Chương 37: Chapter 26: And Then There Were Dumb

The clock ticked down to ten PM. Vell eyed it nervously from time to time, ever vigilant. It was Friday night, and the apocalypse hadn't happened yet. While it gave the loopers plenty of time to enjoy themselves on the first loop, the waiting was starting to become nerve-wracking. The long-delayed apocalypse was made all the stranger by the fact that there was a hurricane roaring around them.

The campus buildings were relatively hurricane-proofed, so while there was no immediate danger from a conventional hurricane, the winds and rain had confined all students to their dorms for the night. The group had made the decision to take shelter in Vell's dorm, and make a game night out of it. They had even managed to talk Leanne into joining them -though she did so mostly in anticipation of the daily apocalypse, and also because she wanted to have some more of Renard's cooking.

Leanne had, at this point, had a lot more than "some". Renard handed her a fourth bowl of pho, and her appetite still showed no sign of slowing. Luckily he had made a large pot.

"What kind of hand even is that," Luke said, as Leanne laid down her cards.

"Does that beat mine? I can never fucking remember whether straights or flushes are better." Leanne looked up from her Pho long enough to shake her head. She didn't know shit about poker either.

"Cane, you know poker things, stop ogling Harley long enough to explain it to us." Cane tried and failed to act innocent. Harley had taken advantage of the long loop to sleep around -even more so than usual- and Cane's eagerness made him a go-to target for her advances. The only reason they weren't off somewhere canoodling right now is because Lee had insisted on vigilance, and Harley was willing to restrain her libido for her friends sake. Mostly.

Harley scooted slightly further away from Cane while he tried to act naive.

"Uh, hold on, now I'm confused too." The group went in circles, debating the hierarchy of poker hands. Several names were put back and forth, none of them right. Freddy naively suggested googling it, but the rest of the group dismissed that as the cowards way out.

"Leanne, help us out here, you seem sane," Luke demanded. Leanne continued eating her pho in silence.

"Oh, wait, I think I remember," Harley said.

"It was-" She got cut off by the sparking burst of an electrical surge, and the room immediately falling into darkness. Lee let out a quick yelp of surprise in the dark -a yelp matched by a much quieter grunt of surprise from Vell. A second after her shout, the emergency power kicked on and the lights returned. Vell scooted away from Joan a bit and took a quick stock of the room.

Freddy had jumped out of his chair and was cowering against the nearby wall, Lee had sunk deeper into her seat to cower, Leanne was still sitting on the couch eating pho like nothing had happened, and Harley was lying dead on the floor with a knife protruding from her back.

"Well, shit," Vell said. Lee sighed, Leanne continued eating pho, and the rest of the room sprang into a blind panic. It took about five minutes for the screaming to stop, then five more minutes for Freddy to stop hyperventilating.

"Okay, we need to call campus security, now," Luke said. He pulled out his phone and tapped at the screen, growing more frustrated with every tap.

"Come on, come on."

"Let me guess, connection's dead?" Vell asked.

"Somehow," Luke said. As he spoke, Lee stood and tested the door. The handle didn't budge as she tried to turn it.

"Ah, and it appears the lockdown protocols have also failed. We seem to be trapped." Freddy started hyperventilating again.

"We're locked in a room with a murderer!" Freddy backed himself into a corner and cowered, his panicked eyes scanning the room from behind glass lenses. Joan joined him in scanning the room, though at a much less frantic pace. Her crimson gaze narrowed into a suspicious glare that passed over everyone in the room one by one.

"He's right," Joan said.

"Someone in this room killed Harley."

"Not really," Vell said.

"It could've been a ghost," Lee suggested.

"The freshman dorms are quite haunted."

"Wait, what?" Cane said. Lee did not address his concerns.

"Or simply someone with access to short range teleportation," Lee continued.

"Or a demon," Vell added.

"Harley's pissed off a lot of demons."

"And an angel or two," Lee said.

"Speaking of people Harley's annoyed, Leanne, you didn't kill Harley, did you?" Leanne shrugged and gestured to her head, spinning her finger in a circular motion, then continued eating her pho.

