Good morning!

You'll have to forgive me for publishing a final schedule that I couldn't
keep.  To be honest, I don't really like Evangelion.  Or Tenchi (well, I
like it a bit, but not enough to write a fic for it). ^_^

Anyways, it was a decision I made BEFORE USA lost to Germany off a
handball that was thisclose to being called a PK to equalize.  So, don't
let anyone tell you that I stopped writing because I was crying in a room
for days on end.  It was more like hours... *g* But anyways, here is the
FINAL episode in the series, completed so now I can collapse onto a bed
and watch the World Cup final match without any other responsibilities.

Let me set this up for you.  I wanted to do something special for the
final match, so I asked around and got permission from some fanfic authors
to let me use their characters in this latest Reality Jumpers fic (the RJs
being my own characters, its leader being a self-insert I created in the
eighth grade).  The list of fanfics used is included prior to the title,
so you'll know more or less who makes up the case of characters on this
final adventure.

So, without much further delay, here's fifteen pages of madness, awaiting
a thorough and perhaps extensive C&C from all the FFML (please? *g*).  For
one last time in this series, enjoy!

Roehl Sybing
"The past is gone but something might be found to take its place" - Gin
Blossoms, Hey Jealousy

Infinite Deferral - http://www.infinitedeferral.com/
 - stories, fanfic, politics, j-pop, and some curling
every-now-and-then-when-it's-in-season

P.S. My prediction: 1-1 at the end of extra time, Brazil beats Germany 7-6
on penalty kicks. :)
---
"Undocumented Features" is a Dirty Pair fanfic written by Benjamin D.
Hutchins, Brian Bikowicz and Rob Mandeville.  For more information, visit
http://www.eyrie.net/.

"Dear Mom" and "We Just Want to Help You" are Bubblegum Crisis fanfics
written by Jeanne Hedge.  For more information, visit
http://www.jhedge.com/.

"Operation: Reality Check" is a Sailor Moon fanfic written by Roehl
Sybing.  For more information, visit http://www.infinitedeferral.com/.

"The Bubblegum Zone" is a Bubblegum Crisis fanfic written by Bert Van
Vilet.  For more information, visit http://www.bgcrisis.com/.

"Thy Outward Part" is a Ranma 1/2 fanfic written by Richard Lawson.  For
more information, visit http://www.sterman.org/.

Infinite Deferral Productions presents...
Caught in the Sun
A 2002 World Cup / Anime Fanfic Series
By Roehl Sybing (indef@infinitedeferral.com)

Final Episode: Let's Get Together Now
Final Match: Germany v Brazil @ Yokohama
An Anime Fanfic

"You are there for me, this I hope and pray..."
 - Course of Nature, Caught in the Sun

"Drop the weapon!" Mike cried, "I said drop it now!"

In the darkness, the shadow complied only reluctantly.  The object fell to
the ground and the figure held his hands against his head, as he was
instructed.  The confident Reality Jumper only waited for backup to assist
him.

One by one, the other Jumpers rushed into the area underneath the stands,
looking to see what was the matter.

"Guys, I've got our man!" he cried once he heard their footsteps echoing
against the walls about him.

His four partners stopped right behind him.  Jackie took one look at the
silhouette pointed out by Mike's energy gun, and then hit him repeatedly
on the arm. "'Got'!?  We already had him!  We had to break off because we
thought you were in trouble!"

Silence pierced the tension around them for quite some time, until Mike
responded, "What are you talking about?"

Chris and Kim rushed over to the figure in question, patting him down on
the floor until he could be properly identified by the object he dropped
on the floor.

"Congratulations, Mike, you made him drop his wallet!" Kim said.
---
A large portion of the underground areas of International Stadium Yokohama
was the temporary home of the buzzing mobile command center, in which the
Reality Jumpers made their base.  Jake was in the heart of one of the
Commission's largest deployments in recent memory, in a makeshift
interrogation room where their person was being held.  After half an hour
of questioning, the team leader stretched his legs and walked out of the
room, where the other Jumpers were waiting.

"I got a name: Bert," Jake said, reporting on what little findings he had,
"A codename, too: SkyKnight.  But that's pretty much all I got out of
him."

"Whoever he is, he's got two forms of identification," Jackie said,
holding up the contents of his wallet, "With two different dates of
birth."

Jake took the cards from Jackie and inspected them himself, "Well, he
can't be thirty-two and sixty-two at the same time."

"Or with Canadian and Japanese citizenship at the same time."

Kim looked up, "The guy's Canadian?"

