Hey, all.

   It's me, the Gentleman Caller.  Some of you may not have paid any attention to my previous fic, 'YARL', due to the fact that it's a lemon.

   Fair enough - there's a lot of traffic on this list, and we've all got to filter it somehow.  Greetings.

   So, I'm feeling like writing something non-lemony, and I've been peering through some of my back-list items... things I've started, but somehow haven't continued.  This is one I've always liked.

   My question is:  Is this worth continuing?  Or not?

   Enjoy...

---
BGC - 2110


MegaTokyo, 2036 AD

    Nene Romanova could feel the sweat running down her back as she worked at removing the boomer from the ADP computers.  She tried to ignore the sweat, to devote her entire attention to rooting out the electronic intruder and tossing it out like yesterday's garbage.  She was glad she had Mackie helping her.
    The power system flared higher as the boomer's control programs gained a firmer grip on the system... and then Nene realized the solution.  Her fingers moving as quickly as she could, she input as series of small viruses into the system, activating the ADP's anti-virus systems... slowing the available processor time down to the point where the boomer's programs could be shut off, and deleted.
    She reached up and removed her helmet, the warmth inside of it suddenly unbearable.  Everyone had evacuated the building, so keeping her identity a secret wasn't a problem.  She smiled at Mackie, seeing the relief she felt written across his face.  And then she heard a movement behind her, and turned.  Sylia, Priss, and Linna all stood in the doorway, their presence clear testement to thier faith in her skill.
    "Nene, it's time to get up."  Sylia said in a strangely flat voice.
    Nene blinked.
    "Nene, It's time to get up!"  The three women in the doorway chorused.
    She turned to Mackie, his face strangely blurred.
    "WAKE UP!"

MegaTokyo, 2110 AD

    Nene Romanova gasped as she was dragged back into wakefulness.  As her alarm continued to scream out of her computer, she felt along the side of the bed, found an empty bottle, and tossed it at the switch across the room. Her throw was high and to the right, but luckily a large chunk of the (now broken) bottle landed on the button, shutting the alarm off.
    "Not bad..." she muttered to herself.  Usually it took two or three times to get the damn thing off.  On bad days, she'd had to crawl across the floor and hit the button personally.
    And then she remembered.  She wasn't a teenaged hacker-superhero keeping the world safe for humanity.  It had been another stupid dream, dumping her back into the hell she had made of her life.
    She stood, kicking aside a number of bottles as she trundled off to the bathroom, speeding up as she went as she realized that she was going to start the day kneeling in front of her toilet once again.

    A shower can always be relied upon to restore the shine to a new day, and Nene felt much better as she walked into what only an optimist would have been able to call a 'Kitchen'.  She had been too tired or too drunk the night before to set up the constitutor for breakfast, so she had to wait for five minutes while a muffin and a cup of strong coffee (two sugars, two creams).
    Sitting there, she looked up at The Poster.  It had taken her a good deal of time and effort to find.  It was an actual release poster, not a replica, for Bubble Gum Crisis, The Movie, displaying Sylia, Priss and Linna posing in their hardsuits fighting a boomer.  It had been her favorite when she was getting through college, although most people dimly remembered it as an old TV show.  The doctors at the hospital wanted her to keep it in view, so it could remind her that the people she dreamed about were actors in a movie and not real.  A buzzer went off and she shuffled over to her muffin and coffee, biting one in half and then draining the other.
    And that's when she realized that something was wrong.
    It took her a while to pick out what it was.  Her apartment was a mess, old food containers and dirty clothes warring  for space with run-down furniture and piles of books and magazines.  It was her mess, and none of it was missing, but there was something *wrong*.  And then she realized that a pile of books that she had knocked over the night before had been moved to the side.
    After that it was pretty easy to see one or two other things misplaced.  She was pretty proud of herself, spotting that someone had been in her apartment last night, until she realized that it meant someone had actually been in her apartment last night.  She sat on a stool, one of the few bare seats in the apartment, and shuddered.  Why would someone do that, come in and do _nothing_?
    After five minutes she was able to figure out that none of her computer equiment had been stolen.  Her small amount of jewelry (most of it cheap junk - nano-replicated gems and cheap metals in simple settings) and other valuables were fine.
    She called the police after she called in late for work.  The police arrived pretty quickly.  Nene's apartment was in a nice and 'secure' building, and as long as she kept paying her share of the maintenance fees she had a place for life.
    The officers sounded dubious when she explained why she thought someone had broken in, given the security of the building.  Unfortunately one of the officers knew of her occassional drunken binges, and was more interested in chalking it up to another one.  She insisted, however, that they run a Nanosniffer through the room.  After that they left, she went to work, hoping perversely that it had been her imagination.

    Work was nasty.  She arrived at the office, and endured yet another lecture from Ms. Naniko about how 'arriving late is stealing from the company', and then was allowed to slink off to the cubicle she shared with Naoko, the only other sane person in the building.
    Naoko gave her a sympethetic look as Nene sat down.  "Dragon Lady got you again, huh?"
    Nene nodded, and explained why she had been late.
    "Creepy.  You're sure you didn't just imagine it?"
    Nene shook her head.  "No, I'm sure of it.  Someone had been in my apartment.  I don't know what they wanted, but they were there."
    Nene shrugged, and jumped as the person in the cubicle knocked three times on the cubicle wall.  Dragon Lady Alert!  She got to work, as Naoko casually thumped the wall on her side of the cubicle, passing the alert along.


The Gentleman Caller
gcaller@hotmail.com

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