"Folks, allow me to present: the Mecha-Tenchi prototypes! Mecha-
Washuu you've met before." She noticed their expressions, and
chuckled. "You thought that was *me*?"

"Well, yes, actually," said Aeka, as she, Ryoko, and Tenchi continued
staring blankly at the four robots having frantic sex on the floor of
the lab.

"Didn't you notice that I had the penis parameters on those things set
to maximum?" asked Washuu. "Do you think I'm *crazy*?!"

"What the hell's going on here?" demanded Ryoko.

"Stress testing," answered Washuu. "But they've passed the initial
round with flying colors. Hold on a `sec." Washuu typed for a moment
on a translucent black keyboard that appeared out of nothingness. The
Mecha-Tenchis disengaged from Mecha-Washuu and walked over, their
equipment jutting out in front of them bizarrely before a few more
clicks on the console reduced them to a more realistic size. "Boys,
say hello."

"Hi, babes," chorused the robots, their eyes zooming all over every
inch of female body curve within view. "What are you waiting for? Get
your clothes off so we can fuck!"

Aeka and Ryoko fainted dead away.

His face going red with anger and embarrassment, Tenchi bent down to
the girls and started shaking them.

Washuu typed some more. A hole gaped in midair. She reached in, and
produced a bottle. "Aren't they terrific? They're even more advanced
than Mecha-Washuu! Here, try this," she said, handing it to him.

Tenchi looked at it, and found that it was smelling salts. He waved it
under the unconscious girls' noses. "And they're all copies of me!" he
said angrily, feeling threatened and offended by the very idea.

"Sure! Although they're not completely identical. I made some changes
in a couple of critical areas." Ryoko and Aeka stirred, then started
trying to get up.

"Yeah, I noticed the *changes*," said Tenchi.

"No offense intended," assured Washuu. "But I like to optimize my
inventions for specific applications. It's a flexibility versus
performance trade-off, you see. And they're completely adjustable to
fit individual preferences. Length anywhere from one to fifty
centimeters, circumference one to ten. See?" She tapped some keys, and
the penises on the Mecha-Tenchis grew to ludicrously huge, shrank to
ridiculously small, then expanded back to the size of the original.
Tenchi shuddered. Somehow the sight was horribly disturbing.

"Owwww, my head," complained Ryoko, standing and holding her temples.

Aeka got to her feet and wobbled, still a little dizzy. "What in the
world...?"

The scientist shook her head. "Look, I don't know why Tenchi's here,
but if you two have changed your mind and decided to help me runs some
tests, undress and get to it."

Ryoko leaned down and snarled in Washuu's face. "WHAT IN THE *HELL* IS
GOING ON HERE, YOU LITTLE TWERP?!"

"Yes, indeed! What *is* going on here?" agreed Aeka. "What *are*
those... those... those horrible *things* that bear a resemblance to
Ten-chan!"

The semi-transparent keyboard once more materialized under Washuu's
hands. "This is *almost* as annoying as when you knocked me around
inside that crystal," she warned, dangerously eying Ryoko and Aeka.

The two girls calmed down a little, neither one wanting to repeat the
experience of being a kappa.

"I'll let you live, for now," said Ryoko, still glaring.

Washuu raised an eyebrow, and above the keyboard her fingers twitched
slightly.

Ryoko gulped. "OK, OK!" she said, backing away.

Tenchi continued staring at his three likenesses. "Washuu-chan, please
get rid of these things," he asked quietly. "Gomen nasai, but I find
them very offensive. It isn't right to copy someone without their
permission."

Washuu shook her head. "After all the work I've put into these things?
Sorry, but no."

"Please. It makes me very uncomfortable."

"A common reaction, but completely unjustified."

"I won't allow you to do something so disturbing to Ten-chan," said
Aeka firmly. "I'm asking you politely, please do away with them."

"Nope."

"WASHUUUUUU..." growled Ryoko.

"-chan," added the scientist.

"...if Tenchi says get rid of them, then you'd better get rid of them.
Or you'll answer to me!"

