Entanglements
-------------
A twentysomething blonde knocked on a nondescript door in a very average looking neighbourhood,
then called out, "Hey Madboy - you rang?  Er... texted.  So you have something to show me?"

Phil sighed as he creaked the door open for her.  "I'm not a spark, Aggie.  This isn't mad science,
it's quantum physics."  His expression made it clear he'd argued the point before.

The lanky young woman laughed.  "Suuure - I've seen your lab, I'm not buying it.  Normal physicists
don't do teleportation experiments."

"Acutally, they do."

"On objects you can actually see with your bare eyes?"

Phil shook his head, conceding the point as he trudged down the basement stairs, Aggie trailing
curiously.  "I guess not, no."

"So why have you succeeded where they have failed?"

Phil shrugged his shoulders.  Aggie took a moment to admire - her childhood friend was actually
starting to fill out a bit.  "Audacity, perhaps."

"Or a little spark of something the others don't have."  Aggie looked around as they got to the
bottom of the stairs.  "Hey, those pods are new.  You've moved up from grains of rice since I
last was here?"

Phil grinned, and waved at the two egg-shaped metal objects now dominating his lab.  "Yeah.  More
than a bit.  Figured that since I'd proven the principle at the millimeter scale, why not go up
to something interesting?"

Aggie tapped on one.  "Solid metal... no wonder you're looking a bit buffer - you hauled all this
down here yourself?"

Phil nodded.  "That's where I've vanished to these past few weeks, yeah.  Just getting this built
was a pretty big job.  But it works!"

"What, you've teleported a whole sack of rice?"

Phil hemmed a bit.  "It's... not exactly like that.  You know how it was never better than 50-50
that it'd work at all?"

Aggie chuckled.  "You were tearing your hair out for weeks.  Did you ever get the number to budge
above one-half?"

Phil self-conciously ran his hands through his unruly sandy hair.  "No, but I figured out why it
was happening.  Stupid really - I finally thought to check the 'transmitter' pod," he said, putting
air-quotes around the word.

"Wait... why isn't it a transmitter pod, then?"

"Because the quantum entanglement I was trying to use to teleport the rice grain was actually
acting as a duplicator."

"Cool!"  Aggie looked at the pods again.  "So you can... copy stuff?  Talk about potential."

Phil chuckled, and nodded.  "And it makes the range limitation easier to take.  A quantum
teleporter that can only go halfway across the basement isn't going to be exactly viable.
There's just one little issue."

"That 50-50 thing again?"

Phil nodded, and picked an apple and a pear out of the crates off to one side - the basement
was always cool, and a nice place to keep fruit fresh.  He put the apple in the left pod,
and the pear in the right.

Aggie looked alarmed.  "Um... won't that cause them to overlap and explode or something?"

Phil chuckled, and moved the fruit so each was on a different side of the pod. "Better?"

Aggie looked uncertain, then nodded.  "I think..."

"Ready to watch history being made?"

"Really?  This is your first run?"

Phil shook his head and Aggie pouted.  "Come on, I had to know it would work."

He pressed a button and the doors hissed closed.  "You get to be the first other
than me to see the entanglator in action."

"Entanglator?" Aggie giggled.

"Do you have a better name for it?"

"Show me what it does, first."

Phil pressed the big red button.  Nothing visible happened.  But after the doors hissed
open, Aggie blinked in surprise.

"Two apples?"

Phil nodded.  "Might have been two pears.  It's still totally random which side gets
copied to the other."

"Oh, so when the receiver was empty..."

"The rice grain in the transmitter had vanished."

Aggie reached for the pear-turned-apple.  As she picked it up, it shimmered in her hand
and reformed as a pear.  "Ack!"

Phil explained, "The entanglement is only temporary.  Tends to 'pop' at the slightest provocation,
or whenever you take it outside the pod."

Aggie pouted.  "Aww. I wanted to know if it'd taste like a pear or an apple."

