No, there's a loophole...

“Gary, with me,” Ava said. “Vasquez, one moment.”

She returned to her office. Gary was the only person that knew about 2213, a point in time filled with clones of her. She, too, was the only one with permission to access that period in history.

There were thousands of people identical to her in every way, down to the smallest detail. Hair, eyes, body…

“Do you remember 2213?” Ava said, as soon as the door was shut.

“What? Oh!” Gary said, eyes going wide. “You think we could…”

“Get a double of me, strip her down, let her do the run-around? Absolutely,” Ava said. “There is nothing you could possibly do to convince me to go through that again. Minutes was bad enough.”

“It’s… possible,” Gary said. “History wouldn’t change, so long as the cause still matches the effect-”

“You don’t need to explain temporal theory to me, Gary,” Ava said.

“Getting one should be easy,” Gary said. “It looked like they were publicly available. Getting a suitable personality imprint so that she reacts like you would, I think it’s doable.”

Right; they wouldn’t want her to passively walk around the city, not even bothering to hide. Not only would that not be unbearable, it would add far too many clearer images to the database.

It wasn’t her body, but it looked like her. That was bad enough without having to live through the whole ordeal.

“Good,” Ava said. “Get it done. Tell the Bureau it’s- one of those metahumans, a shapeshifter working off a sentence. Able to fulfil the role. And make sure she’s secured and handed back into your custody, we can get this over with.”

“Yes ma’am,” Gary said quickly.

She tried not to think about how eager he was to go back to a factory that produced naked versions of her. The day had been gross enough.

*

“Oh fuck, fuck- fuck me! Fuuck!”

Ava arched her back, pushing up into Sara’s fingers; over her, her girlfriend smirked, straddling and never breaking eye contact as she made Ava cum for what felt like the hundredth time.

Panting, Ava slumped back. She tapped out, and Sara got off her, lifting her hand to lick her fingers clean. She still grinned at Ava.

“Did I say welcome back?” Sara said.

“No, you just jumped me,” Ava said. Still, she smiled. Oh, it was good to let her hair down sometimes. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“I was glad to get that call from you,” Sara said. “Wondered where you’d gone. What did happen, anyway?”

Ava paused, a slight flush colouring her normally severe features.

“I’d rather not talk about it,” Ava said. “Suffice to say that little public sex fantasy you’ve mentioned?”

“Yeah.”

“Not happening,” Ava said. “Ever.”

Sara chuckled, but didn’t push. She snuggled into her girlfriend’s side, pressing a kiss to her neck.

Then an alarm started to blare. Sara jumped up, hastily reaching for her clothes where they lay in a mess by the bed. Ava began to move too, but Sara shook her head.

“Sounds like you’ve been through enough,” Sara said. “Besides, it’s Legends business, you can take a minute off. Relax.”

Ava leant back. Well, it would be advisable; she wasn’t quite sure she could stand, legs still shaking from Sara’s time on top.

“Captain’s orders,” Sara said, giving one last smirk just as she ducked out the door. Awa rolled her eyes, and slumped back.

She closed her eyes, unable to deny that she was tired. She-

Less than a minute later and she was roughly rolled onto her front, her arms yanked back; someone kept her pinned down with either an elbow or a knee between her shoulder-blades.

Ava was a good fighter, but even she could be taken by surprise. Equally, as she tried to break the hold, she realised whoever her opponent was seemed pretty skilled too.

There was a click; she recognised the sound. Bureau-issue handcuffs, meant to restrain anachronisms, people from the wrong time, when they got violent.

At last she was turned over, and whatever words she was going to say died in her throat.

She was staring into her own face. The same eyes, the same hair, only flushed more with anger than embarrassment. The not-her glared.

The alarm, it must have been an intruder alert.

“What-” Ava managed to **** out.

“One question,” her clone said, furious. “How would you feel if someone picked you up, stripped you, and arranged to have you marooned for seven whole hours in the middle of a city of thousands?”

Ava froze.

“Answer me,” her double demanded, her tone an exact mirror of Ava’s own when she was angry. “And while you’re at it, tell me how you’d react. Would you just let it slide?”

Oh no.

“I’d,” Ava began. She cleared her throat. “I’d want ****.”

“Exactly,” her clone said. “I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

“What-”

“I knocked your guard out,” the clone said. “I stole his cuffs, and his Courier. Took me a while to work out exactly how it worked, but, well, it is a time machine and I’m – we’re – smart.”

Ava wriggled, eyes darting down.

Her clone wore a suit much like her own, no doubt taken from Gary or some other Bureau agent. And around her wrist was a Time Courier, just like the one that had started this whole mess.

“Back to that ****,” her clone said, voice measured. “If you were me, what form would it take? What would you do to someone that exposed you like that?”

No, please no. Ava’s eyes went wide; and that was the only answer the clone needed.

“2176,” the clone said. “I looked it up. A recent disaster wiped out humanity’s satellite net. They still have local networks, cameras, all kinds of things that will ensure they take and save and share photos of you, but none of it would be added to the Bureau’s records for a number of months. None of it could be. There’s no way for the Bureau to even accidentally pick you up early, not until you’ve lived out those months and the photos were uploaded. Does that sound like the kind of thing you’d have thought of?”

“Please,” Ava began.

She wouldn’t beg, not normally. But for something like this…

“And just in case,” her clone said, “I’ve locked off the year. It’d take the genetic print of the Director of the Time Bureau, something we share, as well as a password only I know spoken in our voice for any timeship or Courier to make it to that point in time.”

“You can’t do this,” Ava said. She stiffened, straining against the cuffs-

The cuffs. Locking her arms behind her back so that even if she wanted to she had no way to cover herself; she’d even struggle to run around.

And she’d thought it couldn’t get worse than the prospect of hours. Months?!

“And that’s if they find you,” her clone said. “Perhaps they see the photos, and assume it’s my future. I’m told I do a rather good impression of you.”

Ava’s eyes went wide.

“They’ll notice,” Ava said. “You’ll make a mistake, and they’ll know to look for me. You don’t want to do this.”

“Maybe they will,” her clone said. “But they still wouldn’t be able to get to you. All cuffed up, every inch of you there for the whole world to see. No more than you deserve. Imagine it, days on end, trapped, alone, naked.”

A whimper escaped Ava’s lips; one she quickly swallow. No, don’t show how it made her feel, be strong, don’t-

“Please,” Ava said.

“Oh,” her clone said. “You think it’s wrong. That there’s no way I would want to subject someone who looks so much like me, someone who’s my clone of all things, to so much humiliation?”

Mute, Ava nodded. Her clone leant closer.

“I guess we’re just too much alike,” her clone said.

There was a click, and the window through time opened. Ava opened her mouth to yell for help-

And her clone pushed her through, watching her land out in the midday streets flushed and clad in only the secure cuffs, before the window shut.