"I demand that you destroy these abominations at once! I don't care if
you *do* turn me into something, I won't permit you to mock Ten-chan
like this!" shrilled Aeka. "Making a likeness of him for use as a toy!
How disgusting!"

"I'm not going to let prudishness stand in the way of scientific
progress!" shot back Washuu.

"It's *NOT* prudishness!" Ryoko snarled. Seeing Aeka's surprised
expression, she added "Well, this time it's not, anyway. And if you
won't do it, I'll do it myself!" Blazing red energy started gathering
on her palms. "Give me a hand with this, Aeka."

"With pleasure. Stand back, Ten-chan," warned the princess, as her
force-field started to form around one of the robots.

Washuu shook her head sadly. "Oh, the recklessness of the ignorant,"
she sighed, tapping on her keyboard.

Aeka and Ryoko shimmered for a moment. Suddenly they became bipedal
frog-like creatures, each a little over a foot tall, scurrying on the
floor.

Tenchi watched them, completely horrified. The first time Washuu had
done this, it had been a little funny, but definitely not now. He
grabbed Washuu by her clothes and held her up to his angry face.

"Change them back! Now!" he demanded loudly. "I mean it!"

"I'm not going to let them run amok in my lab," replied Washuu calmly.

Aeka and Ryoko hopped off the floor, frantically trying to bite
Washuu's legs. Her eyes narrowed as she looked down at them.

"There are *plenty* of worse things I could change you into, you
know," she warned.

"CHANGE THEM BACK!!!" shouted Tenchi. "CHANGE THEM BACK *NOW*!!!"

"On one condition," answered Washuu.

"What?" asked Tenchi.

Washuu grinned at him. "How do you want me to extract the sample,
Tenchi?"

Suddenly covered in sweat, Tenchi looked at her fearfully, and gulped.
He glanced down at Aeka and Ryoko, then back to Washuu. His shoulders
slumped as he sighed.

"Manually, I guess," he answered quietly, hanging his head in defeat.

Ryoko and Aeka's eyes widened. "Kappa! Kappa! Kappa!" they cried,
jumping up and down and waving their hands. "Kappa! Kappa! Kappa!"

"I've *got* to," replied Tenchi, shaking his head. "I can't leave you
two like this! I *can't*!" He looked Washuu in the eyes. "Just get it
over with, alright?"

Her face softened a bit, and she smiled back at him. "I'm kidding,
Tenchi."

He blinked. "You are?"

Washuu nodded. "Uh-huh. So put me down, OK?"

Tenchi lowered her until her feet touched the floor again, then let
go.

"Unless, of course, you really *want* me to," she added, grinning
again.

"Uh, I don't mean this as an insult or anything, Washuu-chan, but...
no thanks."

She shook her head. "You don't know what you're missing, but OK," she
said, before she looked sternly down at the two transformed girls. "If
you two *chemistry majors* agree not to damage anything in my lab,
I'll change you back. Got it?"

The two kappa glared back at her furiously. Washuu shrugged, and made
as if to leave.

"Just do what she says," begged Tenchi. "I can live with the clones,
but not with *this*. Please, just agree to it."

Aeka and Ryoko looked at each other, then nodded reluctantly. Washuu
poised her hands above her keyboard, and looked at the girls again.

"Next time, it'll be cicadas," she warned, before changing them back.

They felt themselves over for a moment, assuring themselves that they
were back in their normal bodies. Then they threw their arms around
Tenchi. Seeing their fearful faces, he gave each one a quick kiss.

Washuu cleared her throat. "This is a *lab*, not a movie theater. If
you want to neck, do it someplace else."

"And what was it that your robots were doing, when we came in?"
demanded Aeka.

"Scientific research," answered Washuu. "I suppose you're not going to
help me with my tests?"

"NO!!!" the girls shouted.

"You didn't have to yell," muttered Washuu. Then she looked at Tenchi.
"Manual extraction, you said?"

Ryoko and Aeka let go of Tenchi and stood in front of him, arms spread
wide.

"I told you, I was *joking*," said Washuu.