"Well... I've got some ideas for how to make the entanglement last longer, but I need some pure
crystalline lattices to do it."

Aggie tilted her head curiously.  "How big?"

Phil shrugged.  "Not very - anything big enough to get contacts onto, really.  A few millimeters?"

Aggie grinned, and took out her left earring.  "Would a little sapphire do?  Um... it won't be
harmed, will it?  Dad gave it to me, before... you know."

Phil nodded a bit sadly.  "I know.  You'd think after all this time..."

Aggie punched him playfully on the arm.  "Hey, no getting maudlin on me.  Yes, it sucks we both
lost our Dads on the same day... but it's also why we got to grow up together.  You know they were
both on the move *all* the time."

Phil rubbed his shoulder, shaking his head but grinning.  "Fine, fine.  And your earring will be
fine, too - I'll be careful mounting it."

Aggie handed the earring over, and Phil turned and placed it on a small silvery platform
perched atop the large conduit that connected the two pods.  Two smaller conduits branched off
the main ones, coming down to fine points, and he placed those in contact with the earring,
moving with exaggerated care to either reassure Aggie, or frustrate her.  Or both.

"Ready for another shot?"  Phil finally inquired.

"Sure thing!"  Aggie was almost bouncing with excitement.

Again the doors hissed closed.  Phil turned a switch on the main panel, lighting up a small
green lamp labelled 'lattice shunt'.  "Engage!" he called as he pressed the red button.

"You're such a nerd," Aggie giggled.  It was obviously not meant as an insult.

"Oh come on - though I suppose the right thing to say would be 'Energize'."

"Or 'Tea, Earl Grey, hot'."

Phil laughed.  "Who's the nerd?"  He released the doors, and they sighed back open.

"Ooo, pears this time.  The apple was on the right, right?"  Aggie leaned in to pick
it up, and this time... this time it stayed a pear.

"Can I eat it?  Is it safe?"

Phil shrugged.  "Um... I don't know.  I've never been able to pick up the result before
without it collapsing the entanglement.  I'd like to keep these two a while to see how long
they'll stay..."

"Well, it wouldn't hurt to slice into it to at least see if it *smells* right."

"I don't think the entanglement will last through that kind of abuse."

But it did, much to Phil's surprise.  "Wow.  I thought I'd get a small boost in
durability, but... woah.  This is cool!"

The two of them chattered about the possibilities for some time, until Aggie had to
go home.

"Can I have my earring back now?"

Phil looked over at the entangler.  "Oh!  Yeah, sure.  I wonder if it'll keep the
charge..."  Nothing happened as he removed the leads, but as he picked it up, there
was a soft noise from over in the kitchenette.

"Oh, hey, the apple's back.  Huh.  I guess you can't pick up the earring after all,
it discharges somehow."

Phil's stare grew distant.  "But if I could insulate it..."

Aggie chuckled and shook her head.  She knew that look, and knew better than to ask
Phil what he was thinking about - he was miles away by now.  She went over to the
now detangled fruit and examined both of them more closely.  "Hey!  Hey Phil!  Oh, foo,
I'll just leave a note."

When Phil eventually noticed the message posted to his lab door, it was sometime in
the wee hours of the morning.  It read:
  "Dear Phil,
  
   Text me when you work it all out.  I'm sure you've got something interesting
   in store.
   
   You might want to know that the apple was completely undamaged when it came back,
   cutting into it while it was a pear had no effect at all.  Pretty neat, huh?
   
   -- A"
   
* * *

Several weeks went by before Phil's traditional text again arrived.  "Mr Watson, come
here, I want to see you."  The archaic reference still made Aggie grin, and she once
again headed to familiar basement door.  The message meant two things - one, that he'd
made some new advance... and two, that his mother was off on another of her yoga
retreats, giving them run of the house.  

Phil's mother was easily able to keep her son in lab supplies thanks to a generous life
insurance plan, and glad that he had both an avocation and at least one good friend of
the female persuasion... but she was a bit of a stickler for propriety.  To be fair,
Aggie's mother was even worse.  It seemed so unfair to Aggie - she'd been running around
with Phil since they were both eight, why did things have to be so complicated?