A nod from her fellow officer prompted Kim to draw her miniature
flame-thrower from its holster. "Let me at him already!" she cried.

Jake held her back, "At ease, officer, the war's over!"

She was forced to calm down after a few outbursts of rage, after which she
settled down and disengaged her weapon.

"I'm fine.  Really," Kim said, trying to convince the others.

"He's a goddamn wanderer," Mike said, "Who knows what he's done to the
timeline, or how many six-eighteens he's committed."

"The time traveling I'll buy, but we got to assume he jumped here by
mistake.  Hacker reported a couple of spontaneous gateway openings the
moment we arrived," Jake explained.

"They could be dangerous."

"Well, we have bigger problems to worry about.  Like this computer system.
C'mon."

The three other Jumpers followed him to the large area commanded by
several dozen technicians and countless computer displays and inputs,
where Chris sat hard at work.

"Shouldn't judge our suspect, Kim," Jake said as they walked, "He's pretty
charismatic even for you."

"Older men aren't my type," she replied, "Or Canadians."

"Whatever.  OK, Chris," he said, "What do we got?"

Chris took off his headset and swiveled around in his chair, "We got
absolutely nothing.  My boys spent the last couple of hours trying to
crack this thing, but it's a total mismatch.  We're working on something,
though."

"Yeah?"

"Nothing special, just checking to see if the stadium security will
respond to our inputs at all."

Jake gave the go-ahead, "Alright, make me proud."

Chris nodded, and took a standard keyboard, a device with which he was
completely unfamiliar, slowly and cautiously typing away at its keys.  The
large ENTER key was pressed, at the monitors flashed with all sorts of
action.  His eyes lit up, assuming he had done something right for the
first time today.  Suddenly, though, the displays blinked in and out,
showing various error messages in red.  Alarms went off, and to their
surprise, the ground below them began to shake.

Jake held on firmly to a console, and Kim held on firmly to Jake, and one
after the other they formed a chain as a violent rumbling overtook the
area.  Several agents around them fell to the ground as the mobile command
center shook all about, but only because the entire stadium shook all
about.  The artificial earthquake subsided somewhat, but the room
continued to shake.

"What exactly did you do?"

"I don't know!" Chris cried, "Our devices are not compatible with these
systems!  It seems to have caused a tremor from inside the stadium!"
---
Dear Mom,

I'm in the hospital.  No, don't worry!  I'll be up and about in a few
days.  See, a client of mine knew someone who knew someone who was giving
away some tickets to the final match, and, well, I just couldn't pass it
up!  They even wanted to give us a tour of the stadium in Yokohama, so how
could I say no?

We were there hours before the game, and eventually I had to break for the
restroom.  So, you know me, curious as ever, it's a strange thing about
those Japanese toilets.  I must've pushed the wrong button, though,
because the entire restroom shook and flooded from the inside out!  It
would be bad enough, if it weren't for a piece of the ceiling landing
right on top of my leg!

The doctor's not concerned, and I'll be getting back to work by the end of
the week.  A shame about missing the final game, though...my favorite team
won, too!

Again, don't worry.  These things happen, you know!

Your daughter, as always,
Me.
---
"We have eight hours," Chris said, "We have got to figure out this
computer system in eight hours."

"I know," Jake replied, "We just need someone who can h--"

"Jake!"

He heard his name and turned his head.  The next thing that Jake saw was
the Federal Reality Commission's SpaceCol liaison and her hand striking
him hard across his cheek.

"What the--?  Lisa!"

"Do you know how many favors I had to call in just to find you, just to
get your coordinates!?" Lisa asked angrily.

Jake raised a finger, "This, uh, this I can explain..."

"Oh, save it, tough guy!  Has it dawned on you yet that it has been five
years to the day?"

Instinctively, the junior officer's jaw dropped, but Lisa took it as much
more.

"I don't believe you!" she cried, "I am never speaking to you again!"

"Lisa, this is not what you think!  I took this assignment because it was
important!" Jake said before being pushed away.

"A lot of things are important, buster!  Saving all those children on
Omicron 4-9-6 from the Black Plague is important.  Protecting Earth Prime
from renegade vampires is important," Lisa said while flinging her hands
about, then rolling them into fists as she pouted like a small child,
"Remembering the five-year anniversary since we started
dating...IS...IMPORTANT!"

"Lisa!  I--"

"No, don't say anything!" Lisa cried as she again pushed away from Jake,
"It's gonna take a lot for me to get over your wanting to go to a dumb
soccer game instead of spending some time!"

