Since I am releasing chapter 2 tonight, I thought I would also post the
Final version of Chapter 1.
A few minor problems (such as names) are cleaned up, and three sections
received rewrites based on C&C from readers of the list.
Quantum Destinies
A Ranma Fanfic
By Steven Thesken (jurai-knight@home.com)
This is purely a work of fanfiction done for fun, so please read and
enjoy. Comments and Criticisms are always welcome. It helps me to
know what is working, and what I need to work on to improve my
writing. Flames are ejected into an appropriate receptacle.
This idea occurred to me after I finished the science-fiction novel
"Paths to Otherwhere" by James P. Hogan, a great book by an author I
have long liked.
Ranma and all other associated characters are owned by Kitty and the
ever-creative Rumiko Takahashi. This is primarily a Ranma fanfic,
but I will be bringing in characters from other series for added color.
They will mainly be used for lesser roles or villains. Any new
characters are the property of the author.
Version 1.0 of this story may be found on a few places on the Web
since I first began writing it, or you may email the author for them:
Cursed One's Anime Fanfiction
http://members.xoom.com/Cursed_One/fanfic.html
Gorlando's Tribute to Ranma 1/2
http://home.one.net/~gorlando/Anime/ranma/index.html
Nostradamus Vault of Anime Fanfics
http://Nyx.Webjump.com/
Author's Note: Thoughts will be bracketed by a * on each end. Any
speech other than Japanese will be bracketed by < and >.
Chapter 1 - Genesis
***** Earth #0001-001
It was nighttime in Moscow. Outside the window of the hotel room,
a cold rain pattered heavily against the glass. Next to an unopened
letter that rested on the nightstand, a fresh cup of tea, recently poured
from the pot, gave off light swirls of steam. On the bed sat a young
man, a little over sixteen years of age, a thick book opened before him.
It was a text on genetics, lit by the lamp just to his right.
His name was Ranma Saotome.
Closing the book, the young scholar sighed because he just couldn't
maintain his focus. His thoughts kept jumping to the letter laying next
to his tea. It represented the end of his present chapter of life, and the
beginning of a new one. The long white envelope bore the distinctive
seal of the Imperial Ministry of Education.
Ranma knew what was in it without even opening it. It was his
official welcome to join the first year class at the Imperial Senior
Academy of Japan, the most prestigious institution of learning in the
Empire and quite possibly the world. It also represented the return to
his life in Japan, a life that he had left behind almost ten years earlier
when his father, Genma, had begun his educational travels.
Again sighing, Ranma picked up the television remote, intent on
distracting himself from his thoughts. He aimed it at the screen and
pressed the power switch. The television came on with a flurry of
colored snow that quickly resolved into the evening news.
"<... the Kaiser's regime in Germany has continued its aggressive
posture towards the Polish government,>" said the pretty, blonde
newscaster in Russian. "<Tsar Alexander has continued to express his
support for the Polish people and has threatened military action if the
Kaiser continues this course of action. In other news...>"
Not really interested in the political games of the European
aristocracies, he flipped to the next channel.
"<...are seeing pictures showing the results from the latest Irish
attack against Her Majesty's forces in Dublin,>" said a buxom redhead
in English, speaking with a faint Scottish accent. "<Fighting
continues in the streets as evening approaches. The Prime Minister
has been seen in the recent polls as a failure for this debacle. The
cease-fire ended in bloodshed yesterday when...>"
"Oh, great," he complained to no one in particular. "Just what I
want to see, more news." Switching the station again, he settled on
the next channel in rotation.
"<...make a point to visit the scenic nation of Virginia, a country set
in one of the most beautiful regions of the American continent,>"
drawled an attractive brunette in English. "<We offer some of the
finest resorts available in the world, and our people will welcome you
with open arms. No matter what your desires are, we will do our best
to fulfill them. Our new addition to the Richmond Sports Complex is
our own Arena, the only one located outside the Empire of Japan...>"
"I hate commercials," he mumbled as he turned the station again.
"<... but I love you, Alexia,>" said a male actor on screen. "<I don't
care what my family thinks or what agreements that they have made. I
refuse to be engaged against my will, especially to a woman that I
don't love.>"
Ranma snorted. *Soap operas. Like real life can ever get that
complicated.*
The screen suddenly changed to a station identification and a deep
male voice announced, "<You are watching 'Young Nobles' here on
Channel Eight. We will be back after a word from our sponsors.>"
"Pass," he said, flipping channels once again.
"...but it is our duty to fight against the shadows, Ki," said a
desperate female voice in Japanese. On the screen an animated
drawing of a girl in a skintight outfit was pleading with an animated
drawing of a young man dressed similarly. "If we don't somehow
manage to defeat them, then the Empire will be destroyed by their evil.
Don't you remember what it means to be a Shadow Hunter? We swore
a sacred oath to the Emperor when we gained our powers that we..."
"Anything but anime," he said with a sigh, clicking to the next
channel.
"... and when we return, we will be having an interview with the
baddest of the bad girls fighting in the Imperial Arena, that sexy
package of violent beauty, the incomparable Mina Li," said a cheerful
announcer. "So stay tuned to 'Arena Today.'" Ranma paused on the
channel for a moment, but grew bored quickly when the commercials
began.
Ranma shut the television off and flopped back on the bed, arms
spread wide on the thick quilt atop it. He turned his head to eye the
underside of the table where the letter from Japan was sitting. One
hand reached over and fumbled blindly across the table top, nearly
spilling his tea on himself. He finally found the envelope and picked it
up.
Sitting up, Ranma ripped open the envelope along one end. He held
it by the edges and blew down the center, splaying it open. Reaching
in, he pulled out the letter within, flipping it open one-handed.
The letter read just as he expected. It started with a rather long-
winded greeting, complimenting him on his decision to attend the
Imperial Academy and congratulating him on his exam scores.
Ranma grinned broadly when he saw the comment in the letter that he
had achieved a perfect score on the entrance exam, the single highest
score ever recorded since the Academy was first founded.
The course of study would take three years, and the letter expressed
hopes that he would consider enlisting for a term of service with the
Empire once his training at the Academy was up. *Not likely,*
thought Ranma with a wry smile as he continued to read. Joining the
military held absolutely no interest for him. However, he needed to
get through the Academy in order to win a place in the Ministry of
Science.
Joining the Academy would also give him access to materials that
would enable him to prove his father's theories on parallel worlds, and
that was paramount to him. Ranma was so close to solving the design
problems that he could taste it. The equipment that he had been
working with so far had proven to be insufficient for his needs. He
needed some of the prototype equipment that he could requisition
through the Academy, that would help him complete his invention.
*The Quantum Neural Resonator,* he thought with a smile. He
was rather proud of the name for his device. He looked over at his
thick, black notebook, bulging with design specifications and needed
parts lists. *Once I get it built, my life is never going to be the same.*
He could hardly wait.
From a two year old dream, the idea came almost fully developed,
like a flash of revelation from the heavens. In his vision, an
enormous, clean blackboard sat in front of him, when suddenly
symbols of blue fire etched themselves onto its surface. Ranma found
himself looking at a multitude of circuit diagrams and mathematical
formulae crammed together haphazardly. Luckily, his eidetic memory
had allowed him to bring all of it back to the waking world.
Some of it was pure nonsense, like junk data in a computer system,
but the majority were some of the most beautiful equations that Ranma
had ever seen. Ranma spent many hours writing down the equations
and the diagrams, even the nonsensical material, fearing that they
would fade from his mind like the dream that they had come from.
Ranma was able to recognize most of the symbology from his father's
own work on quantum mechanics. The rest required almost two years
of painstaking effort on his part to solve. The partial circuit diagrams
had been filled in as well over time.
If he could just get the proper components together, it should work.
Assuming that his mind had been processing his father's work on its
own, Ranma took the vision as his subconscious's way of proving the
senior Saotome right. His father, the pioneer in the field of quantum
mechanics and parallel universe theory, never found a method of
proving their existence.
Ranma's dream had given him the method. He only had to build it,
and build it he would. It represented quite possibly the single most
exciting piece of research that he had ever attempted in his young life.
If, no, when he succeeded, then the potential for learning from other
timelines would be enormous.
Attending the Academy was a small price to pay for achieving his
dream. However, the closer the reality came, the more leery of it that
he became. What if it didn't work? What if the Academy wouldn't let
him build it? What if it turned out to be dangerous? These were the
questions that had plagued him late at night.
Worst of all, how would he handle being around people his own
age? Ranma would never admit to being frightened, as his own sense
of self-confidence was very strong from many years of being praised
for his intellectual abilities. He was the best of his generation, and he
knew it. However, he could admit to feeling somewhat concerned at
dealing with his peers. Having spent his entire life thus far around
older men and women, studying the combined knowledge of the world,
Ranma's social skills could, at best, be described as anemic.
His father had lavished enormous amounts of time and effort on
training Ranma's intellectual abilities, restricting Ranma from forming
any form of social bonds outside of his teachers. They had moved
around too much for that, so Ranma had never had any friends his
own age. He had never even gone out on a date, so he wasn't even
sure how to relate to girls. All of the women that he had ever come in
contact with during the course of his studies had all been old enough
to be his mother, or even older.
All of which made him feel somewhat anxious about his future at
the Academy. Ranma suddenly shrugged and finished reading the
letter. *I'm sure that everything will turn out all right. It's not like a
girl's going to hit me for looking at her wrong, right?* He chuckled a
little at that, his calm restored.
Due to his previous study commitments in Russia, he had already
missed the Academy welcoming ceremonies and several weeks of the
new term. A special exemption for late arrival was mentioned in the
letter, and it was hoped that he would be able to make up the backlog
of work with a minimum of difficulty.
The letter was signed by the Dean of the Academy, Kouzou
Fuyutsuki, who included a brief personal note that he would be
expecting Ranma for a one-on-one interview at his arrival. Ranma
frowned slightly. Dealing with people on a social level was not one of
his strong suits.
There was a knock on the door to his room. Ranma folded the letter
up and put it back into the envelope before replacing it on the table.
"Come in!" he shouted. The door opened, and his father, Genma
Saotome, came walking in. He waved a pair of plane tickets in one
hand. He was wearing a dark blue suit, the latest style from London,
and his usual wire-rimmed glasses.
"You can congratulate your father on his ingenuity once again,
Ranma," said Genma with a grin. "It took a little bit of doing, but I
managed to get us a couple of first class tickets on the next supersonic
transport flight back to Japan. By this time tomorrow, you'll be able to
sleep in your old room." Genma put the tickets away in the front coat
pocket of his suit.
"It will be nice to see Mother again," said Ranma in a calm tone.
"It's been such a long time. I barely even remember her." That had
always troubled him a little, like his life had only truly began when he
was six years old. The events before that age were fuzzy and
dreamlike in comparison, vague images and flashes of memory. His
memories of his mother were comforting, but the upcoming reality of
seeing her left him feeling a little bit nervous.
"She's excited that we are finally returning home," said Genma. His
voice took on a wistful tone. "It's hard to believe that it's been over ten
years already. It seems like only yesterday that I started your
education and took you out to see the world." A brief silence fell
across the room during Genma's reverie.
"Do we really have to go back to Japan right now?" asked Ranma,
his nervousness finally urging him to speak. "There's still so much
that I wanted to study here in Moscow. The Physics Department has
just started planning the new fusion reactor for the University, and
they invited me to participate. I had a few ideas on improving heat
exchange efficiency that they found intriguing."
Genma looked at his only son for a moment.
"Ranma... Son, it's time to go home," said Genma in a serious tone
of voice. "Everything that you could study here in Russia you can
learn about in Japan. The Imperial Academy has the finest facilities
that a boy of your capabilities could need in the world for learning. It
will also be good for you to be among people your own age. You've
spent far too much time around crusty old men like your father."
"I... guess that might be kind of fun," admitted Ranma. "I read the
letter from the Academy. They are holding my spot open, pending my
arrival."
"Dean Fuyutsuki's an old friend of mine," said Genma. "I knew that
we wouldn't be able to get back in time for welcoming ceremonies, so I
asked him to help us out like that. He was glad to do it, and he's
expecting you to pay him a call after your arrival."
"I will, Father," said Ranma. "I promise."
"Good," said Genma with a nod. "You'd better get to sleep now.
We have an early plane to catch in the morning."
******************************
Nodoka hummed a soft tune as she went through her morning mail.
She pulled out a small postcard with a polar bear on the front and
turned it over. Seeing a message from Genma, she started smiling.
*Honestly,* she thought with amusement, *that husband of mine
can write page after page of research papers, but he can't bring himself
to do more than send a postcard once a month to let me know that he
and Ranma are still alive.*
She read the brief message.
"Nodoka. Bringing Ranma from Russia. Genma."