At the door, Aggie pounded stridently.  "Hey Madboy, open up!"

Phil sighed as he opened the door, "Still not a mad scientist."

Aggie grinned.  "I'll have to work on that, then.  What have you been up to?  It's
been nearly a month since I last saw you - and you're looking awfully pale.  Have
you even been outside?  It's summer, after all.  Or did you notice?"

Phil just gestured toward the basement.  "Revelations await.  For both of us, I
hope."

After descending the stairs, Aggie looked around.  "Um... nothing seems to have changed."

Phil chuckled.  "I do good work.  I've been characterizing the system, testing it with
a variety of objects.  I found exactly one exception to the 50-50 rule."

"Oh, really?"  Aggie looked curious.  "So you can get it to reliably copy something?"

Phil shook his head.  "No.  It just... doesn't work on cats.  Doesn't copy them, doesn't
make 'em vanish.  Nothing."

"Weird.  Hey, what were you doing putting Mr. Pounces-at-shadows inside that thing, anyway?"

"Live tests, of course.  I wanted to step up from mice, but it was a bust."

"So... it's safe for live animals."

Phil nodded.  "Totally.  Never had the slightest problem.  Even the mice that vanished
seemed perfectly fine after they reappeared.  Well, except that it did screw up one's
sleep cycle when I left him erased for half a day."

Aggie frowned.  "That wasn't very nice to do."

Phil shrugged and started to  "He seemed fine afterward.  Didn't panic when I put him back
into the pod for another test, so it couldn't have been too traumatic.  But I still have
no idea what the effect is like subjectively.  There were... interesting results from the
mazes, though."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, it seemed that if the copy learned a maze, the original did too.  So experiences
get shared, somehow."

Aggie thought over the implications of this, and started to grin.

"What?"

She grinned even wider.  "So if you copied me... I'd remember everything both of me did?"

Phil blushed a little at the look Aggie was giving him.  "I... uh, it does seem likely."

"That is why you called little ol' me over, isn't it?  To be your latest guinea pig?"

Phil nodded.  "I was going to try it on myself, but... well, I want the person who knows
this setup best on the outside when we test on people, at least at first.  If something
goes strange, I can fix it."

Aggie grinned.  "I get to be a mad scientist's victim!"

"Ack!  Don't say that!"

"What, mad scientist?"

Phil sighed, shaking his head.  "By now... I'm beginning to think you're right.  No, I
*really* don't want to make you a victim."

"There's a 50-50 chance I'll vanish when you press that button."

"Not forever!"  Phil protested.

"Still, it's possible.  Even likely."

Phil's brow furrowed.  "And this doesn't bother you?  Not even a little?"

"What's the difference between that and sleeping - either way, the world subjectively goes away for
a while."

Phil looked into her eyes. "You're almost more keen on that than you are on being duplicated."

Aggie shook her head.  "Both equally.  I'd love to be cloned, too."

Phil chuckled, shaking his head as well.  "You always were the wild one.  I've wondered why you hung
around me, I guess I know now."

Aggie touched his arm gently.  "Hey, now.  It's not just the mad science that attracts me... you
sell yourself short, you're actually pretty cute.  Some girls *like* brainy guys."

Phil mostly succeeded in not startling away from the contact.  "I guess...  Too used to seeing
all the pretty girls flock to the jocks.  Though it wasn't as bad at University, I guess."

Aggie pouted, "Not *all* the pretty girls, I hope."

"Other than you, pretty much, yeah."

Aggie pounced on that last.  "So you *do* think I'm pretty!"

Phil blinked as he digested that.  "Well, yeah.  Why wouldn't I?  You look great."

"Even though I don't have..."  Aggie held her cupped hands in front of her (to her eyes)
underdeveloped chest.  "I thought guys only had eyes for that."