Jake couldn't say anything to her that would make her feel better,
especially when she escaped his reach and into the growing crowds outside
the mobile center, grabbing the nearest young man in both their sights and
kissing him firmly on the lips.

The junior officer was taken aback, "Lisa!"

"You got a name?" she asked half-seductively.

"Uh," the young man mumbled, "I-It's, um, Kentaro."

Lisa's eyes instinctively and methodically lit up as she resorted to
petting Kentaro on his neck. "Excellent.  You got tickets?"

"Yeah, I guess, but, but--"

"Great!  C'mon, let's get out of here!" Lisa shouted loud enough for Jake
to hear, as she took her new partner by the arm, leaving a stunned Jake to
contemplate the last few moments.  The young man named Kentaro wanted to
resist at first, though his desires got the best of his intellect.  All
Jake could do was watch the two of them happily fade into the crowds.

"God!" Chris said, grinning after having observed them the whole time,
"Would I love to have that woman ruin my life."

Jake turned to Chris, looking at him as if to scoff, "Shut up, Chris."

"Do you think she's coming back with us?"

"Oh, I think so," he replied, checking his watch, "That's the third man
she's kissed this week, besides myself.  I should feel sorry for all of
them, really."

"Must really be pissed at you lately," Chris said curiously.

Jake shrugged, "Tried to make dinner for her a couple days ago.  Forgot
about resetting the energy fields in her apartment.  You know, kitchen
stove, cooking oil, fire, low gravity..."

"Yeah, I gotcha."

"Singed her hair really bad," he commented unemotionally.

"So that's why it was buzzed short..."

The pocket intercom beeped intermittently, interrupting their rather
laid-back conversation. "Tyler here," Jake said.

"The two in custody are in interrogation, sir," the voice replied above
the static.
---
"Now," Jake said, sitting at the other end of the table, supposedly in
good cop-bad cop mode, only if Jackie were in the room to assist. "From
what security tells me, you two have been wandering around the restricted
areas of the stadium, trying to figure out what's what."

"We, uh," the first man said, "We thought we were in a program--"

"Yeah, that.  You managed to activate your, um - what do you call it?"

"The HoloDECstation."

Jake nodded in agreement, "Exactly what you just said.  It turned on at
exactly the same time our gateway opened into this reality.  The energy
streams converged, a huge wormhole swiss-cheesed the entire planet, and so
here you are."

The second man asked, "Is that why the--"

"--That's why a naked woman was running through the stadium, yes.
Apparently she was taking a shower when it happened," Jake replied, trying
not to laugh at the situation.

"I knew she wasn't programmed in," one whispered to the other.

The two in custody looked at each other, and then the first asked, "You
need us for something, don't you?"

The junior officer nodded his head, "Well, when you mistook our mobile
center as part of your...holo-thingy, we caught you hacking into the
stadium's computer grid, trying to get out.  We need you two to help our
lab boys crack the security system."

The first looked at Jake suspiciously. "Why?" he asked.

Jake looked towards the one-way mirror in the wall.  A green light above
it lit up, and the officer complied. "We've got a very dangerous mad
bomber on the loose.  He's not here to make statements, he's just here to
cause trouble.  The biggest audience on this planet will be watching
tonight's match, and he has pledged this stadium to be his calling card to
the rest of the continuum.  We can't let that happen, and so I need you
guys to teach our techies to break into the stadium's computerized
security so that we can control it during the match."

"Yeah," he said, pointing at himself and his partner, "But why do you need
US?"

Jake eyed both of them, trying to stare them down.  In the end, though, he
had to confess. "The proprietary security program employs coding that is
far less sophisticated than our own.  This Earth calls the system UNIX.
It is simply so primitive that we just don't understand it."

The silence among the three of them would have demonstrated the nature of
this comedy, had it not been so indicative of the serious tension among
everyone involved.  Despite what was, at best, an indirect insult,
MegaZone and ReRob looked at each other one more time, nodding to cap an
unspoken agreement.

"We'll do it," they said.

The junior officer smiled in relief. "Good," he said.

Just then, the door flung open, and through it entered another Reality
Jumper.

"So!  The hell were you doing in the commcenter?  Answer me!  Don't lie to
me!" Jackie exclaimed while repeatedly pumping her fists into the table to
intimidate, to which Jake reacted with planting his head onto his hand.
---
"And welcome, to those of you watching from around the world, to the World
Cup final match between Germany and Brazil!  It is estimated that every
one in five people in the world are expected to watch two of the biggest
titans of the game clash with each other for the right to hoist the most
coveted trophy in all of sport."

