Chapter 15
Vacations

Sir Jeff lounged in his leather executive chair between his desk and Manhattan at dusk sprawling across his window. One hand was up to his face. His fingers rubbed his smooth angular jaw and sharp chin. His other hand dangled over the armrest with a tumbler of scotch and soda supported by his other fingertips. His feet were elevated on an open filing drawer jutting from his expansive, mahogany executive desk. On his lap was a file. The tab was entitled simply "Giroro".

In the file was Giroro's contract and marketing rights assignments, held together by a green paperclip. Above those were Giroro's media analysis report sheets, suggestions from the marketing department, and single page precises on the best way to exploit those media numbers: suggested bouts and so on. They were bound together by a yellow paperclip. At the top, and the focus of Sir Jeff's current attention, were the items held together by a red paperclip: dirt sheets, negative media play, and the all important background and private investigation reports.

What disturbed Sir Jeff the most was the slimness of the red sheets and his concern was the most likely explanation for the scotch in his tumbler. He downed a gulp and swirled the ice around the glass cylinder with a rotation of his wrist. He frowned. He'd had Giroro investigated of course - he had no problem with evaluating a property before he rented it. Giroro had come up clean, not just here, but anywhere. No red flags in the States or Japan. No college or highschool transcripts? Every lead in Japan had terminated in a dead end. The red section consisted only of four pages.

The first paper was an executive summary from the investigators summarizing Giroro's blank record status, except for the issuance of a legally obtained green card, Giroro had no records anywhere in the world. There was not even the usual disclaimer of "we might have missed something". There was nothing there to find: nothing at all.

The second page was a newspaper clipping: a grainy, black and white photograph from a tabloid from two years earlier. There was a young girl in formal dress in the photograph and a darker-suited young man behind her. She was looking almost into the camera and almost askance into the boy's eyes. Except that from the neck up the figure wasn't a boy. The face was the bulbous spherical mask that Giroro had worn everyday since his first television appearance. The headline read "My Daughter Dated an Alien". The accompanying sheet detailed a follow-on investigation. The story that had accompanied the picture was false - neither the girl, nor the Miami private school, claimed in the article, actually existed. The picture had arrived from Japan to the offices of the National Tattler, and an interning staff reporter had invented a story to match the picture.

Most curious was the fourth sheet: a panel of photographs. Sir Jeff studied the glossy intently. The photographs were of Giroro's small fleabag apartment: a common enough dwelling for lower-rated entertainers. Even though Giroro's star had risen significantly; he had maintained the dwelling and that seeming sentimentality had tingled Sir Jeff's internal trouble sense. He'd ordered a covert search; investigators had photographed the apartment from all angles. They'd taken samples from the refrigerator. They'd looked for illicit substances - evidence of material that might embarass the XWF: illegal pornography, perfectly legal but unusual sexual practices, bondage gear, anything at all. In the closet they'd found a military bandoleer small enough for a child and within one hidden compartment they'd found a photograph, which they reproduced on the final panel of the proof sheet. The photograph was of a girl: young, clothed in a sweater, wide oak eyes, red hair, sharply pointed chin.

She was a dead ringer for the girl in the Tattler photograph.

Sir Jeff set down the tumbler and turned his chair to the desk. He examined the photographs side-by-side, one in each hand. He glanced between them, comparing features: eyes, hair, smile... Are you the thing he most loves? He wondered, Are you Natsumi? Is that what Giroro calls you? They say your problems never truly leave you behind? That the ghosts of the past haunt the present...

Sir Jeff made his decision. He set the photographs to the desk and authoritatively stabbed the quickcall button on his executive phone. "Josie?" he said to the answering secretary. "I want you to put the name 'Natsumi' on Giroro's interception list: e-mail, phone, fan-mail, blog posts, everything."

"Yes, Sir" came the response. "Will that be all, Sir?"

"No, wake up Landerman from booking and tell him I want to talk about the pay-per-view for Giroro's ascension match? I'll take dinner in my office." Sir Jeff said crisply, then he disconnected.

Sir Jeff looked into the photographed eyes of the girl, at her smile, at her wavy red hair. "You're not the only one with ghosts, Giroro. At least I can save your career.... and as for you, Natsumi, you should stay half the world away from him...."

----

The first period bell rang and Natsumi tore her eyes from the Pokopen poster on the wall of the Chemistry lab. She shook her head to clear it. Saburo had finished pushing his books into his bag and had left her standing there with a gentle pat of parting on her shoulder. Natsumi swept up her lab notebook and walked out the door. She was not following him. She was simply walking the same hall. She didn't even see him. She was lost in thoughts: thoughts of flowers, and herbs, and tangles of vines and... she was skipping and the skip turned into a jog. She jogged all the way to her locker. Next period was language studies and she had opted for English this term. She snatched the appropriate book and notebook from the shelf, slammed the door with a metallic vibration and resumed her jog.

----

Koyuki had wandered in a self-induced daze from the Chemistry lab. Gone were the feelings of obsession. Gone was the prickly sensual warmth that spread through her body from face to feet everytime she look Natsumi's way. Gone were the visions of flying through the air - Koyuki, protector of the environment. Gone were so many emotions that made her feel trapped. No, they aren't gone, she corrected herself with a kittenish smile, I just have control of them. Like Dororo said: I rule them now, they don't rule me. Something has replaced them.

She crossed the bridge and stepped slowly down the stairs amidst the thong of students who were racing to their next class. They passed her, dodged around her, occasionally brushed against her or crowded her to the metal banister. There's no need to rush, she thought, there's plenty of time to go from here to there. One foot in front of the other. Every long journey begins with a single step. Koyuki refused to be hurried.  She exited the steps at the seventh year floor. Doors were closing up and down the hallway as the last of the students packed through the entries.

Everyone seems so short, she thought, Was I ever this tiny? Most girls in her year had blossomed substantially, while Koyuki's body had refused to grow. She was still flat and boyish, thin and fit and narrow-hipped, but she was growing upwards rapidly even as her ponytail had grown passed her knees. She was the tallest girl in her class.

Koyuki turned the corner. Ahead of her was a short, younger girl, wandering slowly while reading at a book cradled in her arms. Her head was down. Her hair was feathered out and platinum blonde. Her hips were noticeable and wiggled while she strode. Koyuki pursed her lips, I wish I looked like that? Small and pretty and shaped like a woman. What use is a uterus and a vagina when I don't even like boys... Koyuki shut down the thought and found the halting simple. In the cosmic scheme of everything, what does that matter?

Still the girl took her breath away and Koyuki found herself following. She was tempted to shield herself: perform a Ninja jutsu, redirect her chakra, and make herself more invisible than the Kerons' NMP fields rendered them. The girl wandered down the side stairs to the ground floor, then she doubled back at the bottom to a bank of free-standing lockers. She was still reading as she turned perpendicular to her course and Koyuki caught her profile. Koyuki ducked behind the row suddenly alert. She heard a combination being dialed and the clank of a lock being disengaged.

Safe? Maybe... She jumped and reached up, levered herself into a walkover, and landed silently atop the bank of lockers. She crept, inch by agonizing inch, along the dusty, thin aluminium casing. She looked down to confirm what she had glimpsed. Her ninja recognition had been correct: she had been following Momoka Nishizawa.

She looked down as Momoka jiggered, twisted, and pounded on the locker, which sprung unexpectedly and nearly caused Momoka to drop her book. Koyuki suppressed a giggle. She flattened herself on the thin grey metal, her left emerald eye peeked in crystalline curiosity over the edge of the chasm just above Momoka's locker. She tilted her head at the sudden deep sound of a voice. "Miss Momoka?" it questioned.

Momoka slotted her book on the shelf. She was all smiles as she responded, "Hello Paul..."

Paul's graying head entered Koyuki's limited field of view. She could clearly see the small weave that disguised the bald spot at the very crown of his head. she could smell the faint tonic that lacquered his hair in a gentle sweep. There was another scent, more deeply buried, a smell she connected only with her grandparents - something old and powdery, a grave scent from a burial furnace, almost a mildew from an attic. The scent wasn't so much an odour as the absence of one and the thought clicked in Koyuki's mind, Paul is getting old?

Once she realized that scent, his stature became obvious to her. His shoulders, once held regally erect were slightly rounded. His breath, once even, held a slight, barely noticeable tremour, "We thought you might be hungry?" he said. He produced a small bento and Koyuki could detect the light odour of fresh crab, turtle broth, and ragged kelp. It smelled delicious and she felt her own stomach begin a rumble, which her Ninja control promptly squelched.

Momoka took the bento from Paul and opened it. Her eyes beamed up at the tall domestic and she piped with great enthusiasm, "Thank you Paul." Then she sat down cross-legged in front of her locker. She did not so much munch the contents, nor did she pick daintily at it with the chopsticks Paul proferred; much to Koyuki's surprise she started scooping at rice and crab with her hands, She downed the turtle broth in great concentrated gulps instead of sipping at it as another would. When she had demolished the snack she looked up at Paul, "Did you bring more?" she asked.

Paul rummaged around in his jacket pocket and proffered her a sandwich wrapped in aluminium foil. Momoka, to her credit did not snatch the sandwich. She took it politely and thanked Paul just as politely. She freed the tubular sandwich from its metal prison. An odour wafted up to Koyuki's nose and she struggled not to sneeze. Horrible! Liverwurst ? Mustard? Garlic? Koyuki's urge to sneeze became a suppressed urge not to vomit. She closed her eyes and willed the acid surge back into her stomach. I've been eating vegetarian for so long, she thought, She concentrated on the smell of the sandwich as Momoka nibbled at it and gradually the smell became a part of her. Nevermind that the smell was the innards of a goose and ground cornmeal, the smell penetrated her sinuses and in scant seconds she was salivating. What is with me? she nearly wondered aloud.

Beneath her, Momoka and Paul were talking earnestly. She was asking about her domestic's day and Paul was trying, belatedly, to ask after her condition. He's hiding something, Koyuki thought. He already knew Momoka was hungry and now he seems to sense she is well. From her vantage she could see what Momoka could not: the small lead hidden beneath Paul's grey locks and an equally tiny transmission earbud nestled against the swell of his auricle. She strained and could only hear whispers of speech - numbers being called out, slowly reducing or rising, and finally a single word she could clearly discern "Normal".

Paul's attitude seemed to subtly change. He accepted the meal's container from Momoka and before Koyuki quite realized what had happened, he exited her vision's field. Momoka rose and pulled books from her locker and jetted off in the opposite direction. Which to follow? Which to follow? Koyuki dithered in the half-second fate allotted her. And then, a pull, a tug, a non-conscious reflex found her pushing off the rounded plastic edge guards of the locker. She rotated in midair and jutsu brought her toe climbing claws out from her shoes as if they formed of thin breeze, and  her nanofiber mitts were more traditionally slipped onto her hands from the flaps of her backpack. The hooks dug into the acoustical tile with a popping, crackly crunch - no louder than the snap of crisped rice cereal doused in milk - and the mitts adhered before she was off, off, scampering upside down across the ceiling: tracking Paul.

----

Fuyuki couldn't remember when Momoka hadn't fled Home Economics class right on his heels, nor could he remember a time when she seemed content to discuss something that greatly pleased Sensei Kamuri to the point that the dour older woman was smiling and pulling cookbooks off the shelf. Likewise, Fuyuki couldn't remember when his own mouth salivated at more than the prospect of lunch, let alone, Physical Education class. He normally spent the class on the bleachers, book in lap, and head in the clouds - and beyond. He was the pipsqueak with a near permanent run of doctor's excuses, mysterious physical ailments, and forgotten gym uniforms; he was the running joke of his seventh year.

Today felt different. Not quite today, the whole day, but I've never felt this. Not ever. Fuyuki thought as he stuffed his books into his locker.  He dug through the "filed" piles of paper at the bottom. He had never failed a locker cleanliness inspection, but only because he could trash the pile faster than most of his classmates could hide a hentai manga. Underneath the scraps of homework, doodles of spacecraft and aliens, weird encodings and decodings of secret alchemical script, and random diagrams of candle patterns, he found the still plastic-wrapped gym uniform. He hoped the sportswear still fit.

