Subject: [fanfic] [repost/revision] Books : "Boomers And Youmas" (1/7+)
From: Andrew Fergusson <106705.1222@compuserve.com>
Date: 2/16/1997, 12:33 PM
To: FFML <fanfic@fanfic.com>, Dave Harper <dharper@mustang.uwo.ca>

Terence Fergusson (nc005390@newcol.demon.co.uk)

Books/Bubblegum Crisis/Sailor Moon
"Boomers and Youmas"

Part 1 : "Running Man"

Both Bubblegum Crisis and Sailor Moon are copyrighted by their
respective copyright owners.  Any material used from Bubblegum Crisis
or the original Sailor Moon series are not of my own creation, and I
take no credit for it.  Thank you for not suing me.

Ian Robinson, Chronos, and all the Books-related stuff are presumably
copyright Terence Fergusson aka Me.  This fanfic, excepting those
scenes, characters and other stuff that belongs to the two
aforementioned series, plus any other anime, manga or general fiction,
is mine.

Story notes:           /.../  designates thoughts...
                       _..._  designates stressed words...

Any other strange symbols _should_ be self-explanatory.

I used to distinguish between English and foreign languages in the
Books stories, but have refrained from it this time due to a new
development in the timeline.  All will be explained.

This takes place a few months after Ian found himself in Ranma 1/2.

And now, the feature presentation...  ^_^

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  PROLOGUE

  Now was his chance.
  A swift elbow to the gut downed one of his captors, and while the
others were distracted, Ian broke away from them and belted down the
corridor, diving into a side room, and slamming the door behind him.
  He lost no time in drawing the heavy wooden beam across the door,
locking himself in.  In a few seconds, he had retrieved his
confiscated belongings; his brown leather jacket, with his pulse-laser
pistol still hanging out of its inside pocket, and his leather
backpack, complete with rations and various camping equipment.  He had
been fortunate to be still conscious when he saw the guards taking his
stuff in here.
  The guards had lost no time either.  Already shouts were ringing
throughout the dungeon, and they were trying to break down the door.
A crack had appeared in the middle of the beam holding the door
closed, and it was growing with each attempt they made.
  A glance at his watch gave him ten seconds to go.  He counted down
under his breath, looking fearfully at the door.  It wouldn't do to
have it all end with a crossbow quarrel in his back.
  Bingo!  The stopwatch trilled triumphantly at him, and started
counting down from 24:00:00 again.  But something was wrong.  No
bluefire portal had appeared this time to whisk him away.  The door
was almost open now, and he could hear heavy armoured footsteps
approaching from elsewhere in the dungeon.  What could have gone
wrong?!
  There was only one answer.  The portal hadn't appeared in this room.
Which meant he had to break through the knot of guards outside.
Cursing his luck, he drew his pistol, and aimed at the door.  He had
less than a minute to do this right.
  The door chose that moment to finally give, bursting open as the
beam snapped in two.  But before any of the guards could enter, Ian
let loose a volley of laser fire, scattering some, scorching others.
Cries of "Sorcery!" swept down the halls, and for a brief moment, a
space opened up in the corridor.
  It was enough.  Ian burst into it, firing sporadically into the
midst of the guardsmen, keeping them at bay.  /Only twenty seconds
left,/ he thought, as he took another hasty glance at his stopwatch,
/then it's over, one way or another./
  There!  To his right, at the end of a corridor, was a flickering
wafer-thin portal of bluefire.  No one else seemed to have noticed
it.  Probably because no one else _could_ notice it; these `gates'
seemed to be attuned to himself only.  No matter.  It was his only
escape, and even that would disappear in about fifteen seconds....
  Following some sort of survival instinct, Ian ducked.  A crossbow
bolt whistled over his head, clattering to the floor when it hit the
stone wall in front of him.  At least one of his guards had the
courage to fire at a `wizard'.  Ian didn't know how much longer his
luck would last.  He just put his head down, and ran all the harder.
  It came as a surprise to the guard when the fugitive simply vanished
into thin air.  /Mind you,/ he thought, /he is a wizard./
  But neither he nor his comrade could figure out where their last
crossbow bolt had gone.

