Russia, 1918
Sergei and Anastasia sat inside the lounge car of the train. The
train was disturbingly empty, car after car of empty lounges and sleepers.
In the aftermath of the October Revolution, it had been easy to steal a
train, especially with the Engineer's connivance, but hard to get one that
was suited for rapid travel. Their only consolation was that with but a
single rail line crossing Siberia, it was impossible for their opponents
to cut them off, for the Red army did not yet control Siberia. YET.
"Uncle, will I ever see home again?" Anastasia asked.
"No." There was no point in lying to her, Sergei thought. "They
would kill you as they killed your father and your mother and your
brothers and sisters. We are the last of the Romanovs." Or to be more
precise, he thought, you are.
"I thought all the troubles would be over when Rasputin died." She
sighed. She was very young, only around nine or ten.
Sergei frowned. "He died, but his evil lived on." If only I had
known sooner, he thought. What I do now is little repayment for the debt
I owe her and her line. Perhaps one day...
She sighed and ate her cold sandwich and sipped her cold tea. "So
where are we running to?"
"Nowhere," a voice barked out. It was a man in a red army uniform,
carrying a pistol. "The line of the Romanovs ends here. We have no more
use for royalty."
Sergei sighed. "Leave now and I shall allow you to live."
The man laughed. "I am ready for you this time, old man. You
won't kill me this time as easily as you did the last."
Sergei frowned. His voice was tight with narrowly controlled
anger. "You."
"I probably should have let you go and concentrated on my new
regime, but I can't allow you to live." He paused and turned to the girl.
"Go now. This is between me and him."
She stared up at her uncle. He nodded. "Go to Andrei,
Anastasia."
She ran. Sergei stared at the man. "I'm surprised you made no
effort to use her as a hostage."
"Like my master, I do not destroy needlessly. Everyone believes she
is dead. That is good enough. Should she try to reclaim her heritage, no
one will believe her or care. You, on the other hand, are a threat."
"If I had realized what fell from the sky that day..." He reached
next to him towards the sword that sat next to him.
"You'd have died, for you would have faced all of us and not just
me." He leveled the gun. "Don't even think about that sword."
Sergei ignored him and did so anyway. The man fired. The bullet
stopped about a foot from Sergei and vanished in a spray of light, which
arced up in a semi-circular shield. "You should have known better than to
waste your time with the gun."
The man cursed. "Damn this primitive technology."
Sergei nodded. "Primitive, yet effective...if you're slaughtering
the innocent. Better luck next time...if there is one." He moved forward
with his sword.
A few minutes later, a body fell bleeding into the snow off the
train, not to be found until spring. Anastasia and Sergei took ship from
Vladivostok a few days later. Anastasia and her descendants never
returned.
***************************************************************************
Chapter 1: Tales of the ADPolice
or
COPS: Mega-Tokyo
***************************************************************************
June 4, 2034
Daley hugged his grandfather goodbye at the airport. "Thanks for
coming to visit me, gramps."
His grandfather smiled. "Thank you for having me." He bowed. "I
must be going. I'll make sure to give your cousins their presents from
you."
Daley waved as his grandfather got in line to board the plane. He
watched until his grandfather actually boarded, then turned to go. To his
horror, one of those airport scooters was zooming straight at him with a
pack of passengers running after it. Someone's suitcase had fallen down
and jammed itself onto the accelerator. Some blonde woman lead the pack
of people chasing it shouting, "Naughty luggage! Bad! Bad! No Biscuit!"
Daley got hit hard and went flying, crashing into a rack of chairs.
He was pretty sure something was broken. The blonde ran over to him.
"Are you okay? I'm sorry, my suitcase stole the vehicle! But look, you
stopped it!"
The vehicle had come to a complete stop, as the collision knocked
the suitcase off the accelerator.
"I feel so heroic...somebody call a doctor!"
***************************************************************************
June 5, 2034
Leon reported to his commander, having read the note that was
waiting for him on his desk when he arrived. "You said you wanted to
talk to me, sir?"
The Captain nodded. "Yes." He was an old balding black man, with
only a fringe of white hair left around the back and over his ears.
While he had looked like that for as long as Leon had been here, he often
claimed that his men had caused all of his missing hair to fall out over the
years. Normally, he and his desk never changed. However, today he
looked even MORE worried than usual. Perhaps it had something to do with
the deeply tanned curly haired blonde standing next to him. She looked
young, perhaps in her mid-twenties, and she was dressed in an ADPolice
uniform that just didn't quite seem right on her, possibly due to the
classic 'giggly blond' look on her face. She reminded him somewhat of
Lisa, the Chief's niece.
