Final Attempt Aside Ami By Suika Roberts _Sailor Moon_ isn't mine, nor _Nausiica of the Valley of the Wind_, nor Volkswagen AG, nor Blue Oyster Cult. This warped universe, however, is. -1993- `What is that noise?' mother asks, poking her head in the door. I smile, `Teaching myself how to play guitar. That almost sounded like it should. I think that last E is something else, though.' `How long have you been at this?' `Off and on for two, three weeks now.' `Is it why your grades have slipped?' She'd want to know that. Is it fair for her to be endangered by what I do, no, who I am, and not know why? I shake my head, `No, this is,' and I pull my transformation pen out, and hold it out in the palm of my hand. `What is it?' her tone tells me she's really worried, but it doesn't seem the right worry . . . Drugs. Oh. `Mercury star power, MAKE UP!' She sways during the transformation, but doesn't faint. `I decided to learn guitar to take my mind off recent events.' `So this Dark Kingdom isn't a hoax, is it.' `Unfortunately not. Real magical kingdom, with real magical girls to guard it. I'm one of them.' `I,' she looks down, somehow at a loss for words, then steps into the room and gathers me into an awkward hug, `I love you, and I'd do whatever it took to keep you safe, but it seems . . . ' she trails off. `I'm the protector?' she nods, `I don't want to die just yet, mama, and I'll be as careful as I can.' `Thank you. Call me, anytime, if you need me,' she lifts my chin, `I mean it.' `We will.' `Good.' - It is, unfortunately, my turn to sit watch over the project. This involves, mostly, sitting about and being bored while other people set up the photohaumataic panels. Once a day, however, the watch taps the storage crystals, and opens the gate. First, with a groan of over-stressed AC motors, the seventeen former subway cars, from sixteen different manufacturers, drag sixty tons of panels and three work crews over. We blew several sets of motors before I figured out that we needed to coast between the two different power systems, dropping off the earthbound one before hooking to the Mercurian one. That was a little embarassing. Then, once the train from Earth is stopped, the other train, with three work crews starting their off rotation and exajoules of crystalized magical energy, rolls back. I let the gate close, and go back to my reading. I rather like how Hogg put that, `perpetrated'. [_Encyclopedia of Infantry Weapons of World War II_, Ivan V. Hogg, 1977. ISBN 0-690-01447-3. He had some dour things to say about many of the weapons systems, particularly the Japanese ones. --S] - The vapor-deposition machine grumbles, hisses, and hums, the samurai-style helmet taking shape quickly as microscopic layers of metallic glass build up on the force-field framework. A few minutes later, and the completed helmet bowl drops onto the conveyor. I pick up the half-ounce of steel, and try to crush it between my hands. It doesn't even flex. `Mako-chan?' she takes it, and squeezes, her brows furrowing under her tiara. It almost looks like it moves a little bit. `No go,' she says. She sets it on the concrete floor, and gives it a hard ax-kick. Chips of concrete fly from the impact, and the helmet is unscratched. `Good,' Usagi smiles, `Now lets see how much it takes to hole it!' - Our M1A1 rocks back as it fires, a HEAT round this time. The single depleted uranium APFSDS round we acquired had put a shallow dent in the other side of the helmet, as well as pulverizing the previous test-stand. The brilliant flare of copper plasma fades, and we walk forward to examine the results. It had penetrated, just a pinhole, but it had penetrated. `How much more time would it take if we double the material thickness?' Usagi asks, holding it up to the brilliant light of Alpha Centaruri at noon. `About a quarter more, including assembly,' I tell her, as the others look at the helmet. - `What is that?' Usagi asks, her voice rising into an appalled shriek. `What?' I touch the .45's butt. `That!' `Colt 45 caliber automatic pistol, model 1911a1, issued to Lieutenant William Smith in 1946.' `What are you doing with it?' Makoto is much calmer. `It's mine, and, as an agent of a foreign power, an agent with diplomatic immunity, I can carry it.' `It's not loaded, is it?' Minako's voice is at once appalled and intrigued. `Of course it is.' `It would be stupid to carry it unloaded,' Ranma speaks up from her position behind Makoto, `But it would be better to use hidden weapons to carry it out of sight,' and she pulls a light machine gun out of nowhere, and sets it on the floor next to her. Usagi squeeks a little, then faints. Rei catches her, wide eyed. Minako is staring, and Makoto is covering her eyes. Usagi regains consciousness before I can figure out what to say to that. `Why do you have that? I thought you were a martial artist, and opposed to such things,' Usagi asks, reaching out her hand, but not touching Ranma's gun. `Guns have only one real purpose. They are there to kill things. They serve as a crutch, and a few other purposes, but mostly they kill things. As a martial artist, most of the time, I don't want to kill anything, so I don't want to use a gun.' `But you know how?' Usagi's voice has shifted to the one she uses as ruler of our new Dark Kingdom. `Yeah, somewhat. I can maintain an AK-47, a Thompson, or a Colt 45. I can figure