David McMillan wrote:
Once more into the fic, dear friends! Once more...
And finally I get a chance to reply to this part. I got sick on
Sunday, and I'm only now feeling good enough to get to my email
backlog...
> The moment she caught sight of us, Lisa broke away from White and
> and ran up to me. She stopped short less than a meter away,
> clearly unsure of what to do next. I spread my arms and with a
> wordless cry she threw herself into an enthusiastic embrace.
And so the Righteous and Just Journalist rescued her Hero in Cycle
Leathers...
Well, yeah. Not exactly the way things go for your typical SI, huh?
<grin>
Besides, what she wants most is something he can't offer. And she
couldn't take it even if he did.
Darn it, got something in my eye...
Yeah, pretty much. And of course, intentionally no resolution there.
Not everything happens neatly and happily...
I've got a sister like this -- thick layer of sweetness&light
wrapped around a core of solid tempered titanium...
<chuckle>
"Hey, Lisa! I found a Doug who doesn't have a Maggie, and he liked
your picture, so..."
...No, almost certainly not. But Lisa can dream, just a bit,
can't she?
Hey, it worked in one of Metroanime's "Labor" stories...
> "QUINCY DEAD!" screamed the tabloid headlines, while the GENOM
"Tycoon suffers heart failure in midst of orgy with Sexaroid
Harem!!!!"
He *wishes*.
> "His loss diminishes all of us. Without his unique vision and
> drive behind it, GENOM will be a very different beast indeed."
Butter could not *melt* in her mouth...
I loved coming up with that line. Literally true and so misleading.
Well, heart failure was probably pretty close to the truth.
After all, Doug merely turned off his life support.
And he *had* been "quietly ailing" for a long, long time, too...
I just wonder how Quincy pulled off the scam for so long. Some
paparrazzi must have noticed eventually that he was in too many places
at once. Then again, stand-ins are an old custom for people of power,
so maybe no one really thought much of it.
It's a good question. Although BGC doesn't make it clear, it does seem
to me logical that Quincy would have more than one double in play at all
times, no matter what his "real" condition is. (We can never be sure
that in all of BGC we've ever actually seen the real Quincy, so we have
no idea whether he's identical to them or not. However, given that they
*are* 2.1 meters tall, I suspected that we were seeing a little wishful
thinking being indulged on Quincy's part.)
> Or maybe she, too, died unexpectedly of "heart failure".
> I'll never know. And I suspect I'll always feel vaguely guilty
> that I don't.
Only so much he could do, though.
<nod> Note that Doug feels guilty about the oddest collection of
things, too. This bothers him. Beating the crap out of Nene didn't
really, even after his dressing-down. This is intentional and gives
a little more insight into his character.
> So Madigan was first in line to replace the old man.
> Well, she deserved a reward for her bravery.
But corporate culture has a life of its own. She's going to
have her work cut out for her.
Oh yeah. Not exactly a "live happily ever after" ending for her.
But it's far better than the alternative...
> With all those vectors, I didn't think it would take long to
> reach a critical mass of infection. And I was right.
Which, ironically, means that the ADP and Sabers are going to have
*more* work to do, short term, until things start balancing out.
Right. Doug doesn't leave the BGC world a paradise because of the
changes he's inflicted -- he's left it destabilized. Whether it ends
up a paradise is up to the people living there -- all of them, bios
and cybers both.
> I shook my head and felt the anger begin to bubble up inside of
> me. "Once more, please, with *clarity*?"
Um, Doug....
Ssh, don't interrupt him. He's working up a good head of steam.
<grin>
> "The way is made clear!" all Three declared in unison, and the
> force of Their combined Voice was like a blow, catapulting me
> backward...
Well, that could have gone worse.
Oh, they like him. They weren't going to hurt him, just mess with his
head.
> "What the *hell* was that supposed to mean?" I growled to myself.
> "'The way is made clear,' my ass. Fucking gods, can't give you a
> straight answer even when you do'em a favor." I rolled over and
You know, Doug, they can *hear* you...
