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Kururu was adapting, more than adopting, to the cabana and the beach and Hanene and her bottomless energy. He had to admit, he was having fun. More fun than he'd ever had in his life. After two weeks minus one day, he was awake with Hanene and they hit the early morning squalls that brought breakers crashing in with the advancing tide. He'd become much better at surfing and could even rise to his knees before the board capsized. Hanene would sail by him and capsize a second later. He'd yet to determine whether she really lost the wave or whether she'd joined him under the wave to assuage his battered ego?
They had eaten their breakfast next, something light, utilitarian and almost always proletarian: a rice flour roll, tea, and a glass of native island juice. The meal settled nicely and Kururu had been permitted to stay in the cabana and hack on his gamepad, while Hanene, completely fearless and unafraid of stomach cramps, had swum. Once she'd returned with some sea clams she'd dug. Another time she returned with nothing except seaweed. Whatever she found became a component of lunch. After lunch was more required "fun".
They'd given up on volleyball, but had tried waterskiing - Kururu fell, parasailing - Kururu crashed, and surf canoing - neither had sufficient arm strength. Kururu had gotten his share of bruises before they discovered The Marketplace. They'd found the dusty thoroughfare completely by accident.
The afternoon of their sixth day they had decided to try their feet at hiking, or rather Kururu had Hanene decide for him, and before he knew what had happened, he was traipsing through the jungle in an itchy canvas shirt and pants and a white wok-shaped pith helmet. They didn't know they'd gotten lost until they started back. Kururu had been exhausted and despite the suit well-bitten by insects. He was, in Hanene's words "snappish". They smelled the village before they heard it. They heard it before they saw it. They stumbled through the last of the brush into a town of maybe 300 people at the intersection of three, pecan sandy and rocky roads. The town was the small island's largest native trading center.
They had stayed until near dusk and by then both were laughing: the disastrous hike forgotten. Hanene had learned to play an oil drum with an old man and Kururu had played conch shell as an accompaniment - drum and biological kazoo. They had shopped The Marketplace and bought salve for Kururu's bug bites. Both wondered if they could find their way to the village again or better yet back to the resort. They slept under the stars covered by a chameleon cloth. The next day they followed the southeastern trail back to a paved road and then due east into the rising sun back to the resort.
There was a casino in the hotel proper and an arcade and they strictly limited themselves to six tokens each and no more than an hour's electronic entertainment. The casino games held no fascination for either of them, but the arcade machines? Kururu was in his glory with the bank of classic games while night after night Hanene followed up her single game of pinball or pachinko with the same toy crane machine: a high skill model with no joystick and only right and forward buttons. Kururu watched as Hanene employed her superior depth perception and acquired her target. She tried to retrieve the same toy: a small robotic puppy with eyes that tracked motion. but in attempt after attempt the claw glanced off the prize. Her inability to capture the animated canine had become her post-sunset obsession.
So, on this morning of the last full day, Kururu awakened at dawn shrouded in his NMP field. As soon as the arcade was opened and the sliding glass doors slid, he was through. He made a beeline for the recalcitrant crane machine which was gaudily flashing lights: a seductive mating display worthy of a Quetzal bird. He deposited a token he'd saved from the previous night. He had one chance and he intended to make the attempt successful. He'd spent all night adapting his glasses and work gloves to the task.
He triggered the button above his earpads and the heads-up display flipped into his line of sight. Angled red lines cross-connected across his vision. He snapped a second switch and a laser beam painted the simulacrum in red ,while the metal tips of the crane were painted in blue. The vision processor calculated and popped up two countdown clocks. He depressed the console button shaped like a right arrow and circuits closed in his gloved fingertips. The countdown started. He released the button at almost precisely zero. His fingers moved to the second button and he muttered "Pochito" under his breath. The second clock began the countdown at the centered top of his vision. The lasers tracked the crane as it trundled back into the glass fronted prize cage. Kururu bit his lip as the countdown went lower and lower. He released the button with only tenths of a second to spare.
His fingers poised over the final button to drop the claw. The machine would not permit him to change the position of the drop: those were the rules. Most Pokopenian players made an appeal to any of their many deities at this point, but Kururu had faith only in his own technological prowess. The heads-up indicated that though the crane was correctly positioned within the margin of error, the claw, which dangled at the terminus of a coiled silvery chain, was turned 5 degrees from optimal. It would slide off Hanene's prize.