  --**************--

  Once again, Ian felt the sheer acceleration, as his body went faster
and faster, sucked into the blue light, taken towards his next
destination.  The speed was making him feel faint, but he knew it
would be over, in just a few... more... seconds....

  --**************--

  In another time, place, and dimension, there was, or rather is, a
town named Bath.  It is one of many on an island named Britain, which
itself is just one of many nations on this blue, green world that its
inhabitants had named Earth.  It is important to remember that
although Ian was a native of this town, he is nowhere near it at this
present time.
  There is, in one of Bath's many streets, a bookstore.  It is named
"Books".
  It's a late Sunday evening.  In fact, the phrase "it was still a
late Sunday evening" would be more appropriate.  An angry thunderstorm
dominates the sky.  Lightning is striking from the heavens, vividly
illuminating the inside of the bookstore, if only for a few moments.
  Inside is a complete mess.  Books have been strewn all over the
floor.  There are many different types of books here.  At least one of
each, one would say.  By every author who has ever lived.
  However, one of them has no author.  It is lying on a shelf on the
only bookcase that is still standing.  It's open to a page near the
beginning of the book, except it's obvious from the size of the tome
that many pages have already been covered.
  Now, the page that it's on has finally been finished.  A new chapter
is starting.  The page turns by itself, revealing a pair of blank
sheets.
  And then, they begin to fill....

  --**************--

  CHAPTER 1 - There's No Police Like The ADPolice....

    DAY 1

  It is unfortunate that Ian's predicament carried several rules.  One
such that applies here were those governing the gates that Ian used to
enter other realms and dimensions.  Realms and dimensions better known
to him as _books_.
  The gates followed strict patterns.  For instance, they only
appeared once per twenty-four hour period; a fact that Ian already
knew, and kept track of.  After they appeared, they only kept open for
sixty seconds, forcing him to hurry if he wanted to leave or, as so
often happens, escape.
  They were one-way as well; as soon as Ian left a portal, it would
snap shut behind him.  No one else could use the portal, or indeed
even see it.
  However, the rule that applies the most in this situation is the one
that dictates where he goes _to_.  No matter what realm he ended up
in, whether science-fiction, fantasy, or present-day, the place he
ended up would always have similarities to the place he came from.
Therefore, it was of little surprise, but worrying, that he found
himself running out from the portal into a corridor of a jail.
  A police officer looked up from where he was sitting.  His eyes
focused once on Ian and his dishevelled appearance, and then on the
pistol still in Ian's hand.  Ian followed the man's gaze to the
weapon, and then grinned sheepishly.  He made to put the gun away.
  Sadly, it was taken as an aggressive move by the inexperienced
officer.  Ian dove to one side to avoid a barrage of bullets, only to
have his head bounce sickeningly off a cell bar.  He slid to the
floor, only vaguely aware of his surroundings.  He faintly heard the
guard shout for reinforcements, and felt a sharp pain in his wrist as
the pistol was kicked away from him.  /Why does this always happen,/
he thought frustratedly, as he slipped slowly into unconsciousness.

