[FFML] [Sailor Moon] Double Exposure 2 [Dark/Comedy]

[Paul Durant]

   Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi, and the DARK.MATTER
setting was written by Wolfgang Baur and Monte Cook. I own neither of
these things, and expect that if either of those last two people Google
their own names they are going to be incredibly confused.



* * * * *



   The ambluance speeds down the streets of Tokyo, the blaring of its
alarm nearly hoarse with panic. The driver's eyes are locked on the
road, the cars she darts in and out of, letting nothing distract her.


   Two gurneys are in the back of the ambulance, holding the two most
wounded victims of the incident at the University of Tokyo. The eyes of
the EMT back with them nervously flicker between the patients and the
screens that show their vital data, wishing there was more he could do
for them. The eyes of the two girls on the gurneys, the purple eyes of
the short and frail one and the blue eyes of the blonde with the
odangos, are blank and stare at nothing.


   The woman sitting next to him, the one with the bandages hastily
wrapped around her head and arm, looks occasionally at the two girls,
but has more faith than the EMT that they will be all right. Her eyes
keep drifting back to her companion, boring into him with twin laser
beams of pure contempt.


   And the eyes of her companion, the red-headed American man in the
camouflage-pattern pants, scrunched up against the wall like Spider-Man
sitting on the side of a building, find the roof of the car to be the
most interesting thing to engage them.


* * * SAILOR.MOON: DOUBLE EXPOSURE


CHAPTER 2: DOUBLE INDEMNITY * * *


AMBULANCE 281 EN ROUTE TO JUUBAN GENERAL HOSPITAL TOKYO, JAPAN
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 18, 1995, 9:38 AM


   "You are a real Goddamned piece of work, Bill." Dr. Neary's voice was
still a bit loud and toneless, a ringing noise still making its circuits
through her ears.


   "Hey, it got rid of the Fader, didn't it? I didn't see any of you
coming up with any bright ideas." He stopped, thought, adding something
that clearly did not take part in his decision-making process. "And
besides, it's not like I knew it would turn him into a bomb, or whatever
the hell it did. All I knew was what you all told me, that it sent it to
a dimensional hoojamawhatever, maybe it just needed to be closer!"


   Nadine put her hands to her temples; she wanted to do this in
response to the ringing and head pains for a while but waited until she
could make the action an insult to Bill as well. She winced when she put
pressure on the left hand but passed that off as all part of the same
disdainful response. "Yeah, Bill. Because that's what complicated pieces
of interdimensional machinery do: they work great when you wing them at
people's heads. Especially interdimensional people who would have
otherwise left us alone and let us wait another five days to fix
whatever was wrong with the machine."


   "Then it could have gone on and hurt other people, or found a new
power source and eluded us. Scoff all you want, I did what I had to."


   "Oh, and as if that wasn't enough, after you blow up the machine and
the Fader and the physics department and summon a little girl out of
outer space or something, you follow it up by trying to carjack an
ambulance -- and to get it to go where it was already going!"


   Wheeler threw out his arms in an 'oh, now what do you want from me'
gesture, then fumbled to keep the IV stand he'd accidentally smacked
from tipping. "I didn't try to carjack anything! I knew we didn't have a
name for space-girl here and we'd lose her if we got separated, so Itold
the driver I was a federal agent and she was in my custody -- I mean,
it's a lame story, but I was in a hurry."


   "Oh, it's a real lame story Bill, and it gets even lamer when you're
screaming it in a completely different language. You have a foot and a
half and at least a hundred and thirty pounds on her, you're shouting
gibberish she doesn't understand and us English-speakers find suspect,
you're shoving a badge that actually says 'Federal Bikini Inspector' in
her face, she thought you were a crazy man! I bet she still thinks
whatever happened to space-girl, you did yourself."


   Bill couldn't think of a response to that, plus the EMT was becoming
noticeably agitated, so they were silent for a while, just looking at
the little girl, inexplicably serene even with a tube of oxygen in her
mouth and a tube of blood in her arm.


   "So... what do you think happened to her?" Bill finally said. Nadine
just scoffed and rolled her eyes.


   Then she paused and said, "I have absolutely no Goddamned idea."


* * *


   Kaiou Michiru was brought back to life by her lover's touch.


   Kaiou Michiru was brought back to life in a cold, dark parking
garage, the rough concrete digging into her back, by her lover pounding
her chest like she was trying to beat a railroad tie into place with her
bare fists.


   Michiru gasped, tried to speak, nothing came out. Haruka just held
her, whispering "thank you". They were wearing clothing that Michiru
almost didn't recognize, then it hit her that it was what they were
wearing before their most recent Sailor Transformations, what seemed
like ten lifetimes ago. They were far more tattered and bloody than the
last time she saw them.


   After a few ragged gulps of air, Michiru finally choked out "What...
what happened? Where are we?"


   Haruka looked around as if she hoped it would make her surroundings
make more sense. "I think we're in a garage somewhere else in Japan.
Hopefully we're still in Tokyo. We must have been teleported away
when..."


   "When what?"


   Haruka shook her head. "I don't know. Something happened, I don't
think it was supposed to. There were two ways this was going to end... I
doubt either of them was an explosion followed by us teleporting to
random safety."