Today was calisthenics and soccer practice and Fuyuki, ubergeek and amateur occultist, couldn't wait to sweat.

-----

The nano-molecular mittens knitted and then released the space between molecules and the more standard toe hooks picked small holes between the acoustical pockets as Koyuki raced upside-down after Paul. Away from Momoka and unaware of Koyuki he became even less stiff, even more stoop-shouldered, even less straightlaced and even more relaxed. His upright and mannerly stride had faded into a casual slouch. Had his suit possesed pockets, his hands would have been jammed into them. His head was down. He was muttering words Koyuki could not discern over the echo of his footsteps. He was nearly to the front exit of the middle school level when he stopped.  Koyuki froze.

He held up one hand and crooked his fingers at an uncomfortable angle. He waved. "You can come down now, Koyuki." He turned and looked up at her and motioned again.

Koyuki craned her head back and kicked her toe claws loose from the Micore surface. She pivoted vertically onto her hands and the nanogrips released under the added strain of supporting her full weight. They ripped loose with the sound of separating velcro and Koyuki dropped. She executed a half-twist as she fell and landed catspaw, facing the primly dressed bodyguard. "How long?" she asked.

"How long did I know you were up there?" Paul sniffed. "I knew as soon as your stomach growled." At Koyuki's demure shock he continued, "Don't think that because I have basecom shouting in my ear that I'm not still listening?" He opened the exit door and ushered her through. He stopped again in the vestibule. "If you'd followed Momoka instead, I'd have taken you down sooner, but you're harmless following me."

"Harmless!" exasperated Koyuki petulantly. Her long pony tail was braided short and she missed the ability to swish it like a cat's tail. She fumed at the insult. "I could take you down old man, if I had wanted to."

Paul sighed, "Old? Yes..." He stepped outside and again held the door for Koyuki. She stepped through and he herded her to a bench by the front gate. He sat and cupped his own face with both hands. He pulled his features downwards, and skin stretched and wrinkled behind the fingers. A carefully manicured nail stubbled over a small mole on one cheek. His mustache, once black shot with grey, had turned grey shot with white.

"Let me make us private," Paul coughed. He clicked the stud behind his ear, which disconnected both the earbud and the throat microphone. He sighed again at Koyuki and spoke in lowered tones more to his lap and the concrete sidewalk then to the teenager, "Yes, child, I'm getting old. Does this surprise you? I've spent all your life carrying sandwiches to a little rich brat. Sort of wears on a man. Let me tell you, ninja--kid; a career, a wife, a husband, an education, they're all good for about twenty years and then you need a change. Any change or you'll go mad."

"Change?" Koyuki asked shyly. She traced a lemniscate in the imaginary dust of the sidewalk with the toe of her kickboot: infinity. A never-ending cycle, like the yin and the yang, like the Piscean fish, like forever. Will I ever be like him? Like Paul? Wondering why the world is still the same no matter how much I work to change it. If I'm not going to love Natsumi; who will I love? What will I do with the rest of my life? She shifted uncomfortably and leaned forward, resting her hands against the cool plastic of the bench. Her gaze was turned blindly toward the horizon as her mind whirled and futilely attempted to see her own future.

She said nothing more, so Paul continued, "The world is change, Koyuki. When I was born, a great war had just ended and mankind was looking upwards - to fly to the moon and someday beyond. I thought I wanted to fly too, but instead I'm a butler who chauffers a hovering bus, a surrogate parent to a teenager, and I've never been out of the atmosphere and I guess: I never will. I got stuck. I got beat and hit a rut. And you, kid, you spy on your friends and crawl on ceilings... you're in a rut too."

Her focus jumped back to reality and to Paul. She turned to him, eyes sharp, voice proud. "I am from a tribe of Shinobi to the north. This is our way, and it has been for..." her voice trailed off. No. It was no longer their way. Her village was disbanded, scattered to the winds, remnants of an age gone by. Koyuki recalled their leader, smiling with his wrinkled face towards the last of their kind. His parting words echoed in her thoughts. He had called for change...

And suddenly, like a blow, it hit her. The art of jutsu is no longer needed! And no one follows the ways of chakra. I am clinging to old ways and teachings. They are all I've ever known, but... they can't help me. Not in this new world. The Master told us to change; society demands it. She gazed upward with new resolution. And so I shall.

Paul regarded her with steely eyes. "You have come to a conclusion, haven't you?" he asked gravely. "Well, now you must act on it. As must I. One more mission for me and I'm done. We must all go our own ways and hope our paths lead us to meet again." He stood and patted the teenager avucularly on her shoulder, "When the two roads divide in the woods, take the one you want, because nothing at all makes a difference unless your path changes." And with those solemn words he strode through the gates of the school and jaywalked across the street and into a facing building.

And Koyuki kitten-smiled after him. After he disappeared from sight around the wall of hedges beside the school gates, she shoved herself off the bench, landing with barely a tap on the balls of her feet. She sprang away towards the school, through the doors, and down the halls towards her counselor's office. Upon reaching the doors, she knocked lightly and entered with a reflexive apology.

The man behind the desk looked up from his papers, peering at the girl through thin glasses. "Ah, Azumaya-chan. What brings you here?" He set his papers to the side and folded his hands. "Are you doing well?"

Koyuki smiled and nodded, sitting in the large plush chair in front of his desk. When she was comfortable, she leaned forward and explained, "I would like to transfer schools, Yokogawa-sensei. I want to go into business studies."

This admission brought a puzzled expression to the man's face."Are you sure? Three years of general studies was enough for you?" He studied Koyuki over his glasses and she nodded in affirmation. " I suppose... that is I don't see why not?" He ran his fingers down a column of times on his laptop's display. "I do have some time before my next appointment, so I'll help you read the paperwork." He opened a drawer filled with files and searched through it, then paused, hand still in the drawer. He looked over to the waiting girl. "What brought this on, might I ask?"

She grinned, then sobered as she recalled Paul's gaunt and aged face. "I just want to try something different."

___

Language class, geometry class, lunch during Natsumi's international relations class - every class was a long daydream of plants of all shapes and sizes.: not a thought of her subjects, not a thought of sports. Not even a thought of Saburo, which surprised her since she passed him in the hall no less than five times. He seemed to register relief when she didn't reflexively say hello and hug him.

Gym class that day was outside. Natsumi had changed into her leotard and shorts and yugaki-gloves with extreme disinterest. Kenji-Kantoku passed out quivers of arrows; the students had to share the available bows and targets. They all filed out to the field and set the archery targets, which were a standard Olympic size though the bows were traditional kyuudou. Natsumi worked the bolt driver with slowness, so much so that Karin, an American exchange student inquired, in perfect Japanese slightly inflected, "Daijoubu, Natsumi-senpai? - Are you okay, upperclassman Natsumi?"

Natsumi snorted at the otaku gaijin. "I'm fine." and then she added for effect, "What business is it of yours?"

"Oh, I'm sorry", the younger girl bowed, "It's just...."

"Yes?" Natsumi asked sternly.

"You were repeating the name Giroro... who is that?" the straw-haired girl asked with a tilt of her head.

Natsumi was struck silent. Was I saying his name? What the HELL? I haven't thought about that silly red idiot in a year! She stammered, "He's a pop singer down in the art district," she lied, "He has this stupid self-titled song. Now tighten down this nut while I hold the bolt."

The Otaku smiled wolfishly and nodded, "Whatever Natsumi-Sempai says, de arimasu." She raised the nut driver with the nut braced at the tip, but Natsumi hadn't yet raised the allen wrench. "Natsumi-Sempai, the wrench?"

Natsumi shook her head, clearing mists from her eyes. She raised the wrench and braced it as Karen twisted the nut onto the end. She tightened until the wood creaked and then backed off the nut by a half turn. The wood shaft was securely fastened, but Natsumi tested the stability by shaking each leg of the tripod and then pressing the entire target. "Okay, that does it." She rose and motioned the taller girl away.

Natsumi went first and Karen and the other eighth years went to the bleachers. When the shooting field was cleared, the coach called the ready-stance-fire for each girl, one after another, as she walked down the queue of lady archers. She corrected a stance here, a firing position there. She remarked that Naki needed a lighter draw on her bow. All the girls scored in some fashion, but none made a bull's eye. Natsumi's was the final target in the queue. The coach took position behind Natsumi. "Ready", she ordered Natsumi.

Natsumi took up position between the coach and the target. She nodded and looked downfield. The target was only ten meters distant and Natsumi could make the shot at three times the distance.

"Stance!" the coach called.

Natsumi stood with her left side facing the target, her legs properly spaced at half her body height. She swiveled her hips so they were parallel to her sighting line and drew an arrow from the leg-quiver and knocked it. She held the bowstring just behind her ear and raised the bow over her head, smoothly drew the composite fiber yumi away from her and the bowstring back. The pulleys rolled and the glassfiber flexed and amplified her pull. She sighted down the arrow as the arrowhead reached the level of her eyebrows. Her vision tunneled. She was beaded on the bull's eye. She would hit the target dead center.

At that moment there was a movement at the edge of the target. A Tiger Moth, it's wings respledent with the orange, black and white stripes of a Bengali Tiger wandered across the surface of the target. The insect crawled steadily and then paused to study the cluster of arrow holes that marred the target's center. Natsumi could almost sense the questing antennae disturbing the breeze.

I can't shoot it, she thought. The creature raised its wings and lightly descended them. Of course you can, the other side of her mind argued, you need the point and the next flap could cause a monsoon in Tokyo!

"Fire!"

Natsumi loosed the arrow and the missile whisked through the air and embedded on the outermost target ring, far to the left of the moth. The insect caught a light thermal and lifted away, off the target, and gone on the wind. Natsumi sighed relief and then was surprised she'd done so. "No score," her coach remarked, "Not like you to pull left like that Miss Natsumi."

Natsumi nodded and her neck was hot with the perplexed stares of the eighth graders. Karin's eyes bored into her as Natsumi unshouldered the bow and handed it to the American. The girl scowled, "We're going to finish dead last you know?"

Natsumi nodded wordlessly, and sat...

Finish last they did.

----

Coach Inoue was startled by the impertinent knock at his office door. He didn't expect anyone to knock after final period. The seniors knew better and the 7th years were long since gone. He hurriedly stuffed the flask of imported Scotch and his copy of Black Cat into the drawer of his desk. "Come in!" he half-ordered, half-choked. The door opened and for a moment the volume of screeches and calls from boy's locker room became peace shatteringly loud. A student he barely recognized stood in the doorway: small, spare. What a nerd, thought the rough former Coast Guardsman. "How can I help you, student, ah... student... ah?"

"Fuyuki, Inoue Sensei." said the dark haired youth as he closed the door behind himself.

"What can I do for you Fuyuki?" Couch Inoue put his feet up on his desk and lounged back. He hoped Fuyuki couldn't smell the Scotch on his breath or notice the slight slur to his words. He tried to place the name and face of the youngster. Isn't this the one that Yakazumi-san says always has a reason not to participate? He doesn't even try to skate by, so what the hell is he doing here?

"I'd like to try out for the baseball team", Fuyuki said earnestly. He smiled his most winning smile. "Yakazumi-sensai said I must speak to you."

"Did Coach Yakazumi also tell you that I only hold try-outs at the beginning of the Spring semester?" asked Inoue with a chuckle. Best to shut him down before he even begins to think he can. "and then only for players who have shown aptitude in class."

"Yes sir, he warned me, but I think if you speak to him; you'll find me much improved. He told me today that he'd never seen such enthusiasm on the soccer field."

