Her eyes widened as she read the hastily scribbled words in the margin of her notebook. She shot Andros an incredulous look, but he was slouched in the chair beside her and paying no attention to her expression. She followed his gaze, her eyes settling on a hooded figure three rows in front of them.

Shaking her head, Ashley wrote wonderingly, You are so immature!

Andros glanced in her direction when she tapped the notebook with her pen. His eyes flicked across the words she had written, and he smirked slightly. Lifting his gaze to hers again, he gave her a one-shouldered shrug. The look on his face was clear as day: So?

She bit her lip to keep from giggling. Leaning closer so they wouldn't be overheard, she whispered, "Double dare you."

He held out his left hand without a word. There was no way to tear paper quietly, especially in a quiet lecture hall, but she tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. Passing him the torn off corner of her notes, she watched with amusement as Andros leaned forward to crumple the paper under his seat. The chair muffled the noise a little, and she had a sudden image of him as a delinquent kid in grade school.

With a flick of his right wrist, so quickly she wasn't even sure he had done it, Andros lobbed the crumpled up piece of paper at the kid he had pointed out earlier. It struck the shoulder of the blue hooded sweatshirt, no doubt on purpose--Andros had better aim than she did. A better poker face, too... when someone near the blue kid turned around to scan the rest of the room, Andros was already slumped back in his seat, eyes lidded and apparently two seconds from falling asleep.

"I can't believe you just did that," Ashley hissed, lowering her gaze to her notebook quickly.

Andros shrugged again, a slight movement of his shoulders that did little to dispel his drowsy façade. "You dared me," he murmured, not looking over at her.

"You dared me first!" she shot back. The conversation was becoming audible to their neighbors, so she shut her mouth and ignored him for the next few minutes. Apparently a bored Andros was one thing she should remember to avoid in the future.

On the other hand... Her lips curved a little, and she had to admit seeing him like this was infinitely preferable to the way he'd been on KO-35. Maybe moving back there was the wrong idea. Maybe he should come here. Maybe I could just kidnap him, Ashley mused, wondering how difficult such a thing would be.

Her first class ended early, and she figured that was a good thing considering Andros' idle energy. She had already caught him drawing on the arm of his chair and teaching himself to uncap and recap her pen one-handed before he started writing notes to her. He hadn't offered any reason for accompanying her to class in the first place, but she suspected he was trying to prove something.

"Well, that was exciting," Andros remarked, scooping up her backpack as the classroom started to empty out. "Even I lecture better than that professor."

"Andros!" She glanced toward the front of the room automatically, trying not to giggle. "Don't say things like that in here," she warned, gathering up her notebooks when she was satisfied nobody important had overheard.

"Why not?" Andros sounded amused as he preceded her down the aisle and out into the hallway. "It's all the kids behind us could talk about for the first twenty minutes. They were probably right, too."

"Why do I think your lectures would involve random target practice?" Ashley asked, glancing sideways at him.

"It would keep students awake," he countered, holding the door for her. "Plus I could write important syllabus dates on the pieces of paper I threw at them. Then it would be like learning reinforcement or something."

She laughed aloud at his serious expression. "Did you and Zhane ever study that way?"

He grinned. "Maybe," he admitted. "I had more answers, but he was always better with the questions. So we traded. Or we tried to. Sometimes it kind of degenerated."

"You beat each other up instead of studying?" she suggested, smirking.

"We're Rangers," Andros reminded her, with an attempt at dignity. "We don't beat each other up. We spar."

"It's totally different," Ashley agreed, rolling her eyes with a smile. "What was I thinking?"

She didn't take any notice of the cars parked outside the building as they stepped out into the sunlight, but one of them took notice of her and Andros. The honking didn't register at all, as she assumed it was directed at someone else, but Andros glanced up when someone shouted their names. He nudged her shoulder, and she glanced curiously in the direction he indicated.

"Justin?" she gasped, stopping in her tracks before realizing that wasn't a very smart thing to do in front of an academic building between classes. "Justin!" she shouted, waving back at him as she and Andros made their way toward the road. "Where've you been!"

His blue Jeep looked vaguely familiar, but she didn't give it conscious thought until the passenger door popped open of its own accord. She gaped at him, then at the car. "Storm Blaster?"

Justin rapped the steering wheel affectionately. "I've told you not to do that," he said, apparently addressing the car. "We're on Earth, remember. Let me open the doors.

"Hey guys," he added, glancing over at them with a twinkle in his eye. "How's it going? Want a ride? Do you have an hour or two, or ten? I could use your help."

Ashley glanced at her watch out of habit, but Justin had been a teammate too long for her to give the question much thought. "Sure," she agreed, exchanging glances with Andros. He nodded once, and she tossed her notebook in the backseat before climbing in after it. "Count us in," she told the former Blue Turbo Ranger.

"What are you wearing?" she added as an afterthought, catching sight of his shirt as she settled herself in the back. Andros slid into the passenger seat and closed the door behind him, doing a double take at her question.

Justin just laughed. "I didn't bother to change before I left Eltare," he explained, as Storm Blaster stopped idling and shifted into gear. They pulled out of the crosswalk and started crawling through the maze of pedestrians, most of whom didn't seem aware there was anyone else in the road. "I was in a hurry, and this is California, after all."

