Hello again fellow Fanficians, it's been awhile ;)
This was probably the hardest chapter to write so far. Not only has it taken
twice the time that I have previously taken to write earlier eps, but it
was also hard to write from an emotional point of view. Reading it over is
somewhat painful. You will probably read it and not understand why it would
be painful for me to read, but that is how it must be, for now.
This chapter also underwent many rewrites that my good friend and editor
Jeanne Hedge never saw. I wanted to make sure that this chapter would
correctly set the tone for the nastiness that is about to follow as BG Cross
heads for the final turn towards the finish line. Enjoy, and please tell me
what you think.
"BubbleGum Cross"
Volume 1- "Metal Heart"
(c) 1995-6 by Andy Skuse
Email - askuse@execulink.com
Based on characters copyrighted by Youmex, AIC, Artmic
13. Lock and Key
Blackie sat bolt upright, his mind between the dream world and reality
when the phone rang a second time. Falling back against the couch with a
groan, he pawed the vid-phone's console, and waited for the caller's image
to appear. Closing his eyes, he guessed at the time. 9:30. It was a kind of
game he liked to play. Opening his eyes once again, he focused on the
phone's info display bar. 9:31 am.
"Shit.You still asleep?" Priss's transmitted voice pierced the relative
silence in the room, the only other sounds being the steady rain tapping
against the window, and his own heavy sigh. Blackie pinched the bridge of
his nose and rubbed, while Priss stared back at him from the phone's
matchbook-sized display, the view around her revealing she was at a public
phone booth.
As he stared at her fuzzy image, the muscles in his right thumb began
to twitch uncontrollably, a slight shiver at first, then becoming painful
and erratic as the digit flexed this way and that. Blackie tried to ignore
the pulsing tick, but it persisted, his attempts to overbear the undulations
with his other hand proving useless. Looking on with a growing panic, the
pulsing abruptly stopped, leaving him to rub his thumb, and wonder what had
caused it.
"I was," he finally replied. "What's up?"
Priss smiled slyly, while at that very moment the vidphone glitched,
sending a brief, cascading shower of snowy interference across the display.
"Just wondering if you wanted to go for a tour up to the bay in a bit. Can
you be ready in fifteen?"
Blackie sighed again, this time loud enough for Priss to hear over the
rain pounding on her phone booth. He flexed his thumb experimentally out of
Priss's view.
"What?" Priss's tinny voice echoed in the hushed apartment. "A little
rain won't kill you!
Blackie cracked a smile at the jab, and nodded. "Ah, sure! C'mon by.
I'll leave the door unlocked."
Priss grinned and yanked her telnet card from the booth's slot. Donning
her helmet, she stepped lithely from the phone booth and trotted past a few
downtown pedestrians to her bike, parked across the street from the ADP
headquarters building.
As she kicked the stand out of the way and thumbed the starter button,
Priss caught sight of a red-haired woman wearing an ADP uniform rounding the
corner of the police building and begin to ascend the steps to the entrance.
As the bike roared to life, Priss increased the throttle, drawing raised
eyebrows from jumpy pedestrians nearby. The red-haired woman stopped and
turned towards the noise, recognizing the source almost immediately. Nene
stood on the top step and glared in Priss's direction, not looking at her
directly, but at something behind her. Priss followed Nene's gaze to the
sign beside her issuing a firm "NO PARKING" warning.
Priss looked back at the frowning red-head and stuck her tongue out at
her playfully before pulling away from the sidewalk and vanishing down the
street. Nene "hmphed", and continued up the steps, her contagious smile
returning briefly as an entrance door was held open for her.
Working her way through the rush of people around her, Nene's normally
pleasant thoughts were pushed back in her mind by the events of the night
before. The usual chorus of friendly hellos that greeted her were met with
half-hearted replies as she made her way to the elevator. Slipping through
the rapidly closing doors, she sank into the back of the crowded space, her
memory playing back that horrible moment when Mackie had laughed at her,
over and over. It had been tough enough to summon the courage and
determination to even think about wearing that dress in front of him, but to
actually do it, and then get laughed at . . .
As the doors opened, spilling out a wave of white-shirted AD Police
employees, Nene wondered how she could ever face Mackie again.
"Nene!"
Nene looked around the stack of paper-work that had seemingly risen out
of nowhere to see Leon striding confidently towards her desk.
"Good-morning Leon!" Nene offered cheerfully, while she attempted to
shake a clogged thermal-ink pen into functioning again.
"Nene, Have you had a chance to look at any of this yet?" he replied,
taking a seat on the corner of her desk and patting the topmost file folder
of the small mountain of files on her desk with his hand.
Nene groaned and slapped the stubborn writing instrument onto her desk.
Leon grinned knowingly. "Just got here huh?"