"But when you made Mecha-Washuu, the last step was to input someone's
brain patterns into her, right?" asked Tenchi, puzzled. He was
starting to get genuinely curious.

"That's right."

"Then who's patterns are in these?"

"Yours, sort of."

"That's utterly ridiculous!" snapped Aeka. "If Ten-chan acted and
thought like these... things... of yours, then the last three
months..." Aeka blushed, hesitated, then twiddled her fingers
nervously for a few moments. "In any case, how dare you insult him
like that! You know as well as I that Ten-chan isn't like... like...
like *those*!" she finished, pointing at the lust-crazed expressions
on the robots.

Tenchi thought for a moment. "But you had to stand in that big glass
chamber to feed your mind into Mecha-Washuu, didn't you? *I've* never
been in that, so how can my mind be in these?"

Washuu smiled. "The frontiers of science never stand still! What was
unthinkable yesterday is ordinary today! And I said `sort of.' It's
not just *your* mind that's in there." Washuu clasped her hands
together, and her eyes sparkled. "This is the first time this has ever
been successful! I've managed to create a single, complete brain
pattern from the separated partial patterns of two individuals!"

"Me, and...?"

"Your dad!"

"MY DAD?!?!"

"That's right. I saved all the pattern scans I did on you.
Unfortunately, since so much of the pattern is defined relative to the
state of the rest of the universe at the moment, they become less and
less accurate the older they get, because everything else changes.
After a day or so they lose so much detail that they aren't useful for
this anymore. But the other day I got a set of scans from your dad. I
used them to plug the gaps from *your* scan from the previous day, and
fed them into the Mecha-Tenchis as fast as I could, before they broke
down. And it worked! Flawlessly!"

Tenchi's head spun for a moment. "So they're copies of me *and* my
dad?"

Washuu shook her head. "Not exact copies. Like I said, a few of your
patterns had degraded in storage. And since I could only get a really
*good* read on your dad's hentai pattern, I needed to enhance that to
compensate for the missing ones."

"Enhance?" asked Tenchi nervously. Washuu nodded. "By how much?"

"Nine."

Tenchi began to sweat. "Each one of them is nine *times* more hentai
than my dad?"

"Oh, no," assured Washuu.

Tenchi wiped his brow. "Whew!"

"They're each nine *orders of magnitude* more hentai."

Tenchi face-faulted. "They're each a *BILLION* times as hentai as my
dad?!" he asked, his voice shaking in terror.

"Yep."

"But that's... that's probably more perverse than anyone on Earth!"

"Mmm-hmm," agreed Washuu, smiling. Suddenly she grinned and pointed
upward.

"AND THAT IS WHY THEY ARE SO *PERFECT*!"

"Why'd you have to make them look like *me*?!?!" he demanded, glaring
at her.

Washuu shrugged. "It's not my fault that you're almost as kawaii as I
am. Besides, if you'd have just given me that sample, I could have
made *clones*, with your *real* personality. I'd have preferred to do
that -- a hentai pattern as strong as the Mecha- Tenchis have isn't
stable, and it tends to fluctuate a lot. But, since you were
stubborn..." She smiled. "Anyway, it was for the best. This is a
scientific breakthrough of staggering proportions! An accomplishment
never achieved before! Some of my former colleagues doubted my
theories on this, you understand, but, boy, did I just prove *them*
wrong! When I get back to the Science Academy, I've got some bets to
collect on!" Washuu grinned and rubbed her hands together. "I can't
wait to see the looks on their faces when they see the data -- fully
documented, mind you! -- because its going to send them all back to
cleaning test-tubes for a living!"

Suddenly, the puppets appeared on Washuu's shoulders.

"They're incompetent, Washuu!"

"They're unfit to set foot inside a lab, Washuu!"

"But you're a scientific genius, Washuu!"

"Yes, you're the greatest in the universe, Washuu!"

Washuu put her hands on her hips and cackled while the puppets got out
tiny fans and waved them, shouting "Hooray! Hooray! Waaaa-shuuuuuuuu!"
for several minutes.