"Just an hour before the game started, International Stadium Yokohama was
already packed to capacity.  We've already got in attendance a couple
thousand people in excess of the seventy-thousand seated surrounding the
pitch, and that's not including the security forces and stadium officials!
Everyone here, regardless of the result, is in for a treat, starting with
the pregame ceremonies, then the game itself, in which there are no clear
favorites, all the way to the trophy presentation.  We promise you that
this will be a night to remember!"
---
Jake walked back into mobile command, saying, "This is one night I'd
rather forget."

"Every bookie on three hundred alternates has bets going on this match."

"Don't remind me.  Unless we find these bombers, we're not going to have
time to watch a single minute of it!"

"Yeah, that," Mike replied, "There's also a bet on whether the match will
actually finish, with all the stuff that's going on.  I got fifty credits
on it."

Jake turned to Mike, looking cluelessly, "What?"

"Angeles Island has eleven-to-three odds on our finishing this match
alive, I couldn't pass it up!"

The team leader flung his arms in the air, not finding much relief in
where he was going either.

"OK, so wait!" a dumbstruck Chris said for the rest of his techies, "What
was that command you just sent?"

ReRob looked at Chris in amazement, "For the ninetieth time, I just
changed the directory."

Jake held his hands against his hips, "Chris!"

Chris, spotting his fearless leader, sought consolation from him by
gripping his clothing. "Jake, this is like the Dark Ages, dude.  A
hundred-and-one keys on a two-dimensional input!?  I might as well give my
boys some sticks and stones and tell them to invent the wheel, man!"

The wall intercom behind a desperate Chris lit up, and Jake looked past
him, saying, "What is it?"

"Incoming message, sir," an officer said, "Unknown origin."

"Alright, put it up," Jake ordered, to which the screen turned on,
revealing the face of horror.

"Hey!" ReRob cried, "That looks like Coyle!"

"You're looking at the most dangerous man in the bunch," Jake said,
pointing at the monitor, "There's a double of him on nearly every
Alternate Earth in the continuum, accounting for countless acts of
mischief.  We got a whole department set aside for just this one person."

"Now that's just scary."

"What do you want?" Jake asked.

The man on the screen smirked, "Me?  I just want to play a game.  Oh,
don't worry, the main event, our big blast, is coming up, but first I want
to keep you boys on your toes.  So what do you say about an opening act?"

"Not in the mood for appetizers, sir," he commented.

"No, I don't think you have much choice in the matter," the man said
before hanging up the videocom, "By the way, Tyler, have you seen Jackie?"
---
She grabbed her overpriced tempura from the concession stand and made her
way to the elevator.  Jackie was late checking back in, and darted for the
shortest possible route back to the commcenter.  The door shut behind her
and she allowed the woman next to her to press the button of her desired
floor.

"Crazy night, huh?" Jackie asked.

Suddenly, the elevator car stopped between floors, and the two women stuck
in it were knocked off their bearings.  The lights went black and the dim
emergencies lit up.

"Uh, don't panic!" the Reality Jumper cried, "We just--"

In mid-sentence, a panel in the elevator car's ceiling gave way and
dropped a bomb between the feet of the two of them.  It had the mad
bomber's signature all over it, complete with wiring, booby traps and a
fancy digital display, counting down from ten minutes.

"Oh, my God!" the woman said, hyperventilating.

Jackie looked at her, then looked down, observing that she first needed to
get a hold of herself and get a hold of the situation. "Alright, stop!"
she said, grabbing the stranger very tightly, "What's your name, soldier?"

The woman's lips quivered, but she managed to speak, "It's, uh, Colleen."

"Alright, Colleen, I'm Jackie," she said, forcing herself to calm down,
"Now, I can't defuse this thing if you're going to be freaking out all
over me, do you understand!?"

Colleen's eyes lit up as if hope had arrived, "Can you defuse this bomb?"

"Yes, I--well, yeah!"

"O-O-OK," she replied in a less frantic tone, collapsing along the side of
the elevator car, leaving Jackie to tend to the device in front of her.

"Is there anything I can do?"

"No, not really," Jackie replied as she wiped the sweat from her face.

"Just tell me if you do," Colleen suggested, "I saw this in a fanfic
once!"

Jackie raised her head.