out most other things, and can use a pretty broad gamut, from dinky little 22s to Browning fiftys. I ain't the best shot in the world, but I ain't the worst.' `Hmm,' Usagi gets a strange gleam in her eyes, `We need to retrain our army, and until the Mercury Solar Plant is completed, we aren't going to have enough energy to use magical weaponry,' she looks Ranma straight in the eye, `Can you organize training for sixty thousand?' Ranma blinks, looks down, then back up, `If you can arrange equipment for 'em, I can teach enough of 'em how to teach the rest.' `Good. I'd prefer to teach all of them the Art, but,' `You need a bunch of 'em trained now,' Ranma has that decisive note in her voice. `Exactly. Around your classes starting next week?' `That'll do,' she turns back to me, her gun, I think it's an AK-47, disappearing again, `What are you doing with Lieutenant William Smith's 45?' `It's a long story.' Everyone looks at me expectantly. `Yes, anyway, my paternal Grandfather died in the spring of 1945, during an incendiary raid. My father was born that fall, and my grandmother was keeping it together, but it was hard, at least according to those few of her friends that I can get to talk about it. She just won't speak about the time from the first incendiary raid until she met grandpa Smith, in the beginning of 1946.' `Grandpa Smith?' Minako leans forward, an intent expression on her face. `Yeah. According to Grandpa Smith, Grandma set out to catch him within weeks after they met. Grandma just giggles about that. They didn't start living together until '49, and never did get married. `Grandpa Smith helped raise my father, and, according to my father, encouraged him to become an artist. `He's a bit weird, tought me to fire the 45 when I was eight, dragged us off to the US when I was twelve, and got a friend of his to teach me how to fire a B.A.R., and a Browning fifty. He said that he saw great things for me, and that I'd find a use for the knowledge.' `So, he's a precog?' Rei asks. `He doesn't think so, but he keeps seeing things before they happen.' `Huh. Gimme his phone number?' Usagi asks. - The Mehve lifts a little from the bed of the launch vehicle, a third-hand Ford pickup, pulling just a little at the winch-cable. The windspeed indicator says 130. `A little faster, get it up to a hundred and fifty and I can try lighting the ramjet,' and it took a bit of work to get the thing to have even a chance of lighting that slow. The Mehve pulls harder, `Reel it out,' I say into the helmet's microphone. The winch spins, feeding out cable, and the Mehve rises under me, the new asphault streaming out in front of us. 170, and I turn the throttle, and press the starter button. As I more than half expected, the ramjet makes a couple of coughing noises, but doesn't start. `No good, bring us up to a hundred and ninety.' The ford grumbles a bit, and the road flashes past noticebly faster. Airspeed's up to 210. I press the starter button, and the ramjet gives a somewhat anemic cough. Damn thing lit at 130 in the windtunnel. `Gimme another ten.' Press the starter button again, and the cute little thing coughs just a little, then roars hungrily, burning through fuel at about, too damned fast. Four hundred seconds of operation. I open the throttle a bit more, and lift the Mehve off of the hook. She doesn't fall out of the sky, which is damned good. I open the throttle a bit more, and she roars away down the road. The airspeed indicator slowly creaps to 450, then jumps to 629, and steadies, throttle wide open. The turbojet version just barely manages supersonic, so. Drat. I flip her nose up, bringing her vertical, where she stalls, and the engine goes out. I drop her nose, dive a little, and get her lit with a good three hundred centimeters to spare, steadying as the ground effect lifts her just a little. A hundred meters further, and the fuel runs dry, and I bank her around, coasting the now unpowered powered kite down to 50, and a meter off the ground before flaring and dropping to land, without even a tumble this time. - The thousand little manufactories we'd seeded have decided to `federate' into what they call the `Dark Kingdom Glasswerk.' It means a larger R&D budget for them, so I'm happy with it. Usagi's upset because it concentrates power. I'm not sure why she's against that, when a monarchy is an ultimate concentration of power, anyway. - `Ami-chan?' he asks, after setting me back on my feet, and accepting a cup of tea. `Granpa Smith?' `Have you read this?' he sets a book on the table between us, paperback, gold spine, sorta dark cover. I pick it up, read the title, `"Under the Yoke"? No, I haven't.' `You probably should.' - Dark, dark, dark. Yet these horrible people have done some good things . . . And it isn't even a quarter of the way in. - The little audience clusters around us in the park. I twitch the dial on the amp again, then look at the rest of my band, getting a nod from each. Grabbing the mike, I begin to speak, `We're the Generic Metal Band,' roar from a couple of people in the audience. I smile, then continue, `And we're gonna play a couple cover tunes. Hope you like them.' Usagi whoops again, and I strike the first chord of the intro, the rest of my band following. At the proper point, I begin to sing. I plot your rubric scarab I steal your satellite I want your wife to be mine [the crowd