Crisp, clean sunlight streams through large stained glass windows.

A gathering of friends and family

sits in the main hall of Icarfield’s oldest church, which has been booked for a very special occasion.
Lola Martinez stares lovingly into the eyes of Michael Taylor, as he takes her hands. Professor Dennis
Dixon officiates, soon turning to face the crowd seated before him…
“And now, the bride and groom have prepared their own vows. Michael…”
Michael smiles down at his bride to be, completely giddy, “Hi, Lola…” not a strong start, he
thought. But she simply smiled back at him, her perfect dress hugging her curves in just the right
ways. His work friend, Alice, had woven flowers into her hair. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees
his coworker, Ryan, dab his eyes with a hanky. His girlfriend, Heather, takes his arm and whispers
something to him, only making him cry more. Michael takes a deep breath, and retrieves a folded
piece of paper from his pocket. He unfolds it and begins to read.
“Wow. Here we are. Seems like it was only yesterday when I walked into a local coffee shop
for a cup of black coffee. No cream. No sugar. Nothing in it. And there you were, working at the
register…” he pauses, before continuing, “And you were very rude to me,” this elicits a few chuckles
from the crowd. His confidence growing, Michael spurs himself on, “And yet, I found myself coming
back to Rose’s the next day. And the day after that. And every day after that. For a while, I told
myself it was for the coffee, but who am I kidding? It was bad coffee,”
“The coffee’s shit. We spit in it sometimes,” Lola says, unremorseful but still beaming up at
him.
“The truth is, what kept me coming back, time after time, was a girl. A girl who gets chatty
when she’s stressed. A girl who can make you laugh while she’s wiping down a counter, or brewing a
pot of decaf. A girl who’s smile can make your heart sing, even if you don’t like musicals,” Lola holds
in a laugh at that. Michael’s defining character trait is having a deep-rooted hatred for all things
performance related. He takes another pause, “I was born here in Icarfield. I never had any kind of
aspirations for myself. I never really wanted anything… until I met you, Lola Martinez. You gave me a
purpose. Because I want to be a man who’s worthy to stand up here with you. And I vow to do
everything in my power to be that man. I love you, Lola Martinez. Always and forever,” he finishes
his vows with tears in his eyes. Nick Kaliszeski (who had snuck in the back, uninvited, but wasn’t
bothering anyone, so Michael and Lola had left him be) begins to clap, only to have the entire room
tell him to shut up.
Dixon nods to Lola once the room had settled down. She unfolds her own vows, and starts to
read, “Wow. Here we are. You know, I remember the night before my sister, Maria, got married. I
was on the phone with her, trying to talk her out of it. Sorry, Tristan,” in the crowd, Lola’s brother-in-
law is not amused. He nods his head, vaguely, eyes narrowed. Lola ignores this, however, and moves
on, “I said, ‘You’re really gonna let this hairy yeti-man hog half your bed for the rest of your life?’ and
she said, ‘Yes I am,’ and that’s how it was for the rest of her life…” Lola begins to lose focus, but she
pulls herself back together and continues, “But I don’t think she would’ve had it any other way,”
Michael smiles at her as she goes on, “If I could go back in time and talk to a younger Lola Martinez,
I’m sure she’d tell me there’s no worse fate than settling down and getting married in Icarfield. To
which I’d say, ‘Could be worse. You could be getting hitched in Saltingdale!’” the crowd loves this
one, sending them into a celebratory frenzy. Ryan shouts over them, “Fuck Saltingdale!” Michael,
tears in his eyes, softly says, “Yeah. Fuck ‘em,”
Once the crowd as settled back down, Lola continued, “And I’d tell her, ‘Relax. You haven’t
met Mike yet,’ but now I have, and I find myself doing things I never thought I would. I think it’s
because there’s this parts of me I didn’t know before. The part that wants to save money instead of
blowing it on another hiking trip. The part of me that thinks it’s a huge turn-on that you just have a
boring office job that you don’t like but you do anyway because it gets us health insurance. I never
had insurance before I met you, Mike. I never used to think about the future. Now I think about it all

1
the time. I wanna thank you for introducing me to that Lola,” she pauses, her voice breaking as tears
well up in her eyes, “I know who I am now. I’m Lola Martinez. And I love you, Michael Taylor. Always
and—”
“Liar!” everyone turns to find a homeless man standing in the aisle.
“What?” Lola says, fear in her eyes. The homeless man points to Lola definitively, “I said you
are a liar! You think I don’t know? You think I don’t remember? I’ve seen the plan! You aren’t Lola
Martinez!” as Lola stands, frozen and transfixed on the homeless man, Tristan gets up and grabs his
arm.
“Alright, pal. That’s enough,” he says, dragging him from the church. The homeless man
struggles, shouting, “Get off of me! Where are you taking me? That’s not Lola Martinez! That’s not
Lola!”
As the homeless man tries to grab onto the door to keep himself in the room, Nick snickers
and says to Ryan, “What a loser,”
Once the homeless man has been successfully extracted from the church, Dixon calms down
the crowd, “I’m sorry for the interruption, everyone. But the show must go on! Lola, you were
saying?” he motions for Lola to continue, but she continues staring at the door, shaken.
“I… uh… I’m sorry…” she turns and runs out of the church. Michael follows behind her.