"This is Mihoshi. She's going to be your partner while Daley is in
the hospital."
Leon tried to decide whether to be glad his new partner was cute or
worried because she couldn't put on her uniform correctly. "You're new on
the force, eh?"
She saluted with an odd gesture he'd never seen before. "I've been
a cop for ages, but I'm new to the ADPolice."
And it's just my luck I get to break you in, he thought. If I
wasn't taken...sort of...this would be more enjoyable. "Well, come with
me, I'll show you the ropes." Little did Leon know that he was about to
experience hell on earth. Or at least the 'bad cop movie comedy'
variation.
*************************************************************************
Leon got into the car with Mihoshi. "So you've been working in the
main police branch?"
She nodded, trying desperately to remember her alleged background.
"Hai. I wanted a challenge after my old partner got reassigned."
"How long have you been a cop?" She looks younger than me, Leon
thought. Mihoshi pulled the car out of the parking space without any
trouble. Leon relaxed. Well, she can drive, he thought.
She drove through the garage slowly, much more slowly than any other
cop in the building ever did. "Hmmmm. Close to fifty years now."
Leon blinked. "Did you say fifty years?"
She laughed nervously. "Did I say years? I meant days..uh
weeks...er, about five years." Mihoshi wished they had let her write
everything down on her hand like she had requested when she got sent to do
this, but they wouldn't let her.
She pulled out into the traffic...onto the right side of the road.
"Ano...why are all the cars coming at me?"
Leon blinked in total disbelief. "You're on the WRONG SIDE OF THE
ROAD!"
Mihoshi swerved at the last second into one of the left lanes going
the right way. "Since when did everyone drive on the left?"
Leon said, "..." Why couldn't they have given me Nene for a parter?
Heck, I'd take 'Chuck Danger, Rescue Ranger' right now, he thought. Maybe
I can convince Priss to join ADP...
Mihoshi drove down the road, once again driving in a safe and
rational manner. Leon relaxed again. "So why was your partner
reassigned?"
"She had to in...She was sent to do undercover work. Where's your
partner?" Mihoshi focused on her driving. She wanted to make a good
impression, especially considering how cute her new partner was.
"He's in the hospital. So I assume you've done investigative work
before?"
"Yes. Like when I first came to Earth...ano, I mean Tokyo."
Leon blinked.
"So where are we going, anyway?"
"Just cruise around the city until we get a call. We're on patrol,
which basically means..."
"We listen to the radio and eat junk food until they call us."
Mihoshi pulled into the parking lot of a Circle K. "I guess we'd better
load up."
Maybe this won't be so bad after all, Leon thought.
He grabbed a bag of chips off the shelf and a large 20 ounce Coke,
then turned and saw Mihoshi had five bags of chips, two 60 ounce sodas,
and a box of donuts. And then again, he thought...
He sighed and got in line. To his surprise, the two people at the
head of the line pulled out handguns and leveled them at the cashier.
"Fork over the money, now."
Leon tapped Mihoshi on the shoulder. She nodded and dropped her
stuff. Including the two sixty ounce drinks. They exploded, spraying down
everyone as they spun about. The two would be robbers started, and one of
them dropped his gun. The otherone spun around and slipped on the gumdrops
Mihoshi had just knocked on the ground. As Leon pulled his gun, the
criminal fell and tossed his gun right into Mihoshi's hands. She fumbled
with it and leveled it at him. "FREEZE, icky criminal scum!"
The cashier blinked. "Hey, all right, the cops!"
Leon smiled. At least someone appreciates us. He looked down at
himself briefly. His pants and shirt were a sticky, soda-drenched mess.
Great, I'm going to have to go change. He handcuffed the two men. "We're
going to have to go drop these off, then I have to change. I guess you
will too." He took a good look at Mihoshi and saw she was completely dry,
unlike everyone else, who was drenched. "Then again, maybe you won't."
Mihoshi reached to get her cube with the hairdryer, then in a moment
of lucidity realized that they didn't have those cubes on earth. "I
thought I had my hairdryer, but I just realized that I didn't," she said.
Leon blinked. This was going to be far too interesting.
**************************************************************************
Lieutenant Yamano watched her subordinates hard at work. She was in
charge of the communications division of the ADPolice, which meant mostly
riding herd over a flock of undiscplined men who thought they were were in
an old 'trucking' movie and viewed their equipment as basically giant CB
radios, and a larger flock of young women who thought calling their
boyfriends on Police lines was a perk of the job. It was hard to be sure
which group was worse. Yamano hadn't wanted this job. She had made her
start as a field grunt, doing REAL police work, not being a glorified
switchboard operator like these idiots. She kept telling herself one of
these days she would strangle the higherups for regarding moving her to
this job as a 'promotion'. Still, I have done some good for this
department, she thought. She turned to the new recruit. "So you've done
this before?"