"Eltare?" Andros repeated, reaching back for his seatbelt. He cast an odd glance over his shoulder before raising an eyebrow at Justin. "No seatbelt laws on Eltare, huh?"

Ashley slapped his shoulder fondly. "Like you should talk, Mr. 'The Power Will Protect Me'!"

He shrugged, giving her a rueful grin. "What can I say, you've got me trained."

"There are seatbelts," Justin interrupted. "Trust me, they're there, and you'll want them soon. Do you guys mind going on a little trip?"

"How little?" Ashley asked suspiciously. "You came all the way from Eltare to take us on a road trip?"

"Not exactly." Justin caught her eye in the rearview mirror and had the grace to look chagrinned. "I came all the way from Eltare to take you back with me. If you'll go, that is. It's kind of a long story, but I can explain it on the way."

Resting his arm on the door, Andros craned his neck to look back at her. "I'm in if you are," he said simply.

Ashley eyed Justin once more. It was hard to tell in the car but he seemed a bit taller than he had been last spring, and his hair was cut in short spikes instead of the shaggy little boy look he had once favored. His clothes were as foreign looking as Cassie's were nowadays, and she couldn't help wondering if everyone was changing but her.

"I'll go," she agreed at last, bracing one elbow against the back of his seat as she gave him a mock-glare. "But you'd better tell us everything, Justin Stewart. And I mean everything! Where have you been? You didn't even go to graduation! What was the point of finishing school early if you weren't going to celebrate?"

"I did celebrate," Justin answered, a grin in his voice. "By getting away from there as fast as I could. Getting through high school was one of the most boring things I ever did. When Storm Blaster came for me last spring, I didn't think I'd ever make it to June. But I did, and you did, and here we are."

"Which is where, exactly?" Ashley frowned at the little back road that had materialized around them while she hadn't been paying attention. She knew Angel Grove fairly well, but she didn't recognize the street they were on now.

"Earth," Justin said. "But not for much longer. You might want to find those seatbelts now."

So saying, he banged his fist against the door and something clicked audibly over the sound of the engine. Without looking, he drew forth a harness catch and ducked his head to settle it easily over his shoulders. He fastened it without once taking his other hand off of the wheel. Andros imitated his actions, though far less gracefully, and Ashley gave the door to her left a skeptical look.

When Justin gunned the engine, though, she was suddenly convinced. The door responded to her somewhat tentative tap, offering her a harness catch first and feeding it out to her as she struggled to fasten across her body. She looked up as it clicked into place and flinched instinctively at the sight of sky in every direction. She hadn't even felt the shift from pavement to air.

There was no whistle of wind as Storm Blaster continued to accelerate, racing into the heavens without so much as a nod to planetary gravity. As the horizon darkened and disappeared, the stars came out around them and a tunnel of hyperspace whirled them away from the world below. The visible universe was left behind, but Storm Blaster's self-contained environment simulated normal light even as it provided air in the vacuum of space.

"That's not what I heard," Andros was saying, and she realized belatedly that he was responding to something Justin had said. Neither of the boys seemed bothered by their abrupt transition from the normal universe to the external world of hyperrush. "I thought the Eltaran Rangers had enough to worry about right now without dimensional experimentation."

"The Eltaran Rangers aren't actually involved," Justin explained. "Remember the Robot Rangers? And your friends the Psychos? We've been working with Zordon for the past few months, first in an attempt to access ID space and then to move through it."

"Is that even possible?" Andros didn't sound doubtful, just extremely curious. "No one's been able to control that kind of thing since the gateways were built, and the civilization that created them is long since gone and forgotten."

"That's what gave us the idea!" Justin rummaged around what would be the emergency brake in a normal car, paying no attention to the instrumentation and apparently trusting Storm Blaster to navigate. "We thought if we could duplicate that sort of technology, we could create almost instantaneous travel anywhere in the universe. We weren't sure it could really be done, but while we were investigating we found this."

He produced something from underneath his seat, passing it to Andros for inspection and grinning when the Red Ranger looked appropriately impressed. "This is amazing," Andros agreed. "It's you, isn't it? Do you have reliable communication, or was it just the one time?"

"Guys?" Ashley grew tired of waiting for them to explain and decided to just interrupt. "Anyone want to tell me what you're talking about? Or at least translate it into English so I have some chance of catching up?"

"After Cassie's Psycho Ranger kidnapped me last spring I got in touch with the Robot Rangers again," Justin said, twisting to face her without skipping a beat. "Jay, who's me only with electronics instead of organs, wanted to try this crazy experiment with dimensional morphing, but he needed two people with the same Power to make it work. And since Storm Blaster charged my Turbo key for me, we were the perfect people for it.

"It didn't work at first, but eventually we realized it just wasn't working for us. It was working for someone else, somewhere, and that's when we enlisted Zordon's help to communicate with JT. JT is us, or at least me, in the dimension the Turbo powers originated in," he added as an aside. Glancing at the object in Andros' hands, he added, "That's a recording from the first time we got the keycomms to work between dimensions."

"Wait," Ashley said helplessly. She'd like to hope the explanation was about to start making sense, but knowing Justin she was afraid it was only going to get more complicated. "So you and your Robot Ranger are talking with your counterpart in another dimension? Why?"