   "The Pharaoh can't have won... we're still alive. I guess this means
Usagi was right." Michiru bowed her head slightly, ashamed of herself.


   "No, I don't think so either. That fight didn't look like it was
over, and then who warped us out, and why haven't they talked to us? Why
here and not with the rest of the Inners? Why explode at all?"


   "So then what's the third option?"


   Haruka bit her lip. "I don't know yet."


* * *


   Donna Truitt chewed her lip nervously, waiting for news. All around
her doctors rushed back and forth, speaking with an urgency that barely
encroached on panic. The accident at the university hadn't been too
severe, the hardest hit had been the four of them, plus the Space Girl,
plus the blonde who must have been hit by a piece of debris outside, and
even then the four of them had some bruises and scrapes but were mostly
okay. Apparently, that hadn't been the main event -- there was another
explosion, larger by orders of magnitude, at the same time at some prep
school on the other side of the district. Even though it had been before
classes even started, the school had been for some reason packed with
students, and now the hospital was packed with students.


   Donna cared about them in the abstract, distant way one cares for
people one has never met but has no reason to wish ill on, but the
'Space Girl' was different. If she was just another strange phenomena to
be observed, reported on, and tucked into a file somewhere, Donna could
have at least sat down and pretended to read a magazine while she
waited. Instead she paced back and forth and chewed her lip.


   She didn't know why she was so worried. Well, no, that was a complete
lie. She knew exactly why she was so worried, she just kept telling
herself it was unusual and unexpected to keep her own self-image as the
jaded, disaffected ice queen. The other people they were wheeling about
were teenagers or older, easier to file their maladies under the heading
of "shit just happens". Space-girl was just a kid, and a small, frail
one at that. Shit happens to adults. Shit shouldn't happen to kids,
because kids need to have someone to protect them. Plus, while the
explosion crosstown was probably their fault -- simultaneous events like
that are rarely coincidence -- a girl from outer space or who-knows-
where showing up in the rubble of the explosion they caused was pretty
explicitly their fault.


   By "their fault" she meant "Bill's fault", of course.


   She'd been holding onto a weapon like it was her life preserver, a
sharp and lethal life preserver. A polearm, maybe a halberd. But her
grip was weak and when they loaded her on the makeshift litter they made
to get her out of the rubble, it had fallen out of her grasp and
vanished before their eyes. They didn't know what the hell was up with
that, but they didn't have time to care. They'd sort it out later, when
the girl came to. If she came to.


   When she came to.


   Donna hadn't noticed Nadine coming in and jumped when she felt a tap
on her shoulder, but she quickly regained composure when she saw who it
was. "Well? Any news?"


   Nadine nodded in the direction of the ER, a paper cap still on her
head and surgical mask hanging down around her neck. Her left wrist was
bound up in a brace that she may well have applied to herself. "They say
her condition's stabilized, and she probably won't need more surgery.
They've patched up her wounds as best they can and replaced the blood
she lost, but she's breathing on her own now and the doctors believe
she'll regain consciousness soon. They're taking her down for some more
X-rays now, there may be some foreign objects that found their way deep
enough in the skin that they don't wanna poke around for it, but for us
all there is to do is wait."


   "Any idea who she is?"


   Nadine shook her head. "No ID on her. All they found in her pockets
was a hundred and fifty yen and this weird pen." Nadine held it up, it
was fat and bright and gaudy and atop it was a black sphere intersected
by a purple disc. "They gave it to me because, apparently, we're FBI
agents and she's in our custody."


   Donna paused. "I think I've seen that pen before..."


*


   Kaiou Michiru doesn't normally make a habit of jaywalking, and in
fact considers it an embarassing, if minor, oversight. But what with her
trying and failing to prevent the arrival of the Messiah of Silence,
having a front-row seat to the end of all life on Earth, then being
whisked away without any explanation or resolution, almost dying behind
a Nissan Stanza, and trying to figure out why the transformation pen in
her hands had stopped working, she didn't have a lot of mental energy
left over to dedicate to crosswalks or traffic safety. When she saw the
headlights she stopped, not out of panic or terror but because she was
trying to remember what the hell this thing was and why it was here.


   It was a van, dark in color, probably American-made. In the
passenger's seat was a black man holding his hands over his ears and
wincing, in the driver's seat a dark-haired white woman screaming
obscenities in English and beating on the car's horn like it had
murdered her family. Both of them were bloodied, bruised and beaten, and
Michiru swore she recognized the woman, but from what?


   Haruka grabbed Michiru by the shoulder and yanked her out of the
car's path, at which point the woman shouted "THANK you!" and the tires
squealed as she tore off. Michiru blinked, shook her head, and wondered
if she had a concussion.


   "Who was that? I know her from somewhere, I couldn't quite place her
face..."


   Haruka grimaced. "I've never seen her face before. But I think that
right before the explosion, she called Sailor Saturn an idiot."


   "So, what does that mean?"


   Haruka winced. "I'm not sure any of this means anything."


*


   "...but it's probably nothing, a couple people I saw on the way over
had them. Probably some kind of promotion or something."


   Nadine narrowed her eyes. "And by 'saw', I take it you mean 'almost
ran over'?"


   Donna didn't bother to ask how Nadine knew -- she drove so fast the
only way she'd see anyone is if they were directly in front of her,
blocking her path. "It's not my fault nobody here knows what a crosswalk
is."