*Well, he still certainly knows how to make a woman happy,*
thought Nodoka with a larger smile. *It will be so good to see them
both again, especially Ranma. How he must have grown. I wonder if
I'll be able to recognize him?*
She went back into the house and began to prepare for the arrival of
the two men in her life.
******************************
In the center of Tokyo lay one of the most austerely impressive
buildings in modern Japan, the Imperial Security Directorate. It was
responsible for dealing with all threats to the well-being of the Empire,
both internal and external. Established almost three centuries ago, it
provided a means for the Empire to maintain control of every inch of
territory that had come into its possession.
Its ranks were composed of the cream of the Empire, men and
women who had dedicated their lives, and sometimes their deaths, to
insuring its continued safety. Each had taken an oath of obedience to
the Emperor. It was almost a tradition in some families to choose to
serve here.
One such family was the Tendou household.
Soun Tendou sat behind his desk in the Security Directorate and
looked through the stack of paperwork that had managed to
accumulate on his desk since he had gone home the night before. As
was his usual policy, he arrived early, and he was planning to work
late. As the Assistant Director for the Internal Security Section, the
segment of the Directorate under his direct control, he was responsible
for monitoring a large portion of the Citizen population, monitoring
that always seemed to generate a large amount of paperwork.
Those under him handled the routine investigations, monitoring
data traffic and telephone communications, keeping under surveillance
those suspected of being dissidents, and other such matters. At his
level, and that of his immediate subordinates, Soun dealt with the
higher profile people, those that the Empire had tagged during their
lives for much more intensive monitoring. One of the files that he had
been watching for many years had finally crossed his desk again.
Soun smiled slightly when he spotted the file, and the brief note that
sat atop it. *How I've waited for this day,* he thought with a brief but
unexpected moment of happiness. *Ranma Saotome is finally coming
home.* Soon his plans for his family would finally be coming true.
Soun reached out and pulled the file in front of him, flipping it open
as he pulled out and lit up a cigarette. He perused the information on
Ranma's recent activities, but they were rather sketchy. It had grown
more difficult to operate in Russia for the past few years, ever since
Tsar Alexander had initiated a purging and cleanup of Russia's Bureau
of State Security, shortly after his ascension to the throne.
Before, BOSS agents had been little more than a joke, and Imperial
agents had been able to cross into and out of Russia with almost
complete impunity. Now, that was no longer true. The sole operative
that Soun had been able to keep near Ranma had to be careful to avoid
being discovered, so the information on the boy's activities was less
detailed than Soun cared for.
Soun leaned back in his chair and blew a puff of smoke from his
lips, watching the stream dissipate in the air above his head when he
heard the door to his office open.
"Those things are going to kill you someday, you know," said a
pleasant female voice from the doorway. Soun glanced down,
surprised that it was not his secretary. He briefly cursed in his mind
before allowing a smile to rest on his face.
A rather stunning beauty of a woman stood in his doorway, smiling
mildly at him. She was Ninomiya Hinako, the Assistant Director for
the Special Investigations Section of the Security Directorate. Even
wearing the standard gray, female Security uniform, she always
seemed to radiate sexuality. She was tall, and a trifle top-heavy for
Soun's personal tastes, but otherwise an impressive figure of a woman.
She was also the bane of Soun's existence.
He had been forced to deal with her for the last two years, ever since
her assignment to her present level of authority. Soun suspected that
her meteoric rise in the Security Directorate had been due to her
sleeping her way upwards in rank. However, he knew that she also
had a sharp mind and an uncanny way of ferreting out secrets. It was
also possible that she had been judiciously using that ability for
blackmail purposes to obtain her present rank.
Either way, her mere presence set all of Soun's internal alarms off,
making him feel extremely cautious and nervous around her. They
maintained an uneasy truce with each other, occasionally exchanging
barbed comments. It was an interesting sort of intellectual exercise to
keep a woman that capable off balance, and Soun always found
himself actually relishing the challenge. He suspected that she felt the
same, so they had continued the game with each other over the past
couple of years.
"What can I do for you, Director Hinako?" asked Soun brusquely.
The sooner that he dealt with her and got her out of his office, the
better. He stubbed out the final embers on his cigarette and pulled out
a new one, lighting it up with a practiced move. She walked towards
his desk, every move seemed to be designed to entice a man to desire
her.
"You can start by putting that nasty thing out while I'm trying to
talk to you," she said, reaching across his desk to pluck the cigarette
out from between his lips. She ground it out next to the remains of the
other one, before taking a seat in the chair in front of his desk.
"Please, have a seat..." murmured Soun under his breath. He
watched her as she sat down gracefully and crossed her legs demurely.
"What brings you to my office this day?" he said more loudly, trying to
keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
"Do I really need a reason to visit with a colleague that I have
known and respected for a couple of years now?" Ninomiya asked, her
usual seductive smile back on her face. Soun stared at her coolly,
waiting for her to get on with it.
"Fine," she snapped, before regaining her composure. "We'll be
business-like about it." She uncrossed her legs and quickly recrossed
them the opposite way. "I understand that you've been utilizing a fair
amount of Directorate resources over the last several years towards
monitoring a particular Citizen, due to arrive back in Japan within the
day. Is this some sort of pet project for you?"
"Who is it that you are referring to, Director Hinako?" asked Soun
calmly. "I have many files that cross my desk during the course of a
day. I'm afraid that you'll have to be more specific." Soun smiled
pleasantly and rested his hands on his desk, interlacing his fingers
together.
"I don't know what sort of game that you think that you're playing
with me, Tendou," said Ninomiya coolly. "Don't play coy with me. I
know for a fact that a young Citizen by the name of Ranma Saotome
has been receiving a fair amount of attention from your Section over
the last several years alone. I want to know why."
"It is none of your concern, Hinako," said Soun brusquely. "My
concerns about individual Citizens and monitoring of their activities
are part of my Section's responsibilities. It is not your place to
question or investigate the comings and goings of other departments."
Soun didn't like where this conversation was going. He noticed her
eyes lock onto Ranma's file.
"Ranma Saotome," Ninomiya stated more warmly. "He has grown
into such a promising young man, and one worthy of great interest,
judging by the size of the file right in front of you. So what is your
interest in Ranma Saotome?" Soun sighed slightly.
"What do you know of young Citizen Saotome?" asked Soun,
retaining his calm.
"Not much," said Ninomiya pleasantly. "I know that Professor
Fuyutsuki, over at the Ministry of Science, was involved with the boy's
father over some top-secret project several years ago. In addition, it
was the eminent Professor Fuyutsuki's respect for Genma Saotome that
paved the way to allow him to take Ranma on an around the world
tour of high-level academic learning, all at the Ministry of Science's
expense. I personally find that curious."
"It sounds like you've done your homework," acknowledged Soun.
"I still don't see what interest that you could have in my supposed
interest in Ranma Saotome. He's part of my assigned workload, and
that's all."
*He isn't seriously expecting me to buy that, is he?* thought
Ninomiya to herself. Her face retained its smile, but she sighed
mentally. It was time to play her remaining card and see what sort of
reaction it prompted from Soun. She wished that he didn't have to
always be so difficult to deal with, but it always made the game more
satisfying whenever she outsmarted him.
"How do you explain the reports that I discovered on matchmakers
being investigated by the Directorate then?" asked Ninomiya absently.
Her ability at reading people noticed a slight spike in Soun's anxiety
level from the subtle movements that his body made. He had very
good control of himself. It was one of the things that Director Hinako
truly did admire about him, and it always made their games more
challenging. "I noticed that your two daughters have been placed with
some of the companies investigated. Your eldest daughter was placed
with a different service entirely."
Soun twitched an eye slightly. He desperately wanted a cigarette to
calm his nerves. *If she wasn't so highly placed, I could simply have
the witch eliminated. I'll have to try finesse instead.*
"Indeed?" asked Soun, raising one eyebrow. "Did any of these
investigation requests come from my office, or those of any of my
subordinates?"
"No," acknowledged Ninomiya with a slight frown. "It came from
an unassigned workstation in another part of the building. Ranma's
file has received an inordinate amount of attention over the years from
your office though, so I assumed that the two were related. You
wouldn't happen to be trying to play matchmaker, Soun Tendou,
would you?"
"Of course not," lied Soun in a totally believable tone of voice. He
leaned back comfortably in his chair, confident that he had regained
control of the conversation. "My only concern is the future safety and
well-being of the Empire. It would be a violation of my duty to allow
any personal concerns to come into play. My place is not to provide
husbands for my daughters. I trust them each to find a man on their
own that they could be happy with."
"I see," said Ninomiya as she stood back up, the cloth of her skirt
falling back down to its usual length on her legs. "I thank you for
clearing that up for me." She walked towards the door to his office.
When she reached it, she paused and said in a mildly sultry tone of
voice, "Perhaps I might be allowed to make up for my suspicions about
you with an offer of dinner in the near future?"
Soun almost snapped the fountain pen that he had just picked up in
half. Spending any more time than necessary with Ninomiya Hinako
was not a wise course of action in his eyes. He looked up into her eyes
and his own expression of reluctance caused a hardening of the lines
of her jaw. Before he could say anything, even one of his usual
parting remarks to her, she swept out the door and slammed it shut
behind her.
Soun shrugged and went back to his paperwork, thoughts about his
fellow Assistant Director already fading from his mind.
******************************
*Damn that man!* thought Ninomiya Hinako as she stormed by the
desks leading into her own section of the building. A few of the
agents in her section looked up from their work but immediately
looked down again at the sight of her glowering face. *Who does
Soun Tendou think he is?* She was not a woman used to having men
showing reluctance to be in her presence; it did not make her happy at
all.
******************************
The morning sun was bright as Akane Tendou and her older sister
Nabiki walked to classes at the Academy. Both of them had on the
standard gray uniforms with black piping that designated a female
Security cadet. They were of the new designs, a little more feminine
with the substitution of a skirt, instead of the previous design with
pants. The only difference that they showed was a double hashmark
on Nabiki's right sleeve, compared to Akane's single one, denoting her
as a second year cadet. Akane thought the skirt flattered her figure
rather nicely. Nabiki had far preferred the practical feel of pants to the
draftiness of wearing a skirt to classes.
As the pair walked along, Akane wore her usual unhappy frown,
and Nabiki had her standard thoughtful look on her face as she walked
with the unconscious stride of a professional. The sisters were an
interesting contrast. The older one was a master at covering her
emotions behind a wall of cool detachment, while the younger one
wore every emotion on her surface and was as changeable as
quicksilver.
Sighing softly, Nabiki remembered her father's denial of the modest
increase in her allowance she needed. The refusal forced her, once
again, to find other, more creative means to afford the new outfits and
presents that she deserved. *It just isn't fair,* Nabiki thought
grumpily. *Look what Daddy has forced me to do since he won't give
me more allowance.*
Lately, Nabiki hit upon the idea of starting up betting pools on the
daily fights that Akane had, and they had proven to be more profitable
than she had expected. Having a little more money available, she had
also soon discovered the value of loaning it out to her fellow cadets at
rather high interest rates. It was even sort of fun, in a way, to hold
power like that over her peers.
However, blackmail money proved to be her most valuable source of
income. Nabiki considered it to be good training for her future career
in the Security Directorate to be able to discover secrets that her fellow
cadets wished to remain hidden. If the targeted cadet proved difficult
to deal with, or actually threatened her back, then Nabiki would turn
the matter over to Akane.
Akane took a disquieting pleasure, to Nabiki's eyes, in inflicting
pain upon others. She had proven useful though, since she had started
attending the Academy with Nabiki. For the last month she had been
Nabiki's personal enforcer and received a cut of the profits for her
efforts. It gave an outlet for Akane's aggressive tendencies and
benefited Nabiki's financial needs at the same time. Still, it bothered
Nabiki a little bit that her sister was the way she was, it wasn't the way
for a future Security officer to behave.
As she walked next to Nabiki, Akane wrestled with her own
thoughts. *Another day of the same thing. I'm almost completely
through with my challenges against the toughest boys going to the
Academy.* She recalled the last fight that she had had yesterday. She
was either getting better or her opponents were getting worse. In her
fight yesterday, she had managed to get a solid knee strike up into the
boy's groin fairly early in the conflict. It had been over all too quickly
after that; she had not had much of a challenge to her skills.
Akane had come to the sad conclusion that boys were all weak. She
now suspected that there was never going to be anyone to ever really
challenge her. However, it was her goal to fight with each and every
male student at the Academy until she found someone who did.
Maybe if she bullied enough people, she would discover the fighter
that she felt that she was born to meet.
******************************
The plane touched down at Tokyo Airport with a hard bump,
lurching Ranma awake from his pleasant dream. He had been having
a picnic lunch with a pretty girl who's face had remained hidden
somewhat in shadow, so he had been unable to see her face clearly.
He stretched his arms up over his head.