"We want to try and find a way to send more than radiation," Justin said earnestly. "If we can transmit comm signals reliably we should be able do more, and being able to send objects, even people, back and forth between dimensions would make hyperrush obsolete. We could send a starship from one galaxy to the next in seconds!

"Of course," he added, not as though it mattered, "JT wants it for other reasons, but there's a lot of uses for controllable access to ID space. The thing is that we can't do it without an anchor, and so far the best thing we've been able to come up with is Ranger Power. We think we can use a Ranger's link to the morphing grid to stabilize the transfer and make sure the person actually goes where you're trying to send them, but obviously that's only going to work for a really small percentage of the population. And it won't work at all for inanimate objects, so we're going to have to find something else."

"The grid works because it's extradimensional?" Andros wanted to know. "Do you need something outside of the target dimension to anchor the transfer? What if you used a third dimension as the anchor point?"

"We'd like to do that," Justin agreed, "but there has to be some kind of constant. Say you want to go from our dimension to JT's, and you want to use a third dimension as your anchor. First you have to locate yourself in that third dimension, or the link vanishes as soon as you do. The Power works because it's so easy to trace."

"Guys?" Ashley repeated with amusement. She could either be amused or impatient, and she was enjoying Andros' enthusiasm far too much to become frustrated. So she just suggested, "Maybe you could summarize for me, so I don't feel completely left out?"

"You're trying to build an ID drive, right?" Andros didn't even wait for Justin's nod before turning to Ashley. "Justin's doing what dozens of other incredibly brilliant people have tried to do and failed in the last decade alone. ID space is like cold fusion on Earth. Everyone thinks it should exist, but no one can figure out how to get there."

Ashley sighed, giving him a patient look. "ID space?" she repeated.

"Interdimensional space," Justin put in. "If we could cross dimensions, we could theoretically access a place of near infinite mass, or momentum, that could propel an object tremendous distances in almost no time at all."

"And then crush it," Andros added wryly.

"We'd bring it back before it was crushed," Justin retorted, taking his remark seriously. "But we have to be able to control the transit, and that's where Ranger powers come in. At least for now, we have to have an external link in both dimensions to serve as the anchor. That's where you guys come in."

"I thought you were using the Turbo Power," Andros said with a frown.

"Well, Andy and Lee aren't. They're the ones we want to send, or at least, their counterparts are. JT and Jay and I have to coordinate the transfer to make it work, so Andy and Lee volunteered to be test subjects. But it turns out the Astro Power is stronger in our dimension, so their counterparts offered to try coming here instead of the other way around."

"Wait a minute," Ashley said slowly, glossing over the unfamiliar names. "You're using the Astro Power as an anchor for an experiment that makes people cross dimensions?"

Andros was giving Justin an odd look. "Who are Andy and Lee?"

"They're your Psycho Rangers." The words gave Ashley a chill, but Justin didn't seem to notice. He went on without pausing. "I meant to ask you, have you noticed anything unusual lately? Hallucinations, weird dreams, whatever?"

"Yes." Andros went from wary to irritated comprehension in the blink of an eye. "It's you, isn't it. Using the Astro Power as an anchor is affecting everyone who's held it, not just the people you're trying to transfer."

Justin looked momentarily sheepish. "Yeah," he admitted. "We didn't realize it could happen until yesterday, when Andy and Lee's connection to the Power wasn't as strong as their counterparts'. We thought that was strange, since it was supposed to be stronger in our dimension, but then it occurred to me that their counterparts never shared the Power. There's only one Astro team in JT's dimension, not two."

Andros was silent at that, and Ashley spoke up quickly. "There weren't any Psycho Rangers in his dimension?"

"From what JT says, Dark Spectre has other uses for his power in their dimension." Justin frowned for the first time. "They're at war there, you know. The Turbo Rangers left Earth to reinforce Eltare before it fell, but they lost their powers in the battle, same as we did. I don't know what happened to Earth."

This time, it was Ashley who had no answer. When the quiet stretched out, though, she forced herself to focus on the rest of Justin's explanation. "But you said 'their counterparts'--we must have met up with Andros there too, right?"

"Yeah... I don't know how, but he's there." Justin brightened a little. "And if I'm right about the Astro powers, he'll be here in a few hours."

***

"JT just got back," Justin's doppelganger announced as they walked through the doors. "He says he's ready whenever we are. I told him you had set down and were on your way, so Ashley and Andros are standing by with him."

Andros blinked, not so much at the mention of his name as at the presence of his own twin. Ashley's Psycho Ranger was there too, and both looked up as the doors slid closed again. The resemblance was less eerie than it had once been, and not just because he had mentally braced himself for it. They actually looked... different, somehow.

"Let's do it, then." Justin tossed the vest he had grabbed out of Storm Blaster's backseat on a console and strode over to join "Jay". "He has less time than we do. Are you guys ready?"

According to Justin, their presence ought to be enough to complete the transfer. Since they weren't actually required to do anything, Andros opened his mouth to say "yes" but his double beat him to it. "We're set," he agreed, exchanging glances with "Lee". She nodded in agreement, and Andros shot a sideways glance at Ashley. She looked bemused as he felt.

"Should we wait for Zordon?" Jay wanted to know. "He said he wanted to be here for the trials."

"He saw the first one," Justin answered. Neither of them paused while they spoke; it was as though they were carrying on an internal dialogue out loud. "With the Power they can't get lost, so the worst that can happen is nothing. We'll tell him what happens later."