"Right, I suppose we hadn't properly considered someone being possessed or mind-controlled either," Lee said.

"But it couldn't have been Leanne anyway," Joan insisted. She walked to Lee's position on the couch and then gestured to Harley's corpse at the center of the room.

"She couldn't have put her bowl down, made it across the room, stabbed Harley at that angle, and made it back to her seat in so little time." A well-crafted theory, but not without it's gaping holes.

"Uh, this is Leanne we're talking about. Not only is she crazy fast, she, you know, could've just ricocheted the knife off a wall from across the room, or something," Vell said. Leanne nodded. She'd done stranger things with a knife.

"Oh. Okay, I guess," Joan said. Her posture shrank for a moment.

"But I think we can still consider Leanne pretty low on the suspect list."

"Since when is there a suspect list?" Luke asked.

"And why are you making it? Aren't you a suspect too?"

"Easy," Joan boasted.

"I have an alibi. I was grabbing Vell's butt."

"She was," Vell admitted. She'd taken advantage of the dark to catch him off guard. He had mixed feelings about that.

"And since I had my hand on his butt, and he had his butt on my hand, we can vouch for each other," Joan said.

"So we'll be in charge of interrogating suspects." Vell didn't really consider anyone in the room a suspect, so he had to question that approach. His friends had other concerns, and unlike Vell, they were not too sheepish to voice them.

"You seem remarkably nonchalant about Harley being dead," Luke said.

"How do we know you didn't arrange this?"

"If it was one of us dead on the ground, Harley would be nonchalant about it," Joan sniped back.

"Hell, do they seem bothered?" Joan pointed in the direction of the loopers. Lee and Vell tried to look a little more upset, but it was difficult to fake. Leanne didn't even bother. Her bowl was beginning to run low, and she silently considered how impolite it would be to go get more food while Harley was still lying dead on the floor.

"Well, yeah, but they're always suspiciously relaxed about weird shit," Cane said.

"When you do it it seems crazy."

"Well, I- You aren't- You just got bumped higher up the suspect list, Cane," Joan said. She turned away from his criticism and looked elsewhere.

"Lee, you know the most about magic, and you're probably the least likely to have killed Harley, why don't you handle the supernatural investigation while me and Vell take care of ruling out suspects?" Much to Vell's surprise, Lee answered with a stiff thumbs-up.

"Aren't there, uh, other ways to go about this?" Vell asked.

"Maybe?"

"No no, this is fine," Lee said, unconvincingly.

"We've got our bases covered."

"Come on, Vell, it'll be-" Joan caught herself about to say "fun", remembered the corpse on the floor, and changed course.

"-Efficient! We'll find out who or what killed Harley as soon as possible." While Joan continued espousing the virtues of the couple playing Holmes and Watson, Vell looked to Lee for backup. Spending time on interrogations seemed like a waste. More than likely, Harley's murder was the symptom of a larger apocalyptic scenario, not one person in the group suddenly developing an inexplicable bloodlust.

In spite of Vell's hopes that she would act as a voice of reason, Lee seemed eager to play along -though that eagerness was stiff and superficial.

"I think you're right," Lee said.

"Why don't you two use Vell's dorm as an interrogation room while I investigate everything in the living area?"

"Sounds good," Joan said.

"Would you mind if I talked to Lee privately for a second?" Vell asked.

"I'd be more surprised if you didn't rush off for an inexplicable secret chat with her," Joan said.

"Thank you for at least asking permission this time."

"Right. Excuse us," Vell said. He scooted past Harley's corpse, leading Lee into his dorm.

"Does this seem, you know, weird to you?" he asked.

"It is odd for the daily apocalypse to be so singular in it's victims, but I believe-""Not Harley being dead," Vell said.

"I mean Joan's idea of an investigation. Doesn't this seem like, you know, a waste of time?"

"Oh, nonsense, it'll be fine," Lee insisted.

"You'd mostly be standing around while I did magical stuff anyway. You might as well work with Joan and try to gather what details you can. Somebody might have seen something important."