"Welcome back to Japan, my son," said Genma as Ranma turned to
look out the window at the bustling airport. Genma looked over at his
son and set down the pad of paper that he had been writing upon,
containing many notes on one of the many research papers that he was
currently working on.
"The air looks cleaner than I remember it being," commented
Ranma. Genma chuckled behind him.
"Most of the heavy industry has been moved off of the home islands
over the last few years," said Genma as he looked out the window,
trying to see around Ranma's head. "The majority of it is in the
Korean prefectures now. However, about half of the original factory
buildings and facilities still remain here, maintained against possible
need, but they are inactive. I'm sure that the air will smell as sweet as
it did when I was a boy."
They debarked from the plane and retrieved their luggage. They
passed through Customs quickly, Genma flashing his identification
from the Ministry of Science to speed things up. Ranma struggled
with the two large suitcases that contained everything that he owned as
he managed to keep up. Ranma had never really been in the habit of
collecting much in the way of things, other than a few texts on various
subjects and his clothes. He carried his two bags out to the curb as he
followed his father.
When they reached the front curb, Ranma set his suitcases down
with a sense of relief. He sat down on one and ran a hand down the
back of his head. He touched his short pigtail and then paused. He
had had it so long that he had forgotten about it. He shrugged his
shoulders. If it was a problem, he was sure that Dean Fuyutsuki would
mention it to him. Until then, he was going to leave his hair as he was
accustomed to.
******************************
Nodoka put the finishing touches on dinner. Genma had called
from the airport in Moscow to let her know when they would be
arriving. She had busied herself for the day getting her already
spotless house even cleaner, determined to present herself as the
perfect mother when Ranma walked in the door. After she had greeted
her only son, then Genma would receive his own greeting.
She sniffed the aroma coming off of the pot of miso soup that she
was making. Satisfied with it, she moved on through the other courses
that she had prepared. She was determined to have everything be
perfect for the arrival of her husband and her only child. If she had
anything to say about it, this meal was going to be the best that they
had ever tasted.
******************************
Ranma walked through the gate in the wall surrounding the
Saotome family property. He set down his bags while he heard his
father settling up with the cab driver behind him. This place was one
memory that was clear to him from his earliest days. He smiled at the
large cherry tree in the yard and the small koi pond that rested below
it. A sense of peace filled him.
The front door of the house opened, and a woman appeared in the
doorway. *Mother,* Ranma thought with a smile. He watched
Nodoka walk quickly towards him, maintaining her propriety, but with
a large smile on her face that matched his own. She caught him up in
an embrace and all of his worries disappeared. *I'm... home.*
The word had never meant so much to him as it did in that moment.
"Welcome home, my son," said Nodoka with tears in her eyes. She
looked at him for a long moment and then hugged him to her again,
even more tightly than before. Ranma quickly found that he wasn't
able to do something he considered quite essential.
"C... can't... breathe," he managed to mutter out before the world
went dark around him.
Nodoka let go of Ranma, so proud that her son had returned to her
looking so handsome and manly. Ranma's face was slack and his eyes
were closed. Nodoka was surprised, to say the least. *He couldn't be
sick, could he?*
She spotted Genma carrying in his bags.
"Genma!" shouted Nodoka. "Ranma's fainted!"
Genma looked up from picking up Ranma's discarded suitcases and
dropped them. He trotted over to his wife and son. "What happened?"
"I... I don't know," said Nodoka through fresh tears. "I was so
happy to see him that I just kept hugging him. When I let him go, he
was like this. Did he catch something in one of those strange foreign
places that you took him to?"
Genma chuckled softly. He had forgotten how air-headed Nodoka
could be at times. However, she was his wife, and he loved her dearly.
He took Ranma from her arms and carried the boy inside. Nodoka
trailed along behind him, still crying slightly.
******************************
Akane set down her chopsticks with a satisfied sigh. Dinner had
been good tonight. It looked like the new housekeeper that her father
had hired was going to work out just fine. She was an attractive young
widow named Kyoko Otonashi, and she had been hired to cook and
take care of the house a week ago. Akane found her to be nice enough,
but there was an air of melancholy about her.
Nabiki finished her own meal and set her bowl and chopsticks
down. Not being much of a hand at cooking herself, let alone
housework, she had encouraged her father to hire on a new
housekeeper to replace the old one, who had moved north to be with
her family. Kyoko had been a prime find, as far as Nabiki was
concerned, and she hoped that the woman would remain with them for
a long time.
Nabiki glanced at the clock as Akane went into the main room to
watch television. Their father hadn't come home yet, which wasn't an
uncommon occurrence, but it made the house seem that much more
empty now that Kasumi was gone. Nabiki smiled at the thought of her
quiet older sister finally settling down to be a housewife. Nabiki had
thought that Kasumi had found her true calling studying medicine, so
it was a bit of a surprise when she decided to marry.
It was perhaps inevitable that Kasumi would marry a doctor, and
Nabiki was a little envious of the man that the matchmaker had found
for her sister. Doctor Tofu Ono was a brilliant young physician, with
enough degrees and awards to paper one wall of a room. The two of
them were almost sickeningly sweet together too, a thought which
brought a rare smile to Nabiki's face. It had been love at first sight for
the couple, and Nabiki wished them all happiness.
Nabiki stretched her arms out in front of her and wandered upstairs
to work on her homework. She passed Akane on her way to the stairs
and saw that her sister was watching the fights at the Arena again.
Shaking her head, Nabiki walked upstairs.
Behind her, Akane cheered for one of her favorite Arena fighters as
the girl unleashed a devastating combination of strikes on her hapless
male opponent. *Man, that Shampoo is the best,* thought Akane with
a smile, mimicking some of the hand strikes that her idol had just
done. Akane chuckled as she watched the Amazon on the screen.
*She's so much better than any of those other bimbos that they have
fighting.*
The fight was soon over, to Akane's disappointment. *I could beat
those wimps that they keep sending against her,* she thought with a
confident look. *If I ever got a chance to be in the Arena....* Akane
indulged herself in a brief fantasy, a smile on her face, as the scene
changed to two male warriors slugging it out on screen.
******************************
Ranma woke up on an unfamiliar couch and looking up at an
unfamiliar ceiling. He blinked his eyes and saw his father sitting there
in a chair near him, reading a book. That familiar sight was extremely
comforting. He sat up slowly. According to the clock on the wall it
had only been a few minutes that he had been unconscious.
"Feeling better, son?" asked Genma as he put his book down. "I
forgot to warn you that your mother can be a little... emotional, at
times. She's in the kitchen making you a fresh pot of tea. Shall we
join her?"
Ranma nodded and stood up. He felt rather foolish for passing out
like that. He also hadn't been expecting his mother to be so strong.
He knew that she studied kenjutsu, the samurai art of swordsmanship,
but her arm strength had been quite impressive.
When they entered the kitchen, a plethora of wonderful smells filled
Ranma's nose. He inhaled deeply and smiled. The aromas brought
forth memories from his young childhood, all pleasant ones. His
mother bowed to him.
"I apologize for choking you like that, my son," said Nodoka as she
kept her head down. "I forgot myself. I was just so happy to see my
little boy again."
"It's all right, Mother, really," said Ranma as he put his hands on
her shoulders and gently pushed her back upright. "I'm fine. I'm also
feeling a little bit hungry. They didn't feed us much on the plane."
The words were hardly out of his mouth before he found himself
seated at the dining table, a bowl of rice in one hand and chopsticks in
the other.
Nodoka bustled in and out of the kitchen bringing more food than
Ranma had ever seen at one meal. His eyes goggled a bit at the sight.
*She doesn't expect me to eat all that, does she?* By the time she was
done, Ranma imagined that he could hear the table groaning under the
load.
"Ahh, it does a man's heart good to see such food," said Genma
with a broad smile. "I've missed your cooking while we were away,
Nodoka-chan. Russian cuisine, for example, leaves much to be
desired, and don't get me started on Spanish food." Genma began
eating quickly, and Ranma duplicated him.
Nodoka looked on in horror. Genma had taken Ranma out to
acquire the knowledge of the world, but he still ate like he had when
she had married him. Now Ranma was doing the same. She slapped
her hand down on the table. "Genma! Ranma! What do you think
you're doing?!"
Ranma paused, a mouthful of rice preventing him from speaking,
except to give a muffled "Whmifit?" He looked over at his father, and
saw Genma suddenly look abashed.
"Sorry, Nodoka-chan," said Genma. "I'm afraid that my son picked
up my table manners. All that eating on the run, only so many hours
in a day for learning, and all that." He smiled at her in an attempt to
deal with what he feared was coming.
Nodoka didn't lessen the wrathful look on her face one iota, causing
Genma to visibly wilt under her stern expression. Ranma chose that
moment to try and swallow his mouthful of rice. Her gaze suddenly
met his in mid-swallow, and he almost didn't get it down.
"Now that my son is home, I see that I will have to make sure that
he is educated in proper manners," said Nodoka in serious tones.
"You could use a refresher course as well, Genma dear." She picked
up her bowl of rice and began to eat. Ranma quickly mirrored her
motions and it seemed to appease her. Genma quickly did the same.
******************************
Ranma set down his two suitcases and eyed the prepared futon
mattress with a neutral look. After ten years of sleeping on Western-
style beds in good hotels, it was going to take some adjusting. He
began to unpack his suitcases and put everything away in the large
dresser. In a few minutes, he was done.
Ranma went over to the closet and slid open the door. A pair of
brand new Imperial Academy uniforms greeted his eyes, done up in
dark blue with light gray piping, the sign of a Science cadet. Ranma
figured that his father had sent his sizes to his mother so that she
could pick them up. He pulled one out and eyed it with distaste. *I
suppose that I could learn to like it,* he decided after a while.
He slipped out of his old clothes and decided to try on the uniform.
It fit almost perfectly, but it was a little large on him. *Perhaps my
mother expects it to shrink with washing or something.* He buttoned
up the collar and eyed his appearance in the mirror. *Not bad,* he
finally decided.
Nodoka chose that time to come walking in through the open door.
Ranma looked over at her and saw her eyes shining with tears again.
"Oh, my son, you look so handsome!" she said with a broad smile.
"Thanks," Ranma replied. He was nearly blinded when a flashbulb
suddenly went off almost in his face. Ranma blinked, seeing small red
dots in his vision. He hadn't even seen a camera in her hands a
moment ago. Now he wasn't seeing much of anything at all.
"Just a few more," said Nodoka. "I want to remember this moment
with pictures." There were more bright flashes. Ranma smiled and
hoped that his eyesight returned quickly. Nodoka shot off the whole
roll of film, quickly hugged him once more, and then departed.
*I hope she calms down soon,* Ranma thought with a smile. He
bumped his head into the wall, almost knocking himself unconscious,
as he tried to move around before his eyes had fully recovered. He sat
down on his futon bed and hoped that his body adjusted to the six
hours of jetlag quickly. Getting up six hours earlier than he was used
to wasn't going to be fun.
******************************
Genma watched Nodoka enter the bedroom with a smile. The
camera that she was carrying was left on the dresser. She turned to
face him and returned his smile, walking over to where he was seated
on his futon bed and knelt down. They turned to face each other.
"I have missed you, husband," said Nodoka with a soft smile. "It is
good to have you home once more."
"It was certainly a homecoming that Ranma will never forget,
Nodoka-chan," said Genma with a smile. "It is... good... to be back. I
have missed having you sleep by my side."
Nodoka smiled, briefly got up to turn off the light, then returned to
her position next to Genma. They embraced, kissed, and then
explored a long-delayed reunion of their love.
******************************
The next day dawned far too early for Ranma's tastes. By his
estimate, he had received something less than four hours sleep when
his mother came into his room to wake him. She knelt by the side of
his futon and shook him awake.
"Wake up, Ranma," said Nodoka pleasantly. "You have to get up
and get ready for your first day at the Academy."
Ranma murmured something unintelligible and promptly went back
to sleep. Nodoka shook him awake again. Her command to wake up
was less pleasant in tone the second time around.
Ranma stumbled into the bathroom and almost fell into the tub in
his dazed condition. He removed his clothes and filled a bucket with
cold water to wake himself up. Dumping it over his head produced the
desired reaction in himself and his sleepiness vanished like morning
fog. After cleaning up, he dressed in one of his new uniforms. It
chafed a little at his neck, something he hadn't noticed when he had
tried it on the day before.
He had memorized a detailed map of the area and made mental note
of the best route that he could take to reach the Academy. After eating
a surprisingly large breakfast, Ranma headed out the door, carrying
the new bookbag that his mother had purchased for him. It was filled
with his lunch and necessary school supplies. He would pick up his
texts at the Academy. He waved at Nodoka as he left.
"Have a good day at school today, Ranma," said Nodoka as she
watched him head out the front door. *I hope he makes some
friends,* she thought with a smile.
