The Weapon - Passion - part 3
By Diana the Valkyrie
Wendy returns


I mean, like black. I couldn't see at all. Nothing wrong with my sense of
touch, though, and I could tell that the reason I couldn't see was that
someone had come up behind me and put their hands over my eyes. Another clue
was a female voice in front of me saying "Guess who!"

"Uh, Wendy?"

The hands left my eyes, but stayed on my cheeks. As a result, I could look
straight ahead, but not turn and see who was behind me. And when I looked in
front of me, I saw her. Wendy, one hand on her hip, the other by her side,
looking like water to a desert traveller, and saying "Nope. Try again."

I tried to turn my head to see who was behind me, but I couldn't. Then I
realised who it must be, if it wasn't Wendy, it must be George, process of
elimination, look out Holmes here comes McCrae. "George!" "Nope," said a
female voice behind me. Oh. My mind skidded on a surface that gave no traction
like a clown on a banana peel. "I give up", I said, "who is it?"

The hands let go of my face, and I was able to stand up and turn to see who
had been behind me. Uh. Duh. Uh.

Wendy.

Wendy behind me, Wendy in front of me. Two Wendies. One more than you'd
expect; should be one, is two. High quality thinking, here. The mind-skid
turned into a total tail-spin. "My brain hurts," I said. Both Wendies laughed.
The one in front of me stepped forward, moved herself into contact, and kissed
me. Yes, that was definitely Wendy. Then she spun me to face the other one,
who did exactly the same. Yes, that was definitely also Wendy. "My brain just
crashed," I said, "how are you doing this? Mirrors? Optical illusion?
Gravitational lens? Quantum uncertainty of position?" "No, silly," said one of
the Wendies. "There's two of us," said the other.

Ah. Why didn't I think of that. Such a simple explanation. My brain hurts,
hurts bad.

"But only one of us is Wendy," she continued, "I'm Wendy." "No, I'm Wendy,"
said the other one. "No, I'm Wendy," said the first. " ... and I'm Spartacus,"
I tried. Both Wendies laughed. I decided that if I sat down, that would
relieve the stress on my knees. And I also remembered something important I
had to do. "Look, Wendy, I'm really sorry about being such an arsehole
yesterday. And I got you some flowers." I picked up the rather pathetic pot of
chrysanthemums I'd gotten, and wondered who to give them to. I looked from
side to side, thinking, well, if they're both Wendy, it doesn't matter which
one. Then I thought, but then the other one will be upset that I didn't choose
her. And I wished it had been a bunch of flowers, so I could give half to
each, but you can't divide a pot. So I put it down on the table, and said
"this is for you" to the world in general.

"Aw, for me?" said one. "You shouldn't have," said the other. "Nohow," said
the one. "Contrariwise," said the other. "Uh, how come there's two of you?" I
asked. "I know what you're thinking about," said one; "but it isn't so,
nohow." "Contrariwise," continued the other Wendy, "if it was so, it might be;
and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't." They both nodded,
and chorused "Nohow". My brain hurt. They both folded their arms, waiting for
something. Waiting for me, I think. Waiting for me to get a clue.

I made a major effort. Two of them. How could that happen. Then I realised.
She'd already told me everything I needed to know to understand this, she must
have, otherwise she'd have told me the things she hadn't told me. Wait, don't
go there, it's recursive. They reproduce by adding more black holes until
there's eight, then they fission into two individuals. She'd found a black
hole in the sun, where there's one, there's probably others. And then there
was her startling announcement yesterday. I looked up. Looked at Wendy, then
looked at Wendy. No difference. Out of the strength, came forth sweetness.
"Congratulations, you had a baby!"

They both grinned, and suddenly I was surrounded by two Wendies. "I knew you'd
work it out, Duncan," said one. "Ditto," said the other. "So you're actually
identical?" I asked. They looked at each other. "I'm the mother," said the one
on my left. "I'm the daughter," said the other one. "Uh, could maybe I have
some way of telling you apart?" They looked across me at each other; I looked
from side to side, and suddenly the daughter was blonde. Apart from that, they
were still identical. And, at the risk of upsetting the blonde, I turned to
the mother, who I thought of as "my" Wendy, and gave her a long and very
grateful kiss. "I was a complete dipstick yesterday, Wendy, I'm really ashamed
of the way I behaved, and I'll try not to do it again." "I forgive you,
Duncan, I wasn't being too good either." "No, it was all my fault." "Mine
too." "Are you two going to bicker," said blonde-Wendy, "or just kiss and make
up?"