"It's not like he was that helpful last time, anyway," Andros heard Lee mutter. He saw his Psycho Ranger smirk at her in agreement, and he wondered if his own cynicism was rubbing off on her. When he saw Ashley trying to suppress a smile, he knew she'd had the same thought.

Justin looked up. "Ready?"

"Let's do it," Jay echoed.

Nothing happened.

Both Blue Turbo Rangers turned expectantly, looking from the Psycho Rangers to Andros and Ashley. There was no one else in the room. Before Andros could ask what had gone wrong, Lee remarked, "Well, that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be."

Andy glanced around the room. "I thought JT said you'd brought your Astro Rangers."

Justin and Jay exchanged alarmed glances. "This isn't good," they said in unison.

"We are the Astro Rangers," Andros said, comprehension fighting to gain a foothold in his mind. If they didn't know that... "Who are you?"

"They switched," Justin said with a frown. "That wasn't supposed to happen."

"JT?" Jay asked, tapping out a sequence on the console. "Do you have Andy and Lee?"

"Looks that way," Justin's voice replied. "How did that happen? And how freaky is it that they're wearing the same clothes?"

The two Rangers that had apparently taken the Psycho Rangers' places looked at each other. "That's weird," the other Andros remarked noncommittally. "I'm glad to know I have as much fashion sense as one of Astronema's clones."

Ashley's double cuffed him on the shoulder. "Be nice," she reproved. "It's probably some freakish psychological thing. You'll get over it."

"What if there's too many of them?" Jay was asking Justin. "Instead of anchoring them, what if it causes some sort of magnetic concentration that automatically pushes them apart?"

"But we tried it with just Andy and Lee," Justin argued. "They weren't enough."

"They didn't have the morphers," Jay pointed out. "What if it's their spirits that repel each other, not the Power? A morpher could be a conduit without the Ranger, right? So what if six of the same Rangers are too much?"

"Great," Justin groaned. "Now we're breaking physical *and* spiritual laws."

Jay seemed to be thinking. "We can't test it on us," he said, as though he was talking to himself. Which, Andros supposed, he technically was. "One of us has to be on either side to make the transfer."

"Zhane volunteers," the other Andros interrupted, and they all turned to look at him. He held up a familiar looking digimorpher, a disarming grin on his face. "He sent it with me on purpose. Want to give it a shot?"

Justin and Jay looked at each other. "He's not here," Jay said slowly.

"But it's his morpher," Justin said, as though that was a logical progression. "It's not from our dimension."

"How does he get back?" the other Ashley broke in. Andros couldn't tell if she was following the conversation better than he was, or just ignoring it better. "Our morphers are still there. But if his is here, and so is he..."

"It's easy enough to backtrack the transfer," Justin assured her.

"Besides, Andros just demonstrated the ability to piggyback signals." Jay plucked the digimorpher out of the other Andros' hand and handed it to Justin. "He brought Zhane's morpher here; there's no reason he can't take it back."

"JT?" Justin asked.

"Zhane's more than willing to try," the disembodied voice answered. "I'm curious too... what do you say we try again?"

"If at first you don't succeed," Jay said cheerfully. "It's all or nothing, after all. He'll either show or he won't; it's not like he'll switch--"

He stopped, and Justin gave him an unreadable look. "That wouldn't happen, would it?"

"I don't think so..." Jay frowned, then caught sight of Andros' expression. "No, of course it won't. I'm sure it'll be fine. Let's do it."

"Right," JT agreed, and a moment later, there was Zhane.

Andros' eyes widened. The first time he hadn't known what to expect and had seen nothing. This time he had expected nothing and had been witness to a dramatic demonstration of the power that Justin and his counterparts sought to harness. His best friend had just appeared out of nowhere in front of him--

The lights went out. It was almost belated, as though the universe had only now realized what they were doing and had decided to take action. The room descended into chaos, but over Justin and Jay's sudden storm of technobabble Andros could hear his double cursing his friend.

"Dammit, Zhane! You had to make a dramatic entrance, didn't you! You couldn't just appear, like any normal interdimensional traveler. No, you're too special for that. You had to have a light show."

"Well, excuse me for trying to top you," Zhane's voice shot back. "You sent a freakin' servant of darkness in your place! What was I supposed to do, sit there and laugh? Which I did, by the way. They probably think I'm insane."

"First impressions are the most accurate," Andros' double answered dryly. "I've always known you're certifiable."

A flashlight came on, illuminating more than half the room with a light strong enough to read by. Andros heard someone--he couldn't tell whether it was Justin or Jay--say that the generator was down, and he met Ashley's worried gaze with his own. What did that mean for the travelers' return trip? It might be easy enough to backtrack, but what if the memory of the transfer one was backtracking had been erased?

"Jay? Justin? Is everyone okay? What's going on?"

Andros started at the sound of Cassie's voice. He reminded himself that it wasn't really her, but it was still hard to believe. The Pink Ranger's face was peering out at them from an emergency hatch beside the door, concern in the shadows of her expression. She curled up and slipped into the room with the easy grace of someone stronger than she looked, surveying the scene more closely as another familiar face appeared behind her.

"We're fine," they answered simultaneously.