"I've done a little of everything. This'll be easy." Andrea
Loughlin was tall and slender, with long black hair tied back in a
pony-tail, running down to about mid-back. Her eyes were a deep brown,
and her face was angular. She wore a headband to keep her bangs out of
her eyes. Dressed in the standard ADPolice Communications uniform (A
white blouse and a black skirt), she had a much more commanding presence
than most of the people in the department, who ranged from unimpressive to
goofy looking. "As long as I don't have to put up with...well, never mind
that. So what do I do first?"
"First you meet your fellow staffers, and I assign one of them to
show you the ropes, so to speak." Lt. Yamano looked around the room.
"Will everyone who is slacking off, please raise their right hand!"
Five arms shot up before their owners realized what they were doing.
They at least had the good grace to be embarrassed. One of them was Nene
Romanova, who felt especially stupid for raising her hand. She quickly
switched her screen so no one could see she was mucking.
Lt. Yamano said, "This is Officer Andrea Loughlin, formerly of the
New York Police. She'll be working with us for a year to study our
procedures in various departments. Unlike you losers, she's had real
field experience, and I expect you to give her the utmost respect. Is
that clear?"
Everyone mumbled and grumbled a bit, but they all nodded. Lt.
Yamano continued. "Officer Romanova, I'm assigning you to show her the
way we do things around here. You'd better do it right, or your head will
roll."
Nene sighed and saluted, "Yes sir."
Lt. Yamano blinked. Amazing, she actually remembers how to salute.
"Right. Well, go to it, Romanova." She spun on her heel and marched off.
Andrea walked over to Nene and sat down. "Pretty strict commander
you have here."
"So you're from the New York Police?"
"Yeah. We send people over to other nations periodically to study
your procedures, methods, equipment, and so on. New York doesn't have
much in the way of Boomer problems right now, but that's because of the
Robotics Code."
"Yeah, most boomers are banned in the United States, right?"
Andrea nodded. "US Robots and Mechanical Men got the Robotics
code passed in the 2020s. Any robot that doesn't have the 'US Standard
Robotic Behavior Code' hardwired into it is illegal. This prevents the
use of combat boomers of any kind, for example, although there are ways to
cheat to some extent. Robots can use force to protect people, so there
are bodyguard robots, and they can use force against non-human targets,
such as other boomers or mechs. Still, it does cut down heavily on boomer
related crimes because the penalties are much stiffer. Genom would have
probably eaten US Robots alive by now if not for the code. We don't
have armed vigilantes like the Knight Sabres either. So what is the truth
about them, anyway? I've heard a lot of crazy stories."
Nene laughed nervously. "They don't work for us, that's for sure.
They're sort of...uh, well...they fight the boomers too. They're not
exactly rivals, but they're free operators. Anyway, lemme show you how
all this stuff works."
Nene found out quickly that Andrea was a fast learner. Within a
few hours, she had mastered the use of the equipment, though her lack of
knowlege of city geography was another question...She didn't know where
ANYTHING was, except the airport, her house, ADPolice headquarters, and a
few trainstations. "Maybe I can show you around town later when we get
off work," Nene suggested. "So you don't send any TAC squads to the
Mayor's house..."
Andrea said, "Thanks, I'd appreciate that. If this was New York,
I'd be fine, but this city isn't much like my hometown."
"Right. We'd better get back to work before the lieutenant notices
we're talking..."
************************************************************************
Quincy sat in a darkened room, watching a monitor screen with two
people on it. One was a tall woman with short black hair, dressed in
black pants and a dark blue chinese coat with yellow ties. The other was
a man with slightly longer brown hair and sun-glasses, wearing a suit.
The woman had a pair of swords in her hands and appeared to be engaged in
some sort of odd ritual behavior, swinging them about as she talked. The
man seemed vaguely amused by the whole thing.
"So you placed a new agent in the ADPolice without consulting me,
Adam?" Quincy said.
The man, Adam, frowned. "I was under the delusion that keeping an
eye on the ADPolice was part of my DUTIES. Given that Genom has yet to
develop a way for me to simply read minds. Besides, she's an expert at
everything, especially at gaining people's trust. No one will ever
suspect her."
The woman laughed. "Having a burst of idealism today, are you? He's
simply positioning himself to crush you if this goes awry."
Quincy smiled faintly, "And what news from your mission, Eve?"
Eve frowned. "The woman in question is almost certainly Celia
Stingray's grandmother, whatever else may have happened in the interlude,
or a very good facsimile thereof. However, she has now vanished off the
face of the earth. One of my agents thought he had found more, but..."