He knows. That's why he's saying it. (Picture the Three, all
straightening ties a la Rodney Dangerfield: "Just don't get no
respect, I tell ya, no respect at all." In *unison*.)
Hmph And now I'm going to have to read all the way to the end before I
can comment on this bit.
..... Okay, I'm back.
Didn't recognize it at first, but the short sample on Amazon woke up my
memory. "Weird and foreboding," yeah. NOT a song I'd want to hang my
travel plans on.
Still, the lyrics work, even if they don't exactly hopeful for any kind
of quick resolution to Doug's dilemma. But of course, we readers knew
that going in.
But of course. And, just as a big giveaway, there are secret
presents from the Three in that song. They *engineered* things
so that he had to use it.
And while we're on the subject, I'll toss in my own suggestions for
"Road of the Gypsy" (Iron Eagle soundtrack) and Bryan Adams' "Going
Home" as other possible gate tunes.
I'll keep'em in mind. I have at least ten other gates to come up
with, after all. <grin>
> Well, let me tell you something!" I was bellowing now. "There's
> a *reason* there's no god of stand-up comedy!"
"That's MY job!"
Oh, yeah. Doug gets Apotheosized. If he's not careful, they might
just do it to him, too, just to driver him crazy(er).
<snort>
> A gate. Finally. I could move on now.
But a (small) part of him would rather not...
True enough.
> But before I did, there were a few more things I had to do.
So the author can avoid torches&pitchforks, yeah. (:)
Well, yeah. Kinda necessary.
> "That will be all," Kate Madigan said to the brace of disguised
> boomer bodyguards who had escorted her to the door of her
> apartment.
Heh. Now, I wonder if they're freewills. Or, if not, if Aquarius
might be thinking about sneaking in some ringers. Partly to keep her
safe, partly to keep an eye on her.
<later> Okay, seems not. But if I were A, I'd think about it. In the
event that Kate really *is* on the up-and-up, she's in more danger from
*within* GENOM than without. And the intel reasons still apply.
Actually, they *are*. They're Quincy's old bodyguard boomers, still
on assignment... and Doug's already made a deal with them, through
Aquarius and his people -- which is why they didn't insist on entering
the apartment or notice the cooking smells or the other objections you
raised. In fact, they already knew he was in there, and why.
And while I didn't give the possibility of internal threats to Madigan
any thought when I wrote this, I'm sure Doug did, and has made
arrangements on that front, too... <grin>
Which leads to another bit of speculation: as soon as people figure
out what's going on, quite a few somebodies are going to start looking
really hard for a means to test boomers for the results of Leo-A. One
more wrinkle for post-Doug Megatokyo...
Yeah, probably. I should tell that to the fellow who's writing the
sequel to DW2, called "Dead Bang"...
> Douglas Sangnoir, clad in an apron brightly emblazoned with the
> English words "Kiss Me, I'm Metahuman!",
Gaaaahhhhhh....
He leaves it for her when he departs, too. <grin>
Deep breath, Kate. If he wanted you dead, you'd be a corpse already.
Quite right.
Heh. Domestic Doug. Note, however, that I do not say domesticatED.
That boy ain't tame, no way, no how.
Wonder where he learned to cook like that? Or does he use the "Iron
Chef" soundtrack? (:)
Nope. Warriors' Mansion has a huge kitchen, and the Warriors have
lots of down time between official assignments. A man develops
hobbies. Besides, as he says to Asuka Sohryu Langley in DW6, "It's
like chemistry you can eat!"
> Their combined aromas were heavenly.
I'm hungry.
I wrote that passage not long after Valentine's Day, and it more
or less describes the dinner we had that night. (At a restaurant,
not home-cooked, unfortunately.)
> he looked quite presentable, not at all like a man who had just
> spent several hours whipping up a sumptuous meal.
"You know, tar actually *sticks* to some people" (Last Action Hero).
<grin> Hadn't intended that, but yeah, that's a great cross-
reference.
Microtome?
Okay, I learned my lesson this time. Google says... well, it's some
kind of medical tissue-sampling gadget. Good enough.