"So why not play soccer for him, since he thinks you're much improved?" Inoue put down his feet and motioned Fuyuki to the hard wooden chair on the other side of the desk. Just like Yakazumi-san to pawn his problems off on me. The kid cannot make it and he knows it, damnit, but Yakazumi-san would rather a Junior Coach tell the shrimp than admit a Head Coach in an enlightened school could possibly be less than choosy about his players!

"He did ask me to try out for this season, sir, even though play starts next month. I told him I really wanted to play baseball." Fuyuki explained. "And..." Fuyuki paused, for the moment unsure whether he should continue. At Inoue's raise of eyebrow, he coughed, "and I'd rather not play the same sport as my sister." He mocked a random female student's voice and mannerisms, "Ohhhhh, you're Natsumi-senpai's bro-o-o-other-r-r-r."

Now that was a disturbing imitation, thought the Coach. "Well, I'll tell you what, Fuyuki, just to save you embarrassment: meet me after classes on Friday and I'll let you work out with the team. You can show me what you've got and if I like it; you're in."

Fuyuki's eyes brightened. He stood and bowed to the coach, again and then again. "Thank you, Sensei. Thank you. You won't be sorry."

Inoue waved Fuyuki off, "Friday. Be ready" Fuyuki was still bowing and thanking him as he opened the door and backed out with a final bow. With any luck he won't be any good. Enthusiasm can't substitute for skill. I must be drunk... or maybe not. He opened the drawer and removed the flask and the magazine. He idly flipped to a random page, tilted the flask to his lips and took a single harsh gulp of the firey liquid. He muttered, "I'll have to ask Yakazumi what the fuck he was thinking..."

___

Natsumi had been just a little surprised that Koyuki hadn't been in gym class, and now she was surprised that the ninja wasn't waiting by the school gate. Natsumi had wanted to talk to her. There was this idea buzzing around in her head, the first idea she'd had in months that had nothing to do with Saburo and she knew, just knew, that Koyuki would be wild about her concept. Koyuki was nowhere to be seen, so, she abandoned thoughts of finding her friend. She jogged home, opened the front door and removed her school shoes and slipped on her sandals. She pounded up the stairs to her room. She swung open the door and realized she was not alone.

What is Mois doing in my room? she nearly wondered aloud. There was the Angolan on her knees in front of the bookcase. The alien had Natsumi's framed photograph of Saburo next to her and she was running her fingers down the spines of Natsumi's small book collection. She's usually so soft-spoken, only thinking about the dumb frog. She's not one to barge in... what is she up to? Natsumi walked across the room to stand behind the girl, her steps muffled by carpet. Upon reaching Mois, she leaned over, attempting to see what the Angolian was searching for. "What're you doing, Mois-chan?"

The Angolan jerked as though stung. She looked to Natsumi and nervously bit her lip. One hand brushed the photograph on the floor. "I... I was, you see, looking for a book of poetry," she said lamely. "I wanted to know why you and Saburo think your Pokopenian art is so special."

Natsumi's gaze followed the movement, noticing the grazing of Mois' fingertips against the picture frame. Why does she have the picture on the ground? She dumped her bookbag on the bed and gently signalled Mois with a nudge to move aside. She knelt on the floor. "Here, I'll lend some to you." Might've started to fall, and she put it on the ground to prevent it from breaking. Even so, as Natsumi began pulling volumes from the shelf, she couldn't help glancing at the photo and the hand almost unnoticeably brushing it.

After the last poetry book was placed on the floor, Natsumi turned her mind back to them. She picked up one of them, glanced at the cover, and set it aside. Not a good example... She picked up the next book, running her gaze over the title. "What sort of poetry are you looking for?"

Mois blushed and for a moment the hand stopped, "You could say I do not know, but maybe about love and why we all feel it for some people and not for others?" She smiled as sweetly as she could. "How Pokopenians feel love?"

Sounds innocent enough... She began sorting through books again, separating them into piles of lend-to-Mois and back-to-shelf. When she picked up a book of Saburo's poetry, she paused. Her hand had already begun to move to the shelf pile. Wait... why not? It's Saburo's, but... in the past, she had always kept his books closely guarded, never letting anyone read, or even touch them. They were her greatest treasure. But now, it all seemed childish. There's no harm in lending it out. She placed it, and the ensuing books of Saburo's poetry, on the lending pile. She smiled at Mois. "Be careful with these, okay? They're Saburo's work, and they mean a lot to me."

Mois eyes widened and she smiled cutely, "I promise Natsumi-dono. I  shall treasure them as if they were my own." She shuffled the lending stack to one side as Natsumi replaced the rejected works on the shelf. Then she was up and at the door before Natsumi could turn. "Thank you Natsumi. This means very much to me," and she vanished hurriedly down the stairs with the lent books clasped tightly to her chest.

Natsumi looked to the floor where Mois had knelt: the books and the framed photograph were gone. Irritated, she stood and began to pursue, before a thought stopped her in her tracks. She relaxed her stance. Mois has never stolen from me before. Nor anyone, far as I know. It was probably just a mistake. With a small smile, she turned back towards her desk, pulled open a side drawer, and fished around inside until he found a ruler, protractor, and drawing compass. She stowed these, as well as an extra pencil and eraser, in her bookbag before trotting over to the pale pink trunk by her closet door. Mois has always been a sweet girl, she couldn't change in so short a time.  She flipped the metal tabs up, releasing the clasps, and dug through the piles of old treasures before finding a woven container. This, too, she dug through, before pulling out a roll of measuring tape. She dropped the tape into the bag, before slinging the canvas pouch onto a shoulder and half-jogging out of the room.

She went downstairs, taking the steps two at a time. She must've just picked up the picture in her hurry. I'll ask her about it later. She skipped towards the door and, after taking a moment to slip on her shoes, went outside. Right now, I have more important things to do.

With the dusty tape measure she plucked from the bottom of the sewing basket she inherited from Grandmother, she measured the backyard and the distances to all the important obstacles. She then measured the side-yard under her bedroom window. Natsumi plotted all the dimensions on a sheet of graph paper from her maths' notebook. There was a depression on the ground where Momoka's long removed gift to the Fuyuki had rested and next to that depression was a bowed square patch of denuded earth and thatched grass. She frowned at both the indentation and the patch, but more at the patch: Giroro's tent had made a mess of the lawn and two years of growth had not healed it. She measured those spaces too, then mapped the space all the way out to the clothesline. She hadn't used the clothesline in years, but she soon would at least for her own laundry. Once she had plotted the yard; she re-entered the house and plunked herself down on the couch with her laptop.

----

Fuyuki whistled "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" as he walked down the side alley that connected the Kisshou district with the street on which his family lived. Usually he would walk this path with his sister and sometimes with Momoka, but neither had been in evidence when he exited the school. He'd spared a few fruitless moments searching for them, either of them, but neither was apparent. An eighth year he didn't recognize was stridently complaining about how "Natsumi had fucked up their gym score for the day" to her friends, but he ignored her - she must be talking about a different Natsumi; his sister never fucked up, and certainly never in gym class. His wanderings had found him at the baseball field where he studiously watched the A-list team practice fielding. He took notes and departed for home when the players quit the field for the locker room.

He jerked his face skyward at the sudden drone of helicopter blades and then looked forwards again as a screech of brakes and the rumble of tires sounded from down the alley. Well, that answers one mystery, he groaned. I know where Momoka is. He knew what to expect when he rounded the corner. His home would be ringed by the NPGH paramilitary and Momoka would be waiting on the porch, either glad to see him, or angry at Tamama, or... as usual bi-polar. He sighed. He knew what he would see.

As usual, the NPG personal guard lounged inside their assorted vehicles. While technically supposed to ever vigilant, they had discovered that whenever an unusual event occurred, the "pets" residing within the Hinata home took care of the issue. They relaxed in their finely tooled leather bucket seats with their PFMR communication system set to a personal channel. Fuyuki could hear them chanting, as the bored protection force chorused a round of Minister's Cat. When he cleared the corner of the hedgerow, however, a shout went around the channel and the guard sprang into position. One of them focused a gunsight on Fuyuki and adjusted focus a miniscule amount to bring the face into view.

"It's the Hinata boy! At ease!" he barked authoritatively and Fuyuki strode passed them as they all slouched back into their earlier positions. One faceless protector, clad in black riot gear, opened the top to his APC for a breath of fresh air, and nodded to Fuyuki as he passed. Fuyuki nodded in return, and he was already bracing himself as he passed Paul at the gate. He nodded to the bodyguard and Paul, uncharacteristically, cracked a smile and nodded back to Fuyuki.

He held out a hand to stop the boy. "Master Fuyuki," he said. "Welcome home." There was a pause as though Paul were hunting for words. "How were your classes today?"

Fuyuki stopped dead and gave Paul a strange look. Since when does Paul show me that amount of respect? For the sake of courtesy, he shook off his perplexed expression, bowed slightly and then recalled the earlier question. His mind flashed back to the day's events: Tawakemono-sensei throwing chalk pieces at a classmate during Pre-Calculus; Kongouseki-sensei and her beloved half-rotten, birthday-themed still life in Art:  Fuyuki shrugged. "Just the usual." And since when does Paul care about my day? "I will audition for the baseball team later this week." Fuyuki hunted for something polite to ask into the awkward silence. "How're things going for you?" 

"This, that, the other." Paul said as he wrapped an arm around Fuyuki's shoulder, "Baseball? Why the sudden interest in sports? You strike me as the thoughtful type." Then he chortled in most un-Paul-like fashion at his own pun.

"I am the thoughtful type!" Fuyuki protested and then stammered, "I just... just..." He tried to look around Paul's imposing form to the porch.

"Needed to enjoy something different? Love something different? Change your world, just for the hell of it?" asked Paul with a lift of his eyebrow and a curl of his lip under his moustache. "I've been hearing that a lot lately. When I was your age, there were many sports at which I did well. Perhaps I could help you?"

Fuyuki didn't know how to react. Paul's never shown any interest in me, especially when Momoka isn't around. He peeked around the butler-bodyguard's wide frame to confirm that Momoka wasn't acting extremely patient in her desire to see him. The walk was empty. The porch was empty. There was not a sign of his classmate. He gulped, something strange is going on here.... "Well, I guess so. Maybe later this week?"

Paul held up his hand with his fingers tucked to his palm except his thumb and forefinger, which he waggled near his face in an imitation of a phone handset. "Call me and tell me when," he said with very unprofessional and un-Paul enthusiasm. He opened the gate and ushered Fuyuki into the yard, but sensibly remained at station when Fuyuki entered the yard and walked as sedately as possible for the door.

Fuyuki felt the prickle of Paul's gaze on his back. He used the moment of manipulating the door lock to glance back to where Paul stood, gate still held open, with his eyes fixated on Fuyuki. Paul waved to the boy and repeated, "Call me." Fuyuki cautiously waved a fare-thee-well in return and opened the front door, he stepped through and deposited his well-worn blue and black bookbag on the entryway rug. His tie felt tight, so he loosened it. He listened. The house was unusually quiet. He strained and could hear low voices from the front room and the click of computer keys from the dining room. His nose caught the distant waft of a salty sharkfin stew and the popcorn smell of simmering Basmati rice. His stomach rumbled and he egressed the hallway into the family room.

His sister was perched on the edge of the old and threadbare couch as though she were deeply engrossed in a sport's show on the television, but the television was off, and her fixed stare was at the screen of her laptop. Her maths graphbook was open to her left. There were many squares drawn on one sheet of graph paper and notes scrawled on the facing page. Fuyuki glanced at the sheets as he passed, half-expecting to see some geometry proof on the paper, but the list was of vegetables: bokchoy, roma tomatoes, squash, green beans, potatoes, and several spices and herbs: garlic, sage, onions, sweet pepper, black pepper, poppy, sunflower, and the list went on and on. Fuyuki shrugged: Shopping list? Natsumi must be cooking vegetarian tomorrow. "Hey Sis!" Fuyuki greeted. Natsumi didn't glance up from the screen of information she was studying, so he amplified, putting on a nasal imitation of the Sergeant's voice. "Hello Natsumi-dono. Mind if I have a snack?"