******************************
At the Academy, Nabiki was already conducting her morning
business with one of her slower paying loan recipients, Jun Hiragawa,
a second year cadet wearing a blue uniform. They were over at
Nabiki's usual place to conduct private negotiations, around the side of
the main building. Akane stood behind Nabiki, slowly popping the
knuckles in each hand and smiling evilly at Jun.
"I�m not eager to have Akane here have to hurt you, Jun-kun," said
Nabiki in a falsely sympathetic tone of voice. "However, you didn't
make your payment yesterday. I would assume that it had simply
slipped your mind, but you also tried to hide from me. That made me
think that you might have been trying to avoid me."
"Honestly, Nabiki, it wasn't like that," said the boy, alternating his
gaze between the Tendou sisters. "I can give you the money today.
Right now, in fact!" He held up a small, folded stack of currency
notes. "I didn't have the money yesterday, but I knew that I would
have it today. Please... take it."
Nabiki reached out and plucked the money from the cadet's hand.
She quickly counted it and then smiled coldly. "You're short," she
said mildly.
"What?" asked Jun in confusion. "It's all there, all six thousand
yen."
"That covers you through yesterday," said Nabiki pleasantly. "It
doesn't cover the penalty charges for making me have to ambush you
like this, as well as another day's worth of interest. You owe me
another five hundred yen."
"But... but that's all the money that I have left for this week," said
Jun in mild protest.
"That's not my problem," said Nabiki in cooler tones. "You can
either pay me the rest, or I let Akane have you." Akane smiled
another wolfish smile behind her sister; she enjoyed this part of her
agreement with Nabiki.
"H... here it is," said Jun weakly, as he pulled the remaining note
from his pocket. Nabiki pulled it from his unresisting fingers and
stepped back.
"Go on now," said Nabiki mildly. "We're through here, unless
you'd like a loan to pay for lunch this week?" She smiled. Jun bolted
away, running for the front of the Academy. Nabiki didn't care, he
always came back to her. He was typical of the type of weaklings that
kept her supplied with nice things, aided by the substantial threat of
Akane.
"That was fun," said Akane with a smile. "He never seems to learn,
does he?" She took the money that Nabiki held out to her and
pocketed her share. "Do we have any more business this morning?"
"Well, we can see if we can catch a look at this new student that is
coming today that I've been hearing about," said Nabiki as she
pocketed the remaining yen notes. "He's supposed to be brilliant. He's
been studying in Russia until recently."
"What's his name?" asked Akane with interest. A new student
meant a possible new challenge for her skills. "Have you heard if he
can fight?"
"His name's Ranma Saotome," said Nabiki as she started walking
towards the front of the Academy grounds. "Daddy's mentioned the
name once or twice that I can remember, but it doesn't sound like he's
the fighter that you've been looking for. From what I hear, Ranma
Saotome isn't any kind of fighter at all."
"Darn," said Akane as she kicked a loose stone from her path.
******************************
Ranma walked along the quiet streets of the Nerima region of
Greater Tokyo, enjoying the early morning sunshine as best he could
on as little sleep as he had had. A few other cadets were seen heading
in the same direction as himself, dressed in either science blue or
security gray uniforms. He got a few curious looks from a few of
them.
Finally, he reached the outer wall that surrounded the grounds of
the Imperial Senior Academy. It reminded him unpleasantly of some
kind of prison complex, several imposing looking buildings filling the
middle and visible over the tall wall. When he reached the gate, small
groups of cadets were standing in the front courtyard region and
chatting with each other.
He walked in through the gate, ignoring the whispered
conversations and furtive looks cast in his direction. He paused inside
the gate area. His first order of business was to locate Dean
Fuyutsuki's office. Spotting a small group of male cadets wearing blue
like himself, he approached them.
"Hello there," said Ranma, offering a polite bow of greeting. "I was
wondering if someone could tell me the directions to find Dean
Fuyutsuki's office?"
******************************
Akane and Nabiki stood with a small group of Nabiki's other
informants and operatives. In essence, Nabiki ran her own little fief
on the Academy grounds, composed of first and second year Security
cadets. Some did it for the money that Nabiki paid them for useful
information or assisting her with expanding her other business
interests. Others did it out of a desire to attach themselves to someone
with as promising a future career as Nabiki already had laid out.
"That's him," said one of the second year cadets, a tall girl named
Yohko Mano. She was expected to follow in her family's traditions
and work in the Special Investigations Section of the Security
Directorate. Yohko shared Akane's passion for the martial arts, and
they sometimes sparred. Before Akane, she had been Nabiki's primary
enforcer, but Yohko far preferred gathering information to making
people bleed.
Akane looked Ranma Saotome over and wasn't very impressed.
Dressed in uniform, he looked much like any other male science cadet
on campus, except for his short pigtail. From the way that Ranma
moved, Akane could tell that he had had no combat training at all.
Disappointment filled her even as she felt a sudden warmth on her
cheeks that surprised her. Akane noticed Nabiki looking at her and
felt angry at herself. The heat faded quickly from her face, so she
hoped that none of her fellow cadets had noticed.
Nabiki was curious to see the cadet who had surpassed her on the
entrance exams. According to her source in the administration offices,
Ranma had received a perfect score, the first ever in the history of the
Academy. Ranma looked ordinary enough to her, and she glanced
over at Akane to see what sort of impression that the boy in question
had made on her sister.
Nabiki was surprised to see Akane actually blushing. Her sister's
face then got an angry look on it, and Nabiki filed those two events
away for future reference. Nabiki could admit to herself that she felt a
subtle attraction to Ranma herself, almost as if she had recognized him
from someplace. It was strange, Nabiki had always considered herself
to be above such matters like romantic impulses.
*If I know Akane, there's a simple way to ensure that she doesn't
come between me and Ranma until I can determine my own level of
interest in him.* With that analysis out of the way, Nabiki began to
plan out her strategy.
******************************
Ranma stood outside Dean Fuyutsuki's office and knocked on the
door.
"Come in," said a voice from within. Ranma opened the door and
stepped inside the office, closing the door behind himself. The office
was rather spartan in design, a few books on the shelves, three
paintings on the wall, a computer terminal in the corner, and a single
plant in the window. The paintings were all Western works,
Renaissance era, if Ranma was correct in his guess. He couldn't
identify the painters, but art had always been a weak region of his
scholarly studies.
"Dean Fuyutsuki?" said Ranma with a slight nervousness in his
voice. "I'm Ranma Saotome."
The older man behind the desk looked up and smiled, in a rather
grandfatherly sort of way. *How you've grown, Ranma,* thought the
Dean approvingly. *Genma was indeed right to take you out into the
world, instead of keeping you in a lab somewhere. I'm glad that your
father talked me out of that notion. Now that you're here, I'll have to
see if we can train your physical abilities to their full potentials. From
his reports, I can see that Genma somewhat neglected that area of your
development.*
"Have a seat, Mr. Saotome," said Dean Fuyutsuki. "Let me be one
of the first to welcome you to the Imperial Academy. I just know that
this is the beginning of a very bright future for you."
"Thank you, Dean Fuyutsuki." Ranma sat down as Dean Fuyutsuki
reached behind himself and pulled a pair of teacups out, setting one in
front of Ranma. The Dean retrieved a small teapot and poured some
in each cup.
"So tell me a little about yourself, Ranma," said the Dean with a
smile. "After we're done here, I'll have my secretary hand you your
class itinerary, and then I'll escort you to your first class."
"That sounds fine, sir," said Ranma in respectful tones. "I was
wondering if I could make a special request though, while I'm here?"
"Go right ahead, Ranma," replied the Dean. He folded his hands
and leaned forward to listen with interest.
"I've been working on a personal research project for quite some
time, and I was hoping that you might have some private lab space
that I could use, as well as helping me obtain some equipment. I have
lists prepared of what I would need. Would that be possible?"
"Of course, Ranma," said the Dean with a smile. "Your father has
told me of this secret work that you've been up to. Something that will
change the face of modern quantum physics, I believe Genma said.
You leave the lists with my secretary, and she will see to it that you get
everything on it."
"Thank you, sir," said Ranma with a smile. "You don't know how
much this mean to me."
******************************
The overhead fluorescent lights clicked on in the empty storeroom
in one of the sub-basements of the Academy. Ranma looked at the
small piles of junk that occupied the corners, as well as the thick layer
of dust on the floor, with a wry look. *This wasn't quite what I had in
mind.* Behind him stood Dean Fuyutsuki.
"This is the only unused space that we have available right now that
you could use for a lab, Ranma," said the Dean. "However, it's yours
for the asking. The door is solid steel and quite strong, and the
electrical system should be adequate for your power needs. There's a
sink in the corner for water, and you can tell by the dust on the floor
that it's dry. Once you clean out the junk in here and sweep it out,
you'll have a nice place to work."
"It looks like it will be fine, Dean Fuyutsuki," said Ranma
agreeably. "I know that I'll be able to do big things with it. A month
from now, you won't even recognize the place. I plan to turn it into a
first-rate lab."
"Excellent, Ranma," said the Dean pleasantly. "Now I'll take you to
your first class, and you can start getting to know some of your fellow
cadets."
"All right, sir," said Ranma as he shut off the lights and closed the
door, pocketing the key that the Dean had given him.
******************************
"Class... I'd like to introduce a new student to you... Ranma
Saotome," said the instructor. "He is recently joining us after
completing studies in Russia and Europe."
Ranma quickly bowed a greeting to the class. He had been assigned
to Room 3-A for his first year term. Apparently, first year cadets were
on the top floor, second year on the middle floor, and the senior cadets
on the ground floor. The administration and other offices shared
space on the ground floor with the senior cadets. Ranma resigned
himself to getting used to climbing a lot of stairs.
Ranma looked out at those who were going to be his classmates for
the next three years. About thirty adolescent boys and girls stared
back at him, in a roughly even mix of blue and gray uniforms. He
realized that he should probably say something rather than stand there
like a mute.
"Hello," said Ranma. "I am honored to be here."
The instructor directed him to an empty seat near one of the
windows and continued the interrupted class. It was on mathematics.
Ranma was bored in less than five minutes. He pretended to listen
to the instructor as he made a few notes on some of his equations and
schematics.
******************************
Akane was running late to her next class, the one that she enjoyed
most during the day. One of Nabiki's junior assistants had needed to
get some notes from her on what had been covered in history class
yesterday, so she was now late. She burst into the locker room area at
a running pace, came to a fast stop at her locker, and immediately
began to strip off her clothes.
Akane was the only occupant of the room, the rest of her class
having already changed clothes and gone on ahead. She hurriedly
removed her jacket and skirt and hung them up as neatly as she could,
as she kicked off her shoes at the same time. Akane unbuttoned her
blouse and removed it quickly. Her hands went to remove her bra
next, her thoughts already on class.
******************************
Ranma stuffed his new textbooks in his assigned locker on the way
to his class in physical education. He felt quite confident that he could
perform to the instructor's satisfaction. While on the plane, he had
read the Academy manual on the required performance levels and did
not think that they would be difficult to attain. He had been jogging
several miles a day for the last couple of years to stay in shape and
keep from getting to look like his overweight father.
*This class won't be any trouble at all,* he thought confidently.
He was wrong.
Most of the other members of his class were already outside and
ready when Ranma finally arrived at the locker rooms. He stopped to
take a quick glance at the symbols on the doors to determine which
one was the men's side. A moment later, he opened and ran through
the door on the left side.
******************************
After the door closed, Nabiki calmly walked by and switched the
signs back to their proper placement, a wicked grin on her face. This
was going to be one of her best gags on her little sister yet, and it
would have the added benefit of souring any possible interest that
Akane could have in Ranma. She checked with her lookout and
received a nod that nobody had seen anything. Smiling, Nabiki
walked to her next class.
******************************
Akane was clad only in her panties when Ranma suddenly came to
a halt right in front of her and froze. They stared at each other for
several agonizingly long moments. A small trickle of blood appeared
below Ranma's nose, and Akane felt a surge of warmth flood across
her face. The calm did not last.
"Umm," Ranma started to say, and that snapped Akane out of her
reverie.
"HOW DARE YOU?!" shouted Akane in rage. She felt so angry
and embarrassed by the unexpected intrusion that she reverted to her
easiest reaction option, violence. "YOU PERVERT!!"
Ranma barely even saw her move when Akane's fist struck him
across his jaw. His head snapped around, and he saw an entire galaxy
of stars explode across his vision. He impacted against the lockers,
struggling to remain standing upright. Akane quickly followed up and
slammed a knee strike up into Ranma's stomach when he didn't do the
sensible thing and immediately collapse where he stood. His mind
was still trying to figure out what was happening while Akane kept
attacking him.
Akane punched Ranma in the face a second time, and her hand
came away with some of Ranma's blood on it. Ranma faltered and
finally collapsed to his knees, and Akane finished him off with an axe
kick down on his shoulder. Luckily for Ranma, Akane didn't put her
full power into it, or his shoulder would have been dislocated from the
impact.
