It was mid afternoon on a rather average day. The sun was high, clouds were slowly gathering over the Tokyo bay, and the air was gradually getting cooler as the day wore on. The sun was duller and duller in the sky with each passing minute, fading slowly behind the growing cloud cover. At a certain hotel somewhere in downtown Tokyo, the lobby was surprisingly quiet and the reception staff were enjoying a few moments' peace. It looked like it was going to be a nice, peaceful evening. How wrong they were. The door opened, and a young woman emerged in a flash of colour, a thick mane of blonde hair gleaming in the afternoon sun. She appeared dressed in a long, narrow blue dress that hugged close to her figure, ending just above her knees. A slit up the side from the hem to her hip showed off plenty of her toned thigh muscles as she moved. Her chest, however unremarkable it may have been, still pushed out the top to good effect, showing off a decent tract of cleavage framed within the V-cut of the dress. The back was cut away to just below her shoulders in a broad oval, showing more of that lightly tanned skin that matched her arms and legs. An odd half-smirk tugged at the corners of her painted red lips as she placed her hands imperiously on her hips and stared across the lobby, eyes hidden behind a pair of stylishly slender dark glasses. A pair of narrow red high-heeled shoes squeezed about her feet, lifting her an extra few inches from the ground. In she strode with an imposing aura about her, straight towards the reception desk, her heels clicking out a rhythm on the polished floor. She spared no sidelong glances to the few patrons in the bar across the lobby, or any of the other staff scattered about. With the air of supremacy and attention she created, few people paid much notice to the tall, modestly handsome young man entering the hotel after her. "Good afternoon, miss," said one of the receptionists as the blonde woman approached, smiling pleasantly. "Can I help you at all?" The blonde woman put a hand on her hip again and the other on the desk. Between her fingers, she held a small piece of paper, which she showed to the receptionist. "I'm lookin' for this girl here," she stated in a smooth Osakan accent. "Her name's Suzushiro. She's an important lady...like me." The receptionist took a brief look over the photograph and nodded slowly. Then she turned to the rack on the wall behind her. "May I ask who you are, miss? I've been informed that Miss Suzushiro doesn't want visitors." "I'm an old friend," replied the blonde woman with a grin. "I see." The receptionist gestured towards the far wall of the lobby. "Miss Suzushiro is staying in the rooftop suite. Take the elevator to the upper lobby and then follow the sign along for room number thirteen." "Thanks," chirped the blonde woman, smirking slightly wider for a moment before turning to leave again. She strode off across the lobby in much the same manner as she had arrived. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Up on the third floor of the hotel, all was quiet. Almost...too quiet, one might say. There was a knock at the door. For a moment, there was a hectic scramble to gather clothing from where it had been scattered haphazardly about the room. Both of the young women therein were soon dressed, if a little disorderly, and Arika leaned up against the door with one hand on the handle, the other holding a shoe. "Hello?" "It's me," replied a familiar voice. "Miyu." The redhead stepped back and opened the door wide for their untimely guest. As the android entered, Nina, still seated on the bed, flushed slightly and held the covers up to hide her bare chest. "I am afraid I will not be here for very long," Miyu continued, shutting the door quietly behind her and then flicking the lock. "There is much that I must tell you, and we have little time. We have to leave, immediately." "But," began Nina. "Now." And she said it with such weight that both girls felt profoundly obliged to obey. Red eyes briefly scanned around the room. "We will leave by the window and I shall take you both to a more secure location. Bring only what you can carry." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Outside, a thick blanket of dark cloud was gathering rapidly over the city, to hang sullen and grey in the cool summer air. The sun still flickered down through ever narrowing patches of clear sky, radiant fingers clawing through the dark, sullen shroud towards the Earth below. The hotel stood back from the main road by a good distance, separated by a high flat-topped concrete wall the same pale sandy-brown colour as the main building itself. A semi-circular roadway two lanes wide curved in past the main lobby, leading under a vast concrete awning that stretched out from the building fa‡ade over the main entrance, two thick columns in matching beige supporting either corner. The sharp screeching of tyres brought the attention of those few lingering about outside the lobby entrance. A large, unmarked black SUV that seemed to have appeared out of thin air came swerving violently around the narrow slip road with frightening speed. It shrieked to a stop right in front of the lobby doors, one monstrous wheel up on the carefully swept paving, and five doors opened in unison. Out climbed six nondescript persons all wearing the same bulky white body suits, the kind that fire-fighting teams often used, with a hefty cylindrical pack on the back and darkened faceplate obscuring all features. The vehicle doors snapped shut and locked themselves afterward with an angry beep. All six figures dashed into the lobby at a hurried jog with no regard for by-standers, or the hotel security guard standing by the door. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Thanks," said the blonde woman as the tall stranger held the door for her. He nodded back to her as she stepped in and the doors closed behind with a sharp ping. "So," she began idly. "Which floor?" "Three," replied the tall man, unbuttoning his coat. The woman nodded in turn and then reached up to the low metal ceiling and yanked a small black orb from its moorings. "Think they're still there?" "Hell no, she'll have moved them both by now." Midori grunted as she swept the wig off and discarded it to the floor along with her glasses. Her partner handed her a gas mask in exchange, which she quickly worked down over her face. The dress tore neatly down the back and was swapped for a more practical set of jeans and a thick, bulky orange sweater. "What're the odds we get there before they do?" Midori chuckled. "Have you seen these guys climb stairs? It's fucking scary. I just hope there's at least a trail for us to follow. Maybe if we're lucky we can keep them busy here and give the kids time to get the fuck out." Reito settled his own mask down over his face and then fished what looked like an automatic shotgun out from the bag he had been carrying. He plucked out several small objects, fat black disks just big enough to fit in his palm, and handed a few to the redheaded woman beside him along with a second weapon, much the same. "Well," he sighed heavily, "if we are lucky, they'll be very happy to see you." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Six identical white-suited figures crowded into the elevator, apparently heedless of the single occupant. The doors slid shut with a ping and then only the hum of the motors overhead could be heard. The man looked around him in mild disbelief. Six identical figures in identical suits, almost like some sort of mysterious military force or something. He shuffled his feet and clutched his suitcase a little closer. The lights above the door crawled up through the first and second floors. Suddenly, six identical automatic rifles appeared as if from nowhere and the sound of six bolts being cocked all at once shortly broke the silence. The man swallowed. Hard. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nina cursed. "What is it?" "We've got company already," she explained, turning back away from the window and drawing the curtain shut behind her. "There are people in big white suits on the first floor balcony. They probably knew we might try to jump out the window." Arika brushed her thumb against the GEM in her ear, but she hesitated when Nina shook her head in reply. "We can't risk that here." "You are most certainly correct, Miss Wang," said the tall android woman standing by the door in an unnervingly calm voice. "More so than you may in fact be aware. It would be unwise to risk being detected." "Detected," puzzled Arika as she watched the blue-haired woman picking up a large dresser as if it weighed nothing at all and wedging it firmly against the door. She looked briefly back at Nina, who answered her only with the same confused expression. "By who?" "Not who," Miyu replied calmly, "what. Please, gather all that you can carry, quickly. We do not have much time." Nina immediately busied herself dutifully stuffing the little clothing they had collected over the past weeks into a large brown suitcase, along with several bottles of water and other assorted beverages. She motioned to the redhead standing rather dumbly beside her with a scowl. It took only a moment for Arika to collect herself again and begin sorting out various essentials from the contents of the room to be packed up for the journey. As they hurried to prepare, there came a heavy thumping sound from outside in the corridor. Once, twice, and again the sound of a heavy door being beaten in. At the sound of wood splintering, Miyu turned to her two young charges with an expressionless face. "We must leave. Now." Nina snapped the suitcase shut with a loud click. "Well how exactly do you propose we do that? There are only two ways out of this room and they're both blocked." Miyu turned her gaze to the wall opposite the bed, obscured mostly by the extravagantly large television sitting on a shelf. She stared for a moment, seemingly transfixed. "Stand back." "What? Why?" Miyu looked at the redhead briefly before moving to stand in front of the wall, left arm raised. Her left hand shone with a strange golden-yellow glow. A crackling sound issued forth as it dissolved into several thin spiralling bands trailing back to her wrist, where now there was an empty socket, as if her entire forearm were a hollow tube. An unrecognisable device issued forth, a short length of slender metal rod with a thick, snub-nosed bulb on the end. "Cover your eyes." "Oh fu-" With a whoosh, the bulb leapt off the tip of the android's arm, straight into the wall, detonating on impact with a tremendous boom. A thick cloud of dust and smoke filled the room. Arika couldn't see much through all the haze, but she felt a hand grabbing her by the back of her dress, and she reflexively put her arms as far around Nina's waist as possible, clutching the other girl close as they were both carried off into the unknown. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The explosion rocked the entire hotel. The lights flickered. The elevator shuddered and swayed violently. Midori cursed and righted herself. "Stupid fucking machine," she hissed to no one in particular. "No respect for innocent bystanders, that's her problem." Her partner simply smiled reassuringly down at her and handed her several more shells. Midori snatched them up eagerly and jammed them one by one into the gun. "I should have turned her off for good when I had the chance." "Maybe...but you'd regret it." The elevator shuddered to a stop and the doors slid open with a soft ping. Midori strode out into the empty corridor, her partner trailing behind her. "You know me too well, Reito," she called over her shoulder. That tall young man, her partner, hefted his own weapon by the shoulder strap and made to follow on behind her. "Seriously though...why do you keep calling me that?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Well, this is familiar," chimed the redhead. Natsuki looked up at her. "What?" Mai grinned and rapped her knuckles against the other woman's helmet. "Have you forgotten already? Back when we were training, remember, the first time they tried to get you to fly?" The dark-suited woman put a hand to her head with a groan. "Don't remind me. You never let me live it down afterwards." Natsuki shifted her weight around and ended up flat on her back on the ground, breathing quite heavily. She stretched her left arm out, now no longer pinned under her side, and started flexing and wriggling her lower legs. "Damn, that stings." "It would," chuckled the redhead as she knelt down beside her. On closer inspection, the side of Natsuki's suit right from her left knee up along her thigh and hip, along the back of her left shoulder and most of the left sleeve was ragged, but not torn through. The jacket sleeve was tattered and rubbed right through over her elbow, but the tighter layer below had fortunately withstood the impact. Her left hand was making a strange shape, so Mai poked it. "Ow." "It's not broken then." Natsuki gave her a look of doubt, which Mai naturally didn't see through the heavy helmet. "How can you be sure?" She held up one finger with a learned expression. "Remember what Youko used to say, "You'd know if it was broken." Come on, let's get this thing off." She took Natsuki's shoulders and gently lifted her upward, to much half-hearted protesting. Natsuki had the sense to get her hands back behind her and rested her weight on her arms. "I can do it myself y'know," she muttered while Mai worked at the catch on her helmet. Mai hesitated. "Oh...I didn't..." "Stop that," interrupted Natsuki. "Stop what?" Natsuki pushed a finger into the redhead's chest. "You know what. You've been acting so edgy lately, really. What's going on?" "I have no idea what you mean," Mai lied, pulling off Natsuki's helmet with a slight pop. Out fell a thick wave of dark blue, almost black hair, in a squashed and slightly misshapen mess down the back of her neck and down to the ground. The front of her hair was stringy and stuck to her forehead with sweat, and her faced looked slightly flushed. "You okay?" "I just fell off a moving vehicle doing at least forty," deadpanned the suit-clad woman. "Of course I'm okay." She brought one hand up to rub at her cheek, breathing deeply. "I hate crashing." Mai just chuckled and gave her a gentle pat on the head