Phil laughed, and waved his hand at the basement lab.  "Do I seem like all guys to you?"

Aggie stepped into Phil's personal space again, and then hugged him tight.  "No, not at all."

Phil wriggled a bit, but Aggie was the athlete of the pair, and he soon resigned himself to the
hug... and after a bit, uncertainly wrapped his arms around her back.  "Mmmm.  Feels nice."

Aggie muffled her giggle, and muttered, "About time."

Phil pulled back, and the moment was lost.  "Hm?  About time for what?"

Aggie posed in front of him, looking almost like a doe ready to dash off with a moment's warning.
"So what part of me *do* you think is pretty?"

Phil stammered for a moment, but his eyes told the tale.  Aggie turned sideways to him and ran
a hand down her hip and thigh.  "Oh, it's legs is it?  Good thing I've kept up the running, then."

Phil nodded, blushing a little.  "Not just...  Everything's just... balanced.  Right.  Curvy but
not squishy.  Graceful."  He managed to tear his gaze away from her body, and it gravitated to
her face.  "And you have a face I could look at forever."

Aggie blinked, then smiled hugely.  "Oh... cool.  I'd like that."

But when she leaned in for a kiss, Phil skittered away again.  "Sorry... I ... uh... I've been
so busy with all this, I've kinda forgotten to shower much.  I must..."

Aggie wrinkled her nose to hide her disappointment.  "A bit.  Shoo, go shower.  Put on some clean
clothes.  Then you can show off your new toy."

Phil practically ran up the stairs.

When he came back down 10 minutes later, he was disappointed that he couldn't see Aggie.  Then he
noticed Aggie's dress neatly folded just outside the door of one of the pods.  "Aggie?" he called
out, uncertainly.

"Just push the button, madboy.  I'm freezing in here!"  Aggie's voice echoed from inside the pod,
where he couldn't see yet.

Phil stammered his way to the console, looking away from the pod.  "Uh... yeah.  OK.  Good idea,
actually.  I'm not sure what would happen to your clothes."  Hissss went the doors as they closed,
and Phil relaxed a bit, now that there was no risk of accidentally seeing Aggie naked.
(No, he wasn't thinking that far ahead, can you blame him?)

His finger hovered over the red 'Entangle' button for several seconds before finally stabbing at it.
As usual, the mechanism made no indication that anything had happened at all.  

When the doors sighed open again, Phil couldn't help but peek.  His sigh echoed the door when there
was nothing to be seen.  "Foo.  Ah well, second time's the charm.  I wonder how long she'd want to
be left like this?"

As he walked up to the pods, ready to discharge the new crystal perched above the entanglement
conduit, something caught his eye.  There, in the bottom of the pod... was a puddle of something
black and shimmery.  Looking to the other one, an identical pool was there as well.

He stifled his initial fears that he'd melted Aggie into a puddle, and reached into the 'receiver'
pod.  A touch revealed the pool to be some kind of satiny fabric.  He lifted it up, and gave it
a slight shake.  "Oh!  She would have looked good in this...  Um, I guess that was the idea.  What
was she thinking?"

Phil's gaze went distant, staring off at the wall of the 'lab' while idly stroking the rather daringly
cut slip in his hands.  "For that matter... what just *happened*?  I need to do more tests, obviously
I should have considered multiple objects in one pod."  He looked down at the slip in his hands, and
then at the crystal.  "Hm.  Hmhm.  But I do need to discharge, first."

As he touched the sapphire, the slip in his hands vanished.  Out of the corner of his eye he could
now see Aggie getting out of the right-hand pod, wearing that same slip...  "So...  Um, there
seems to be a few details I've missed."

Aggie put her hands on her hips, and looked him over sternly.  "You think?  What happened?"

"If I had to guess..."  Phil looked into Aggie's smouldering eyes.  "And I think I do...  It's not
just a matter of randomly picking a *pod* to clone, but an item in that pod."  He backed away slowly
as Aggie prowled toward him.  "I'm sorry!  I didn't even think it would do that... I thought
you were naked in there.  Dress!"  Aggie kept up her slow pursuit until Phil was backed up
against the wall.