He finds Lola sitting on a bench in an empty hallway. She’s crying, her head in her hands. He
approaches, lightly touching her shoulder, “Lola, are you alright? I’m so sorry. I don’t know how that
homeless man got in here, but I’m going to have a word with the venue…”
“It’s not that, Mike. It’s just… The reality of all this is hitting me for the first time,” Lola says,
between sniffs as she tries to compose herself, staring into her lap. Michael sits next to her, “I know.
It’s crazy. But I’m right here with you,”
“Mike, I can’t do this…”
“Lola…”
“Unless…” Lola looks up to Michael, and speaks tentatively, “If this marriage is going to
work, it need to be built on trust. Right?”
“Absolutely,” Michael replies, without so much as thinking about it.
“You have to understand. It’s hard for me to be one hundred percent honest with anyone,”
Michael raises an eyebrow at this, apprehensive, but he lets Lola continue, “I have a confession to
make. But I’m afraid to tell you what it is…” she says, voice shaking. Michael takes her hands in his,
“Hey. You can tell me anything, and I’ll only love you more,”
“You sure?”
“I’m positive,”
“Okay… Here it goes…” she pauses, taking a deep breath, “I’m not Lola Martinez. And I never
was,” Michael stares blankly at her, the information not computing, “Excuse me?” he says, sure he
must have misheard her.
“Lola Martinez is dead,” Not-Lola says.
“Huh?” Michael squints his eyes, utterly bewildered. Lola sighs, realising she is not going to
get away with not giving an explanation. She speaks methodically, almost as though she had
practised it beforehand, “She was on a backpacking trip in Kazakhstan. I was there too. She was on a
bus. There was an accident. She didn’t make it. We were staying at the same hotel room. She’d left
her things there. Her phone rang and I answered it. It was her brother-in-law, Tristan. He was in
tears. His wife, Maria, Lola’s sister, had also just died,” tears welled in her eyes as she continued, “He
started talking to me like I was Lola, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that she was gone too. He
invited me to Maria’s funeral, and I don’t know why, but I went. It had been so long since Lola had
left home, and I guess I look enough like her, that everyone just accepted me. And it felt so good!” a

2
tear ran down her cheek as she tried to justify herself, “I never had a family, Mike. I never had
anyone. So one thing lead to another, and… Then I met you,”
Michael nods his head slowly, trying to understand, “Let me get this straight, Lola…”
“Again, I’m not Lola. You can keep calling me that, but I’m not her,”
“Okay. Okay. Okay… So you stole this woman’s life?”
“Well. I don’t think of it like that. It’s more like what I did with her phone. I found something
that no one was using, I picked it up, and I kept it,” Michael takes his head in his hands, trying to
keep himself composed, “Um. This is. Uh. A big reveal,”
“Yeah. It’s a huge weight off my chest, though,” Not-Lola laughs humourlessly, “But
remember, Mike. I am the woman you fell in love with. Why should it matter if my name isn’t really
Lola Martinez? That doesn’t change who I am now. That doesn’t change what we have,”
“But… All these people… They think you’re someone else,” Mike says, gesturing down the
hall, where the wedding guests are still sitting, no doubt very confused.
“I know. I don’t blame you if you hate me now. I don’t blame you if you wanna call off the
wedding…” Not-Lola begins to cry even more, hiding her face in her dress. Michael knows that this
moment will define the rest of his life, will define what kind of man he is going to be. He kneels in
front of her, taking her hands in his own. She looks at him, puffy eyed.
“Sweetheart. I love… you. Whether your name is ‘Lola’…”
“It’s not,”
“Or whatever it is. I made a vow to you. The woman I met at Rose’s. you don’t need to hide
anything. I’ll accept you for who you are. Who you were…” before he can continue, Not-Lola stops
him, gravely serious.
“Michael. Never ask me who I really am. Don’t do it. Don’t you ever ask me that. If you ask
me, I’ll have to tell you. And I hate to think what would happen then,” her face softens a little, “I
guarantee, whoever I was before will never effect our lives from this point forward. It may as well
have never happened. I will love you until the day you die, but until then, you will know that I am not
Lola Martinez. If you can accept that, then marry me. Right now,” she stares intensely at him, “Do
you accept that, Michael Taylor? Do you?”
Michael thinks good and hard. After a while, he responds, “I do.”