A comforting darkness embraced Ranma as his thoughts faded away
into unconsciousness.
******************************
Akane stared down at the fallen Ranma and slowly regained control
of herself. The red haze that had seemed to fall across her vision
faded away as she absently wiped Ranma's blood off of her knuckles.
*What a pathetic weakling,* she thought with mild disgust. *A few
hits and he folds. I guess Nabiki was right after all, saying Ranma
Saotome wasn't a fighter.*
One of the assistant instructors came in as Akane finished dressing
for class. Akane had checked Ranma to make sure he wasn't going to
die on her, but had otherwise left his body where it had fallen. The
worst of his injuries was a bloody nose, the source of the blood that
had smeared her knuckles earlier. She looked up at the instructor.
"What happened here?" asked the woman in confusion. She knelt
down and examined Ranma.
"This pervert came in while I was changing, and I beat him up for
it," said Akane calmly. She really wanted to get going to class now.
Thoughts of Ranma made her feel uncomfortable, so she did her best
to ignore him laying there.
The instructor told Akane to stay where she was while she went for
help for Ranma. Akane sighed and did as she was told, nudging
Ranma with a foot and blaming him in her thoughts for what had
happened. *I won't ever forget this, Ranma Saotome. You made the
biggest mistake of your life when you tried to peep on me.*
******************************
Later, while standing in front of a glowering Dean Fuyutsuki,
Akane actually felt a little worried. She had been called into his office
a few times before for fighting, but she had always gotten off with a
simple reprimand.
Not this time.
She received a week's worth of detention for harming Ranma. The
Dean hadn't bothered to listen to her excuse, that Ranma had walked
in on her while she was almost naked. *Oh no,* thought Akane
sullenly, recalling her impression of the Dean's words. *Ranma must
have made a simple mistake and walked into the wrong side. Yeah,
right.*
"Damn you, Ranma Saotome," muttered Akane under her breath, as
she walked to her last class of the day. "I'll make you pay for getting
me into trouble like this. I swear it!"
******************************
Ranma woke up in the nurse's office, an ice pack resting against his
jaw. He felt awful. An attempt to sit up made his stomach muscles
protest, so he decided that laying where he was for a few more minutes
wouldn't hurt. He lightly rubbed his nose and felt a dull ache instead
of a sharp pain, so it was apparently unbroken. *Thank Heaven for
that,* he thought with a grateful sigh.
He looked over at the clock on the wall and saw that it was after
four, his classes were over for the day. *Tomorrow has got to be better
than this day was.*
******************************
Nabiki walked home after classes were over by herself, having
learned that Akane had gotten detention for attacking Ranma. *Little
sister is sooo easy to manipulate sometimes,* she thought with a smile.
Playing little mind games and pranks on Akane was good practice for
Nabiki's own future career in the Security Directorate, or at least she
thought so. She was a little disappointed that Ranma had been so easy
to fool. Nabiki had expected more of him than to fall for something as
simple as reversing signs.
*Oh well,* thought Nabiki. *I can have some fun with those two
while I make my decision about Ranma.* She walked home with a
happy spring in her stride as she mentally added Ranma to her list of
potential prospects. There were a few others that she was interested in
after all, and she had plenty of time for suitors in her life.
******************************
Later that afternoon, Nodoka stared at her battered son in mild
shock. "What happened to you, son?"
"I'd really rather not talk about it," replied Ranma. "It looks worse
than it is." He sipped at his tea, wrinkling his nose slightly under the
strip of medical tape covering it. According to the nurse, his injuries
were simple bumps and bruises.
"Yes, but it looks like you were in a fight," insisted Nodoka. "Were
you?"
"I can honestly say that I wasn't fighting, Mother," replied Ranma
sincerely. *Yeah, I just got beat up by some nearly-naked girl named
Akane Tendou.* "I just had an accident at the Academy. That's all.
I'll be more careful next time."
"Leave the boy be, Nodoka," said Genma, finally chiming in. "If he
says that he's fine, then he's fine."
"Yes, but Genma...," said Nodoka in a worried tone.
"I said, leave it be," Genma said a little more strongly. Nodoka
glanced at him with a mildly angry expression, and he sighed
mentally. *I'm going to be paying for that one for a day or two.
Nodoka doesn't like to be ordered around like that.* Genma briefly
wondered if he would have been happier with a more compliant
woman for a wife.
*Probably not,* he decided with a wry smile, as he sipped his tea.
******************************
The next morning, Ranma overslept again. Nodoka hoped that it
was only the jetlag still bothering him, since Genma hadn't quite
readjusted yet either. Like the dutiful mother she knew herself to be,
she shook Ranma awake and hustled him into the bathroom to get
ready.
*Honestly,* she thought with a smile, *I hope that this isn't going to
be some sort of regular occurrence. I'm his mother, not an alarm
clock. At least he healed up all right since yesterday. He doesn't even
have any bruises left.*
******************************
Ranma arrived at the Academy and made his way into the building.
He managed to make it to class with less than a minute to spare, and
he spent the time in his morning classes working on his equations.
Ranma listened every now and then to make sure that he wasn't
missing anything that could be important, but so far it had all been
material that he was familiar with.
When it came time for physical education, he carefully made sure
that he walked in the right door for the locker rooms. He was
somewhat irritated with himself for making such a stupid blunder
yesterday, but The Thug (a nickname that he had chosen to dub Akane
with) could have waited for him to explain his presence before
attacking him.
Sensei Takami made it clear what he thought of Ranma on that first
day of class. His instructor was a retired military man, a twenty year
veteran, and he treated his students like army recruits. Ranma,
arriving late in the term for his class, apparently warranted 'special'
attention from the man.
"So you expect to pass this class, boy?" barked Takami into Ranma's
face as he stood at his place in line. Ranma blinked in surprise.
"Yes, sir," answered Ranma in a clear voice. He was uncertain why
the instructor would think otherwise.
"What was that?!" barked Takami, a little louder. "I can't hear
you!"
"YES, SIR!" Ranma blasted back. He focused his eyes on a point in
the distance and didn't let his attention waver from it. It seemed to be
the most sensible thing to do at the time.
Sensei Takami walked around Ranma's slender form and muttered
darkly to himself, apparently disappointed with the state of its physical
condition. Ranma didn't catch too many of the words, but he resented
being referred to as a weakling as well as all of the alternative phrases
that Takami used that meant the same thing.
At her place in the girl's line, Akane felt smug. She was one of
Sensei Takami's favorite students and the most skilled athlete in the
class. Akane was going to enjoy showing Ranma up in class this term.
She still felt a faint, simmering anger at his actions the previous day,
smothering any other feelings that she might have had earlier. She
also felt disappointment that he had been so weak.
******************************
After an unexpectedly grueling hour for Ranma of doing intensive
calisthenics and several miles of running at a faster pace than he was
used to, the instructor had thrown up his hands and declared Ranma to
be a sad waste of an Imperial Citizen. Ranma was given two hours of
extra training time after normal classes each day until his condition
reached 'acceptable' levels, acceptable to Sensei Takami that is.
Ranma still had enough strength in his body to groan at what was to
come.
Ranma practically dragged himself to the locker rooms, one of the
last ones in. He noticed Akane Tendou, already showered and
changed, standing next to the locker room doors. She put an arm
across his path when he tried to walk past her. He sighed and waited
for her to speak.
"Let's get something straight between us, Saotome," said Akane
coldly. "I don't want you to say word one about whatever you might
have seen of me yesterday, okay? If I hear you bragging about peeping
on me, I'll come down on you harder than an entire division of
Imperial marines."
"Believe me, Miss Tendou, when I say this," said Ranma tiredly. "I
just want to forget about yesterday. Nobody is going to hear anything
about you from me, so can I go shower now?"
"They'd better not," said Akane as she waved a fist under his nose.
"I have a lot more of what I gave you yesterday, if I even hear a hint of
you bragging about seeing me naked."
*Like I would ever brag about seeing your naked form, Miss
Tendou,* thought Ranma sullenly. Wisely, he said nothing of his
thoughts, but nodded woodenly instead. "They won't hear a thing
from me."
Akane walked off with a harrumph sound, and Ranma tiredly went
in to get a nice hot shower. If Ranma had been thinking clearer, he
would have seen that she seemed almost disappointed that he hadn't
stood up to her.
******************************
Ranma finally reached his last class period of the day, before he had
to report back to Sensei Takami for his extra exercise classes. He
unlocked the door to the basement storage room that was now going to
be his lab space. He reached around the corner and flicked on the
lights. They snapped on with a slight hum. Ranma eyed the boxes of
junk in strewn about the room and sighed.
*This isn't going to get itself cleaned up, so I better get started.*
Almost an hour later, Ranma dragged the last of the boxes out of
the room and dumped them into the trash incinerator. He had checked
each box to see if anything interesting was in them, but they all
seemed to contain useless trash: moldy old textbooks and discarded
newspapers. It had taken him less time than he had thought it would
to remove them all. That left sweeping to do, and then he could start
bringing in the equipment that he would need and beginning work.
******************************
Akane stared out the window of the detention hall, as the sun
lowered in the sky. One of the junior instructors had given her a paper
to write on the benefits of controlling anger, but she had finished it
quickly. Now all she had left to do was watch out the window as the
remainder of her hour ticked away. The only bright spot to her was
where the window looked out on.
Outside, Akane could see Ranma puffing his way around the track
while Sensei Takami shouted at him through a bullhorn.
******************************
"COME ON, SAOTOME!" shouted Takami through his bullhorn.
"PICK UP THE PACE! I'M GETTING OLD AND GRAY WAITING
FOR YOU TO FINISH YOUR FIVE MILES! YOU STILL HAVE TO
DO WEIGHT TRAINING TO BUILD UP THAT LAUGHABLE
EXCUSE FOR A BODY YOU HAVE!"
Ranma thought dark thoughts and kept running, his anger keeping
him going at the pace that Takami had set. He was not about to give
the old man the satisfaction of seeing him break, so he kept going.
Ranma's lungs were burning in his chest like fire, his legs were aching
from the strain of his pace, but he was not about to quit.
*The kids got guts,* thought Takami with a grudging amount of
respect. Takami could see that Ranma was actually in fairly good
shape for the average Citizen, but he couldn't let Ranma know that.
He would have instituted a somewhat lighter regimen for Ranma, but
the Dean had given him his orders.
"Take Saotome to his limits, and then push him a little harder,"
Dean Fuyutsuki had told him.
That was what Takami was doing. If the Dean wanted to give
Ranma a test of his physical abilities, then Takami was determined to
take the boy to the ragged limits of whatever he was capable of. He
would treat Ranma to as rigorous a training regimen as he could think
of. Besides, the overtime pay would be nice.
******************************
Two weeks passed, and Ranma slowly settled into a routine.
He finished cleaning out his new lab space and even went so far as
to repaint the walls and floors with a fresh coat of white paint.
Ranma's equipment requests began to arrive in small lots, and he
started to assemble the bare bones of his invention. A small but well-
equipped electronics workbench took shape in the center of the room
through his efforts, and he found a long couch in another one of the
storage rooms that was perfect for his needs.
One of the key components that he had needed was one of the
prototype superconducting neural interlink headsets. It was almost
beyond state of the art, a bleeding edge piece of hardware, designed
and built by "the" name in computers and high-end electronic
components in the Empire, Shinohara Electronics. In very recent
months they had begun doing experiments with methods of linking
man and machine electronically. The headset linked with the cerebral
cortex by means of electromagnetic induction, and it would allow
Ranma the much-needed interface with his device.
Ranma sat with his notebook on the table in front of him, only
occasionally glancing at it as he worked on the circuit board in front of
him. It was going to take many more days of careful work to test and
align all of the components before he was ready to begin work on the
heart of the system, the quantum flux coil. He still didn't have all of
the materials to begin creating it.
******************************
Ranma puffed around the track as fast as he could manage while
Sensei Takami kept yelling some impressive threats at him. After only
a couple of weeks, he was already beginning to notice a difference in
his physique. His mother had commented on his increase in appetite,
but it was necessary to keep up with his new energy needs. He could
admit to himself that he was eating twice as much as he had needed
before and was still often hungry.
******************************
Another month passed.
Ranma was now not only able to keep up with the manual's stated
physical performance requirements, he had surpassed them. However,
Sensei Takami didn't let up on him, to Ranma's great surprise. If
anything, the workouts became even more grueling. The intensive
program of weightlifting and calisthenics began to add a surprising
amount of muscle to his frame for so short a time. When Ranma had
thought to complain about the unnecessary added work that was still
being given to him, Dean Fuyutsuki calmly informed him that the
Academy was individually designed to train its cadets to their best
possible levels. If Ranma was able to do more, then he would be
trained harder.