Natsumi's eyes didn't move. Her mouth didn't move. Her hand raised and gave him a half-hearted and disinterested wave over her shoulder. Fuyuki raised an eyebrow and went to the refrigerator. He dug to the middle of the second shelf where there was a leftover container of prawn fried rice. He took a spoon from the passthrough drawer and dipped a satisfying mouthful. Paul-san asks me about my day, and now Natsumi-dono doesn't remind me not to ruin my dinner even when I goad her? Something very strange is going on here... I wonder where Momoka is?

He glanced to the living room entrance. Through the L-shaped jog in the entry he could see only the arm of the good couch and a hand draped carelessly.  He took a tentative step forward and swallowed another bite of fried rice and crunched the fried prawn that came with it. Momoka? he thought, but there was Mois on the other couch. In one hand she held a book, and the other was draped, stroking the floor rhythmically as he had observed from the kitchen. She was whispering metrically to herself in unrhymed iambic octameter alternated with iambic pentameter. That's Suburo's poetry. Natsumi read it incessantly last year. What's Mois doing with it? She never seemed like the poetry type: not that bright. He walked through without a pause and Mois ignored him. She continued to read and just as Fuyuki exited the room she squealed and he looked back: startled. She was hugging the book.Something very, very strange is going on here...

Fuyuki snagged his bookbag from the mat at the entryway and mounted the stairs. His every footfall echoed hollowly despite both the gravely silent house and the trod-carpets on each step. He rounded the corner at the top of the banister. His mother's door, marked Autumn amid patterns of falling yellow leaves, was closed. His Sister's door, the sun decorated sign announcing Summer, was also closed, but harsh late afternoon light glimmered underneath. The hallway was otherwise dark and he was tempted to activate the overhead lighting, but refused. No sense in wasting power when I can see, even barely, He preceded down the hall, in parallel to the staircase. He passed the open door to the bathroom. The room was unoccupied and dark as there were no windows. He proceeded to the door to his own room, familiarly marked with snowflakes and the single card: Winter. The light under the door was sidelong and cast to the left. He twisted the knob and opened the portal. I'll bet Momoka is here...

The room was as he had left it or very nearly. The bedclothes were askew: sheets and blankets disarrayed at odd angles and tangled and interwoven. His weekend clothing littered the floor along with books, candy wrappers, and food containers. The drapes were half-drawn. He tossed his bookbag on the desk, set the container of fried rice on his bedtable and pulled of his shoes and slid into his house slippers. He tossed the shoes under his desk and followed them with the bookbag tossed to the base of the bookcase.

"OWWWW! Ow! Ow!"

Although Fuyuki was momentarily enchanted by the amusing thought that his bookcase was haunted and in agony; he instantly recognized the pained piping. "Tamama? What are you doing?" The black frog, who had now become visible within the halo of his useless NMP field, turned his newbie insignia hard to the anti-clockwise. He materialized. He had a book in his tiny hands and was perched on a pile of three others. He stuttered. He stammered. His eyes grew wide and he broke wind a second before he broke in a run for the door.

Fuyuki was just a half-second faster and he slammed the door shut. Tamama skidded and crashed faced first before falling unceremoniously on his tadpole tail and then with a thunk onto his back. Fuyuki plucked the book from his nerveless fingers, "What have we here?" he asked. A glance at the cover informed him that it was the "Incantations of Circe", a Latin tome on summoning demons. He strode over and kicked the pile: all his books on summoning and incantation. He darted back to the door as Tamama rose and tried to sneak through the open crack. "What the hell are you doing?"

Tamama looked at his feet and then up at Fuyuki. "I... I.. wanted to borrow the interesting books. I am very interested in your Pokopenian occult practices." He was wagging his tadpole tail in mock friendliness and trying his best to look innocent, "I would have asked you."

Fuyuki fluttered the pages of the book. The diagrams were marked with his own questions - layer upon layer of mystical reflection. There were marginalia he'd scrawled when he was eleven, and more stylized text he had notated when he was thirteen. He stopped at one at random. "Could this mean that demons are aliens?" he had penciled long ago. He looked down at the pleading black Keronian, who looked back at him like a puppy dog requesting a treat. How childish I was? Fuyuki mentally declared. This stuff is all ridiculous! He closed the book with a decisive thump. Tamama jumped and cowered as if Fuyuki would strike him as an angry Momoka surely would.

Fuyuki ignored the Keronian. He crossed the room and selected from the shelf book after book, which he piled to his right . Tamama wandered over and wondered over the ever growing pile. Fuyuki wordlessly rose and harshly wrestled an egg crate of mystical paraphernalia: candles, fetishes, metal cups and a single wide goblet, phials of sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter, multiple colors of chalk and a velvet tablecloth that wrapped five skullshaped candle holders. He squatted, placed the tomes atop the box and slid the pile to Tamama. "Here, this should get you started. I won't need them anymore."

Tamama's eyes were wide and fairly glowed. He looked eagerly from the pile to Fuyuki, from Fuyuki to the pile, and then broke into a wide smile or at least as wide as he dared without Impacting either Fuyuki or the valuable collection. Then he frowned. He looked thoughtful. "What's the catch?"

The catch? thought Fuyuki. "No catch." He lifted the box off the floor. A few books slipped. "Grab those. Let's take it all down and put it in the car."

Tamama recovered the book and unlocked the door. Each hand held a book at the end of an outstretched arm. He hopped gleefully down the stairs making battle noises. Fuyuki trailed behind. I really have to work on my arm strength, he thought as the contents of the box shifted and his sinewy biceps strained. He reset the box on the banister and did his best to carry it with his arms properly curled instead of dangling.

Tamama turned the corner at the bottom of the stairs and skipped to the entryway. He grandly opened the door and Fuyuki walked through, then he cut in front of the boy and bounded ahead. He stopped in front of Paul who was still standing by the gate and said, "Fuyuki is giving me some new toys!" Paul nodded in Fuyuki's direction and radioed ahead to the chauffeur, who opened the rear door of the limousine. Like a well rehearsed ballet, one of the paramilitaries scanned the box and contents while a bomb dog sniffed. Fuyuki was then waved to place the box on the plushly carpeted floor of the backseat. Tamama stood there and waggled his tail. Fuyuki smiled. He knew that look all to well - like a puppy with a fresh bone, like Sergeant with a new model. He looked down at the box as the driver shut the door on his collection, like me when I got them... He didn't even sigh as he turned back up the walk.

Paul was talking earnestly and softly with Tamama, who was nodding affirmatively. "I'll tell Momocchi." he piped and skipped off in the direction of the house. Fuyuki followed. Paul made that call-me gesture again with his thumb and little finger. Fuyuki nodded wordlessly and continued up the path to the door. Tamama, intent on his new mission, didn't wait for him. He opened the door and swung it closed practically on Fuyuki's nose. He opened the door himself, in time to see Tamama lean into the crawlspace door and bellow. "Momocchi! It's time to go! Momocchi-i-i-i-i!" When Momoka failed to answer, the Private climbed down into the corridor.

For himself, Fuyuki climbed the stairs back to his room. He could hear Tamama's piping voice echoing like a soprano freight train beneath his feet. With the bookcase nearly empty, the mess in the rest of the room was all the more visually offensive. He carried his wastebasket around the room and added trash until the bucket was full, then he tamped down the spoiled food containers and added more items atop. He surveyed the room and concluded a few more wastebaskets would be needed. He had sadly neglected his chores. He shouldered the basket and started down the stairs.

At the entrance stood Tamama, Momoka and Keroro. Keroro held a small paddle shaped mirror and was staring into it fixedly, while only half listening to whatever Momoka was saying. He was smiling though, and smiling warmly, though seemingly smiling to his reflection more than her. Fuyuki watched from the midpoint of the stairs as Momoka leaned close and whispered in Keroro's earspot, then with uncharacteristic affection she kissed him on the end of his bulbous nose and stroked him in the loose wattle of green skin under his almost absent chin. She released him and then hugged him suddenly and stroked his back. Keroro for his part whipped up the mirror and stared into it over her shoulder. She released him and with Tamama pulling anxiously at her skirt retreated shyly out the door.

Fuyuki reached the floor. He looked down at the Sergeant, who was still adoring himself in the mirror. "What was that all about?" he asked the alien.

Keroro looked up at Fuyuki and with a scant shrug, yawned hugely, and then minced up the hall with the mirror. He wasn't watching his feet or his path and Fuyuki heard the crash as much as felt it - the frog walked through the open door and fell the entire length of the ladder down to the rough concrete floor.

The boy peered over the edge and called, "Sergeant. Sergeant are you okay?" He expected a train of whining, exaggerated complaints and Keronian curses to stream from the dimness at the bottom, but surprisingly, the green leader frog was seemingly unphased by the fall: he picked first himself and then the mirror off of the ground. He stroked the shiny glass surface almost apologetically as he scanned it for damage. After a light brushing of moist fingertips across the glass to remove an offending speck of dust, Keroro stood, gazed deeply into the reflection, and continued his narcissistic shuffle towards his room.

Okay, that makes about as much sense as anything that's happened this afternoon, thought Fuyuki. He backed out of the crawlspace, lifted his collection of trash from the floor, and dumped his wastebasket into the kitchen trash and looked into the other rooms on his way back for another load of scraps. Mois was still on the living room couch reading poetry. Natsumi was still in the family room intently transcribing her notes onto the laptop. She was mumbling, rehearsing, mumbling again, grimacing and then rehearsing again.

----

Over a dinner of carefully prepared sharkfin soup and Basmati rice, Natsumi begged her mother for an advance on her allowance. "Please Mama, I'll pay you back."

"How?" her mother had asked absently, without looking up from her soup. She had seemed surprised the first month her daughter had dated Saburo. She had seemed disapproving the next few months. By Christmastime she had grown increasingly sullen and lately she had seemed suspicious of everything Natsumi had wanted to do, "And why? Does this have something to do with Saburo?"

Natsumi shook her head and snorted softly. "No Mama. I swear it doesn't. Look here, I wrote it all down, with the prices of everything."

Mama Aki adjusted her glasses and mentally enumerated each item on the proffered list. She raised her head a few times to scan Natsumi's face with equal intensity. She glanced out the sliding glass doors, as though she could see much through the reflection of the room and the occupants, at the backyard. She couldn't see the stakes Natsumi had put in the ground, nor the hemp twine Natsumi had strung between them, but she didn't have to: she could see the map. She laid the sheet of paper thoughtfully next to the bowl and chewed another spoonful of noodles. Natsumi hasn't lied. This has nothing to do with Saburo. She regarded her daughter and twirled her spectacles absently, but why the sudden change in her and why THIS? With that look in Saburo's eyes I always thought I'd have to deal with ruined hopes and dreams and a broken heart, but not THIS! "That still doesn't tell me why, Natsumi? Or how you plan to pay me back?"

Natsumi shrugged ever so slightly. "I want a new hobby, Mama," she said; she'd been wondering the why all afternoon, and that answer suddenly had leapt to mind. She had known the how: "And I'll get a job to pay for it. It won't interfere with my classes, I promise. I'll do this during the summer and I'll work hard all winter and autumn. I promise." Natsumi was surprised when that offer and that reason was enough for her mother. She tossed and turned all night and was up at the crack of dawn to clear the lawn. She was anxious to begin her garden.

----

Kururu was hiding from Hanene. He had tucked himself into the corner between the bed and the nightstand underneathe a chameleon cloth. He would be content to spend the entire "vacation" hidden there. She can drag me on vacation, he mentally declared, but she cannot make me enjoy it her way. No electronics? My yellow ass!