with one hand. "I should go see about that bike of yours. The thing looked a little broken when I got here." She moved to stand up, but a hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back. "Stop avoiding the question." Mai blinked. "What do you mean?" "I mean you won't tell me what's wrong, why you're acting all weird like this lately." Natsuki fixed her with a most displeased look. "Can you honestly not trust me with it?" Mai saw the concern in that perturbed half-pout, and more than that. "Of course I trust you," she replied, and the wall faded away again in a second, much to her relief. "It's just...very personal." Natsuki said nothing. Her eyes slowly shifted down and away towards the ground, then over towards her bike. She groaned. "Shit," she hissed. "That'll probably be another few hundred thousand for repairs..." "But...I didn't think there was that much damage." Natsuki pointed towards the vehicle with one hand, and Mai followed along her gaze. "See that big gap between the front wheel and the engine block?" Mai nodded. "That's not supposed to be there." "Oh." Mai blushed. "Well...well I don't know much about bikes, okay?" "Natsuki!" Both women looked up at the sound of a familiar voice. A car was pulling up across the road, door already open, and out stepped a figure Mai recognised at once even from a fair distance. Her neat, dark suit and thick auburn hair looked as immaculate as ever, especially for someone who had been running around Tokyo (figuratively speaking) for the better part of twenty minutes. "Shizuru," muttered Natsuki in a rather monotone voice. She didn't notice Mai next to her looking uncomfortable, wriggling out from under the hand on her shoulder. "How did you find us so fast?" Shizuru stopped several feet away and gave her a confused look. She looked up at the redheaded woman, now standing, and then back to Natsuki again. Then she shook her head and smiled as she knelt down by Natsuki's side and placed her hands on the dark-haired woman's shoulders. "Are you okay?" Natsuki rolled her eyes. "I'm fine, really." "Nothing's broken?" Shizuru put an arm round her back and started lifting her gently up off the ground. "I'm just so glad you're okay. We wouldn't anything to happen to that beautiful body of yours, now would we," she giggled, mostly to herself. "I'm fine," insisted Natsuki, brushing the hand off her shoulder. "For Kami's sake, I can stand up by myself, you know..." "Don't be like that, Natsuki." The brunette pouted at her. "You never know when you might have sprained something." "I'm fine," insisted Natsuki quite firmly, pushing Shizuru's arm away, and she gave the older woman a look that quite clearly said, in her vocabulary, 'quite fussing over me so much already.' "There's nothing wrong with me, Shizuru, really!" For a second, Mai thought she felt something, but she wasn't quite sure if it was good or bad. Something was definitely odd about the whole relationship, between all three of them, and lately she was having trouble even understanding what it was herself. Natsuki hefted herself to her feet and started dusting off her suit. "Besides, you're both missing the point here. This wasn't an accident." She pointed to the road nearby where there appeared to be a shallow crater, almost half a meter across. "I know I didn't crash for no good reason. I have a feeling that there's an orphan somewhere near here." "Mikoto said she smelled something," offered Mai. Then she looked around, puzzled. "Wait...where did Mikoto go anyway? She was right behind me a minute ago..." The youngster had probably gone chasing off after whatever it was she thought was there, as she often did. Mai mentally slapped herself for letting the girl out of her sight for even a second. She had done that repeatedly in the past; the ensuing chaos each time should have taught her otherwise. Suddenly, Natsuki turned on the two behind her again with a hard, serious expression. "Shizuru, go home." "Now Natsuki..." "No, Shizuru," she insisted. "You need to get home right now. I left something very important over there that only you should see. I have a feeling that whoever did this wouldn't want us knowing about it." "I'm afraid you're right," relented Shizuru, putting on an impassive expression. "My office was just destroyed. Thankfully I wasn't in it at the time..." Natsuki's fist unclenched at that and she let out a brief sigh of relief. Then she scowled. "Fuck," she hissed. "They're moving against us, whoever they are, and that can only mean we're getting close to something they don't want us to know about." "Do you think it could be the First District again," offered Mai hesitantly. Shizuru gave her a blank look and Natsuki just shook her head. "I don't think they have anything to do with this. We really shouldn't be concerned with them any more." "Let's not talk about the First District any more," said those deep green-blue eyes, and Mai nodded. "Right." Shizuru chuckled. "You're so cute when you get all commanding like that, Natsuki-chan..." "Shizuru, please, not here." Mai hid a giggle behind one hand. "So," continued Mai once Shizuru was well out of sight. She peered over Natsuki's shoulder at the crater with a curious expression. "You two all better now, I take it?" Natsuki frowned back at her over her shoulder. "I thought we'd already had this conversation..." Mai straightened up with a half-grin. "Sorry. Forget I mentioned it." The dark-haired woman returned to inspecting the road surface. "Maybe I should go look for Mikoto anyway; she really shouldn't be taking this long. I'm almost starting to worry..." "Don't, she's better than both of us at dealing with Orphans." Natsuki grimaced, almost a little jealous. "Not that that's much good if we've got another Sears on our hands." "We survived Sears," argued Mai, hands on hips and a slightly smug expression. Natsuki stood up at last and turned back to face her again, looking rather stern indeed. "You almost didn't," she snapped, pointing accusatorily. "I'm not going to let you go blundering your way through things again and almost getting yourself killed." "You're too sweet." "Moron," muttered Natsuki, to which Mai just grinned cheerfully. "You do realise that if they know where Shizuru works, they already know where you live." Mai paused, grin fading. "Oh. Crap." Now she frowned discontentedly. "Then what am I supposed to do, eh? Sleep at the caf‚?" "They won't know where I live, at least, almost nobody does. All of my paperwork goes through my father's old business network." Mai blushed. "Don't you look at me like that," sighed the dark-haired woman. It was going to be one of those days again. "We slept in the same room for years, Mai, I don't think a few weeks is going to hurt anything." Mai shook her head. "I'm just worried what Shizuru would say if she knew." "Shizuru will just have to deal with it," replied Natsuki abruptly. "Not as if she can run my life for me." Then she blushed slightly herself despite her rather irate tone. "You two aren't living together?" Natsuki slapped her hand to her forehead. "Shit, you are slow sometimes, aren't you?" "Well excuse me for not prying in on your personal life," Mai shot back imperiously, "Little Miss Anti-social." There was a brief pause, then both women started giggling uncontrollably. Mai was pointing, shaking her head, trying to say something but unable to catch her breath, and Natsuki had her face buried in both hands trying not to laugh outright. There was just something so reassuringly familiar about it all. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Suzushiro Haruka was a bold, brash, outgoing woman. She was energetic and forceful, and always had been, and little could slow her down once she got something into her head. She followed her own strict moral code unwaveringly, and would allow herself no doubt, no time to pause and over-think things, no second glances. She would listen to reason only if it adhered to her own sense of right. She was self-righteous and rather arrogant at times, because someone had to be. She was also brutally efficient in her methods and rigorous to the point of regularly overexerting herself. She would follow anything she started through to the very end whatever it took, and rarely would she take anything but her own personal effort as acceptable. She was an infallible machine. If she made a mistake, she would either correct it at once or simply plunge on regardless, depending on whether it was worth correcting. She showed no weakness to friend or foe alike. She maintained an appearance of effortless superiority at all times. Her free time was mostly busily taken up keeping herself in peak condition, both physically and mentally, for she may appear at first glance just another overly busty blonde woman, but first impressions were rarely accurate. The soft contours of her body were muscle through and through, hard and powerful. Her lavender eyes held a wicked gleam, only accentuated further by the sinister appearance of her sweeping purple eye shadow. Most people she met saw a tall, vibrant, imposingly attractive young businesswoman. Few knew anything beyond that. It was well known just how strong she was, and it was rumoured she was far smarter than she seemed. However, only one person in the whole world knew that Suzushiro Haruka snored. Sometimes she even talked in her sleep, too. Haruka breathed a deep, long sigh. It was getting rather late in the afternoon and there was plenty of work to be done...but for once she didn't feel like doing anything. It was a rather remarkable feeling, the urge to simply collapse into bed, or on the floor, or in a chair, or wherever, and just lie there for a while doing absolutely nothing. It was a feeling she had never quite gotten used to, no matter how often it might happen. That didn't mean, of course, that she couldn't take advantage of it as she was at that very moment doing. The tip of her forefinger slowly drew a lazy, wavering line down along the side of that smooth white-skinned stomach and down the line between hip and abdomen. It stopped again just a few centimetres away from being indecent and ever so very slowly, she dragged the back edge of her fingernail up that taught, slender belly for the fifth time, following the faint contour as she went. Yukino moaned softly in her sleep. A devilish smirk spread across the mustard-haired woman's face. She brought her fingertip to the petite indentation of her sleeping wife's navel and slowly traced a circle round it. Yukino moaned again, louder this time, with a satisfied sigh. Her mouth curled upward at the edges as she slept on. She shifted slightly in place as Haruka leaned down over her, her lips brushing against the brunette's ear. "I can see you, you know." Haruka felt her cheeks flush as she sat back up again, trying to look innocent. "I don't know what you mean." Her gaze fell lower when a hand met hers. "I didn't say you should stop," purred the brunette woman. "Who would have expected," Haruka murmured with a smile as she leant down over her wife's face, "that little Yukino could be so prodigious." "Promiscuous, Haruka-chan." Yukino blinked. She made a delightful squeak when Haruka cupped her chest in both hands. "Oh, I know what I said." Yukino batted her partner's hands away with a giggle and shuffled up to a sitting position. "Besides all that," she continued, "I think I've found something interesting regarding that incident in the park. If you'll let me up..." Haruka pouted at her, eliciting a giggle. "...I'll show you on the computer." "I'm glad I got you that thing now," chuckled the blonde as she stood back and watched Yukino fix her clothing before she sashayed on out into the main room, leaving Haruka sitting on the bed behind her smirking to herself. Yukino flicked off the television in the corner with a dismissive wave of one hand and parked herself neatly down in front of her computer again. She paused, yawning demurely and stretching her arms up over her head for a moment, her spine arching up and emitting several soft cracking sounds. Familiar hands appeared from behind and clutched neatly about her waist. "So," Haruka purred, chin resting on her wife's shoulder. "What have you got for us this time, great detective?" With a giggle, Yukino set to work once more. "Samsung, of all things." She tapped away for a while and soon the screen was filled with what looked like a newspaper article. "It seems that the usual strings are being pulled this time round, except something's not right about this one... Normally somebody else covers it up and then the local authorities come running to the rescue, not this time." "Hm? Something auspicious?" Yukino sighed and shook her head. "Suspicious, Haruka-chan." "I know." "Anyway, Samsung had no reason to be there. There's some weak excuse or other they gave to the press but I'm still not convinced. I think they're in on something, could be working for the government, could be with the First District. I can't tell yet." "Well maybe we should delve a little deeper then? See what they're up to." "If they're affiliated with the First District in any way, investigating them could be a big step in the right direction." She was just about to elaborate on the situation, and Haruka was no doubt in the middle of scraping together some way of turning all this into an excuse to go do something strenuous, when there was a deafening bang from far below and the whole room shuddered around them ever so slightly. Haruka ended up on her back on the floor, and Yukino found her face in her keyboard. "What the fuck was that," demanded the blonde woman as she righted herself again, brushing herself off. From the look on her face, she had already decided that whoever was responsible would get a thorough seeing to from her, personally, for their troubles, and the sooner the better. She turned just in time to watch as the sun disappeared behind a huge dark shape that hung in the air just outside the window, like a malevolent black cloud. Like a shark's head it was, a hammerhead, wedge-like and narrow at the front then sloping downward as it trailed further back, widening until it was a fat, flattened oval shape. At the end of each 'arm', and likewise two similar, larger mountings near the back, was attached an egg-shaped pod each bigger than a person, cut open at each end, mounted on bearings that turned every which way. Jet engines, judging by the heat shimmer rising from each pod, and the dark tinted glass that covered a central patch at the very front and curved along the underside a short way was a cockpit, downward facing. And under-slung below one arm of the hammerhead on a sturdy mounting... Haruka stopped and stared as five barrels swung in unison, left then right, scanning across the room. The cannon slowed, and then stopped, coming to bear with an unnerving finality. The high-pitched whine of the motor was barely audible beyond the roar of the engines as the cannon span up. For a second, she almost felt contempt, and irritation most of all. Who did these people think they were pointing guns at her? But it wasn't aiming for her, and when she realised, it sent a chill right down her spine. "Yukino..." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Something's wrong." "Really? I hadn't noticed." Midori scowled at her accomplice's grating sarcasm, and again at his mildly amused expression. This was clearly no laughing matter. "These guys aren't what I'm used to." She kicked at the sloped white helmet of the armoured figure lying facedown on the floor beside her, limbs a-splay as if it had been tossed down the narrow corridor. Her eye caught on the automatic rifle that accompanied it. "The District never carried lethal force on a containment mission before, and I find it highly dubious that they'd suddenly change their methods just for two little girls, nanomachines or no." Her partner was too busy reloading the giant black rubber shells into his own weapon to pay too much heed. A dismissive grunt in the affirmative was all she got in reply. "Oi!" She plucked a fake stone from one of the potted plants and tossed it at his head. "This is important, dummy! I think there's been a case of mistaken identity here." "Well if it's not the First District," grated the young man, rubbing the back of his head with one hand and shooting her an equally fractious look, "who the hell could it be?" "I don't know, and that's what bothers me the most." "NATO found out about the project?" Midori shook her head, a look of acutely focused concentration aimed at the plant beside her. "If anyone in the G8 knew, Fuji Industries would close down overnight and we'd both be dead already, allegiances notwithstanding. Somebody's up to something and I think I'd feel a lot better if I knew what it..." "What?" The young man cocked his head slightly. "What is it?" "Nothing," she replied, deadpan. Then, "get back in the elevator." Her accomplice winced. "Uh oh. I know that look." He hefted the shotgun over one shoulder and hurried back towards the elevator alcove. That was when the lights went out. There was a long, agonising period of black silence. The lights over the elevator had gone out, as had all the lights up and down the length of the corridor from one side of the hotel to the other. Without windows to let the daylight in, the hallway was completely dark, as if the air itself had turned opaque. Suddenly, something was buzzing against her hip. Midori grunted and thrust an agitated hand into the pocket of her jeans. "What," she hissed as she brought the small PDA unit to her ear with swift, practiced precision. "I apologise for interrupting you on the job, however, there is something that requires your immediate attention." Midori directed an incredulous look at the device in her hand. "Kan-chan, what the-" "-don't have the authority to pursue them." An unfamiliar male voice cut in, bass and harsh. It was English, but she couldn't quite place the accent. "I know that," said another man, this one with a pronounced Eastern European accent. "We must re-establish contact immediately and determine the situation. If this were to get out of hand..." "Sir," a third voice came through slightly fainter, yelling from a distance; this one sounded vaguely American, but again the accent was barely there. "Report coming through from the Third. Commander Ramsey says that the HMS Valiant just left the formation, along with three of her escort group and the USS Trinity. Two more frigates from the Fifth are turning out towards International waters and another coastal assault ship, the Severnaya, disappeared from radar completely in the last two hours." "That makes seven," barked the first man. "Where the hell is Norfolk?" "No contact since yesterday, sir. Their signature cut out just South of Okinawa Island and we haven't heard a thing since. Even the GPS can't find them." "That is impossible." The European again, and his accent was leaking in now. The stress was showing through the voice. "The EWACS should have found them by now." "We lost contact with the last unit we sent out just this morning, right as they were flying over the target area." "How the hell can we have just lost a whole carrier like that?" "More importantly," interrupted another voice, smooth and calm and almost completely unidentifiable. "Admiral, sir, I think we should be asking who could possibly make something like a military ship disappear without trace. There must be some sort of hostile force at work here." "I would hope not." "Sir! The entire GPS locator network for the Fourth Pacific Fleet just stopped transmitting." "Shit." Midori snapped the device shut with a click, cursing under her breath. "Fuck...fuck..." Her feet were already in motion back toward the stairway at the near end of the corridor, disregarding the carnage around her for more pressing matters. She left her young partner, with his bag full of cheap weapons and the loaded shotgun, crouched down obediently near the elevator, and focused her thoughts forward. How could she have been so stupid, to fall for a diversionary tactic such as this? There was only one agency at work here with the power to make military hardware "vanish" like that. Fortunately, Midori still had the ultimate trump card. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So," Natsuki reiterated smoothly as she slid into her seat across the table. She folded one leg across the other and relaxed into place. "What was this big important thing you had to tell me about?" Shizuru carefully set her cup down and leaned forward. She opened up the laptop computer that had sat patiently on the table up until then. The bright screen threw out a sharp illumination across her face. There was a few moments' quiet as she tapped briefly away and then turned the computer to face the other woman. "Take a look for yourself," she answered at long last, gesturing to the device. "It's rather unbelievable reading. I had trouble taking it seriously myself at first." Natsuki shifted forward to take a good look at the bright screen presented her. What she saw was most definitely intriguing. "This looks suspiciously like a blank document to me, Shizuru." The brunette woman nodded solemnly in reply. Something about her expression told Natsuki that this was nothing trivial. "I thought you said that assistant of yours was investigating the national registry records? Hasn't she found anything interes-" She stopped. Then she blinked. The realisation hit her like a brick to the back of the head. "She hasn't found anything, has she?" Shizuru