When they finally stopped, Washuu cleared her throat and calmed down.
"Anyway, I also managed to..." she started up again.

"Excuse me," interrupted Tenchi, "but could you at least put some
clothes on them?"

"I was just getting to that," replied Washuu. "Allow me to
demonstrate." She typed some commands, and the three Mecha- Tenchis
were no longer naked. One was dressed in Tenchi's school uniform, the
other in the brown shirt and dark pants he often wore, and the last in
a Science Academy uniform similar to Washuu's but with a more
masculine cut.

Ryoko and Aeka cast very disapproving glances at Science Academy
Tenchi for a moment.

Now Tenchi was rather impressed, with the robot likeness of him in a
less seamy context. "You know, I think that scientist outfit looks
nice on me," he said.

"Yes, it sure does," agreed Washuu, smiling.

Aeka and Ryoko frowned and glared at Washuu.

"Can you dress them in anything else?" asked Tenchi.

Washuu grinned. "Yes. *Literally* anything else. I've got the
mechanism hooked into a cross-referenced galaxy-wide database of
clothing styles, spanning the last twenty thousand years. If someone
wore it, the Mecha-Tenchi's can. How about this...?" Suddenly the
school uniform on the first Mecha-Tenchi shimmered and became one for
the Galaxy Police. "How do you like Special Investigator Tenchi?"

"I don't think I do," said Aeka quietly.

"Neither do I," agreed Ryoko.

"And I mean it," continued Washuu. "Anything!" Suddenly there stood
Viking Tenchi, Pharaoh Tenchi, and Raja Tenchi.

"Hey, this is interesting! Can I try it?" asked Tenchi.

"Sure! I'll set it up in a more user-friendly mode. Let me show you
how it works..." Tenchi looked down at the keyboard as Washuu
explained the various functions. "See? You use these to select planet,
time period, and all those details. Then when you see what you want,
you just touch it with your finger."

Ryoko and Aeka quickly flanked Tenchi protectively, making sure Washuu
didn't try anything while he was distracted.

"OK, let me see..." said Tenchi, thinking for a moment. After a few
moments of fumbling with it, the Mecha-Tenchis changed again, this
time into EVA Pilot Tenchi, Race-car Driver Tenchi, and Business
Executive Tenchi.

"What exactly does this have to do with... what you said their purpose
was?" asked Aeka.

"Like I said, they're sex toys," answered Washuu. "This is for the
fantasy mode. Knights in shining armor, that kind of stuff."

Fortunately for Tenchi, he was engrossed in picking the next set of
personas, and hadn't really heard the "sex toy" part. He finished
selecting, and there stood World War II Japanese Ace Tenchi, Samurai
Tenchi, and Space Cruiser Yamato Tenchi, in a white-and-red uniform
like Susumu Kodai's.

"The only problem right now is that the clothing and accessories are
limited to a mass of fifty kilograms," explained Washuu. "And they
can't be changed except here in the lab."

"Why?" asked Ryoko.

"Because it doesn't *create* the clothes, it rearranges the extra
molecules in the Mecha to *become* the clothes. And that takes a lot
of energy. More than they have in them. So the equipment here in the
lab does it. Once I get a more compact design, they'll be
self-contained, though."

Aeka thought for a moment. "Washuu-chan, do you suppose I could try
this? There's something I've been wondering about."

"Sure. What about you, Ryoko?" asked Washuu.

"Why not?" replied Ryoko. "It looks interesting."

Washuu summoned up two more consoles out of the air, and handed them
over. She quickly showed the girls how to work the controls. "I've set
one Mecha-Tenchi for each of you. Now I'm going upstairs to get a bite
to eat. I haven't had anything since yesterday." She turned to leave,
then stopped. "Tenchi, you'll make sure nothing happens to my
inventions, right?"

Tenchi nodded. "I guess as long as they stay down here, and just stand
there, they're just mannequins who look like me."