"The whole building lost power," TJ's voice put in, as his form unfolded itself from the hatch through which Cassie had just emerged. "Did you kill the backups, too?"

"We were using the backups," Jay replied. He was wearing a t-shirt with a dragon on it, where Justin clearly had on a uniform of some kind. It made them easy to tell apart--as long as they stayed where the light was. "We needed both generators to make the transfers work."

"'Transfers'?" Cassie echoed. Andros couldn't tell if it was her Psycho Ranger or her Robot Ranger that had joined them. "You said--"

"Zhane? What are you doing here?" TJ's confusion overlapped with hers, and Andros wondered if the fact that they recognized Zhane meant they were Psycho Rangers. He couldn't help being a little uncomfortable at the thought of all four of them in the same room with him.

"There were some unexpected variables," Justin said quickly. "John, can you help me with the generator?"

"Sure, but--"

"Everyone else out," Jay interrupted. "Except Andros. JT says you're good with this stuff?"

The other Andros nodded, responding to the way his tone made it a question. "I've been helping him some. You think the second transfer overloaded the generators?"

"No... the power requirements were fixed. I think your Power signatures bridged the dimensions instead of anchoring you within the grid. When Zhane tried to transfer with both morphers in the target dimension, his digimorpher yanked him through but the backlash cut us off again."

"If that's true, then we shouldn't have lost power," Andros' double argued. "The keycomms would have to be recalibrated, but that's no reason for the generators to go down."

"We'd better go," Cassie said, a hint of humor in her voice. "They could go on like this for a while, and we'll just be in their way."

"Always do what you do best," Zhane quipped, and Andros saw his double throw him a look of amused exasperation. "What? I take pride in my ability to interfere!"

"Out," Jay repeated firmly. "The faster we can get JT back, the easier it'll be to figure out what happened."

Ashley's double took Zhane by the arm and gave him a shove. "You've already interfered enough," she told him with a laugh. "Be happy that you've crashed the generator and left the whole building in the dark, all right? Let's go."

Zhane sighed loudly. "You never let me have any fun," he complained, but he allowed Ashley to herd him toward the door.

"We'll have to use the hatches," Cassie told them apologetically, pausing by the one through which she'd entered. "The doors don't actually run off the generator, but they lock when the power goes down for security reasons."

She ducked through the hatch and disappeared, and Zhane followed at Ashley's insistent prodding. She was right behind him, and Andros caught his Ashley's eye before they left the room. She hesitated by the hatch when she saw him watching, and she wrinkled her nose with a rueful smile.

"Is this as weird as I think it is?" Ashley whispered. "I swear, I can't tell who's talking to who anymore."

"I thought it was just me." Andros braced his arm against the hatch and leaned a little closer, whispering in her ear, "You do realize they're all crazy, right?"

"What does that say about us?" she murmured back.

He grinned at her, and she giggled. "Never mind," she conceded. "I already know the answer to that."

"The library is only a couple of buildings down," Cassie was saying, as they joined the others in the hallway. "It'll take us longer to leave here with the doors locked down than it will to get there once we're out."

She nodded to Andros and Ashley, smiling a little in acknowledgement. "I'm Sandy, by the way. In case anyone is too polite to ask, I'm a Robot Ranger, not a Psycho."

"'Sandy'?" Zhane repeated, irrepressible as ever. "Don't you and Andy get confused?"

To Andros' surprise, Sandy laughed. "Actually, yes," she admitted. "We used to have a lot more trouble than we do now. Ceci and I still confuse the heck out of people, though. Somehow they find two of John easier to accept than two of me."

"Ceci is... Psycho Pink?" Ashley guessed, looking a little uncertain.

Sandy nodded, turning away to hide her face in the shadows of the emergency lighting. "We figured it would be easier to get used to nicknames than picking entirely new names," she offered, and there was a click from the wall she was leaning against. The hallway was suddenly flooded with light, and Andros realized that she had just pulled a flashlight out of the dimness.

"How'd you get 'Sandy' from 'Cassie'?" Zhane wanted to know. His Ashley poked him, presumably for being rude, but he just made a face at her. "I'm only curious!"

"I didn't," Sandy answered, looking more amused than anything. She cocked her head over her shoulder, indicating that they should follow her as she started down the corridor. "My real name is 'Cassandra'. I just went by 'Cassie' because it sounded cooler."

"Well, I think 'Sandy's cool," the other Ashley declared.

"Although Ceci has a certain ring to it," Zhane remarked. "Do you use your last name? Cause hers would be redundant if she's using her initials as her nickname."

"That's what TJ does," Ashley pointed out unexpectedly. "Sort of... Is John his Robot Ranger?"

"Yup," Sandy confirmed over her shoulder. "He and Terry split up their name to spare the rest of us," she added with rueful good humor. "Unlike Justin and Jay, who gave us a headache for months before Jay deigned to choose a nickname."

She paused again, doing something to the wall that Andros couldn't quite see. She extracted a second flashlight, which she passed to the other Ashley before continuing down the corridor. "But then, Carlos wouldn't pick a nickname either, before he and Ash left. We haven't heard from them in a while, so I don't know if they're still using their old names or not."

"They left?" Ashley repeated. "Where did they go?"

At the same time, her double exclaimed, "This is crazy! How many of you are there? And how do you ever keep everyone straight?"