simply shook her head and sipped at her tea again. Natsuki stared down at the screen in front of her, her mind working itself in overdrive. The dangerous cunning behind her eyes flickered with activity. "Mai has no file." "Neither of them do," explained Shizuru. "Tokiha Mai does not exist in the Japanese National Registry, and if she is a Japanese citizen as she claims, then that's impossible. We haven't found a Mikoto matching that specific physical description either." She sighed and raised one hand in a gesture of admission. "Of course, the trouble with that avenue of investigation is that we have no idea if Mikoto is her family name or a given, or if it's even her real name." Natsuki opened her mouth to speak, but stopped. She settled back into her seat again and took a few moments to collect her thoughts before jumping to conclusions, as that had proven truly foolish in the past. "This has something to do with that death certificate, doesn't it?" "It would appear so," speculated the brunette as she sipped at her tea again. "Tokiha Mai died several years before the current National Registry system was set up, so the only information they have about her is the record of her demise." Natsuki put her hand to her forehead and took a slow, deep breath. "This is..." She sighed. "This situation just keeps getting more and more difficult. I don't know how much longer I can hide the truth, Shizuru." "Then wouldn't you rather tell her yourself, before she finds out from some other source?" That made the dark-haired woman hesitate again. She glared a profoundly worried look at the computer on the table before her. Again, for a while, she said nothing, seemingly caught up in her own thoughts on the matter. Shizuru found she couldn't quite read those usually expressive green eyes of hers. "I don't know if I could do that," Natsuki admitted finally. "I don't know if I could...if I could hurt her like that..." "You certainly care about her, I can understand that." Natsuki gave her companion a carefully measured look. "I've watched her go through some horrible things in the past. Things she really didn't deserve to have to deal with. I want to make sure that if there's any reason she has to experience that again, that it's a damned good reason." Shizuru smiled a slow little half a smile at her in return. "You're very protective of her at times, aren't you dear?" "Someone has to be," she snapped back a little hastily, then dipped her head. "Besides...I guess I owe her." "What's wrong, Natsuki dear? There's something bothering you, I can tell..." "What do you mean?" Something in those green eyes implied there was something she wasn't saying. Natsuki just shook her head. "No, it just...it's nothing." There was another long pause. Shizuru sipped calmly at her tea and Natsuki continued her nondisclosure. At least, for a time... "That's not all, is it?" Shizuru sighed heavily. "I'm afraid not. There's more, and it's about those two young girls we brought in last month..." "They're not...like us," inquired Natsuki hesitantly, "are they?" "I can't say. All I know is what the examination found. It took several weeks to identify all the anomalies and by that time, of course, the whole affair had been regrettably pushed to one side." "You did say there was something strange about them both at the time, if I remember correctly." Shizuru gestured to the computer still sitting patiently on the table. "You can take a look for yourself, if you like." She continued, while Natsuki sifted her way through the computer records, "the examinations were quite bizarre from the start. We had thought that the X-ray scanning was malfunctioning in some way since it repeatedly gave overexposed images for both girls. From the results of the other imaging systems, we came to the conclusion that, as improbable as it seemed, both girls were simply far denser than normal throughout." Natsuki blinked and shot her a sceptical glance up over the top of the computer set before her, but said nothing in reply. "As you can probably see," Shizuru carried on, "magnetic and cellular imaging on the blood samples we took revealed what was ultimately causing all the...abnormalities. Or at least, that is what we're assuming at this point." She sat back in her seat, cool-faced, one thigh cross the other with her cup once more in hand. It was several minutes of patient silence before either of them spoke again. "Nano-robots," relayed Natsuki from the information presented her. Her expression showed her confusion. "So these girls apparently are full of subatomic robots. Besides the fact that injecting the things into a teenage girl seems completely pointless in and of itself, just where in the hell did they come from?" Shizuru rested her hand atop the folder still sitting on the table in front of her, the folder full of thoroughly strange documents. "Where indeed," she replied, and Natsuki blinked at her and shook her head. "Then...these two seemingly ordinary girls wandering the streets of Tokyo crammed full of expensive next-generation technology, that'd take a lot of money. Not many people in the world have the financial backing and a means of obtaining something so rare." She looked from the computer to the blonde woman opposite her and back again, pensive. "Someone with a lot of money and a lot of influence. Someone who could arrange for the two of them to "escape" without question. Maybe they have something to do with Mikoto too..." "Speaking of which," Shizuru interrupted hastily, "I heard the three of you had an interesting encounter earlier today. Where are those two now?" "Home. My home," emphasised Natsuki. "Safe, for the moment at least. Although Mai's probably taking my kitchen apart bit by bit as we speak." Shizuru chuckled. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mai pulled back the shower curtain and reached out through the thick steamy haze with one hand. She frowned when her fingers met only a bare metal rod. A curse escaped her lips as she switched off the flow of water and shook the moisture from her hair before getting out. Natsuki's bathroom had been an interesting experience. Instead of the rich extravagance that she had been expecting, Mai had found a functional room with a kind of simplistic modern style. It was a fairly small room, just a few metres across if that with smooth white tiles for flooring and a deep, cool blue across the walls that blended upward into pale cream on the ceiling. The tiles were cold and hard under her feet as she stepped out of the glass cubicle shower, taking a moment to find her footing lest she end up on her back on the floor, with perhaps a nice crack to the back of the head. Mai leaned out into the empty hallway. The place seemed deserted, so she eased the door wide and stepped out, naked, into the corridor with feet still wet. The carpet sucked it up in seconds, soft and thick under her feet like a giant royal blue towel. For a moment, she had the most bizarre mental image of simply rolling on the floor to dry off, but she put that out of mind at once. The next ten or twelve minutes (or it might have been longer, she had really no way to tell) were spent wandering around the apartment