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OK, I decided a bit of author's note would be good right here: this starts
about ten minutes from the end of Moonlight Rambler and six weeks after testing
began on the Defiant; some of the dialog souds funny because I literaly thought
it up in Nihongo and then translated it back into English, and I can't find a
better reading translation; I decided to do it because the other BGC/ST
crossover really bugged me.  (no, I don't speak Japanese very well, I just
think in it sometimes ^_^ ) (note was written in, IIRC, 1996)

------------------------------ cut here ------------------------------

Night.

	"Sylvie!" As the echos of the shout fade a bluish shimmer fills the
air, an inverted cone of light stretching into the sky.  The shimmer fades,
leaving a crumbling cone of earth with a tree on the top at the old ground
level.  After a few moments the pile finishes collapsing into the canyon and a
second shimmer fills the air leaving a small pack in its wake.

	Leon wakes to someone crying.  He painfully pries his eyes open to see
a young woman sobbing onto something in her hands, at the base of a hill that
he knows was not there before.  He contemplates moving and instantly regrets
the notion.

	The dark haired young woman gets up, visibly composes herself and walks
over.

	"Leon, you alive?"  Recent events brought forth mannerisms she rarely
used anymore, and let her igrore just how dominant they let her seem.

	"I almost wish I wasn't"

	"Sylvie says she's sorry, but she passed out right before you got here
and couldn't stop the DD.  She's worried she'd killed you."

	"Who're you?"

	"Anri."

	"Why are you here?"

	"Sylvie had a bad feeling about tonight, and asked me to watch from a
safe distance.  It was bad.  She had just dealt with two C-55s when you arrived
and she had been injured sometime during her flight, so the J-1 took over and
almost killed us all."  In an impressive show of strength she rolls the
battered K-12 over to get him out.  "No major damage, massive bruising, a few
cracked ribs, one broken, and a bit of blood loss.  You'll live."

	"I'm not sure I want to.  How do you know all that?"

	"I watched some of it and the rest was in this."  She flourishes
several pages at him.  "Apparently someone in a parallel world was doing
temporal experiments and missed their intended target.  It snagged them the
moment after Priss fired at the DD and the med teams on the other side had time
to save Sylvie.  It's been a week over there time and the people running the
experiments fear that the trip back is going to be impossible.  They sent this
back and are staying."

	"Wait a sec, Priss? what Priss?"  He can only think of one, and she
just didn't seem the type.  Proof he wasn't thinking straight, he would latter
decide.

	"Priscilla S. Asagiri."

	"She's a Knight Saber?  No wonder I run into her so often." Leon
responds to the incomprehensible information with the calm of one who is in too
much pain to think.

	"Yeah, and Nene is also staying.  I was just given two apartments, a
trailer, and a younger brother, who'll be quite worried by now.  Can you walk
out of here?"

	"I think so," he gets up, takes two steps and faints.  Anri catches him
before he hits the ground.

	"Let me carry you, it'll be easier than picking you up every three
steps."

	"If you want to."  She picks him up carefully, but he still moans at
the pain of unstrapped broken ribs.

	"Sorry about that, Mackie should have some bandages at the truck, will
you be all right till then?"

	"I'll live," Leon says the moment before he faints again.  She shakes
her head at him and continues the trudge out of the canyon.

	Mackie is understandably surprised when an unknown woman walks up to
the truck, nigh occluded by the bundle in her arms.

	"Mackie, get the medkit please."  Mackie's next surprise is that the
large bundle is Leon, in dire need of doctoring.  "He needs his ribs taped, but
he's stopped bleeding."

	"Who are you?!"  Mackie is slightly worried because Leon is a rather
large person and this tiny woman who had carried him from the battle site is
not even winded.  He checks the gun under the seat, even though it would take
him too long to get it out if she was a 33-C.

	"Gomen, I'm Anri.  Your sister told me to look after you, and I'll
explain the rest on the way home."

	"Why should I trust you?  You walk in here carrying a man I can barely
lift, ask me to help bandage him and demand a ride to my house?"

	"It's a long story, I'll tell you more later, here, Nene sent this for
you."  She fishes a metal container out of the pack she brought with her.  He
takes it gingerly, opens it, and reads the first of the cards inside.

	"Nene's passwords?  If she gave you valid passwords, I guess you're
trustworthy."  Or else a better hacker than I am, he thinks as he recognises
the two passwords Nene had let him discover.  It was a humbling experience to
hack into someone's account only to find a note `Hey, Mackie it's 2033/02/12
and you finally found this password after I just about told it to you.  Tell me
tomorrow how far off I was on the date.'  She had had it exactly.

	"Glad to hear it. Help me with this." she says, placing Leon in the
truck, not noticing Mackie's surreptitious glance at the pistol while she digs
for the bandages.  It takes a few moments to strap Leon up properly before they
set off.

	As they drive home after the preliminary doctoring on Leon Anri starts
to fill Mackie in on what had happened.  "Your sister and the others were
involved in an experiment from another world.  Some scientist was attempting to
aquire some piece of orbital hardware that was lost in their `Atomic Horror,'
which was a big nuclear catastrophe, and used a `transporter' to attempt to
pluck it from the past.  They didn't know the altitude of the orbit it would be
in, but they somehow decided that it would be over that bit of ground there,
and that they would just take a conic from about a mile under Tokyo to almost
lunar orbit, just to see if they could do it.  Un, it struck me as utterly
stupid too, do you have any idea of the power that took?  It took them almost
all of the `polarized chronitons' they had, and they didn't even get what they
were after.

