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Bernie's story was still on his mind when Adric finally returned to the 'Round, although admittedly, probably not in the way the Zeon soldier had intended. In his mind he carefully turned it over, examining it in relation to another, similar tale of cruel ironies and lost chances. One he could recall all too well. It was well past midnight and bordering on what some would call the wee-hours of the morning. Not surprisingly, the main pub area did have a few customers; equally not surprising, most of them were unconscious and didn't much seem to be interested in being anything but. Brooding, he scanned the room, looking for either of two certain faces, but they were not present. 6Doc, however, was present, snoring away at his usual corner bench. Also present were a pair of Royal Military Policemen, busily trying to stand Sgt. Benton and Cpl. Bell on their feet (without much success). And at one table, a white-colored Dalek stood silently, its protrusions drooping in powered-down mode and an empty bottle of Dos Equis Amber Lager before it. All in all, it was a fairly typical extremely early morning tableau at TTR. Adric's gaze fell to the pub counter, and finally identified one friendly face -- or rather, lump -- laying their head against the counter, using their arm for a pillow. He smirked. Well, it wasn't who he'd hoped to find, but at least she was a friendly face. And somehow, he thought, he needed one of those right about then. Perhaps she might be able to tell him what happened after his, ahem, departure. He walked to the bar and perched on the seat beside her, greeting Chang Lee behind the counter as he did so. Lee merely waved at him absent-mindedly as he approached, the boy's attention fixed rather on guiding a scantily-clad police woman on the television screen in the task of blowing away zombies. "Yo! Ryoko! Wake up!" Adric prodded the sleeping space pirate girl. A soft, catlike mew arose from her lips. "Tenchi?" they asked, softly. "Uh, no, Ryoko... It's me, Ad..." One of Ryoko's hands shot out and grabbed Adric's arm. "Oh, Tenchi!" the girl mumbled, almost incoherently, her head still cradled in the inside of her elbow. "I've wanted you for _so long_..." "Um, Ryoko..." "Oh, Tenchi!" Adric turned to the bartender. "Um, Chang? Can you help me here a bit? Conqueror's Choice, black?" Adric asked. Chang Lee wordlessly nodded, paused the game, and put down the control. "Sure thing." the Chinese boy confirmed, and immediately began fishing for a clean stainless steel cup and a pair of iron tongs. Ryoko's grip, meanwhile, was strengthening. "Tenchi, lets go up to my room..." "Ryoko, I'm not..." "I'm sure we can find _something_ to do up there..." "Ryoko, you're dreaming..." Ryoko giggled, which to anyone who didn't know her sounded _deeply_ disturbed. "Of course, silly. You're all I dream about..." Adric tried frantically to break her grip. His arm was beginning to turn purple. "We can be all alone with no one else to bother us..." That gave Adric an idea. With a clear, mock-surprised voice he spoke up. "Oh, hello Ayeka! Fancy meeting you here..." Adric would concede a few minutes later, about the time Ryoko regained her full senses and realized that the object she was repeatedly slamming into the counter was not the face of her hated rival, that that particular idea hadn't been one of his best. But, at the very least, it got the job done. ***** "So, they both disappeared afterwards, then?" Adric asked, using a washcloth to dab away at the cuts on his face. His voice was somber. Ryoko nodded, and took a sip from her third cup of Sontaran java. "Before your corpse was cold and your brains had been cleaned up from the floor." "Oh." Adric said, faintly disappointed. "So," Ryoko asked, "why did you do it?" "Do what?" "Put yourself between them." Adric shrugged. "I was barman on duty. It was my job to keep order in here." "Uh huh. Right. Two girls brandishing automatic weapons, and you just had to step between them to keep the peace." "Someone might have gotten hurt, Ryoko. I was trying to prevent that." "Someone did get hurt, Adric. You didn't prevent that." "Part of the job. Better me than a customer." "Uh huh. Sure." Ryoko took another sip of caffeinated cardiac soup. "From where I was sitting, it looked like Ember clearly had the drop on her..." "I didn't notice." "...and would have pressed the advantage if you hadn't stepped in." "The only pressing that happened was the muzzle to my head." Ryoko nodded, conceding the point. "If it helps matters, I think Ember was as stunned as anyone when it went off." "She still ran away." Adric observed, dismally. "Not initially. She looked more like in shock, at least for a moment. _Then_ she ran away." Adric considered that piece of information. "What about....?" "Her? Well, she just took off out the door, before Ember. Didn't say a thing, just got up off the floor and ran." "And neither were seen the rest of the night?" "Nope." Adric sank in his chair. "All right, Ryoko. You're the girl. You tell me what I should do now." Ryoko finished her cup, and placed it back on the table. "Well, of course you're going to have to find a way to apologize again." Adric looked confused. "Even though it wasn't my fault?" "_Especially_ because it wasn't your fault. Haven't you figured that one out yet? Even when it's not the guy's fault, it's _always_ the guy's fault." "Oh. I just thought that was my normal state of affairs." "This is different." Ryoko answered, but failed to elaborate. She looked up at the pub clock. "Too late to do anything about it tonight, though. I guess we'll just have to wait until morning to come up with a plan." Ryoko smirked, as her eyes betrayed something of her train of thoughts. "Wish we knew how to get a hold of Ember, though. It would help matters greatly if we had a reliable way to get in contact with her. Unless you've managed to...?" Adric shook his head negatively. "I've tried, but she seems to always side-step the issue. Never explains why, either. For whatever reason, she doesn't want a way for any of us to contact her." Adric frowned. "She did say once it probably wouldn't do us any good, though. Whatever that means." "She told me the same thing." Ryoko confirmed. "Most curious." "Yeah. It is." Ryoko looked him over, her eyes narrowing in thought, noting that his attention seemed in part to be on something else. "You okay?" she asked. "Huh? Oh. Yeah, I am. Tired, I guess. Long day and a less than stellar night." The Alzarian stretched his arms then, and failed entirely to stifle a hearty yawn. The space pirate watched as he did so. Then she levitated from the bar, reached into her cleavage, and pulled a few coins to toss onto the counter. "Well, none of this can be helped now." she added, and turned to float towards the entrance of the 'Round. "We'll have to just leave it for the future." "Yeah." Adric mumbled quietly. "The future. What there is of it." "Pardon?" Adric vacated his barstool. "Nothing. Nothing at all." he grumbled, following her. "Going to go back to your room in that funny-shaped blue box?" Ryoko asked over her shoulder. "The TARDIS?" Adric considered. "I guess I don't have much of a choice tonight." The two were passing the white Dalek at this point. Unnoticed by them, the eye stalk had raised slightly, and was slowly tracking them as they passed. "Sure you do." Ryoko said. "You can come over to Tenchi's house with me. We've always got an extra bedroll lying around for visitors." Adric looked uneasy at the prospect. "Are you certain it would be all right?" "Sure, no problem." Ryoko assured him. "You won't be the first out-of-town visitor to drop in, you know. Besides, mom says she's got something that might help you and wants to try it out." Adric chuckled. "'Mom'? You're calling her 'mom' now?" he chided. Ryoko put a single finger to her lips. "Shhhh. Don't tell her." "Uh huh. What's it worth to you?" "Well, lets see. I could tell everyone how you leapt to your lady love's defense when she was about to be killed by an Uzi-wielding..." Ryoko said this just as she passed (literally) through the front door of the establishment. Adric grabbed at the handle frantically and flung the door open. "Hey! That's not what happened!" he said, desperately, taking off after her. "Looked that way from where I was sitting..." came the distant reply. Then the door slammed shut, and This Time Round was left back in the hands of its snoring and inebriated customers. ***** Well, not quite. One customer wasn't snoring, although they were led to understand by others that they were quite gifted in that skill; nor were they inebriated, although that was not for lack of interest. No, this inhabitant was completely (if slightly hazily) awake, and almost entirely (if reluctantly) sober. Not to mention pissed-off as hell. With themself, mostly. At the universe partly, but still mostly at themself. Oh yes, and slightly confused. Mustn't forget the confusion. Although at that point, it pretty much felt indistinguishable from the anger, in a weird mixed-up sort of way. Number One (male) lit up another cigarette, took a long drag, and watched on the monitor as the door shut firmly behind... swamp rat... and his floating friend. He briefly considered powering up the rest of the white Dalek's systems and trundling along after them, but just as soon dismissed the idea. He knew where they were headed, after all, and since nothing else was likely to be happening tonight, he'd rather take the few minutes and try once more to make sense of the preceding few hours. He massaged his legs, and found his muscles were yearning to be flexed. He'd forgotten how cramped the Dalek unit could be, especially with all of the enhancements he'd dumped into it. It had, after all, been some time since last he'd used it -- embarrassingly, when he had gone to retrieve the unit from the nearby self-storage it was locked in, it had taken him a few minutes to even remember the combination on the padlock. He'd eagerly climbed in then, and had been surprised that the unit actually felt roomier than before, the smaller cursed body making better use of the space and giving him more elbow room to work, except for the fact that the tiny seat pushed on both sides against his rounded butt in a very uncomfortable manner... Well, actually, _her_ butt, he forcefully reminded himself. For at the moment, he was beginning to think that it might be better if he sometimes thought of... her... in that sense, namely as a different person. No matter that they shared the same body, memories, thoughts, experiences; she also was showing an unnerving tendency to take actions and express opinions that felt... different... from what he thought they normally should be. Yes, it might be better overall