"Alright." She looked hard at Ryoko and Aeka. "But if you like those
two the way they are, make sure they don't do anything rash." She
headed out and closed the door behind her, her brow furrowed in
thought. No one was in the kitchen when she got there, but Sasami,
considerate as usual, had saved Washuu's breakfast. The scientist
pulled it out of the refrigerator, reheated it, and sat down at the
table.

One thing was abundantly clear: something had happened between Tenchi
and the two girls. And it wasn't just a matter of sex. He'd willingly
shown affection to them without caring that she was watching. That was
a deviation from his previous behavior pattern that mere physical
contact was unlikely to produce. An alteration of Tenchi's emotional
state had obviously taken place.

Washuu shook her head. It would have been interesting -- and
enjoyable, the two were the same, after all -- to have induced that in
Tenchi herself. But that was past. She'd already made her decision.

Now that the bond had formed between those three, it wasn't going to
be easily broken. And Washuu didn't really want to do so, anyway.
Neither Aeka nor Ryoko could endure that, and now, Tenchi probably
couldn't, either. Washuu sighed, and smiled. There had been others
before Tenchi, and unlike the two young girls, Washuu had the sense to
see that there would be others after him, as well, if she wished. She
could deal with not having him, whereas such a thing would quite
probably destroy Ryoko and Aeka. And Washuu wasn't in the habit of
making others pay such a terribly high price for what she wanted. So
she'd made her choice.

Let the children play.

Satisfied with the wisdom of her course, Washuu started on her
breakfast, while, down in her lab, the children amused themselves with
her latest toys.

"Now, let me see..." said Aeka, turning her attention to her console.
"Ah!" Moments later, one of the Tenchis was clad in lavish, ornate
robes.

Ryoko glared murderously at Aeka as Tenchi smiled. "Looks nice. Who am
I supposed to be?" he asked.

"That is you as the Emperor of Jurai," replied Aeka, her voice full of
pride and happiness.

"Oh," said Tenchi nervously.

"How about this, Tenchi?" asked Ryoko. Suddenly one of the other
Tenchis changed as well, his clothes becoming those of Captain
Harlock, without the scar or eyepatch. "Or this?" Now the Mecha-
Tenchi wore an outfit almost identical to Ryoko's black-and-red battle
attire, but with the colors reversed.

Aeka glared back at Ryoko, then put her nose up in the air.

"I like those, too," replied Tenchi, hoping that the girls weren't
implying what they seemed to be. He liked his home just fine, and
being an emperor or a space pirate didn't really appeal to him. Trying
to defuse the situation, he selected something innocuous.

Train Conductor Tenchi appeared.

Ryoko thought for a moment. She picked another option, and there stood
Tarzan Tenchi.

Aeka shook her head, fiddled with the console, and changed Emperor
Tenchi into Knight Tenchi, complete with a full suit of golden plate
armor.

Tarzan Tenchi became Yakuza Tenchi.

Knight Tenchi gave way to Daimyo Tenchi.

Meanwhile, the real Tenchi decided that maybe all this could be rather
informative.

*I might as well watch and find out a little of what they think I
should be.*

Yakuza Tenchi turned into Ninja Tenchi, Rambo Tenchi, Robin Hood
Tenchi, Blackbeard Tenchi (without the beard), Biker Tenchi, Heavy
Metal Rock Star Tenchi...

Daimyo Tenchi gave way to a white-robed Luke Skywalker Tenchi, a
formal tuxedo-clad Tenchi, Idol Singer Tenchi, Tenchi dressed in a
contemporary Japanese military uniform, White Hat Cowboy Tenchi, and
Tenchi in a costume similar to Emperor Tenchi's robes, with black
slashes painted on his cheeks.

"Wow, what's that?" he asked.

"Jurai battle armor," replied Aeka, smiling. "I think you look very
dashing in it."

Ryoko frowned, then started going through the previous settings and
brought EVA Pilot Tenchi back. Just as Washuu had said, it was
cross-referenced. Flipping through them, Ryoko switched EVA Tenchi to
Patrol Labor Tenchi to Gundam Tenchi to Votoms Tenchi to Macross
Tenchi, clad exactly like Hikaru Ichijo.