His face was lit by the reflected glow of a color LCD. The pocket game player, though the screen was constantly animating, was silent: the sound routed directly to the quivering antennas in his headphones. The advanced processor within was as chameleon as the cloth that disguised him: a processor of his own making, capable of modal on-the-fly, autonomic redesign. Normally he had the mimetic circuitry switched to emulate a Sony PSP, but this morning it was imitating a Nintendo DS. Hanene had overseen his packing, but when she turned to dig his swim trunks out of his locker; he'd snuck the device into his bag along with a single disk of stolen prototype cartridges.

He was stuck in the prototype of Pokemon Diamond Edition. He was halfway up Mount Coronet, going after the Diagla, but a waterfall had blocked his path. He needed HM Waterfall. He had Surf and that wasn't good enough; he desperately needed the Waterfall. He climbed back down the mountain. He could obtain Waterfall in the next city, but the path was blocked by a man in a hardhat with a pushy attitude and a road construction sign. He trudged his surrogate back to the waterfall, backtracked to previous villages, up to the blocked path. He must have missed something. His upper molars ground his lower lip in frustration....

Their arrival at the resort the previous afternoon had been equally frustrating. He had expected an amusement park, where he could hide himself in an arcade or lose himself among machinery. He had expected a shopping jaunt through Japan or maybe a four star hotel in Tokyo.

He had not expected her to tie their duffels, and himself, to the back of her skimmer and blast skyward until the air was so thin his lips turned blue. The curve of the planet had become visible and the sky had become black as pitch. He had not expected a ballistic descent arc that brought the tiny craft down into the South Seas almost at the Tropics.

He had not expected to hear Hanene's warbling, warrior, battle cry over the shriek of the wind, though on reflection, he really should have.

He had not expected her to walk straight to the front desk, not even wearing a woman-equin suit and present herself as though she belonged there. She had said, in perfect English, "My name is Hanene 'Smith' and I have a cabana booked for two."

The swarthy clerk had blinked, had squinted, had patted his temples in sudden pain and had forked over the room key. He had accepted Keronian Military credit markers as payment and even had given her resort coinage in change! Their bags had been brought to a little beachside cabin under the imported palms. The skimmer had been parked on the balcony. Elevated chairs had been moved to the table. A complimentary fruit basket had been set on the bed. He had eaten a mango while Hanene had unpacked their duffels. The five hour time difference had kept them up far into the night, but eventually they were both yawning.When he had refused to sleep on the bed with her, she'd had spooned up with him on the floor. When he had moved to the bed, she had awakened and had followed him: Bed. Floor. Bed. Floor. Bathtub. Floor. Breakfast table. Finally he had hidden under the chameleon cloth and she had gone to sleep alone...

Suddenly the cloth was flung aside and he was revealed. He looked up and blinked into the sunlight streaming in the window. The sun glared over the dome of Hanene's cap. Her hands were on her hips. She was glaring down at him. Her eyes glowed by refracted light. "There you are!" she scolded. "Quit wasting time. Surfs up! We're going to the beach!"

He cringed as though she were his mother and he'd been caught with a porno magazine. All she needed was a molded plastic strap with which to spank him. She hauled back, her open palm poised as if to strike him, but the hand descended and snatched the portable player from his grasp instead. "Ooooo, Pokemon! You're stuck, aren't you?" At his amazed nod, she pressed buttons: scrolling back and forth, up and down until she got her bearings. "Oh, I know how to do this."

She plunked herself down next to him and leaned into his shoulder so that he could see the screen and feel her warm breath tickling his cheek. "Watch", she said and dexterously manipulated keys as she called out instructions. "North, West, South, Upstairs, North, West over bridge, down stairs, up north stairs, up stairs, cross bridge, down stairs, down stairs, upstairs. Now, in the cave door. "

She paused and shifted to give a better view. He could feel her slight shoulder against his chest. The upper fringe of her cap tickled his forehead. He was entranced as her fingers danced. "Next room: Up stairs, up stairs Next room: up stairs, trainer battle, west, south, trainer battle. Out. Now: outside. Follow the path, rock climb."

She inhaled deeply and looked over into his right lens with her left eye. "Now this is the tricky part. Everyone misses this. Instead of using rock climb again, We go west through the grass. See this other cave? Go inside, use rock climb, follow the path, down the stairs. East and out. And now we're above that waterfall! Outside: through the grass, down the stairs, rock climb west. Down the stairs, through the grass, keep going west and here's another cave. Enter. Follow the path and here we are at the top!"

Kururu's mouth hung open. He wanted to giggle, but he was breathless. He wanted to say something clever and a little insulting, but his mind was empty. He wanted to snatch back the game and declare that he could have figured out everything without her. He wanted to, but all he could manage was a single syllable, "Wow!"

"Indeed! Wow." Hanene, saved the game, and tossed the unit onto on the bed. She hauled him from the floor by one arm and one shoulder. "Now come on tech-boy. You need trunks and a board. We're going to teach you to really surf!"

His mind was still filled with the vision of Hanene's elite gaming skills: trainer battles that required minutes for him had required seconds for her. Random encounters had slipped by effortlessly. She had always taken the prize or evaded. He allowed himself to be led out the sliding glass door to the beach - after all, she had won.

----

Paul scanned the wall of security monitors next to the consoles. The guards in their Nishizawa fatigues were monitoring checkpoints all over the corporate holdings, Paul's only concern was the living quarters' cameras and his current dilemma: Momoka wasn't displayed on any of them. She wasn't where she was supposed to be: asleep in her room. She wasn't in the dining chamber or the restored library. She wasn't in her gymnasium, nor was she anywhere on the grounds. Her pet alien was asleep, and tossing restlessly, but she was nowhere nearby and obviously did not see fit to comfort the dark invader. He selected another bank of cameras: main living room? No. Armor hall? No. Reverse angle? No. He searched with increasing frustration and desperation. Her vital signs were active on the display - she was somewhere, and clothed, and within range of the receivers, but the signals were mixed. He couldn't triangulate, couldn't coordinate the cameras.

No, she could not be there, he thought. He clicked the monitor bank over to scan the servants' areas and there was Momoka: three monitors in, and one row down. She was in the kitchen. Paul boggled: she seemed to be labouriously rolling cookie dough. An assortment of trays of cookies were cooling around her and a trash bin nearby was filled with burnt, chipped, or otherwise imperfect cookies. She looked suddenly to one of the ovens, donned a mitt and with alacrity removed yet one more tray of cookies, and another, and another, and another. She took one orange cookie from those already cooled. She nibbled experimentally, and then flung the whole tray into the trash. She returned to her rolling board.

Paul switched the camera angle. The night-shift kitchen staff was giving her a wide berth; a few were cowering near the door. The assistant head chef seemed beside himself. Well I would be too, thought Paul, if the bosses' little arsewipe had suddenly shown up and demanded the use of two of my ovens. What's going on with her? She'd been acting strangely ever since he'd brought her an extra lunch at school the previous afternoon.

Instead of unceremoniously and impolitely stuffing the bento in the locker, she'd had gobbled it down right there in the hallway and then instead of jetting off for class, or for more "Fuyuki-watching" as the observation teams liked to call her behaviour; she had stood there and had talked to Paul. She had also taken a sandwich - liverwurst and mustard on a whole wheat hoagie roll - that he'd proffered her and had gobbled it down too as, though someone might steal it from her. Finally, she had thanked Paul profusely, had slammed her locker, had turned and trotted off down the hall. Paul had been instantly concerned, and just at that moment, instantly speechless. The Spoiled Little Princess rarely thanks servants for anything....

He tapped the monitor as though tapping might change the display of an industrious and sleepless Momoka: what the hell is she doing? Something must be going on here? I'd best notify her father.

----

Momoka sniffed in the general direction of the cooking staff. The head chef had been watching her efforts since before sunrise and the staff had been avoiding her as she raided the dry goods, the refrigerators, and the pastry supplies. She'd made dough by the pound, cookies by the ovenful and the sack she clutched was the result: one kilogram of perfect cookies, each one with not a burn or a smudged drop of icing. She fastened the top of the red cellophane bag with a bow and tied it tightly. The perfect gift for my love, she thought. I must bring them to him immediately.

But how to flee the mansion without everyone knowing that she had baked these cookies for someonelse? It has to be a secret. I can't just ask Paul to fly me there. He probably already wonders why I'm not in school! And I'm tired of him always showing up just when things start to get personal... I need a plan and I've never been very good with them..  She kicked the door jamb in frustration, knocked over a pie display so that the staff would have something to clean up and stormed out in the ensuing confusion.

The rage churned up and Momoka's hair lifted as her frustration grew. "I have to get out of this place!" she screamed and she ran down the corridor in the direction of the car port. She'd never come this way to the garage as these passages were frequented by the staff, not the residents, yet her anger seemed to have a mind of its own. She turned without error, with utter confidence, and she burst through doors so that they nearly exploded off their hinges. She was the Momoka and she was leaving.

A polite little voice peeped inside of her and interrupted her flight, "And how pray tell are we going to do that?"

"We're going to borrow a car", Momoka answered herself under her breath, much too low for any hidden microphones to hear, but just short of over lungs in tone.

"Couldn't we just walk out? Go to the gate and walk?" the little girl voice queried. Momoka kept up her pace as though on autopilot for the garage. She came to the service elevator and thumped at the buttons as she continued her monologue.

"No!" her harsher voice replied, utterly and thoroughly frustrated with her weaker self. "They'd be on us in a second. Paul and all the rest. They'd follow us and watch us and get in our way. I'm tired of having them get in the way!"

She was in the elevator and descending as the voice wheedled, "and how are you going to get a car and drive it past the staff? I don't know how to drive! Do you?"

"Better than you do," snapped Momoka to herself. "And I'll just knock some heads together. I've done it before and I'll do it again." The elevator clicked down two floors to the sub-basement. There was a short corridor beyond and the door to the steps that descended into the car port. The doors opened and Momoka, her eyes still ablaze stepped out into the passageway. In her mind's eye she saw the mayhem she would cause, energy exploding from her fingertips, guards flying in all directions...

"You can't do that anymore, remember? We're sharing this one body and you're no more energetic than me!" whined her weaker self.

True, thought Momoka and the thought brought her up short.

"Let me take care of it, please?" her gentle self begged. "If we're going to do this, let's do it correctly."

The anger receded with grumbling and complaints and prim and proper, Momoka smoothed down her ruffled clothing. She patted down her mussed hair and cracked the door to the car port. She'd rarely been inside this enormous room, but it hadn't changed much since she was six. The walls were lined with racks of automobiles, each rack with its own elevator, five cars high to a rack - collected like so many underutilized books in a library. There was a central grease pit  and a single wide door that led to the ramp that emerged in the driveway above ground.

There, up on the highest rack was her mother's Cadillac Coup Deville. Momoka had never, ever seen it driven, and she knew that it was quite old - it didn't even look like a car - all the edges were square and boxy, not smooth and sleek like a car should be. Two racks down was her father's collection: several Roll's Royce, each black, from vintage 1958 to modern stretch-limousine. She'd seen her father in the late model only once, at some press conference or other; most of the time he flew where he needed to go. There was his vintage Trans Am, the dated Lamborghini, the classic Ferrari with the swept curves, the Grand National, which wasn't street legal anywhere in the world except Germany, where her Father had taken her on a rare weekend excursion, because every little girl should experience the Autobahn at 100 clicks an hour. He had really only gone for some business confernece at Davos and other than that trip down the famous highway she hadn't seen him.

Finally, there were the collection of cars that "belonged" to her. There was a little creampuff Nissan 280ZX that Daddy had gifted her on the off chance that a then ten year old Momoka might want to learn to drive before her feet could touch the pedals. There was the motorcycle that she'd begged for and then abandoned when she was 12. They were all collecting dust... and here I am plotting to steal a car and I barely know how to drive!

Not all the vehicles were up on the racks. The squad cars: dark panel vans, open air jeeps and less classic Humvee were out on the floor, ready to go escort at a moment's notice, and there was the Bentley assigned to her use: the car which had driven her for every year for so long as she could remember everywhere and anywhere she wanted to go. How easy it would be to just call up the chauffer or Paul and.. she stopped herself. Now was not the time...