"But what?"
"He was investigating a news snippet that seemed to show her in the
background at a protest on the University of Tokyo campus." She paused.
"And?" Quincy asked, his voice bland.
"He's now in the Charles Dexter Ward home for the Mentally Injured.
He doesn't remember anything before age 10. Cause unknown." She paused
in her sword kata. "And his implants were crushed. Without surgical
scars."
Quincy frowned. "That's impossible."
"So not even a partial neural recording could be recovered. Unless
he regains his memories, we may never know what happened."
Quincy said, "So where is Seth?"
Adam sighed. "I thought you sent him on a 'secret mission'", he
said, his voice getting just a touch of sarcasm on the last two words.
"He should have returned by now." Quincy frowned again. "Any
progress in finding..."
Eve interrupted him. "No."
Quincy raised an eyebrow. "What was that about needing psychic
powers?"
Eve laughed. "Well, you always ask if we've found him and the
answer is always no. I think he's dead."
Quincy shook his head. "He's not dead."
Adam nodded. "He's out there."
Eve rolled her eyes. "I suppose he's living with Nick Hatchett,
Robot Fighter, Princess Esmerelda, Ayukawa Madoka, and Buddha on an island
in the Bahamas, too."
Adam tried not to laugh, having a greater appreciation of Quincy's
ability to have them die at any time than Eve did.
Quincy laughed for about three seconds, startling Adam, who had
concluded that Quincy had sold his sense of humor for start-up capital a
long time ago. "You may speak more truly than you know. Anything else to
report?"
Adam's mind raced through that statement, hunting for every possible
nuance. After a few seconds, he put the thought on the backburner and
turned his attention back to reality. "Here's our report on Schilling
Enterprises," he began. The report took much longer than the preceding
conversation, but in the cosmic scheme of things would turn out to be far
less important.
************************************************************************
That evening, Linna picked up Nene and Andrea in her new car. "Hi,
I'm Yamazaki Linna, nice to meet you," she said to Andrea.
Andrea smiled. "Nice to meet you. I'm Andrea Loughlin from New
York." She and Nene piled into the car.
"Your Japanese is very good, Andrea," Linna said as she pulled out
into the flow of traffic.
"Thanks. I lived in Japan for a while when I was younger, so that
sort of made me a natural for this assignment."
"Oh really? Where did you live?" Linna asked.
Andrea paused for a moment then said, "A small town up in the
mountains, at a shrine. I was an exchange student."
Linna started to reply, then suddenly, a car swerved into her lane
and she desperately swerved over to avoid it, sending more cars fleeing in
panic. The offending vehicle, an ADPolice Patrol Car, managed to get back
into the proper lane and roared off. Linna got only a brief glimpse of
the blonde woman driving it. "Yeesh, when the police can't manage to stay
on the right side of the road..."
Nene said, "Hey that looked like Leon's car, but he doesn't drive
like that. I hope."
Andrea sighed and muttered something under her breath, then spoke
more clearly. "Leon your boyfriend?"
Nene blushed. "I'd have to be insane to go out with that man!
He's just one of our fellow officers. He's a detective. But his partner
isn't blonde or female." She paused. "Oh wait, Daley's in the hospital.
They must have given him a new partner for the duration."
Linna said, "Well, assuming we can avoid being killed by your
fellow officers, it's time for my world famous tour of Mega-Tokyo. Fasten
your seatbelts, this plane is about to take off!" The tour was soon in
progress.
**************************************************************************
Wilson Kamisaka clicked on the mouse by his computer and his screen
saver of 'Nick Hatchett, Heroic Robot Fighter' images cut out. He called
up his email program and checked his messages. The fifth one had no
subject line and had the content, 'Look under your monitor'. He did so
and found a note telling him to arrange an assassination. He wondered for
the fifth time that day if he was the only sane person in Schilling
Enterprises. Why am I supposed to have a lingerie shop owner killed? He
sighed and went to work making the arrangements. I do what I'm paid for,
he thought.
**************************************************************************
Linna drove the car off the Tokyo University campus. "Too bad your
boyfriend wasn't home, Nene." She turned her attention to Andrea. "He's
a really nice guy, though kinda...affectionate."
Nene laughed. "I don't mind as long as I'm the one he's being
affectionate towards."
"And he's got that funky hair." Linna cut across three lanes of
traffic so she could make the next turn.
"Funky hair?" Andrea asked.
"It's spikey like a punk rocker, but this really boring shade of
brown." Linna explained.
Nene nodded. "He claims it's a family tradition or something."
Andrea laughed. "What, his parents have hair like that?"