  --**************--

  He woke again in a slightly familiar environment.  A jail cell.
With, fortunately, himself as the only occupant.  The reason it was
familiar was simply because this morning he had been sitting in a
dungeon, awaiting his execution on suspicion on sorcery.  As if
appearing from nowhere in the king's courtroom actually counted as
such.  He was just lucky that they'd left him his watch, and that the
timing of his escape had been perfect....
  He realised that his backpack and pistol had gone walkies again.
Probably been confiscated by those bloody police officers.  And he
could feel a headache coming on.  Bloody headache, bloody police
officers, and bloody fate.  It _had_ to be Fate; there was no bloody
force powerful enough to keep him alive yet still keep him in trouble.
At the very least, someone really had it in for him up there,
otherwise he'd have been out of this by now.  And he didn't mean the
jail.
  Ian had been trapped in these `books' for about eight months now.
Eight months since a freak storm sent him scurrying for cover.  And
since it had been Sunday evening, almost all of the shops were closed,
which was a pity, because he had been caught in the middle of town.
  He hadn't noticed at the time, but it had been eerily quiet in the
street where he found the one store with a light on; a bookstore.
  It had been his curiosity, as usual, that had gotten him into
trouble.  A few subtle hints led him to a secret door in the store,
which had opened to reveal a vertical pit as a room that would never,
under the normal laws of space and matter, have fitted into the small
confines of the bookstore.
  He remembered the door slamming shut, and then the echoing crashes
that began seconds afterward.  They had started off slowly, yet
quickly gained in frequency as the spiral staircase inscribed within
the pit began to collapse from the bottom up.  He remembered racing up
the doomed staircase, striving to reach any sort of sanctuary, and
almost running off the edge as the stairs abruptly ended at the top
with nowhere else to go.  And then, he remembered that final moment,
with only half a turn of the staircase left, as he noticed a portal
hovering just feet away from the end of the stairs, made of red fire;
not the blue he'd seen since.  Self-preservation forced his next and
only move.
  Yet it had been the only red portal he'd ever seen.  He now
suspected that that would be his ticket home.  But all he'd
encountered so far were made of bluefire.  Sometimes he thought he'd
never find a way home....
  The eight months of constant leaping, running, fighting, as well as
the interspersing moments of blissful sleep or simple unconsciousness
had all taken their toll on Ian.  He hadn't had a good night's sleep
in ages, and his clothes were ragged and torn.  His light brown hair
was unkempt, and the T-shirt he wore had a whole number of different
stains on it; the primary ones being grass and dirt.  His leather
jacket was badly creased, and in some places, rather dirt-encrusted,
but had somehow managed to survive most of the punishment that had
been dished out to it.  The pale blue jeans he wore had become even
paler, and frayed at the knees.  Ian had once worn trainers; they were
the first to go, having been subjected to deep water, acid, and heat
to name a few, they had finally succumbed.  He now wore brown lace-up
boots, which happened to be a lot more resistant to damage.
  However, all that changed nothing; Ian was looking forward to the
next time he would get a decent hot meal, and maybe some coffee.
Perhaps a nice bath, and a shave even.  He hadn't had hospitality like
that since....
  /No.  I'm not going to even think about that.  I am not going to
even consider the word `man...'  that genre./  Ian looked around
fearfully.  /It might return to haunt me./
  As he sat on the only bed in the cell, mulling over his current
situation, the sound of electronic locks being disengaged came from
the door.  Ian rose to his feet as a smartly dressed officer entered.
His blond hair was neatly combed, but the moustache didn't hide the
frown he wore openly.
  "Ok, you," he said gruffly.  "Follow me."
  Feeling in no mood to argue, Ian got to his feet, and trundled after
him, nursing his throbbing head.
  As he walked along, something occurred to him.  The officer had
spoken Japanese.  Damn it, the bloody officer had spoken to him in
Japanese.  Ian had no problem with understanding the language; since
his last escapade in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", he had
picked up a very handy organism named the Babel Fish, that enabled Ian
to understand any spoken language.  That was not the problem.  The
problem was, that the fact that Japanese was the common language here
meant that there was a severe likelihood that he'd stumbled into what
was for him, the worst place he could ever have imagined.  He knew he
was in hot water - that metaphor seemingly apt - the moment his line