It's a gadget for making very, very thin slices of a subject
so you can examine it under a microscope. Think a scientific-
grade deli slicer.
> "Because, in the end, it
> was the right thing to do," she said, and smiled wider. Then she
> added in a whisper, "I did it in the name of love and justice."
Somewhere, Naoko Takeuchi is sneezing. Somewhere else, quite a few
fuku-clad magical girls are giggling like maniacs...
So was my wife, when she read this response of yours. <grin>
(Giggling, not sneezing.)
> and I had to resort to my funniest "no shit, there I
> was" story to shake her out of it.
Hey, wait! So what was the story? Aww, c'MON, that isn't fair!
As my concordance notes, I didn't have a particular story in mind.
Sorry!
Hence the inherent tragedy of Doug's predicament: He's going to make
good friends, almost inevitably, on his travels. Friends he'll have to
walk away from after too short a time, and probably never see again
Exactly. And worse -- there are people in coming Steps whom he
will feel brotherly and even fatherly feelings for, and he will have
to decided *which* duty is more important to him...
"The wedding went off without a hitch. Although I *did* have a bad
moment when the minister got to "speak now blah blah blah" and EVERY
WARRIOR in the chapel started to speak up in perfect chorus... and never
made a sound. It was revenge -- the SOBs *planned* it."
"The reception was almost boring. Just a minor Pfhor incursion, but
the rest of the team didn't even leave any for us."
Peggy and I were rolling when we read this. We never actually
played the wedding, so we might lift your description and impose it
on Warriors' World by fiat. <grin>
> This way," I jiggled the chain and the ring swung
> merrily, "it doesn't get damaged."
Plus you don't want to wear most wedding bands under gloves anyway.
True enough, at least his gloves.
Uh, yeah. The ring is definitely still at some risk. OTOH, where else
could he keep it safer and still be wearing it?
I couldn't think of anyplace that wasn't potentially, um...
well, no, let's not go there.
> I shook my head. "He knew me
> inside and out, he could think like me and anticipate me. He had
> the same birthday as me, day and year -- I checked. And damn if
> he didn't look a lot like my grandfather."
Like I said: Mirror, mirror.
Exactly.
Which begs the question of how many *other* analogues there are out
there. Bankers, janitors, politicians, lawyers, even fanfic writers.
Doug: "FANFIC WRITERS?!? NOOOOOOO! ANYTHING but THAT!"
Another bit that had Peggy rolling with laughter. (I liked it,
too... <grin>)
"So, ye work for me, do ye boyo?"
"Now, now, Kate, don't go getting any ideas. I'm a married man, you know."
"Oh, poo."
<snort>
> Her eyes were glistening. "You have no idea how long I've waited
> to hear someone tell me that. Thank you."
>
> I caught her hand up in my free one, and squeezed it gently.
> "No," I said. "Thank *you*."
That, Bob, was downright beautiful.
Thank you.
"Then I stepped out of her apartment, and got peforated by her security
boomers, since we'd both forgotten about *that* little detail. Oops."
No thank you.
<grin>
Naw, I'm sure that Doug had something worked out that just didn't show
up in narrative. Gave me a tiny pause first read through though.
See above. Lots of little things got left out of the final draft
for pacing reasons. Or because they took too much exposition.
> "'Soon' is relative, Leese. I'm almost four years out from home,
> and I hope to god that I get back there before I'm an old man."
Easy to forget. From her end, he just *got* here.
Well, not really. It's almost a year now...
Now, that's not fair. Ohara always struck me as a decent guy. Doug
really ought to give him a little of the same slack he cut Kate. But
Doug really does have something of a "self-righteous prick" streak.
It's just that Ohara became something of a symbol of GENOM to
him, and yeah, Ohara's been a straight shooter in all the time
that they've actually known each other, but basically, Doug needed
*somebody* he could blame and hate unreservedly. Poor Danny boy
got the job.
Knows how to hold a grudge, too.
Oh yeah.
"Plus, we need to settle who'd *really* win-- I mean, we have some
issues to discuss."