Sandy laughed again. "You get used to it," she answered good-naturedly. "It's not so bad, really. Jay and Justin have a blast together, and John and Terry both think they're the best thing since sliced bread. Lee and Ash couldn't stand each other, but they got along with everyone else."

"Is that why Ash left?" Ashley wondered.

"No..." Sandy paused in front of another door, triggering a hatch that opened onto darkness. "She left before that, with Carlos. He freaked out on Zordon one day--he said it was because Zordon kept treating us like copies of the originals." She hesitated. "I think it was probably more than that, but that was all he would tell us before he took off.

"We're going to have to climb," she added, peering through the hatch. "It's a couple of stories up to the nearest hover pad, if you guys are cool with that."

"Whoa," Zhane said quickly. "Climb in what? I don't do small spaces; sorry."

Andros looked at him in surprise. He was one of a very few people who knew Zhane was claustrophobic, and he had never heard the Silver Ranger admit it aloud. He had to keep reminding himself that this was not the friend he had grown up with. Seeing him, though, it was easy to forget that his Zhane hadn't been this cheerful in weeks.

"It's an emergency tunnel that Maintenance uses to access the lift system," Sandy told him. "There are stairs, too, but they're on the other side of the building."

"Bring on the stairs," Zhane informed her. "I'm not climbing into a dark tunnel."

"How many stories is it?" the other Ashley asked. "Are we going a long way?"

Sandy shook her head, eyeing Zhane with an undecipherable expression. "It's literally two floors to the hover pad; it's really not that bad. It'll only take us a minute."

"Come on, Zhane," the other Ashley coaxed. "Two stories? You've done more than that on the Megaship, and we'll have flashlights. Plus Andros will be there," she added, giving Andros a warning look that said he'd better not contradict her.

Zhane gave her a cross look. "If I could rationalize my way past it, don't you think I would have done it by now? I'm not scared of enclosed spaces, I'm unreasonably and incapacitatingly terrified."

"What if Sandy goes first?" Andros asked suddenly. He'd gotten Zhane through things like this before. "She can open the hatch at the top and shine her flashlight back down, and Ashley can stay down here with hers until we're out. We'll be able to see the way out as soon as we're inside."

Zhane hesitated, and the other Ashley nodded to Sandy. Sandy turned her flashlight off and stuck it in her pocket before ducking through the hatch, clearly more acquainted with the tunnels than Andros had expected. They could hear her sneakers squeak on ladder rungs as she disappeared upwards, and he wondered at her ability to navigate blind--until he remembered that she was a robot with vision that probably surpassed his a dozen times over.

"Want me to go too?" Ashley asked, looking from him to Zhane. She didn't look at all surprised by Zhane's reaction, and he wondered if she had guessed before or if she was just writing it off as a dimensional difference.

"No," Andros said, knowing it would be better for Zhane to get it over with. "We'll go. Ready?" he asked. He stepped through the hatch without waiting for an answer, counting on his friend to follow as he had so many times before. Sandy was at the top as promised, her flashlight illuminating the narrow passage perfectly well.

When a second flashlight lit the tunnel from below, he knew Zhane had joined him. He made the mistake of looking down, and his eyes widened as it occurred to him exactly how far down these maintenance shafts must go. His fingers clenched on the rungs, but he managed to keep moving. The last thing Zhane needed was for him to freeze right now. He kept his eyes straight ahead, knowing that looking up would give him an even harsher sense of vertigo.

Then Sandy was helping him out, prying his fingers off of the ladder and pulling him through the hatch with a grip that probably could have bent hull plating. Zhane was right behind him, his face pale as Sandy dropped her flashlight and used both hands to haul him out and steady him. "You all right?" she asked, searching his expression.

He nodded, brushing her off and slouching over toward the transparent doors at the end of the hallway. Andros met Sandy's gaze, silently apologizing for his friend's behavior. She just smiled and shook her head, mouthing it's okay and cocking her head in Zhane's direction. He took the hint, following the Silver Ranger while Sandy waited for the others.

Zhane was leaning against the doors now, and he said nothing as Andros joined him. He looked better, though, greedily soaking up the outdoor vista as he was wont to do whenever he felt trapped. Andros was suddenly struck by the familiarity of that expression: it was the same one his Zhane had been wearing nonstop for the last few days. Now matter how hard he tried he couldn't remember when it had first appeared, and it worried him.

"Tell me how much you love me," Zhane said suddenly, turning away from the window.

Andros blinked, startled. "What?"

Zhane smiled weakly. "You don't play that game, huh?" His gaze wandered back to the door, and he sighed a little. "My Andros always says, 'too much for your own good'."

Too much for your own good... He didn't know what to make of that, but Zhane obviously needed reassuring. "I do, you know," he told his friend, the truth of that statement a little frightening in its intensity. "Love you that much, I mean."

It was awkward to say aloud, but it must have been the right thing to do. Zhane grinned at him, the twinkle that Andros had missed so much lately back in his eyes. "Say that to your Zhane the next time you see him and he'll probably kiss you," he said lightly.

Andros blinked again, his image of this Zhane shifting for the second time in as many minutes. "I doubt it," he managed, trying not to sound as amused as he felt. "We--we don't really do that."

Zhane chuckled at his expression. "My Andros sucks at public displays of affection too," he said, misunderstanding. "That's why you should try it. He'll thank you for it; I promise."