of thoughts had even _strayed_ near that word; a word belonging to a
genre of books that just meant trouble to Ian.
  "Manga," he muttered under his breath.
  Ian had had a lot of trouble with Manga.  Back when he was in Uni, a
friend of his had tried to get him into it.  However, being a student
of English Literature meant that although Ian spent a lot of time
reading, most of it was directly attributed to the course.  And Manga,
in Ian's opinion, wasn't English, and probably wasn't Literature.
Despite this, he'd managed to get acquainted with some of the more
popular manga and anime.  Lucky for him.
  The trouble had started a few months ago, when the portal had taken
him to the city of Tokyo.  He hadn't known it at the time, but he'd
ended up in the world of "Ranma 1/2".  There, Ian discovered exactly
what the disadvantages of living through a severe pounding were, and
what it was like to live in a world where everyone seems to
misconstrue everything you do for the worst possible thing.
  Oh, and what it was like to be in a place where everyone was a
better fighter than you.
  To top that, Chronos had mounted a severe attack against Ian at the
time.  Ian had just decided to spend a few days with the Tendo's,
accepting their hospitality, and more to the point, their baths and
hot meals.  And not only had he had to put up with the normal -
(/Normal?!/) - activities, he'd also had to put a stop to Chronos's
plans in that book.  Which had almost lead to a confrontation with the
big guy himself.  Herself.  Whatever he was.  That bloody shadowy
figure that stalked him calling himself Chronos was beginning to get
on his nerves.
  Since then, Ian had harboured an intense dislike for Japanese comics
where the characters could take a great deal of punishment (i.e. lived
to deal with the pain of recovering), and where a great deal of chaos
and mayhem happened.  On the other hand though, it had been the last
time he'd had a chance to really clean up....
  /Well,/ he thought, /maybe I'll be lucky.  I mean, just cos I'm in
Tokyo, it doesn't mean it _has_ to be Manga./
  They came to a halt by a specific desk in a large office area.  The
desk was vacant for the moment, but the police officer escorting Ian
pushed him into a nearby chair.  "Wait here," he ordered, "you'll be
dealt with shortly."  The officer turned and then went his separate
way.
  /Leaving me unguarded, eh?/ thought Ian as he watched the man go.
But then he took a closer look around.  The room was filled with
police; although most of them appeared to be desk-jocks, there was no
way he would be able to slip out of here unnoticed.  Besides, the guys
still had his gun and pack.  He couldn't leave without those.
  He was startled out of his thoughts by the approach of the large
dark-haired man in uniform.  He looked about in his thirties, and
didn't seem happy to be here.  A name-tag proclaimed himself as
Detective Fraser.  He sat himself down at the desk, and produced a
blank form, which he started to fill in after giving Ian a searching
glare.
  "Name?" he barked.
  /Well, if you're going to be like that..../  Ian bit back a
sarcastic remark, figuring he'd do better if he started to think up a
story now.  He'd talked himself out of worse than this, hadn't he?
  He cheerfully ignored the fact that he had also talked himself into
worse.
  "Ian Robinson."
  "Age?"
  "Twenty-one."
  "Job?"
  Ian thought about this for a moment.  Job?  What _was_ his job here?
  An idea sprang to mind.  Maybe there was a way outta here, and an
excuse to get his gun back.
  "I'm an inventor.  Self-employed."
  Fraser grunted at that.  "You got any ID?  You look a little young
to be out working for yourself."  He turned up his nose.  "You also
don't look like one of those techheads.  Heck, you don't look like
you've had a bath in weeks!"
  Oops.  He hadn't thought of that.  Especially about his appearance.
His mind raced as he thought up an excuse.  But the detective's
patience was fast running out and....
  "Fraser!"
  Fraser spun round to face the back of the office area, where a tall
dark haired officer stood, yelling from her office.  "Yes Ma'am?" he
replied with obvious disgruntlement.
  "I need you to help organise the paperwork that's coming in this
afternoon."
  "But Inspector," protested Fraser angrily, disliking having this
particular job dropped in his lap.
  "Two minutes, Fraser," she warned, before disappearing back into her
room, closing the door behind her.
  "Yes Ma'am," Fraser muttered, before turning back to face Ian.
"Now, about that ID...."
  By this time, Ian was ready.  "I'm sorry, Officer, but I didn't
bring any identification with me.  In fact, I wasn't planning on going
out today.  And as for my appearance...."  He tried a wry smile, but
it felt odd on him under these circumstances.  "I've really just been
living on caffeine for the past week.  You know how it is, you get a