You keep making my wife laugh. You've got a better track
record tonight than I do...
I now have this *image* stuck in my head, where Priss goes to pick up
Jen from an afternoon at Aunt Lisa's place... and finds them both curled
up on the couch, fast asleep, buried under a pile of WB plushies.
I like it. I wonder if Dave Menard would like to do that one up
as a pic...
They will keep her warm at night, though.
What? Why are you all looking at me like that?
Your shirt's on inside out, that's why.
I'll admit my good opinion of Doug takes a bit of a hit, here.
Granted, he needed the materials, and one could make a case that he was
just getting his pound of flesh back from GENOM. But this *is* theft,
and sticking Ohara and IDEC with the bill just seems petty.
Yeah, it's petty. Doug's exacting what little revenge he feels
he's due and which he can manage. Like he'll say to Belldandy in
DW5, "I may be a good guy, but I'm not always a nice one."
> I had to carry all my stuff somewhere, after all, and while I'd
> still be using my backpack, it wasn't big enough any more.
What he needs is a warp-capable Winnebago. Well, maybe next world.
And a Mog to help him fly it, of course... <grin>
> I came away with literally hundreds
> of new songs on several shilling-sized ROMs,
Stocking up on ammo.
But of course. He should have done it much earlier, but never got
around to it.
> (I *almost* asked if they were all going to go out for ice cream
> and soda first. But Lisa wouldn't have appreciated that.)
Yeah, instead she gets to spend the rest of her life in an agony of
uncertainty, never knowing if he really *did* figure it all out... (:)
Like I said, no completely happy endings. <grin>
> Pink
> didn't move, but all her antennae were deployed and I suspected
> she was scanning for anyone scanning *us*.
Or she's monitoring *him.* The readings from an interplanar jump might
just come in handy for her next hacking project...
Ooooh. Nene jumps into "The Matrix." 'nuff said.
Hm. Nice idea...
> Then I said, "I suppose you're all
> wondering why I called you here together."
"*That* was when they all shot me. I admit, I deserved it."
<snort>
> "I got a chance to study
> the plans for the boomer brains over the winter. They're a
> remarkable piece of work. Katsuhito Stingray was a genius."
Wait, what's that sound? I think KS just stopped spinning...
"Stopped"?
We'll never know what KS's real motives were, but I like to think that
he intended something much more positive than what eventually happened.
Maybe. It's very hard to tell from the source material, and the
more I glean of what he was like, the more confused the picture
gets.
Could Sylia have come up with Leo-A if she tried? Hmm....
Good question. It's hard to definitively say that something is
beyond her, given that she keeps a technological edge over an entire
megacorporation just by her lonesome. It seems likely that if she
had known and had thought of it, she could have reproduced the work
of Mirmecoleon Labs... The question is, would she have thought of
it?
> I had my forehead right down in the stinking muck that carpeted
> the alley. "I was wrong to call you murderers; I acknowledge that
> and ask your forgiveness."
A *tad* overdone, perhaps... but it's not like he's going to have a
second chance at this.
This is Doug we're talking about here -- fight big, live big, fuck
up big, apologize big.
<grin>
Doug's tac evals leave something to be desired on the psychological
end, I see.
Okay, explanation time here. There's no psychological component to
Doug's tactical evaluations. They exist in the story merely as an
explanation of sorts for some stuff he can do in the game --
basically the high "to hit" and damage bonuses he gets from his
intelligence and agility. I translated this to "knowing what to hit,
and how hard to hit it" -- but added the eval as the process by
which he figures this out for any given target.
> If they were the kind of people to do that, they'd have
left him with Quincy. And Lisa certainly wouldn't be so close to them.
Well, yeah. He'd probably even followed that line of logic, but
was playing it safe. And paranoid.
"By the way, anybody got some handi-wipes?"
I knew I forgot a detail. Now he's going on to the next world
with dirt on his forehead.
"Hey, Priss, you've got another fan!"
"Joy. My life is complete."