Wedding bells ring. Mike and Lola kiss. Their family and friends rejoice. They eat cake. They
dance all night. They rent out a hotel honeymoon suite by a lake for the next week. They turn off
their phones, dream of the future, and enjoy that fresh, marital bliss. It’s almost too good to last.

When the honeymoon’s over, Michael returns to his job at the shadowy tech conglomerate
of Power, Research, and Coven Communications. Also known as PRCC. He stps off the elevator and
heads for this cubicle, passing a woman with curly red hair and cat-eye glasses.
“Hey, Heather,” he says. She waves awkwardly, hands full of architectural blueprints and a
strange device, something like a Geiger-counter. Her phone is cradled between her ear and
shoulder. She speaks into it, preoccupied, “Yeah, I got the floorplan open,” she listens to the other
end, “Okay. Directly over Lab C-8 would be… Oh God. No thank you. I’m not going into that office
without a hazmat suit,” she rolls her eyes at the other end, “No, I’m not afraid of a possible temporal
distortion. It’s Kaliszeski’s office. He’s made that whole thing radioactive. The guy whacks off in
there, I just know it. I swear, when they finally fire that bastard, I’m gonna have ‘em nail the door
shut. Just tell ‘em I scanned it,”
She rounds a corner and out of earshot. Michael shrugs, and sits down at his desk. One
cubicle over, Ryan Amoroso is on the phone with his ex-wife.

3
 “Of course Deidre can stay with me on her break. I’d prefer that and so would she. What do
you gotta do that’s so important? France, huh? The Riviera?” he pauses, trying to sound nonchalant,
“You going alone, or…?” he nods, resignedly, “With Mark. Of course you are. I’m seeing someone too
by the way. It is good for me. I think she’s the love of my life,” he sits up at his desk, getting
competitive, “Well, I’m happy for me too. I’m just worried about you and Mark. ‘Cause Heather and I
don’t need to go to France to feel romantic. Alright bye!” he speaks the last few sentences so fast
that Michael can barely hear it, then he hangs up before his ex-wife can respond. Ryan sighs and
turns to Michael.
“Marriage is such a crock o’ bull,” a pause, then he remembers something, “It was a lovely
ceremony, by the way. Congratulations, Mike,”
“Was that your ex-wife?”
“Yup. I tell ya, Mike. You think you know somebody, but when the ring goes on that finger,
all the secrets start coming out. First it’s, ‘Mark’s just a friend. A business associate’, then it’s
‘Alright. We kissed in college once’, and before you know it, it’s ‘Sorry, Ryan. I never stopped loving
him and I’m leaving’,”
“Well, that’s not gonna happen to me,” Michael smiles to himself, “Lola and I don’t keep
secre…” he remembers that she’s not Lola. His eyes widen briefly, then he reassures himself, “We
only keep secrets when we have to. But those secrets will not effect our lives going forward. She
promised,”
“All I’m saying is, you better have a warranty on that fan. ‘Cause eventually the shit’s gonna
hit it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But someday, you’re gonna have one shitty-ass fan on
your hands,” Ryan turns his attention back to his computer screen.
“Thanks, Ryan,” Michael stands up, “Well, I’m going to Starbucks. You want anything?”
“Not Rose’s?”
“I’m married to Lola now. I’m never going to Rose’s again. It’s terrible.”

Michael sets out in search of coffee. Outside the PRCC building, where he’d usually turn right
to head down the street to Rose’s, instead he turns left. As he does, he sees something he isn’t
expecting… Lola. She’s bee-lining down First Street, looking just a little lost. Her hair’s a messy braid.
She’s go a beat-up duffle bag and ripped jeans. Michael smiles and runs after her.
“Lola! Hey, Lola!”
“Yeah?” she says, turning around as Michael catches up. He leans in to kiss her cheek, but
she pushes him away, shocked and disgusted.
“Woah! Back off, man!”
“Sorry. I was just… Giving you a kiss,” Michael says, confusion and hurt in his eyes.
“What is your problem?” Lola’s shouting catches the attention of a passerby, who strolls
over, eyeing Michael.
“Excuse me. Is everything okay over here?”
“No!” Lola says, stepping back from Michael.
“Yes. Yes, it is,” Michael smiles awkwardly at the passerby.
“Oh, it is not,” Lola folds her arms,”
“It’s okay, sir,” he says to the passerby, before turning to Lola, “Lola. You can stop kidding
around now,” he reaches to put a hand on her shoulder. She hits it away.
“Get your hands off me, pervert,” more people begin to gather, staring daggers at Michael.
“Back off, buddy,” another passerby says. Michael throws up his hands in surrender, “I am. I
am. If I could just explain…”
“Why don’t you explain away from the lady?”
“I don’t know why she’s doing this…” he turns to her, “Lola?”