"Don't you want to know what it was like?" she purred.

Phil blinked, the question and its implications utterly distracting him.  "I just figured...
nothing."

Aggie trapped him against the wall, leaning on straight arms, one to each side of him.  "Oh,
no.  Not nothing.  I felt you pick me up, felt you stroke my silky body.  One of them, anyway."

Phil stammered, "You... you felt... felt that?  Oh gods, I'm sorry."

"Stop saying that!"

"Sorry!"

Aggie growled softly and leaned in closer.  "Don't apologize.  It felt fucking fantastic.  You've
never touched *me* like that before."

Phil tried to flatten himself into the wall.  He could feel Aggie's body heat, she was so close.
"But I... we...  I thought we... friends?"

"Touch me."

Phil twitched, but slowly put his hand out, and timidly placed it against Aggie's hip, or at least
on the silk covering the hip.

"Touch me like you touched this slip.  I was inside it then, I'm inside it now.  Nothing's different."

Phil very slowly complied, relaxing a bit when Aggie smiled at him.   "Like that, yes.  More.  Touch
me anywhere you like."

Phil's hand slowly trailed down off the slip and onto Aggie's thigh.  He smiled.

She chuckled.  "There?  I give you permission to touch anywhere, and you start there?"

Phil managed a smile.  "I like what I like..."  He reached up with both hands, grazing them gently down
Aggie's sides, from just under the arms all the way down to her hips, her thighs again.  Aggie shuddered.

"What?"  Phil pulled back, startled a bit by the reaction.

"No, no!  Don't stop...  That felt... mmm, I'm just all tingly thinking about how the slip felt.
Could you... clone me, then turn the clone into a slip?"

Phil nodded, and made to move toward the pods.

"*Not* now.  But soon.  I want to be worn, to wear a living piece of clothing."

Aggie pressed up against Phil.  "But for now... I just want you.  And me."

Phil was reduced to stammers again, "But I... we... I..."

Aggie silenced him with a fierce kiss.  But when they came up for air, Phil was *still*
talking.  "Aggie, I've never..."

Aggie shook her head, her unbound hair fluttering against Phil's face.  "And we won't, if
you don't want to.  Not yet, anyway."

Phil relaxed against her tight, curvy, body.  "Oh... good."  This time, he kissed her.

############

Some hours and two showers later, they were back in the lab looking only slightly more rumpled
than before.

"OK.  So you want to be a slip, and you?  So we'd have to clone you first, then hope to get
lucky with you in one pod and the slip in another.  I think."

Aggie nodded.  "Sounds good."

"Why are we dong this, again?"

Aggie shrugged.  "Because we've gone as far as you're willing to...  And I think it'll feel
amazing.  Dangling there as a slip, touched by you - that was nice.  But to be worn?  That's
what slips are made for.  I could feel it."

Phil frowned.  "The slip was affecting your thinking?  That's..."

"Odd, yes.  But I'm pretty sure it was true."

Phil nodded.  "Only one way to find out, I guess."

"Well, two ways - you could try it."

Phil managed to find a blush, again.  "That..."

Aggie slinked up against him, back in the slip again.  "Think about it, snuggled up against this body like
a second skin..."

Phil breathed softly, "Oh... yeah."

Aggie pulled away, and started toward the right hand pod, the one they thought of as the 'transmitter'.
"But first, it's my turn."

Phil took a moment to steady himself, then nodded.  "Probably for the best, I'm the one who knows how this
works."

Aggie looked at the panel.  "One button for open/close, one for entangle.  Looks tough..."

"OK, smart girl - how do you unentangle things?"

Aggie pointed at the entangling conduits, where her earring had been before.  "You touch... um, what *is*
all that?  That stuff's new."

"See?  It's not so simple."

