Subject: [FFML] [FANFIC][TENCHI][ALT.UNIVERSE] Unfinished Business 1:4
From: "Dennis Carr" <ke6isf@webworldinc.com>
Date: 5/6/1999, 5:36 AM
To: "ffml@fanfic.com" <ffml@fanfic.com>

DISCLAIMER:

This story is based off of the Tenchi Muyo! anime series, produced
by AIC and released by Pioneer Anime America.  All characters
from said series are the property of such.  The characters Hikaru
Moriyata, and any Argelians (which will be discussed in a later
chapter) are the product of the imagination of Dennis Carr, and
belong to same.  The character Trakal, insofar as he is
developed in this story, is the product of the imagination of
Karmin St. Jean, and belongs to same.

The persons and many events in this fanfic are fictitious.  Any
resemblance to any person, living or dead, or any event other
than what has obviously happened, is a coincidence.

Any military or police procedure outlined throughout the fic does
not necessarily depict any real life procedure or scenario.  Any
similarity to real life procedure/scenarios is, again,
coincidental.

Author's note: One would normally be hard pressed to find a
Japanese Restaurant that is actually open on mondays.  There does
exist such a place, however.  Believe me, I couldn't have made
that up if I tried. -Dennis

Tenchi Muyo: Unfinished Business

A fanfic by
Dennis Carr (ke6isf@anaheim.crosswinds.net)
and
Karmin "Trakal" St. Jean (trakal@map.com)


Chapter 1:4 - How to make your captain mad....

September 14, 1998

Hikaru's personal log

It's been two weeks since the lot of them moved in.  Since this
has happened, it seems that things are pretty systematic.  Ryoko
joins me for coffee about every morning, I go hit my beat, Tenchi
runs off to school, and returns here, typically using my computer
for his research, Ryoko and Aeka fight when he gets home- and
when I'm around for that,  they wind up looking like their heads
were inserted into a clothes dryer.  If I'm not around, however,
well, let's just say I'm very thankful for Washuu being around.

(Its pretty weird, though, considering how Aeka keeps her hair
tied off, that it all winds up standing on end as a result of the
ED.)

Also, Washuu keeps trying to get either myself or Tenchi in for
some sort of tests.  She's an interesting character.  She's a
genius, but she's no less interesting.

Surprisingly, Kurumitsu and Makabi haven't changed.  The fact that
they fit together is extremely insane - almost like...oh, what do
the Chinese call it?  Yin and Yang.  Mihoshi's scatterbrained,
optimistic personality to Kiyone's straight-edge, somewhat
pessimistic personality.  They balance out. It's almost as if
they were meant for each other as police partners - even if that
statement is somewhat sick and twisted.

Even so, I'm very amazed that they get along as friends, let
alone colleagues.

Despite this, I have taken leave of my senses.  See, we needed
two new officers - finding good replacements is damn hard, and
especially after we lost McCormick a couple of weeks ago to a
gunshot.  And a certain two GP C1D's that I know of needed work
to put up their end of the rent.

I guess none of the kids out of the academy want to die.

No, rephrase - they don't even want to take the chance.

I'm a little worried about the whole mess, though.

They've all been pretty good about keeping quiet as to their
origins, and the kids downstairs think Ryoohki's just the cutest
thing - even if she is the *strangest* thing they've ever seen.
Sasami has even gotten along well with the kids where she's
schooling, and has surprised the living daylights out of the
local administrators by her intelligence.

Ryoko's even taken a job at the local Starbucks Coffee.  It
amazes me that she can get along there, but I guess she's got the
will power enough to control her powers enough to remain
inconspicuous.  On the other hand, the job suits her personality,
and I think she even likes it.

Washuu?  She's overqualified for anything here.  End of story.

And Aeka?  Well, I don't know what to make of her.  She's a
spoiled little brat who's always had her own way.  (Well,
almost - she got me.)  And yet, I have no idea whatsoever I see
in her, what it is that made us even friends in the first place -
or for that matter, what could've been something different.

Maybe I'm just worrying too much.

---

10:30 PDT

So far, the morning had gone well for the two GP detectives.  As
of the beginning of the shift, they were officers with the Brea
Police - and lieutenants, no less.  How they wound up with the
rank was anybody's guess - those who knew better attributed it to
blind luck, especially because of the mishaps that happened over
the course of the three-day testing period.

At the moment, they had just pulled into a Starbucks in Anaheim
Hills, a short distance from where they lived.  They got out,
checked themselves over, then walked in.

