Everyone at the office was completely astonished to see Erik Lehnsherr come in and get himself a cup of coffee without grimacing or snorting or flashing his joyless scary toothy grin at a single person. He actually looked… pleasant.

Rumors raced around the cubicles. Lehnsherr won the lottery and he was just waiting for the right moment to quit as publicly as possible. Lehnsherr finally lost it and he was about to throw himself out a window. Lehnsherr was twins and the good one finally took the place of the evil one.

“What’re you guys talking about?” Sean asked too loudly as he rejoined them, tossing one of his vending machine horrors to Armando.

“Shh!” Alex hissed, and told him.

Sean looked over at Lehnsherr, standing there looking bizarrely amiable and benevolent in the kitchenette. “He got laid.”

“That’s not the answer to everything, you know,” Hank muttered.

“I know,” Sean said serenely, “but I bet you anything that’s what happened.”

A tinny, blood-curdling scream rang out from the kitchenette. Lehnsherr fished his cellphone out of his jacket, glanced at the face and actually smiled. Not the rictus of his usual huge intimidating grin. A genuine smile.

“Hey,” he answered it. “I need to assign you a ringtone. No, you’re right about that. Maybe you could record something for me.” He laughed. Laughed! Like a human being with feelings and everything! “Oh, really. Well, in that case I guess I should go someplace where the entire office isn’t listening to me.” The glare he cast over them was somehow even spookier than usual, knowing that Lehnsherr could look that vicious even when he was apparently in a good mood. “They’ll put their noses to the grindstone the moment I close this door,” he went on, crossing to his office. “I’m sure you’re just as much a tyrant in the— I was going to say in the classroom,” Lehnsherr laughed again, and closed his office door behind him.

“The boss. Laughing,” Alex moaned. “What’s going on? My brain feels all twisted around.”

“Seriously,” Armando said. “Maybe this one’s the evil twin.”