   Nadine rolled her eyes. "And it's not their fault that you think the
slightest traffic obstruction is an insult to your worth as a human
being. Anyway, you seen Bill and Phil around?"


   "Phil was bitching about a concussion and using way too many big
words for me to believe he had one, Bill took him downstairs to get
checked out so he'd stop complaining."


   "Well, if you see those two, tell them I'm going to have them page
'Dr. Hoffman' to whereever they end up putting the space-girl when she's
out of X-ray." She pulled the surgical mask back over her mouth. "It
might take a while, there's a bit of a line. Anyway, I'm going down to
triage to lend a hand, Hippocratic Oath and all that."


   "They let you operate with your hand all messed up?"


   She pulled her mask back down. "They wouldn't let me operate period,
I'm probably going to end up treating the non-critically injured just
enough so they don't riot, and another doc will probably take over
everything halfway through so I don't screw it up. Still, it's good to
help out, even if the downtown explosion wasn't actually our fault."


   Donna tilted her head and paused a moment. "It wasn't?"


   "You didn't hear? Apparently that whole place collapsed like three
minutes before our little fiasco. You can take that off your conscience.
Now if you will excuse me, the people are in need..." She pulled the
mask back on and sauntered on down to the hospital's cafeteria where the
patients were being held.


* * *


   Kino Matoko had a great deal of problems. In fact she had more now
than when she thought all life on Earth was in imminent danger of being
Silenced, and the bare fact she even thought that was another problem
for her list.


   She ran over the sequence of events in her head again. They'd made it
to the Mugen academy before the ritual was completed. They'd been
attacked by what looked like a mob of uncooked daimons, which they had
managed to hold at bay long enough for Sailor Moon to make it inside,
because Sailor Moon was always the only one who could do anything. The
other four of them were trying to contain the power field emanating from
the building from expanding any further, hoping to buy Sailor Moon
enough time to stop the arrival of the dread Pharaoh 90. And then, of
course,the field has broken and they were drawn up in the air to witness
the arrival of the Silence firsthand. Mistress Nine's hold on her body
weakened because she had underestimated the power of human love, and it
looked like it wasn't going to matter. The building collapsed, the
second time in 24 hours, and the hellish energy of the Pharaoh was
taking the whole block with it. Sailor Uranus was berating Sailor Moon
for being too trusting, and at the precise second when it appeared all
hope was lost, a glowing, translucent Sailor Saturn had appeared to
sacrifice her life to save all of theirs.


   Matoko had participated in this kind of activity at least three times
in the past, two of which she could remember, and so far this was all
pretty standard stuff.


   Then the portal through which the Pharaoh was entering exploded -- it
didn't suddenly expand, didn't turn its evil black light white as Sailor
Moon's love purified it, didn't even "explode with magic" -- it blew up,
an Earth-shattering CHA-THOOM that left her ears ringing and her lungs
gasping for air. Mugen had already collapsed twice before, but each time
it was like it was condensing itself, casting off all unnecessary pieces
to prepare for the final showdown. And now, the building had decided
that its components no longer amused it and flung them away. Sailor
Saturn was talking when it went up, so it didn't seem like she had
expected this, or that this was the ultimate fatal power she was going
to have to use. And there wasn't a Pharaoh running around, so it
obviously wasn't the explosion created when he arrived in our world.


   Maybe whatever kind of alien being the Pharaoh 90 is exploded when it
came into contact with Earth's atmosphere, but Matoko thought that was
unlikely. That seemed like the kind of thing you'd do some reasearch on
before you started your summoning cult.


   But, okay, the great evil exploded before the fight was over. That's
unusual. Then Matoko recalled the feeling of being yanked toward the
dead center of the explosion and caught a glimpse of Sailor Uranus being
thrown toward the same point, and when she hit the center through which
the Pharaoh had been arriving less than a second ago, she blacked out.
And that wouldn't have been that unusual if she had woke up in the Tau
cluster or wherever the Pharaoh had been from, because then it would
have just been that he was drawing them into his world for whatever
reason entities like him do things. Instead she awakened in midair with
the same forward momentum she'd entered the "space" with, and juging by
the number of things flying around and what direction, she'd traveled at
most twenty-five meters and done so in half a second -- her loss of
consciousness no longer than an eyeblink. She hit the asphalt and heard
a snap like a stick of celery, it was her left leg. She skipped like a
stone looking above her for just enough time to see Minako trace a
graceful arc through the air, her blonde hair splayed about behind her
like a sweat-soaked and dust-caked comet's tail.


   Then she hit the street again, lucky enough to lead with her shoulder
rather than her legs this time. She skidded a couple meters, the uneven
street surface shredding the back of her shirt and abrading her skin,
then came to a stop when the friction of her flesh on the street
overcame the momentum of the explosion. It hurt, and it hurt a great
deal, but by this point she had the same kind of detached awareness of
her pain that she might have for the fact that it was raining in Osaka;
something that was true but she didn't really care about. She noted that
she was now wearing her civilian clothes, she guessed she might have
reverted when she blacked out. She tried transforming back, if for no
other reason than to see if the magic of the Moon Kingdom would heal her
leg, but she knew it wouldn't work before she'd even finished the word
"Jupiter". It was like whatever small intangible point she was reaching
toward to call her powers, the one that was a part of her but could only
be reached if you approached it from exactly the right angle, was gone.