The red-haired dispatcher rubbed her temples and nodded, the end of her
shift suddenly seeming years away.
"Well read this first," Leon said excitedly, indicating the topmost
file. "And meet me after the shift briefing so we can discuss it further.
Daley put in some overtime on this one last night. Interesting stuff. See ya
in a bit!"
Nene watched the officer leave, and then slid the top file onto the
center of her desk. Opening it she was confronted by an enlarged photo of
the severed metallic finger found at the military base last night. She
shuddered and flipped the photo over quickly, then began to read Daley
Wong's report from the ADP's Bio-Technical Crime Lab.
"Interesting indeed," she said under her breath, as her widening green
eyes focused on the section of the report labelled "DNA Analysis".
As Nene's interest began to peak, a voice from across the room called
out her name, breaking her concentration.
"Romanova!? Nene Romanova?!"
Nene turned to see a woman in a courier's uniform standing at the front
of the room, a long white cardboard box encircled by red ribbons in her
arms. The woman's eyes were scanning the room for a response.
"Here! Over here!" Nene squeaked, her voice suddenly full of surprise
and wonderment. The woman smiled and walked towards Nene's desk while the
entire population of the office stopped what they were doing to watch. This
was an unusual way to start the morning.
"Sign here please," the woman requested in an unnaturally cheerful
voice. Nene looked at her own non-functioning pen, frowned, and took the pen
offered to her by the courier instead. With a trembling hand she signed the
delivery form and returned the pen. The courier set the fancy cardboard box
on top of the stack of files and smiled again. "Put them in water right away
and enjoy! Bye!"
Nene stared at the departing woman as if she were a ghost, and then
looked back at the box. The room had fallen deathly quiet, but Nene was
oblivious to the attention she was recieving. After hesitating for a moment,
she began working at the ribbons, hoping that the lobby security had cleared
the package for explosives, even though she knew they would have.
Nene's eyes widened in anticpation as the last ribbon fell away, and
she pulled back the lid of the box. Two layers of thin tissue paper could
not conceal the fragrance that wafted up at her. Oblivious to the audience
she now captivated, Nene lifted a dozen bright red roses from the box, and
held them in her arms to stare at her gift in stunned amazement. A small,
thin, plastic card resembling a note was tied with a small red ribbon to the
stem of one of the roses.
A few of the female onlookers sighed while others gasped at the
red-headed dispatcher's good fortune. Those who knew Nene better than just a
co-worker could not help but wonder who the roses were from. After all, this
was the young woman who seemed doomed to be alone for the rest of her life.
No-one in the office had ever been able to attribute a solid reason for the
lack of male attention that Nene got, as she was certainly very pretty and
attractive. Most just thought that maybe the dispatcher was too shy or too
passive in dealing with men.
Whatever it was that had held her back for all these years, it suddenly
seemed that Nene Romanova was not doomed to a life of loneliness after all.
Nene's stunned expression was broken when one of her co-workers giggled
close by. She looked up suddenly and glanced around the room in time to see
everyone start moving again.
Her face flushing a bright red, Nene swiftly placed the roses back in
the box, but left the lid off. Being careful not to prick herself on the
thorns, Nene untied the "note" and pressed a small colored square labelled,
"PLAY". Loud enough that she could hear it over the resumed activity in the
room, but soft enough that it couldn't be overheard, Nene heard Mackie's
voice come from the electronic note, stuttering and halting:
"Nene. . . Please forgive me for being such a jerk last night. I'm very
sorry for acting the way I did, and. . . well. . . I really thought you
looked beautiful. If you can find it in your heart to go out with me- maybe
after the meeting- I'd like to apologize in person. Think about it, and I'll
see you tonight."
Two employees walking by Nene's desk jumped as a loud crash came from
just beside them. Turning to see what had caused the noise, they were met by
Nene's embarassed grin. The red-head was still seated in her chair, but
lying flat on her back on the ground with a small piece of plastic clutched
in her trembling hand.
****
"Hey. . . Anybody home?"
Priss gently pushed the open door into the room, and called into
Blackie's apartment a second time. Still no response. She paused for a
moment to look into the tiny kitchen, illuminated by a dim blue-white
flourescent light. Shrugging, she stepped into the kitchen and closed the
door firmly behind her, not hard enough to be percieved as a slam, but loud
enough that the apartment's occupant would hear it. Still no response.
Priss stood quietly for a moment, listening for any sound of movement.
Hearing nothing, she walked through the kitchen and entered the main room
expecting to find Blackie still asleep on his couch. Instead she found the
room vacant, but as she moved to look out the window she could hear the
sound of someone taking a shower from the bathroom. Priss stepped up next to
the bathroom door. "Blackie? It's Priss."