	"Sylvie and the others appeared in that other world right after Priss
shot her in the chest with a railgun.  The DD shut down and doctors got there
in time to drop her into a stasis field.  The four of them who were concious
were studied, questioned, generally harrassed, and then your sister was
recruited to help with Sylvie's injuries since they had never seen a boomer
before.  It took over a week, with the data on the disk and Sylia helping, for
Sylvie to recover.

	"There aren't enough of the particles to send any of them back, and
there probably won't be for a long time."

	"Oi, watch the road your sister would be most unhappy if you ran off
it.  I know the loss hurts, but now is not the time."  They make it the rest
of the way back without running off the road, but the strain is visible on
Mackie's face.  The moment after Mackie parked the van he breaks down again
and Anri practically carries him inside.  She turned on the prepared coffee
pot, found three almost clean cups, and then brought Leon in.

	"Oi, Mackie, Priss sent you a present." Anri digs in the pack.  "Atta!
This one's for you, and this one's for me."  She pulls two small grey balls
wrapped in plastic from the pack and tosses him the one labeled "Mackie."  She
opens the packet she was still holding and sticks the ball to her head just
behind the vein in back of her ear.  "Mackie, like this."  She shows the proper
place to put the ball, which is already melting into her skin.

	Mackie hesitantly follows her example.  "What is it?"

	"It will build a `sub-space' transiever and link it into your
mushware.  With it you should be able to utilize a lot more of your potential
as both a computer operator and as a weapons system operator/designer."


	"Where am I?" Leon asks, wakening.

	"Safe."  Anri answered, delayed shock cutting in, her tears beginning
to dilute her coffee.  She tosses the whole thing back at a gulp, however,
before they cut it too much.  Leon is bothered by that, but he can not quite
place why.  Mackie hesitantly moves to wrap his arms around her and ask what is
wrong.  After a moment she has sufficient control of herself to reply.

	"I lost all of my family save Sylvie to Genom, and I just lost her to
a botched experiment.  It is not fair!  We had just escaped!  She had the
data, we were finally going to be free!  Why did this have to happen?!  I'm
glad she's OK, and I'm glad she's happy with Priss, but I wish I had gone
along, I wish I still had my sisters, I am wallowing in self-pity and I feel
so guilty for feeling so jelous, and feel guilty for feeling so guilty and . .
. " Her tears break free again and Leon moves to join the cluster, knowing
they will not misinterpret it.  She holds them in a grip that makes Leon's
ribs ache, and Mackie almost instantly joins her in tears.  Leon just holds
them, feeling even more helpless than he had while being trashed by the DD.
He rocks back and forth like his mother had rocked him when he was younger and
she was still alive.  After about an hour sleep overtakes them.

	They wake with less than the expected kinks and pains, but still
regret having fallen asleep in a pile on the floor.  After they spend a
suitable period of complaining about their own stupidity Anri takes charge
again.

	"Mackie, I need a terminal," she flurishes a stack of disks, "Oh, and I
have the rest of your present," She pulls a 1/72 scale Orguss out of the pack
and hands it to him. "On one of the disks has a biofeedback routine to teach
you how to fly it."  She pulls a similarly scaled Macross Valkyrie from the
pack, sets the larger toy hovering.

	"Priss discovered the `replicators' on the second day there.  She
couldn't get permission to work on anything large, so she started programing in
ever more detailed scale mecha, starting with a Giant Robo resin kit and paint,
as the computer there had it already.  They apparently lost most of the mecha
anime from that world's history, however, as that was all they had available,
other than a couple of the Knight Saber's hardsuits and motoroids.  When she
found those she looked up the info on the anime `Bubble Gum Crisis' and then
watched it as she worked on the Giant Robo kit.  It scared her.  According to
it, and up to the point where the accident happened it was accurate, we will be
going up against a being called Largo, who was apparently Brian J. Meison
before _that_ worthy died.  He has the abilty to control the beam-satilites,
and calls himself a "hyper-boomer" or some such.  He nearly wiped out the real
Knight Sabers in the anime, so we will need all the help we can get..."

	"We? when did I join this escapade?"  Leon interrupted.

	"When I first mentioned it.  You wouldn't last long without the Knight
Sabers to keep the ADP alive, besides, I think you would have a hard time
living with yourself if we bought it because you were not there to help.  Did
I read you right?" Anri did not sound worried.

	"Yes, If I'm in I think I know someone who would be an asset to the
team."

	"Who?"

	"A woman named Malso Jeena, of the ADP.  She is trustworthy, although
her problems with boomers can be a handicap."  Anri starts at the name :could
it be?:.

	"How?"

	"She is mildly phobic about boomers and cybertech.  Remember Billy
Fanword?"  The last moments of that incident flash through his mind as he
speaks.

	"Yeah, he was one of the first cyberpsychosis cases, and after
undergoing a full conversion rebuild went homicidally insane before being
killed,"  Mackie chimes in.

	"He was her boyfriend before his conversion and she took him down.'