project, you spend days and nights on it, hardly sleeping."
  He received a suspicious glare.  "Care to explain how you got into
our jail?  And why you threatened one of our officers?"
  /This had better work,/ he thought, as he got the final kinks out of
his story.  "I'm sorry if your officer thought I was threatening him.
I assure you I made no aggressive moves.  I'm sure the officer
concerned told you I had appeared from nowhere?  He was telling the
truth."
  That provoked another glare.  /Looks like I hit the nail on the
head.  Guess they didn't believe the poor sod./
  "I was testing an invention of mine.  A small matter-transporter.  I
guess it's still got a few bugs in it.  I guess I'm lucky I'm even
alive.  Had I materialised inside a wall...."  Ian let his sentence
trail.  The portals seemed to do a good job in so much that he'd never
found himself in _that_ situation.  However, the thought had occurred
to him.  If a portal could open up five-hundred feet in mid-air, who
says they couldn't transport him into the middle of Ayer's Rock?
  "Where d'ya live?"
  /Uh-oh./  Perhaps the story wasn't as watertight as he had
originally thought.  He didn't know where the hell he was, and a wrong
answer here could really have him up against the wall.  /Well, guess
it's time to really wing it./  "I'm still in Japan, aren't I?"
  That seemed to irritate Fraser further.  "Yes, of course.  Why
shouldn't you be?"
  Ian laughed.  It was hard, but he managed to pull it off without
seeming too nervous.  "With the number of bugs apparent in my
invention, I would probably be lucky to be in the same continent!"
There was a flaw in that argument, but if he was lucky....
  He received yet another glare, and a raised eyebrow.  "Yeah?  And
what's the likelihood of you `appearing' in the ADP cells?"
  "About the same as anywhere else, I reckon," countered Ian, having
fortunately been asked that type of question before.
  His interrogator seemed suspicious.  "And how do you work that out?"
  "Have _you_ made an intensive study of quantum mechanics?"
  Fraser hesitated.  "Not as such, what are you getting at?"
  Ian grinned.  It was probably a mistake, but he did so all the same.
/There might be a chance of me getting out of here, after all!/
"Well, then you probably don't understand just how complex Matter
Transportation can be.  You see, it's like Chaos...."
  "I don't want to hear some crackpot explanation.  I just want...."
  "Fraser!  Detective Fraser!"
  The door to the officer's room was wide open, and the officer
herself was halfway across the floorspace when she shouted the
detective's name.  Fraser let out an audible groan, and grudgingly
acknowledged his superior.  "Yes Inspector?"
  "I said two minutes, Fraser.  You should be finished with the kid by
now."
  Fraser spluttered.  "But Inspector, he hasn't...."
  "Fraser," interrupted the officer, "need I remind you that at four
o'clock, all the paperwork to do with the ADP's budget next year will
come streaming in through those doors, and that we're going to be
swamped until we get it all out of the way?"
  The detective grimaced.  "No Ma'am."
  "Then just stamp the form at let the kid go.  We've got more
important things to worry about, like budget cuts."
  "Yes Ma'am."
  "You've got one more minute Detective.  Then my office."
  "Yes Ma'am."
  As the inspector stalked away, Fraser furiously (in both senses of
the word) filled out the rest of the form, stamping and filing it
away.  "Just get outta here, will ya?  And make sure you don't come
back.  And get a bath, you stink worse than...  Just go, ok?"  He
pointed towards the door, and started to get up.
  "Waitta sec."
  Fraser rounded on him.  "What is it?!"
  "My stuff?  The gun-like device is another invention I'm working on.
I think while I was tinkering with it, it might have caused the
calibration of the Matter-Transporter unit to...."
  Fraser let out an angry sigh and picked up the phone on his desk,
tapping in the appropriate extension number.  "Yeah, Detective Fraser
here.  Look, this kid's been discharged, but there's a bunch of his
stuff down there.  No, I can't hold, I've got...  Yes, that's the
stuff.  Look, I don't care what the Tech department thinks, I'm
discharging the guy right now, and they're his..."
  The inspector's door opened one more time, and the woman poked her
head out.  "Fraser!"
  Fraser cursed under his breath.  "Just have it there, okay!  Good.
Bye."  Fraser hung up and started towards the woman who was waiting
impatiently for him.
  "What about my stuff?" asked Ian again.
  "Just sign for it downstairs, okay?" came the tired reply.  "And
don't let me see you again."  He disappeared into the inspector's
office, leaving Ian staring at the door bemused.
  He shrugged and turned to leave.  Hell, he was out of here, right?
Right. Just collect his gun and pack, and he would be home free.  No
complications.
  Everything would be just peachy.