Ryoko stood behind the counter, polishing a coffee cup and
humming along with a jazz tune that was playing in the
background. She looked up and saw the two detectives. For a
moment her face fell, then she composed herself and stepped up to
take their orders.

Mihoshi was a bit surprised, needless to say.  "You *work* here?"

"Would you give me a break. First you get on my case for being a
space pirate and now you're getting on my case because I *work*
for a living?"

"I was just surprised."

"So was I." Ryoko replied.

The remark apparently went over the detective's head.

After they both ordered a standard cup of drip coffee, Kiyone
looked around, and finding nobody else but them in the store at
the moment, started speaking to her in Japanese.

"We have reason to believe that one of the Galaxy Police might be a 
double agent. We don't know who they're working for or why, but
it's something we're concerned about."

Ryoko paused.  *Why are they asking me about this?*  "Look, I
have no idea what is going on, but Hikaru might know more about
this."  She looked over to her left, where a somewhat portly
gentleman was operating the espresso machine.  "Hey, Dylan, mind
if I take a break?"

"Sure, go ahead," he replied, without looking up from the
counter.

As they exited, a man with shaggy, dark blond hair walked in, who
Dylan addressed as "Outlanderrr!" for a reason known only to them.
After sitting down at a nearby table, they continued the
conversation, still speaking Japanese.

---

On a laptop issued to him by Washuu, Trakal logged into a
sattelite connection that he knew well.

---

"What we have," Kiyone continued, "is an indication that an
outside source is hacking sattelites using GP- and non-GP-methods
in an attempt to search for somebody in this area.  We just don't
know who it is - or for that matter, who they're looking for."

---

A motorcycle-bound police officer took a green light that had
changed in his favor just in time as he traveled off of the short
freeway portion of Imperial Highway that connected Anaheim Hills
and Yorba Linda. He made a right hand turn at the next light, and
yet another right hand turn into a driveway.  After a bit of
navigating around parked cars and concrete barriers, he parked
next to Mihoshi's squad car and removed his helmet, momentarily
shocking a trio of older women with thick New York accents who
were enjoying a morning coffee break.

After ordering a cup of coffee, Hikaru stepped back outside,
turned left around the building, and approached the table where
the two officers and the blue-haired demon were sitting, and sat
down, a sinister grin on his face.

"Ya know," he said in Japanese, faking a countryside accent, "ya
found my secret hideout.  I'm gonna have to kill ya now."

Everybody else groaned.

"So, anything exciting in the life of our landlord?" Ryoko asked.

Hikaru rolled his eyes. "Nope.  They stuck me on Lakeview, up
over Imperial, and I stopped three speeders, and tagged one guy
who just had to get to that eight AM meeting, so he passed a flashing
fire truck."  He leaned back in his chair.  "I'm not so sure I can
handle so much excitement!  You guys get anything exciting going?"

Kiyone opened her mouth to speak, to be quickly interrupted by
Mihoshi going on a five minute speech about how she finally
learned the area, and the streets are so simple around here, except
for Imperial Highway, which cut through the area at a diagonal once
you passed by the Hartley center and wound up actually travelling
north and south instead of east and west by the time you got down
here, and what's such a short freeway doing here, doesn't the
local department of transportation have anything better to do
with their money, and why don't they build a bridge over that set
of rails-

"Stop."

Mihoshi stopped, and Hikaru sighed.  "Now I remember why you're
still with the GP," he said.  "You have an eye for detail so
sharp it can kill."

"Speaking of GP," Kiyone said, "take a look at this."  She handed
him a printout, which he read over, sipping his coffee on
occasion.  After two minutes, he put it down.  "So who's looking
for me?"

"Dunno, but how do you know they're looking for you?"

"Well, they're patching into a sattelite that's in a geo-
syncronous orbit over California - Titan Four to be specific -
and I recall hearing something about some databases with my name
going through those feeds.  That, and whoever it is is using
standard GP hack procedures.  Mib has been watching the sat, I
think it's one of theirs anyway.  Any other GP we know of on
Earth?"

Mihoshi got as far as "Tr-" when the radio went off.  "All units,
we have a chase in progress, southbound Randolph past Birch, blue
and white 1980 Trans Am.  All available units are ordered to
intercept."

As the officers made haste to their respective vehicles, Ryoko
continued to sip her coffee, apparently immune to its effects.

Or maybe it was the fact that the coffee she was drinking was
decaffinated.