screams happily] baby tonight baby tonight I choose to steal what you choose to show And you know I will not apologize You're mine for the taking I'm making a career of evil I'm making a career of evil I'm making a career of evil Pay me I'll be your surgeon I'd like to pick your brains Capture you, Inject you, leave you kneeling in the rain kneeling in the rain I choose to steal what you choose to show And you know I will not apologize You're mine for the taking I'm making a career of evil I'm making a career of evil I'm making a career of evil I'd like your blue eyed horseshoe I'd like your emerald horny toad I'd like to do it to your daughter on a dirt road ["Me! Me!" from the crowd] And then I'd spend your ransom money but still I'd keep your sheep I'd peel the mask your wearing and then rob you of your sleep rob you of your sleep I choose to steal what you choose to show And you know I will not apologize You're mine for the taking I'm making a career of evil I'm making a career of evil I'm making a career of evil I'm making a career of evil Hey, Hey I'm making a career of evil I'm making a career of evil I'm making a career of evil ["Career of Evil", _Secret Treaties_, Blue Oyster Cult. This is the album version; the single version was modified for radio, replacing `your wife' with `your life', and `to your daughter' replaced with `like you oughta'. ^_^ --S] As usual, the crowd, what there is of it, yells and screams, and people throw panties. I hope it's girls and not sukebe old men doing that. - `Usagi, you need to read this,' and I plop _Under the Yoke_ on the table in front of her. `What is it?' `Read it.' - Usagi drops a book in front of me, `I had to get Megumi's help reading it, but it was good, somehow, and very bad in other ways. There's two others, Megumi's ordered them for me.' She's wearing one of Megumi's AV links as an earing. `What do you think?' `The self-reliance and strength are good, but the foundation is rotted. The Mercury Solar Project won't provide enough of,' she pauses, `It can't provide the surplusses needed to let us devote that kind of time to self-improvement, but it is probably the way to go,' she looks at me seriously, `Can we tap Proxima? How severely?' - `We're not ready,' I tell Usagi. `We need to be there, at least us, a few soldiers, and something for firefighting,' Rei says, softly but urgently. `We've got four of the Wombats kitted out for the fire season next month, six thousand gallons each. They handle like a fully-loaded garbage scow, but they should work. Three of the Muskrat prototypes are ready to go, as well. That'll get fourty of us, if we squeeze in.' `Full battle-rattle, or canteens and sidearms?' `Full battle-rattle,' I smile at the American Army slang Ranma-sensei uses for load-bearing vest, helmet, and mission-specific gear, which somehow always includes a chemical protective mask, `For everyone but the Sailors, and any of the GLMAs we can spare.' `We shouldn't need any of our GLMAs, and can't risk more than one right now anyway.' `Sailors, Ukyou-san, our helicopter pilots, and the balance SF?' Usagi more says than asks. Rei nods. - `How are we doing this, Ma'am?' SSG Smith, the ranking NCO on this mission, a former U.S. Army Ranger, asks. Sailor Moon smiles at him, `I'm going in, and you guys stay back, under cover, and if anyone who shoots at me, you get to shoot back. Try not to kill anyone.' SSG Smith smiles, and nods. He'd been downright surly until Usagi kicked his butt at hand to hand. I'm still not sure how she did it. - I stare at the smoking ruins, soft weeping coming from behind our lines, where the Branch Davidians, Koresh's family, have gathered, away from the BATF agent's ham-handed harrasment. Most of this, because he didn't pay a tax on his guns. Or at least, that's the reason BATF gave. The Special Forces guys are dousing the remaining hotspots, the mortuary detail has cleared the bodies away. We're working with the FBI, and watching that they don't "lose" any evidence, or find any that wasn't there, like the methanphetamine lab they told the Army might be here. Not that they made any pretense of being worried about it when they busted in, three months earlier. This was a clusterfuck. I let myself frown a little when I realize what I just thought. - `Mako-chan, could you send a truck to rescue me?' The plaintive tone in my voice is embarassing, particularly with who I'm talking to. `Sure, where are you?' `In front of Tokyo-eki. I think I burned another piston.' `What? That's three this month.' `I know,' I let myself whine that word, `but I got a full two horses, and a broader powerband out of it.' `For how long, this time?' `Oh, twenty miles.' `That's good enough for a racer.' `Yeah, but my poor RD is a street bike.' `Then maybe you should tune her a little more carefully.' `Yeah, yeah. I know.' - `Ami-chan,' oh dear. Usagi has her serious face on. `Yes?' `I'm worried about the way your machines keep dying while you are testing them.' `Yeah, I've done OK so far,' `It's the so far that I'm worried about. I'd like you not to do any test-flights until you can convince me you aren't going to kill yourself, OK?' `Please? I wear a helmet, and gear.' `And that won't protect you if you auger in at mach 2,' She looks down, then takes my hands in hers, `I need you, Ami-chan, you are one of my advisors, and my friend. The entire Dark