"I guess that makes sense," Vell said.

"Of course it does," Lee said with a fake smile.

"You're probably just a bit put off by Joan's, well, eagerness. It's not that she's not upset by Harley dying, I think, but rather that Joan has quite the passion for investigation."

"Apparently," Vell said. Joan had put quite a lot of energy into investigating Vell's resurrection, though not quite enough to realize she'd been sleeping with the object of her obsession for months. Hopefully another morose investigation would give her an outlet for that obsessive energy, even if only temporarily. Vell had been trying to put that whole ordeal in the past, but Joan was making it difficult to forget.

"Alright, let's get this over with. Good luck with your magic stuff. Uh, let me know if you want to borrow my glasses."

"Not right now, but I will keep the offer in mind, thank you," Lee said with a curtsy.

"Now, I should go get to work finding out how Harley was murdered."

"Have fun," Vell said.

"You as well," Lee said, before the two parted ways to begin their investigation.

"I, uh, I think you could've picked a better start," Vell said. Leanne nodded in agreement. Joan had converted Vell's dorm into a makeshift interrogation room, complete with a spotlight aimed at the "perp". It was an impressive setup, but Joan had brought in the one person who wouldn't talk even in the most impressive interrogation room.

"I'm sure Leanne understands what's at stake here," Joan said. She had an unusually harsh edge to her voice. Since Joan knew that Vell would default to the role of good cop, she had taken it on herself to be the bad cop.

"You need to talk to me, Leanne." She didn't. Leanne stared blankly at Joan and waited for the red-eyed woman to blink first. She did.

"You realize you're incriminating yourself with your silence here, right?" Joan protested. Leanne looked at Vell and spun a finger near her ears. Vell took offense on Joan's behalf.

"Hey. She's just, uh... passionate."

"Don't bother, I've been called crazy before," Joan said.

"Not exclusively through hand gestures, admittedly, that part is new. But still. I'm used to it." In spite of her brave face, Vell could see that Joan was upset. He kept their "interrogation" moving in an attempt to shift her focus.

"Alright, Leanne, before you go, can you just tell us if you saw anything weird?" Leanne shook her head. She then mimicked the motion of putting a spoon in her mouth, then placed both hands in front of her chest and pointed to the empty space next to her, before finally making a stabbing motion.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Joan demanded.

"She didn't see anything because she was too focused on eating, all she knows is that Harley hadn't moved for a while before she got stabbed," Vell explained. He'd learned his way around Leanne's gesture-based communication by now.

"What part of that means 'Harley'?" Leanne held her hands in front of her chest again. Vell turned red in the face.

"Well- It's, uh, there's- She has, or uh, had, you know-""Right," Joan said. Vell had explained nothing, but his awkward stammering said everything.

"We're referring to the dead girl by her boobs. Classy." Leanne put a hand near her heart and nodded solemnly. She was trying very hard not to giggle.

"It's what she'd want," Vell agreed. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Right, well, it's not what I want," Joan said.

"Leanne, unless you feel like saying something useful, just get out of here."

"And please gesture for Renard to come in next," Vell asked. Leanne nodded and vacated the room.

"Why Renard?" Joan asked.

"Dude wouldn't hurt a fly."

"Yeah, but that was his kitchen knife sticking out of Harley's back," Vell said.

"Renard keeps his stuff organized. If anybody snatched his knife, he'd notice." Joan went oddly quiet as Renard entered the room. She hadn't noticed that Renard's knife was the murder weapon -nor had she even thought to investigate the weapon at all. She quickly overcame the moment of inadequacy via the excuse that Vell spent more time around Renard and was more familiar with his knives. She regained her confidence the moment Renard walked in the door.

"Renard. Take a seat."

"Okay," Renard said. He walked behind the chair and grabbed it.

"Where do you want me to put it?"

"Not take, you-" Joan put a hand over her mouth to shut herself up.

"I mean sit down, Renard." Renard sat down. Once he seemed comfortable, Joan leaned over and got in his face to make him as uncomfortable as possible.

"So. Seems like one of your knives was the murder weapon, Renard," Joan hissed.

