Samantha Bridges stepped out of the Jaguar, feeling oddly pleased with herself.  The Jag was a great performance car.  The ride down had been a lot of fun.  What was upcoming was going to be a little less fun:  she had to confront Emily.  She tried to remember what had happened and found she could not:  the swiss-cheese effect had taken that from her. 

                Kurt appeared suddenly in the passenger seat with a wshh of the door to the Imaging Chamber. 

                "Hey," he said. 

                "Hey, check this out," Sam said eagerly.  "This thing cooks." 

                "Well, you wouldn't expect the GD to drive a Chevy Citation," Kurt pointed out.  "Now look, according to Effie you have to confront Emily and make her stop killing." 

                "I sorta knew that," Sam said.  "I did write this, you know." 

                "Well, she's just killed a techie."  Kurt winced.  "How very awful of her.  She killed the guppies too." 

                "So what do I do?" 

                "Well," he said, tapping on the handlink, "You confront her, she tries to knock you out with a wrench.  Here's where history has changed.  She killed Dr. Lecter and they found her running around screaming at the top of her lungs.  Then came the trial, being found insane, and sent to the asylum…and Pampered Chef for little Mischa." 

                "Wait," Sam said importantly, "what about Allie?  She hasn't been conceived yet." 

                "She's never born," Kurt explained. 

                "After all the work I did on that fic, and had FF.net take it down?  No way!"  Sam protested. 

                Sam pulled into the driveway and goggled. Emily was there, just as she had envisioned.  As was a dead techie strapped to a hand truck and parked in Mischa's kiddy pool.  Emily was dancing around the pool.  As Sam pulled in and got out of the Jaguar, she could hear what the other woman was screaming. 

                "Ha ha ha! Die guppies!  Die, die, die!" 

                Sam looked slightly pale.  "That's…not right." 

                "Yes, she murdered the techie," Kurt said, and winced. 

                "Emily," she said.  "Hey, can we have a little chat about your tech-frying habit here?" 

                "Hannibal," Emily said, and her eyes glittered.  "I killed the guppies too.  Don't forget them.  DIE GUPPIES!" 

                Sam inched a little closer.  "Boy oh boy, crazy psychiatrists are work," she grumbled.  Then suddenly, Emily swung hard with a wrench and just barely missed cleaving Sam's skull.  The wrench instead crashed into the headlight of the Lincoln.  Sam winced. 

                "Look at that," Sam protested.  "You just smashed up the car, Emmie.  I know you.  You killed a few people in this fic and that's OK.  But the car?  As my character you ought to know better." 

                "DIE GUPPIES," Emily shrieked again, and swung at Sam again.  Sam managed to grab her wrist and tried to force her to drop the wrench. 

                "I can't break her wrist," Sam said.  "I know that's what happened, but the GD is a lot stronger than I am." 

                "You could give her an Indian burn," Kurt suggested.

                "You're a lot of help," Sam grumbled. 

                "Well, I do have a little sister, you know."   He grinned.  "Hey…wait.  That was supposed to have killed you.  Now history's changing," he tapped the handlink again.  "OK, Sam, now the neighbors hear the ruckus and send out a cop.  They find out who the GD is, send him back to Chesapeake, send Em off to prison for killing all the people you've got buried in your yard, and Mischa…,"

                "I know, I know," Sam grumbled.  "She marries Krendler and becomes a…,"

                "Well, she still marries Krendler, except now they become televangelists and have their own cable TV show, until the IRS shuts her down.  And she's known for glomping on the mascara.  Mischa Fae Krendler, that's what they call her." 

                "Aaaaaaagh!" Sam screamed.  Then she took another look at Emily and stopped. 

                Emily's face had rippled and changed when Sam touched her.  She was still blonde and had blue eyes.  Except now her face was completely different.  Another woman stood there in Emily's clothes, grinning at her. 

                And now, behind her, stood a very tall woman dressed in black jeans, a black shirt, and a leather vest.  She had curly brown hair and also held a handlink. 

                "OK, Chameleon," the tall woman said, "Goothos says that if you keep screaming 'Die Guppies', you'll attract the attention of the neighbors.  And that'll accomplish what you're here to…," she stopped and stared at Sam. 

                "Sam?  Samantha Bridges?" 

                Sam stared at the two women with equal shock.  "Chameleon?  Steel?" 