4
 “How do you know my name? Who are you?”
“Very cute, Lola. Very funny. Ha-ha. I’ll see you at home,” Michael pushes through the small
crowd that’s formed, and takes off down the street. Lola yells after him, “You stay away from me!
You stay away!”

That night, Michael returns home, still fuming, to he and Lola’s apartment. She hears him
come in and calls out from the kitchen.
“Hi! I got a bunch of stuff today to try out some recipes in that vegan cookbook Verity got us.
Come try this,” Michael puts his keys and briefcase on the table, and stares her down from across it,
“What is your problem?” Lola pauses, holding a fork-full of the meal she’s been cooking, “What? We
talked about going vegan, remember? Good for our bodies, good for the planet?”
“I’m not talking about that. You humiliated me today. Why? Why would you do that?” Lola
lowers the fork, confused, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,”
“Do you think this is funny? To embarrass me? To scare me?”
“How did I embarrass you?” Lola turns off the stove and steps towards Michael, concern in
her eyes. He steps backwards, away from her.
“I’d say it’s pretty embarrassing to be called a pervert in public. Right in front of the building
where I work. Thanks for that,” Lola looks at him, desperately trying to piece this together for a
second, before something clicks in her brain. When she speaks, there’s a slight tremble in her voice,
“Wait. You saw me today? By your work?”
“Yes. Now you’re gonna act like that wasn’t you?” Lola grabs his shoulders and looks him
dead in the eye, “Michael. This is very important. Did you see me today, or someone who looks like
me? Think hard. Are you one hundred percent certain it was me?”
“I’m pretty damn sure. Yeah. It was you,” Michael says, voice dripping with contempt. Lola
wrings her hands in the air, sighs, and begins pacing.
“Goddamnit. Shit. What a pain in my ass…” she mutters to herself, arms folded. After a
second, she storms through the apartment, grabbing her things.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going out,” she pauses, “Look, you don’t happen to hold a gun, by any chance?”
“No!” Michael says, scandalised, “That’s very unsafe,” Lola sighs, “That’s fine. I’ll just take
one of these knives your friend Ryan got us. I mean, it sucks to use one like this because they’re so
nice, but they’re the only knives that are clean, Mike. Could you at least do the dishes while I’m
out?” she pulls a large, ornate knife from the rack, and shoves it in her bag. She heads for the door,
walking past Michael, who is rooted to the spot.
“Out where? What’re you going to do?”
“Don’t ask me that, Mike. You’re not going to like the answer, so don’t ask,” she looks up at
Michael, sees his confusion, and softens her gaze, “Listen. You’ve clearly had a hard day. I’m sorry
for that. Just relax. Have some dinner. Play your video games. I’m gonna go take care of things, then
I’ll come home and we can see where things go?” Michael stares at her for a second, then replies,
“Lola, you know just what to say to make me feel better,” his face cracks a smile.
“Yeah. I’m your wife. I’ll see ya later.”

Less than ten minutes go by, and there’s a knock at the door. Michael opens it to find Lola,
anxiously tapping her foot, arms crossed.
“You forget your key?” Lola doesn’t say anything. She pushes past him, into the apartment.
“Look. I don’t know what’s going on, but I am going to get some answers,”
“Okay…” Michael says, eyebrows furrowed.

5
 “I wanna know why the hell people think we’re married. I wanna know why everyone says I
work at that Rose’s place. I wanna…” she trails off, noticing the frames on the wall, all of them filled
with images of she and Michael.
“What is this? Where did you get these pictures of me?”
“Oh, so you’re back to not knowing me? I’m not doing this, Lola,” in the heat of the moment,
Michael puts his foot down, “You know what else I won’t do? I’m not becoming a vegan. Maybe a
vegetarian. I can live without chicken. I cannot live without cheese. If that makes me a weak man,
then I am a weak man,” Lola just stares at him, exasperated, “I’m not your wife, dude!” she points to
a picture, “I don’t know who this person is. They may look like me, but that is not me. She’s trying to
steal my life…” she realises this, and the implications, “She’s trying to steal my life! Is she here right
now?”
Michael rolls his eyes, unamused by this whole thing, “You know what? I think she is,” he
says, drier than dry. Lola looks around, almost comically worried, “I’m not safe here,” she says.
Michael decides to play along, “Well, sweetheart. Where would you like to go?”