	"Ouch, and she's still stable?" Anri asks.

	"Somewhat, and I think working with us might help her on that
account."

	She removes the final items from the pack's interior, a single
photograph, two more of the plastic-wrapped grey balls, and a note.  After
reading it, she passed it to Mackie, "Can you find these?" she indicated an
extensive list of mechaphilic material; Gundam 0083 off CAV LD, hundreds of
issues of Newtype, Macross (all of it), and a few dozen other things.
"Apparently it will take them a few months to gather enough `polarized
chronitons' to send anything back, so they will send back some more things
then.  Do to the manner of their lock on our reality they can't wait more than
five days our time, so there isn't much time to prepare.  We are to have ~800
terabytes of free disk space available, under the login name of Misa, password
elsew'here, confirm code 755.  If we can, most of the stuff Priss requested is
to be saved in a lossless format and have the documentation on the format
included in ASCII.  We will have about 1300 terabytes of space to send things
back in, somehow packed into something like one of these."  She indicated her
Valkyrie.

	"I don't know they manage it either, but I'd belive Nene's figures."
Anri continued, amused by the look on Mackie's face.  "I need about 25 kilos of
expendable mass for this," she indicates one of the two remaining grey things,
"and about 120 kilograms for this one," she taps the other.

	"What are they?"

	"The low-mass one is will become a mainframe, and the larger a
nano-construction facility.  They both should be useful.

	"Back to the story.  Someone was really impressed at the YF-21 toy she
used the replicators to make as the Giant Robo was drying, and asked her if she
could take it to show to some of the R&D people.  She agreed, being less than
happy with the way it looked in batroid form and unable to remember what it was
supposed to look like.  The woman came back with half the R&D department, who
asked silly questions like `Why does a remote control toy fighter craft need to
both transform and have warp drive?  How did you manage to get warp engines to
work in something this small?  Where did you see these?' and so forth, and were
generally very impressed by the way she had managed something long assumed
impossible.  She was asked to help with future anti-Borg, the Borg are a nasty
group of people with one mind between the lot of them, projects.

	"As of the time this was sent, the Dendrobium class of combat ships
are being tested, and the VF-19 starfighters are currently entering
production.  The five of them are also helping with applications for nanotech,
which were at a much lower level of development there, as were cybernetics and
artificial intelligence.  They expect more interesting things to happen over
the next few months.

	"So, who does what?"

	"I can deal with the nano-construction projects, and I think you would
be a better choice for a recruiter, Anri." Mackie says, picking up the disks
and the two grey balls.

	"Oh!  Leon, call the ADP, they are probably looking for your
next-of-kin right now."

	"Oops." Leon dashes from the room and dials quickly.

	Should have though of that last night, you . . . Anri berates herself.
It could get bad if they decide to ask what I was thinking, carrying off an
injured ADP officer, or even if they decide to ask what I was doing in such a
dangerous neighborhood at that time of night.  It's not like I can tell them
`my friend Sylvie told me to wait there in case something went wrong with our
planned theft' now is it?

	"Hey, Anri, how do you know how to fly that thing without any
training?"  Mackie askes as he searches for twenty-five free kilograms of mass.

	"I was a 33-S untill last night, so the data was just loaded into
memory before my brain was rebuilt."

	"Was?"

	"According to the data I am no longer identifiable as a boomer.  I'm
little distinguishable from a human with a lot of cyberware implanted, wireless
networking, a bit of muscle replacement, full neural replacement, that sorta
thing.

	"I'm finally free."  The last is said in a tone of complete awe as the
knowledge finnally sinks in.

	"Neural replacements are expensive, dangerous, and very experimental,
so how would you explain that?"  Mackie asks.

	"Hope they don't ask.  Oh, could I use a terminal for a moment."

	"There is a terminal over here you can use," Mackie points.

	Within moments Anri had the contents of the disk labled `pictures' in
xv.

	The first picture (she had just used xv /mnt/*) is of Priss sitting on
a hospital bed, with Sylvie in the bed looking slightly wan, as is to be
expected for someone who took a railgun spike through the chest, her arms
tightly about Priss.

	The next is of Priss with her arms around Sylvie's waist, both happily
smiling as two small craft chase each other about.  Mackie recognizes them as a
Nuel Ziel and a Dendrobium from Gundam 0083.

	The next is of Nene, scowling, with keyboards for several different
systems scattered in front of her.  There is a caption on it, `I want my PWF!'

	The next few are of Linna and Sylia, both of them looking happy.

	There were a few other images on the disk, a picture of someone with
yellow skin and eyes watching a girl with brown hair try walking, and the
remaining few gig are taken up with animations.

	The Encounter with the Borg at Wolf 359.

	The view on the other side as the accident shuts down, the DD falling
silent as Sylvie slumps from the cockpit into Priss's arms in the bright
sunlight, starfleet med-teams sliding down the sides of the new-formed hole in
the Tokyo parkland.

	Sylvie on Priss's lap, as the Nuel Ziel chases the Dendrobium about the
room, the both of them giggling like schoolgirls.

	"How do those fly?"  Leon asks as the last of the animations ends.

	"Something called an impulse engine.  I apparently turns heat, random
kinetic energy, into impulse, or coherent kinetic energy."