if he started to draw that distinction, Number One believed. Why, he wasn't sure, but the idea did make him feel a little better. The cigarette extinguished itself at the filter. Mechanically, he dropped ashen rod and butt into the small receptacle reserved for that purpose, pulled another from the ubiquitous pack, and lit. But anyway, he reminded himself, all of that was irrelevant. He'd donned the spare dungarees he kept secreted in the locker area, heated up some water with a coiled element kept handy for that purpose (although, admittedly, intended originally for nothing more than the occasional packet of Folgers), and come back here to await the return of Adr... err, the enemy. Why? Because things had finally reached a breaking point tonight, he decided, and it was high time radical steps were taken to seize control of the situation. And so he'd angrily done what he should have done in the first place -- gone to the 'Round as Number One, dedicated servant of her Gloriousness, the most Holy One. Not as Ember Ashe, the... friend... of all that his faith held in contempt, and most certainly not as he had done earlier in the evening in that misplaced and disastrous attempt at... at... whatever it was he'd been attempting. _She'd_ been attempting. He had to remind himself of that fact. Firmly. Repeatedly. The cigarette went out again. Once again he reached over to the pack, but this time found it empty. What the? he thought. He'd just opened that pack. He fished into the glove compartment, found another pack, removed the cellophane, and extracted another blunt instrument upon the cellular structure of his lungs. Anyway, where was he? Oh yeah, he was Number One, and no sniveling third rate hell demon or officious feline Human Resources Director was going to tell him any different. They could take their Operation Cupid's Arrow and shove it (point first) where it would do the most damage. Slowly. With as many serrated edges as possible. Twirling and twisting all the way inside. They certainly had no idea what kind of fire they were playing with, and by damn one of these days she was going to make certain... ..._he_ was going to make certain... Damn, Number One thought, how many hours _have_ I been up? His brain took that as a signal that permission to yawn had been granted. "Gotta get some sleep." Number One mumbled to himself. "Not thinking straight. Gotta be able to think straight. Been too long of a day." He snorted. "Getting too confused, too much fatigue." He thought about what he had just overheard. Ryoko had hinted at something in development, and considering the most likely identity of who it might involve, it probably bore looking into as a potential future problem. Ordinarily, he'd assign one of those incompetent minions of his to stand around and just observe, but for some reason this time he was suddenly filled with the urge to take charge and do it himself. And so, as he just as suddenly decided, that was what he would do -- take charge of the operation, and once more do something constructive. Yessir, go back to fighting the good fight in Her Holiness' name. Not like he'd done that evening, no sirree. No, nothing like That he'd been guilty of that evening. He needed to firmly reset his priorities, get back on the right track. Atone for the sins he'd committed. Nearly committed. He trembled at the memory. It was bad enough that he'd recently prompted himself into a sword fight with Her Holiness. But to think that last evening, spurred on by nothing more than a few taunting words, she should, in a flash of raw emotion, contemplate the unthinkable? The unmentionable? And then, stopped only because The Dweeb had stepped into the line of fire? It was unheard of! It was almost too devastating to contemplate! He, Number One, one of the most preeminent knights in Her eternal defense, had almost damned himself eternally in that unforgivable crime of... deicide? No, not him. Remember. _Her_. _She_ almost did all that. Not you. Yes, remember. It's very important to remember that distinction. If anything, this should make him more resolved than ever to continue striving against The Demon Spawn from Alzarius, he quickly asserted to himself. The spawn's baleful influence was enough to test even the most pure of heart, so obviously the kid must be countered at any and all cost. Yes, that was what he told himself, the kid had to be neutralized, for the good of all that was Most Holy. At any cost. Yessir. He tried to puff on his cigarette, but tasted only cold, damp filter. Get some sleep, he thought eventually, and go out there tomorrow on a recon. See what math nerd and his evil cabal are up to. If we're lucky, it'll be enough to render Cupid's Arrow superfluous. Then I can go in on the pretext, forget all this subtlety, and just kick some good 'ole fashioned therapeutic ass. Sounds like a plan to me. You'll have to tell Buck-o what you're doing, a part of him reminded. Leave a note through the usual channels but be vague, another part responded. That'll give you a little time. Screw him, another suggested, which also prompted an involuntary wince. This is your op. Don't let him muscle in. Still gotta tell him. Them's the rules. You don't gotta like 'em, just gotta obey 'em. Fine. But no Ember. She stays out. Agreed. She is too... unreliable. Number One chewed on his cigarette butt, not noticing that it was starting to acquire a