"Yeah, but what *is* that?"

"Enanglement lattice array - for testing different gem types.  I managed to borrow a few.  Unsurprisingly,
diamonds are the best at long term entanglement."

"So... diamonds are forever, then?"

"As far as I can tell, yeah."

Aggie muttered, "Figures the first diamond you'd buy would be for science."

Phil looked up from the pods, "Yes?"

"Nothing," Aggie mumbled.  More loudly she said, "Let's get on with this..."

Phil gestured her toward the pod.  "You'll want to disrobe.  Otherwise we could end up with two slips
again."

Aggie nodded, absently, then clambered into the pod.  Phil moved to a spot where he couldn't see inside,
but could still reach the controls.

"Hey, that could work, though...  Could you revert one slip, but not the other?"

Phil pondered that one long enough for Aggie to wonder if he was even still in the room.  "Phil?"

"Oh!  Sorry... um, I don't think so.  Items are entangled or they're not.  I'm not even sure this whole idea
can work, we might just end up with three slips."

"Ah well," called the disembodied voice from within the pod.  "Let's see how this works, and we can figure
out how to get one slip and one me later.  I hate leaving one on the floor, discarded.  It'll be so sad."

Phil laughed softly.  "As you wish... Closing the doors, now."

Hisssss went the doors.  Click went the button, the noise covering the sound the capacitors made as they
discharged.  Phil waited a moment then released the doors.  As they sighed open, he heard Aggie call out
in stereo, "Did it work?"

Phil laughed.  "I believe it did.  There are now two Aggies."  He gulped, then added, "Um... two very
*naked* Aggies," as both of her climbed out of the pods.

The Aggies looked at each other, ignoring Phil.  "Wow.  This is... wow."  Their voices were still running
in stereo.

"Um, are you... experiencing both sides at once?"

The pretty blondes looked over at Phil, then touched their hands together.  "I... we... don't think so.
It's hard to tell."

Phil hmmed softly, then stepped up to each in turn and whispered a word into their ear.  Stopping close
to the right-hand one he asked, "Now, can you say the word I whispered to the other-you?"

Aggie shook her head.

"OK.  Now I want each of you to say the word I whispered to you.  That should break the synch."

"Purple" "Antidisestablishmentarianism.  Hey!  I got a longer..."

Both girls looked back and forth at each other.  "Now what... " "Who speaks first..."

"I should, because I'm the original."  The Aggie on the left nodded in consent.

Phil interjected, "Actually, that's not strictly true.  You are *both* the original in every way."

"But I was in the transmitter!"  Aggie-two just looked back and forth as they argued.

"It's not relevant.  The whole point of the entanglement is to create a duplicate state in both pods."

"I'm still the original."

"Fine.  But you keep saying that a difference that makes no difference..."

Both Aggies shook their head.  "I'm getting confused," they both said in synch.  Then Aggie-two spoke
up.  "Look, just turn me into a slip, it'll be *so* much easier."  She hopped back into her pod.

Aggie put the slip in the 'transmitter'.  "Go for it, madboy.  You know you want to."

Phil nodded mutely, eyes gliding away from Aggie as he finally remembered that she was naked.  Hiss.
Click.  Sigh.

And two Aggies stepped out of the pods.  "OK," said Aggie, "Which one of you is Aggie-three?"

Both of the emerging Aggies raised their hands.  Aggie pointed to the one on the left.  "You're
two."  Then the right.  "You're three.  You speak last."

Aggie-two sighed, and shook her head.  "This is getting confusing and a little disorienting.  Can we
just start over?"

Aggie-three added, "Please?"

Aggie sighed.  "OK.  Group hug first, though.  You know you want to."

Phil just watched, slack-jawed.  Aggie winked at him where the other two couldn't see, and gestured
at the crystal.  As he touched it, two copies vanished, leaving only a single Aggie.

"Woah!  That was..."  Aggie turned toward Phil then sat down on the lab floor.