---

A few short minutes later, a squad car with Mihoshi at the
wheel had shut off its lights, and pulled onto a small side
street called Orbiter, facing Kraemer Boulevard.  During those
minutes, the perp, described as a tall blonde haired man with
facial hair had given chase in a seemingly random pattern, never
even touching the nearby 57 freeway, almost as if it were a game.

And so they waited.  But not for very long, when the call came
over the radio that they were waiting for.  "Suspect heading
south on Kraemer from Birch."

Kiyone grabbed the microphone to the radio and keyed up.  "Roger,
this is niner four, we're in pursuit."

---

The motorist, enjoying himself (and listening in to the police
transactions on a scanner), heard this call, and kept an eye out
for another squad car.

There was none.

He floored the accellerator and passed over a hump where there
were previously railroad tracks, and then saw the car on his
left - and smiled.

---

"GO!"

Mihoshi brought the light bar to life, and gunned the
accellerator, easily matching the speed of the sports car,
desperately wishing that this car could fly, and not caring one
way or another as the perp made a left hand turn, and she
followed.

"Suspect bearing, ah, west on Imperial.  Niner four still in
pursuit."

Mihoshi continued, precisely matching his driving patterns.  The
suspect, meanwhile, kept an eye on them in his rear view mirror,
surprised at this one.  Normally he could outshake any cop.

The chase continued for another two minutes down Imperial, with
Kiyone calling locations and Mihoshi driving with the skill and
precision of a NASCAR driver - until *it* happened.

The blond man in the Pontiac realized that there was a bicycle he
was about to hit, and swerved to miss.

"Niner four, suspect overcorrecting on Eureka, I thi-!" The car
swerved as Mihoshi proceeded to overcorrect, still matching the
perp's actions perfectly.

"MIHOSHI!!!!"

"GAHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The Pontiac slid through the dirt that lined the edge of the
road, spun out, and stopped in front of a house on that corner,
all four tires now shaved on one point, and consequently deflating.
The squad car, however, wasn't so lucky - Mihoshi had managed to
miss the sports car completely, but in doing so, skidded to the
other side of Eureka, onto a dirt lot, upon which the car spun 180
degrees and backed into an old Pacific Electric Railway box car
with an MJB logo painted on the side; this action in turn left a
massive puncture in the gas tank, and suddenly there was about five
gallons of unleaded gasoline spilled on the dirt.

Somewhere near the car, a Buick logo hit the ground.

The two women exited the car - Kiyone only after forcing the door
open - and held their guns at the driver, who was now standing
outside his car, arms raised.  It wasn't very convincing, though,
as Mihoshi now looked like she'd seen a ghost.

"Hey, Mihoshi?"

"Y-yes?"

"Remind me to do one thing when we get back to Japan."

"What?"

"Strangle you."

At that moment, several squad cars and a motorcycle pulled up and
came to an abrupt stop, with a helmeted officer raising the
windshield of the helmet, and suddenly gaping.

"You totalled the *Buick*?"

---

11:15 PDT

"OK, squad car ninety-four, a Buick Roadmaster - no, *was* a
Buick Roadmaster - is now destroyed," said Captain Jim
Ignakowski as he paced about his office, about as tall as his
fictional namesake, with none of the speech or (possible) thought
patterns inherent.  "Theoretically, you should not be able to
destroy a Buick, as here in the states, it stands for `Big
Unstoppable Indestructable Car Killer', or so the joke goes - and
yet somehow, you managed to implode the trunk and rupture the
gas tank.  That thing had been hit, flipped, tipped, bumped, and
I don't know what else over the past few years, and it managed
to come out alive."  He stopped pacing, and faced Mihoshi
directly. "And now we put you behind the wheel, and you kill it,
Kurumitsu. You have an explanation?"

She didn't.  She did, however, have a face that spoke of an
intense fear of losing her job, and tears to match.

"Sir, if I may-"

"No, Makabi, you may not.  I want to hear it from your partner,
who might I add is costing us another two thousand dollars in
hazmat cleanup fees for the gasoline spill."  He again looked at
the blonde, whose state of paralysis had not changed.  After
another moment, he sighed.  "I'll be out getting some coffee.
Don't move.  Lieutenant, try to relax a little, alright?"

As he stepped out and closed the door, another lieutenant walked
up along side of him.  "Jim, give them a break, OK?"

"Look, you know I treat everyone else here the same, Hikaru, why
should I give them a break?  That thing was my baby-!"