certain ground, fiber consistency. Some time in the country, that's what he needed. To get things back into perspective. Taking a hike out to the Masaki shrine in the morning should do that. At the same time, he could also do something constructive against his enemy, take some positive steps toward salvation. And make Ember disappear, for a time. Yes, make Ember disappear. ***** There is a room in a certain office building. The building is of the modern, nondescript, concrete-and-glass, utterly bland variety. Only a prominently displayed address number sets it apart from other buildings along the Virginia highway it is buttressed against. The room is on the second floor, and offers a spectacular view of the building's parking lot. In actuality, however, that particular attribute was the room's only drawback. Because the curtains to the room were usually drawn shut, this wasn't a particularly major drawback. The room was painted a reflective white, and was also very well lit. This last was mostly because the room's primary occupant liked it to be bright. The walls themselves were sparsely decorated, but what adornments there were were all tastefully arranged and were of reasonably high quality. The most expensive of these adornments was a Law Degree, which sat hanging amid a cluster of other degrees and licenses to practice law in various jurisdictions. This was noteworthy because the person whose office this was currently held duties not normally associated with those of a practicing attorney. There were also other things about the office of some note. The walls inside were strengthened with a steel wire mesh that was constantly under power, rendering the entire room essentially one big Faraday cage; the windows were of polarized, highly reflective glass, nearly impervious to telephoto lens snooping, casual or otherwise; the windows were triple-paned set with an inch of space between glass sheets, the outer void of which was supplemented by a small white noise generator, the inner void of which was pure vacuum, all to prevent vibration-sensitive monitoring; the monitors -- and there were quite a few -- were all of the flat-panel gas-permeable LCD variety, an effective counter to the VanEyk-phreak. Underneath the desk were a button and, hanging from the underside on an articulated arm, an automatic shotgun with most of the barrel sawed away. The button was to summon a cadre of U.S. Marshals at a moment's notice; the autogun was there in case the office's occupant didn't have an extra moment. The shells were loaded with a customized mixture of pellets: lead, gold, silver, iron, hardwood and platinum, with the gaps in the mix filled with tiny industrial diamonds. The man behind the desk had never heard of anything that was specially vulnerable to platinum or diamonds, but he figured it couldn't hurt. Liven up the Medical Examiner's day, at any rate. In one corner of the room was a dart board with the picture of a sleazy-looking Martian Ice Warrior upon it, a number of darts firmly imbedded in various sensitive parts of its otherwise thick-skinned anatomy. The room's primary occupant was, at that time, examining a report on his display, making notes on a pad of yellow, legal paper before him, and making under-breathed comments on the efficiency of Japanese police departments and the subordinates who blunder into them. As he continued his review, the phone at his elbow rang. Reluctantly, he picked up the receiver, mostly because it was the only way he knew how to get the damn thing to stop ringing. "William Starr's office." the man said into the mouthpiece, then: "No relation." "Bill, this is Doug. We got orange?" Starr smirked, put down his pen and glanced down at the phone. Sure enough, the orange light on the handset was flashing. "Go ahead, Doug. We're secure. Are you back on station?" Starr heard some creaking noises from over the line, of what sounded like a chair being leaned back upon and the framework groaning in protest. "Yeah, I'm back. Got in from London late last night, missed some more fireworks, then crashed. Spent the morning getting the AAR's done; I'm uploading the latest reports and data-files to you as we speak." "Good, because State is still raising hell. Nerima didn't do us any favors, you know. Now they're watching us like a hawk." "Yeah, I figured." "What about Alpha One? What's his status?" Starr could feel the frustration in the other's voice. "Zilch. After everything is said and done, we've still got a no-go out here." Starr shook his head. "Damn, that's frustrating." "Tell me about it." "Want me to dispatch an IMF team in there to help out?" "Tempting, but the only one I'd trust would be Hunt, and I understand he's out on assignment now, right?" "Doug, you know I can neither confirm nor deny that..." said Starr, acknowledging the formula even though both knew the question had, in fact, just been answered. "How are the reinforcements we sent up working out?" "Gamma's doing fine, though I would have preferred it if they'd have spent more time at Quantico before being deployed. Can't be helped, I suppose." "What about Rainbow? They're in your zone, and probably could help out." "Nah, leave Clark where he's at. Manpower isn't a problem right now. Susannah and Paul should be here the day after tomorrow, and that will bring Alpha up to full. In fact, I think I've got more people on the hammer end of things than