Phil darted over to her, touching her arm.  "Are ... are you OK?"

Aggie nodded, slowly.  "Dizzy.  Three sets of memories where there was just one.  Takes a bit to
get your bearings again."

Phil grinned.  "So you *do* remember being all three of them?"

"Aggie-two for sure.  Aggie-three didn't last long enough to make a very distinct separate impression.
I can remember you whispering both words.  It'd be interesting to have each of us hear something different
at the same time.  I *think* my memories all feel sort of simultaneous."

Phil frowned in concentration.  "How do you mean?  Like all three happened concurrently?"

Aggie nodded.  "Exactly.  It's not like a film of Aggie-one then Aggie-two then Aggie-three...  It's
like I experienced all three at once, except I didn't, and.... rrgh.  This is hard to describe.  Clone
yourself, you'll see."

"In a minute.  I thought you wanted to try being your own slip?"

Aggie bounced back to her feet, and almost lept into the pod.  "You're right!  Oh, here, this shouldn't
be in here."  She handed the slip to Phil, who just sort of stood there, fondling it for a bit too long.
"Shoo!  Push buttons, mad-science your girlfriend."

Phil laughed, and stepped to the console.  "See you on the flipside."  Hissss.  Click.  Siiiigh.

"Darn.  Empty."  He only waited a moment, then stepped to the lattice array and popped the entanglement.

Aggie pouted as she reappeared.  "No luck, huh?"

"Nope, you just vanished."

"I thought as much.  Felt like it, anyway."

Phil blinked.  "You felt it?"

Aggie nodded.  "Sort of a... floating sensation.  Like being in a sensory deprivation chamber, a really,
really good one."

Phil laughed at that.  "I can imagine."

"How long was I gone for?  It only felt like a few moments."

"That's all it was, I restored you as soon as I saw you'd vanished."

Aggie stepped into the pod.  "Don't.  If I vanish this time, leave me that way for a while."

"As you wish."  The door hissing closed punctuated his statement.  Click.  Siiiigh.

"Ah.  Gone again.  I hope five minutes will be OK..."  Phil set an alarm, then dug out his lab
notebook and started writing up everything that had happened in the past few hours.  It hardly
seemd like any time at all before his watch was beeping at him.

When Aggie reappeared, she was humming softly to herself.  It took a while before Phil could get
a response out of her, until he paniced enough to actually touch her bare shoulder.

Aggie slowly opened her eyes, and smiled up at Phil.  "That was very relaxing.  Thanks.  How long
was I gone?"

"Just over five minutes."

"Only?  Wow.  Without references, your time sense goes to pot.  I couldn't tell if it was minutes
or hours.  Figured I'd meditate for a bit, and ... wow.  So peaceful."

Phil sighed, "Sounds nice.  And here I am all jittery because I thought I'd hurt you...  I could
use some relaxation."

Aggie grinned up at him wickedly.  "Get this to work right, and I'll get you relaxed alright."

Phil backed out of the pod, nodding.  "Fourth time's the charm?"

"Something like that," came Aggie's slightly dreamy voice.

Hisss.  Click.  Siiigh.

Phil peeked inside, and sure enough - two Aggies.  "Which of you wants to step out?"

Both Aggies leaned out of the pods, looked at each other, and nodded.  The right-hand Aggie
hopped up and got out of her pod.  "We agreed on it ahead of time.  I'm the original, the
clone gets to be the slip.  This time."

Phil chuckled.  "Whatever works.  Where's the slip?"

Aggie found it on the floor, not far from her pod, and carefully placed it inside the pod.
"All set."

She yelped as the closing door nearly caught her hand. "Hey, careful there Madboy!"

Phil laughed.  "It's safe - the forces are pretty small, and there's a safety interlock.
Besides, you said you were set."

Aggie looked back and forth between the two closed pods.  "I hope this works."

"You might want to stand back.  You're entangled with one of them, it could turn you into a slip
too."

"Really?"