"Yep," Renard said, completely unfazed by Joan's attempts at intimidation.

"That's really unfortunate, because I really liked that knife. I guess I could clean it off and still use it, but it'd feel really weird, you know?"

"No doubt," Joan said, her eyes narrowing.

"You want to explain how your knife ended up in Harley's back?"

"Oh, I don't know," Renard said with a shrug.

"Last time I saw it, Harley asked to borrow it, and then she scuttled off. Then I dropped off a bowl of pho with Leanne, the lights flickered, and then she was dead."

"Harley asked to borrow the knife?" Joan mused aloud.

"Why would she do that?"

"Wait, hold on," Vell said.

"Didn't Leanne say, er, gesture that Harley was in her seat the whole time?"

"Oh, right," Joan said. She pondered this for a moment and then shook her head.

"Eh, Leanne was focused on her food and Renard is... Renard." The redheaded chef perked up at the sound of his name, oblivious to Joan's less-than-complementary tone. Joan shook her head.

"Somebody's probably just confused." In Joan's world, that might have made sense, but Vell couldn't let minor discrepancies like that pass him by. For all he knew, they were dealing with some kind of doppelganger situation. Possibly a shapeshifter, or maybe an evil Harley from an alternate dimension. He made a mental note of Harley being in two places at once and let Joan continue her interrogation.

"What were you doing right before Harley was murdered?"

"Giving Leanne some pho."

"And why were you doing that?"

"Because she asked for some."

"And how can we be sure you didn't grab your knife on one of those trips back and forth to the kitchen?"

"Because I carry my bowls with two hands," Renard said.

"The broth is really hot, Joan, you don't want to spill that stuff on someone." Joan stared Renard down, trying to get him to crack. She looked so deeply into Renard's eyes she could practically hear the echoes in his empty head.

"Alright, you can go," Joan said. Even in the unlikely scenario that Renard had actually been involved in Harley's death, he wasn't smart enough to avoid slipping up for this long. Joan wanted to get some time in with her actual suspects.

"Bring me Freddy Frizzle," she demanded. Freddy Frizzle trembled so hard that Vell could feel the floor shaking from across the room.

"I think you maybe need to go a little less hard on Freddy," Vell suggested.

"Ridiculous," Joan scoffed. She slammed a fist into her open palm.

"Freddy will crack with just a little pressure."

"Yeah, he will, which is why there should be, maybe like, no pressure," Vell said.

"You're just going to make him have a panic attack, or something." Considering Freddy had already started hyperventilating, Vell had some very real concerns about Freddy's health if the stress continued. It would all be erased by the time loop, but he wanted to avoid giving Freddy a heart attack if at all possible. He kept their conversation to a whisper to avoid Freddy overhearing.

"Look, just ease off like, a little bit? Please?"

"Alright," Joan sighed.

"But between you and me, this guy is suspect number one."

"Freddy?" Vell said. Putting aside the issue of threadbare motive, Freddy started to sweat if he even looked at Harley, much less contemplated murdering her. It would have been hard to miss any murderous intent.

"Think about it, Harlan," Joan said.

"He's been obsessed with Harley since the day they met, and today she jumps into bed with Cane. A lifetime of sexual repression, a semester of obsession, a spark of jealousy, and then-" Joan jerked her wrist in a stabbing motion. The sadistic grin on her face unnerved Vell. She enjoyed this theory a little too much.

"Very dramatic, but, uh, Freddy's not that kind of guy," Vell said.

"Oh, sure," Joan said, rolling her eyes.

"After every murderer gets caught, there's a guy like you saying 'but they seemed so nice'." Joan broke off from Vell and sauntered over to Freddy. The vibration in the floor stopped as Freddy ceased trembling and froze in place under Joan's icy stare.

"So, Frizzle," Joan said.

"What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I- I- I- I-" Freddy stuttered the same syllable about seventeen times before Joan snapped her fingers to snap him out of it.

"I don't know, I don't know."

"Well you better say something," Joan insisted. She leaned in even closer to Freddy's face.