Blackie's muffled voice responded after a slight pause. "Priss? Oh-
Okay! Grab something from the fridge if you want. I'll be out in a sec!"
"Okay, thanks."
Priss smiled and stepped away from the door to idly explore the room.
Even when illuminated by the grey light of an over-cast day, the room looked
even smaller than it had in yesterday's afternoon sun. Furniture and
appliances were placed with little thought to neatness or room to move about
easily. Open and empty boxes lay strewn about, their labelling indicating
that they originated from an electronics supply store in New Akihabara. She
gazed at his guitar for a moment, the temptation to pick it up and play it
tugging at her, but unable to persuade. Who knows how he might react. As she
began to think about it, she really didn't know much about him, and yet here
she was in his apartment, about to go out on what most people would call a
date.
And it was precisely this feeling of unknown that intrigued her so
much. Who the hell was this guy really? A relative of Sylia's? That was so
far out she still couldn't quite buy it. But his proof was very convincing.
The data unit, the hard-suit, Pops's recognition. Hell, he even *looked*
like Mackie, only a bit older. But something still wasn't right about his
story. If neither Sylia nor Mackie were aware of his existence, then their
father must have been involved with another woman besides Sylia's mother at
some point. That might explain Sylia's emotional reaction to Blackie's
appearance.
Once again the puzzle pieces spun out of control in Priss's mind, but
this time they did so with the feeling that she was close to seeing a
pattern emerge that would make the pieces fall into place. And the way
things seemed to be lining up, she wasn't sure she wanted to see the
finished puzzle.
Hearing the sound of the running water from the bathroom cease, Priss
continued to wander around the room until she came to the couch where she
had rested the day before, after her encounter with the two bike thieves.
Instinctively, she reached back with her right hand to rub her back, still
aching and sore, when her gaze unexpectedly fell on Blackie's hard-suit.
Laid out in an upright sitting position on the worn wooden chair at
the foot of the couch, and in the corner of the room farthest from the
daylight, the dark shape had surprised her, looking for a brief moment like
someone sitting in the shadows, watching her menacingly. As a tiny jolt of
adrenaline coursed through her veins, fading into a feeling of wariness, she
began to look closer at the hard-suit until her eyes came across the
metallic cylinder that hung from a clasp at the suit's left hip.
Moving closer she could see a small, round, metallic stud protruding
from one side of the cylinder. A tiny red indicator light at one end glowed
steadily. Priss regarded the weapon with a growing curiousity, moving closer
to look at the tiny dials that resided in the inset space at one end.
Reaching out, Priss felt the gnurled metal grip of the cylinder, the
dull-grey steel slightly warm to the touch.
"I wouldn't touch that if I were you."
Startled by the voice, Priss took a quick step back from the hard-suit,
and turned to see Blackie standing in the bathroom doorway, a towel wrapped
around his waist, and a stern look on his face.
"I'm sorry," Priss stammered, more than annoyed that she had been
caught poking around, and surprisingly embarassed by his present state of
undress."I was jus-"
"I know," Blackie quickly replied, his voice firm and commanding,
strangely reminding Priss of a menacing voice she could never forget. "But
it is
improper to touch a samurai's weapon without asking permission."
Priss stared at Blackie for a second, wondering if she had heard him
right, when a broad grin began to form on his face.
"Just kidding," he finally ejected. "But give me a minute to change and
I'll
show you how it works."
Priss's eyes followed Blackie across the room where he scooped up a
pile of clothes and then headed back to the bathroom. As the bathroom door
closed, Priss's eyes narrowed. 'God I hope this isn't a bad idea,' she
thought to herself.
As Blackie dressed, Priss sat down on the couch, and looked over at the
hallway to the front door more than once, contemplating her feelings about
what had just happened. Before she could arrive at any real conclusions, the
bathroom door opened again, and Blackie walked out fully clothed, pausing
only to turn off the bathroom light. With a weary smile, he sat down next to
Priss on the couch and looked down at his feet.
"I'm sorry if I unnerved you a bit there. I guess I don't have much of
a sense of humor." Blackie grinned sheepishly.
"It's okay," Priss replied with a distant tone.
Sensing that his guest was uncomfortable, Blackie pressed on, hoping
that an explanation could put her at ease. "You see, I kinda believe in some
of the things that those ancient warriors believed in. You know- honor and
all. It may seem stupid or unrealistic in times like these, but that's just
the way I feel. Don't really know why."
Priss just nodded, here eyes glued to her host.
Blackie stared at Priss for a moment, the feeling that they had lost
some ground not lost on him. He smiled again, and picked up the metal
cylinder that Priss had reached for earlier, and placed it in her right hand.
"That," Blackie began with a reverent tone in his voice, "is a laser
katana. The 'blade' is actually a 3 millimeter wide, monochromatic, 'clean
green', non-diffusing laser."