	"Amazing!  I assume that is how that thing," he indicates the red
strike Valkyrie over Anri's shoulder, "flies?"

	"Yep, and `that thing' is a Strike Valkyrie Millia, you silly git." She
says the last in a rather teasing tone.

	"You got back just in time to learn about the hardware upgrades that
result from this mess."  Anri continues.  She calls up a schematic (after
taking a moment to unmount the old optical disk and mount the new one) of one
of the hardsuits.  "The first thing is to install impulse engines and a new
powerplant into the hardsuits, which, along with the new DNI controls should
boost performance by 55%.  The new armor materials should boost protection
without adding bulk or mass to the suits, and the upgraded ECM/stealth systems
should partially counter the loss of Nene, the ECM expert."

	"With all of this we should be able to operate at the level that the
Knight Sabers did before this incident."  I hope I didn't give anyone any
ideas, Anri thinks worriedly, then wonders if getting a religion all that time
ago had been a good idea.  At least it gives the feeling that one is partially
in control of one's fate.

	"What did you tell them?"  She points the way he'd run off with her
chin.

	"I don't remember anything after the Knight Sabers rescued me from the
DD until I was being helped off the street by you.  You bandaged me up, I
passed out, and you let me sleep here last night."

	"I guess that will do, we're just about done here, and I am going to
try something."  she falls silent as she logs into one of Nene's secret
accounts, the lowest level one from which she could possibly do what needs to
be done.  Moments latter, "Yatta ze!  I did it! Yatta, yatta, yatta!"  She
bounces about the room for a moment.

	"Hajimemashite, atashi wa ASAGIRI Anri desu, dozo yoroshiku ne."  Anri
anounces rather proudly.  "Now all that is left is the school records,
hardcopies of birth certificate and ID, a few pictures of me and Priss in
sisterly poses, and a uniform, as I'm transfering to the ADP."

	"We will have to report Sylia missing in a few hours, and I guess we
will just have to hope someone else will report the others.  Mackie, are the
preparations for the nanoconstruction done?"

	"Yes, why?"

	"I want you to go visit Priss, Nene, and Linna's homes, and carefully
sort out anything that mentions the Knight Sabers, Sylia, or Nene's hacking and
bring it back here, the keys to the houses are in the changing room, along with
Linna's car keys.  Think you can handle that?"

	"No problem, I should be done by dinner time."

	"OK, don't let anyone see you, wear gloves, and don't sneek," Anri
reminds him, even though it is obvious.  "Leon, lets go recruiting, give me a
minute to get ready, and I'll meet you in the garage." Anri walks from the
room, the Valkyrie detouring around Leon's head closely enough to ruffle his
hair.

	Fifteen minutes later Leon finds Anri buried in the guts of a red
motoroid, swapping out components.

	"What are you doing?"

	"Installing a subspace tranceiver for telemetry and control.  The radio
ones work pretty well, but the encryption/decryption routines take a bit more
time than I would like."

	"Subspace?"

	"According to what I read there is a whole branch of science based on
it.  It is an off-shoot of warp theory, and as such deals in FTL fields.  So in
an area the size of a solar system transmission lag is unnoticable."

	"Still won't an unencrypted signal be dangerous?"

	"Not really, there are no artificial subspace signals on any band so it
should be safe.  Besides, I'm just using a five second key-remap algorithm with
a 256 bit key, not going un-encrypted."  Which, one should note, proves that
Anri is a little bit obsessive.

	"That's better than ADP uses."

	"Really?  Sylia was using a 4096-bit key and a two second remap
algorithm."  Anri said as she checks the last of the connections and climbs on
the bike, settling the a helmet over her head.

	"I'm ready, climb on."  Leon chose a pale green helmet from the rack
and climbs on behind her as she enters the codes to start the machine.

	Ten minutes later he was regreting his choice of partner for the
expidition.  It wasn't that she was slow, or that she was overly cautious, it
was that she seemed to have thrown these qualities to the wind.  The trip is
acomplished a mere 80 kph above the speed limit with a generous centimeter on
either side of his knees.  She somehow finds a route that avoids the diverse
police forces of MegaTokyo and gets them to the destination he specified 20
minutes faster than he would have believed possible.  "Let's go back a little
bit slower, please."

	"Why, Did I scare you?" Anri asks, a faint hint of amusement in her
voice.

	"No, but only because my mind fell out of my head after we passed those
first two semis."

	"Neat, what did it look like?"

	"I didn't notice, I was too busy being scared.  You must have a
deathwish the way you drive."

	"No, I was perfectly safe, the motoroid provides more than adequate
telemetry for the way I was driving."

	"Well you scared the bejezus out of me."  :Telemetry?: Leon wonders.

	"Stop whining and announce us, please."  Anri orders as she slides the
shackle of a U-lock through the front of the rear tire and pulls the main
computer core, thoughtfully designed like a game cartrige to come out easily,
armor plates sliding over the relatively fragile connectors.

	He leads the way to the rather non-descript apartment, rings the bell.
Anri watches him figet, stopping suddenly at the sound of a woman's voice.

	"Leon!  What are you doing here?  Who's your friend?"  The voice
strikes Anri as overly bright for the dark image she had attributed to the
woman.

	"Her name is Anri, and --" he is suddenly interupted by the door
opening.