"You're looking more suspicious every second, you know." Freddy tried and failed to squirm in a way that didn't look suspicious. Joan grabbed on to the arms of his chair and pressed closer to his face to press the advantage.

"Did it upset you, seeing Harley shack up with Cane? You'd had your eyes on her for a while, after all?"

"I, uh, I didn't- She can, or, could, do whatever, I don't-""You don't what?" Joan demanded forcefully.

"Hey, lay off a bit," Vell said. He tried to defuse her intensity with a bit of humor.

"You're going to make him piss himself or something." The joke failed to land as it became increasingly clear Freddy might actually piss himself. He was visibly sweating now, and trembling in his seat.

"I don't know, I didn't see anything, I-I-I-I just panicked when the lights went out and, and-""And took your chance?" Joan snapped.

"No, I just- I bumped into somebody and th- then, then the lights came on," Freddy stammered.

"And then everybody started screaming."

"That was mostly you, as I remember it," Joan said. A lie, since she'd been screaming too.

"So, were you screaming out of fear? Or maybe out of regret? You made a snap choice in the heat of the moment?"

"I- No, I didn't I-""Hey, maybe ease up," Vell suggested. Joan ignored him.

"Now's the time to come clean, Fred," Joan said.

"It only gets worse for you from now on."

"Hey-""I didn't do anything," Freddy whimpered. Joan slammed her hands down on the arms of the chair.

"And why should I believe that?" Freddy never got to give an answer. Joan got grabbed by the arm and forcibly pulled away from the "interrogation" chair. Vell pulled her back towards the wall and stared her dead in the eyes.

"Stop," he commanded. Joan bit her lip.

"Okay," she said. Vell let her go, and nodded to Freddy that he should leave. The unfortunate nerd didn't hesitate to spring out of the chair and out of the room. Joan took a deep breath and tried to reset.

"Anyone ever told you you're kind of sexy when you're angry, Harlan?"

"This isn't funny, Joan."

"I was being serious, the confidence does wonders," Joan said. The look on Vell's face told her he wasn't amused.

"Sorry."

"That was way out of line," Vell said.

"This night is bad enough already without you screaming at people."

"Yeah, I know, the night is pretty shitty, I'm trying to find a murderer here, Vell," Joan said.

"You don't know that anyone here actually killed Harley, and even if someone did, do you think they'd tell you?"

"They might, if you let me apply some pressure," Joan said.

"I know you like to play the nice guy, Vell, but this isn't really the time for kid gloves."

"Yeah, of course. Can we just go back to the living room and, like, keep an eye on everyone instead of this? I feel like it's, uh, probably not all that productive, when it comes to keeping people safe. We just need to make sure nobody else dies before campus security shows up."

"I don't believe in sitting around doing nothing when I could be solving a problem," Joan said. She straightened out the interrogation chair and crossed her arms.

"I liked Harley. Maybe you can be weirdly apathetic about this, but I can't." Vell planted his forehead firmly against the wall and let out one of the deepest sighs of his life. Of course Joan was taking this seriously. Unlike him, she though Harley's death was permanent. A full semester of loops had made himself a bit numb to normal feelings on death. He reminded himself to forgive Joan for being a little intense, and felt glad she'd soon be forgetting all of this.

He checked his phone, and saw they were running low on time. It was just after eleven, and the daily loop would reset at midnight.

"Let's keep going," Vell said, reluctantly.

"But two things."

"Hit me," Joan said.

"Firstly, I get to start the questions this time," Vell said.

"And secondly-" Luke sat in the interrogation chair, while Cane sat on the bed.

"This really defeats the point of an interrogation," Joan said.

"It's more like an interview," Vell said. With the midnight deadline drawing close, they had to be a little more efficient with their time. He stood in front of his roommates and put his hands on his hips.

"So. What do you guys remember?"

"A lot of screaming and a dead Harley mostly," Luke said. He leaned back in the chair and glanced between the couple in front of him.

"Are you seriously playing detective with Joan?"

"Hey," Joan protested.

"We're just trying to piece together what we can," Vell assured them.