Priss sat up at hearing the last part of Blackie's statement. "Non-
diffusing? But that's impossible. Even the air around it would make it
distort. "
"I know," Blackie said with a smile. "That's what I said to the guy I
bought the emitter from. But he wasn't offering any explanations. Seems the
military was hot on his trail and he didn't have long to chat."
Priss smirked, and looked back down at the device in her hand. Looking
closer as Blackie continued to explain it's inner-workings, she noted an
attention to detail that was neither practical or functional. A delicately
etched outline of a dragon intertwined with the geometric gnurling on the
grip. The dragon's jaws opened wide at the hilt where the beam supposedly
emanated. It was a deadly device, but it's power and graceful lines
entranced Priss, as did most things of it's nature.
As she tipped the cylinder up to look at some tiny switches inset into
the base, Blackie reached out suddenly, and gently grasped her wrist. Priss
was startled at the speed with which he had reached out to grab her, but sat
motionless as her eyes narrowed, wondering just what it was that had caused
him to react.
"Careful. See that switch there?" Still held in Blackie's gentle grip,
Priss rotated her wrist a little further to see what Blackie was pointing at.
"The square one? Yes."
Blackie smiled, and released Priss's arm. As she looked closer at the
unlabelled switch, Blackie continued. "That's a kind of reverse switch. A
'last resort' so to speak."
Priss turned to look at Blackie's grim smile. "I see," she finally
replied. "And just what kind of boom are we talking about if that switch
were activated?"
Blackie shrugged. "Not sure. But from what the designer told me before
he disappeared, I won't be around afterwards to find out."
Priss nodded slowly, the thing in her hand suddenly seeming ugly and
unnerving. Things that combined power, grace and refinement had always
created a kind of awe inside her. An attraction of sorts, fed by the thrill
of entering into situations that had an unknown outcome, but armed with the
power that few could control. Motoroids, hard-suits; even her railgun. All
had the elements of power and reliability that she so enjoyed employing. But
this- this weapon was frightening to her.
Everything the Knight Saber's used to aid them could be considered
dangerous due to mishandling or malfunction, but this weapon she now held
was designed to allow the wielder to destroy themselves in the blink of an
eye. Intentionally. Even she was not that devoid of feelings for her own
life. Many things had transpired against her in the past, making her
existence, at times, a living hell. But staying alive, with the hope that
she could alter her future, and put a turblent past to rest, was much more
appealing, she thought, than dying with a legacy of misery and regret.
Priss handed the laser katana back to Blackie quickly and stood up.
"Neat. Ready to go?"
Blackie contemplated the mild chill in Priss's voice for a moment, then
stood up as well. "Give me a minute and I'll be right with you. Just need
to put something away."
With that, Blackie snapped the laser katana back onto the hard-suit's
hip clasp, and then hefted the hard-suit over his shoulder like an
immobilized body. He carefully carried the high-tech armor across the room
towards the wall where the wide tapestry hung down. Then, just when it
seemed to Priss that he was going to collide with the wall, he stopped,
grasped the right edge of the wall hanging, and swung it aside. Priss looked
on curiously, as the hard-suit and it's owner disappeared down a dark,
narrow tunnel behind a small wooden door inset into the wall.
A few moments later, the tapestry swung back once more, and Blackie
emerged, stopping for a moment to lock the tiny door and smooth the tapestry
flat against the secret that it protected.
Without a word to his guest, Blackie grabbed his jacket and keys, and
moved to the hallway that led to the front door. Priss smiled to herself and
shook her head, the unspoken request for her confidence clearly impressed
upon her by the raven-haired guitar player. She broke from her thoughtful
stance, and stepped quickly to follow Blackie out. As she rounded the corner
of the hallway leading into the kitchen, she was met unexpectedly by
Blackie, leaning against the kitchen counter, and scratching his chin.
"Priss..."
Priss looked closely at Blackie, wondering why he had halted their
exit. His intense blue eyes peered back at her, the blue-white fluorescent
kitchen light shining softly against the side of his face. His hand dropped
to his side, and for a moment, there was almost complete silence, broken
only by the gentle pattering of the rain against the window overlooking the
city. In that moment, a silent exchange of understanding ocurred, unspoken
and unchallenged by either recipient. The uncertainty of what they felt and
what they were doing together remained, but the awkward moment that had
caused Priss to wonder if this was a wise idea, was quickly forgotten,
buried under a revelation oscured behind an ancient tapestry.
As the door closed on the now dark and empty apartment, the door to
another dark and empty place suddenly clicked open, and stood ajar, it's
staggering array of locks and closures having given way to a key made of an
intangible metal. A metal called trust.
End of part 13
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"BG Cross", "Dark Traveler", "The Dragon's Tower"