  --**************--

  A few desks away, a red-haired woman looked up from her computer at
the young man leaving the building.  /So that's the guy the officer on
guard duty was babbling about.  Wonder what he did to get Fraser all
upset.  Well, I guess no one will mind if I just sneak a peek at his
file..../
  With that thought in mind, Nene Romanova went back to work.

  --**************--

  Outside, Ian kneeled down and checked his recovered backpack.
Everything seemed to be there, but there was also a curious addition.
Sticking out of his shield generator was a single crossbow quarrel.
The ShieldGen had been sitting there awaiting a much needed charge; it
was difficult to find a suitable charger outside of Titan.
  /Shit!  That was lucky!  That almost killed me!/  He tentatively
removed it from the piece of equipment, and was rewarded by a shower
of sparks.  /Damn.  I'm not going to be able to get that fixed in a
hurry.  Guess I'm back down to one mistake, and I'm history./  He
smiled ruefully.  /"Luck" is my middle name,/ he quoted.  /Mind you,
my first name's "Bad"./
  With a sigh, he hefted his pack again, and took a look at the city.
It seemed to be early afternoon.  Plenty of time to find some
abandoned warehouse and bed down before the next portal.  /Now,/ he
thought, /which way to the docks..../

  --**************--

  On the other side of the city, a group of thugs were having an
altogether more unpleasant encounter.
  "Look, man," said the ringleader, "what do you want?"
  Their little ambush on the figure cloaked in shadow hadn't gone
well.  It had been following them for about ten minutes now, before
they decided to find out just what this guy thought he was up to.  A
sort of a show of force to demonstrate to their unwitting pursuer just
who he was dealing with.
  Yet despite the fact that they had firearms, and had eventually been
forced to use them, the guy had simply stood there, not seemingly
harmed at all.  If it was a guy.  Anyhow, one of their number was down
on the floor, hit by some sort of weapon the guy had.  It now seemed
obvious who was performing the show of force.
  Cloaked in shadow wasn't just a metaphor in this case.  Even when
the person stood under a streetlamp, his entire body seemed just a
black outline, literally something that light couldn't penetrate.  It
was enough to spook anyone.
  A heavily modulated voice came from within the silhouette.  "I have
a job for people like you.  If you perform well, you will be
rewarded."
  The ringleader licked his lips nervously.  He was a tall man, lean,
not as big or as broad as some people.  His following had come from
his fighting skill and his mastery of tactics.  Not that strategy
counted for much on the streets, but it sure helped.  He had jet black
hair, his face unshaven.  An intimidating sight in a dark alley.  But
now, something had intimidated _him_.  He didn't like that.
  One of his friends sidled up to him, and whispered in his ear.
"Come on, Max, let's just go.  This guy gives me the creeps."
  Max waved him off.  "What kind of job?"
  "There is a certain target I want taken care of.  He somehow manages
to evade me.  I will provide equipment to help you take care of him."
  "Max, let's get out of here!  You saw what he did to Kyle...."
  "And the _reward_?"
  "You get to keep the equipment."  And then, as an afterthought, "As
well as your lives."
  At that, one of the gang panicked and ran.  He got three paces when
a green bolt hit him in the back, taking him out completely.  Max
kneeled by his fallen comrade and checked his pulse.  Nothing.
  "So," came the voice, "do we have a deal?"
  "Yeah," Max replied woodenly.  "A deal."  /Just as soon as you turn
your back, man.  Then you'll get what's coming to you./
  "Good.  Good.  You are called Max, right?  Well, Max.  You may call
me... Chronos."

  --**************--


  End Chapter 1

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