It made a certain amount of sense, even if it did feel sadistic, and
the exercise had produced the very surprising effect of sharpening his
mind and focus even more than he was capable of before. Ranma
continued to excel at all of his classes, he was getting near to finishing
the quantum flux coil, and he was getting stronger with each passing
day.
Ranma kept one arm behind his back as he did pushups with the
other. His posture was rigid, his legs straight and spread apart. The
muscles on his arms and shoulders were filling out from exercises such
as this. Sweat dripped from his face onto the pavement from his
efforts. *Ninety-seven... ninety-eight... ninety-nine... one hundred,*
he mentally counted off as he finished a set. Ranma switched arms
and began all over again.
Off to one side, Takami smiled. *This boy is incredible,* thought
the instructor as he checked over the charts of Ranma's development
once more, still unable to believe how quickly Ranma was improving.
His physical abilities were increasing at a rate that was at least three
times what a normal human should be able to improve at, even with
the extra training that he was undergoing. Everytime that Takami
thought that he had found the boy's limits, Ranma would exceed it.
The only slow portion of Ranma's improvement had been in his
combat skills. Akane Tendou seemed to take great pleasure in proving
that to him every chance that she could.
******************************
Ranma slammed down onto the mat and laid there, stunned for a
moment. A sympathetic groan came from his fellow male cadets, most
of them grateful that they weren't the one out there with Akane as their
practice partner. Ranma wished once again that he knew why the
Sensei hated him so much as to keep pairing him with The Thug.
"Saotome," said Sensei Takami. "That was truly pathetic. Now get
up and try it again."
Above him, a cheerful Akane waited for him to try getting up once
more. They were practicing barehanded combat while wearing white
gis. She smiled down at Ranma. "Yeah, Ranma, that _was_ pathetic.
Are you going to let me keep throwing you around like this? Not that
it isn't a lot of fun."
*If there is true justice in the universe, someday I'll find a way to
wipe that smug look from your face, Akane Tendou,* thought Ranma
as he got up to his knees and stood up once more.
A few seconds later, Ranma crashed to the mat once again. He
decided to lay there for a while, at least until the room stopped
spinning.
******************************
Ranma was finally ready to test the new quantum flux coil to see if
he had it right yet. Weeks of effort, and several previous attempts, had
yielded nothing more than a slight headache and a faint sort of
buzzing sensation in his skull. He kept adjusting the tolerances
minutely and knew that he was getting closer. This was his third try,
and he hoped that it was the charmed one.
Ranma booted up the stripped down software algorithm that he had
written to operate the hardware for these initial tests. The full linkup
package was disengaged since he was just working on establishing a
signature phase lock, instead of full immersion, with an alternate
reality. The software finished its self-test and Ranma found himself
crossing his fingers.
Seated, with the neural interlink headset on his head, Ranma let the
system slowly run through its calculations as it scanned his mind's
electromagnetic signature. He already had several ideas on speeding
up the scanning process that had occurred to him, but he had yet to
implement any of them. Ranma wanted to get the core of the software
debugged before he began adding modifications and enhancements.
"Okay," Ranma softly muttered to himself. "Scan is complete... the
quantum pulse is activated... let's see if I can make contact." He
tapped a couple of keys, and the screen cleared.
*STAGE ONE INTERLINK SOFTWARE RUNNING.... STAND
BY....
Ranma suddenly experienced a brief flash of... something. He
hurriedly began tapping keys, watching a mathematical representation
of two sine waves slowly moving into synchronization. The software
slowly began adjusting itself.
"Come on...," Ranma muttered. "Synchronize!"
******************************
***** Earth #0001-635
Ranma blinked as a migraine headache suddenly hit him. He set
down the book of classical Chinese poetry that he had been reading
and closed his eyes. That seemed to lessen the pain in his head as he
took deep breaths to calm his nerves. He felt a hand on his arm.
"Ranma?" asked his mother Nodoka's voice. "Are you feeling all
right?"
"I'm fine, Mother," Ranma replied. "I just seem to have developed a
slight headache right now. Perhaps some tea might help."
"You're probably working too hard, just like your father," said
Nodoka as she headed for the kitchen.
The pain suddenly disappeared as quickly as it had began.
******************************
***** Earth #0001-001
Ranma stared at the two sine waves as they moved apart once more.
*I still didn't have the quantum phase variance aspect in my equations
quite correct, and I had been so sure,* he thought with annoyance. He
cut the power to the quantum flux coil and let it cool off as he went
back to work on adjusting the algorithm.
*I was so close,* thought Ranma. *I almost managed to achieve
full synchronization.*
******************************
The next day Ranma made the mistake of taking his lunch break
near where Akane and Nabiki conducted their daily business. He had
his back against a tree when he heard footsteps and faint conversation
a short distance away from his position. He peeked around the edge of
the tree to see Akane and Nabiki confronting a male cadet.
******************************
Akane held the blue uniformed first year cadet up against the wall
as Nabiki spoke with a calm voice behind her. Akane kept one fist
cocked back in striking position.
"Now, Hideo-kun," said Nabiki calmly. "Despite my previous
attempts to resolve the matter of your loan peaceably, you continue to
avoid paying me what you owe me. Your debt has grown to a rather
sizable amount, almost fifteen thousand yen according to my records."
Hideo Masami began to protest when Akane's hand squeezed down
on his throat, stifling his voice to a gurgle. He thrashed a bit and tried
to pull Akane's hand away from his windpipe. She buried her fist into
his stomach, ending his efforts to free himself as he sagged down
weakly.
******************************
Ranma had moved closer and noticed that none of the other cadets
appeared to see what was going on. The nearest ones all seemed to be
wearing the gray uniforms of Security cadets, and they seemed to be
acting as lookouts. Ranma finally managed to get within hearing
range of what was going on.
******************************
"That was stupid, Hideo-kun," purred Nabiki as she leaned in
towards the boy. "It's hard enough for me to control Akane's temper
without you trying to resist."
Hideo started to whimper a little.
"Now that isn't going to help matters at all," said Nabiki calmly.
She reached her hand under Hideo's chin and lifted his face upwards.
"This is very simple. Where's my money?"
Hideo reached a trembling hand into his pants pocket and pulled out
a billfold. Nabiki's eyes took on a happy glow as she saw the object of
her desires. She snatched it out of his hands and began counting off
notes. She suddenly frowned as she realized something.
"There's more than enough here to pay off your loan, Hideo-kun,"
said Nabiki softly. "We could have avoided all of this unpleasantness
if you had simply spoken up more quickly." Nabiki pulled fifteen yen
notes from out of the stack and tossed the billfold back to Hideo, as
Akane released her grip on his neck.
"Sorry, Nabiki," said the boy quietly as he stooped to pick up his
money. "You won't have to worry about me doing anything like that
again." He placed the billfold back in his pants pocket.
Akane noticed a gleam of steel appear in his hand suddenly and
shoved her sister out of the way as Hideo made a wild slash with a
knife. Akane cursed under her breath as she realized that she should
have taken the time to search him, a mistake that she swore to herself
that she would never again make in the future. She ducked under his
next swing.
******************************
Ranma found himself frozen into the spot he was in for a moment
as he watched the deadly duel take place. As much as he disliked
Akane for her actions towards him, he wasn't really happy with the
thought of her getting stabbed. He started to rise up slowly, unsure
what he should do, when Akane took matters into her own hands.
******************************
Akane ducked under Hideo's weapon arm and shoved it aside as
her other hand came up underneath the boy's jaw in a palm strike.
There was a crunching sound as her palm impacted with his jaw. She
quickly followed up by capturing his outstretched arm with her
blocking hand and driving his wrist towards her uprising knee.
Hideo gave out a cry of pain as his wrist gave off a popping sound,
possibly broken or at least sprained, and his knife sailed off a few feet
away. Akane left him there, cradling his wrist and moaning softly, as
blood appeared at the corners of his mouth. She backed up warily and
retrieved the knife, before handing it to Nabiki.
Nabiki stared at the blade in her hand, surprised that such a thing
had taken place. She debated having Akane hurt Hideo further but
finally decided against it. It was going to be hard enough to explain
how he had gotten injured to the Academy administration without
causing a black mark on anyone's record. Despite the ruthless
reputation that she had carefully cultivated, Nabiki didn't enjoy seeing
anyone in pain. It struck her as... wasteful effort.
"Look at me, Hideo," said Nabiki calmly. The injured boy raised
his eyes up slowly. "We were finished. You didn't have to attack me.
Why?"
"I... I didn't want to do it, Nabiki," said Hideo in a trembling tone of
voice. "The knife... isn't... isn't even mine. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Hideo burst into tears and slumped down even lower than he had been,
the picture of misery.
******************************
Ranma moved away as silently as he could. He retrieved his book
and snuck away, grateful that he hadn't been seen. *That was
bizarre,* he thought as he headed back to class. His initial impression
of Nabiki might need some slight adjustments.
******************************
Nearby, unseen by either the Tendou sisters or Ranma, a male cadet
wearing gray frowned unhappily. *The weakling failed,* he thought
with a grimace. *Nabiki Tendou will be on her guard now. Ah well, I
have time to wait for her to lower it again. At least I managed to make
sure that he's more frightened of me than he could ever be of Akane
Tendou.* The cadet vanished back into the trees.
******************************
A week later, Ranma made his breakthrough. He tapped in the last
of the program changes and waited for it to compile. *Now I've got
it,* he thought in triumph. He settled the neural interlink headset on
his skull and waited for the scanning cycle to finish. He had managed
to cut the time down to less than a minute.
"We have quantum pulse...," he murmured with a smile. "Let's do
it." He tapped a couple of keys, and the screen cleared.
*STAGE ONE INTERLINK SOFTWARE RUNNING.... STAND
BY....
Ranma felt that familiar brief flash of... non-existence, for lack of a
better term. The screen showed the two sine waves moving closer
together as he made the last few adjustments in the program manually,
operating by feel alone. As Ranma watched, the two sine waves kept
slowly moving into synchronization. The software finished its last
adjustments and began to stabilize.
"Yes...," Ranma muttered. "Synchronize, damn you.... Come on....
Synchronize!"
******************************
***** Earth #0001-422
Ranma paused in his playing, and the sounds of the piano stilled.
He looked out at the skyline of Paris as a faint buzzing sensation
seemed to appear inside his skull. It was like a handful of bees had
been released inside his brain. The buzzing steadily grew louder.
******************************
***** Earth #0001-001
Ranma let out a cheer when the two sine waves coalesced into a
single waveform. He waited for the final waveform to stabilize, and a
line of text suddenly scrolled across the screen.
*SIGNATURE LOCK ESTABLISHED: 100% SIGNAL STABILITY
"I did it!" he whooped to the ceiling. "I DID IT!"
******************************
***** Earth #0001-422
Ranma suddenly felt the buzzing sensation cease. He shook his
head, and his thoughts felt fuzzy, like he was drunk. He continued to
stare at the early morning sky over Paris.
******************************
***** Earth #0001-001
When he was certain that the signal was stable, Ranma activated the
shutdown procedure. There were still some minor bugs in the core
software, but he would iron those out as he finished up his preliminary
tests. He removed the headset and cheered once more.
******************************
***** Earth #0001-422
Ranma immediately felt like a veil had been lifted from his mind.
He shrugged, deciding that it probably wasn't anything important, and
then returned to his playing. The sounds of one of Beethoven's piano
concertos began to fill the room once more.
******************************
***** Earth #0001-001
Ranma leaned back and closed his eyes. After two years, his work
was finally showing results. He sighed happily and settled back down
before the computer screen. After pulling the keyboard close, he
began typing, cross-linking other components that he had coded
separately into his main software to construct the final version. He
stopped after he installed some of the modules and ran a few more
tests, saving the coordinates for the worlds that locked on cleanly, a
little puzzled at the number that seemed to be blocked by some form of
static interference.
When Ranma loaded in his new scanning module to the software,
he tested it and was pleased to learn that he had cut the scan time
down to less than fifteen seconds. He was almost done with his final
version of the software when he looked up at the clock to see that it
was now nearly four in the afternoon. He had to get to his extra
training class.
Ranma shut down power to his equipment, pleased that he was
finally about to enter into the final stage of testing, an actual full
immersement into an alternate life. He pulled the main circuit board
and made mental notes of where he needed to replace the wire-
wrapping with solder before he began his first full power test run. A
smile was on his face throughout, and he knew that tomorrow was
going to be the day that he changed the world.
******************************
The morning quiet was interrupted by a loud ringing sound. A
hand emerged from beneath a light blanket, slowly reaching and
fumbling around for the source of the noise. A muted grumbling was
heard from beneath the blanket as the hand took several long moments
to track the sound to its source on the table. A brief struggle was won,
and silence reigned over the bedroom once more.
A few minutes later, the door opened with a loud bang. A pair of
pink slippered feet made their way into the room and stopped next to
the futon. A rather angry female voice suddenly made itself known.