Billiard balls crack together and bounce into the pockets of a dingy, old pool table. Neon
signs glow and smoke hangs in the air of The Birdhouse, Icarfield’s infamous, hole-in-the-wall pub
and music venue. At the bar, Lola throws back a shot of whiskey. Michael watches.
“Huh. Lola. I’ve never seen you drink like that,”
“You’ve never seen me do anything, dude. I got back from Guatemala two days ago. I went
through hell and high water to get here…”
“Oh, so Lola’s not dead,” he says, frustrated.
“She said I was dead?” Lola says incredulously. Michael, still not buying her story, but
humouring her, says “Yes. You said you were dead,”
“Well, I almost was,” she said. She took a breath before explaining, “I was heading to Tikal,
on this bus full of thirty people and forty chickens. The driver’s a maniac, making these crazy-sharp
turns on the edges of cliffs. Then comes one turn that’s too tight. Driver slams on the breaks, but
they’re cut. Bus goes flying right off the edge. I was the only survivor—Me and some chickens,” she
sighs, as Michael scrutinises her over the top of his beer, “When I got back to the hostel, all my stuff
was gone. Passport. Phone. Birth certificate. My whole life was in that backpack. You know how hard
it was to get back here without any of that shit?” she takes another shot of whiskey, and motions to
the bartender to line another up, “Only to find that some bitch has been living my life… And doing it
all wrong. She got me married? I’m never getting married,”
“Ha. Yeah. You used to say that all the time,” Michael laughed slightly to himself.
“She used to say that. I still do,”
“Right. I keep forgetting. You’re not Lola,”
“No. I am Lola. She is not,”
“Right…” Michael downs the rest of his half-pint, done messing around, “Look, I don’t know
if this is some kind of a test, or a strange joke, but all I can say is… This better be leading to a big
reward on my end. Now, I’ve had half a beer. I’m tipsy. And I’m going to use the little boy’s room,”
Michael heads off. Lola watches him go.
“’Little boy’s room’?” she says to herself incredulously, “I married a geek…”
“No. I did,” Lola feels something sharp poke into the small of her back. Someone grabs her
shoulder from behind and presses a large knife against her. The assailant leans forward and whispers
in Lola’s ear, “Don’t turn around. You’re not gonna like what you see, so just don’t do it,”
“It’s you,” Lola says, horrified, “You stole my life. What do you want from me?”
“I want you to keep your mouth shut, and come with me into the alley. We’re gonna have a
little chat,” Not-Lola yanks her from her bar stool and leads her towards the exit. She sticks close to

6
her, keeping the knife on her back. Lola tries to plead with her, “Look. I won’t tell anybody about
you. Just give me my life back and leave town,”
“God you’re stupid. Keep moving,”
Before they can reach the door, however, the two identical women are stopped by a huge,
leather-clad biker. He speaks as though every word is very hard for him to pronounce, “Woah…
either I’m seeing double or it’s my lucky day. You two twins or something?”
Sensing a chance to escape her knife-wielding doppelgänger, Lola quickly encourages the
man’s advances.
“We are twins. And we’re looking for a good time,” she says, before mouthing silently, help
me. Help me.
“No we’re not. We’re married,” Not-Lola holds up her wedding band. The biker grins and
displays his.
“Hey, I’m married too. That’s what makes it fun,”
“Hell yeah, take me with you,” Lola says, trying to fling herself at this disgusting thug,
however her double yanks her back.
“Get out of our way, asshole,” she says to the biker.
“Oh, come on now. I got some friends by the pool table. Lemme introduce you…” he starts
to pull the real Lola away from the imposter, and notices the knife. He tries to hide his shock.
“Well, that’s a big knife for such a little lady. But it’s not the size that counts,” from his
pocket, he whips out a switchblade and flips it open. He smiles at Not-Lola. She frowns back.
“Don’t threaten me. You’re gonna start something that I’m gonna have to finish,”
“Kick her ass, dude! She’s calling you out!” Lola tries to egg the biker on. To her relief, he
pulls the real Lola away from the fake one.
“Your sister’s coming with us. Why don’t you take that knife and get back in the kitchen?” as
the enormous man lumbers towards her, Not-Lola rolls her eyes, “Oh great, here we go again…” she
mutters to herself. The biker swipes at her with his switchblade. She dodges the weapon with
inhuman speed and instinctually retaliates. She swings the large knife Ryan got her as a wedding
present. It makes contact with the biker’s sinewy neck… and hacks it through! The thug’s severed
head goes flying from his body, and splats onto a nearby table. Lola’s eyes go wide, “Holy shit!” she
yells. The other bikers by the pool table see what Not-Lola has done, and they spring into action.
“Get her!” one of them yells, and a wave of burly, bearded men comes crashing at Not-Lola.
She nonchalantly evades their every attack. Bar stools burst. Tables splinter. Not-Emma is
tossing two-hundred-pound goons across the room like it’s nothing. She’s chopping of limbs.
Decapitating people left and right.
“Oh, beautiful. This is just perfect. Now no one here can live,” she says to herself, frustrated.
When all the bikers are dispatched, Not-Lola turns her deadly skills on the few terrified witnesses.
It’s clear she doesn’t want anyone left alive to tell what they saw. She jams a broken bottle into a
boozehound’s throat. She hurls a dart-player into the jukebox. The bartender grabs the wall-phone
for help.
“Icarfield Police? This is—” but before he can rat her out, Not-Lola throws her knife into his
skull. It pins him against the wall. Soon, the only two left standing are a terrified Lola, and her
murderous double.
“There. You happy now, Lola? Look what you made me do. Look at this fucking mess. How
am I supposed to explain this to Mike?” she shrugs, “I’ll think of something. Come here,” Not-Lola
begins to walk towards her. Remembering Mike is in the restroom, Lola shouts, “Help! Michael!” but
the imposter is on her in an instant.
“Don’t you say his name,” she says, before wrapping her hand around Lola’s neck, and with
unbelievable strength, lifts her into the air.

