Another beautiful afternoon in peaceful, blighted downtown NeoTokyo.
It had the peace of the dead, with the freshest of corpses no less than
two hours old, while its cynical architects had designed the local
buildings so that no matter how badly they got shot up, they were still
undeniably works of (abstract) art.

Alas, the peace was about to be shattered.  Shamon's posse had caught
up with him again, with predictable results:

"IT WASN'T MY FAULT!"  One extremely handsome wannabe hero ran by.

"DIE!!!"  One herd of ticked off women, men, spirits, robots, and
animal hybrids, each with a long list of reasons to be upset with said
wannabe, many involving a misfired attempt at romance.

The herd chased Shamon back and forth across the cratered road - many
of the road bumps a result of prior such chases - when suddenly a pair
of hands shot out of an alley and yanked Shamon off the street.

Shamon worked out what had happened just in time to avoid running into
the alley's wall, and he heard the herd thunder by, oblivious.
Immediate concern taken care of, he turned to look at his savior.

She was a plain looking girl, whose sweater and jeans did nothing to
flatter what figure she had.  Her glasses were cute, though, as was her
look of total adoration.  "It's really you," she breathed.  "Shamon..."

Shamon instinctively flinched away, but she had his arm in an iron
grip.  "Whatever you're mad at me for, I didn't do it, honest!"

"Oh, I'm not mad.  In fact..."  She pulled him closer, spinning him
around so she was between him and the street.  "I'm here to get you
away from all this."

"Away?  But..."  He blinked.  "Oh, what the heck.  My prior commitments
can take a hike.  I need a change of pace."

She smiled.  "I thought you'd see it my way.  You can't see it, but my
portal's right over *pop*URK!"  Smile changed to surprise as red
blossomed on her chest.

Looking behind his dying ally after he felt the bullet rebound off his
armor, Shamon saw the herd, which had managed to double back and now
looked at him with their usual expressions of anger, pain, and/or lust;
a disturbing number, he knew, felt all three.  Smoke wafted from one of
their guns, though he could not identify which.  He backed away slowly,
letting the body in his hands crumple to the ground.

"That's good," someone behind him called out.  "Just keep going."

Seeing the herds' eyes shift to the newcomer, Shamon looked towards the
voice, and saw what might have been his distorted twin, dressed in a
tuxedo and holding up a silver cylinder that flashed once...

...

"Thanks for finding that dummy body on the ground there, but you
didn't have to shoot it: it's just a dummy."

Shamon, and the herd, blinked.

"Well, now, I'd say you're *real* lucky, Shamon: you just apologized
and they all accepted it."

"I did?"

"We did?"  Shamon counted the echoes, finding they easily outnumbered
all of his main rivals.  In fact, just about every person with a grudge
against him, except that one he was pretty sure was dead for good this
time.

Newcomer nodded.  "You did.  And *someone* even said 'I love you'
while you were accepting the apology.  Didn't catch who it was,
though.  Shamon, you might want to go figure it out."

"Ah...right."  Shamon tore his eyes away and stepped over the body,
only to be mobbed by every female and quite a few other members of the
herd.  The rest just stood back and smiled, happy either to have their
friendship with Shamon resumed or for whatever ally they had to finally
have admitted to loving Shamon.

While this was going on, the newcomer walked up, picked up the body,
and walked through the wall, vanishing from this dimension.  At least
this dimension's version of himself would have a happy life...

******

"Any luck?"

Shamon, stripped to the waist, chucked his blood smeared jacket and
shirt into a retractable hamper set into the wall, pushed it shut, and
inspected his chest in the bathroom mirror as the hamper began to hum.
"Got there just in time.  The docs say she'll live."

The only other man in the bathroom, dressed as Shamon had just been,
nodded and pulled out a manilla folder.  "Any weirdness?"

"Besides running into myself?  Not really.  But I think we can take
that one off the 'endangered' list."

"He died?"

Shamon smirked.  "Actually, I managed to solve all his problems.
Rather easy, actually."

"Tsk."  His companion shook his head.  "You *know* what that's gonna do
to the Cosmic Balance.  Some other you who had a good life, is now
going to have it ruined.  Nature has its quota: a certain percent of
you gets the good life, a certain percent...not."

"Yeah, yeah."  Satisfied his chest was clean, Shamon reached for the
hamper just as it opened, his clothes cleaned and pressed, and began
redressing himself.  "I'll never see most of them anyway, so why *not*
have a little fun?  I'm exempt 'cause..."

"...'cause you've been extracted from your home reality.  Whatever
Author wrote you had 'Handsome Bastard' in mind, that's for sure."

"Not handsome.  *Bishonen*.  There is a difference, Jake."

Jake shrugged.  "Yeah.  You were, I'm not.  I never did understand why
you asked the plastic surgeons to make you non-bish."

"What, so I could go on living the life I'd been living, *after* you
rescued me and with all I learned?  Especially with the fact that
there's thousands of realities like my own, created by these Author
deities, to the point where just another me wouldn't matter?"

"It would to your home reality.  Your friends probably cried themselves
sick when they thought you were dead."