The Nishizawa security detachment were milling about the vehicles. Some were performing weapons checks, or so it seemed to Momoka, and others were drinking coffee. A few looked asleep. Momoka pattered lightly up towards the guards, and all it took was a light clearing of the throat to have them suddenly scrambling to their feet. She pined in her primmest voice, with her hands clenched tightly behind her back so that the observant Captain could not see her palms sweating, "I seem to have lost my textbook for maths and I'm late for school so Paul is flying me. Can you help me find it?" She wiggled her white shoes in the grime of the floor to emphasize her expression that this place was just icky. "I think I left it in the limo." She said helpfully.

The Captain waved his arm above his head as though he were commanding his troops to take a dangerous beachead and they descended on the limousine like a nest of fire ants harrying an elephant. Soon they were all poking under the seats, tearing up the trunk, removing the upholstery, Momoka smiled, as was expected...

She picked her way to the outermost of the vehicles: a fully gassed and loaded jeep with an open air roll cage. After a short search, she found the keys hanging near the steering wheel. A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed that the guards were still too busy to notice. She adjusted the seat, stepped up and into the vehicle and settled herself against the leather upholstery, which, she noticed with disdain, was slightly sticky.

A distinctly devilish grin appeared on her face as the quiet Momoka was once again suppressed. My turn now. She shoved the key violently into the ignition and turned, causing the engine to sputter and roar to life. The timid, inner Momoka shrieked. At least put on a seatbelt!

The dominant Momoka shot a glare at nothing in particular and obeyed. "I know what I'm doing." She shifted into drive, put her hands on the steering wheel, and took a deep breath. Yeah, right.

Momoka slammed a foot down on the gas. Tires screeched along the floor before catching and throwing the vehicle forward. Startled, the girl spun the steering wheel in an attempt to recover, sending the car careening wildly about the room. Several guards yelled and scrambled out of the way as the Jeep barreled towards them. Momoka pounded a hand on the horn as she attempted to recover. "Outta my way!"

A violent spin of the wheel in the other direction caused the car to swerve towards the exit. While sliding, the rear end of the car swung about, smashing heavily into a metal frame with the bad luck of being in the way. The frame buckled as the car shot forward again; the tires that hung from the overhead rained down upon the yelling guards, hitting the ground only to bounce up again and cause more havoc.

You're gonna kill us! The car overshot again, fishtailing on the greasy floor before Momoka managed to straighten their course and aim again for the exit. Ignoring the pursuing guards, she stepped on the gas.

"No, I won't." The engine snarled, a feral sound, as the girl put her weight on the gas. The Jeep lunged forward, charging straight for the closed door to the surface. "Watch this!"

The weight of the vehicle triggered motors and belts: she watched as the automatic door rolled upwards, agonizingly slow. With a malicious grin, she could distantly hear her other self shrieking as she pushed the pedal down to the floor and with perfect timing scraped through the portal. The jeep hurtled up the ramp and through the outer hatchway...

----

The alarm klaxon was blaring as Paul emerged from the small office. Bayo was just landing in the chopper, having already been enroute to the mansion to have one of his rare days away from the office, when Paul had told him of his daughter's strange behavior in the kitchen that morning. He'd humphed and hrumphed and made many more unprofessional sounds as Paul explained, "There's something very strange with her, Nishizawa-sama."

He'd even coughed at Paul's use of the honorific. "Just keep her safe and under control Paul. I'll be there shortly.:" Paul had sincerely hoped he had been worrying over nothing.

Paul crashed through the double doors of the security center. He was out of breath and trying his best to hide the heaving. I'm getting too old for this crap, he thought even as Bayo raced in the opposite set of double doors and stopped so he could sedately walk to Paul's side. They were a study in contrasts, standing side by side next to the Master at Arms: Paul only four years older looking grey and haggard and breathless and Bayo looking barely out of his second decade without a trace of grey in his likely dyed mustache. His shoulders were squarer than Paul's, but all to obviously Paul was slumped, slouched, meeting Bayo eye-to eye, even though it meant bending his knees uncomfortably.

He bowed to Bayo's unspoken question and ordered, "Tracking. Video, quad One, main screen."

----

And then they were flying. The trusty vehicle airborned over the rim of the ramp and thunked front wheels first with a smack onto the asphalt of the driveway. The brakes screeched and the car spun 180 degrees in an unpracticed, but quite controlled maneuver, and halted. Without even a glance over her shoulder, Momoka slammed the transmission into reverse and stomped on the accelerator. The tires spun as she jumped the curb and tore up the spring turf before they acheived traction.

She stopped some fifty meters from the egress.

The girl breathed relief both internally and externally, but she could hear the shouts of the guards re-organizing down below and her hand reached without thought to a panel on the center console that she'd seen manipulated only once in her short life. She pulled a lever and a personal anti-tank missile rose on struts from the bed of the vehicle. She put the crosshairs on the video screen over the tele-image of the automotive exit.

NO! Don't! her timid self thought-screamed.

"Shut up", commanded Momoka and pressed the red button.

The driveway exploded and the tunnel collapsed with a very satisfying thump...

----

Paul looked to Bayo. Bayo looked to Paul. They had both seen Momoka, her hair abstruse, her eyes blazing, and they had both felt the shudder as the missile hit and the ground had folded over the garage passageway, and now.. and now... they watched her execute a lazy, if somewhat halting turn back onto the driveway, approaching and accelerating toward the main gate.

"To arms" ordered the SAG. "De aramasu!"

"Countermanded", contradicted Bayo in his to-be-obeyed voice.

"No fire!" ordered Paul. "I can track her, my Leige?"

"'Cut the 'my leige' crap, Paul. You're not impressing me." and Bayo's fingers were already dancing over the console before him. "and besides.." he tapped keys "I designed this subsystem."

----

Momoka was cruising and she knew it. The tinny, polite voice inside her hastled and whined to be let out.

It's my body now Peach-flower. Why should I let you have it back? she thought back to herself.

The gate lurched into her field of view. Paramilitaries were at the gate, their hands out commanding her to halt, but strangely with their guns undrawn. The wooden gate stood upright, but the retractable steel barriers were down. Only the chainlink fence stood in her way. Momoka gunned the engine and swerved crazily, and the guards stopped sounding their police whistles and dived out of the her path. She clipped one anyhow, tossing his form high in the air to lie broken, scraped and moaning in the ditch beside the guardhouse. The jeep smashed through the fence and the aluminum and steel criss-coss mesh tore from the steel bar frame like a leaf from a phone book. The metal sparked as it clung to the road and to the vehicle until Momoka careened left then right and flattened the chainlink into the warming asphalt.

Her hair blew back as she settled forward in her seat. The bullet-resistant windshield was uncracked, and the wind of her headlong flight streamed around the thick bars of the roll cage. She grimaced into the wind. With each passing minute the kilometers flew by and when she was satisfied she was not being followed; she slowed from maniac to merely manic speed.

The spring birds were chirping in the Dororo woods. The sun was rising and peeking shyly through the evergreens. The now gentle breeze carried their pungent pine-scent. In quieter moments even this Momoka would have stopped to admire the scent, and sight, and sounds. In these moments though Momoka only noticed that the quivering tree shadows darkened the road. After much blind fiddling with the steering column, she turned on the headlights.

An OLED screen lit on the console. Momoka chanced a glance away from the winding byway. The screen displayed a map. The screen displayed a map of the road. There was a glowing blue dot on the map of the road and it pulsed and the map moved around it and... next to the dot were three lines of text "Momoka", "BP: 110/63", "Temp: 37.6C". Her blood ran cold and her heart thumped loudly in her ears. She watched, fascinated, as the BP and Temp ticked up. She drew a deep breath - they're monitoring me. They're tracking me! How? How??? I can't stop. They'd be on me in a second! She unconciously tapped at the accelerator and the jeep obediently accelerated.

"Okay," she said to herself, "How do we get out of this one?"

Well, it can't be the jeep? Why would Daddy care about the Blood Pressure of his security staff? And how would the jeep know that you are the one driving? Watch out!

Momoka swerved left, ground gravel at the road edge for a scant second, and then brought herself back on course, all to avoid an old woman and a goat, who were incongruously crossing the road between a forest path and a clearing. We've probably passed them both a dozen times and never noticed, she thought, the limo really doesn't let me see anything. It's like being in a comfortable fishbowl.

"Good point," muttered Momoka, eyes glinting in suppressed rage.

Which one? tched the gentle girl in her soul.

"All of them." her furious self answered. "So, it's not in the jeep, where is it th..." And she trailed off as images flashed through her mind. A quick flash of Paul showing up when she had a bad dream when she was 10. Of Daddy saying "Don't worry little Peach, Daddy always knows when you're safe." Paul, with bento in hand when she felt peckish the previous day. She thought over the commonalities, over what was around her, over what she was carrying, over what she was...

"No..." she moaned and her eyes widened. "No!" she screamed, her left hand flew off the wheel and to the neck clasp of her blouse. The beaded fabric rent and buttons popped.

----

Bayo Nishizawa watched the big screen intently from the comfort of his well-padded, well-appointed, freshly polished leather chair. He observed that for the most part Momoka was staying on the forest track and headed south towards Osaka. She had not yet come to the highway, but the traffic was light this long after rush hour. Even with her erratic driving, she'd be safe until the constabulary stopped her. "She takes after her mother, doesn't she Paul?" he asked rhetorically.

The main screen was split vertically so that he could also spy on the clean-up efforts in the driveway. The tunnel to the underground garage had fully collapsed and though personnel could be evacuated into the main servants' area through the service elevator all except for a few vehicles not garaged there. He'd ordered those remote vehicles to the 20 or so most likely places she would run. He would keep his daughter safe from all the tribulations of this world, and he admitted, but only to himself, that he wished he could lock her in a closet until the day she would inherit the zaibatsu he had so carefully constructed. He sighed, but he could not and he knew it. "She's going to be hell when she's 16, eh, Paul?"

Paul remained non-committally silent.

Abruptly, the tracking light skittered wildly to the right side of the digital out line of the road. It bounced back and forth against the curb several times, and then stopped. The numbers describing Momoka's heartbeat plummeted quickly to zero and then her body temperature clicked down a tenth of a degree. The monitoring center became an angry beehive: orders flew fast and furious - demands for equipment checks, sensor checks, and transmission confirmations.  A voice called over the din, "She's not dead!"

"Silence", commanded Bayo and when the cross-chatter barely subsided, he amplified, "Silence! Report!"

The sensor tech adjusted his microphone and repeated, "She's not dead, sir. The temperature gradient across her blouse continues to fall. It's dropping much more quickly than if she were a cor... if she were dead."

Bayo considered. My beloved daughter and heir baked cookies all night, borrowed a jeep, and now she's off the grid? Anxious bile rose in his throat and he suppressed it with a swallow. What is possessing her? Answer that question and you'll know why she's driving half-naked to the city. He chewed his cheek over his next move - battle-go against a teen-ager? The squad was silent, immobile, awaiting his order. Paul cleared his throat expectantly. Bayo furrowed his brow and spoke, "Dispatch any remaining transport to locations with a greater than 50% probability. Observe and protect."

The room sprang into action and satisfied Bayo settled back in his seat. "You're remarkably silent Paul."

"I'm strategizing, sir." Yes, strategzing. How do you tell your boss that you're retiring?

----

The Nishizawa rent-a-cop lay on the flat roof of the building at the corner of Hazuyabu and Rouji. His weapon lay on the sweating tarpaper, not even loaded, nor even particularly well cleaned, while he raised the monocular to his right eye and squinted with his left. His view was of the weird little gated, two story house with the uncharacteristically wide back yard. He'd heard of the Hinata house, of course - strange, barely credible, stories from otherwise credible members of the Nishizawa guard, who had heard them second and sometimes third-hand from members of Paul's handpicked squad of uber-toughs - meanwhile, he'd never had to guard anything more important than a back dock at the Research and Development center when a butcher, or baker, or candlestick maker delivered supplies to the cafeteria.