7
 “You couldn’t have just died in that bus and made things simple for both of us,”
“You cut the breaks…” Lola says, between labored breathing.
“Yeah. And now I’m gonna cut something else,” Not-Lola says, grabbing a beer bottle off of
the counter and smashing it. She is about to stab the broken end into Lola’s guts, when…
“Lola?” Michael stands in the doorway, in shock. Not-Lola smiles after a second, “Hi,
honey…” she drops Lola as Michael steps forward, taking in the carnage. The blood-soaked bar. The
dead bikers. He looks to his wife.
“Oh my God… Oh my God!” Michael freaks out, and Not-Lola goes over to him, trying to
placate him “Mike. I can explain,” she thinks fast, “You’re drunk. You had half a beer and you’re
seeing things…”
Smack! From behind the double, the real Lola appears, swinging a pool cue with all her
might. The wooden stick cracks in half on the other Lola’s head.
“Lola!” Michael says, though he’s unsure which one he’s addressing. Lola raises the broken
pool cue… and jabs the jagged end into her double’s eye!
“Oh my God, Lola!” Michael screams, covering his own eyes. Not-Lola reaches up and feels
the shard of wood protruding from her eye-socket. Amazingly, no blood falls from the wound.
Instead, a shower of electric sparks. Zzzzzt. Zzzzzt.
“Lola…?” Michael says tentatively, eyes wide. As the imposter Lola takes hold of the pool cue
and starts to pull, the real one seizes Michael’s arm and drags him towards the exit.
“Come on, dude. Your wife’s a crazy murderer. We gotta go. Now. Now. Now,” as she drags
him out the door, Michael looks back, still in shock. He sees as she rips the wood, and her eyeball,
from the socket. Attached to the back of it is a mess of wires and circuits. Electricity flickers. Then
Lola and Michael are out the door.

Moments later, they’re in Michael’s car, racing away from the Birdhouse at top-speed.
“I told you. I told you! How’s that for a ‘reward’? Big enough for ya? Your wife’s some kind of
death machine!” Lola says, from the passenger seat. Michael doesn’t look up from the road, still in
shock, “No. She’s a good person…”
“She just killed everyone in that bar!” she pauses, thinking, “And she’s not gonna stop until
she kills me…”
“Well, I’m not gonna let that happen. I love you, Lola…” he stops himself, “I mean, I don’t
love… This is just strange, alright? Very strange,” he shakes his head, “Ryan was right. I’ve got a shitty
fan.”

Back at the bar, the other Lola is surveying a pile of corpses with her one remaining eye. She
visually scans the faces of the dead bikers, looking for a potential match. Calibrating… Calibrating…
Potential match found. She kneels over a man with approximately the right sized skull. She digs her
fingers into the biker’s face and… pluck. She holds a bloody, wet eyeball in front of her empty socket.
A spindly, metallic probe juts out. The end of it opens, revealing a whizzing drill head. It burrows into
the back of the eyeball, connecting the organ to her bio-mechanical optic-input systems. Not-Lola
inspects her new eye in a cracked mirror. It’s blue, not brown, so her eyes are mismatched… for the
time being. She’ll fix it later. Right now, she’s gotta cover some tracks. She mutters to herself
exasperatedly as she scans the building for any presence of gasoline, “Can’t believe this. Now I gotta
burn down the birdhouse. I love this place…”
Later, as she stands outside watching it go up in flames, she shakes her head… “You’ve taken
my favorite bar, Lola Martinez, but I’m not letting you have my husband. Mike’s not big enough for
both of us… He’s barely big enough for one of us.”