"Never mind."
---
"And so, the Brazilians with the early chance to go one-up on the Germany
on this penalty kick.  Dangerous foul in the box by the German defense.
They paid for it with a yellow card, and they just might pay for it again
if Brazil can get past the stonewalling German keeper, who has been
tremendous throughout this tournament."
---
The first few minutes flew by, as Jackie's fingers navigated underneath
the open panel of the lethal device.  Wires changed colors, light patterns
between diodes were hard to predict, and booby traps that could set off a
premature detonation were littered throughout the bomb.

"Let's just say we're not in good shape," Jackie said.

"Oh, we're in trouble," Colleen replied.

"Only until we get out of it," she said with determination, reaching into
her uniform to grab her electricity gun, "It's not set off by an electric
charge, maybe I can short out the wiring before I set off a trap."

"What are you doing?"

"Yeah, just in case, if it doesn't work, for the record, this was not a
good idea," she said with a very nervous laugh.

A frightened-out-of-her-wits Colleen crawled away from the device and
hugged the wall.  Jackie stuck the barrel of her weapon into the insides
of the explosive and looked away before pulling the trigger.  Lightning
bolts channeled out of the gun and flew all over the insides of the
device, burning out the circuit boards and causing fumes to rise up from
the bomb.

"Did it work?" Colleen said after a moment of silence.

"Uh," Jackie mumbled, eyeing the accelerating pace of the time display,
"I'm working on it."

Colleen gasped, "This can't be real!"

"Oh, believe me," the Reality Jumper replied, "This is as real as--"

An object moved about in Jackie's pocket.  She felt the side of her pants,
and her jaw dropped with delight as she took it out. "The track-and-return
device!" she cried, "I must've forgotten to get it charged!"

"What is it?"

"It's--" she said, stopping herself.  She didn't dare tell Colleen what it
was, but she would have to show it to her anyways. "Try not to look,
alright?" she asked.

Colleen hid her eyes behind her hand, as Jackie hoped that there was
enough of a charge in the track-and-return to open up the gateway.  She
pointed it at the elevator door and pressed the buttons, opening in thin
air a wormhole back to Commission headquarters.

"Here's to hoping there's no one on the other end," Jackie said to herself
as she furiously lifted the bomb off the floor and hurled it into the
gateway.  She noticed that Colleen was extra-curious as she peeked through
her fingers.  They both watched the gateway shrink into nothing, closing
entirely just half a moment after an explosion on the other end translated
through the opening with a cloud of smoke and bits of debris.
---
"The keeper got a piece of it, but Brazil scores!  One-nil to the South
Americans!  Amazing strike, as both of them faked left and eventually went
right.  The keeper reacted just in time, but could only put three fingers
on it as the ball sailed into the back of the net.  Simply amazing!"
---
Jackie collapsed onto the floor, hearing only the sounds of gratitude from
Colleen, both of their lives having been spared.

As cliched as it was, the elevator started up again, rising to Jackie's
floor just after the bomb went off.  Her scanning showed no life on the
other side of the wormhole, where one of the Commission's gateway rooms
stood, but the damage had to be considerable.  No one would have to know,
though...
---
"Jackie!" Hacker One said once the elevator door opened, "We thought you
were in trouble!"

The Jumper shook her head, trying to play ignorant of the bomb she threw
back into Headquarters on Earth Prime.  Colleen, however, was not so coy.

"Are you guys, like, superheroes?" she asked, "Some secret organization,
right?  And you're here to save us from the bad guys!"

"Miss," Hacker replied, "I think you're mistaken."

"The lab coat, the glasses, the long hair!" she cried, observing Hacker
One, "You must be the brains of the outfit!  Mister, this woman saved my
life!"

He looked at his officer, "From what, Jackie?"

Jackie desperately shook her head, trying to deny the whole thing had ever
taken place.

"Jackie!" Colleen said eagerly, "Tell him!  Tell him about the bo--"

The Jumper covered the woman's mouth with her hand, laughing frantically,
"Hacker, this woman is delusional!"

Hacker looked at the two of them with a hint of suspicion, but he
suspected that he would never know what happened, only that their presence
among the locals was compromised.

"OK," he said, having moments ago signaled two guards to greet them,
"These men are going to check you out for...any injuries, young lady."

"But I'm not hurt," Colleen insisted as she was taken by her arms, "I'm
completely fine!"

"It's alright," Hacker said in a falsely comforting tone, "All part of the
service."

"But, but--!" said the woman as she was forcefully removed from their
sight and into the back end of the command center.  Jackie and Hacker One
watched until she left their field of vision.

"Are the mindwipes really as painless as they say?" Jackie asked
innocently.

Hacker stroked his chin, saying, "No."