<chuckle>
> "I suppose I must save every boomer now?" she asked coldly.
A few chapters back, when he was stuck in full-on self-righteous prick
mode, he might have said yes. But now...
<nod> Everyone changes, grows and adapts.
"So, now our mission is to protect boomers from people?"
"No, your mission is to protect people from each other."
Oh, I do wish I'd thought of that. That's *good*.
There was a point, a few chapters back, when I seriously wondered if
Doug would ever pull his head out of his ass. Nice to see he finally did.
All it took was being nearly turned into a genetic sample culture by a
twisted analogue of himelf. And a crowbar. (:)
Well, yeah. But it's the little things that count.
> "I VISITED MEGATOKYO AND FREED THE BOOMERS AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS
> LOUSY T-SHIRT."
Same shop as Doug's apron?
Might be. I don't know where Lisa shops.
> "Thanks. I'll wear it with
> pride when I get home. I'll really be able to tell them 'been
> there, done that, got the T-shirt,'" I added, and she laughed.
I sense a trend. He's gonna have a LOT of those shirts by the time he
gets home.
I hadn't thought of that... nah, probably not. The readers
will get tired of it.
> It was Maggie and me, kissing, with the lights of a city spread
> out behind us.
Hah! I completely forgot about that!
Bob, the master of Chekhov's Law of Conservation of Detail,
strikes again!
Damn near perfect.
Thank you.
> "Don't go out of your way," Pink muttered in the background, but
> I ignored her.
Okay, Nene has issue to work through too.
<nod> That she does.
> "Maybe I'll come visit *you* next
> time," she said with a little laugh. "You never know, right?"
Foreshadowing? One can only hope...
<Bob looks off in another direction, whistling.>
OTOH, making Maggie UNHappy would be the best way to guarantee that
Lisa shows up to kick his ass.
....nah. Not worth it.
<snort>
> She shivered; the sensation was... odd. Not unpleasant, but
> very, very strange.
Uh. Oh. I thought that "Ultraa" comment was a hint. But I honestly
thought that, if Lisa had been "activated," she would have shown signs
earlier on.
What, so she could fly to his rescue, slinging levinbolts at
every boomer in the Tower?
Nah. That'd be too easy.
> He paused in mid-wave for a fraction
> of a second, then quirked a half-grin before turning it into a
> thumbs up. Curious, Lisa craned her neck around to see the White
> Saber's almost casual salute.
Hm. Was he surprised at Sylia, or did he catch a magesight glimpse of
Lisa?
Sylia.
> There was silence among the assembled for a moment, then Priss
> whispered, half to herself, "<Exit the warrior, today's Tom
> Sawyer...>"
"What? He was an asshole, but he had decent taste in music."
You know, I can almost hear her say that, too.
Convenient this only started happening NOW.
Or... did it? Bob, you sneaky so-and-so, did you drop any other hints
that I failed to pick up on earlier? Now I'm going to have to go back
and re-read the entire series. Again. See what you made me do?
No, this is the first point where the gift starts manifesting.
It was the gate that pushed her over the edge. She'd been
teetering since the fight in chapter 12, with all the magic
in the simulacra all around her. This was the final shove.
No, Hexe's kiss actually did nothing except lay a "this one is
under my protection" mark on her. And that uses power in a
different "spectrum" from "ordinary" magic.
> Lisa shook her head. "No way," she muttered. "No way in hell."
> *I can't be. There aren't any in this world. Doug said so.*
And I *still* want to know why. Just pure luck? Or was someone doing
something?
Just pure luck.
You've got to understand that the entire Sailor Loon plotline
(*and* Madigan's redemption!) started as a gag piece I wrote for
my prereaders -- the original "Sailor Loon" scene wasn't seriously
intended for the story. But once my prereaders convinced me to
include it, two things popped up in my imagination -- this
epilogue, and a little note that got put in my plot file: "What
if Madigan's a 'Sailor Moon' fan, too?" I kept the epilogue,
because at the time it epitomised the "accidental changes" theme
I'd been working on, things that happened to the BGC world because
of Doug, but not because he made them happen intentionally. Lisa
having a latent mage gift, well, it was supposed to be a kind of
punchline. Instead, it turned into the beginning of the whole
string of epilogues (there was already a Sylia epilogue, but it
hadn't really been broken out as a separate entity) that gave
hints at where the BGC world would be going after his influence.