   She didn't have too long to wonder why that might be before she heard
sirens, and that was the surest indicator she had that something had
gone wrong. A day ago, this building had collapsed and no rescue teams
were dispatched, no police arrived to cordon off the area. Half an hour
ago, they had been holding back a wave of liquid malevolence in a
glowing energy shield, and traffic was still flowing behind Matoko and
nobody'd seen anything the slightest bit unusual. Now the damn place
blows up and paramedics are on the scene inside of two minutes, loading
people in Mugen uniforms onto gurneys. She wondered if the same effect
that prevented people from recognizing her face as Sailor Jupiter also
prevented them from recognizing a force-bubble full of daimons as
something they should be concerned about, and if it went away with the
rest of her powers.


   They loaded her into an ambulance because she couldn't walk, she saw
Ami and Minako getting onto a school bus they'd brought over to carry
the wounded. None of them put up too much of a fight -- what the hell
were they going to do? Not like they could run anywhere or fight them
off, and it didn't seem like there were any more daimons climbing out of
that hole. So they'd been taken to the hospital, run through triage --
Rei apparently needed immediate treatment, but the rest of them were
sent off to wait in the hospital cafeteria with the rest of the non-
critically injured victims until the doctors had taken care of those
most in need of medical care. There were a couple of doctors here, the
ones who can't work in the ER she guessed, changing bandages and setting
bones and doing all that non-critical stuff. One of them was Ami's
mother but luckily she seemed to be staying on the other end of the
cafeteria, the doctor who bandaged up the abrasions on Matoko's back was
some random doctor, someone in a surgical mask and what looked like a
hastily-applied wrist brace on her own arm. It took longer to apply the
dressings with only one good hand, but that's still better than having
Dr. Mizuno over and possibly putting two and two together now that their
magic identity protection was gone.


   Minako, Matoko and Ami had all found each other but Rei was in
surgery and Usagi nowhere to be found, not to mention Hotaru and Michiru
and Haruka. Ami tried to track them with the Mercury Computer, but found
that it had gone from a pocket space-age hypercomputer to an ordinary
"Wizard" day-planner. Now would be the time when they huddled together
to form a plan or hash out just what had happened, but none of them had
anything to go on.


* * *


   Dr. Nadine Neary was grinning and bouncing slightly from one heel to
the other, a manila envelope in her good hand, at the foot of the
hospital bed that now held the one they referred to as "space-girl".
Donna and Bill were in there, seated, waiting for Philip to show up
because Nadine, quote, "wanted to tell everyone at once". Phil finally
opened the door, grumbling under his breath, the top of his head covered
in cotton bandages. They were four or five layers thick, almost as if
someone had decided to mummify him from the head down, then got bored
and stopped once he got to the forehead. More likely this was some
unfortunate Japanese doctor or nurse or resident's way of appearing to
treat Phil's imaginary ailment just so he'd go away and stop
complaining.


   "So what's with the private room, Nadine? I thought they didn't have
the space to give them to non-critical patients"


   "Well, apparently the explosion -- the one we didn't cause -- wasn't
as bad as they first thought, not as many people in the area as they
feared. And the one we did cause affected fifteen people, eight of which
could be treated on scene, four of which are us," At this point Bill
raised his right hand, his pinky and ring fingers held in metal sheaths
and wrapped with tape, and Donna held out her arm to show off the
bandages on it, both of them waved like they were in a crowd shot on
"The Today Show".


   "So as you can see we're pretty much fine. Then there was a custodian
in the basement, he broke his foot and his coccyx. There was the blonde
girl outside the building, Jane Doe Number 2, she took a hit from some
glass that had her bleeding pretty bad but now she's all sutured up and
in stable condition. And then," she gestured to the bed behind her with
a dramatic flourish, "There is Space-Girl, Jane Doe Number 1, who has
been placed into a private room so that the FBI can better monitor her."
Bill bowed -- as much as you can when already seated, anyway -- and made
a "hold your applause" gesture, which the rest of them were already
adhering to before he even made it. "So, would anyone like to guess why
she's in FBI custody?"


   Donna blinked a few times. "Because... we told them she was, and she
warped in out of nowhere with a magical disappearing halberd?"


   Nadine waved her hands, then winced when she twisted her wrist the
wrong way. "No, no, no. Something that the doctors here know about
that'd have them put her in our custody without a lot of fussing.
Something that I have in this envelope. Anyone else?" Her gaze flitted
from Bill to Donna to Phil and back again, who all stared at her
impassivley.


   "All right, fine, can't even indulge me a little... Well, there's no
broken bones and only very minor internal bleeding, so she's lucky
there. She's bruised several of her ribs, but nothing too serious, keep
an ice pack on it for a few hours a day and she'll be fine. And her
respiratory system doesn't appear to be working very well, but that's
not something caused by the accident. No, the real main event is, that
Space-Girl, Jane Doe Number 1, is..." She stretched out the last "is"
like it was the most satisfying taffy ever made.


   "Just say it already!" the other three said in unison.


   "...A cyborg!" she triumphantly revealed, and let three black plastic
X-Ray prints fall out of the manila envelope onto the table at the foot
of the bed. Bill, Donna, and Phil each grabbed one, held it above their
heads right below a light, and squinted.