"So, let me ask you this. Did either of you see Harley go to the kitchen just before the power went out?" Luke shook his head and looked at Cane, who shook his head in turn.

"She was sitting right next to me the whole time," Cane said.

"She didn't have her hand on my butt, though, since that's apparently what it takes to have an alibi around here." The jab didn't make Joan flinch.

"Right, and nothing weird happened beforehand?"

"I mean, Harley had been kind of off her rocker all day," Cane said.

"She was talking a lot about impermanence, being reckless, enjoying ourselves while we can. It was really, weird, and kind of-""No that's just normal Harley stuff," Vell said.

"Sort of." Harley liked to sleep around, but she didn't like to do so under false pretenses. She tried to give prospective paramours some hints that their sex would end up dust in the temporal winds without actually revealing the nature of the time loops. Cane had been concerned about the odd behavior, though not concerned enough to say no to sex. Vell dismissed his concerns even further and paused just long enough for Joan to seize the initiative.

"So what did you see before the lights went out?" Joan demanded. Nothing useful, it turned out. Joan continued pressing on minor details while Vell took a moment to think. His brain did manage to snag a minor detail out of the information chaff Joan was creating.

"Did either of you two bump into someone when the lights went out?" Vell asked. Cane and Luke shook their heads. Vell thanked them for their cooperation and then excused herself to go find Lee. She was mid-spell in the living room, holding a glowing orb in her hand that was making a small patch of the floor glow in turn.

"Hey Lee," Vell began.

"Did you bump into anybody when the lights were out?" Lee shook her head, though she did not take her eyes off the glowing portion of the floor.

"I didn't so much as elbow anyone," Lee said, before moving on to her real concern.

"How are things going with Joan?"

"She's being a bit intense but it's, uh, fine," Vell said. He cast a guilty glance at Freddy, who was still trembling visibly in his seat.

"Uh, Leanne, Renard, either of you two bump into anyone in the dark?" Renard said no, and Leanne shook her head.

"Then I think there must have been someone else in the room," Vell said.

"That seems consistent with this," Lee said, indicating to the glowing patch of the floor.

"This appears to be the aftermath of someone using a phasing device to pass through the floor of our dorm. Rather crudely, I might add."

"How so?"

"Well, simply put, the device or spell they used to do so was... shitty. Poorly made and poorly used," Lee said.

"I don't know how else to describe it."

"Huh. Well, at the very least, we can rule out anyone in this room as a suspect," Vell said. He turned back to his dorm.

"Joan, stop interrogating, nobody we know is guilty." Luke and Cane practically kicked the door down on their way out. Cane was starting to sweat.

"Thank god," Luke said, as he crossed the room.

"I swear your girlfriend was like two seconds away from waterboarding us."

"I was gone for fifteen seconds," Vell said. Joan shrugged.

"I wanted answers," she said.

"There are no answers, you crazy bitch," Luke said.

"She's not crazy," Vell and Lee said in unison. As Joan prepared to say something in her own defense, Leanne slammed a fist into the arm of her chair and then pointed down at Harley's corpse.

"Right, murder," Luke said.

"The murder none of us had anything to do with."

"There's nothing to talk about," Joan said.

"We didn't get any useful info out of any of you."

"Actually, I think I know what happened," Vell said.

"Renard says he saw Harley in the kitchen while Harley was on the couch, and Freddy says he bumped into someone, but nobody else got bumped into. Combined with what Lee found out, I think somebody else infiltrated the room and killed Harley." While the group at large nodded in agreement, Joan stayed stiff and silent. Vell got too caught up in his summation to notice.

"We know it's someone with access to mediocre magitech, someone who can change to look like Harley…" Vell rubbed his chin for a moment as he pondered their options, until inspiration struck.

"Or someone who already looks like her!" Just after inspiration struck, the clock struck midnight. Vell woke up with a headache. As Lee had promised, being snapped back to the start of a loop while still conscious was not a good time. Vell got a drink of water and some aspirin and then checked his phone. HARL33: hey party ppl anybody get eyes on what murdered us last night Lee: Well. About that. Galgamesh: It was just you lmao. HARL33: xcuse me what!?!?!?!?!!!!? RUDE!!!!!