Kingdom needs you, too.' `OK,' I grumble, acceding to her wishes. `Thank you,' and she gives me a firm hug. - The gate opens with a *crackle* and a few sparks, then steadies. We finally have enough energy to maintain a permanent gate between }DKCC{ and our siding in Tokyo. - crack . . . BOOM. I blink, then pull the googles and hearing protection off, smiling. `Lovely!' I tell the young engineer who did the work. `Thank you, Mizuno-sama,' he blushes. `What was the yield on that one?' `That was a gigajoule round, Mizuno-sama.' `204 kilos of TNT? Equivalent, anyway?' `Yes.' `And they could be made stronger, for a rifle round, or whatever?' `Of course!' `Very good. Get me a box of these, in .45 ACP. I shall want to tell the King of your work.' `Thank you, Mizuno-sama.' I blush a little, and stop him before he can get down on his knees and bow too extravagantly. - `So, you've been concentrating on armaments since I asked you not to fly test-flights?' `Yes.' `That's OK, I guess,' she looks at the bullet in her hand, then hands it back, `How is Thor doing?' `The first three platforms are built, and the first of them has its mirrors and cannon fitted. Once the earthward telescopes are completed, and the crew area has been tested a little more, it will be ready to lauch. Another week. The other two should be ready by the time the crews finish grinding the mirrors. After that we'll be able to launch four a month.' `How has the international community been responding to our new battle platforms?' `They have only been told about the mirrors, and the low-res earthward sensors. It would seem best to keep things that way for a while.' `Perhaps. To the new observatories, then?' `Disbelief. No one on Earth has a hundred-meter mirror telescope. We will be launching 16 of them into geosync, and selling time on them quite cheaply.' `So everyone is waiting for the first pictures, to prove that they are not vapor?' `Mostly. We've already had a thousand hours of observations reserved.' `Good work,' and she hugs me tightly. I relax into her embrace, my hands cupping her shoulders, thinking, slightly, of what might have been. - I'm watching her again. Really shouldn't be, but . . . I shake my head, and go back into my book, still thinking about the lovely curve formed by Mako-chan's jaw. Worst case, she turns me down, right? Right. I turn the page. - `Who is this?' Usagi asks, using the proper interogative. The others mill around, wondering why we're in the Arizona desert, surrounded by decaying airplanes. `Betsy Ross, last surviving combatant of the raid that killed my paternal grandfather, back in the Pacific War. `In echange for a dozen five-gigagram yield .50 machine gun rounds I get her, copies of all the relevant manuals, production specs and plans, a set of good quality period machine guns, and all the parts I'll need to get her running again. `I need your help for the gate back.' With a minimum of grumbling we get the gate to Wonderland open, and Betsy moved through. - My GPA's fallen--down to 3.5. Sometimes it doesn't seem to matter that I can now heal anyone a Doctor could, fix a radial engine, work the spells to make a magical one. My GPA has fallen. To a B! Then I hit myself and carry on. -1994- `We will not advertize the transforming nature of the weapons' system. Non-citizens should not know at this time. `This means that no one should operate in Battroid or Gerwalk anywhere non-citizens could see. Understood?' Everyone nods, some glumly. - The Mandelbrot shakes under me, LRMs launching. They explode a few minutes later, blowing Srrk fighters into little bits. Targetting one of the cruisers guarding the battleships at the middle I lead my fighter wing in after it. We blow it up, and head for the center, blowing one of the battleships to the left with a spread of five-teragram yield missles. The Srrk forces fall into disarray, their defences collapsing. Instants later orders to allow them to surrender come down. At that the centrifuges start to spin down, and the simulator monitors go black. `You blew a lot of them up,' Usagi tells me, `But I need you with me, negotiation or surgical strike, as needs must,' she gives me a hug, `OK?' `OK,' I whine, pressing my face to her shoulder. - With a roar from the crowd, the lights come up. I strike the first chord, and the roar doubles. I smile, at the crowd, and draw the intro out a little, to their delight. The synth comes in, angry grinding noises to go with my angry chords, and the drummer takes up the beat with the bassist as I start to sing, angry words in }DKNL{, which always sounds angry anyway, Can't breath the air Can't drink the water Can't trust myself much less the man next to me. So who do I blame? Who do I blame? - Wings of Mandelbrot, Sierpenski, and Cownose fighters roar from the catapults, gating into combat with the latest set of invaders, the `Ka'lin' pirates, a major scourge of local space. `Mercury! You're needed at the castle!' Venus yells. The castle is what we decided to call the ugly stone structure that surrounded Metalia's focus. We set up in it, originally temporarily. After the industrial base began to be set up several plans were put forth to either build a new structure or remodel the current one, but Usagi veto'd them, saying `The time isn't right. We need to remember what we are fighting, as well as what we are fighting for. She