"No--" Andros wasn't even sure where to start. "You don't understand. Me and Zhane... we're not like that in this dimension. I mean, you're my best friend, but--I'm with Ashley."

Zhane stared at him. For several seconds, he didn't say a word, and his wide eyes made Andros wonder what he was thinking. Finally, Zhane echoed, "...Ashley? You and Ashley are--together?"

Andros nodded wordlessly, a little uncomfortable with Zhane's obvious shock. He and the other Ashley had seemed friendly enough; he supposed it hadn't really occurred to him that they wouldn't be closer. But then, after hearing Zhane promise to kiss him, he supposed nothing should have been able to surprise him.

Zhane's expression was slowly fading as a pensive look settling over his features. "I must be jealous as hell," he said frankly, studying Andros with unnerving honesty.

"Good job, guys," Ashley interrupted, squeezing both their shoulders as she passed.

Andros started, and for one disorienting moment he wasn't sure who she was. Then he recognized the same clothes Lee had been wearing earlier, and the even brown of her shorter hair, and the world made sense again. It was Zhane's Ashley, the one from the other dimension, reassuring her own Zhane and thanking Andros for playing a part that wasn't really his.

He turned away, seeking out his lighter-haired girlfriend with his eyes as Sandy led the four of them out onto the hover pad. Ashley was chatting easily with Cassie's Robot Ranger, apparently untroubled by the girl's deliberate kinship with her best friend. The two seemed to find this whole situation more entertaining than bizarre, and Andros suspected the other Ashley shared their view. It was in their nature to find the good in everything.

He realized as they took off, though, that it was more than that. His Ashley sat up front with Sandy, eagerly watching the city pass them by, questioning everything she saw and sometimes not even waiting for the answers before asking about something else. It hadn't occurred to him that she might never have been to Eltare before, but now, looking around, he remembered what a majestic first impression the city actually made.

"Hey!" The other Ashley bumped his shoulder as she shoved Zhane, interrupting his contemplation of the skyline. "I only let you have the window seat because I felt sorry for you, you know! Don't take up my space too!"

"I'm not!" Zhane protested. "Andros is probably hogging it; tell him to move over!"

"But he doesn't listen to me the way he listens to you," she purred, turning to bat her eyelashes at Andros. "Don't you want to switch seats, Andros?"

He shot a furtive glance at his Ashley, a little alarmed by her insinuation. Ashley didn't seem to catch it, though, throwing an amused look over her shoulder at them before sighting something else she wanted Sandy to explain. He couldn't help feeling relieved, but he still didn't know what to say to her double. How to explain without getting his Ashley's attention again...

It was Zhane that came to his rescue, sounding more amused than anything. "Leave him alone, Ash; he's had a hard day. Besides, you're just mad that your hair's getting messed up."

Ashley squawked indignantly, shoving him again. "Am not! And don't forget that I saw you steal Andros' comb for the five thousandth time yesterday, so be nice to me or I'm telling!"

It was a good thing the hover trip was brief, because Zhane and Ashley squabbled the whole way. It was friendly bickering that made them sound more like family than anything else, but after Ashley's earlier remark he couldn't help being a little nervous about what might get mentioned. He'd rather his Ashley didn't hear too much about the other Andros' relationship with Zhane.

"I'm just going to find a comm to contact City U," Sandy said, as they disembarked high up on the side of the library. "If John and Justin don't get the generators back up quickly, the city will automatically override our independent power request and turn the lights back on. It's a real pain to get them to disengage again; there's about three pounds worth of paperwork, so I'd rather stop them now before they get that far."

"Sounds like you've done this before," Ashley remarked, following her across the hover pad toward the library entrance.

"Damage control?" Sandy grinned back at her. "Oh yeah. You should have been here the time Justin and Jay turned the entire building into a signal booster for hyperspace teleportation. It screwed up comm codes all over the continent. John and I had a great time trying to explain that one to the city officials."

Ashley trailed after her as she headed for the nearest public comm, but the other Ashley stopped in front of the display in the foyer. She stared at it with a bemused expression, wandering around the hologram and poking her finger through parts of it as she went. Andros gave Zhane an inquiring look, and the Silver Ranger just shrugged.

"Beats me," he answered. "She spends more time at the library than I do; maybe there's a different display in our dimension." Then he shrugged again, a smirk on his face. "Or maybe she's just figuring out the best way to hack it. You're a bad influence on her."

"Me?" Andros stared at him. "I taught her to hack?"

Zhane grinned. "You taught her most of what she knows about Eltare. You went out hacking together the other night while I was making dinner, and the LO chased you halfway home. I swear I thought they were going to be at the door the next morning."

"You made dinner?" Andros repeated, his brain refusing to process the rest of the story.

Zhane chuckled. "I always make dinner. You can't stand Eltaran food."

Andros' lips twitched. "But you're a terrible cook!" he blurted, unable to contain his amazement.

"Hey!" Zhane cuffed him affectionately. "You never complain! I know everything you'll eat, and I make it better than you can! And let me tell you, I've had a lot of practice over the years."

That last remark made Andros sober, reminded once more that this was not his Zhane. The Zhane who had lost two years of his life to hypersleep hadn't had time to practice much of anything until recently. Studying a familiar face that hid strange memories, he wondered, "Can I ask you something... personal?"