"-and you're taking it out on them.  Listen, I know that thing
was your baby, you've lectured me eleventy-seven times on how it's
a sixty-seven Roadmaster and how you can run head on into a
train with it, but they ran *tail* first into that box car down
there on Eureka and Imperial! Besides," he said as he poured his
boss's coffee, "Mihoshi managed to stop him."

"The way she drives, it's surprising."

"Really?"  He grabbed a bottle of water out of a vending machine.
"Jim, I recommended those two because I knew them to be some damn
good cops, and you know I wouldn't recommend somebody out of the
blue if I didn't know them.  For the luvva God, give them a shot,
wouldya?"  He sat down.  "Besides, I don't know how many times I
banged that thing up during my first month here."

The captain sat down opposite the Juraian, and sighed in
resignation.  *He's right.*  "But still."  After another moment's
pause, he raised his head.  "Alright, I'll do it.  You owe me
for this, though."

"What, today?"

"Yep.  Hey, you chew out a higher ranking officer, *lieutenant*,
and, well, you know the rules." The captain smiled somewhat
deviously at this.

He knew what this meant - sushi.  At a place walking distance
from the station called Ichiban, the only decent Japanese
restaurant he knew in the area - no, check that, *in existance* -
to be open on a Monday.  Hikaru checked his wallet, and imagined
n+1 moths flying out of it.  He was going to have to break that
hundred, most of which would vanish during lunch.

"This is gonna hurt."

---

15:20 PDT

Sasami stepped off of the bus, made her way around the corner in
eight minutes, and weightedly walked into the condo, removing her
shoes.  She was so tired that even her hair was drooping a bit,
and school was so boring she was depressed.

She was pretty good at astrogation, and yet there was the
assumption that she couldn't read a map due to her grade
placement level.  This, despite the fact that she had not only
memorized all of Hikaru's map books - what did he call them,
Thomas Guides? - for the entire state, she had also pinpointed
which streets where bike routes, all of the rail lines, and
completely memorized the bus systems for Orange and Los Angeles
counties, and was currently working on Riverside and San
Bernardino counties' Omnitrans system.

Of course, there was the minor detail that she couldn't tell
anybody about her true origins.  As far as they knew, she was
Tenchi's niece, whose parents had died when she was about two -
so now because of this, she had been cared for by Nobuyuki, and
was currently under the care of Tenchi, who was legally an adult.
All of this seemed to satisfy Child Welfare Services.

There was a general agreement among almost all of the parties
involved: American government was run by idiots.

On top of this, they had placed her in something called Gifted
and Talented Education.  *Yeah, right*, she thought, as she fell
on the couch, painfully remembering what it was they were doing.

Computer programming.  In Apple BASIC.  On an Apple //c.

She so yearned for the biological computers available to her on
Jurai, even if only to develop a surreal version of, say, Myst.
(In fact, anybody would be able to do that on one of the
bio-units on Jurai, if one got to thinking about it.)  She even
yearned to learn a more powerful language.  C.  Forth.  Lisp.
Pascal, even.

But no.  Apple BASIC it was.

On an Apple //c.  The ultimate in toy computers.

And so, after reading a few manuals and learning how to type in
English (which took all of fifteen minutes), she hacked together
the closest resemblance to an operating system one could find to one,
after figuring out how to get into the on board assembler
development unit, and figuring out 6502 assembler.  (It wasn't
that hard, really.)  It didn't do much - it couldn't even
multitask, but what can on a 6502 processor? - but it was
certainly more powerful than the version of ProDOS they had.

And for that matter, it was rare that she even sat down in front
of a computer, except to play a game.  But then, what with being
several hundred years old, cryogenic hibernation notwithstanding,
you learn a few things.

At any rate, because of this, she had to stop attending that
school.  That was at 09:30 when she completed development of the
system files, and after being interrogated and tested by several
administrators, it had been decided that she was too smart for
fifth grade - or for that matter, most public education.  She would
immediately transfer to El Camino Continuation School, which was
conveniently located just off of the 30 bus on Orangethorpe.

Thus was the pros and cons of being considered a child genius.

Sasami jumped as she felt something small land in her lap,
breaking her reverie, and relaxed a little as she saw that it was
only Ryoohki, who miya'd at her inquisitively.

Sasami looked down at the little cabbit. She scritched her chin
and nodded. "Yes, I am a little nervous." She admitted. "I hope
they like me at my new school."

The cabbit miya'ed cheerfully and nuzzled Sasami's chin.