Tenchi chuckled, feeling rather amused. "I always did like that show.
Too bad I can't have a Valkyrie to go with it."

"A what?" asked Ryoko.

"The fighter plane that goes with that uniform," explained Tenchi.

"Oh, you mean this?" asked Ryoko, touching an object on her screen.

It was at this point that a large portion of Washuu's lab exploded.

A splash of water on his face brought Tenchi back to consciousness. He
opened his eyes.

Washuu looked down at him, concern on her face for just a moment. "Ah.
You're awake. What in the world happened here, Tenchi?"

Tenchi looked to either side of him, and saw Ryoko and Aeka lying on
the floor. He quickly tried to sit up, only to nearly collapse from
the sudden pain and vertigo whirling inside his skull. "I'm not sure.
Are they... alright?" he managed to ask, putting his hands against his
head as if to keep it from bursting.

"They'll be fine," Washuu assured him. "I'll get to them in a second.
Here, let me help you up." She put her arm behind him and gently
lifted Tenchi into a partially-sitting position, allowing him to rest
his back against her, cradling him like a baby. "I'll bet your head
hurts."

"Yeah, does it ever," replied Tenchi, wincing. "Can you wake up Aeka
and Ryoko now?"

Washuu was silent for a few seconds. "In a moment. But first, as long
as we're here, would you mind telling me something?"

"Sure."

"What was it that made you so reluctant to let me take that sample?"

Tenchi gulped, suddenly aware of his proximity to Washuu and his
rather helpless condition. "I thought you said you were just kidding,"
he said nervously.

"I meant, I'm not going to try to make you give it to me. But I'm
curious as to why. There's a theory I want to confirm."

Tenchi thought about it. "I guess it's because you never really
*asked* me. You just snuck up on me, scared me, and tried to force me.
You and Ryoko *both* did that." He shook his head for a moment, then
stopped and clutched it again. "Owwwwwwww! Anyway, why couldn't you
have done things *normally*? Something not so threatening? Like ask me
to go out to eat, or to a movie."

"You're dealing with people who are very different from you, Tenchi,
and `normal' is a very subjective term," explained Washuu. "That makes
communication difficult." 

"Yes, I suppose it does," said Tenchi.

"The rest of them don't understand this well enough to explain it, so
I'll try." Washuu paused for a moment, then cleared her throat as if
starting to give a lecture to her class. "From what I've seen, you
live in a society where women are usually fairly passive. They're not
expected to take the initiative, or to control things. But none of
*us* are like that. I conduct experiments and create inventions.
Mihoshi and Kiyone fight criminals. Ryoko captures ships and loots
them. Aeka's going to rule an empire someday -- and when that day
comes, she's not going to be the shy girl you think you know. So
naturally that comes across, to some degree, in how we deal with
people. And you feel threatened by that."

Tenchi nodded slowly. "You're right. I guess I have overreacted a bit.
I never meant to hurt anyone's feelings. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It's normal, and it cuts both ways. The rest of us should
have realized that *you* were different from *us*, too. I just wanted
you to know that the experiments I had planned for you weren't going
to be anything you wouldn't enjoy." She smiled. "I'm always very nice
to my guinea pigs."

Tenchi smiled back. "Thanks, I guess."

"One more thing," said Washuu.

"Yes?"

Suddenly Washuu's bright green eyes flashed in front of Tenchi's face
as she bent down and kissed him. Tenchi's eyes bugged out but he
didn't struggle much, surprised at how good a kisser Washuu was.
Youthful lips backed up by millennia of experience and precise
rational control pressed against his for several seconds. Then Washuu
leaned back up and their mouths parted.

Tenchi began to sweat. "Um, Washuu-chan, I don't think this is such a
good idea."

"I just wanted to let you see what you're missing out on, that's all,"
replied Washuu. She glanced at Aeka and Ryoko, then back to Tenchi. "I
may be the greatest genius in the universe, but I'm not heartless, and
the situation here is pretty obvious. Sometimes I do make decisions on
a non-scientific basis, you know."