   "So, what," Donna inquired as she still scoured the image looking for
something that looked like a cybernetic implant... or a bone, she was
Godawful at reading X-Rays, "are you saying we've got a baby Sandman on
our hands?"


   "She is NOT a Sandman!" Nadine crowed with satisfaction. "Because
first off, she's unconscious and her body hasn't dissolved into a pile
of sand, which is why we call them 'Sand'men. And second, Sandmen are
damn near made of cybernetics from what we can tell, and Space-Girl is
not. She's only got a couple implants -- left arm, both legs, and the
left side of her abdomen -- and they're not very big, either. You see
that?" She tapped on a part of the X-ray Donna was holding that looked
like any other part, a mush of black and white and grey. "See that metal
hunk inside the bone? That's not debris, there's no entry wound. No,
that piece of metal was there so long that the bone grew around it. But
that's not what makes it a cybernetic implant -- you see this?"


   Her finger moved up and down the X-Ray along some path of grey lines
Donna couldn't distinguish from any other path of grey lines. "Yes, I
do," she said in a way she hoped could be later written off as sarcasm.


   "These are muscle wires, they're wires used for robotics that
contract when you run a current through them, emulating the contractions
of a human muscle. Now these ones are actually mixed in with her muscle
tissue, underneath it! They don't go up the whole length of the arm, but
they do go for the length of that piece of metal in her bone, and a
couple of them are still connected to it!" Donna looked around to see if
this discovery excited anyone as much as it did her, and it did not.


   Bill raised his hand, a habit he couldn't shake off when he felt like
he was being lectured to "Okay, so, if they're so small, and they do so
little, what's the point of even having them there?"


   "Don't you get it? They aren't useful NOW," Bill opened his mouth to
interrupt and say something witty but Nadine gave him The Look, "but
they're not supposed to be! Judging by the size of these things, I would
say that they were implanted when she was maybe three, four years old,
and they were sized to her then. Something must have happened to her to
cause a lot of tissue damage, and SOMEHOW, someone puts these implants
in the most damaged areas so that not only can she continue to use those
parts of her body without a significant loss in function or severe
atrophy, but as she grows up her normal biological systems can take over
again for the replacements! It's a medical science breakthrough, AND as
far as I can tell all of these pieces are of contemporary human
manufacture -- it could be reproduced and expanded upon!"


   "So, wait, how does this explain her warping in with a magic scythe?"


   Nadine's smile narrowed. "It... doesn't."


* * *


   For a second, Sailor Pluto thought she was dead. She was on her back
in a grey, flat expanse with no landmarks, no sky, nothing. Purgatory if
she ever saw such a place. Then she rolled her head and saw behind her
the Gates of Time. Her first thought was that she'd been standing watch
in purgatory this whole time and never known it.


   She tried to sit up, and yelped at the horrible pain she felt in her
abdomen when she tried to do so. She spat up a little blood too, and it
tasted harsh and acidic. Oh, some stuff was definitely ruptured down
there. Her stomach was probably full of blood, maybe her intestines were
ripped too. She'd probably die without immediate medical attention,
which there was no way to get in the no-space around the Gates of Time.
And if she was about to die, that probably meant she was not already
dead.


   So she was still alive. Lucky her.


   She wondered how long she was out, and by the caked-in bloodstains on
her fuku, she figured it had to be a few hours at least. She didn't know
why she was still Sailor Pluto if she was unconscious that long, she
should have reverted back to Meioh Setsuna by now. Maybe the magic of
the Moon Kingdom was the only thing keeping her alive at this point, and
it can't turn off if it would kill her. If that was true, she had to
have at least some kind of life support.


   She tried to reach out to the normal world, return to Tokyo, get a
doctor, but she couldn't. Not because she couldn't get up, she didn't
need to. But the normally porous wall that separated the Gates of Time
and the rest of the world had become rock-solid and she was unable to
pass. Maybe this was the punishment the Guardians of Time laid on her
for breaking their forbidden rule, trapping her here at the Gates and
removing her ability to leave at all. It figures that the only time they
would ever do anything would be while Pluto was unconscious. Pluto'd
never actually seen the Guardians of Time, nor any direct evidence of
their existence, but she knew they were there all the same and she knew
they did not abide breaking their rules; much the same way a child knows
that if he exposes an inch of skin out from under his blanket the
boogeymen waiting in his room will devour him.


   She looked at the Gates of Time again. She couldn't leave through
there, and not just because it was forbidden; the stress of time travel
could rip her in half in this state. But... her part in the battle was
over. For good or ill, things were beyond her ability to change. She had
to know if it was worth it, she had to know who was right. She had to
look into the Gate.


   She couldn't get up, but her Key was within arm's reach of her and
she was within a Key's reach of the door. She pried the end of the Key
into the space between the double doors and pushed one of them open,
just a crack. Inside it, she saw Sailor Moon, standing on the wreckage
of the Mugen Academy, a clear sky behind her, mournful sorrow on her
face, and an infant child in her arms, a child that Pluto immediately
recognized as Tomoe Hotaru, given a new chance at a new life. Good had
triumphed. Usagi had refused to let her friend fall to evil, within her
or without. The Pharaoh 90 was gone forever. All was right in the world.


