you Jess, I wouldn't want to be spendin' another day on an HR awareness course. "He paused for the laughter to dissipate and continued.

"What we need to do is observe the image in three dimensions. So, for that to happen the first thing we need to do is get rid of the mirror..." there was a pause and the room filled with smoke that dissipated as quickly as it appeared, but when it was gone the mirror had been wheeled away and I was sitting looking back at Jess.

The room murmured, showy but not totally clear where he was heading seemed to be the general consensus on the Professor's introduction.

He went on. "Not a twin, not a reproduction, not a hologram. Team, I'd like you to meet Jessica Newell, and Jessica Newell. Doctor Wall will confirm we've run DNA screens on both Jessicas, and they are genetically identical, not 99.9997% identical like twins. No, as far as we can test, 100% identical."

He beckoned us forward. "I'm going to suggest to the Jessicas that one of them cuts her hair so we can tell them apart, we also have one of them registered with the university as Maria, that being her second name."

He sat us down, one each side of him and opened things up to the gang.

"Questions, ideas, impressions. Go."

A burst of questions hit the room, Doctor Wall held up copies of the DNA data for inspection, Jess and I fielded several about family history and Professor Cole answered several about funding with "Yes but I can't tell you"

The initial buzz settled down, agreement was reached that Jess and I were effectively the same person, but the Professor didn't give any guidance as to how we'd ended up as two of me. He broke the group down into three teams, one to confirm where I'd come from, one to check the operation of the MRI scanners and one to work on the Plasma Fusion reactor.

Jess and I were taken out of the research teams initially so we could be subjected to a barrage of tests, scans and questions which is how we ended up wearing a lot of paper robes and two days later we were being MRI scanned again in the same place Jess had gone prior to me appearing in UCH.

Life settled into a fairly high stress series of tests, questioning and re-establishing the specific events leading up to what everyone started calling the transference. It was good to have something to throw myself into and I started to believe everything would be alright, that I would get back to 'my' Oxford and I'd see 'my' friends and family again.

Things developed into a bit of a routine for a couple of weeks, we'd leave home around seven thirty, work either at the lab or hospital all day, go home. Carlo came round most evenings but only wanted to eat and chat, his libido had taken a bit of a dive since that first occasion, I thought maybe he was threatened by there being two of us.

Where things got weird, yeah, as if they weren't already, was when a red top paper got a whiff of something strange happening and sent a paparazzi photographer, I refuse to call it a journalist, to hang around outside the hospital. We were doorstepped and had questions thrown at us, questions that didn't really expect an answer but were designed to sound like we were hiding something.

"Jessica, are you a clone?" "Jessica, is Professor Cole building life like robots?"

"Jessica, which one of you is human?"

The next day the front page screamed "EXCLUSIVE: TV DOC GROWS SEXY INTERN" with a picture of Professor Cole from his 'Wonders of Science' series standing in front of a bank of servers, looking very mad scientist. Inside were pictures grabbed from Jess's Lookbook account of her on the beach in Ibiza in a very tiny bikini, captioned "Sexy Intern Jessica, good things come in pairs," with a picture of the two of us in the hospital dressed identically in paper robes.