The scientists and engineers ate well, he reflected, while he had to make do with a box of sushi that was low on meat of any kind and heavy on the rice he could afford, and whose only blessing was that it was handrolled by his eldest daughter. He couldn't imagine why he, the oldest, most underpaid, and least respected of the guard had been ordered here with one instruction given by his harried captain. "Report if a Nishizawa vehicle arrives. Observe and Protect. Don't fuck up this time." Someone had certainly kicked over a hornet's nest at the office and everyone had long since run when he arrived late.

He vowed to himself that he wouldn't fuck-up.

A long tire screech, a crunch and a crash and the sound of rolling metal snapped him out of his reverie. He looked through the thin cloud of quickly settling pine pollen gushing from the shrubbery in front of the house - a black 4x4 paramilitary vehicle had hopped the sidewalk, crashed through the walking gate and plowed up the pine shrub to the left of the front porch. He zoomed the monocular: emblazoned on one door there amid the green dusted midnight, in gold and gray, was the Nishizawa family crest above the corporate logo. He fumbled at his belt loop and plucked the encrypted transceiver from his prone waist. He'd never been trained on the device. He'd only been given it that morning. He was panicked and tried to unlock the transmit button when the heavy device flipped and squirted from his sweat-soaked fingertips and he juggled for a half-second before it plummeted towards the concrete sidewalk. He forgot that he was supposed to be hidden and caught himself in the middle of calling "Look out!" as the plastic and metal oblong shattered on the windscreen of a parked motorscooter five floors below his perch.

"Okay," he muttered, "So much for not fucking up. What do I do now?" He peered through the monocular again. A youngish, platinum- haired female whelp had emerged from the parked car. She was wearing a thin halter-undershirt and a formal school skirt. He'd seen his girls at various stages of growing up and this one looked to be 12 or 13, maybe 14 at the outside, but short and underdeveloped if so. Didn't Nishizawa-sama have a daughter? The fuck-up seemed to remember some sort of birth announcement on the company internal video a decade ago: the big boss and his gorgeous wife holding aloft a papoose wrapped in yellow swaddling clothes? Maybe? Possibly? He did remember that he wasn't paying attention in that assembly - his wife had been at the hospital and nearly dead of breast cancer metastasized to her liver.

He thought. He considered. He rolled from the edge of the roof and fished his garish blue-chrome mobile phone from the vest pocket of his tar-coloured camoflage and he dialed.

"Hello!"

"Yes, this is spy post 197..." he struggled to remember the number, "24-Juliet-Whiskey-725. Patch me through to main post?"

"You're at 24 Broad Street, New York City? I read you as a local call."

"Ummm.. no, errr... I'm at..." and he named the address as best he could remember it.

The operator was already patching him through to his captain.

"Hello sir... yes sir, I'm here. Yes sir.... yes.. yes,sir... A Jeep arrived here. Yes sir. Yes. YES.... it is black. It has a family crest. A little girl got out. I think it is... no sir. I understand sir. Yes, sir. I will. I will observe and protect. Ummm... well." the guard peered over the roof-edge, "I sort of... err... dropped it. I used my mobile. Sir, yes, sir. You'll send a limo? Make sure the jeep doesn't leave? Errr... how??? Um... yes.. any means necessary. Yes sir." And he disconnected the line.

----

Momoka tottered from the driver's seat. Her hands were shaking and the rage, which had driven her 20 clicks through the Dororo forest and down half-familiar streets. She'd seen these streets only through the tinted mirror side or rear windows of the limousine, but never through the front pane. What a difference a change in view makes, she thought as she nabbed the bag of cookies for her beloved  from the padded ammo box between the front seats. A quick peek inside confirmed that every morsel was still perfectly intact. She squared her shoulders, wishing she could feel the strength again that had coursed through her and strode to the door.

She was in her undershirt, and school skirt, which was smeared with garage grease and splashed with mud, and she was self-conscious, but there were moments when modesty might be overcome by bravado. She pushed the door open. The crash had no effect on the interior of the home, not in the slightest: pictures had not tumbled off walls furniture had not jolted, but even more disturbing: no-one had rushed to the doorway to see what had happened. The house was as silent as a cemetary at midnight. She listened and distantly she could hear a murmur, a mantra, words in her beloved's voice chanting over and over, "You're so beautiful. You're so lovely. You're so wonderful-l-l-l-l..."

He's singing of me, she thought, utterly delighted.

She crept down the entry hallway, hugging the walls and peeped around the corner into the kitchenette. Yes, he was there, stretched full on the couch, the object of her undying affection. His small feet, so perfectly squared and bare, were upon a cushion. His head was back against a second throw pillow and his feet. He has staring raptly into a photo album and crooning, "You're delicious, you're ma-gic-al-l-l-l-l."

She wanted to descend upon him all in a rush and poetically proclaim her undying devotion. She wanted to pledge her life and love and family fortune to him and his causes. She wanted to tell him in oh so many ways and show him by feeding to him the carefully baked cookies one at a time. She wanted to. She want to so much and more, but it was all heady and overwhelming and when she opened her mouth all that came out was a mouse's shrill squeak, "Keroro?"

The small noise seemed to go unnoticed as the frog continued to croon to himself. "You're delectable..."

Mustering up what courage she had left, she approached the couch, tiptoe by tiptoe, until she placed herself fully before the reclining songster. She swallowed, twisting the top of the bag of cookies in her hand, and tried again. "Keroro?" She was pleased that the voice wasn't so much of a mouse squeak this time.

She continued to be ignored however, as Keroro ran a hand under his helmet flap and flipped it as he gave the photo album a practiced come-hither wink. "Unresistable..."

She huffed a little that the object of her affection wasn't acknowledging her. The dark side of her bridled and abruptly caused her to shout. "KERORO!"

Keroro grunted. Groaned. Rolled his eyes skyward, as if begging for patience. "Whaaaaat?" he droned, waving a hand dismissively. "Fuyuki isn't here."

"I-I'm not here to see him," Momoka stuttered, fidgeting. She wiped her hand on her undershirt, surprised at the sweatiness of her own palms. "I just wanted to say, Keroro, that I...I.." Her lips stuck and her tongue seemed to freeze in fear of saying the words. "Ilove-myou," she blurted out quickly, with her tongue tripping on the last word.

"I love Mew?" Keroro turned his head to one side. "No, I haven't seen the damned cat and good riddance."

"No, no," Momoka stammered, waving her free hand. "I said Ahlove...you" she repeated in no more than a whisper, her face becoming flushed.

"Olive juice?" grimaced Keroro. He waved a free hand to the kitchen dismissively. "Nasty stuff, but there's a bottle in the cabinet. Drink all you want."

Momoka shook her head frantically. "No! Nonono! What I said was..I ll-ove-you!"

"Isle of Yew?" Keroro looked up at the photo album from under his lowered eyelids. "I may be beautiful, but I'm not an atlas."

She whimpered. How could she get her point across when he kept paying attention to that damn book and not her?! She chanced a quick look at the the album, and found that it did not contain pictures of pretty girls, or even female keronians...but mirrors: twenty little mirrors each reflecting a slightly different angle of the enraptured green reader. Huffing, she thrust the bag of cookies out between him and the book, making him blink in surprise. "I made these for you!" she not-quite shouted, her fist trembling around the paper bag, the contents rattled and she opened the neck so that he had to not only look at, but smell her wonderful preparations.

Keroro grimaced; a full on disdainful Keronian sneer of utter disgust. "What?!? Cookies?!? Are you ugly or just dumb and ugly! They'd ruin my girlish figure! Take them away! You're blocking my view!" And with a slap of the back of his palm he knocked the bag to the floor where the leg of the coffee table prevented it from completely spilling the contents.

Momoka felt the tears form at the corner of her eyes. They ran down her cheeks and suddenly there was a pounding between her ears the feeling of chains being unlocked, a thin veneer of affection tore from her consciousness and settled more reasonably. It still hurt. Those hateful words. All her hard work! She scooped up the bag and pelted up the hall her headlong flight pausing only to open the door that impolitely blocked her by failing to open on her emotional whim. She slammed it behind her.

The crashed PMV was gone. Momoka ran to the street wiping tears of sadness now mixed with tears of confusion from her face. She was just in time to see a Nishizawa tow truck turn down the street with the dented black vehicle hauled half onto its bed. A second truck was parked at the curb and it was disgorging groundskeepers with loads of sod and replacement shrubs. They bustled passed her and set to repairing the front walkway with speed, precision, and will or as if their paychecks depended on their speedy response. Then, finally, silently, with a kitten's throaty purr and the breath of a moth alighting on a twig a company limousine slid to a precise stop with the back door perfectly aligned with her toes of her muddy Princess pumps.

She expected the door to open, for Paul to stand, for him to usher her grandly into the waiting leather interior without a word of her morning's transgressions. The door didn't open. Paul didn't stand. The lock merely power-snicked and the door popped slightly ajar. With a trembling hand she opened it and peered into the back seat. There was no-one inside. The privacy shield was up. The windows were all tinted to maximum darkness. On the seat was a small pile of clothing: jeans, a designer shirt, panties, a training bra, and a designer denim jacket.

Momoka knew what was expected of her. She crawled onto the seat and shut the door behind her - she was back on the grid and as she changed into the unfamiliar garb, in the embrace of Daddy's web of sensors and spies.

----

Fuyuki had been surprised when Momoka had not been in Home Economics class. He had raised his eyebrow when the desk next to him sat empty in Maths. He'd furrowed his brow when she'd not shyly walked next to him between any of his classes. The final bell had rung and still not even a squeak or a sigh. Her continued absence disturbed him as much as her previously continuous presence had perplexed him. And then there's Natsumi and her sudden interest in gardening, and Gunso's staring at his reflection all the time, and what I saw Mois doing on the couch, and Mama's acting all suspicious of Saburo even though he's a nice guy... something's going down; I just don't know what it is! He opened his locker and replaced his books with his gym uniform. He retrieved the baseball mitt and ball, which he'd purchased with his book allowance. 

He practically jogged across the bridge between the north and south wings of the middle school. He paused only to duck into the classroom, where, as the sole members of the Occult Club, he and Momoka usually sat to discuss wizardry and aliens and UFOs and Atlantis. He took the chalk from the wooden well and quickly scratched characters on the board in wide strokes. He initialed the message, paused to examine the result, then he broke from the room without bothering to close the door.

Natsumi? Gunso? Mois? Mama? They're all acting weird, he thought again, as he pelted down the stairs to the gym and then the changing room. At least I'm okay though! The practice field awaits!

In the classroom, the chalkboard read "Club Cancelled. - FH"

----

She looked to the left seat where Paul would normally sit. "Oh Paul? I shouldn't have snuck out. You'd know what to do." She looked back to the cookies in her lap. Momoka clutched the bag and felt a few cookies crumble to powder. The corners of her eyes were damp with barely withheld tears. What was I thinking? Cookies??? And Keroro? Does it take such a minour thing as cookies to make me ignore my Fuyuki-kun?... and suddenly with a clarity she knew. "Driver", she said into the intercom microphone. "Take me to school."

The school had long since been dismissed, but Momoka knew where Fuyuki would be. He'd be up in the classroom at the empty meeting of the Occult Club. She saw it all in her mind. He'd be so happy to see her, that he'd throw down whatever book he was reading. He'd fly to her and ferociously bear hug her with his spindly arms. They'd sit and share the cookies and she'd lisp out an apology for being so preoccupied with cookies and Keroro and he'd forgive her.

Momoka's eyes went wide as she saw the small classroom was empty. There was no sign of Fuyuki: no familiar pile of books or scattering of papers. There was only a note scratched with alacrity on the chalkboard."Club Cancelled. - FH" She dropped the cookies and collapsed into the nearest chair. Her forehead hit her hands and the long resisted tears flowed.What was I thinking? What was I thinking? What was I thinking? "What was I thinking", she sniffled over and over.