   Pluto gently eased the door closed with her Time Key and immediately
passed out.


* * *


   Seventy-seven hours after arrival the girl regained consciousness.
They knew it was seventy-seven at the most, it could have been shorter
-- Nadine remembered that reading to someone in a coma sometimes helped
them recover and even though she wasn't in a coma, they figured it
couldn't hurt. So when the girl woke up Nadine was very much into the
book she was reading to her and she thought it would be impolite to
interrupt. "The girl", by the way, was Tomoe Hotaru, the very same who
was daughter of Tomoe Suoichi, the man who their current working theory
of events said had been killed by a Fader he had summoned to him in
order to fulfill some kind of prophecy. They didn't mention this to
Hotaru so she had no reason to correct them.


   The four agents knew that it wouldn't be helpful to them or Hotaru to
immediately start bombarding her with questions about the strange things
she seemed to be tangentially involved in, but they really didn't have a
whole lot else to talk about. When she asked who they were, they'd
claimed to be FBI agents, and she'd accepted that with a level of
eagerness that clearly indicated she didn't believe them for a second
but wouldn't be fighting them in either case, and her queries ended
there. After a couple hours of uncomfortable silence and awkward small
talk, she began to speak about the events at the Mugen Academy.


   "I don't know very much of what happened," she said, and that was the
truth even if she knew more than she planned to tell them. "There were
some... people, who were working at the Mugen school where my father
taught sometimes. Witches. They said they were summoning a demon and
that they had to use me to do it." She paused, wondering if she should
make up a totally different story with no supernatural involvment, or
just try to keep her father's culpability out and not let on that she
was Sailor Saturn. She knew she couldn't let her own identity out, that
was a secret that was important to keep, and she didn't want to tell
them it was her own father who was responsible for all this, but if she
told them something totally made up she might contradict something they
already know and they'd know she was lying.


   "They told me I was the Mistress Nine and that I had to summon the
Pharaoh 90. I didn't want to do it but..." But what? But the alien thing
who'd been alive in your body since you were four years old wasn't
listening to your opinion? But you'd been destined to destroy Earth
since before you even born? "...but it had power over me and it made me
do what it wanted. We had set up a bunch of machines in the basement and
we were sucking away the purity of people's hearts to find the talismans
we needed to power them. And when we had everything, I called in all the
students at the academy to protect me while I summoned the Silence."


   The black man, Dr. Akens, paused in his note-taking. "The Silence?
What happened to the Pharaoh 90?"


   Hotaru was a bit embarassed that it looked like she'd been caught in
a lie at one of the points she was telling the unvarnished truth. "It
said it had many names. It was Pharaoh 90, or the Silent One, or just
the Silence, or Isci ba Fan, or Death."


   Akens nodded as if that answer was completely satisfactory. "Okay, go
on. You were in the basement of the school and you were about to summon
this demon?" There was no hint of derision in his voice.


   "Some people broke in and tried to stop me. Well, they weren't just
people -- they were warriors. Soldiers. They had been trying to stop us
before while we were preparing things, to prevent us from gathering the
talismans. One said she was the herald of a new age and the other was a
warrior of elegance. They struck at me with magic. They couldn't stop me
so I... so the demon struck them down and it made them watch." Did it
make you enjoy it? "They were there to try and kill me so I couldn't
destroy the world, and I wanted to let them, but I couldn't. Then there
was another person who had come to stop me--"


   "These three people come at the same time? Were they part of a
group?" Nadine slapped Phil on the back of the hand. "Okay, okay,
questions later, you just say what it is you need to say."


   "But she wasn't like the first two. She was a warrior of love and
justice. She was a Queen. And she said that I didn't have to die and
there was some good in me. I tricked her into giving me the last thing I
needed to finish the summoning and then I laughed at her. And when I was
finally able to take control of myself again, it was too late to stop
him. The only chance I had would be if I died." She looked down and to
her side. "And then I woke up here."


   "I'm sure that was very hard for you to say and I'm glad you could
tell us all of it." Phil clicked his pen and stood up. "Now we have to
go make a call to Quantico to see what we can do to best help you out.
Guys, a word?" He walked to the door and held it open for the other
three, then closed it behind him once all of them were out.


*


   Phil waited until he heard the door click shut behind him before he
spoke. "Okay, I know I'm usually the one saying to take the witness at
their word, but I'm having a hard time swallowing all this."


   Donna crossed her arms just so she could uncross them again and look
frank. "I know. Witches, summoning demons, in downtown Tokyo, and nobody
notices? Mind-control demons, no less, pulling magic talismans out of
people's hearts and fought off by quote 'a warrior of love and
justice'?" She put out her hands as if to say 'give me something else,
here'. "I want to call bullshit..."


   Phil interrupted. "But the last time we did that it was about Bigfoot
and by the end of the day I'd hit him with a folding chair."


   Donna raised a finger to correct him. "You did not hit Bigfoot with a
folding chair, Phil. You threw a folding chair AT Bigfoot, you missed,
and then you ran away screaming." She shook her head and rolled her
eyes.