He remembered a delicate trick Hanene had unsuccessfully employed to rotate the gripper: he gritted his teeth and struck the side of the machine just hard enough to rotate the crane claws, without causing the machine to "tilt". He simultaneously pressed the drop button...
The Hinata house was as quiet as an aquarium at feeding time when Aki arrived from her final day at Kadoyama Publishing. She had transported her personal effects piecemeal during the previous 13 days after announcing her resignation, so her carrier was almost empty. There was only a burlap sack and within were parting gifts from from her staff: her award from Comicon, which would no longer grace the display case at the company entrance; a portrait of all the staff, to which they all signed their names; and a single piece of jade-glass crystal, which was carved into the figurine of the most popular character she had ever "created": Admiral Geroro. She grinned at the boxed glass statuette in the bag and the award beneath it. If only the fans knew just how many of those stories happened in my backyard? Or that the "Admiral" lives in my basement? They'd never have awarded my work.
Her final weeks had been filled with meetings, meetings, and more meetings with her art staffers, the writing management, the marketing and sales department heads. Of course, the Big Boss also had met with her and offered her the Big Raise; if she would stay, but Aki was determined to make a clean break and said so. When his cash inducement had failed, he made veiled threats about her non-compete agreement. He slandered all of the competition in male-oriented pulp comics, hoping perhaps to stumble over the name of the hostile hirer that was enticing away his most talented art manager. When even slander failed, he was reduced to begging, pleading, and appealing to her lifetime loyalty to the Publisher. When even these entreaties failed to motivate Aki, he was like any poker player, he folded and began talking severance and replacements. The Boss hadn't even noticed that a mid-level writer had quit the day previous.
Every night she had departed Kadoyama early and cycled across the city to an industrial loft that the newly formed Koubupla Publications claimed as an office. The lower floors were bare concrete. The seven desks were surplus from the US Navy depot as were the stained and scarred office cubical dividers. The drafting boards were bought at an architect's estate sale. The limited traditional art supplies had been purchased on eBay Japan. Only the computers were new, though most of the artistic, drafting and pre-press software was pirated. The upper loft had been segregated into three private offices: hers, the writer's, and the financier's. In the spaciousness between the offices they'd piled buckwheat chaff beanbags and scattered low tea tables. They used the space for meetings. Every evening she'd interview a new artiste or writer or review the portfolio of a custom modeler. She'd half-filled the desks downstairs with fresh-faced art school graduates and high minded literature students, who were fueled on packaged noodles, energy drinks, and the occasional backpacked potluck dimsum. The first issue was already being discussed, argued, written and drawn. Her newly hired staff were working 60 hour weeks without her and she was anxious to join them fulltime.
But first I have to stop stalling. Aki admitted as she shouldered the burlap bag. Her children hadn't even noticed her changes in behavior or the items she'd brought home from her old office. Her schedule hadn't changed significantly and they were asleep before she set foot in the house. Come to think of it, this is the first time in ages that I've been home before sunset and the first time in a fortnight that I've been home before dinner.
She locked the steering fork of her motorcycle and strode up the walk. The house's front door opened ahead of her and Saburo emerged with Mois on tow. He was whispering into her ear behind a cupped hand at a volume beneath Aki's hearing threshold. She smiled at him, nodded a friendly greeting, which he returned. Ever since her daughter had kicked Saburo to the curb, Aki had found him more tolerable. He leers at Mois now, and not my daughter, and that is fine with me. Though, she lamented, him dating Mois is probably torturing Natsumi. I remember leaving boyfriends, even when I was in the wrong it still hurt. Natsumi is taking the breakup well. Her grades are still up, but this gardening obsession? I don't know from where that came?
She opened the door and stepped into the foyer. She changed into her house slippers. The house was silent. The television was inactive. A quick peek out the kitchen patio door confirmed that Natsumi was not in her garden. Aki moved the bag to her room and set the prized gifts on her bureau. The children's rooms were empty, though obviously chores had been done, for every surface was spotless, every item of clothing had been stored away, every rug had been vacuumed. Aki showered and she expected at any moment to hear her children arrive, but they did not. she dried, dressed, and walked sedately down the stairs. The house was indeed empty. She considered climbing down to Keroro's basement lair to try to engage him in an idle game of cards, but abandoned the idea. I'll order in, she thought with sudden inspiration. Everyone's favorites. Still she couldn't help but wonder where everyone was.