"Oh.  OK."
---
An agent darted through the hallways and into the command center, where
Jake sat in the midst of all the action.

"Director!  Director!" he cried, "There's been a fire in the storage
areas!"

Jake shot up from his chair, "What?"

The officer handed over his papers to Jake, saying, "We had two of our
guys watching storage pack away some crates at sublevel.  Something was
ignited, and the whole place went on fire!"

"Tell me there's a connection."

"Yes, sir.  We had the place scanned, in the box that was ignited, there
were trace elements of compound-114."

His eyebrows lifted and his jaw dropped, and Jake looked to his partners.
How refined, weapons-grade compound-114 got out of a military armory and
smuggled into an Alternate Earth of this type was beyond him and his
Jumpers.  This crazed bomber was too direct for Jake's liking.

"The trace compound must've shaken off whatever was in the crate," Jake
said.

"Then it's in the balls, sir," the agent replied.

The team leader looked at him blankly. "What did you just say?"

His mouth remained agape, "The box was carrying the match balls, sir.
They're all on the pitch right now, sir."

FAR too direct, Jake thought.  Hardly fancy, not at all creative, but the
bomber was getting away it, had some workers not been as careless in
igniting the unfortunate package.  He took a deep breath, two steps from
hyperventilating, shooting from the hip upon trying to devise a plan.

"Kim!" he cried, "Follow me, we're headed up to the field!"
---
"And the gritty German offense equalizes early in the second half!  It
wasn't pretty at all, but the defense for Brazil broke down, letting their
opponents in literally through the back door.  The corner kick bounced
around a couple of times until the loose ball found the midfielder to take
it all the way into the net, making it one-one Germany!"
---
Jake and Kim snuck up to the edge of the tunnel leading to the field, and
spotted some distance away from them the wireframe container, holding the
surplus match balls that waited to be thrown into play.

"Alright," he said, "Get up there and find the bomb."

"Me?  Why am I getting shafted!?" Kim protested.

"Well, it's your turn, and you're closer to it!  Just find it already,
will ya?"

Kim pouted, but eventually did as she was ordered. "Just in case," she
said, "I'm going to blame you for this if I don't make it!"

She sprinted towards the gold-colored soccer balls, leaving Jake to cover
her in the distance.  He couldn't bear to watch her get in trouble,
though, and so his gaze drifted elsewhere.  Jake looked all about the
endless stands above him and across from him.  They were all jumping up
and down, in the midst of a tense draw on the most important match of the
tournament.  He couldn't help but think that he wasn't part of any of the
real action, just sitting behind the scenes, while Lisa was somewhere deep
in the excitement without him.  Just with that dumb guy she picked up!
Jake kicked himself as he was torn between responsibilities.  To think of
all the things that character could be doing to her!

A firm slap on the head snapped him out of it. "Where the hell did you
go!?" Kim shouted in his ear.

"I'm sorry!" Jake apologized, "Did you get it?"

That's when Kim held the prize up, "There's enough explosives in here, we
might skip the next life."

He looked all around at the innocent people in the stands. "Great," he
said, "Now what?"

His words startled Kim. "'Now what'?  You don't have a plan?"

"Just give me a second, alright!?"

He desperately searched for a solution, even as the explosives-laced
soccer ball stood in his midst.  Jake looked to his left, and in front,
just below the first row of seats stood, luckily, the answer to his
prayers.  Another rather large device, a humanoid-shaped machine, sat
largely unnoticed, entirely ignored by the crowds who had seen large and
towering balloon mascots wander the field during pregame ceremonies.

"What is it?"

Kim inspected the machine with her scanner, "It appears to be a rather
crude mechanized weapon suit."

"Creative," Jake said, "Must've also got caught in the wormholes.  It
looks like it needs a driver, where is he?"

"Don't bother looking for him," she said, wiping away the dust from a
nameplate on one of the suit's panels, "He's in lockup."

"SKYKNIGHT MODULAR GENERAL ASSAULT ARMOR" read the plate as Jake threw his
hands into the air.

"This ball's gonna go off any moment now," he said, looking down at his
trembling hands, holding with unsteadiness the match ball, containing
enough compound-114 to destroy Yokohama at least twice over.

"Alright," Kim said commandingly, "Maybe I can turn this thing on.  Give
me a boost."

Jake held her foot and helped to throw her into the hardsuit, where she
tinkered away at the parts in the inner workings.  He watched her go at
it, working at a furious pace given the immense danger.

"I should've made you top techie," Jake said to try and relieve the
tension.