8
 Light pours into a darkened hotel suite as the real Lola opens the door and enters, “Alright,
you can lay low here with me tonight,” she says. Michael follows her in. he looks around,
immediately recognising the room.
“This is where you’re staying?” he says wistfully.
“Yeah,”
“Lola… the other Lola… booked this place for our wedding night,” Michael looks down to his
feet, saddened. Lola nods, “I see… she’s a cheap-ass too,”
“She’s thrifty,” Michael says. After a few seconds of slightly awkward silence, he continues
with, “Look. Maybe we don’t need to hide. If I could just talk to her, I’m sure I could work this out.
She’s a reasonable person,”
“Tell that to those bikers,” Lola says, sitting on a lumpy sofa opposite the bed.
“She’s probably scared, okay? She’d never do anything violent unless she was threatened.
And those bikers looked very rude,”
“You don’t know her, man! She’s a liar. She’s walking around with my face, my life, my
history. She even thinks like me! You know what I did today? I went in and got an application to work
at Rose’s. the lady there goes, ‘You don’t need to apply. You’ve already got the job!’ I was thinking,
‘Wow. That’s really nice. Maybe this town changed while I was away.’ But nope. It’s still as fucked-up
as ever,” Lola finishes her rant, pinching the bridge of her nose. Michael joins her on the sofa, and
shrugs, “You know. I like Icarfield. Always have. Always will. I’m a one-town kinda guy, I guess,”
Lola looks at him, shaking her head, “This is amazing,”
“What is?”
“That she picked you. That means, in some way, I would pick you. It’s like… why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you had to be there,” they look into each other’s eyes, a sense of
familiarity growing between them. Hesitantly, Lola speaks.
“Listen, I know you’re having a hard day. Not worse than mine. But it sucks to be you right
now. What she did to you isn’t fair. You seem like a nice guy. And you really saved my ass back there.
So… I don’t know…” she shrugs, trying to act nonchalant, “You wanna get high and see where things
go?” she looks, slightly hopefully, at Michael. He smiles sadly, “Huh. That’s exactly what she said to
me the first night we made love,”
“Man. She’s stealing all my moves,” Lola says, frustrated, “Anyway, you get what I’m hinting
at,” she raises a brow, “I mean, you’re my husband, right? I’m curious. If I’ve bought the car, I wanna
look under the hood,”
Michael smiles slightly, but remains apprehensive, “But you’re not Lola,”
“No. I am Lola. She’s not. She’s a murderer who lied to you this whole time. And I haven’t
gotten any action since I left my boyfriend in Kazakhstan. He wanted to get married. It was getting
too heavy. I had to get outta there. So… what do ya say? We doing this or what?”
Michael thinks long and hard, “Oh… Lola… it is tempting…” he pauses, “But I can’t. Whoever,
or whatever, that other woman is… She’s my wife,”
Creek. The bathroom door slowly swings open, and Not-Lola steps out of hiding, the knife in
her hand, still slick with blood.
“I’m proud of you, Mike,”
“Holy shit…” Lola says, and they both jump to their feet. The imposter narrows her
mismatched eyes, “I knew Lola wouldn’t be able to resist your charms. The question was, could you
resist hers?” she smiles coldly, “And you did,”
“How did you find us?” Lola says, looking around frantically for a weapon.
“It’s the cheapest place in town without bedbugs. It wasn’t rocket-science, Lola,”
“Damn. How’d you know the room number?”

9
 “Are you kidding? Whenever possible, we always ask for the same room number… 420.
“Now,” she lifts the knife, “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?” Not-Lola lunges for her double. Lola
dives out of the way, and Not-Lola crashes into the sofa, slashing wildly. Lola grabs the standing,
metal lamp and swings for her double. Direct his. Not-Lola tumbles to the floor. The knife is flung
from her hand. It stabs into the wall, inches from Michael’s head.
The imposter grabs Lola and tosses her through a glass door into the bedroom. She lands on
the bed, cracking the headboard, amid shards of glass. Both Lolas, bruised and banged-up, stare
each other down. Lola spits blood. Her double’s new eye sparks and twitches. They charge for each
other, then…
“Lolas! Stop!” Michael stands there with the knife in his hand, pointing it at both of them.
He’s had enough.
“Stop it! Just stop it!” he flails the knife wildly, and both Lolas lift their arms.
“Calm down, Michael. Put down the knife,” Lola says.
“No, Mike. Take that knife and stab her in the throat,”
“Why do I need to stab anybody? Why can’t you two just get along?” Michael says, tears in
his eyes. The two Lolas stare at each other.
“Oh, we are not getting along,” Lola says. “You stole my life!”
“You don’t deserve your life! You weren’t living it! You were running away from it!”
“Only one of us is walking out of this room!” Lola says, cutting off her double. She turns to
Michael, “Mike. I’m the real Lola. Do the right thing and give me my life back!”
“What about our life, Mike? She’s gonna destroy everything we have!”
“What you have is a lie!”
“What you have is a wife who loves you. I’m the woman you fell in love with, Mike,”
“Well, you did it using my face, and my name. I’m the woman you should be in love with!”
“But she doesn’t love you back!”
“Who knows? I just met him! He seems alright!”
“Mike, you made a vow to me. remember? Always and forever,”
“Vow? Are you kidding? Marriage is bullshit,”
The Lolas creep closer. Michael backs away, sweating, panicking.
“I’m the one you built something with, Mike,”
“You can built something with me! I’m looking for investors! I’m gonna start a pot farm! We
could start it together!”
“Stop it. You’re confusing me,” Mike says, eyes shut tight.
“Think of our home, Mike. Our dreams. Our past! Our future! Mike. Give me that knife,”
“No! Give me the knife, Mike!”
Mike can’t take it anymore. He raises the knife into the air, and screams wildly. He lunges
forward, thrusting the blade. Michael stabs. and again. Then silence.