> Remembered a kiss from a goddess.
Oh. <smacks forhead> Hexxe probably set it up this way.
Nope. Hexe saw it coming, but didn't arrange it.
> There was a terribly panicked shriek.
> "NENE!"
This is where reading fanfic at work caused my reputation for being
strange to go up another notch. You'd think my coworkers had never seen
someone writhing on the floor in hysterics before.
<chuckle> I do try to restrain myself in similar situations.
It'd get me in more trouble than it's worth. <grin>
> A slow grin spread across Kate's face as the perfect solution
> occurred to her. And it gave her an opportunity to offer an
> olive branch that might otherwise be rejected.
"I love it when a plan comes together."
Yup.
Most brilliant ideas seem to consist largely of killing several birds
with one stone. Ah, GENOM is in good hands.
That it is.
> pausing only a moment more to think, *I wonder if Lisa would be
> up for watching some vidroms this weekend?*
As long as she can hide the way things keep going strange around her,
sure.
"Say, Kate can you hand me that -- oh, here it is in my hand. Silly
me. Hah. Hahah."
I like. I should forward that little bit to Dragonflight for
"Dead Bang", too...
> "Yeah! And I got a bullseye!" Jennifer squirmed in her grasp
> and dug a crumpled piece of paper out of a pocket. "See!"
You know, *most* kids just give their mothers crayon drawings.
If Priss sticks that on the fridge with a magnet, I'm going to rupture
myself, I'll be laughing so hard.
<chuckle> I hadn't thought of that, but it's a distinct
possibility.
> She laughed quietly to herself as she remembered
> that it had obviously been love at first sight for both men, but
> neither had had the courage to approach the other -- until Linna
> and Nene tricked them into dancing together. After that...
<splort> BWAHAHAHAHAAAA!
Well, I wasn't about to leave Daley high and dry after all that
depressing introspection about having no love life, now, was I?
<grin>
> Priss snorted. "I don't doubt it. But you know you took that
> moment away from me. I didn't get to see my daughter's first
> time with a gun in her hands. That's very important to a mother,
> you know."
rotfl
Thankyew.
> "God knows she deserves it," Leon said with equal softness. "But
> I'll try to restrain myself in the future."
Bah. She's got him wrapped 'round her little finger, and she knows it.
But of course.
The Priss fanboys will hate this. Me, I like seeing a Priss who's
grown up, and broadened her horizons.
As long as she's still got her hardsuit in the closet...
<chuckle> According to Dragonflight, Sylia's building a new one
just in case Priss needs it.
> "You, you dip." Linna kicked the end of the creeper, and Nene
> squealed as the low-slung cart shot out of sight.
Mackie: "Hey, what am I, chopped liver?"
No, you are Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Fanfic-Except-On-The-Phone-From-
Germany.
> "Hey!" came the redhead's indignant tones from beneath the
> chassis. "You almost made me break this thing!"
<snerk> No mention of nearly giving her a goosegg. The *gadget* is
what matters. Nene, you geekette, you...
Well yeah. This is a surprise?
> "Great!" Nene giggled. "Now, my turn!" A moment later, she had
> a leather aviator's helmet pulled over her head, reducing her red
> hair to a short fan spread across her shoulders. She peered
> owlishly at Linna through her own goggles. The smudge of grease
> still marked her cheek. "What do you think?"
Fanart! Fanart! Somebody? Pleeeeez?
Ask Dave Menard. <grin>
> Linna just laughed. "Oh, my god. It's the Red-Headed Baron."
Somewhere over MegaTokyo, there's a Sopwith Beagle lying in wait...
Okay, Peggy's on the floor now. Stop that. <grin>
> A pair of tiny helicopter-style rotors unfolded from its
> wingtips, and two tons of antique automobile lifted gently off
> the road.