"Nah-ah," Kim replied as her head remained in the inner workings of the
hardsuit, "I learned this in a fanfic once."

"A what?"

"Never mind," she said as she stopped tinkering with the device, "I think
I just tripped an ignition sequence or something."

"What?  Talk to me!"

"Just give me the ball!"

He did as he was told, and the golden sphere floated towards Kim, who had
a hand on it and deflected it into the hardsuit.

"You could've been a keeper."

"Shut up!  I'm probably missing some great soccer, because of you!"

Kim leapt away from the machine, whose ignition and startup sequence did
some to divert the attention of nearby spectators away from the pitch.
The jets fired and the hardsuit, minus SkyKnight, lifted straight up into
the air, taking the explosives-laced match ball with it, away from the
innocent crowds on the ground at Yokohama.

"We are wrecking a lot of hardware tonight," Kim said as the SkyKnight
hardsuit flew into the air, unpiloted.

Jake kept his eye on the machine as it blasted upwards, "Eh.  It's a
living."

"Man, that's a pretty thing to see," she commented, watching the suit's
propulsion make an eye-catching presentation that contrasted with the
night, "I don't think I'll ever see anything more beautiful than that."
---
"They've scored!  They've scored!  A brilliant and unbelievable strike by
the breakaway forward, it's now two-one!  One of the finest goal we've
seen in this tournament has been scored in the World Cup final!"
---
The glow of the ten-megaton blast, set off by the match ball and magnified
by the ammunition of the SkyKnight hardsuit, faded into the night, a sight
unseen by most of Yokohama and perhaps most of Japan, as its collective
eyes were focused on the final match.

The bits and pieces of debris that fell back down to the stadium were far
too small to be dangerous, and were also largely ignored by the jubilant
crowds in the stands.  It was Kim and Jake that were frustrated, having
kept their eye on the hardsuit the whole time.

"Jake," Kim said, nudging her superior officer, "We probably missed the
most beautiful goal in all of human history."

"Don't say it again," Jake replied, still keeping his eyes pointed
upwards, "I really don't want to look down to see what I missed."

She took out her scanner and waved it around, "That should be it.  I'm not
reading any further incidence of compound-114."

"He played his biggest hand and lost, he won't take another crack at it
tonight."

Jake sighed and took two steps away from Kim.  For the umpteenth time the
mad bomber had eluded Jake and an entire department.

"Are you sure?" Kim asked.

"That's his M.O.  We'll get him next time," he mumbled, "Right now, I have
other things to deal with."
---
He straightened his hair and his uniform, all ruffled up after much
tension behind the scenes during the second half.  After navigating his
way through a row of seats, Jake sat down right next to Lisa, saying,
"What happened to you?"

A more grounded and more humble Lisa looked at him while she clutched her
jaw, "Apparently Kentaro brought his girlfriend."

He grinned and raised his eyebrows, "Well, what were the odds of that?"

"Very masculine woman, though you couldn't tell from her appearance," she
explained, moving her hand down to her bruised shoulder.  She shook her
head in frustration, adding, "Boy, can that girl kick."

"I suppose you didn't see it coming."

"Well, she sure didn't seem the jealous type until he mumbled something
about my being a real woman...I dunno..."

Jake leaned in closer to have an amused look at the bruises on Lisa's
face.  A hand hovered over a tender area near her mouth, until Lisa broke
away.

"You know, I'm still pissed at you!"

The officer chuckled some, saying, "For the mission, or for the fire?"

Lisa tilted her head, "Well, now you've reminded me of the other thing,
thank-you-very-much."

"I had to take the mission, Lisa."

"You lead the entire freakin' junior department of the entire freakin'
Federal Reality Commission, Jake Tyler," she insisted, "You did not have
to take the mission."

"Lisa--"

"You could've just took some time off from work and hopped on a Clipper up
to SpaceCol Three, where we could've had dinner and then some wild and
ridiculous sex in my apartment to cap our anniversary."

"Yeah," Jake nodded, "But then I wouldn't see your face light up like it's
going to light up now."

Lisa turned her head as her boyfriend pulled an object from his uniform, a
plush doll so new that it still had the tag attached.

She gasped, "Space-critter Bob!  My favorite cartoon character in the
whole wide galaxy!"

"Actually," Jake said, "I got it at the souvenir stand here in the
stadium."

"But how--?"

"They call it a Spherik," he explained while showing the doll to her, "One
of the mascots for the World Cup.  Talk about coincidences."

