Opening Shot: The earth slowly revolves, revealing a shining sun. On the
earth, we can see a city which looks vaguely like a pentacle.
NARRATOR: Behold! Da mahvellous woild of da fucha! Thanks to da
creation of Cristal Tokyo, which brought about da Thoid Age of Mankoind,
yumanity has entered an era of prospairity. But behoind da shadow of such
glory-us peace, dere are --
SHEILA: Fran, I'm glad to see you again, but could you PLEASE cut the
accent?
The image freezes. The caption, Experts of Fanfic Review: The Text File
appears.
Cut to the usual theatre. SHEILA and MISA are coming down the aisle to
where RYOUKO, HIROE, and RITSUKO are already seated.
SHEILA: Wow, I can't believe it's been so long since we did one of these!
I wonder why we stopped?
MISA: <looking away> I can't imagine.
HIROE: Well, now that Butler-sensei --
RYOUKO: Butler-sensei?
HIROE: He's The Professor, ne? Anyway, now that he's gotten the next
chapter of this out, we should be a little more active.
RITSUKO: It should be interesting to see how things pan out. Well, who
wants to give the word?
RYOUKO: I will. <beat> And *you*, Sheila, are going to DIE, DIE, DIE!
SHEILA: Wha--
Not that the guy they got for the Pair's Fan Defender is much better. I
mean... him? The one who -- Well. <Beat> Let bygones be bygones, I
suppose.]
HIROE: No! Let's not! What he did was unforgivable!
SHEILA: Geez, Hiroe, I had no idea that --
HIROE: Matching 'tousan up with that pig-girl! Yurusenai!
Moments later, a head popped up over the edge of the cart. Kaede looked
around carefully, blinked, and stood up slowly, her posture relaxing a
little... until a knot of about 20 midgets in white ninja outfits, with
what looked like ping-pong balls for headgear, tumbled down on her from
an awning above. She disappeared beneath a sea of flailing white limbs
that strangely enough didn't seem to be inflicting much damage.
Occasionally one of the figures would be flung about five or six feet
away, before running back into the fray.
MISA: Oh, crap! It's the Phone Pole Team!
<dead silence>
SHEILA: Who?
With a loud clanking noise, underlaid by the smooth purring of a
well-maintained engine, a large mecha came rumbling around the corner,
followed by a small black-and-white Honda police car; both stopped as
they saw the fight. "Freeze!" an amplified female voice boomed out from
the mecha, which lifted an arm to point menacingly at the melee. A head
popped up out of the cockpit. "You're under arrest!"
RITSUKO: Ahem. In the interests of clarity, I would advise the author to
more completely describe the mecha being piloted by Officer Tsujimoto in
this scene. The author has sadly made the frequent mistake of using "mecha"
as a synonym for "anthropomorphic vehicle", when in fact it describes *all*
vehicles. At the very least, the adjective "humaniform" would be
appreciated.
"I always love doing that," the mecha driver
RYOUKO: "pilot", not "driver". People "drive" tanks and cars, they "pilot"
airplanes, Mobile Suits, and Labors.
"I don't know where they've gone. Neither does anyone else I've talked
to. The last time anyone saw them was at the 9th Ave. Ucchan's, when
Breckenridge --"
HIROE: You know, these scenes do just as good a job of bringing a new
reader up to speed on the story as the summary did, earlier ...
"Oh," said Kaede, standing calmly. "It's rehersal time. The neighbors are
kind of used to it by now." She smiled. "Why do you think the streets are
so empty?"
HIROE: "rehearsal".
"They *never* should have intoduced Minmei to Priss," Kaede continued,
shaking her head.
SHEILA: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHH!
RITSUKO: <shakes head> That's terrible. That's just terrible.
RYOUKO: <thinking out loud> Oh, god. The chief is going to get ideas from
this. I'm going to have to deal with the Macross 7 crowd, next ...
"Don't knock it," Siggie advised, rubbing his eyes again and turning a
somber gaze on her. "Over three-quarters of the list are lurkers, you
know. Some of 'em have been there for a *long* time."
RITSUKO: You know, I think we have a new suspect.
A MAN in Shakespearean dress walks through, muttering loudly.
MAN: A plague 'a both your houses!
RITSUKO: Right play, wrong character ...
"Bad man!" With a humph!, Nuku Nuku threw Zen out the window. Briskly
brushing her hands off, she turned around and walked back to the
Chairman's office.
HIROE: Wai! Nuku Nuku ganbatte!
"Cheers! It doesn't take much practice, you know. Soon you'll be imbibing
with the best of us." He smiled. "It's amazing the things you can pick up
in a short while, isn't it? New habits, new desires, even whole new
roles."
Kaede looked blearily up at Yotsuya. "Roles?"
"Why, yes. I'm of the firm opinion that anyone can learn to play any
role." He drained his glass and refilled it; at his insistent gesture,
Kaede reluctantly held her glass out for one as well. "Oh, you may need
some coaching, a bit of this, a bit of that... but anyone can be anyone."
MISA: Hmmm ... this suggests something ...
"The interesting thing is what they might have been doing the day they
were arrested. They were seen all around town that day. I'm still trying
to pull together a little more information on what they were doing."
Kaede frowned in puzzlement. "Some of them were just normal things --
grocery shopping, trips to the laundromat, and so forth. But they also
had some meetings in some pretty scary parts of town. One of my sources
said she saw them in Author country." She shook her head. "A couple of
people even thought they saw them across town at about the time they were
arrested, and that doesn't make any sense. Their watches must have been
off -- say what you like about the ADP, at least they make their clocks
run on time."
RYOUKO: <decisive> Clones. Clones or <beat; startled> TIME TRAVEL!
RITSUKO: Could that be it? We know that Windir, Frito, and Lyra have time
travelled, in the early part of this, but we don't know to when or where ...
MISA: <sad smile> Time travel is a funny thing, isn't it. Well, I think we
can say that we're all looking forward to the next bit!
Chris Davies.