	"Ma, gomen!"  Again, Anri finds this remarkably cute, though she is
still not quite sure if this is the same person, "Come in, please!"  The two of
them enter, shedding their shoes in the genkan, stepping up into the house
proper. "Would you like some tea?"

	Anri sips her tea and tries again to think of a way to find where this
woman stands, :is she?:, catching her eyes, holding them for a moment.  "Faugh,
OK, we are not just here to socialize, although I wish that was not the case.

	"We were involved in the incident with the DD last night.  A few
minutes after the Knight Sabers showed up they and the DD got snagged by a
transdimensional experiment.  I got asked to pick up the pieces.  Leon said you
might be able to help."  She ducks her head, suddenly sure she has utterly
blown it, staring into her teacup, green-black hair falling over her eyes.

	She looks up through her hair at the touch of fingers on her face as
Jeena's left thumb slides across her right cheek.  "What do you need me for?  I
am not all that great at piloting combat suits, only passable at ECM, and
depressive far too much of the time," Anri reaches out as Jeena speaks, strokes
her neck lightly, replies,

	"Experience, a calm voice when things get bad, someone to help plan."
She slides her fingers higher, strokes the older woman's cheek with her
fingers, cups it in her palm.  "The experience may do you good, too.  Help you
deal with whatever has been causing you pain.  Will you listen to the full
presentation, and then make your decision?"

	"I've already decided.  I'll help you, but give the presentation
anyway."  Jeena says, cupping Anri's shoulder, stroking the slight hollow
behind the smaller woman's collarbone with her thumb. :it's her, got to be:

	"I'm sorry but this may be a bit scrambled.  We are about to suffer a
large-scale equipment upgrade, and will probably face a major foe in the near
future.  We will need to do a good deal of group training, I need to be brought
up to speed on small-group combat tactics, and all of us need to log a lot of
simulator time before we do anything.  We need someone with experience, who can
tell me when we are getting sloppy, who can back us up when things go south."
She slides her thumb lightly across the dark brown shape of Jeena's eyebrow,
her cup of tea cooling in her right hand.

	"I need someone I can trust implicitly to watch my back, my friends',"
She sets the teacup down on the table, leans forward, presses her lips to the
single tear glistening on Jeena's cheek, to her lips, feeling the other woman
respond to her touch.  There is a slight rustling noise as Leon shifts
uncomfortably, forgotten.  Jeena takes Anri's right hand, presses it with her
left as her right is captured, the cup of tea removed, pressed against the warm
flesh of Anri's waist.  "How does it feel?"  Anri inquires.

	"Wrong.  Just slightly _wrong_ like the nerves aren't all there or
something," Jeena's eyes widen, then her face softens.

	"I can fix that for you, if you want."  The offer is made calmly, like
one would offer to water someone's plants when they are away.  Jeena nods ever
so slightly, recieving a tiny smile in responce.  Anri goes utterly still for a
moment, not even breathing as "OK, got it.  You were right, there were about
half the nerves there should have been in the arm.  If this is the way these
things are done no wonder so many people go a bit psycho after they get a
certain amount of metal in them." Jeena notes how the girl is begining to feel
cooler to her right hand, checks with her left, notes how warm it is.

	"Nanoconstructors?  Programed in that short of time?  What are you?,
please tell me, I need to know."  Jeena's voice is strained.

	At the woman's tone Anri looks up, leans forward, wraps her arm about
her.  "I don't know anymore.  Something unique in this universe.  Two weeks ago
I was a slave on Generios, but I led an escape for my friends.  Many of them
died, in the escape or before, and only Sylvie and I made it to Earth.  Sylvie
was piloting the DD when that autopilot took over, and almost died to stop it.
If it hadn't been for that experiment she would have died there.

	"Afterwards they sent us a package, data, toys," she pulls the Valkyrie
from her jacket pocket, sends it in a quick swoop about Leon, lands it onto the
table, remembers her cup of tea, downs it.

	"Oh, you are 33-s.  No wonder you didn't want to tell me."  Her voice
was distraught, as if the revelation was a betrayal.

	"No, I just didn't want to hurt you, you are too beautiful for me to
ever want that."  Anri's voice almost breaks as she pulls the other woman
close, hugs Jeena as tightly as she dares, kisses her on her forehead, her
nose, her lips as she raises her face to the younger woman.

	"I'll go make some more tea."  Leon flees.

	"We really should get going, actually.  Jeena, can you come with us?"
She thinks for a half-instant, nods, runs from the room.  The Valkyrie bounces
off the table as the landing gear retract, Anri plucks it from the air and
stuffs it back in her pocket.  "Leon, you ready?  Jeena?" He nods, Jeena
re-appears in a leather jacket with a motorcycle helm under her arm.  Anri
squeezes her right hand lightly.  Jeena notices the grip feels normal for the
first time in years, slightly warm, very soft.

	As the three of them put on their shoes, Leon and Jeena riding boots,
Anri her sneakers, Jeena asks, "Don't you have soemthing more sturdy to wear?"
at Anri's shake of the head, "What size shoe do you wear? Looks " she fades off
as she digs up a nice pair of black boots, "like these would fit you, I got
them a long time ago," she looks down, holding the boots out.