Zhane shrugged easily. "Shoot," he invited.

"When did you--" Andros hesitated. "When did we--I mean..."

"When did we get together?" Zhane asked bluntly, returning his curious gaze. Only when Andros nodded did he look away, a smile playing across his face. "Three years ago. The night after we evacuated KO-35."

Andros swallowed, remembering the harsh realities of that day. There was nothing about those memories that would ever prompt a smile in this dimension. "What happened?" he asked quietly.

"You almost died," Zhane answered. There was a flash of fierce protectiveness in his eyes when he glanced back at Andros. "I could have killed you myself for being so careless," he confessed. "But it was kill you or kiss you... so I did. Kiss you, that is."

Zhane smiled again, a soft look on his face now. "We were just a couple of scared kids back then. Still are, I guess, in some ways. But from that day on I knew I'd die to defend you. Can't live without you; can't beat you up without hearing you whine," he added flippantly.

Andros didn't answer, and Zhane's smile faded. "What is it?" he asked, sounding genuinely concerned. "I know that look."

Andros looked down at the floor, tracing a continental mosaic with his eyes. "You did die," he muttered. "In my dimension, you did die to defend me. DECA put you in hypersleep, and it was two years before you woke up.

"I wasn't sure you ever would," he admitted, lifting his gaze to Zhane's in desperation. Somehow he wanted this alternate version of his friend to understand. "I thought you were gone forever, and it was because of me. I didn't deserve what you gave me."

"Andros." He didn't even realize the Silver Ranger had reached out to him until he felt Zhane's hands gripping his shoulders. "You did deserve it. I'd do anything to keep you in this world, alive and well, whether I could be with you or not. You're the most important thing in my universe; do you understand that?"

Andros stared at him. "You left me alone," he whispered. Suddenly he was angry with himself. He shouldn't be saying these things to someone he didn't even know. And Zhane shouldn't be listening. Justin shouldn't have brought any of them here in the first place.

Zhane didn't flinch at his expression. "No I didn't. You just said I woke up. I'll always be there when you need me, Andros. No matter what our relationship is."

When you need me... How much had he needed Zhane lately? Every time he turned around, it seemed that the Silver Ranger was there with encouragement, support, or just a cocky grin when he forgot how to smile himself. He pondered that as the other Ashley rejoined them, pulling Zhane over to see something in the display. Or maybe to mock it, or ask his opinion--Andros didn't follow their conversation very well.

He was still thinking about Zhane's words when Justin contacted them more than an hour later to say that the generators were up and running again. Jay's announcement came moments later, informing them that they were ready to try again, and Andros wondered absently what theory they had concocted during the blackout that made them so certain it wouldn't happen again. Maybe Zordon had arrived in their absence.

That idea was proven wrong as soon as they returned, and Andros couldn't help wondering what the interdimensional being thought of Justin and Jay's experiments. Did he encourage them, or condone them only because he knew the boys would go ahead and try anyway, with or without sanction? They had mentioned him wanting to be present, but they seemed to be drawing all of their own conclusions.

"Did either of you notice the consciousness swapping effect the first time?" Justin asked, as soon as they had more or less reassembled. "Any of you, actually? JT says no one did on his side, but that's not totally conclusive."

"Your 'weird hallucinations'?" Ashley asked. "No, I didn't see anything."

"Me neither," her double agreed. "But I guess that makes sense, since we would have been each other," she added, trading a grin with Ashley.

Andros shook his head wordlessly, watching the way the other Andros folded his arms and leaned casually against Zhane's shoulder. "Nope," his doppelganger replied. "Nothing."

Jay frowned. "It may be more noticeable when you leave a dimension where you have doubles; I don't know."

"We're not really sure why it happens," Justin said cheerfully, "so it's hard to predict. Tell us if you see anything."

Andros felt warm fingers brush his hand, and he tore his gaze away from himself and Zhane. Ashley stood beside him, cocking her head toward Justin and Jay with a smile. His lips quirked in amused acknowledgement, and he shrugged in agreement. Their genius was surpassed only by their enthusiasm.

"Ready?" Jay was asking, and only by watching the two of them could Andros be sure that it had to be JT who answered.

"We're ready here," the third Blue Turbo Ranger agreed over the comm link. "Cross your fingers that the switching thing happens again, because it's going to be a pain to send them all separately."

"Hey!" the other Ashley protested, laughter in her eyes. "Thanks for your concern!"

Justin and Jay grinned at each other, and Andros unconsciously braced himself. There was no perceptible shift, nothing to signal the transfer as it happened--except that Jay had been right. The "weird hallucinations" were back, fleeting but unmistakable when he suddenly found himself holding Zhane's hand instead of Ashley's.

***

Abrupt movement sent his senses reeling, struggling for something to latch onto in the darkness. His head was pounding, threatening to overwhelm everything he couldn't see or hear, and he cursed whatever had roused him from the pleasant oblivion of sleep. For a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity, he didn't know or even care where he was.

Then something penetrated the prickling haze that had wrapped itself around his brain, and he managed to sort the sounds into words. "You all right?" a nearby voice mumbled, still rough with sleep.

Zhane slumped backwards, flinching when his head screamed in protest. "Yeah," he muttered, burying his face in the pillows. "Weird dream."