got a lot of blank looks out of that one, and we dug basements for the computer systems. I bound up onto the second-floor window sill, and step down into the brightly-lit grey stone room Usagi commandeered for conferences. - I smile, the computer model finally working properly. The modeling program is ancient, but seems to acurately mimic the actuality of an internal combustion engine. It even, when I modelled my RD's motor, burned pistons at the same times as the real one, for the same reasons. I send the commands to the CNC shop, and wander away in search of someone to help me with an RD frame for my new 750cc turbocharged, fuel injected, rotary-valved, two-stroke, diesel, 90 degree V8 motor. - `Tokyo Dome. You want the Generic Metal Band to play Tokyo Dome,' I tell the man in front of me, in my driest, most disbelieving tone. `We can get you someone cool to open, Joan Jett, Blue Oyster Cult, The Clash, Jethro Tull,' he says, utterly serious. `You do know that we've got about five songs that aren't covers, right? And none of them are in Japanese? Or English?' `Yes. You're perfect. All of the kids love you, despite the fact that only DKPR plays your music.' `And having no albums.' `We can fix that,' he says, eager, `Either we can produce the record, or distribute it for you.' I raise my right eyebrow at him, `I'll ask the others,' I finally say. `Thank you so very much,' he says, bowing deeply. He pulls out a card, and bows again as he hands it over with both hands. I politely take it with two hands as well, then get to my feet and walk from the steakhouse. - Morisato, Tamiya, and Ootaki helped me reinforce the main frame, well, Morisato did. Tamiya found, and bought with my money, the aluminum monoshock swingarm. Morisato helped me mount that. Ootaki found the wheels and WP shock and forks. I CNC'd the triple-clamp. A Ducati-replica half-faring and VTR1000 radiators completed the bodywork, and a set of Michelins got it rolling. I get the motor mounted, check all the bolts, nuts, and cotter-pins, the hydraulic clutch, front and rear brakes. Dress out and gather the crew. Pull the clutch in, turn the ignition on, kick the sidestand up, check my neutral light, click the shifter all the way up, then down one-half. Neutral light on. Thumb the starter button, the glow-plug light already out. She starts quietly, a nice, low two-stroke `brum-brum.' It rises to an impressive shriek as I roll the throttle on and the RPMs climb towards the quite respectable, particularly for a diesel, redline at 8000, warm air gushing from each of the eight silencers, the stainless steel expansion chambers already slightly warm to the touch. I release the throttle and she drops back to idle, nearly silent at 300 RPM. Everyone claps. Belldandy jumps up and down, too. For just a moment I uncharitably think that this is because she'll have Morisato to herself for the first time since I involved him in this project, two months ago. Then I mentally smack myself--She's been a major part of the project, too, sourcing the sealed lead acid battery, the 7 1/4" head light, stringing the wiring harness, and she did the design drawing for the seat cluster. I recheck my helmet straps, tighten my gloves, and swing a leg over the slightly tall-for-me bike. A path clears, and I ride quite sedately out of the crowd, determined to run the beast in properly, without letting the tach go over 1500 for the first eight hundred kilometers. - Six hours later, my butt just a tiny bit sore from the unfamiliar seat, I twist the throttle and let the tach climb, bringing the front wheel off the ground as I accelerate to 250 KPH. The front wheel drops as the RPMs start climbing again, so I reach for another gear, only find I'm already in the overdriven seventh. I back off the throttle, and lay it over into a U-turn. By the odometer I've a quarter-tank, more than enough to get me back to the last gas-station, which I blew past thirty kilometers earlier. - I fill her tank, pouring a bottle of Yamalube 2R in first, then the diesel oil. I refill the injector-oil tank with Yamalube 2S, pay the station-keeper, and shake the bike back and forth to make sure the fuel oil is well mixed, start her up, and pull out of the station. I power her up onto her rear wheel, and stay there for the next eighty kilometers, just because I can. - With a flick of a switch Betsy's four huge radials crank, then start. After a little pause to allow the engines to warm I pull the B-29 onto the runway, my more experienced copilot standing by in case I make a mistake. At the end of the runway I get final clearance from the tower, press the throttle forward, and start our first take off run, Betsy's first in over fifty years. She lifts easily, gracefully, into the air, the first radial-engine craft ever to fly in the skies of Wonderland. - We've somehow squashed all of us up onto the stage, the six members of GMB, Joan Jett, her band, Eric Bloom, Buck Dharma, the Bouchards, everyone. I grab a mike, shake back sweaty hair, `This one's from _Club Ninja_.' Some people scream happily, and I step back just a bit, wrapping my fingers around my guitar's neck. I lean forward a little, `This one's called "White Flags,"' The song starts with the synth, then rythm guitar, then I bring up the main riff, then the drums come up behind. Hold me close, don't fear my body. The flesh is weak, in need