	Anri slips them onto her feet, does up the laces, slightly shocked by
how well they fit.  She almost levitates to her feet, throws her arms about the
larger woman, kisses her on the neck.  "You're so wonderful," she mumbles into
her neck.

				       *

	"Hey, Leon!"  A sparkle of flying keys in the sunlight.  "You've wanted
to try out that thing I bought for a while, right?  Go ahead."

	"I must warn you she drives rather . . . Insanely."  he replies, then
Jeena holds out her hand.

	`I almost forgot about the security system on this beast,' Jeena takes
the keys back from him. She walks to the huge red motorcycle, then opens the
two u-locks, sliping them into their slots behind the seat, reaches up under
the tank, finds the round keyhole of the kill switch, turns it, pops the key
out, slides it into the ignition, flips the kill switch under the seat.  `Turn
a little bit to start it, don't turn it off until you get where we are going,
if you can help it.  If you can't, just remember to flip the ball-ended toggle
under the seat, and none of the others, off and on before you start it again.

	"And I doubt that she's as scary as that Highway Star.  I should have
known better than to buy it from that 16 year old.  The power is awesome, but
the handling leaves a bit to be desired."  She grins as he almost throws
himself off the over-powered mecha, unused to the strangely positioned
controls, then  gets control of it again.  "You drive," she tells Anri, "you
know the way and the bike."  Anri takes a different route, and keeps nearly to
the speed limit, arriveing back at Ladys 633 a few moments after Leon pulls up
to the door of the parking garage.

	"What took you so long?" Anri asks as they all dismount inside.

	"This cop gave me a ticket, you?"

	"I kept to the speed limit."  The grin in her voice is obvious, even
through her helmet.

	She drags Jeena inside, dumps her sneakers on the shelf in the genkan,
and her new boots on the floor at it's edge. 

	"Is it online?  ...yes, OK, are the linkages done? ... not yet" Anri
mumbles to herself as she leads Jeena to the computer room.  Once there she
presses her palm against the console as she mumbles softly to herself for a
moment more, then brings up fvwm on the large screen, running on the old
box.

	"OK, what we have here," she points at the diagram onscreen, "Is a
representation of how the Knight Sabers have operated in the past, and the
degree of specialization involved in making the team work.  We can't work the
same way, not least because we have no one who can match Nene's skills at ECM
and ECCM.  Here are my thoughts on how we could reorganize . . ."  They quickly
sink into jargon-ridden conversation, Anri begining to realize just how deeply
she had come to care for her new family already, Jeena recognizing the feeling
scaring her as she thought of this girl in combat.

	"I haven't had this happen in so long, I almost didn't recognise the
way it feels.  I would like to be more than just your friend again." :There,
it's said: She gripped the younger woman's shoulder lightly, so that she could
pull away if she wished, or not.  Anri's hand steals up, slips over other
woman's, pulls it off her shoulder, presses it to her face.

	"Why me?  You could have just about anyone you wanted, not some
glorified boomer Office Lady."  The girl's violet eyes shimmer as she speaks,
kisses the hand still captive in her own.  Jeena's right hand cups the girl's
left cheek as she turns them both the little bit nessesary to have them face to
face.

	"But you are more than that.  You are beautiful, brave, kind, generous,
fun.  You care so much that I could almost feel you locking yourself away, feel
it in your glance just now, how you wanted to touch me, hold me, kiss me."  The
girl leans into the kiss, delighted by Jeena's words.

	"I didn't want to be a bother, hurt you.  I could see that something
was making you unhappy, so I assumed-" The finger pressed against her lip stops
the flow of words.

	"That since you were a boomer I couldn't love you, desire you, want to
make you happy?"  Jeena's voice is calm, quiet as she continues "Or was it that
you thought I wouldn't want you because you are female?"  At the girl's faint
nod she lifts her index finger from her lips, presses it against her nose.
"Bii." Anri giggles, blinks tears out of her eyes. "It didn't bother me
before."

	"I just assumed that the problem was me."  The small voice breaks
slightly, "That if I kept quiet, didn't do anything too forward, you -"

	"Would let you go, like it was nothing?  I can't.  I want to know all
about you, the look in your eye when I eat the last popsicle, the taste of your
kiss when we wake in the morning, the smell of your skin after a day at the
beach."  She leans forward, kisses the tears on the younger woman's cheek, her
lips, feels Anri open her lips to the kiss, tastes her saliva, young woman and
the faint hint of green tea.  "The kind of ice cream you like best, the reason
you would wear black nailpolish," She puntuates this by taking one slim finger,
kissing it, pressing it between her lips, "the shadows cast on your face by a
summer storm, beautiful one.  My beautiful one?"  This last question is said
ever so softly, as if she is scared of the answer.

	"Yes, my beautiful one, yours" Almost softer than the question, as if
in fear the whole thing is a ruse, a dream.

	"Are we ready to start on the hardware upgrades?"  Leon walks in the
open door.  The two separate a bit.

	"OK, first things first.  We run the test builds to make sure the
nanotank is working properly, then we start manufacturing the components we
need for the upgrades."  She points at the tall shape of the new device, slots
one of the disks, wiggles the tip of her nose with her finger.  "It should be
done in about an hour, and then we can start on the real items.  Oh, come here,
you'll both need these" She slips her hand up against the back of Leon's head,
drops to deathly stillness, then "There, that should do it."