"Ranma! You are _not_ going to be late for your classes again if I
have anything to say about it!" The figure waited to see what reaction
occurred, slowly tapping one slippered foot.
More grumbling was heard from beneath the blanket, then a little
bit of motion. The motion became more and more frantic over the
next several seconds, accompanied by more grumbling. Ranma
emerged from beneath the covers.
"I'm up, Mother," said Ranma sullenly, as his pleasant dream
promptly evaporated into nothing.
Satisfied that her son was now awake and would not be late for his
classes, Nodoka swept out of the room to finish making breakfast.
Ranma sat on the edge of his futon, and wished for the thousandth
time that his parents weren't such traditionalists that he could have
had a bed. His mother would be scandalized at the thought, and his
father would simply agree with his mother.
Ranma got up off the floor and walked over to his small closet.
When he reached it, he slid open the door. He pulled his Academy
uniform out of his closet with a hint of distaste. Even though it was
tailored to fit quite well, he still disliked wearing it on general
principles. He put on a clean shirt and socks from the drawer. He
eyed the hated uniform for a moment before struggling into it.
*Now I look like a proper student for the Imperial Academy.* His
mind was full of sincere hopes that he wouldn't run into any trouble
today. Today was going to be his first full-power test. The last thing
that he needed was trouble from any of his fellow students.
Breakfast was the usual quiet affair. Genma kept his nose buried in
the newspaper, occasionally turning pages or grumbling at one of the
new developments in the world. Nodoka busied herself with
delivering the usual delicious meal to the table before she herself sat
down to eat.
The family ate in relative silence. Ranma gobbled down his food as
fast as he could while under his mothers watchful eye, trying to avoid
her usual morning lecture on his table manners. Genma occasionally
gulped down some food, briefly emerging from behind the barrier of
his newspaper. All in all, it was another typical morning in the
Saotome household.
Upon finishing with his breakfast, Ranma picked up his bookbag
and stuffed his personal notebook deep down inside. Inside it was all
of his work so far on his experiments, complete with all of his
revisions for his calculations. He slung his bookbag up onto his
shoulder, put on his shoes, and headed out the door. His parents
watched him as he headed down the street.
"I swear I don't know what is with that boy lately," grumbled
Nodoka. "All he cares about is that project of his."
Genma grunted noncommittally. Nodoka turned to look at him, and
her look was one that Genma had come to see lately all too often.
"He wants to prove your theories correct. Do you think he can?"
"Ranma will succeed," replied Genma with certainty. "He will
prove himself to be the greatest mind that the Empire has ever seen."
Pride filled his voice.
"If you say so, Genma." She smiled slightly.
******************************
Ranma walked along at a leisurely pace. Classes at the Academy
were not what he really looked forward to anymore, not that he did
poorly at them. On the contrary, they were too easy for him. After
following his father all over the world for so many years, having
learned at the feet of every scholar and scientist that Genma could
coerce into teaching him, attending normal classes had been a relief.
Boredom had quickly set in though, and his lack of social skills hadn't
helped with his classmates.
Ranma almost collided with one of the annoyances in his life when
he turned the next corner. He stumbled, dropping his bag, as a deft
footsweep caused him to lose his balance. The day was still new, and
it was already looking bad.
"Watch out, you clumsy weakling!" shouted an angry female voice.
Ranma looked up and grimaced inwardly. Standing before him, in her
usual gray cadet uniform, was Akane Tendou. Her older sister Nabiki
stood next to Akane with a smirk on her face.
"Ranma dear," purred Nabiki, "you should make more of an effort
to be aware of your surroundings." She flashed a cool smile that
chilled Ranma to the bone. Ranma was sure that Nabiki Tendou
already had a promising future mapped out for her in the Security
Directorate.
*This is all I need today,* thought Ranma, keeping his expression
composed as he got back to his feet. The Thug, as he referred to
Akane in the privacy of his own thoughts, watched him stand up with
a frown on her face. Nabiki watched him with her usual cool look of
detached interest. He bowed his head after regaining his feet.
"My sincerest apologies, ladies," said Ranma, hoping that the faint
hint of mockery that he felt was not present in his voice. He kept his
head down as Akane looked at him for a long moment, before she
turned with an angry sniff and stomped away. Nabiki gave him
another cool smile, and her hand reached out to caress his face. Her
hand felt warm, but his skin crawled at her touch.
"Be more careful in the future, Ranma dear," said Nabiki. "We both
know that Akane is one to bear grudges for the smallest of slights."
Nabiki then turned with proper military form, and hurried only
slightly to catch up with her sister.
Ranma watched them both walk off before taking a slightly different
route to the Academy.
******************************
"You should learn to take it easy when it comes to Saotome, little
sister," said Nabiki pleasantly. She walked at her younger sister's side
with an unconscious precision to her stride, her appearance was that of
a proper Imperial officer. "All that anger can't be good for you."
"I still haven't forgiven him for what he did," Akane said with a
slight growl to her voice. She kicked a stone through the fence and
out into the drainage stream as she stomped along in a foul mood.
*Damn you, Ranma Saotome. I wish you weren't always such a
weakling.*
"As I recall it, that incident was just an accident," said Nabiki with
a smile, recalling Akane's mood that day after Ranma had walked into
the girl's locker room. It had been one of her better pranks on her
little sister, and it had served Nabiki's purposes by keeping a distance
between Akane and Ranma. The few of Nabiki's associates who knew
of her involvement would never tell; Nabiki chose her allies carefully.
"I still think it was just an excuse that Ranma made up in order to
peep." Akane felt her insides begin to seethe from the memory.
"You also got detention for a week for harming the star intellect of
the Academy," said Nabiki with a smirk, as Akane blushed with very
obvious annoyance. Despite their closeness as sisters, baiting her little
sister had long been a favorite game for Nabiki, and it served to prove
an observation that she had made about Akane a long time ago. The
Tendou family had served with distinction in the Security Directorate
for almost two centuries, but Nabiki just could not see Akane rising
very far in rank due to her aggressive nature.
Akane grumbled softly to herself the rest of the way to the
Academy, annoyed at her confused feelings for Ranma. They showed
no signs of ever being resolved anytime soon.
******************************
Ranma finally arrived at the gate in the wall surrounding the
Imperial Senior Academy. Built almost ninety years ago, it was a very
stolid but very dreary-looking structure. The Emperor of that time had
wanted to construct a site for serious learning, along the lines of the
finest schools of far-off lands such as Germany or Russia. The
architecture was to mirror the seriousness of the purpose it was built
for, but Ranma just found it oppressive.
His morning classes were dull, as usual, even in the accelerated
program that Ranma was in. Falling asleep was a constant danger, but
he had no desire to end up holding buckets for an hour if he did. To
compensate for the dullness, Ranma composed mathematical proofs
and wrote research papers in his head.
For example, in his Imperial History class, he listened half-
heartedly as the instructor droned on about some of the lesser-known
aspects of the history of the Empire. *Who really cares about some
failed revolution in Britain's old North American colonies?* Ranma
thought with a bored sigh. Most of the western region of North
America had been colonized by the Empire for over a century, after a
long war with Spain. *Would the shape of the world really have
changed that much?*
There had been peace in the world for the last several decades, since
it was divided up among the three remaining superpowers in the
Global War: Japan, Germany, and Russia. England had only recently
managed to recover in the last few years from the three nuclear
weapons that had been dropped on it during the Global War, almost
two decades ago. France was still a concern only due to its
preeminence in space, but the Empire was not far behind.
Finally, having received written permission from the instructor of
his mathematics class, Ranma headed down to his small lab in the
basement levels. Today was going to be the day when he finally
achieved his dream and saw another world.
******************************
*Almost got it,* thought Ranma, carefully adjusting the small
soldering iron, as he placed the last chip back into its place on the
circuit board. It snapped into place, held solidly by a few small daubs
of solder. He pushed the board back into position and ran the system
through final checkout. The monitor brightened into life next to him,
as he sat with the keyboard in his lap. Ranma tapped a few keys when
he was prompted for a user entry.
*SELF-CHECK COMPLETE
*ALL LOGIC COMPONENTS ARE FUNCTIONING WITHIN THE
DESIGNATED PARAMETERS
*QUANTUM FLUX COIL IS FUNCTIONING WITHIN THE
DESIGNATED PARAMETERS
*NEURAL INDUCTION SENSORS ARE FUNCTIONING WITHIN
THE DESIGNATED PARAMETERS
*SYSTEM HAS 10 QUANTUM COORDINATES STORED IN
STABLE MEMORY
*SCAN FOR NEW COORDINATES: YES
*SELECT QUANTUM BAND FOR SCAN: RANDOM
*SET CYCLE INTO ACTIVE MODE: YES
*SET TIME DURATION FOR TEST: 60.00 MINUTES
*WAITING FOR SIGNAL FROM NEURAL INTERLINK HEADSET
Ranma sat back and contemplated the machine assembled in front
of him in his private lab. He was hardly able to believe that it was
finally finished. Two years of working with the equations and
schematics from that strange dream, about a month of assembling a
mishmash of prototype components, and it was now done. The
Quantum Neural Resonator was finally finished, and now he was
finally going to prove that his father was right.
Ranma picked up the neural induction headset. All of his numerous
calculations told him it should work, and every piece of the device had
been checked and re-checked. If he was going to do it, it might as well
be now. The random search module was active but would not engage
until he put the headset on. That would give the system a comparison
model to use as it began searching for a likely quantum signature
match.
Ranma could have used one of the parallel's coordinates that he had
already obtained during his earlier limited tests, but he decided that
the first full-powered test should be to a new parallel scanned from
scratch. That way would test the complete system, from initial scan to
final recall.
Ranma took the precaution of locking the lab door, and the recall
mode for the Resonator had already been set for an hour. *That
should give me sufficient time to look around.*
Ranma settled back onto the couch in his lab. The headset settled
easily onto his head, the background hum of the Resonator feeling like
a faint tickle along the inside of his skull. *Like bees humming in my
head,* he thought. He tried to relax and make himself comfortable.
*This is it,* thought Ranma, feeling a little nervous. This was
going to be his first attempt at total immersion. *I wonder what it will
feel like?*
In the background, the computer spoke in gentle tones, its artificial
voice repeating over and over for several seconds as it scanned through
the parallels, "Searching... Searching... Searching...."
Suddenly, it spoke the words that he had been waiting for,
"Quantum signature match found. Activating cycle."
******************************
***** Earth #0016-502
There was a brief and mildly disturbing moment of dislocation, of
non-existence, and then Ranma found himself in another place,
another life. After a few moments of adjustment, as Ranma blinked
his eyes, an unexpected rush of memories from that other life filled his
awareness. It was rather distracting and even more disorienting,
leaving him confused a moment by his surroundings, so he didn't
realize that someone was addressing him immediately.
"Mister Saotome!" shouted an angry female voice. "Have you fallen
asleep in my class again, you delinquent? What is the answer to the
question?"
Ranma looked in surprise at the annoyed-looking eight year old girl
who was shouting at him and blinked again, before glancing around
himself quickly. A classroom full of students looked back at him, and
the uniforms even looked similar to the ones that he was used to, only
the colors were different. Ranma patted at his clothes and realized
that he wasn't wearing a uniform. *How strange,* he thought.
To add to his surprise, Akane Tendou was sitting behind him and
glaring at him. She was even wearing her hair the same way that he
remembered from his home timeline. Ranma looked puzzled, and
Akane pointed at her text with a final glare. He turned around,
glanced down at a similar book in front of him, and flipped to the
same page. Luckily for him, it was apparently a mathematics class. A
rather easy mathematics class, in fact.
"The answer is the cube root of seventeen... Teacher," Ranma
answered absently.
The child teacher looked more than somewhat surprised, to say the
least. Ranma noticed a small coin in one of her hands that she had
been raising to point at him. He wondered what she had intended to
do with it, and the answer felt like it was on the tip of his tongue. She
had almost dropped the coin after he gave her the answer.
"Th... that's right," said Miss Hinako, in a slightly stunned tone.
"You are correct, Mister Saotome." She started to ask another student
about a different problem, still looking surprised.
"So you _did_ manage to study last night after all," a female voice
stage-whispered behind him. "I thought you were too busy training
nowadays for Ryouga's challenge. Did you decide that school has
value after all?"
"I... uh... found the time later," Ranma whispered back. *Who the
heck is Ryouga, and what is this about a challenge that this Ranma is
so busy training for?*
The answers to his questions refused to come to him, and the very
randomness of the memories that were becoming available to him was
almost maddening. It was like trying to read all of the books in a
library by pulling random pages from each book and reading them all
mixed up. However, as moments went by, the memories were slowly
beginning to sort themselves out.