Tenchi stared up at her for a moment, wondering if every person he
knew was like this -- if they had a side to them they rarely chose to
show, completely different from what he expected.

"I think you're OK to stand now," said Washuu, getting up and pulling
him upright. "There. Still feel dizzy?"

"A little, but I'm not going to fall," replied Tenchi.

Washuu picked up a bucket of water from the floor and grinned. "OK,
you two, enough taking naps in my lab!" She splashed the two prone
girls with a couple liters of water each. "Rise and shine!"

For the second time that day, Ryoko and Aeka grumbled and started to
rise from the floor. Tenchi and Washuu helped them up.

"What happened?" moaned Ryoko.

"I was going to ask *you* the same thing," replied Washuu. "What did
you three do to my lab?"

"Nothing! Honest!" answered Ryoko. "We were going through outfits for
those robots of yours, and suddenly the whole place blew up!"

"Excuse me, but how long were we unconscious?" asked Aeka, rubbing her
head.

"I don't know. I've been gone for about half an hour," said Washuu.
"Then I came back down here, and found you three and MY LAB like
this." She summoned up her console out of the air, and started typing.
"Luckily, when the door's shut energy doesn't cross the boundaries
between the dimensions. Otherwise, the whole house could have been
destroyed. And it's a good thing for you three that the explosion
seems to have originated on the other side of the lab. Now, let me see
what you kids did to cause this..."

"Washuu-chan, I assure you, none of us did anything remotely
dangerous," said Aeka.

"Yeah!" said Ryoko. "How can changing the clothes on those things of
yours make stuff explode?"

Washuu's eyes widened for a moment, then she put her face in her
hands, muttering incoherent angry words. "It does when you don't stick
just to clothes," she said. "I *told* you the limit was fifty
kilograms!"

"So?" asked Ryoko.

"Don't you think a space fighter weighs just a little more than fifty
kilograms?!?!" demanded Washuu. "Don't you have any common sense?!?!"
She started reading off the computer's log of the last actions related
to the Mecha-Tenchis. "When there wasn't enough mass for it to
convert, the main generator overloaded, the auxiliary generator
switched in and loaded the Mecha with their default parameters, and
then the main blew up, taking the auxiliary with it." She clenched her
fists. "It took me almost a week to construct it! Not to mention all
the other equipment that went with it when it exploded! Including the
remote control mechanisms for the Mecha..."

Washuu wheeled and looked around. "Where are they?"

"Where are what?" asked Tenchi.

"The Mecha-Tenchis! They're gone!" Washuu started typing on her
keyboard. "When their link to the computer was destroyed, they must
have decided to go wander off."

"Where would they have gone?" asked Aeka.

"They'll find a place where they can fulfill their programming," said
Washuu.

"Which is...?" asked Tenchi, Ryoko, and Aeka at the same time.

"You saw the tests I was running. Is it really that hard to
understand?" asked Washuu.

"Do you mean to tell me that there are three people on the loose who
look just like Ten-chan, but that they're... they're..." started Aeka.

"... more perverted than anyone else on Earth, and besides that
they've got... got..." continued Tenchi.

"... dicks, oh, about this long?" finished Ryoko, gesturing with her
hands.

Washuu shrugged. "That's about the size of it. Two of them, not three,
though -- the third one was consumed when Ryoko tried to turn him into
a spaceship."

"That wasn't my *fault*!" said Ryoko.

"But can't you activate their self-destruct mechanisms, like you did
with the first Mecha-Washuu?" asked Tenchi.

Washuu shook her head, obviously annoyed at a very foolish question.
"No. Not after you destroyed the systems that control them remotely.
In a day or so, I can build another one. But first I'm going to put
together something that will enable us to track them."

As Washuu set to work, miles away Kiyone and Mihoshi sat down wearily
on the floor of their apartment.

"Well, that's *another* job down the tubes," sighed Kiyone, massaging
her temples. "And this headache is *killing* me." She reached into her
purse, got out a bottle of aspirin, and gulped three tablets.