After a few minutes, I broke off kissing; I needed to breathe a bit, plus I'd
just remembered an obligation. "I've got to phone George," I said, "tell him
you're back." "Don't tell him about me just yet, but tell him to come round
tomorrow evening" said blonde-Wendy. So I told George "Wendy's back, I'm a bit
preoccupied right now, come round tomorrow evening, we'll talk then," which I
then immediately realised was going to leave him in an agony of wistfulness
and anticipation, but it was too late to do anything about it. "Feel like
flying?" asked brunette-Wendy, grinning suggestively. "Chocks away," I
replied.

Wendy wrapped her arms round me, then her cape, and we zoomed up a few
thousand feet, just above the cloud layer. "Oh Wendy," I said, "I do love it
when there's just the two of us and the rest of the world is like a million
miles away." "Three," said a voice behind me. Ah. "Uh, Wendy," I said, "are
you sure that it's, uh, appropriate that your, uh, young, uh, daughter,
should, uh. Um." I ran out of things to say. I lost count of the number of
taboos we were violating. Incest, underage sex, troilism, probably other
things if I could think about it. Bestiality? Unmarried sex? Unprotected sex?

On the other hand. She wasn't my daughter, so it wasn't really incest. And as
for underage sex, I recollected that brunette-Wendy was only a few weeks old,
and that age in this context wasn't really the same thing as with humans. And,
to put a seal on it, I don't think the human race has actually developed any
taboos concerned with having sex with black holes. I mean, it wasn't even
bestiality. Was it? So maybe I was just talking out of my arse here, something
I did more often than I would have liked. "Uh. Never mind." I said. "Duncan,
sometimes it isn't actually about you. You know?" said brunette-Wendy. "Oh. So
what is it about?" "Training," said brunette-Wendy, "this is Sex Education
101."

Well, it wasn't difficult to work out who was the trainer and who was the
trainee. And a couple of seconds after that, I grasped what my role in this
training session was - I was the equipment. One of the best ways to teach, is
for the teacher to explain and then show, and the student to listen and then
practice, perform the actions herself. So brunette-Wendy was explaining the
theoretical principles of sex with a man, and following it up with a
demonstration of the principles in action. And then blonde-Wendy did the
practical, to show that she'd grasped the principles. And grasped something
else, too. But after I'd been grasped a few times, I was all grasped out, and
I fell asleep in Wendy's arms while she was still explaining more stuff to
Wendy-blonde.

Next day, Wendy woke me up nice and early, and dragged me off for my morning
cold shower, which, although somewhat too brisk for my taste, soundly beat the
quick brush of the teeth that was all I'd done yesterday. But there was a
complication. My ritual screams of protest and attempts to drag my heels, were
interpreted by Wendy-blonde as a genuine attempt to fight brunette-Wendy off,
and she decided to pitch in on my side. So I found myself in the middle of a
catfight.

Both of them were throwing punches, pulling hair, scratching and clawing, and
since both of them were pretty much damage-proof, guess who was the main one
at risk? So I crawled out from between them, and cowered in a corner of the
room, hoping that I wouldn't catch any of the fallout. And then suddenly, I
guess they must have communicated, because they both turned on me, and with
one of them holding each of my arms, I was hustled into the shower and
drenched in ice water. GAAAhhhhh! After a couple of minutes, they took pity on
me and let me stagger out, and one of them gave me a brisk rub-down, while the
other one went to do breakfast.