"No they didn't.  They died trying to kill me.  That's when I was
extracted.  Remember?"

"Actually, no.  The docs picked up a lost memory transferring from my
last clone."

"Oh?"  Shamon buttoned the last button on his shirt.  "You're somewhere
close to your 1000th clone, aren't you?"

"Somewhere, yeah."

"How'd he die?"

"Retired, actually.  Jumped into an addictive-level hentai dimension,
and couldn't muster up the will to jump back."

Shamon's eyes glanced to his partner's reflection in the mirror.
"*Jake*..."

"Ok, ok."  Jake smiled.  "Blind jumped into a black hole.  Scratch that
reality from our multiverse charts."

"More like put a big red hazard sign around it."  Shamon smiled.  "Hey,
sorry it was *your* clone, but at least we won't lose anyone else going
there."

Jake shook his head.  The first explanation was actually the truth, not
that Shamon needed to know.  And the dimension was now classified as
off limits: unable to return was unable to return, whether due to loss
of willpower or gravitational impairment.  "Anyway, once I got revived,
I did some digging on your latest case."

"Yeah?  Ready to concede that our hunter Umi was set up?"

"Shamon...as you know, the Council officially frowns on the term
'hunter'."

"Even if it *is* accurate."

"Yeah, well.  They also only approve expeditions to retrieve bishonen
who meet certain criteria, usually boiling down to imminent danger,
torture, or other conditions which are worse than a life of servitude
to one of our citizens."

"'Strictest ethical standards', yadda yadda yadda.  You ever *seen*
these so-called standards?  I don't think they've ever published them."

Jake shrugged.  "They say writing them down would only provide for
loopholes."

Shamon, having finished with his jacket, began combing his hair.  "You
know your worst habit, Jake?  Reciting things we already know."

"Hey, *you* try dying so many times your memory gets swiss cheesed and
see if *you* don't need confirmation.  Anyway, they also make sure that
whoever petitions to capture a bishonen is able to face the reality's
hazards...which brings me to *your* worst habit."

"Being suspicious?"

"And usually being right about it."  Jake plopped the folder onto the
counter next to Shamon, opening it to reveal a short stack of papers.
"That universe was Danger Level 3.  Umi was only cleared for DL 1.
She's never held a gun in her life, and without demonstrating some
marksmanship she'd never be cleared for DL 2, let alone 3."

"Well, now.  A bit more straightforward than usual for them.  They must
be getting desperate."

"Who's 'they'?"

"The powers that be, or at least a sick faction of them.  Have you ever
wondered why these 'expeditions' only retrieve bishonen?  There's a lot
more people than that in danger out there."

"I know the Council's answer."

"You mean their bogus, pseudoscientific rationalization."  Shamon
shook his head to muss his hair just so, then continued, "The real
reason: bread and circuses.  The men get to go off to any hentai
universe they want and enjoy themselves, so long as they don't take too
much time off from being productive workers.  The women get to make
love slaves out of cute guys, under the same conditions...but our own
men are off limits.  Don't want to reduce the worker pool."

Jake looked a bit pained.  "So what's this got to do with Umi?"

"You just wrote the reason on your face.  Deny it all you want, but
you're in love with her.  The faction wants everyone but themselves to
be treated as objects, replaceable cogs in the machine.  Love and trust
are the antithesis of that, so they try to eradicate them.  Of course,
it's not going to work: even if it *does* take hold, it'll reverberate
up the chain until *they* get treated as objects too.  They'll realize
their mistake and put the brakes on, but not before a lot of people get
hurt.  Like you and Umi."

"..."

"Fortunately, in your case I know just how to fix things."

******

Shamon knocked on the hospital room door as he let himself in.  "Umi?
The docs say you're conscious."

Umi lay on her bed, arms draped around two of her prior catches cuddled
up beneath the blankets.  She gazed at the ceiling with a look of pure
bliss, marred only by the thin trail of drool leading from her mouth's
left corner to her pillow.  "'Thank you for saving me, Shamus'," she
recited in a forced monotone.  "Now go 'way."

"Afraid I can't do that just yet.  I was asked to bring your harem in
for a medical checkup.  That includes those two."

Umi frowned.

"I know you're busy enjoying them right now, but I can offer a loaner."
Shamus reached outside the door, and pulled in Jake.  "My partner here
has offered to stand in their place for as long as necessary."  He
pulled Jake up to the bed, then tapped the two bishonen on their
shoulders.  "Come on, guys, don't make me pry you from your mistress."

Reluctantly, the two got up and marched out under Shamon's guidance.
Only when Shamon closed the door behind them did Jake sit on the bed.

Umi sighed.  "Well, if you're going to substitute, let's see how good
you are."  She pulled Jake prone and kissed him.

And disengaged, eyes wide, half a minute later.

Jake blinked.  "Something wrong?"

"You...you kissed back.  No one's ever kissed me back before."

"Well, if I'm going to substitute for all of your guys...surely they
like you a little bit, so put all their hearts together, and..."

Further conversation was halted as Umi resumed their kiss.  In the back
of her mind, she planned: she could not claim this one like all her
others, but perhaps she could marry him if he kept this up.
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