I'll admit, I wouldn't have recognized CCBB if other C&Cers hadn't
pointed it out -- it's been a looooong time. But given Linna's thing
for old and odd cars...
Plus, I put it front and center in the scene where she shows off
her garage to her date, in chapter 10. Even noted it in the
Concordance.
Yes, I was planning this way back then. I wrote this epilogue at
the same time I wrote the scene in the garage/warehouse.
I bet Kate was giggling like a schoolgirl, too.
You know, she probably was.
> *But it paid off, in spades.* One last time, Hiroe inspected the
> blocky, partly-crystalline device she had attached to the
That shoulda clued me in. Sigh. I'm dense.
Nah, I was intentionally vague. Blocky crystals could have been
any of a dozen literary or anime sources.
> What the hell would we do with *bicycles*, you..."
The Wrath of Sangnoir. Well, at least he wasn't *nasty* about it.
It really was more a series of pranks than anything else.
> If GENOM didn't swoop down and make us
> prisoners for life, USSD or some other military would. Let's not
Kate wouldn't. But few people realize that yet.
Not to mention that Ohara has an almost pathological fear,
hatred and distrust of her after the way she screwed him over
years back.
> The fat man growled. "If the choice is between that and having
> to accept magic, I'll gladly forget *anything* connected to the
> damned thing."
Feh. And you call yourself a scientist.
He does. And he doesn't want to add "magician" to his resume.
> I humbly
> petition to become a citizen of Crystal Tokyo."
So *that's* where she went.
Yup. Those "Sailor Moon" fans, they're everywhere. <grin>
> "In the name of Neo-Queen Serenity, and as her Senshi," replied
> Eternal Sailor Mercury with equal solemnity, "I accept your oath
> and grant your citizenship." She reached down and drew the
> scientist up into a warm embrace. "Welcome home, Hiroe. Welcome
> home."
It *would* be Ami. She must be an analogue of the NAPD's Sgt
Schweickart.
It's not just that, she's the only one who'd have the *scientific*
background to work within Hiroe's paradigm.
> "I'm startin' to think GENOM ain't twigged on to us
> yet. Or... well, you heard 'bout the changes Purple-hair's
> makin'. Maybe they don't *care*."
More like, covertly approve.
Entirely possible...
> there was now a dozen chairs in two rows, several microframe
"was now"? Should that be "were now"? I suspect this is one of those
ambiguous cases...
No, it's definitely "were now" -- one of my rare grammar errors,
probably because I recast the sentence a couple of times and
missed a change.
> The only thing they had in
> common was their inability to pass for human.
Easy enough to fix, for the humaniform models. But what are they going
to do about the ones that *can't* possibly pass for human? Like the
BU-12, say?
They'll figure out something when they have to deal with it.
At the moment, they're content making what difference they can.
> hand. He grinned. *Another perfect work."
Can you SEE what the ROCK is PAINTING?
<snort>
> phrase for nearly a century: hairless cartoon Kilroy, his nose
> and fingers hanging over the top of a blue line meant to suggest
> a wall.
Doug was wrong.
Let suggest that this was something of a theme in this story?
<grin>
In fact, very wrong. Kilroy's not just the artist, the art is actually
more than just graffiti.
Right. Somewhere in the alley where he summoned the gate is a
source of Leo-A...
> And some "went bad" as soon as Leo-A finished
> with them, regardless of their owners' tendencies.
Hence an increase in work for the Sabers and ADP. Although the
situation is probably less dangerous, overall, because Quincy's not
orchestrating things anymore.
Well, Dragonflight is postulating gangs of "bad" boomers roaming
the streets, but yeah, since they're not being dispatched using
military strategy or intelligence they're less dangerous.
> Sylia found this intolerable.
Good ol' Silly. She'll probably never entirely lose that dislike for
things that don't fit...
And yet, she turns out to be Lisa's instructor in magic...
> One rather ludicrous suit was even modeled after a North American
> porcupine.
....if that's a reference, I'm not getting it. It does sound silly,
though.