Sasami smiled. For some reason, she thought of the shrine, and
those who remained there.  "I wonder what everybody back at the
shrine is doing," she spoke, mostly thinking out loud.

Ryoko, looked up from her silent raids on Aeka's french fries
and remarked, with mer mouth full of the results of her recent
plundering, "Trakal's probably teaching Yosho how to install a
hidden camera in the women's bath."

"That's disgusting, Ryoko!" Aeka remarked.

"Hey, I can't help it if the Galaxy Police are perv..."

"I meant you. Talking with your mouth full."

Ryoko swallowed. "Whatever," she remarked.
	
Aeka picked up another fry, and inserted it into her mouth - and
quickly retracted, as the rancid flavor of old grease overrode the
otherwise pleasant flavor of deep-fried potato.  "You can have
them."

"Oh, you're no fun anymore!"

"Hmph!"

---

September 15, 1998
07:30 Tokyo time

It was a perfect day outside.  The sun was shining, a slight
breeze was blowing, and Makiya had just awakened to this, with
the sun shining through the window.

And it was going to be very quiet again.

*I could get used to this,* she thought.

Only one thing was missing - her husband wasn't in the bed.  She
looked, and found him sleeping, hanging inverted from the bar that
hung from the ceiling.

On those nights they did share the bed, she realized that doing
so was best compared to sleeping with a giant teddy bear - only
this one was alive, and had a difficult time sleeping in any
position other than inverted.  This last note she regretted, and
add to that it would be a while before he acclimated to sleeping
prone.

She further regretted that she would probably never be able to
get used to the bar herself.  As the use of it required her to
hook her knees over it, she couldn't, as this would cause the
blood vessels therein to kink closed - the result would be loss
of circulation to the feet, and one didn't need to be a doctor to
understand that, after a prolonged period of no circulation, the
end result would end up that she *loses* her feet - which wasn't
appealing at all.  She needed them to walk, for crying out loud!

Makiya pulled herself up from the futon, groaning as she did so
with the added weight of the twin fetuses inside her, and
shuffled over to her beloved, to bend over slightly and blow in
his ear.  This caused it to twitch slightly, and he resettled
into sleep.

She repeated this, now barely brushing a finger along the top of
the lobe - it twitched again, now more excitedly, causing him to
wake up.

"Stop it," he mumbled.

"Oh, come on, it's morning!" she replied cheerfully, walking over
to the dresser to retrieve a bathrobe.

"Wha, already?"

"Mm hm.  Time to face yet another day."

Trakal groaned, and slowly bent himself upwards, till his nose
met the bar.  He held this position for about thirty seconds,
as his abdominal muscles burned with the fire of lactic acid, and
his dorsals de-kinked.  After this, he slowly grabbed the bar,
pulled his legs out, and held them straight as he pushed himself
out, keeping his legs outstretched and feet pointed, and braking
the inevitable swinging motion only with his hands as he lowered
himself to an upright position, all the while ignoring the pain
of his protesting muscles.

The entire process took about ninety seconds before he was
hanging by his hands from the bar, after which he released,
landing silently, with all of the grace of a gymnast.

This illicited a charmed applause from Makiya, who was smiling
like a cheshire cat.  "Showoff."

"Hey, old habits die hard."

"Still, you look good when you do that."

"Well, what else am I to do?  Besides, I'm working outside all
day."

"Come on, that's not fair, I'm seven months pregnant!  Besides,"
she said, walking towards the door, "who is it that cooks your
food?"

A tired laugh came out of him.  "By the way, Nobuyuki said he's
cooking today."

Makiya stopped.  "You know, that may or may not be a good thing."
She opened the door, and almost as if in response, the last thing
a pregnant woman ever wants to smell assaulted her nostrils.

Fried eggs.

Normally, Makiya was fairly partial to the American breakfast
fare - but when a woman is pregnant, such odors induce a strange
anomaly that is inaccurately named "morning sickness",
symptomatic to which is nausea and vomiting.

In a futile attempt to block the miasma off, she immediately
closed the door, and turned towards Trakal, now blanching. "It's
a bad thing.  He's cooking eggs."

"Wha?"

Her stomach rapidly got the best of her, and she re-opened the
door and made a beeline for the toilet, holding a hand over her
mouth as she ran.

As she ran out, Trakal took a couple of whiffs, and became rather
disgusted himself at the overwhelming scent, wondering how the
*hell* humans could eat such garbage.