   Nadine cleared her throat. "I'm no psychologist," she looked
pointedly at Phil, "but it's obvious she's got some serious guilt and
self-esteem issues. You notice how she claimed someone else was
controlling her and then she takes responsibility for all the evil it
committed, even things she couldn't have done? And then someone virtuous
comes in to try and kill her, and she wants them to succeed, but she
betrays that person because she's evil? And then again at the end she
thinks the only way for her to be worthwhile is to kill herself?" She
sighed, a bit mournfully. "I think she needs extensive psychological
treatment before we try and pry anything out of her."


   Phil nodded. "She's obviously been affected by the supernatural
somehow even beyond the weapon or the cybernetics -- some of the notes
on Dr. Tomoe's computer make reference to a 'living locus' to use as a
beacon to summon an extradimensional entity. He could have used her as
an experiment, and I don't think that's beyond a man who has no pictures
of his own daughter in his lab or his office, and she thought he was
summoning a demon and that if she was involved she has to be evil. When
the resonance disruptor overloaded when Bill broke it, if she was out-
of-phase to serve as a beacon or whatever, it very well could have
pulled her toward ground zero as it pulled her all the way into our
reality." He shrugged. "Maybe. Anyway, it's pretty clear she's
externalized the part of her that participated but used it as proof of
her own malevolence instead of a means to avoid blame. And it doesn't
seem unlikely to me that if someone tried to stop the experiment she'd
interpret it as some holy champion swooping in to save her and show her
mercy she doesn't think she deserves."


   Bill sighed. "I know you're going to laugh at this, but I don't think
she made any of it up. She's obviously leaving parts out, like where
these magic soldiers come from or what they are or why she's got to be
the one doing the summoning, but look at her! She knows she isn't a very
good liar and she wouldn't be able to make anything up that would even
be as believable as this. And she's got a look in her eyes that kids in
First World countries don't have -- kids in Afghanistan who have been
through wars and own AK-47s have it. That doesn't come out of your own
subconscious, it comes from the world forcing you to grow up or get
killed. And you all saw her Dad's basement, it was full of freaky shit
we don't know the function of. How do we know he was trying to summon a
Fader at all? How do we know the Fader came out as a side effect, or
that it was even related at all? And, I can't believe I have to be the
one to mention this, why did the Mugen academy blow up right before
ourlittle incident, and how would she know about it if she wasn't there?
She hasn't been hearing the news."


   Donna snorted. "Yeah, Bill, you're right. I am going to laugh at
that. Just because you think you see some kind of kindred spirit in a
twelve- year-old Japanese girl doesn't mean her ludicrous Saturday-
morning cartoon explanation of events automatically becomes truthful. I
think you need to hear about a--" She would have said more but she was
interrupted by one of the orderlies.


   "You are American... secret FBI agents, yes?" he said in stilted,
uneasy English. They nodded. "There is telephone call for you, mister
Itohiro Nakami. Phone is this way, please."


   The orderly started walking off, and three of them followed. Phil
stayed behind in the room to keep an eye on Hotaru, not sure if she'd
really try to commit suicide but not wanting to risk it.


*


   Donna picked up the phone and thanked the man, then stretched the
cord out as long as she could to stand as far away from the nurse's desk
as she could get in case there were some people there who really had no
business listening in on her conversation. Nadine and Bill stood next to
her, in case the Director of the Hoffmann Institute wanted to talk to
them, but mostly so they could talk loudly about football and drown out
the conversation to any eavesdroppers. As it turned out, Director
Itohiro did not ask to talk to either of them, so they heard only one-
half of the conversation that occured, which sounded as follows:


   "Nakami! How ya doing, you crazy kid you... To answer that question
you just asked, I am fine, and thank you for caring so deeply about my
well-being... Well there's been nothing to call you about until just
now,Sir... Oh, no, the party didn't come together the way we wanted it
to... Well, you know, a few crossed wires in the sound system and the
subwoofer goes out and sends seven people to the hospital, plus there
was this other party downtown that started a little before ours that
everyone wanted to go to instead... No, I do not believe the two parties
had anything to do with each other... Yes, we did see the guest of honor
and we gave him a sendoff before everything blew up... Well it wasn't
that important and we were busy with other things...


   "The reason we are still here is, we found a, let's say a
'hitchhiker', 13 year old kid, whoooooo, 'got in to the party without
buying a ticket', and we wanted to make sure she was all right... She
just woke up, apparently the oh I'm gonna say 'guy she hitched a ride
with' was a real rough trick who goes by the handle of 'The Silent One',
and he was forcing her to do all kinds of crazy things before she told
him to take a hike... That may be an alias, he also goes by 'The
Silence', 'Pharaoh 90', 'Isci ba Fan'... Yes, that's what I said... She
said that he was keeping her in the truck for a while before she jumped
out, and she feels real bad about... Oh, so now code phrases are
annoying? Not when I'm trying to figure out a way to say 'Lizard-men
have stolen our Jeep with the Tesla Coil still inside it' in nonchalant-
ese?...


   "Okay, yes, that is what I am saying, she says it was controlling her
and she shook it off... Well I don't know how, she didn't quite say, it
was part of a much longer and less plausible story, we don't really...
No... No, no, I didn't say that... Yeah, we'll continue to keep an eye
on her... What?... Okay, sir, I think I need to mention the fact that
she's 13 again in case you... Well yes I do in fact think it's relevant
to the situation... You can come here if you want but that isn't...
Well, because it's a bad idea, that's why!... No, I didn't, but... Yes,
okay, that turned out to be a good call, but... Hello? Hello?"