Natsumi had neglected her pet frog for long enough and she had nearly exhausted the cricket supply from the backyard. thus her 20 minute bus ride into the edge of Osaka's business district. Nuwah's Pets was right where it had always been. The lights were up and the ebullient American owner and proprietor, Allan, was overjoyed to see her. "You should see the pythons that just hatched." Natsumi's eyes brightened at the chance to see the newly hatched reptiles. When last she'd visited a gravid female python had just laid her egg clutch. She'd watched as Allan had moved the eggs to a temperature, light, and humidity controlled incubator.
"I'd love to see them!" Natsumi enthused, and then she looked across the countertop at the pegboard that formed the back wall of the shop. There, amid the brick-a-brack a fish fancier might purchase on impulse a hand lettered sign proclaimed "Help Wanted" in friendly green letters. Natsumi could feel the last few dozen 10 yen note rolls bouncing in her purse: all that remained of the advance on her allowance. She smiled her best kitten smile, a near perfect imitation of Koyuki. "I need crickets too," she added and she pointed to the sign, "And can I have an application?"
Allan looked in the direction of her pointing finger, then back at Natsumi. "I don't believe in applications," he explained. "Let me show you your duties and you come by tomorrow after school. Six-fifty yen hourly good for you?"
Natsumi smiled. She couldn't believe her luck. She bowed slightly, "What are my duties, Allan-sama?"
Fuyuki had been practicing with the baseball team for two weeks. He'd been exercising every spare hour he had. He'd run everywhere and his once spindly legs were slowly developing an unexpected toughness. When Natsumi was too engrossed in her gardening to play catch with him, he'd stayed at school late and practiced alone or gone to the batting cages downtown and swung until his arms were tired. during study hall he digested every book the library had on baseball and not just the stats, but the advice of famous players, coaches and trainers. And always there was Momoka. She'd keep a safe and respectful distance and watch him workout and sigh contentment. She might as well have had hearts and flowers floating over her in a gaudy display of emotion. The older players teased him about her adoration, but no-one to hard. They might not respect Fuyuki, but they did definitely respect Momoka, whose wealthy father had suddenly, and atypically, become a major donor for the team.
And then there was Paul. He no longer was a pace behind Momoka, and Fuyuki was aware he'd retired from Nishizawa service, but he still arrived in the SUV, every Wednesday after school, to escort him to the shooting range. "I have certain retirement privileges", he had explained.
"So, who protects Momoka now?" asked Fuyuki.
Paul had cautiously shrugged, but Fuyuki was sure he'd mouthed the beginning of the phrase, "You do..."
Paul had also given Fuyuki a book "The Philosophy of the Gun" and though the short paperback had nothing whatsoever to do with baseball, was written in English, Fuyuki had all but memorized it: a chapter at a day and he had to admit, he enjoyed the philosophy of never raising a weapon in anger when walking away was sufficient. Since the book was banned, he had hidden the volume under his bed next to the case that held his shooting glove and camouflage shirt. His time with Paul was, justified, guy-time and Momoka, though she disapproved, never came to the range.
Mama also didn't know about her son's ballistic hobby and Fuyuki was not at all certain she'd approve of any sport beyond baseball, especially one so violent. Maybe he could take Aikido classes at the youth league on his breaks. Mama loved the balance and artistic relevance of Aikido. Perhaps, she would overlook the weapons training if he also developed his warriors' spirit. That thought had brought a smile to Fuyuki's face when the thought had first occurred: Since when did I start thinking of myself as a warrior?
At this moment, however, Fuyuki was less concerned about Mama, Paul, or Momoka. Today the team roster was to be posted, first and second string enumerated, after practice. He had performed his very best at scrimmage. He fielded a fair ball that he tossed in for a double play. At bat, he hit a grounder that skipped like a stone on a pond, rifled past the shortstop, and put him on base and a run onto the plate. His crowning achievement was in the field. He'd faded back in left field and caught a fly ball with the sun directly in his eyes. That catch, in itself, was not laudatory, but that he'd caught the final out of the 4 inning scrimmage, against a senior player - a much practiced tenth grader - was spectacular and everyone on the bleachers had applauded. Now, an hour later, Fuyuki had gone from boundless enthusiasm to holding his breath: team player or bench warmer, which was to be his fate?