I have uses for. There's only so much running around in camo and carbines that you can do without attracting too much attention. And we're certainly attracting more than our fair share right now." "Ain't that the truth. Ok, well... you're the man on the spot." "Uh huh, and that's the way I like it." Starr heard a heavy sigh from the other end. "The main reason I'm calling, Bill, besides just checking in, is to see if you'd gotten anything on those friends of ours. Especially the redneck." Starr stuck the phone in the crook of his neck, and reached out with that hand for a manila folder that had recently been plopped on his desk. He opened it and glanced at the summary, even though he pretty much already knew the details. "Sorry, but not much. We got ID's on the four horse-asses of the apocalypse, but nothing on your Alabama suspect. I'm having the report bundled and sent to you, so you should have it by no later than tomorrow." "Care to give me the highlights?" "In short, everything is a negative. The four stooges look to be nothing more than that -- really, really, cerebrally-challenged fanboys. The most any of them have are speeding tickets and a warning for expired tags. Other than that, they're clean. No records, wants or warrants." Starr shuffled some paper, and stopped at a xerox. "I got an incident report here, though. From the hotel security at some Cleveland establishment. Seems they were bothering some convention guest at the hotel, and were ejected by security. That's about the worst." "Any indication that they're too clean, that all of that is just some kind of plant?" "If they are, then they've been undercover for a hell of a long time. Hell, we even managed to find one of their ex-girlfriends. Everyone who knows them had just two words to describe them: weird and pathetic." The voice at the other end sighed. "Ok, what about our friend Number One." "Zilch. Nada. No evidence the person even exists. No driver's licenses, no Class 3 firearm owner's ID, not even a goddamn high school yearbook." "What about the fingerprints I lifted from the beer glass?" "Nothing. Ran 'em through FBI, CIA, NSA, 50 different DOMV's and DOT's, and just about every ID database we know of, criminal or otherwise. Not a single match. This person's a real enigma. You sure that accent of his is real?" "If it ain't, he's the first non-Alabaman I've ever met to master it." A pause. "Whoever he is, then, he must have some pretty good connections in order to cover his tracks like that." "You mean this Brotherhood of his?" "Possibly. No, scratch that, likely. I take it you're still nada on that as well?" "Uh huh." A sigh. "Ok, send what you've got over. I'll have a look at it when it comes in, see if I can make any more sense out of it. Oh, by the way, that reminds me. In the Nerima after-action report, I've noted someone by the name of Ember Ashe. I'd like a dossier built up on her as well." "How does she fit in?" "No idea, but at this moment she looks to be a player. Her presence has the potential to disrupt our plan, so I'd rather have the information on hand rather than be blind-sided." "Ok, fair enough." Starr closed the report. "Anything else?" "CCD helmets." "Dispatched. Should arrive tomorrow at Hereford." "Product samples from PanTex." "Still trying to get those released. Whitehall wasn't very thrilled with the request." "I'm not surprised." Another pause. "Better imaging. The fabled weather around here is playing havoc with satellite surveillance." "HDRI?" "I was hoping for something a little more sophisticated. Heather's working on a specialized PLOT-hole detector, but says she needs to be able to bounce the scan over a satellite to get a decent spread." "That's probably something a little more sophisticated than your average spy satellite. I'm not sure we have anything that would..." "What about that movie mogul friend of yours?" Doug interrupted. "Doesn't he, umm, have access to a particularly sophisticated eye-in-the-sky?" Starr leaned back in his chair. "Say, that's a thought." He considered for a heart beat. "Yeah, I think I can work out something with Ed.... Mind you, he's always looking for ways to upgrade his capabilities..." "Think he'd be interested?" "He's usually willing to play ball, so long as you're willing to trade something in return." "Ok, then. See what you can do. In the meantime, find out what you can about Ember Ashe. As for us, hopefully I'll be able to report some movement within the next few days." "I sincerely hope so. See 'ya, Doug." "See 'ya, Bill." The line went dead. Starr thought for a moment, leaning back in his chair and staring at the wall. He picked up the pen on the legal pad before him, scribbled a few numbers, and started to tap on the pad with the ink ball point, trying to weigh a decision. Then, he reached across the desk to an old-fashioned rolodex. He flipped a few cards until he found the one he wanted, dialed the number on the card, and waited for international long distance to connect. After a few tones, a pleasant voice came on the line. "Harlington-Straker studios." the voice said cheerfully, "How may I direct your call?" William Starr smiled, gave the young woman the name of the studio's head, and prepared to get down to some good ol' fashioned horse trading. Part One - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five - Part Six
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