naked, still half-soaked, only vaguely searching for something to cover herself with. It was by no means a very large home; most of the room space was confined to just one floor stuffed in above the main garage section downstairs where Natsuki kept her shop. There was just the one long corridor that stretched between the stairway at one end leading down to the front door, and a full-length mirror set into the end wall to give the illusion of space. The bathroom door was just beside on the left, an empty storage room just across from it, and between there and the entranceway staircase were five more doors. The one on the right, next to the bathroom, led into the only bedroom and was definitely off-limits. Opposite, there was first a kitchen and dining room, each with separate entrance though the wall between the two rooms had been removed completely on the inside. Then a much smaller door that opened on a very small closet, housing most of the apartment's heating and electrical supply, with stacks of towels and bedclothes on a series of shelves that took up the top third of the space. The last door, however, was the one that caught her attention, beckoning the redhead toward it like any good mystery had a habit of doing. She completely forgot about the towels sitting in the closet, waiting to be used, and walked her way slowly and a little cautiously down to the very end of the corridor until she stood right at the top of the stairway. Now the front door to the apartment was to her back, and that strange door not more than a foot in front of her. It was a tall door, reaching all the way up to the ceiling, unlike the others, and it had no visible frame either, simply lying flush to the wall around it. In fact, it extended past the ceiling, as if it had been put in place long ago and then the plaster above Mai's head had been built lower down years later. She suddenly found herself wondering just how old the building really was. The hardwood was darkened with age to a deep, rich mahogany, streaked with onyx lines like long, sweeping brushstrokes. The handle was a burnished golden brass, no more than an apple-sized bulb on a thick, short stub. The lock, on the other hand, was a most intriguing affair, comprising of three rings, each as wide as a finger, with keyhole in the centre, a circular hole with a narrow strip passing downward that cut straight through all three rings. It was unlocked, Mai decided for some reason, and tried the handle just to see. It turned a full circle, which necessitated a change of hands halfway through, but eventually there came the soft click from within and the door eased open. Inward, away from the overgrown ceiling, she was pleased to notice. Inside was a very small room, dark and musty-smelling, the air thick with dust. The only feature was a spiralling metal staircase all in black, so very early 20th century, that led up through the ceiling, which Mai noticed was almost a full metre higher than it had been in the hallway outside. Up she went, out of some subconscious compulsion, straight up into the bright midday light streaming down from wherever the stairway led. What she found was a surprise, to say the least. Above the garage, above the apartment, and above the minimal loft space judging by how long that metal staircase had been, was a room. A room built right onto the roof it would seem, for all four walls around her were set with rows of windows that stretched midway down from the ceiling, all covered by identical pale cream drapes that had long since turned a dusky beige colour. The window frames were wooden, the walls were wooden, the floor was polished hardwood as was the roof and most of the furniture too. What amazed her the most, however, was not the room itself, but how well-kept the place appeared. There was not a sign of the thick miasma of dust that had hung in the stairwell, and the floor, the walls, the massive executive desk in the corner and the leather-panelled chair, the frames of every window, all of it was cleaned and polished to perfection as if it were brand new. The only sign of neglect was the stack of cardboard boxes piled neatly in one corner, which looked like they hadn't been touched by more than a duster in many years. Then Mai looked up, and blinked in astonishment. The roof was a wooden frame, a latticework from which hung three ornate brass light fixtures at regular intervals along the slightly rectangular room. The space between the frames, however, was all glass panels so clean that they were almost invisible, and the midday sun poured in through them so bright and powerful that Mai could feel her bare skin warming in no time. She closed her eyes. It was a stupid thing to do, but she did it anyway; there she stood in the middle of the room, naked, still dripping, and took several slow, deep breaths as the sun beat down upon her through the glass ceiling. Soon enough, she could feel the water not just evaporating but literally steaming off her skin as she soaked up heat from the sun like a plant. Soon she felt a rising tingle in her head, and realised her blood was rushing in her ears, hot and fast, as if she had just run a hundred metres full tilt. "Wow," she gasped to no one in particular. Of all the strange things her body could do, that was still the one that always caught her off-guard. It was like being electrocuted in slow motion, but that wasn't quite it. The only thing she could even really liken it to was sex, because it worked the same way most of the time; build-up, heightening of the senses, an overall sensitivity that made her skin tingle and her hair stand on end, and then that feeling of energy piling upon itself over and over deep inside until it felt hot enough to burst. Unlike sex, however, this always ended more abruptly, without the release of all that built up energy, and it always left her feeling more than a little twitchy. It took a moment or two to calm herself back down to the point where she could actually stop shivering, what with the huge reservoir of fresh energy now running through her veins like a second heartbeat, pulsing through her fast and powerful. When she finally opened her eyes again, the world around her seemed so much brighter, sharper, more colourful than it had a short while ago. Mai let her eyes wander around the room. Her gaze came to rest on one of the cardboard boxes stacked in one corner; on one box in particular, which had been left half-open, and from which peeked a faint glimmer of reflected sunlight. Mai walked over to investigate and found herself measuring her stride carefully, for she had all but leapt into an all-out dash at the slightest impulse to move. She dipped one hand carefully into the dark box and peeled back flaps of slightly worn, floppy cardboard until there was enough light to see inside. What caught her attention, what must have been making that glimmering she had seen, was a photograph. Mai took both hands to the flat, square black frame and delicately lifted it out of the box. At first, the photograph prodded at the back of her mind with some sense of d‚j… vu, but she dismissed that almost immediately. It was just another of Natsuki's pictures, probably