Ranma sat at his desk and found himself somewhat overwhelmed by
the memories of a life that he had never lived, but he found himself
intrigued by them too. This Ranma had traveled for over ten years
with his father to learn martial arts, a curious parallel, and his life was
a rather confusing kaleidoscope of random memories. Short flashes of
events seen, people met, and various fighting techniques learned filled
his mind.
For a brief moment, a strong image of a valley of pools of water
filled his mind, but it was quickly gone before he could clearly focus
on it. *Jusenkyou?* Another strong image appeared in his thoughts,
this time of a redheaded girl, somehow associated with the name of
that place. He felt that he should know this person, this girl that he
was thinking of.
A new wave of memories flooded across his mind, of all the women
that this Ranma was involved with. Ties of honor bound him to most
of them, often the results of actions by the Genma of this world. This
Ranma was engaged by his father to marry Akane Tendou, but several
other girls also claimed him. Many of their claims seemed equally
valid.
*Engaged to marry Akane Tendou?* The very thought made
Ranma feel slightly ill. From this Ranma's memories, he could tell
that Akane Tendou was almost as much of a thug here as the one that
he knew from his own timeline. Ranma found himself feeling sorry
for the poor fool, but he felt even more surprised when he sensed
strong feelings of love and affection for Akane associated with the
memories. However, they were somewhat deeply buried beneath thick
layers of denial.
*Ranma Saotome loves Akane Tendou?* thought Ranma as he
stared out the window. *Ranma Saotome is in love with a brutish,
angry girl who constantly beats him up? This Ranma needs some
serious mental help.*
Ranma continued looking out the window as he mused on the very
strange life of his quantum counterpart.
The bell rang while Ranma was pondering these things.
*Lunchtime,* Ranma realized with a start, and his stomach
suddenly rumbled softly. He looked at the clock on the wall. *I have
about fifty minutes before recall occurs.*
Ranma sat at his other self's desk for a minute before the smell of
food from his bookbag finally got the better of him. He pulled out his
lunch, and set it on his desk as his mind wandered. *Whatever it is, it
smells fantastic.* He felt his mouth salivate.
Even though the snowstorm of memories was finally settling down,
it was not too surprising to him that most of the memories of this
Ranma's life were rather incomplete. Apparently immersion into
another life did not immediately provide complete access to all of the
memories from that life.
*Perhaps I'll have to set the timer for longer next time,* thought
Ranma with a faint smile. *That should let me get a better feel for the
life of one of my quantum dopplegangers.*
Ranma felt a tap on the back of his skull.
"Are you just going to sit there and ignore me through all of lunch?"
asked Akane Tendou from behind him. The sound of her annoyed
voice disturbed his upcoming enjoyment of what smelled like a
delicious lunch.
Ranma sighed softly, and turned around.
"Sorry about that," said Ranma pleasantly, which seemed to catch
Akane off guard. "I was just thinking about some things and got
distracted. I hope that you will accept my apology." He thought that if
he managed to sound meek enough, it would act to defuse the
infamous Akane Tendou wrath.
Akane softened her gaze at Ranma's apology, which surprised him a
lot. His own Akane had never looked at him with the slightest amount
of softness or warmth, occasionally with amusement when she was
tossing him around or hitting him. She apparently saw him as a
weakling, since he hadn't spent his life learning how to break bricks
with his fists like she had done. However, based on the differences
that he was seeing in his own quantum duplicate's life, it should have
been no surprise that the Akane Tendou of another timeline could be
vastly changed as well.
This Akane did feel different, and Ranma had to revise his opinion
of her a little and try not to think of her as being like his own Akane.
In this world, Akane Tendou was a fairly ordinary girl, for the most
part. She wasn't training to be a member of the Imperial Security
Directorate, and she had had a few adventures with the Ranma of this
world.
*Maybe if I don't do or say anything that this Ranma normally did
to make her mad, she might even smile at me.* A puzzled look
suddenly crossed his features briefly.
*Where the hell did _that_ thought come from?* He blinked a
moment in sudden confusion.
"Are you okay, Ranma?" asked Akane, looking at him in mild
concern.
"I'm fine, Akane," he replied. He even risked a smile, and she
smiled in return.
"Nihao, Ranma!" suddenly spoke up a perky female voice behind
his head. The pleasant look on Akane's face darkened into a scowl,
and she turned her head aside with a slight huffing sound.
Ranma turned around to see a bouncy female body to match the
perky voice. She was sitting perched in the window, holding a
delivery box. *Shampoo,* his new memories prompted, *proud
Chinese Amazon warrior girl.* He smiled at her, and she smiled in
return.
"Ranma happy to see Shampoo?" The girl leaped at him in a single
bound and hugged him without dropping her delivery box. Ranma
had never been greeted by a beautiful girl like this before, it was more
than a little pleasant. He started to return the hug, but a quivering at
the back of his skull made him glance behind him. Akane was glaring
at him again.
"Ranma," slowly said a furious Akane, "what do you think that
you're doing?"
"I was about to give Shampoo a hug." The words seemed to just
slip out before he could think about the possible repercussions. "What
do you think about that?"
"DIE RANMA!!!" Akane screamed. She picked up and threw a
random desk at the couple for further emphasis of her point. *She
sure changes her moods quickly,* Ranma thought in amazement.
Ranma reacted without thinking, grabbing Shampoo and jumping
over the hurtling desk, which promptly sailed out the window. It
managed to do so, amazingly enough, without even touching any of
the edges of the open window. A loud crash was heard from below a
few moments later.
"Ranma save Shampoo from violent girl!" exulted the Chinese girl
in his arms, and promptly began snuggling in his arms happily.
Romantic visions of Ranma's heroism danced in her head, and she
began to make purring sounds as she snuggled against him. Ranma
felt like he had died and gone to Heaven.
"Ranma honey?" asked a new female voice, edged with anger, one
that his fragmentary memories didn't recall immediately. "What do
you think that you're doing?" A large metal object attempted to pry
Shampoo out of his grip, and another girl was on the end of it.
*Ukyou Kuonji,* Ranma's new memories flashed up, *okonomiyaki
chef and also engaged to Ranma.* He let go of Shampoo, and Ukyou
pried the Amazon off of him. She then immediately moved between
himself and Shampoo.
"You stay away from Ranma, you Chinese bimbo!" Ukyou snarled
out. She took up an aggressive stance, her combat spatula at the
ready. Ranma thought he saw a blue glow swirl around her body for a
moment, but he decided that it had to have been a trick of the light.
"Ranma is husband of Shampoo, stupid spatula girl!" Shampoo
yelled back. She took up a combat stance of her own, looking ready
for anything, and Ranma saw that same blue light effect for a moment.
He rubbed his eyes, and it was gone.
*Perhaps it's some sort of visual illusion caused by a mild phase
imbalance,* Ranma thought. *One that is too subtle to be able to be
compensated for by my equipment.*
The two girls continued to stare at each other, apparently waiting to
see who made the first move. *I've never had women wanting to fight
over me before,* Ranma thought with mild envy, as he marveled at the
novelty of the experience. Both girls looked pretty determined to fight
over him, and Akane just stood to one side and glowered at all three of
them.
"Please don't fight," said Ranma, rather louder than he had
intended. All three girls looked at him in surprise, and Akane was so
surprised that she forgot to glare at him for a moment. "I just wanted
to eat my lunch in peace today."
"Shampoo brought you delicious lunch," declared the Amazon, as if
daring anyone to question the fact. She grabbed her delivery box off of
a nearby desk and pulled out a bowl of something. Shampoo whipped
it under his nose, a steaming bowl of ramen noodles, and then smirked
at Ukyou.
"I've got your lunch right here, Ranma honey," Ukyou said quickly.
A small grill suddenly appeared as if from nowhere, and a blur of
cooking took place. Faster than Ranma would have imagined possible,
Ukyou presented him with a plateful of okonomiyaki while she stuck
her tongue out at Shampoo.
Ranma felt that he was rapidly reaching the limits of his ability to
deal with the female of the species. The whole situation was simply
bizarre to him, despite its earlier appeal. The two women nearest him
alternated adoring looks in his direction with murderous gazes at each
other. Akane just looked upset at all three of them equally.
"Umm... that's fine," said Ranma mildly. "Just put it on my desk,
and I'll try to eat it all." He sat down and started to eat the original
lunch that he had brought out, and two more full lunches were
immediately set down next to it by the two girls. Both of them sat
down at two recently-vacated desks next to him and sighed as they
watched him eat. Akane just kept glaring in the trio's direction.
*I think I could get used to this,* thought Ranma, as he ate with a
smile. Akane moved off to eat with some of the other girls in class,
still glaring at Ranma.
******************************
Ranma suddenly shook his head to clear it. The clock on the wall
read an hour later than he last remembered it. *Did I fall asleep
sitting up?* he wondered with a frown, then a worse thought occurred
to him. *Oh no! I missed lunch!* Yet he didn't feel hungry, which
was odd. Ranma decided that he would have to ask Akane if he had
missed anything important.
Ranma glanced down at the book that was open on his desk and
sighed when he realized that it was his English book. What didn't
quite register immediately, but did within a few moments, was that he
could make sense of it all of a sudden, and English had always been
his worst subject. *Must be from that year I spent in Britain.
Waitasec.... When did I ever go to Britain?*
******************************
***** Earth #0001-001
Ranma opened his eyes and smiled. Despite some unexpected
surprises, the experiment had been an incredible and unqualified
success. He slipped off the neural interlink headset and stretched his
arms out until his spine popped lightly. Bracing one hand against the
edge of the couch, Ranma flipped off of it with unconscious grace in a
smooth midair somersault and landed on his feet. He then froze in
sudden surprise.
*When did I learn how to do that?* Ranma wondered, staring at his
arm for several long moments. *Memory transferal? Could it be both
ways?*
******************************
Epilogue:
***** Heaven #0001-001
The systems of Yggdrasil hummed along smoothly, maintained by
the many gods and goddesses assigned to that task. In a small side-
chamber, there was a swirling coalescence of light that resolved itself
into a cloaked and hooded figure, all in pale blue. The blue-garbed
figure emerged from the side-chamber into the main hallway area and
paused, as the various deities passing by ignored its presence. Their
power was insufficient to even be aware of it if it chose to remain
hidden.
The figure was ignored by all, save for one young goddess.
Belldandy looked up from her central workstation as she managed
the daily file updates for the main system. She thought that she had
sensed a strange presence of some sort with her in the datacore, but
there was nothing there when she looked up. She saw Urd tapping
away at her own terminal, but her sister gave no indication that she
had been aware of anything. Sensing no danger, Belldandy shrugged
and went back to her work.
The figure walked to an unused workstation and stretched forth a
gloved hand, and a stream of data blurred across the screen, written in
symbols that were ancient when the world was young. The figure
seemed to nod as it read a section of the data and then withdrew its
hand. In a second swirl of light, it was gone, and no trace of its
passage was recorded in Heaven.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
My heartfelt thanks goes out to all of my pre-readers for their
comments and suggestions. A special thanks goes out to D.B. Sommer
for his experienced assistance with my clumsy writing, and also to
Michael Allen for his help with the pseudo-science and several plot
points.
Here is a semi-brief explanation of some of the terminology and
pseudo-science used:
The Earth designations are to make it easier for readers to follow
the locations of where things are happening. They reference Imperial
Earth (0001-001) as the center point, where the core of the story takes
place, and are in the form 'xxxx-yyy', where 'xxxx' is the quantum
band number and 'yyy' represents a particular Earth in that quantum
band.
A quantum band consists of a region of divergences in Earth's
history approximately a billion seconds (roughly 31.69 years) wide,
and the higher the number the farther back in time the divergence
from Imperial Earth's history occurred. All of these parallel Earths are
connected by means of an n-dimensional coil that only brings a
relatively small number of the infinite possible alternate histories
within easy reach of each other.
The numbering of the different alternates within a quantum band
generally* follows a mathematical progression which determines how
each separate world is accessible by one or more turns of the coil.
Each world that is accessible within a coil is differentiated by a
geometric factor that is the cube of their differences. So for instance,
0001-001 and 0001-002 are separated by one second, 0001-005 by
sixty-four seconds, 0001-008 by almost six minutes, and so forth.
Oddly enough, this pattern will reset with a new band, rather than
continuing on with the same levels of increase from a previous one.
Additionally, due to the nature of the coil, World A is able to access
World B, World B can get to World C, but World A is unable to access
World C. This is due to interference patterns with the quantum band
rings that are surrounding other alternate Earths. For example, 0001-
001 could visit 0001-397 and vice-versa, but neither one can be
contacted directly by any of the worlds between them and vice-versa.
*Note: This is all in reference to Imperial Earth only. The numbers
only show the magnitude of time since divergence occurred between a
world in a given band and Imperial Earth. Worlds in a quantum band
also contain worlds that may greatly diverge from each other, more
than this formula would indicate. Also, two worlds that may be in the
same quantum band when compared to Imperial Earth may be in very
different ones in regards to each other.