"Well, he claims that, but I haven't met them yet. They both do
classified government work he can't talk about." Nene sighed. "He's met
my mom, though, and she really likes him a lot."
Linna laughed, "Well, except for fainting the first time she saw
him."
"Mom doesn't handle surprises very well."
"Our next stop...somewhere we can eat. I'm hungry."
"Not half as hungry as I am!" Nene proclaimed.
Andrea said, "Yeah, I could do with food too." Amazingly, they made
it through the night without a single boomer attack.
**************************************************************************
Celia put down the phone and sighed. Once again her distributor was
acting up. The worst part about running this shop is dealing with other
businesspeople, she thought. Doesn't anyone on this planet believe in
things like making deadlines? The shipment was already a week late, but
by the time I could make arrangements to get it from somewhere else, it
will probably get here, she thought.
Luckily, I don't need this place to stay financially afloat, or I'd
be in the poorhouse, she thought. A very loud crashing noise caught her
attention. Something big must have fallen down in the shop, she
thought. What's Macky up to this time? She put down the papers she had
been working on and headed out into the shop. Damage control time.
The entire central display had collapsed. Macky was standing on
part of it, trying to pull another part off of some very tanned blonde
woman, who kept laughing with a really high-pitched and annoying laugh.
"I'm sorry. I was just trying to check the pricetag and the whole thing
fell down."
Celia strode over. The girl had knocked down the whole thing
trying to check a...pricetag? "Are you all right, Miss..."
"Mihoshi! Nice to meet you. I was just doing a little
shopping...I accidentally set most of my underwear on fire last night and
..." Macky managed to finally pull the stuff off Mihoshi, which caused the
stuff he was standing on to suddenly topple, flinging him into another
rack which collapsed. This set off a chain of collapsing clothing racks
across the store, finally culminating in sending the last rack through
the window.
Celia sighed internally. More repairs, plus that might have hit
someone. At least she doesn't seem the type to sue. "Maybe I can help
you find what you're looking for while Macky goes and sees if he's killed
anyone."
Celia helped the poor ditz look for some underwear and got the
entire messy story of the chain of disasters that had culminated in the
loss of most of her clothing the previous night. Celia soon concluded it
was in her best interest to get this customer on her way as swiftly as
possible.
************************************************************************
He reviewed his instructions. Why he was supposed to assassinate
a lingerie shop owner, he didn't know. He didn't really care, except
that it just seemed odd to him that anyone would pay rates as high as
his for a job this easy. He checked the address. This was the place.
Someone had dropped a ten thousand yen bill. Pretty big money to be
casually dropped on the ground. He got out his wallet and bent over to
pick it up. The sound of tinkling glass alerted him that something was
wrong, but he was in the process of bending over to pick up the money,
and didn't look up fast enough. The falling clothing rack fell on his
head and knocked him out cold. His wallet flew out of his hands and a
few seconds later, someone spotted it and took it.
************************************************************************
Macky emerged from the Silky Doll and soon found a man pinned under
the fallen clothing rack. He quickly checked the man, who seemed to be
not too badly injured, but he went ahead and ran back inside and called
for an ambulance. I wish I knew more first aid, he thought.
Celia soon emerged with Mihoshi who said, "Oh no, this is all my
fault! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!"
This woke the man up. He clutched his ears. "What's that horrible
NOISE?" He saw his targets standing before him, but there were too many
people around and his head hurt. It'll wait, he thought.
"I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to knock over the rack on you!"
He tried to get up and Celia said, "You'd better not move until the
ambulance gets here."
"Uh yeah, you're probably right."
He didn't even realize he'd lost his wallet until he was at the
hospital. Without proof of his identity, he ended up getting tossed out
of the hospital fairly quickly. He was NOT pleased.
************************************************************************
Linna went to answer the knock on her door. Andrea was there in a
blue gi. "Here I come for you to stomp me!" Andrea said, smiling, and
stepped inside. "Thanks for offering to spar with me. I need someone to
practice with to keep my skills up. Is Nene coming?"
Linna laughed. "I wish. She needs to get better at fighting...I
mean, she is a cop." Linna went and changed into her yellow gi. She laid
out a mat in the living room, then did some warm up exercises, as did
Andrea.
They both bowed to each other, then stood for a moment, trying to
decide what to do first. Andrea started things off with a flurry of kicks
and punches. Linna easily avoided them all, then grabbed Andrea's foot
and pulled her off her feet. "What do you practice, anyway?" she asked.
"A little of everything." She suddenly lunged forward, took a punch,
and grabbed Linna in a shoulder hold and tossed her. Linna landed easily
without hurting herself and sprang back up.