Well, Ed's already answered that for you.
> A listing of various weapons, ranging from the utterly
> ridiculous to ones so hideously lethal she feared to even think
> of what might happen should the world gain access to them.
Like the Infinite Improbability Chicken Cannon. Or the Vogon Poetry Bomb.
Then there were the ridiculous ones...
> Sylia noted publication dates ranging from the
> fifteenth to the twenty-fifth centuries, and the authors from
> Albertus Magnus to the "Department of Wizardry" at the
> "Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Magic".
What, nothing from Hogwarts? (:)
Not compatible. And where would Lisa get a proper wand? <grin>
Besides, I don't think Legion's been there yet.
Too good to be true. Where's the hook?
Kidding. I just have a knee-jerk tendency to look for the Law of
Unintended Consequences.
The hook is that nothing's a magic bullet. Sylia has to find a
way *by herself* to get those products out into the market and
in the field.
> (And before you ask, no, Colonel Sangnoir has no idea that
> this package exists, nor that you are receiving it.)
Ed? Ed, is that you? (:)
That it is. This is the data packet Legion and Minerva left in the
Sabers system back in chapter five.
> As for Colonel Sangnoir? He is on his way home, albeit by a
> rather slow and tortuously complicated path. Admittedly, his
ITYM "twisted path," don't you? (:)
Yes, that's what he meant. I called him on it when he wrote this
epilogue back in May 2000. <grin>
> Perhaps... just tonight, perhaps... she'd imagine.
And maybe Sylia gets a little of her own stolen childhood back, too.
<nod> Maybe.
> And somehow, he knew that someday both he and his sister
> would be able to do more than just trade a rubber ball back and
> forth without ever coming near each other.
>
> Far more.
Geez, you get one interplanally displaced metahuman spending a year in
Tokyo, and suddenly *everybody* is developing metatalents.
Wait... hold on a minute. It just now hit me--
<goes back to CH8&9.>
<smacks forehead>
Well, DUH. I guess getting killed and resurrected would count as
"massive exposure."
Yup.
Which means... oh, dear.
The Stingray/Vannette Institute of Magic and Technology? With at least
three active mages running around, exposure rates will go up, activating
more potential metatalents... gee, just likge Leo-A. Okay, Doug, any
*other* little virii you'd like to contaminate the world with before you
go? (:) And Sylia and Lisa are Hobson's choice for training these new
talents before they go bad.
If they even discover the kids are mages... How much you wanna bet that
Nene, Linna and Priss don't even remember the kids' names?
And now I'm stuck wondering what Doug would do with Steinman/Meatloaf
tunes:
"Bat out of Hell:" "Ghost Rider? Who's Gh-- yikes! MY HAIR!"
<snort>
"Everything Louder Than Everything Else": "Maggies gonna be jealous."
I like.
"Rock and Roll Dreams": "Story of my life."
<chuckle>
Doug already uses "Total Eclipse of the Heart" -- it's a devastating
emotion control attack -- but I think that's the only Steinman song in
his usual repertoire at the moment.
Whew. What a long, strange trip it's been. And a lot of fun, too.
Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
"Hey, what do mean, 'been'?" I'm still not home, darn it!"
Doug, get out of here. You're a figment of Bob's deranged imagination,
not mine.
"Everybody's a critic."
Don't quit your day job. Now, say goodnight, Doug.
"Goodnight, Doug."
<snort> And Peggy continues to be amused...
Wiseass. Anyway, now I'll have a chance to re-read the series in its
entirety before the next arc comes out. Doug meets the Three on more...
even terms. Whooo hoo hoooo....
"I meet WHO?!?"
You didn't hear that. Now GIT!
<grin>
-- Bob
===============================================================================
Robert M. Schroeck rms@eclipse.net http://www.eclipse.net/~rms
===============================================================================
Please to remember
Eleven September --
Hijack, destruction and plot.
Our outraged reaction
To terrorist action
Should never be forgot.
===============================================================================
.---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
| Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
| Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
| Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject |
`---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'