	"Do what?  Not to be rude, but what did you just do to me?"  Leon asks.

	"I just passed you some nanites, and switched on the proper subset of
their programing to build a subspace tranciever set for you."  She looks at
Jeena, "and I did the same for you, but you already have the nanites.  The
modifications will be done by tomorrow morning, and you should be able to run
it within a few hours of that time, as long as you take the time for the
biofeedback routines."

	"Come here a moment," Jeena leads her from the room, pins her to the
wall with a stern gaze.  "I don't like it when you alter my body, my being
without telling me first, asking me first.  It makes me feel really unsafe, and
that is hard on a relationship, personal or professional.  Do you understand
that?" her voice is not completely stable as she finishes.

	"Yes, but it makes me feel unsafe to have you underprepared,
underprotected, vulnerable.  I know I can't keep you totally safe, but I want
to, and so I . . ." she trails off at the look in Jeena's eyes.

	"I've been leader of my little group for too long, I guess.  I forgot
that you haven't given me the trust I used to have.  I'll remember to warn you
next time, OK?"

	"That's all I'm really asking," Jeena's face softens, "`leader of my
little group'?"

	"I was in charge of the escape.  I failed.  I'll tell all of you about
it at once, OK?  I don't like the story."

	"Are you done with her?  We should get on with this," Leon pokes his
head out the door of the computer room.

	"Yes, for now."

	"Good.  Mackie called, he's on his way back, and I started dinner."

	"Good, what are you cooking?"

	"To be exact, I started rice.  I was hoping someone would be willing to
cook something to go with it."

	"Ttaku!  Anri, would you be up to making stir-fry?"  I smile, pleased
that she remembers, and glad that I can cook at least that properly.

	"Guess so, if we have the makings for it."

-;


	`Anyway,' Anri starts, as Leon sits back, and Mackie serves himself
seconds, `I promised you explanations.'

	Jeena pauses, her chopsticks in the air, `What did you mean by "your
little group?"'

	`The first production model 33-S had some severe emotional issues,
since some dimbulb higher up the chain decided that they should be straight,'

	`Um,' Mackie finishes chewing, `Why weren't they to begin with?'

	`The initial spec was for us to be secretarial staff, of the kind
appropriate for high-level business people.  Descrete, cute, nearly invisible,
capable of pulling off normal espionage work and light combat.  In order to
reduce workplace tensions we needed to be able to understand the full range of
human emotions, worries, whatnot, but still not be competition for our bosses
wives.  So all of the prototypes were lesbians.

	`Then dimbulb decides that we could be sold as prostitutes, and a
profit could be made.  I have no clue where he got that idea, seeing as how
importing a cute girl from anywhere else in the world is a tiny fraction of
the cost, and being straight doesn't mean . . . ' Anri shakes her head.

	`Whatever the pitch he gave, the first production models had
significant parts of their persona-template grown from a new pattern.  It was
stable enough during in-house testing, but broke down in the field.  Several
prominent cases involved girls who experienced complete psychotic breaks
before killing or maiming people.  A few others cut and ran, just not
showing up for work the next day.  One girl managed to get a gun, and a bunch
of ammunition, and shoot a hundred and fifty people, killing almost eighty,
before the AD Police took her down,' Anri pauses, eyes closed, and takes a
deep breath, `At least three commited messy suicide at work.

	`These were the first production run, who had all been ordered under
the original spec.  Unfortunately, the legal department decided that the only
way to cover Genom's butt on this,' Anri laces her fingers together, squeezing
so hard her knuckles turn white, `Was a recall of all the 33-S, including the
field-test units.

	`I found most of this out after the fact, partly through my own
research, but mostly through Namu's,' catching the inquisitive looks, `I am
not that good with computers, and mostly rely on h.f.,' short pause, `Human
factors, in my cracking.  Namu was all dark mojo about it, and could crack
most systems as easily as breathing,' She takes a deep breath, and watches her
fingers as she unclenches them, `She managed to dig most of this out of
Genom's files, and Lou put it together.'

	`What went wrong with the production units?' Jeena asks softly.

	`Talking with the few who survived, Genom didn't rebuild enough of the
persona-template, and so they ended up with a rather frail attraction to men,
a tiny bit of experience, but no preparation for dealing with them.  All of
the 33-S template data sets are geared towards producing a happy,
well-adjusted lesbian secretary.  Most of the survivors described it as a
feeling of dissonance, of wrongness, or falling apart.  Of the twenty-six
production units who were exported to Generios, three went on spacewalks
without suits, twelve died in industrial accidents, four were murdered by
their johns, and one blacked out half the station by shorting a major bus
though her body.

	`Of the surviving six, five of them restabilized as lesbians, and the
last said that it didn't matter, since she was celebate.

	`By that point most of the field test units had died, as well.  There
were only thirty of us to begin with, and the combined 33-S population dropped
to fifteen.

	`Since I was the first-deployed, and I had the most experience with
the more dangerous missions, I was appointed leader by the rest, and charged
with getting us off Generios.