"Not bad." Hmm. Judo move. They danced about the mat, unleashing
barrages of attacks on one another. Linna soon found out that Andrea
really DID know a little of everything, though often not many of the more
advanced moves of any given style. Andrea observed Linna was one of the
most natural, graceful fighters she had ever seen.
After a half hour, they both took a break. "You're really good,"
Andrea said, eagerly drinking a glass of apple juice.
"You too! I guess you get a lot of use for it, being a cop and all,
though." Linna sat down in her nice very plush chair and worked on her
glass of grape juice.
There was a knock at the door. Linna got up and got it. She
blinked. It was Nene in a workout outfit. "You came?"
"What does it look like? Ryu's sister dragged him off somewhere, so
I thought I'd come over."
Linna let Nene inside. "Feel up to a little sparring?" she teased.
"Sure!"
Linna blinked. Maybe she's sick.
Andrea got up. "Come on, Nene. I'll spar with you."
Linna sat and drank grape juice and watched. Nene and Andrea bowed
to each other. Andrea stood still as Nene stared at her for a moment,
then charged forward, unleashing a barrage of clumsy, though rapid
punches. Andrea, moving only a little faster than Nene, methodically
blocked them all, then gave Nene some advice on how to do the punches
correctly. As Linna watched them spar, she soon realized that Andrea was
fighting with maybe half the amount of speed she had shown earlier, and
only using fairly basic moves. I guess she's trying to make Nene not feel
too outclassed.
As she watched Nene successfully deliver some of the punches she had
messed up earlier, a thought suddenly struck Linna. What if she was
holding back with me too? Naaah, no one could be that good, her ego
reassured her.
Pretty soon, Nene was exhausted. She flopped down on the floor, but
to Linna's surprise, it was the first time she'd ever seen Nene happy
after a workout.
************************************************************************
Leon drove down Highway 49, pretending Mihoshi was only a figment of
his imagination. This was easy since she was staring quietly out the
window watching the world go by. Leon should have known by now this was a
bad sign, but a man can dream, can't he?
Suddenly, the radio crackled to life. "Car 54, we have an out of
control boomer on Highway 49. Coming your way. TAC squad has been
dispatched."
Mihoshi started. "Hey, that sounded like..." She covered her
mouth.
Leon blinked. "It sounded like someone in Communications...why, did
she sound like some movie actress?"
Mihoshi waved her arms about, activating the windshield wipers.
"Nothing. Nothing at all. Certainly not..."
"Not what?" Leon was soon distracted by the sound and sight of
explosions ahead. He pulled over and yelled, "Get out and take cover!
We've got to pray this thing doesn't waste us before the TAC squad gets
here."
Mihoshi shrieked and pulled out her gun, diving behind the car. The
boomer was moving down the road, methodically trashing every vehicle in
its path. Leon popped up and took a shot at it and missed. Mihoshi
pulled the trigger five times, but nothing happened.
"Waaaah, my gun is broken!"
Leon swore. "Did you remember to LOAD it this time?"
She nodded and popped out the clip to show him. He stared at her
gun. "The SAFETY is on!"
She blushed and clicked it off, then stood up and fired at the
boomer. She hit it in the gut, then fell down as the boomer flew over
head, spraying fire everywhere. She howled in fear and convulsively
pulled the trigger on her gun as she toppled backwards. "Waah, Leon, my
gun is malfunctioning!"
Leon had dived under the car, praying it wouldn't explode. He
crawled out and saw the boomer explode into flaming fragments and crash
into the road. "Nice shooting, Mihoshi."
Mihoshi said, "There's something wrong with this gun! It knocked me
down!"
Leon said, "Are you okay?"
Mihoshi got up. "My bottom hurts." She turned around. "Yay! I
killed the big bad evil boomer!" She paused. "I was supposed to do that,
right?"
Leon stared at the flaming boomer. "You just took out a military
combat boomer, 45-B with a handgun. You should be proud." He paused.
"Why do you think there's something wrong with your gun?"
"Everytime I pull the trigger, it pushes my arms back!"
"..." Maybe I'm having a bad dream. "That's called recoil."
"What's recoil?"
Leon contemplated fainting for dramatic effect. At this point, the
ADPolice van roared up and unleashed a TAC squad. The commander, Sgt.
Banks came over. "Where's the boomer?"
Mihoshi jumped up and down. "I killed it! I killed it!"
"You killed a 45-B?" Sgt. Banks said, disbelievingly.
"Yeah...can I get a gun without any 'recoil'? I don't like it."
The conversation only got weirder from there.
************************************************************************
"All right! All you dogs line up!" Lt. Yamano shouted. She had
the entire Communications department on the firing range, except for the
ones currently on duty. "It's time for some shooting practice! You know
the drill. Go to it."