of touching. Your hands are hungry for want of knowing. Your eyes are closed, but still they're showing, Like the white flags of surrender, The war is over, the battle's ended. Like the snowflake in my hand that's melting, Can't you feel my love? Can't? Can't you feel my love? Waiting to be touched? Can't you feel my love? Like the sky touches the sea, horizon, we will be. Can't you feel my love? In my arms no fear of falling - we can share my gravity. See how time will stop forever, The moment that our eyes do meet. Like the white flags of surrender, The war is over, the battle's ended. Like the snowflake in my hand that's melted, Can't you feel my love? Can't? Can't you feel my love? Waiting to be touched? Can't you feel my love? Like the moon touches the sun, an eclipse we will become. Can't you feel my love? Capture my senses. Ravage my perception. Take me! Take me! Away! Away! Love! Hold me close, don't fear my body. The flesh is weak, in need of touching. Your hands are hungry for want of knowing. Your eyes are closed, but still they're showing, Like the white flags of surrender. The war is over, the battle's ended. Like the snowflake in my hand that's melting, Can't you feel my love? Can't? Can't you feel my love? Waiting to be touched? Can't you feel my love? Like the sky touches the sea, horizon, we will be. Can't you feel my love? Love, can't you feel my love? Can't you feel my love? Can't you feel my love? Love! Love! Can't you feel my love? Love! Love! Can't you feel my love? Love! Love! Can't you feel my love? Love! Love! Can't you feel my love? Can't you? Can't you feel my love? Love! Love! Can't you feel my love? With a final flourish, we finish the song as the crowd roars. - The snail-magazine for the Seburo holds a hundred and fifty rounds, and the round-turner I cribbed off the FN P90 works a charm. It'll feed with normal rounds, but not the new high-power ones, or if I put in a spring heavy enough to feed the plasma rounds it'll crush the brass on normal-power ones. And that leaves aside the fact that a hundred and fifty plasma rounds weighs eighty kilos, and it takes a hundred pounds of force to load that last round in, and not much less for the rest of them. And even when it's feeding nice, its still rather unreliable with any dust, wetness, or, worst yet, mud. We need something simpler for now. - Tamiya-sempai sent a photo and spec sheet to one of the motorcycle mags. The hordes of reporters and write-ups are at once cool and annoying -- there is nothing special about 300 HP/liter, and I only barely managed the desired dry weight of 110 kg. The flood of fan letters is cool, and the dozens of offers to buy the thing are flattering. I run the costs to mass-produce them, and we can turn a profit at four hundred thousand yen. At the normal 750 price point of eight hundred thousand it is a very nice profit. I suppose it is usefull that it will meet California emissions standards through 2010, but anything less would have been cheating. - Megumi-sempai insists the company be called `Genom,' I'm not totally sure why. It is a good enough name. Better than `MiaCo,' which Usagi suggested. I really hope the glint in her eye meant she wasn't serious. - The production model has a Deltabox style hollow aluminum frame, but we kept all the important dimensions the same. The radiators picked up some elephant ears to better direct cooling air, which necessated more bodywork, and the fans got tweaked to turn on a little more frequently at idle. Both my beast and the production model have taller gearing to take better advantage of all that stump-pulling torque. 320 KPH on the flat and level. Not at all shabby for a street bike. - Usagi's become fascinated with the Thompson submachine gun, and has decided that the few communities on Tempest should be joined into a single city. Called, of course, Thompson. She then drew a whole bunch of lines over the map of the continent, hashing out about a third of it. `Most of it, if you notice, will stay parkland, undeveloped. The rest of it will have a single local government, which will provide consistancy across the whole thing. Or maybe not, I don't think anyone's tried to plan a city this big before.' A Thompson Arms company has requested permision to set up there, and build tommy guns. Usagi's still grinning. - Marler-sempai wants a split-window beetle. Megumi-sempai doesn't think she'll take proper care of it, and wants something less `fragile.' Usagi wants something `cute but bulletproof' for oficial vehicles. So I've scanned in Ranma-sensei's split-window, a nice young man's '76 beetle at the last show, merged the mechanical improvements, then set about meeting all the design goals using the broader engineering palette available to me. That took about a month. The research department, all three of them, were then stuck with figuring out the regulatory hurdles to selling it. I tweaked a few things, a hidden tail-light surface, which blends with the paint when not lit, high-strength transparency for the windows, a rather ingenious, or at least nice-looking, six panel rear window so that it is large enough for the regulators. Four wheel disk brakes, seventeen inch rims, and, even though a two-vane would be strong enough at about 500 HP, a three-vane motor. Prototype done, I send Research off to VW to sell the thing, so that I can put VW symbols on