Cornelia walked to her office slowly, weighed down by Monday blues after a fun weekend with her family. She ran into her assistant, Walter.

“Ah, good morning, Walter!” She smiled at the thin, nervous man in front of her. “Hope you had a nice weekend. Just want a quick update on the Lopez contract, and then you can get me my espresso, with one spoon of sugar and... two, shots of cream. I’m feeling adventurous.” And Cornelia, done with her crisp instructions, proceeded to march to her office, expecting her assistant to trot behind her obediently. So she was quite frustrated when she didn’t hear the clack of his boots following her.

“Well, Walter, what are you waiting for? Have you forgotten the routine we follow? Or do I now have to invite you to follow me?”

Walter smiled nervously. “Uh... Miss Strope, I’ve already given you the update. And brought you your coffee. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Cornelia was confused. “What do you mean, you’ve done all that? I just came in!”

“I’m sorry, Ms Strope, I don’t mean to be rude, but I gave you your cup in your office not two minutes ago. In fact, I don’t know how you got here so fast, since I didn’t see you at all.” And now Walter looked a little suspicious. But Cornelia blanched. She thought she had a very good idea of what was going on.

“Eh, well... happy April fools’! I fooled you well, didn’t I Walter? Ha!”

“But ma’am, it’s the middle of September.”

“But we never celebrated April fools’ this year. So I thought we’d do it now. Now shoo. Continue doing... whatever it is you remember me asking you to do.” Walter, still looking perplexed, walked slowly away. Cornelia’s usually brisk, business-like gait sped up to become frenzied jogging, as she stormed into her office, shut the door and pulled the blinds down.

She found a person, so identical to her in appearance that she could have been looking into a mirror. This woman was calmly answering emails.

“Hello, Luna.” The doppelgänger looked up, and flashed Cornelia a bright, scarily wide smile.

“Hiya Nelly! How are you doing this fine morning, and how much will you be willing to pay me to leave?”

Cornelia sighed. She cursed the day she got into that voluntary genetic modification, chemical restructuring and anatomical reconstruction and reflection experiment for some extra cash, and smiled sweetly at her lookalike. “Well, Luna, I’m running out of cash from paying you every week. So I’d appreciate it if you stayed out of my life forever.”

Luna laughed manically. “But, Nelly, what’s the point of being a doppelgänger if I don’t get to use it to my advantage?” She smiled as though she were making a great compromise. “But, since you’ve become my very good friend, I’ll give you until next week to pay up. And I’ll reduce the payment to ninety percent. Deal?” And she continued with her emails, as though she expected affirmation, in that self-assured way that Cornelia only found attractive on her own self.

She rummage in her little handbag and pulled out a little gun. Very tiny, tiny enough to look like a little toy, but very real. She fingered the trigger gently. She’d been expecting this for weeks, preparing for it for even longer. If Luna refused to get out of her life, she would deliberately depose her.

“No deal,” Cornelia murmured softly, as she pulled the trigger of the gun aimed straight at her lookalike’s head. When Walter walked in five minutes later to hand in a project report, he saw his boss calmly answering emails. His eyes were immediately drawn to the slightly ajar door of her cupboard and the dull red stain on her white table.

Cornelia, noticing the direction of his gaze, laughed and said, “I spilled some juice that I’d brought to work on that darn table. It will be quite a while before the stain is fully gone. And I’ve stuffed some trash into my cupboard. Trash I should have disposed of a very long time ago. Don’t bother throwing it out, I’ll take care of it. You may leave.” And snatching the report from his hand, Cornelia unceremoniously shoved her assistant out of the room and slammed the door shut. Not for the first time, Walter wondered whether Ms Strope’s cold, cutthroat demeanour in her professional dealings was a part of her daily life too.