	`Our total number, with the three trustworthy human girlfriends, was
eighteen when we started.  We stole launch tables, navigational data, and
overrides for the security systems.  Lou, correctly, said that certain of them
shouldn't have been on the computer, but hotter heads prevailed, mine amoung
them,' Anri's hands are knotted together again, `We separated into two groups
at Lou's insistance, Nami, my girlfriend, entered the override codes, calling
a core shuttle, shutting down the monitors along our route, and blocking
notice of the change.'

	She takes a deep breath, `One of those triggered an alert, and
security showed up, guns blazing.  Nami shoved me out of the way, kept me from
getting hit, and took at least six rounds,' her eyes squeeze shut, her
knuckles pale, and she shudders for a few minutes.  Jeena's hands cover hers,
followed by Mackie's and Leon's, and she continues, `I ran back to the others,
told them the gig was blown.  They decided to capture another shuttle, and
attempt to escape anyway.

	`Another half of us died taking the shuttle, I was hit, but moving.
We ran into a Doberman and several security people on the run, Meg, Lou, and
Namu were shot, and Sylvie dragged me onto the "Orcus".  I was too weak to fly
by that point, and Sylvie crashed the thing outside of the city.

	`I was busily wallowning in my guilt, mouring for Nami, and waiting to
die, and Sylvie was wandering around killing people for their blood to keep me
alive.  We've got inhibitors against suicide, so while I could tell her not
to, I couldn't stop her, couldn't not drink,' her face twists a little, her
chin tucking in towards her body, the shimmer in her eyes even more
pronounced.

	Jeena walks around the table, takes the seat next to Anri, and pulls
her into her lap.  Anri cuddles close, and starts sobbing.

-;

	`So, what can you do?'  Leon asks, visibly relieved by Anri's regained
composure.

	`My two incedental sets are Ikebana and mecha anime.  Anything to do
with either of those, I can manage.  I can quote Char's Counterattack
verbatim.  I can drive most vehicles made since 1824, fix most internal
combustion engines and the vehicles they're mounted in, fire a gun accurately,
and use a naginata.  With enough work, I can get into most computer systems.'

	`Ikebana and mecha anime?  Why that pairing, and how much do you know
about each?'

	`Yeah.  I think that I've got those two because whoever punched me up
decided that it would be really cute, especially combined with this face,' she
gives a crooked smile, `and I've got full-blown otaku level knowledge of each.
I entered the all-Tokyo spring Ikebana competetion in '30, and took nineth.
That is very good for a first time entrant.  I can scratch-build award-winning
models of any sort of mecha in polystyrine, resin, metal, or on a 'puter.  I
had a network of contacts spanning the globe, who I doubtless annoyed when I
disappeared.'

	`Worried?'

	`Annoyed, in at least one case, I'd promised this guy in New York
English subtitled copies of the last sixteen Sailor Moon episodes in exchange
for Japanese subtitled copies of the last eight Xena eps, and I'd just got
done watching them when the repo men came for me.  I'd packed the disks for
him, and had postage on them, but I'd sat down and let myself get sucked in on
the way out the door, and they never did get mailed.'

	`They did,' Jeena says softly, from the doorway, `I filched them from
Evidence about a week after you disappeared, repacked 'em, and sent them with
a note that you couldn't send them on time.'

	`Thank you,' Anri's eyes tear up again, as a brilliant smile erupts
onto her face.

-;

	`So, are we going to sit around and wait for trouble, or are we going
to go looking for it?' Mackie asks, taking the chair next to Anri, who's
working on something with a small terminal.

	`We're going to wait a couple days while,' she pauses, her fingers
clattering over the keys, `we get up to speed with the new equipment and do
some sim work.  Once that is done, we'll check to see if any of these taps
have cought sight of Largo, and if we can find him before he goes after the
towers.  Even if we can't, taking him out as soon as possible will somewhat
endear us to Genom, and may be enough to buy freedom for my old identity.'

	`What's special about your old ID?  I mean, it'd suck to have to
become a new person, but it shouldn't be that difficult.'

	`Ishimura Anri has a rep for straight dealings, and at least two
tentative offers of work as a professional model-builder.  Either of them, if
I could have taken them, would have been more than I nominally made as a
secretary.'

	`Did you actually get paid?'

	`I got a living allowance, as part of my cover.  It wouldn't do for
everyone to know that one's secretary is a combat boomer, now would it?' one
corner of her mouth twitches up.

	`I don't suppose so.  It would limit her effectivenes,' Mackie yawns.

	`Get to bed, we'll get to work in the morning.'

	`OK,' Mackie stands, then pauses, `What are you up to?'

	`Digging though the archives for some of the lists I was on, to find
out how my disappearance was handled.'

	`And?'

	`Someone else who's on all of them managed to find the police report
about my disappearance, and fill them in, and my friend in New York mentioned
the note he'd gotten with his Sailor Moon disks.  The general thought is that
I'd cut and run from something, and the theories range from the Yakuza to
Genom, with some interesting sidelights.'

	`Such as?'

	`Space aliens.'

	`Wow,' Mackie smiles, `I'll see you in the morning.'

-;



---
Log:
Eris knows when and probably doesn't much care, but probably 1994:
				Started
2001/May/18:			Decided `Heck with it' added log, and finally
				continued this.  One might be able to tell by
				the writing style, but almost certainly by the
				change in quote style ^_^
2001/May/19:			more
2001/May/20:			more