When I got downstairs, and after I'd wrapped myself round a cup of coffee, two
eggs and quite a lot of toast-and-marmite, I said, "You know, I don't think I
can handle this." "What?" said brunette-Wendy. "Well, first of all, it's good
that you don't look the same, but you really can't have the same name." "Why
not?" "Because you can't. It's too confusing. Suppose I yell out WENDY, how
will you know which one I mean?" "Why would it matter?" Uh. Well. "Of course
it matters." "Why?" "Well, suppose George and I were both called Fred. You see
the confusion? I mean, sometimes it wouldn't matter which one answered, but
sometimes it would" "Oh. Well, OK. But I had the name first, she'll have to
get a new name," she said, pointing at blonde-Wendy, who looked back at me.
"Not fair," said blonde-Wendy, "she's already been using it, now it's my
turn." "I was first" "It's my turn"

I covered my eyes with my hands. Sometimes you forget just how different they
are, sometimes they remind you quite forcibly. Sometimes they act like
incomprehensible aliens, and sometimes they act like human two-year-olds in
kindergarden. Come to think of it, what is the difference between a toddler
and an alien? Well, whichever they were, I had to sort this one. I put on my
stern-father voice. "You," I said, pointing to the mother-Wendy, the brunette,
"are Wendy. And you, pointing to the blonde daughter-Wendy, "are Milly."
"Milly?" "Yes." "Couldn't I be Wanda?" "No, that's still too confusing."
"Winny?" "Milly. Now stop arguing, and eat your toast."

I found this with Wendy. Sometimes when I'm firm with her, she just does what
she's told, it's my "stern-father" voice. Other times, she just giggles and
does what she wants in spite of my telling her not to. Them's the breaks. It
seemed to work that way with Milly, too. "OK, Wendy, time for a few
explanations. What have we got here?" "Me. And Milly." Oh, it's kindergarden
time again. "You're her mother, she's your daughter. I guess she has all the
same characteristics and capabilities that you do?" Wendy nodded. "And she
knows everything you know?" "Ah, no. She's just got, like, the basic
training." "You mean, she's housebroken but she doesn't know which hand you
hold your spoon in?" "Well, she's a bit more than housebroken. But there's a
lot she doesn't know. We've been faking it quite a lot, with the link between
us." "You have a telepathic link?" "Come on, Dunc." I thought a bit.
"Telephone?" "Radio link," she said, "like 802.11, wireless ethernet. We even
use the standard frequency, so as not to mess up other things around us. But
that'll only work short range. Longer range, you're right, we'd have to drop
down to POTS, real slow."

Hmm. "Wendy?" "Mmm?" "You've created a whole new ball game here." "Mmm. That
was the whole idea. Milly teams up with George, I stay with you," she
explained, "that way we don't trigger the jealousy reflex you both have." I
looked at her. I hadn't thought of that, she was right. I'd been looking at
the problem as a given, the old triangle problem, which no-one has ever found
a good answer for. She cut through that and transformed the triangle into a
square dance. Brilliant. "Yes, I see that, but you've done something else,
too." "What?" "There's two Weapons on this planet now, you and Milly." "Well,
obviously." I suppose it was obvious. "But the implications are not obvious.
For example, you can seem to be in two places at once now, not a lot of people
can do that." She looked thoughtful. "Trouble is, we can't send Milly out to
do things, she's only got, uh, basic training. The first time she comes up
against something difficult, she won't know what to do." "But she'll have
George," I pointed out. "True." "And she can consult you, via whatever link
you have going." "True. But she can't stop to consult me about every little
thing. Sometimes you have to just react. And she won't know how."

"So she needs Advanced Training," I said. "Can we enrol her in an Advanced
Superheroine course," asked Wendy, "maybe the local college offers evening
classes." "I see you haven't lost your sarcasm abilities," I said, wondering
how on earth one does go about training a superheroine. "I can teach her about
flying," offered Wendy, "and sex." Sex and flying, my two favourite things,
especially when we did both at once. And then I came out with a doozy idea.
"Having seen you in action, Wendy, the big thing you do all the time, is
intimidation, things like "You know who I am" and the smashing the furniture
with a blow from your fist, that sort of stunt." "Yes, it's much preferable to
actually hurting people." "Well, how about you both go on a course on how to
win friends and intimidate people?" "There is such a course?" "Not usually.
But I know someone who would be rather good at doing one."

After breakfast, Milly helped me repair the window that Wendy had shattered,
while Wendy repaired the statue that she'd damaged. There's two tricky parts
to repairing a window; cutting the glass exactly to size, and holding it in
place while you tap in the tacks and putty round the frame. Yes, I could have
called in a glazier, but there's a lot of satisfaction in doing these jobs
yourself. I usually use a glasscutting wheel for trimming the pane, but with
Milly around, I just got her to run her fingernail down the glass and crack
off the excess.