them. - VW's enthused, but they also want a cheaper model they can mostly build at their Mexico plant. - Thompson Arms accepted an initial order for fifty-thousand M3A2 submachine guns. Usagi isn't really happy about it, but admits that the design is better suited for quick mass-production. They will be divided 80/20 into normal, .45 ACP guns and .45 ACP HP. The HP rounds are almost too powerful for a blowback weapon, but then again the force required to accelerate half a kilo of condensed copper to 830 feet per second should knock the firer on her ass. At least the fourty-round double-stack magazine jams even less than the original, which wasn't all that bad, and is easier to feed. The Seburo is still being tweeked -- some of the SF guys like having a weapon they can fire both normal and HP rounds from, and if we could just get the magazine to stop malfunctioning . . . Eventually. We picked up a new firearms engineer this week, so maybe he'll be able to get it working. - Keeping the glass pan, motor, brake rotors, trans, and rims, but using a normal steel body, the lights bonded in, the `Beetle Neon' is expected to sell for a third of the price of the `Beetle Xeon' as they dubbed my original model. - Malloy, our new GWSR development chief, has increased the propellant strength of the HP rounds, to better match a plasma round's trajectory to that of a normal .45ACP round. Boosted the useful range against vehicles back to about three hundred meters. The Seburo magazine has been working much better too, even if the spring force is up to nearly two hundred and ten pounds. - Production is still ramping up, but we've shipped the first thousand BXs from the plant in Thompson. - Ethiopia. Little drought, nothing too bad. Except that the country has been overgrazed for decades, if not centuries. Except that years of civil and foreign war have destroyed what little food reserves used to exist. Except that both sides, and the smaller players, are trying to use foreign aid as a weapon against the others. Usagi stewed about it for days. We're going in, stomping the combatants, and imposing conservation and restoration. King Serenity asked for fifty thousand volunteers. Three hundred thousand answered. Two hundred thousand were put on `as needed' status, since commiting half our population would be flat-out stupid. Interpreters are going in with the first wave, to gather up the non-combatants and their herds, and gate as many as possible to Thompson, where we have a section of the northern grassland set aside for this project. - Our ranks are swelling -- for every battle, even for every combatant shot, we have three or four hundred defectors join us. That isn't very consoling for Usagi, or the families of those few of ours who are killed. At the rate we're going, we'll have eight million people when this is over. - A few hundred tons of gold. Enough, were it to go into circulation, to drop the price by a third. In exchange, we get Africa, from the southern Sahara to South Africa, minus a couple of countries. Reclamation has already started in the Sahara and the plains. Logging has been severely curtailed, as has slash and burn agriculture. Results should be apparent in a few months. Armed self-defence classes and weapons distribution has quelled most of the little wars that had been going on, now that the centralization of power has been reduced. Warlords, like any other tyrant, don't like armed populaces, and tend to leave, or go into different lines of work. Even I was surprised how quickly Somalia quieted down after almost every woman over the age of twelve had a submachine gun and training in how to use it. - Marler-sempai got in a wreck with an eighteen-wheeler. We had to repaint the prototype. She asked for a black and magenta two-tone to replace the black metalflake Megumi-sempai chose. -1995- Usagi intervened in what used to be Yugoslavia. Blew up ammo, cannon, mortars, vehicles. Thor proved itself to her as a useful weapon. She's authorized the remaining 896 that I wanted for full coverage and numastic reasons, and production has started. Humanitarian aid, food, ammunition, medicine, clothing, weapons, healers and cadre, has been flowing into the region ever since. Initial idications are that things have destabilized slightly, but Ethiopia calmed back down again quickly, and our parts of Sub-Saharan Africa are calm as well. The parts that we aren't in are wavering, as their armies and police fight the problem of their criminal element suddenly being better armed, but haven't accepted our offer of arming their populaces yet. - `Meliorare triphibian ships, both capitol ships and fighters, are . . . infesting Earth's ocieans,' Usagi's voice is grim, `If they'd talk, or they just wanted space in the oceans, we could probably work something out. They want us off the planet, however.' `Mandelbrots work underwater.' `Not to the depths we need,' I correct Minako. She droops a little. `I've been toying with plans for a high-speed balistic missile sub,' I start, `We can have six of them deploying in a fortnight, if we can recruit or train crew.' `Ten days,' Minako sighs, `A long time for them to dig in.' `Yep. And I doubt we'd get six competent crews in that time,' Ranma-sensei concurs. `Which is why I crufted this together,' I call the image up on screen. `The flying submarine?' Ranma-sensei asks. `I did say "crufted." Yes, it flys. Slowly. It works in space. Adequitely. It swims. Very well indeed. It should out-perform the Meliorare fighters underwater, and out-hit their capitol ships. Controls are the same as a Sierpenski. `It is ugly, but it should get the job done, and I can have the first one built in two days, with a hundred more by the end of four.' `How many Meliorare are there?' `Twenty capitol ships, less than four hundred fighters.' `Do it,' Usagi's voice is clipped. - The Julias do indeed run circles around the Meliorare fighters, underwater. Gerwalk Mandelbrots and Sierpenski fighters take care of those that seek to gain advantage in the far thinner fluid over the water. - They agree to talk after losing half their fighters and six capitol ships. - I work the slide on one Para-Ordnance P-14g, the .45ACP springs taking little force. The metallic glass is just a little rough under my fingers, satin-finished. I drop the magazine, and change it for a full one, then set it back into hammerspace. I repeat the process with the other, fourteen rounds in the magazine, one in the chamber. `Are we ready?' Usagi asks, and the combined force nods, a mix of Dark Kingdom Special Police, Japanese police, both national and local, and Self Defence Force. Usagi nods, `Good, remember the plan -- I go in, talk as many of them down as I can, then the rest of you follow.' I nod, and pull my P-14s back out of hammerspace. - I'm not quite stupid enough to ride unprotected. Which is a good thing, since I'm laying here in the road, mostly, I think, with my poor little 750 off over there somewhere, and it really hurts. It hurts badly enough that I think I'd be kinda dead right now, if I hadn't transformed before I decided to take off without my helmet, leathers, or gloves. I shoulda worn glasses, though, since then I'da been going faster, and wouldn't have been here when that deer decided to race across my path. Or I mighta seen it moving the grasses, or the Hesha-Nesha that was chasing it. Speaking of whom, what's she up to? I wiggle my toes, then lever myself over, getting to my knees with difficulty. Good, she's eating the rather mashed deer. `Are you OK?' she asks, in colors shifting over her skin, `Didn't expect you to catch this for me, would you like some?' `Maybe another time,' I tell her in }DKNL{, then stretch a bit, seeing how much damage is left. Some road rash, my left hand feels like I bent it backwards a little too far, but I don't seem to have broken anything. `I'm Grace,' she says, using the pattern for "elegance of movement". `Mizuno Ami,' I tell her, then walk over and pick up my bike, lifting it up onto its center stand. The fairing'll need replacing. Frame's bent. Broke the right clip-on, scraped the right side case-savers pretty bad, smashed the expansion chambers on that side, ground the footpeg mostly off, bent the brake lever, shredded the cute carbon-fiber silencers. Suck. Least she's not dripping oil, coolant, or fuel. `I'll be calling my friends to pick me up,' I tell her, `They'll bring a truck or a helicopter.' `OK,' she flashes, with a happy tint, `I've wanted to see one. Are your legs damaged?' I smile, keeping my lips closed, `Yes. They go fast, but they're not as sturdy as my walking legs.' `That's too bad. Could you make a set for me?' she asks, ripping another large chunk of tenderized venison free and swallowing it whole. I think about it, and the image of a Hesha-Nesha, eight feet high when standing up, nearly a ton all by herself, long dinosaur tail and long toothed snout, in riding leathers with a helmet on, makes me smile, and tickles something enough that I almost laugh. `Perhaps. We could try, anyway. You know where the Genom plant is?' `I can find it,' she says, `but directions would be nice.' `Simplest way, but not the fastest, would be to follow this road back 'til you hit Brooklyn-' `The large camp down the road? Not the small one, but the bigger one a bit further on?' `Yep. Walk around to the right until you hit another road, and follow it for a long way, three, no, four towns, and it's off to the left on the far side of the forth town. There'll be a lot of people there, and a bunch of railroad.' `I can find that,' Grace says, and turns the bright green of happyness, shot through with the deep purple pattern of `thanks.' - --- Log: 3167/Discord/12: started 3167/Confusion/11: continued 3167/Bureaucracy/45: continued, finally. 3167/Bureaucracy/47: realized my braino on the yield calculation. 4.9MJ to the kilo of TNT. The braino was on the terajoule bit -- I calc'ed it for a gigajoule ^^; 3167/Bureaucracy/56: actually fixed that bit ^^; 3168/Confusion/14: typed in some of my paper-draft from basic. 3168/Confusion/40: typed in the rest of the paper-draft 3168/Confusion/44: added a bit at the beginning. 3168/Confusion/71: edited a little. A single word can change a lot. 3168/Aftermath/29: 10^12 / 4.9x10^6 == way too much boom for safe viewing. Changed it to a gigajoule ^_^ added a little more 3169/Discord/8: Added lyrics for "Career of Evil" to the park scene 3169/Discord/14: Added a MSP construction project scene 3169/Confusion/46: Added a few bits, and some dates ^_^ 3169/Confusion/47: A bit more, and a bit of editting 3169/Confusion/49: Bit more, couple edits 3169/Bureaucracy/23: Bit more, introduced Grace. 3169/Bureaucracy/35: Couple more Generic Metal Band scenes.