"Not a clue, to be honest.  First time trying a chain like this.  Well, second if you cound the
triplets."

"If we get triplets again, we'll just have to go with what we've got... I'm getting impatient.
And chilly."

"OK, OK..."  Hiss.  Click.  Siiigh.

Two sets of eyes peered eagerly inside.  "Yes!"  "Success!"

Aggie snatched up the slip from the receiver, and wriggled into it, purring with delight as she
imagined how it would feel/have felt to do it.

"Now!" she exclaimed as she prowled at Phil.  "Off to bed with you!"

But as she was dragging him out of the lab, something happened.  One moment, there was this
delightful, sexy, crazed woman dragging Phil off to he knew not what fate... and the next, a slip
was fluttering to the floor in front of him.

Aggie yelped from in the transmitter pod.  "Wah?"

Phil looked down, turned around, looked at the pod, looked back at the slip.  He picked it up, and
grinned.  "This should be interesting."

Aggie clambered out of the pod and stared at Phil and the slip he was holding.  "But I was the original!
With you!  The original slip was in here.  In this pod."

Phil nodded, calmly.  "It was."

"But I...  I'm now my slip?  And that..." she pointed to the silky thing in Phil's hands, "that's
me?"

"Both were entagled.  When they collapse back to the base state, it's 50-50 as to which goes where.
Sorry, I thought I was clear about that."

Aggie stared at him, eyes wide and mouth agape.  "But... we're collapsed?  And I've swapped places with
my slip?"

"Not really.  Your memories are exactly the same as they'd have been if you had disentangled next to me.
Well, up to that point.  It doesn't make a difference.  You keep saying that... don't you see?"

Aggie continued to hyperventilate a bit longer, then reached out to feel the slip.  "That's... me."

"No, it's a slip.  It can't feel you touching it."

"You're sure?"

"Certain."

"Pity.  It felt really good to be worn, while it lasted.  That I could be stuck that way...  Fuck,
that's just crazy.  I'm my slip."

"Really, it's OK - you're still the same you you always have been.  Just look at it as teleportation -
just what I was trying to do in the first place."

"I know.  I know.  And still...  I'm a slip.  You'll never convice me otherwise until we reverse this."
Aggie touched the entanglement crystal, but nothing happened.  "This is permanent?"

Phil nodded.  "You're you, the slip's a slip.  Entanglement's over.  No difference."

Aggie sighed softly, holding the slip to her chest.  "I'll never see this slip in the same way again.
Never."

Aggie wriggled into the slip, purring again at the memory of how it felt from the slip's point of view.
"Oh... I wish we'd gone further.  That wasn't nearly long enough.  Why did it stop?  I thought you said
diamonds were forever."

"They are.  But there's a range limit.  That's why I had the crystal mounted into an insulated carrier,
so you could wear it and carry something entangled with you.  Or someone entangled..."  Phil popped the
cover of the lattice array open, revealing that the diamond was mounted into a ring.  A flip of a lever
later and it was free, in his hand, and being offered to Aggie.

"Phil," she said, in a shaky voice.  "Do you realize what that means?"

"Yes, it means you can be your own slip and leave the lab."

Aggie pointed at the ring.  "What the ring itself means."  Phil looked at her blankly.  "A diamond ring."

Phil's eyes widened.  "Oh!  Oh..."

Aggie's shoulders slumped and she dropped her gaze to her shuffling feet.  "You... you *man* you."  She sniffled
softly, and Phil thought he could see a bit of dampness on her cheeks.

Phil picked his next words very carefully.  "I think... that part of me did know what it meant.  And that
I do know what it means.  And... I still want to give it to you."

Aggie looked back up at him, tears glittering in her eyes.  "You... mean it?  Really?"

"Yes, I do.  I love you, and want to be with you always."

"YES!"  Aggie leapt into a fierce bear-hug with Phil, somehow already wearing the ring.

Then she proceeded to drag him out of the lab and into his bedroom.  This time, Phil didn't resist,
or even protest.