Hours later, the sun comes up over the Icarfield Bridge. On it, a woman’s lifeless face is
frozen in a final expression of terror. Her body is wrapped in thick plastic and heavy chains. Michael
struggles to lift her over the side of the bridge. Then Lola leans down to help him. The only Lola
that’s left, that is. Together, they dump the corpse into the water below. Plop. She sinks, never to be
seen again. The remaining Lola turns to Michael, smiling. With mismatched eyes.
“I think you made the right choice, Mike,”
“It was the only choice I could make. Now you’re gonna do something for me,” Michael
pauses, nervous, “I want you to tell me who you really are,” he says, with finality. Lola sighs, “Lets
find a place to sit down.”

10
 Michael sits with Lola. Not the real Lola, but the one he married. They’re on the shore of the
lake, water gently lapping on the rocks nearby, as she concludes her harrowing tale.
“…So I killed my creators and ran. If Lola Martinez didn’t want a synthetic organism made in
her likeness, she shouldn’t have sold her genetic material to a shady company for two hundred
bucks,”
“So you’re a robot?”
“An android… From the future. Around ninety years, to be more exact. Why do you think I’m
so pushy about becoming vegan? We all have to reduce our carbon footprint or we’re fucked. I know
that for a fact,” she turns to him, genuine, “And if you want to know anything else about me, or the
future I come from, I’m an open book. If we’re gonna make this marriage work, we have to trust
each other. It might be hard sometimes. We might even have to kill a few more people. But I
promise, no more secrets,” she says.
“You’re right, Lola. Which is why…” Mike sighs, resigned, “I have a confession to make,”
“What is it?”
“I’m not the real Michael. I’m Michael 24,” Michael says, and he rolls up his sleeve to reveal
a ‘24’ tattooed on his arm.
“So you’re an android too?”
“No. Nothing like that… I’m a clone. They took some of Michael’s spit from a coffee cup, and
they’ve been mass-producing him in the basement of PRCC for years,”
“Hey, PRCC made me too,”
“Small world. I was grown with all of Mike’s memories. It didn’t seem fair that he got to have
this perfect life and I was gonna be shipped off to some secret mining colony on the moon. So I led a
small rebellion. We raised some hell. I escaped by killing the real Michael and taking his place,”
“Okay. So we’ve got even more in common than we thought,” Lola nods, taking it all in, then
lets out a small laugh, “Here I was, afraid to tell you I wasn’t the real Lola, and you weren’t the real
Michael this whole time,” she takes his arm, “Why should ‘real’ matter anyway? We’re the ones who
fell in love with each other,” she goes in to kiss him, but Michael hesitates, “Eh… that’s where things
get a little dicey,” he winces, admitting, “I replaced Mike three months into you guys dating. I have
the memory of meeting you at Rose’s, but it is not my own,”
“So you’re not the man I fell in love with?” Lola asks, an inexplicable expression in her eyes.
Michael replies in a hurry, “I’m genetically identical to him, and I have most of his memories, but no.
Though you have dated me for longer,”
“But you killed the real Mike…” Lola trails off, thinking about it.
“And the real Lola. You’re welcome, by the way,”
“Thank you,” Lola says, giving in.
“I know things aren’t perfect. We’ve hurt each other. We’re murderers. But… do you still
love me?” Michael looks deeply into her eyes. Lola pauses for a second, then smiles, “I do,”
“Then I will do anything to stay by your side,”
“I know you will. But first, we gotta go kill that homeless guy before he blows my cover,”
“Yes, ma’am,” Michael says. They wrap their artificially engineered arms around each other,
and share a long, passionate kiss as the sun rises over the tiny town of Icarfield.

11