Lee: If it's any consolation, everyone was quite upset about your murder Galgamesh: I wasn't. HARL33: obviously I bet you killed me >: (Galgamesh: Not today. Next time maybe. HARL33: its a date <3 who did kill me then!?! you bitches BETTER have caught em vharlan03: i'm pretty sure i know who did it but we're gonna have to catch them in the act HARL33: yeah that sounds fine ill just put on my anti-knife bra that i have vharlan03: you'll be fine just sit next to leanne Galgamesh: I promise not to let you get murdered. Again. HARL33: okay cool i am mostly okay with this plan except for the part where vell wont just say who he thinks it is vharlan03: its more dramatic this way HARL33: oh lmao right"What kind of hand even is that," Luke said, as Leanne laid down her cards." Does that beat mine? I can never fucking remember whether straights or flushes are better."" Flushes," Vell said. He'd made sure to google it beforehand, to avoid repeating the same circular discussion." Yeah, that's it," Luke said." Alright, Leanne wins. Deal us up again, I guess."" Actually, uh, one second," Vell said." I think the storm's picking up."" And what's that got to do with anything?"" Wait for it," Vell said. The group waited. Their waiting paid off with the sparking burst of an electrical surge, and the room immediately falling into darkness. Lee did not yelp in surprise at the dark this time, nor was Vell caught off guard by Joan grabbing his butt. He sighed before his train of thought got put back on track by a grunt of exertion and the sound of a short struggle. The emergency light's flickered back on. Harley had jumped out of her seat, and in the empty space left behind, Leanne had snatched the wrist of a hand holding a knife. Vell crossed his arms in satisfaction as he identified the culprit. Others in the room struggled to make sense of what they saw." Harley, do you have an evil twin?" A nearly-identical duplicate of Harley struggled to free themselves from Leanne's ironclad grip, to no avail. She reached for the phasing tech she'd strapped to her belt, but Leanne swatted her hands away. Harley cracked a grin." Oh, no," she said." That's just Harmony, my weird off-brand doppelganger from that cooking contest a while back."" I am not the off-brand version of you!" Harmony shrieked. The almost-but-not-quite perfect duplicate of Harley struggled to free herself, but didn't lose her grip on the knife." I'll prove it! I'll get rid of you, and I'll be the only one! The only one, I tell you!"" Hah, that's stupid," Harley said." If I were going to kill my doppelganger I'd definitely get away with it." The taunt only enraged Harmony further. Leanne stood up and dragged Harley's murderous counterpart to the door. She patted Renard on the shoulder once, to thank him for the pho, and then used Harmony's phasing tech to move them both through the sealed doors, to escort Harmony to the nearest security bot." What the shit," Cane said." Did Harley just almost get murdered?""' Almost' being the key word, bud," Harley said. She sat back down in her seat and relaxed." So. We still doing poker, or what?" As Harley settled down, so did the nerves of the odd situation. The tense roommates relaxed, to an extent." Just so you know," Joan began." If you did get murdered, I'd definitely catch the killer. I'm great at investigating."" Sure you would," Harley said, sarcasm dripping from her voice like honey. Vell and Lee simultaneously shove a spoonful of pho into their mouths, just to have an excuse not to say anything." I would! I'm great at finding things out, right?" Joan protested, looking to the group for confirmation. Luke and Cane very deliberately ignored her gaze." Vell, tell her."" I mean, you are."" You're talking like there's a but coming," Joan said." I guess.' But' sometimes things are hard," Vell said." Nobody's smart enough to solve every problem. Maybe you would solve a murder, maybe you wouldn't. I don't really want to find out." Joan scowled for a moment, but eventually relented and leaned over to give Vell a kiss on the check." Alright, you got a point," Joan said." Thanks for keeping my ego in check." With the tension defused, every returned to their pho. Joan raised an empty bowl to her lips to drain the last of the broth -and hide the scowl that quickly returned to her face.