   Donna turned back towards Bill and Nadine, who'd stopped pretending
to be talking about other things so they could try and figure out what
the hell they were just talking about. "That was the Director," she
sighed. "He says he's going to hop a plane to Tokyo as soon as he can
and that we are to, quote, 'Make sure nothing happens to the girl -- in
fact, I want you to recruit her by the time I arrive!'"


   "Recruit her?" Nadine blinked.


   "Oh yes, he was adamant. Tomoe Hotaru must be the Indigo Child, and
the Golden Child, and a whole bunch of other colors of child, for all
the fuss he was making. He would not take no for an answer."


   They walked back to Hotaru's room, wondering how the hell they were
supposed to convince a Japanese teenager who may or may not be
suicidally-depressed, who may or may not be a living focus of evil, and
may or may not be the target of a band of righteous magic warriors, to
join up with the world's most destitute secret conspiracy, and more
importantly why they were doing so.





---




* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* B O N U S   C O N T E N T *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


HOFFMANN INSTITUTE AGENT NUMBER S-0014406
NAME: AKENS, DR. PHILIP JAMES.


AGE: 43
PREV. ASSOCIATION: Marquette University, Minnesota (Civilian, Education)
ASSIGNMENT: Investigation & Response Team Rho


HISTORY: Dr. Akens had studied paranormal phenomena for over twenty
years prior to joining the Institute, most of his adult life. He taught
linguistics and anthropology at Marquette University in Milwaukee in
order to maintain respectability and fund his journeys, but his true
calling was that of parapsychology. Though his main field of expertise
was ghosts and hauntings, he has made a name for himself in many fringe-
science communities, including contributing to several almost-legitimate
research papers, and was the subject of a short-lived documentary
program for the Science Fiction Channel called "American Spookhouse".


Dr. Akens joined the Institute after being involved in an October 1992
incident that concerned the summoning of an ice-demon at a rural Idaho
truck stop, where he had stopped on the way to investigate reports of a
haunting in Portland (The reports turned out to be false).


PSYCHOLOGY: Dr. Akens has spent so much time advancing and arguing for
unconventional theories of physics, biology, and history, that he has
conflated these causes with his own self-worth. The validation of said
theories is validation of his worth as a human being, to disprove them
is to prove him a failure. Craves the respect and approval of the
"scientific community" . A talented researcher, but all work must be
checked for an extreme confirmation bias.


SPECIES: Human
PROFESSION: Diplomat (Free Agent)
ACHIEVEMENT LEVEL : 5


STR 09 [+0] INT 14 [+2]
DEX 06 [-1] WIL 12 [+1]
CON 08      PER 11


Observant    [3]: Dr. Akens is good at picking out small details. He
recieves a -1 step bonus to Awareness -- Perception checks.
Second Sight [4]: After an aggravating fiasco in Spokane, Washington
involving a warlock making heavy use of 'glamours', Dr. Akens has been
trained in the ability to see through illusions. He recieves a -1 step
bonus on any skill roll to pierce an illusion, and is always entitled to
a WIL feat check to pierce illusion even if the skill normally allows
none.
Obsessed    [+4]: Dr. Akens is driven to prove the existence of
supernatural phenomena to nonbelievers. When presented with someone who
is actively denying his interpretation and theories of Fortean
phenomena, he is at a +2 step penalty on all actions that do not involve
proving that person wrong.
Slow        [+6]: Dr. Akens isn't as young as he once was, and he wasn't
really that fit when he was young. He suffers a +1 step penalty on all
action checks.


Combat Information:
Weapon:         Score:    Range:   Damage (O/G/A): Type:
Unarmed       4/2/1 +1  Personal   d4s/d4+1s/d4+2s LI/O
Gun           3/1/- +1 As Weapon         As Weapon   HI
Folding Chair 4/2/1 +1   9/18/36 d4+1s/d4+3s/d6+3s LI/O


Action Check: 12+/11/5/2, +1
Durability: 08 / 08 / 04 / 04
Actions Per Round: 2
Last Resort Points: 2


Athletics               [09/4/2]
Vehicle Operation       [06/3/1]
Stamina                 [08/4/2]
Knowledge               [14/7/3]
> Ancient Lore 1        [15/7/3]
> Computer Operation 1  [15/7/3]
> First Aid 1           [15/7/3]
> Language (Greek) 2    [16/8/4]
> Language (Latin) 2    [16/8/4]
> Language (Hindi) 3
> Language (Japanese) 3
> Parapsychology 3      [17/8/4]
Social Science          [14/7/3]
> Anthropology 2        [16/8/4]
> History 3             [17/8/4]
> Linguistics 2         [16/8/4]
Awareness               [12/6/3]
> Intuition 1           [13/6/3]
> Perception 2          [14/7/3]
Investigate             [12/6/3]
> Research 2            [14/7/3]
> Search 2              [14/7/3]
Lore                    [12/6/3]
> Fringe Science 1      [13/6/3]
> Occult Lore 2         [14/7/3]
> Psychic Lore 2        [14/7/3]
Interaction             [11/5/2]
> Interview 2           [13/6/3]
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