Then she heard a voice far away and indistinct, but the words were Fuyuki's pitch and Fuyuki's meter, but they weren't words she expected to hear come out of Fuyuki's mouth. They sounded like the baseball team workout calls! Momoka rose and went to the classroom window. The pane overlooked the baseball field. She cleared her tears from her eyes.

Down below, incongrously, was Fuyuki. He was barechested, but clothed below in navy blue shorts, cream crew socks and white Nike athletic low-tops. He was throwing a baseball overhand against the practice net and then running to field the returning orb. He was panting hard and sweating profusely in the late afternoon light of the spring sun, but he pushed onward: throw, bounce, field. Throw. Bounce... Field.

He's beautiful, she thought and could almost feel hearts floating cheesily above her head. He's so beautiful.

----

Fuyuki threw the ball as forcefully and accurately as he possibly could. The ball quitted his fingers and flew downwind to strike the Squarecatch practice net just outside the second target ring. Fuyuki was already running to where he thought the ball would return. The net reverberated and the ball sprang back and bounced twice to the right field. A light overspin skipped the ball slightly left. Fuyuki skidded, reversed direction, leaned dramatically to the left, and reached into the new path and scooped the ball out of the air.

His arm was cocked to throw the ball again, when he was distracted by singular applause. He looked to the sound and there, sitting on the bleachers, was Momoka. She was clapping and then chirped an encouraging whistle. Fuyuki blushed and retrieved his T-shirt from the ground and slung the garment around his sweaty neck. He patted his face with the dangling shirt tail. He ambled over to Momoka.

Her eyes were sparkling in the late afternoon sun and her school dress had been abandoned for a pair of Ksubi drainpipe jeans, in white-dappled grey, a grey-blue Armani blouse, and a subtly shaded black sweater vest. Her platinum blonde hair was pulled back into a single bun that rode the back of her neck, while whispy bangs hung down off her forehead to her lashes.

"New haircut? New clothes? Is that where you've been today?" Fuyuki observed. He mentally winced, Sheesh, that was a dumb opening line. I could have thought of something better.

Momoka cast her eyes down and mumbled, "I'm sorry I missed the meeting today. I... I... baked you some cookies." Without looking up she thrust the bag at him. That was so dumb to say. I should have said more. I should have told him about Keroro.

Fuyuki took the waxed-paper sack from Momoka's grasp and peered inside at the assorted pastries: little smiling orange cookies, mini chocolate chips, twisted tri-coloured love braids, oatmeal cookies with dots of cherry jam at their center, complex marshmallow wafer cookies with hard mint shells. There must be a kilo of cookies here! His mouth watered. And I am hungry. He fished out a wafer cookie at random and bit it in half. The mint was cooling on his tongue and the marshmallow equally sweet. The cookie was two layers of fine cracker. He munched and chewed reflectively before swallowing.

"They're very good." he slipped onto the hot metal seat next to Momoka, who still refused to look him in the eye. "My thanks to the chef."

Momoka's head turned slowly to gaze at him out of the corner of her eye. "I... was baking all night and I saved the best ones for you. Are they really good?"

"They're excellent!" Fuyuki enthused, "Here, try one."

He fished another of the wafer cookies from the bag and held it out to her, not at the level of her hands, but further up towards her face. Timidly, Momoka turned and leaned. She dipped her head low and nibbled the cream-and-crisp edge of frosting and cookie. She glanced up at Fuyuki, whose eyes were fixated on her. She chanced a more fullsome bite, carefully avoiding his fingers. Remember to chew with your mouth closed Momoka. She straightened and chewed reflectively before swallowing. "I guess they are good for my first try?"

Fuyuki nodded, and helped himself to an orange-ginger cookie. He was aware as he dipped into the bag that Momoka's hand was there too. There was an electric sensation as his fingertips brushed her palm and wrist. He removed his chosen cookie and Momoka removed hers - a chocolate chip.

He bit and chewed. "They're wonderful." He said with his mouth full. Then he swallowed and simultaneously giggled and the mixture of mirth and half-consumed cookie caused him to cough hackingly.

"What?" Momoka was suddenly alarmed. "Are you okay?" Oh no, I've managed to poison him. He doesn't like them after all. What have I done?

Fuyuki held up a hand to squelch her further curiosity, cough-cleared his throat and then laughed aloud. "I'm sorry. I was just thinking that this is the moment when Paul shows up with a pitcher of milk."

This time it was Momoka's turn to nearly choke on her cookie. Wet crumbs nearly spewed in most unlady-like fashion from her lips. She swallowed and recovered quickly, dabbed her mouth with a monogrammed handkerchief she produced from her blouse pocket. She looked into Fuyuki's eyes, summoned all her courage and explained, "I ditched him."

"You did?" Fuyuki was genuinely surprised. "Why?" Or better question yet, how the hell did you manage that?

"Yes, I wanted..." she sighed and her head turned shyly back to her lap, but the transitory motion was interrupted by the caress of Fuyuki's fingertips on her chin.

He raised and gently turned her head to look at him. "You wanted?" he prompted.

"I wanted to be alone with you, Fuyuki-kun." she breathed.

Her eyes were fixated on his and his on hers. She was aware of the fingertips on her chin gently guiding her face forward and of Fuyuki's face flush with evaporating sweat, his scent pungent and manly, inching towards hers. She turned her head ever so slightly and felt the pleasant pressure of his hand on her ribs and the back of her neck, his lips brushing and then kissing hers, and his tongue sliding over her tongue. The kiss lasted for only few seconds and then he released her. She was dizzy with the smell and touch and taste of him: man and solid and mint.

"It's hot out here. Wanna find some shade?" Fuyuki breathed, his eyes locked on hers.

"Like where?" she giggled.

Fuyuki motioned with a tilt of his head to the gaps in the seats and the shade under the bleachers. Momoka was already rising. He kissed her again before she took his hand and led him around the rear of the seating. I'll explain to him about Keroro later. Watch this Daddy.

----

Bayo Nishizawa turned from the bank of monitors.

"Paul?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Eliminate him."

"Yes, sir."

----

Saburo knocked politely at the Hinata's front door. His bookbag was slung over one arm. Natsumi had a standing study date with him this afternoon and as usual he was on schedule. He stabbed at the doorbell and held it down for one second longer than politeness dictated. And as usual, she's late, he mused. Sometimes I think women keep men waiting as a control mechanism - like doctors: you have to be on time, but they can take all the time in the world.

He stabbed at the doorbell with growing impatience and was rewarded by the sound of footsteps from within the house. The door cracked and a wide brown eye peered through at about belly level. He lowered to regard it. It blinked. Slowly it rose and he unbowed to follow it as the door cracked wider and wider until Mois' face was fully revealed. "Saburo," she breathed. "Come in." She opened the door for him, just wide enough that he could squeeze through by brushing his behind against her belly. He swore he could feel the brush of erect nipple through layers of cloth against his lower back.

He turned to face her and tried his best too-cool-for-you nonchalance. "Where is Natsumi?" he asked.

Mois shrugged her most exaggerated shrug, "She was here, and then, she was not. She said she needed to go buy something important."

"Oh?" Saburo replied with a slight smile and a lift of his eyebrow.

"Yes," Mois nodded brightly, "but I shall, you could say, entertain you until she returns." She took a step toward him, reached out with one small hand and balled it up in the collared neckline of his shirt. She jerked him down, twisted her head to one side and licked his lips before kissing him deeply. Her free hand slid down his front and rubbed his male member behind the lacing of his pants.

She was already sinking to her knees when Saburo raised his other eyebrow and snaked his fingers through her short blonde hair.

----

Natsumi was on her way home. Behind her she pulled a wagon full of purchases all in burlap sacks. Her handbag and a hand shovel were slung over her left and right shoulders respectively. She clutched another pouch in one curled arm. She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat, which was tied under her jaw with a green ribbon. Her burden was heavy, but her mood was light - Natsumi practically jogged down the sidewalk and she had to admit jogging was good.

Now, here I am. I feel so energized. I can do anything. This planet will benefit from me and I will benefit from it. She paused her bouncing stride to catch her breath. I wonder where I came up with that? She gave the thought no further space and resumed her pace. She was sweating through her sports top and shorts. What a change, she reflected, When I was kid and those damned frogs first arrived, and we had that hot summer, I was all complain, complain, complain... She turned into her own gate and hauled the wagon onto the porch. I'll bring the planting soil and humus into the back. I need to sort these seeds on the table and set out my germination trays.

She took a parcel of seeds under one arm, straightened and struggled with her purse for her key. Then she saw it. The door was slightly ajar. She cautiously pushed the door open. The panel swung wide. The hallway was empty, except for the usual accoutrements: the table with the home phone, Fuyuki's slippers aligned at the foot of the stairs, the rug... the rug? In the middle of the rug was a shirt.

She put down her bag. Fuyuki is certainly getting careless, leaving his shirt on the floor like that. She picked up the shirt. The garment was not Fuyuki's - too small and frilly, too big in the chest - a girl's blouse: Mois'?

The cubbyhole door to the crawlspace was also ajar and she could see cloth snagged on the corner. Natsumi pushed the front door shut and picked Mois' sweater from the low hanging panel. She added it to her armload. The seeds were forgotten in the front hall. She entered the crawlspace and climbed down the ladder. At the bottom were more clothes: Mois shoes, and skirt, and finally her brassiere. Natsumi gathered each item and tucked it under her arm. Her curiosity intensified as she crept down the darkened hall to Keroro's room. She found two more items of clothing: a non-descript, black, men's necktie and a hat - a white mate's cap, very much like Gilligan's or....

"Saburo's?" Natsumi breathed. No? Can't be... She stuffed the men's clothing above Mois' discarded garb.

She stood at Keroro's door. Her hand reached out hesitantly, but she firmly grasped and twisted the knob.

----

Mama Aki returned home and slid her motorcycle into the normal spot on the front walk. She removed her helmet and tossed her dark hair in the sultry dusk air. A turn of the key and the engine was silent except for the tack-tack-tack of the cooling exhaust. She dismounted. By the door, she noted the shopping wagon, which still bore a load of humus in bags and she nodded recognition at them - supplies of Natsumi's new hobby. She twisted her key in the lock and the door creaked open. The house was silent.

She dreaded walking into the foyer. Every time she was able to come home in the last few months, he was always there, studying with her daughter at the kitchen table. She walked in, surprised by the eerie silence, to find the kitchen table empty of both schoolwork and children. The living room was similarly empty, but a glance outside the sliding glass door showed why: her daughter was hoeing a small plot of ground determinedly.

"Natsumi," she called as she slid the glass panel open and Natsumi stopped her hoeing long enough to welcome her mother properly. "Where is Saburo?" she inquired as Natsumi aerated the soil again.

Natsumi merely shrugged her shoulders noncommittally. "He's probably off planting his own seed somewhere. Good riddance to infected manure I say."

Aki blinked. Where did my daughter learn language like that? She continued to watch her daughter work. With growing confusion, she saw a trickle of sweat traverse down the back of Natsumi's neck and another down her forehead. Her face shone with perspiration. What happened to the daughter who would have been complaining bitterly about the heat, sprawling in the living room with an icy drink, with the air conditioning on at full blast?

At her mother's continued silence, Natsumi added, "You know Mama, when Christmas time comes, you have so much candy, and you eat and eat until you get a bellyache, and then you never want to see candy again until next Christmas?" she struck the soil one last time before she faced her mother, wiping sweat from her brow with a handkerchief. She seemed neither sad nor angry, but cool and distant. "Sooner or later, Saburo will get tired of all the free candy."

Aki boggled at Natsumi's way of saying that they had either broken up, or taken a break in their relationship. That much was a relief to her, but now a new worry had settled itself into her head; when did my daughter grow up?

----