The firing range soon resounded with the sounds of people missing
the targets. Nene found to her surprise that she actually had gotten one
of the higher scores. Only five people were ahead of her 60 points,
although this wasn't saying much when the maximum possible score was 500
for ten shots. The next highest scores were Naoko with 80 points, Tom
with 120, Tamiya with 130 points, Cynthia with 240, and Andrea with 490.
She would have had 500, but she had sneezed during the last shot.
Everyone gathered around her target in awe.
Yamano smiled. "Take this officer as your model! I expect all of
you to be up to at least 100 by two weeks from now."
Naoko said to Andrea, "You're really good!"
She shrugged. "I'm a field operative normally. We use our guns a
lot more than you have to. Other than shooting each other, I don't know
what use there is to drilling you with weapons."
"Well, we did get attacked at headquarters last year," Naoko said.
"You were on duty, right, Nene?"
Nene nodded. "Lemme tell you all about it." She did.
************************************************************************
Linna stretched and relaxed. She felt invigorated. One nice thing
about being an aerobics instructor was that she felt invigorated instead
of tired at the end of the day. One of her fellow instructors, a girl
named Rachel Anderson came over to her. "Hey, Linna, you doing anything
tonight?"
Rachel was short, with incredibly long black hair and a vaguely noble
look to her, even in a workout outfit. She and Linna and Rachel's
roommate, Ursula, went out sometimes after work. Ursula was a painter and
a bit of a ditz and she and Rachel bickered all the time, but they were
fun to hang out with. It let Linna be a normal person and not think about
boomers for a while.
"Naah. I was planning to be bored out of my skull." Linna leaned
against the wall. "So what bar shall we be terrorizing tonight?"
Rachel thought for a moment. "How about the Lonely Eskimo? They've
probably forgotten we exist by now."
Linna smiled faintly. "Or at least cleaned up the carpet. I'll come
by your place at six, okay?"
Rachel nodded. "If we're lucky, Ursula will decide what to wear by
then."
They both laughed.
************************************************************************
Daley lay in bed, sighing. Stupid leg. Stupid flu. Stupid this,
that and the next thing. I feel like I've been a laid up forever, he
thought. He sighed.
"Hey, cheer up! It's party time!" Leon said.
Daley blinked. "Hey, Leon! Nice to see you!" He scooted over.
"There's room for you here in bed with me if you don't mind my cast." He
winked.
Leon laughed. "Well, I may have to join you if my crazy new partner
keeps up her current string of luck."
Daley looked at Leon carefully. "You don't look injured."
Leon pulled up a chair and sat down. "Not for lack of her trying."
He leaned back. "The woman is completely insane. Please tell me they're
going to let you out soon."
"Uhh...I have bad news for you."
"You're going to be in here for a long time?"
"I'm taking a week's vacation to attend a party for my grandparents'
fiftieth wedding anniversary and to celebrate my birthday in about two
weeks, which should be right about the same time as I get out of here."
If Leon had not been too macho to cry in public, this would have been
the perfect time to start crying. Instead, he just sat and screamed
INSIDE his head.
************************************************************************
It was time for weekly fitness testing and practice at Celia's lab.
Linna was in the simulation room, busily destroying holographic boomers.
Meanwhile, Nene was on the treadmill and hating every second of it. She
gritted her teeth in a totally gratuitous manner and kept jogging as fast
as she could stand. I'm so sick and tired of Celia nagging me about being
out of shape and Linna and Priss laughing at me. She pushed herself with
a rare effort of willpower while Celia made the little non-commital
humming noises that Nene knew all too well.
Finally, Celia said, "That's enough, Nene."
She kept moving and sprinted off the treadmill onto a chair. Celia
walked over and handed her a clipboard. "Okay, now you monitor me."
Nene nodded and moved over to the monitor board. "How did I do?"
"Up 2% from last time. I take it you've been getting some
exercise." Celia began running at about the same pace that had left Nene
breathless. She seemed to barely notice her own speed.
"Our crazy new commander thinks the ADPolice is a boot camp or
something. She's been doing morning exercises and shooting practice and
everything. I'm so tired all the time!" Nene sighed. "At least Andrea's
been able to help me with my shooting practice."
"That's good, Nene," Macky said from the work out room monitor
station. "Because you're next."
Nene sighed. A woman's work is never done, she thought.
****************************************************************************
Macky once again manned the monitor board for the VR room while Nene
practiced. Priss sat and watched, rather bored, while Linna and Celia
half watched the combat testing and half put their attention into talking.
"Has Nene been working out that you know of, Linna?" Celia asked. "Her
results are up after three weeks of decline."
