Daniel and Daniel

"Morning Steve," I said, flashing my temporary security badge as I entered the building. He smiled and waved. He was nothing like the Steve I knew, who just grunted at you.

"Last few days," said Tanya as I strode into the office. "Are you ready for it to be over, or will you miss us?"

"It's been a pleasure working with you guys, but I certainly won't miss the commute," I chuckled.

"Haha, I bet not!" I didn't want to know the Tanya in my universe, there was no way she'd be as sweet as this one.

"Yeah, yeah, translating over from the parallel universe is so tough. Blah, blah, blah," mumbled Larry. I ignored him. Everyone knew he'd wanted to be chosen for the Trans-Universe Work Exchange Program, and that he resented me because I was chosen. But the point was to meet our parallels, and his worked for a different company.

"Don't lie," said Daniel as he emerged from his office, "you're going to leave and never look back." We both grinned as we shook hands. We were parallels.

"How are you, Daniel?" I asked.

"As good as you, Daniel!"

Tanya rolled her eyes at our daily joke. "I won't miss that," she chuckled.

Daniel and I (a strange thought, even after a month) went into his office. It looked nothing like mine: there were no knick-knacks, no posters or pictures, nothing like that. But we were parallels. Similar in many ways, yet very different.

In fact, there were a lot of things about the other Daniel I envied. His self confidence, his ambition. I was always second guessing myself, worrying over every little thing. And where he was so good with people and always seemed to know just what to say, I had a hard time with others. The only reason I was able to get along so well with the folks here was because they treated me like my mirror self. It made it easier somehow.

My doppelganger held up some paperwork and smiled. "Came in early this morning."

"Awesome," I said, taking it from him. "So the merger will go through after all."

"I never doubted."

I flipped through the pages, skimming it thoughtfully. The merger was huge, and we both stood to get bonuses for it. But I stopped dead in the middle of one of the pages. I frowned.

"This can't be right."

"What's that?"

"Here," I said pointing. "We're laying off Tanya and Larry?"

"We have to get rid of a few people on our end. Mergers are expensive."

"Then how come our bonuses are so big?" I asked, indicating what I thought was an absurd figure.

"Sure, we could keep them on, but that would cut our bonuses by more than half. Besides we have to make room for the few guys from the other company that are staying on."

"The few guys?" I asked. "I thought most of their employees would stay on?"

"No," replied my twin. "Why would they? We're transferring all operations to our facilities. We need to keep a few of their guys on for the transition, but most of them will go."

I was shocked. A little bit by the layoffs, but mostly by the fact that the other Daniel didn't care. From the moment I'd met my parallel I'd envied his confidence and self assurance, but now I could see that he lacked all empathy and sympathy. He simply didn't care about other people.

And, suddenly, I was glad I wasn't him.