                The microphone clicked on again.  "I told you it was an eeeeebil leaper," Saavik said, sounding quite satisfied with herself. 

                "You mean you're the evil leaper?" Sam asked Chameleon.

                "Oh, don't look so surprised," Chameleon replied. 

                "But…but…you can't kill the GD," Sam said. "You made up rule 1!" 

                "Chameleon, we've been through this," Steel said.  "You know what they'll do to us if you don't finish your job." 

                Chameleon assumed a sorrowful mien and dropped the wrench with a loud clang.  "I have to, Sam" she said sorrowfully.  "They're forcing me to do this.  They made me an evil leaper…they made me a violator of rule 1….they would've made me a serial killer too, except they ran out of yarn." 

                "Who?" 

                "Project Evil Fanfic Leap," Chameleon said.  "They…they torture both of us if we don't do our evil leaps.  They have…back at PEFL they have a remake of both movies.  Hannibal and Silence of the Lambs." 

                Sam stopped and seemed interested.  "A remake?  Did they fix the ending to Hannibal, maybe?" 

                "No," Chameleon said, and put the back of her hand on her forehead in a melodramatic gesture.  "It's worse.  Far worse."  She drew in a long, shuddering breath.  "In the remake…Clarice is played by Fran Drescher from 'The Nanny'." 

                All four in the garage winced. 

                "And worse…Dr. Lecter is played by…," Chameleon choked back a sob. 

                "By who?" asked Sam. 

                "It's so horrible to remember," Chameleon moaned.  "It's the most horrible sort of torture you could think of.   The movie was made exclusively to torture us…the GD is played by…Pauly Shore." 

                There was a click and another sound as the unseen Goothos expressed displeasure with the minions of Project Evil Fanfic Leap.  It played some choices from the soundtrack of the aforementioned torture remake. 

                "Doctah Lectah, I'm Clarrrrreeece Stahling of the FBI," an extremely nasal voice said.  Chameleon shrieked.  Steel put her arms over her head in discomfort.

                "Like, hello, Clarice. They locked me up in this cell because I like ate people.  I totally had the munchies and it was too far to go to 7-11."  An inane giggle followed the man's voice. 

                "No!" Chameleon screamed.  "Please, Goothos! Anything but that!  I'll do it!  DIE GUPPIES DIE!  DIE GUPPIES!  I'm doing it! Make it stop!" 

                Steel jumped in, chorusing "DIE GUPPIES," a few times herself, then stopping.  "Oh, wait.  I'm a hologram.  Only Chameleon and Sam can hear me."

                "Yeah, tough life," Kurt agreed.  "We need a Holograms Union." 

                The torturous voices continued in another scene. 

                "Like, this dude Dumas said something about a crow in some soup.  I think a crow in my soup would be like a major bummer, cause they don't wash their birdy little feet, you know?  Anyways Clarice, if you want this serial killer dude all you gotta do is check out the case file. I read it, have you?" 

                "Yes I did, Doctah Lectah," came the nasal drawl.  "Tell me his naaaaaaame." 

                "You need to come with us," came another voice.  "Starling, we're sending you back to Quantico for emergency nasal surgery." 

                "Clarice, you're really babelicious, so here's like your case file.  Huh huh huh." 

                All of a sudden the handlink squealed.  "Sam, this is really weird," Kurt said.  "History's changing all over the place.  Looks like everything goes back to normal, Mischa's fine, Em is fine, they're all fine.  But you gotta knock over Em…um…Chameleon…whatever.  Seems Em leaps back shortly, but she's so emotionally scarred from the two movies they made her watch that she forswears killing ever again.   But you have to knock her over." 

                "Kill her?  I don't want to kill Chameleon." 

                "No, no," Kurt tried to explain. 

                "Or Emmie.  I like Emmie." 

                "Yes, we know you do.  No, you have to knock her down.  That way when the neighbors come in they just think Em fell." 

                "What about the dead techie?" 

                "Ah, they think he's just trying to cool off his feet in the pool," Kurt said.  "I never said you had bright neighbors."

                "Okay," Sam said, observing the neighbors beginning to stick their heads out their window and then amble over.  "So what do I do now?" 

                "Trip her," Kurt suggested.

                Sam did, finding it a bit hard to believe that all she had to do was trip Chameleon in order to set everything right.  But so it was.  Effie had decreed it. 

                Then the sparkly blue light came down and covered both women, and then they were gone, simul-leaping into the next fic.