"Well, her new boss at work has been making everyone in her
department work out. Plus, I sort of dropped a hint to her boyfriend."
Celia frowned.
"Not that kind of hint! I'm not stupid, you know. I just suggested
he might want to encourage her to maybe work out with him so she'd get in
better shape and have less trouble at work with her boss."
"I'm not concerned about you. I'm concerned about him."
"He's just this goofy engineering student with silly hair," Linna
said.
"And Largo was just this goofy blond boomer. He looks like a goofy
kid to me too, but we can't be too careful." She sighed. You thought
Sylvie was just a normal person as well, Celia thought.
Linna sighed. "He seems like a nice kid. You never get this
uptight over any of my boyfriends."
Priss laughed. "None of yours last long enough to make it worth
bothering."
"HEY!" Linna stomped over to Priss. "At least I haven't been
stringing the same guy along for two years!"
Priss got up. "That's because no guy in his right mind would date
you for two years."
Celia sighed. "You're acting like children. Sit down."
Celia's words had little effect. They continued to glare at each
other. I feel like someone's mom, she thought.
The glaring contest was ended when Macky said, "Oh my god!"
Celia spun. "What's wrong?"
"Nene's up to level ten!"
Linna shrugged. "Wasn't she at level 12 last week?"
"Yes, but last week she had hacked in and reset the difficulty
levels to half their normal rating. She only made it to the equivalent of
level 8 on the correct scale. And she only made it to eight because she
augmented her suit's simulated abilities." Macky looked through the
window, watching the big floating star chase Nene, who was running
desperately avoiding the shots it was firing at her.
Priss laughed. "Looks like she runs better than she fights."
Celia said, "Perhaps she cracked the code again...if she'd only put
that much effort into her body..."
"And perhaps she'll buy Genom with her savings, too," Priss said.
The star finally zapped Nene. The machine made little pac-man death
noises. Macky laughed. "Well, we missed one bit of her hacking."
Nene emerged from the chamber and sat down hard. "Wow, that was
really hard!"
Celia smiled. "Well, you've set a new record for times you didn't
cheat. Or did you?"
"This soon? Of course not. I guess daily exercise does pay off."
Celia smiled a little broader and reminded herself to send an
anonymous check to Lt. Yamano.
***************************************************************************
Andrea sat back in her nice plush chair and relaxed. I wish I knew
how to get a nice comfy chair like this back home. She paused and
thought, it would probably distract me too much, though. Straightening
up, she idly tapped a key and clicked off the screen saver on her
computer, which ceased to show a picture of the four knight sabres chasing
Pac-man, replaced instead by the report she was typing.
* Nene Romanova: Officer of the ADPolice, Communications division. A
*sweet girl who is, however, more than she seems. Nine of ten says she's
*working for someone, given that she's wasting her computer skills as a
*glorified switchboard operator. I have detected signs of at least five
*regular hackers in the ADPolice computer system, and I'm quite certain
*she works for at least one of them. We have become quite friendly over
*the last week. I hope it does not become necessary to take action
*against her, but I will do what is necessary.
I'll have to work on this, she thought. It'll do for a start. Oh, I
almost forgot one thing...
*against her, but I will do what is necessary. Yes, she IS dating him.
*See attached files for all public records of her.
On to the next person, she thought. She typed out twenty more
profiles, culminating in:
* Linna Yamazaki: She is an aerobics instructor and expert martial
*artist, one of the best I've ever met. She is currently wasting her life
*dating this total loser, who I hope falls off a cliff.
Andrea sighed and deleted the entire thing. Maybe I don't need to
report on her...It's not like I'm writing reports on my neighbors. She's
not ADPolice, so it's unlikely that she...
Andrea paused. On the other hand, she might make a very good agent
for us. Of course, fighting skills alone don't make a recruit
but...there's something about her.
Andrea closed the file and opened a new one.
*Potential Recruit:
* Yamazaki, Linna
*Age: 22
This kept her busy for quite some time.
John Walter Biles : MA-History, Ph.D Wannabe at U. Kansas
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu
rhea@tass.org http://www.tass.org/~rhea/falcon.html
rhea@maison-otaku.net http://www.maison-otaku.net/~rhea/
It sought to scour him to ash, but he would not burn. It tried to
crush him, but he would not be broken. It tried to blow him away, but he
would not move. He locked his mind around it and struck back with his
anger, binding it with the power within himself. He had gone beyond
rage, into the calm at the heart of the hurricane of his anger. By
turning his anger outward, he mastered it, and now he did the same for
the power.
--from 'Power', the first third of my
unfinished story, 'Parallel Lives'.