Lisa gently ran her hand across the souvenir, giggling like and regressing
into a little girl, "You bought this?  For me?"

He nodded his head, smiling, "There's only one reason we started dating
five years ago today, and that's because I said I loved you on your
birthday, so..."

Lisa watched him stop in mid-sentence as he looked past her to spot a
figure behind her.  There he sat, one section away, the bomber that caused
all of his problems tonight, now looking back at him and beginning to make
a sudden break for the exit.

"That's him," Jake said frantically, "That's him!"

The villain raced up the steps, using his last chance to make an escape
after a bit of bad luck caused him to be spotted.  Jake broke from his
chair, flinging the plush doll up in the sky and giving chase.  The
souvenir flew a number of seats above Lisa's head, until it finally landed
on the lap of a lucky fan, a small girl whose face turned to joy upon
being able to hold the Spherik as her own.

Lisa, however, was not so gracious. "Jake Tyler!" she cried, "I'm gonna
kill you!"
---
"Chris, I hope you've figured out the security net right about now," Jake
said into the intercom, running full blast after the bomber.

Chris spoke back confidently, "Two steps ahead of you, boss!" Back in
mobile command, the officer tapped away at the keyboard, gazing intently
at the monitors tapped into the security cameras throughout the stadium.
The bomber dove in and out of a number of cameras, trying to escape Jake
and a growing cadre of security officials.  Their final obstacle was the
front gate, slowly closing itself thanks to a few commands transmitted
from the mobile center.

Chris gazed at the security feed of the front gate, as officers quickly
surrounded the cornered Coyle-double to arrest him.  The Jumper's eyes lit
up as he let go of the button that he had been holding down.

"I did it!" he said, thinking he mastered control of the security system.
He turned to his assistant technicians, "We did it!"

The Commission officers jumped up and down in unison with Chris, jubilant
that the deed had been done.  They could finally relieve themselves of the
tension that had filled the mobile command center.

"Should we tell them?" ReRob asked his partner.

MegaZone shook his head while putting in the final commands to open up the
gate again. "They don't need to know," he replied.
---
"That's it!  It's over!  It's all over!  Game over, final score two-one!
A frantic fight to the finish but the victors hold on to their lead in the
final minutes!  A fairy tale ending that no one, and I mean no one, could
have written!"
---
Jake collapsed onto a bench just outside the ticket windows, after seeing
his adversary taken away in restraints.  He had heard the final whistle
and the last great cheer originating from inside the stadium.  His
prediction playing completely to form, Jake had missed the entire final.
Jake leaned back, exhausted and worn out from all the action he had on his
own.

"Where did you go?" asked a voice, "I thought you wanted to see your dumb
old game."

He turned his head and, sure enough, there was Lisa.  His mouth turned up
at the corners as best he could, with what little energy he had left.
Separated from the tens of thousands of people, he was delighted to see
the one face he desired the most.

"THAT'S for losing the doll," Lisa said, after punching him in the gut.
Jake curled into a ball in reaction to the pain.  He knew not what to make
of it all, until she lifted his chin.

"And this," she said before kissing him, "Is for saving the world again."

Their lips locked and they held each other, not coming up for air for
quite a long time.

Jake finally broke away, saying to her, "You know, I will never understand
you."

Lisa shrugged, "I'm just one of life's great mysteries."

"Yeah, I'll bet."

"Oh, did you catch the score?  They won, the--"

He interrupted her, "DON'T.  Don't spoil it for me.  I guess I'll just
watch it all on tape delay."

"Aw, you should've seen it!" she insisted, "That goal by...what's his
name?  And all of his teammates!  They started waving the flag for--"

"I said don't spoil it!  I don't wanna know who won!"

"Come on, I just want to make you miserable!  The opposing coach was
furious, and that guy - I can't remember his name!  But the score, I
picked the team to win!"
---
"And so, a fitting end to a whole month of soccer at the 2002 World Cup in
Korea and Japan.  Thirty-two nations went in, two made it to the final,
but there is only room for one team of champions.  They have earned their
title tonight with brilliant play and stunning strategy from top to
bottom, and the fireworks at the stadium have barely reflected their
legendary performance!  No doubt that all of you should expect to see them
next time out in 2006, when the World Cup comes around again.  Join us
then in four years, won't you?  More stories to be written, more legends
to be made, more characters to have their day.  Until then, from all of us
who have been bringing you the World Cup from start to finish, this is our
final farewell from Asia, in historic International Stadium Yokohama.
Final score at the final match, two-one.  So long, everybody, and good
night!"

END.


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