from when she had been attending college in... "this life" so to speak. The woman in the picture was young, but mature at the same time. Deep, emerald green eyes shone back at her from behind a pair of narrow, silver-framed glasses that perched somewhat precariously on the bridge of a finely sculpted nose. Slender, pale pink lips were tugged into just the slightest smile at their corners, as if the woman in the picture was trying not to laugh. A narrow white hairclip on the right side of her head, just above one ear, held back a mass of shimmering satin-blue hair that fell down over the shoulders of a white laboratory jacket and Mai finally recognised, with a start, who she was looking at. "I thought I might find you up here." Mai whirled round on the spot. Her hands came up to her chest on reflex alone, but with the picture clasped between them she could do little more than attempt, and fail pitifully, to cover her chest. She let out her breath when she saw that familiar face. "Natsuki..." Mai dropped her hands to her hips again and shook her head. "Do you really have to sneak up on people like that?" Natsuki crossed her arms over her chest with a pout, but her face was turning a soft shade of pink that completely ruined the look. "This room is private, Mai. What are you doing breaking in where you don't belong?" "Ah...about that..." Mai groped around for an explanation. "And what do you think you're doing wandering around my apartment naked, anyway?" Even as she said it, Natsuki's eyes were busy scanning up and down, taking a visual record of the nude figure before her. She definitely knew she was doing it, subconsciously or not, because her cheeks deepened several shades further. "I was looking for a towel," Mai argued weakly, shuffling her feet like an errant schoolgirl. She raised her hands and the photograph filled her field of vision once again. For a minute, neither of them said anything. Mai stood, staring at the picture in her hands, and Natsuki seemed just as preoccupied. The silence might have been awkward, once. Mai shook her head. "I...I shouldn't really be going through your personal stuff like this, should I?" She strode back over to the pile in the corner, to which Natsuki raised a hand. "It's fine," argued the dark-haired woman, still trying to avert her gaze. "I should have locked the door when I came out this morning." Mai sniggered, which only made her frown. "I bet this place is amazing at night, what with the stars over this part of the city..." Mai didn't seem aware that she still had the picture in one hand as she danced back toward the centre of the room on one foot, looking up through the roof with a stupid grin. "Really romantic, I'd say. I bet Shizuru'd love it." Natsuki stiffened slightly. "Shizuru wouldn't know," she said tersely. "I never bring anyone up here." Mai paused, and now it was awkward. Before she could put her foot any further down her throat, however, Natsuki sighed and turned to look back down the staircase upon which she still stood. "I guess that's just sentimental, though, isn't it? I should really use it for something." She put a finger to her lip in a rather un-Natsuki gesture. Her eyes were focused somewhere beyond one wall. "I don't suppose she'd have approved of me wasting all this space, after all, would she?" "I suppose she wouldn't," Mai concurred, hesitantly. She found herself looking back down at the picture, then up to the dark haired woman standing in the room with her. Natsuki definitely looked younger, more athletic, but there was some strange sparkle behind those green eyes in the photograph that Mai couldn't seem to find in the real thing. "Your mother must have been very young when she had you." It was a total guess, but something told her it was right. "She was," Natsuki admitted, nodding slowly. "She was a very intelligent woman, too. She had a lot of ideas about me at first, but I don't think she ever really stuck to any of them for very long." A breath of soft laughter escaped her lips. "I never understood why father wasn't around much. I was always telling her how beautiful she looked, and she'd just laugh and shake her head at me..." "I guess it runs in the family." Natsuki felt violet eyes burning in the side of her head and did all she could to avert her gaze, and to hide the deep red flush across her cheeks. "Unlike some," she shot back after a moment or two, with what she thought was sufficient venom. The grin spreading across her face totally ruined the effect, however. "I bet you were trying to flash the neighbours, weren't you? Not like you've got the body for it, after all." Mai put her hands on her cocked hips, wearing a similar grin now. "I didn't hear you complaining when y-" She didn't have to finish the sentence anyway. Both of them knew what she had been about to say, and both of them couldn't possibly not remember that same scene. Natsuki's face was cold and expressionless in a way that Mai hadn't seen in years. This time the silence was agony. They stared at one another across the room, and the wall was suddenly back up again, except that this time it was larger than ever. Natsuki turned to leave and Mai all but dove across the room to catch her by the wrist before she could disappear back down the stairs. Natsuki slapped the redhead's hand away, but a second took its place. The picture fell to the floor with a dull thud, thankfully on its frame, and toppled over facedown. Mai was too busy trying to wrestle two wayward forearms into her own grasp to worry about that now. "Let go of me," barked Natsuki, and the sudden break in the silence shocked the both of them so much that they both froze. "Please, Natsuki," implored the redhead in as soft and humble a tone as she could muster. "Please, I didn't mean to say..." "Of course you did, you idiot!" Mai took another step back, pain on her face. "You're always saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, you never think about other people..." Natsuki trailed off into a choked sob. Now who the hell did she sound like? Had she really said something like that? It was like some bizarre, twisted dream. "I didn't mean to hurt you, Natsuki, I swear, I just..." Just what? Just couldn't keep her stupid tongue still? No, Mai realised, it was her fault after all. She was acting like a lovesick schoolgirl again, how stupid of her. She couldn't get that heady scent of lilac out of her head, the feel of jet-black hair soft as silk wafting against her face and chest, or the subtle, sweet taste she had relished once, no, twice now. No, that wasn't it either. It had been after that, after everything, after she had lain in bed almost comatose, exhausted but impossibly awake, unable to sleep even a wink after what had happened. It was the feeling of that warm, soft body next to hers that wouldn't get out of her head. It was that feeling which drove her lips to move and her voice to speak, and Mai knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was the stupidest thing she had ever said in her life just as surely as she knew she couldn't stop herself from saying it: "I love you." Then all hell broke loose.
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