He had finished his shower and dressed in his school clothes. He was the last student in the locker room. Momoka was across the hallway when he exited the locker room. She was as tense as he was. Together they both walked to the bulletin board by the boy's gymnasium door. There, on a cork board, in a locked glass display, were the two pages of the list. Momoka turned away and chewed her knuckles nervously. Fuyuki started from the end of the list of second-string players and discovered his name was not among the six players. He scanned the list for first string.
He tapped Momoka on the shoulder, turned her, and then whispered in her ear, "I didn't make the team." His voice jittered, but otherwise was expressionless.
"I'm sorry," soothed Momoka. She held him back by his chest so she could study his eyes for reaction. His hands remained clasped across the small of her back, just above the seam of her skirt. "What will you do now?"
"There's no reason to be sorry. There are other sports I can play. I will practice and I will try out again next year," he declared. "Want to go for an ice cream?" he asked, not lamely puzzled, but confidently self-assured as though he were certain she would react affirmatively. Momoka nodded, offered him her hand, and he smiled as he took it in his own and together they walked out of the Middle school doors: the perfect picture of a perfect couple.
Kururu and Hanene were not the perfect couple. Hanene wanted to have one last day of fun, while Kururu was exhausted by his continued attempts. Nevertheless, he allowed himself to be dragged out surfing and swimming. He allowed himself to be taken fishing from the bouldered escarpment, when normally he would be playing his handheld or checking his e-mail. They rode a broken-down islander bus to the market and spent an afternoon picking among the trinkets and bargaining with the sellers. Hanene was a fantastic bargainer. She would silently stare into a Pokopenian merchant's eyes with her own half-lidded ones, and, with a voice tinged with boredom, name a price too low. They'd haggle and in the end Hanene walked away with the spice or fruit for less than the advertised price. "These will make good gifts," she explained to Kururu.
The bus took them back to the hotel and Hanene made a beeline for the arcade. "Only one night left," she shrilled. "That puppy is mine!"
Kururu sidled up to the Galaga '88 machine. He did not deposit a token. He waited. He waited for the inevitable...
"NOOOOOOOO!" screamed Hanene. She pounded the toy crane's console with both small fists: the plastic hand guard cracked unnoticeably. She kicked the machine: a dent appeared in the metal trim. Had she possessed an incendiary weapon, she would have no doubt incinerated the entertainment device. "NOOOOOOO! It's gone!" Kururu put a falsely compassionate hand on her shoulder and immediately skipped back when she turned. Her normally half-lidded, violet eyes were blazing. "Someone won my puppy!"
"Kukukuku," Kururu chuckled evilly, "That's that then. Back to our room, Airman, before you break something else, yes?" He filled his mind with thoughts of video games and sleep and of his lab and of finally walking into it alone.
Hanene gave him that same look she'd given to the merchants, her eyes searching his eyes, distorted behind the swirly glasses, before she announced loudly, declaratively, and mechanically, "You're a real schmuck! You know that?" She turned on heel and stalked out.
Kururu's thin lips tented over his bucktoothed incisors in a rancid grin and he giggled behind his raised knuckles. And you've suddenly realized this, huh?
Aki was paying the delivery boy and carefully counting a tip, when Saburo sauntered up the walk with Mois. He nodded to Aki, sidled passed her and opened the door to the crawlspace. He grandly waved Mois through before mounting the ladder himself. Aki could not help but notice, that, except for the descent into the darkness his hand was rarely absent from Mois' rear end. The ass is an ass man, Aki giggled, how did I know? She sobered and paid for the two large bags of cooked food and the pair of two liter bottles of soda pop. She watched the nameless delivery person pedal off on the electrically assisted bike. At that precise moment, Natsumi turned the corner of the wall and practically skipped up the walk. Aki sighed relief.
"Mama, did you order in?" Natsumi enthused musically. The scents of well spiced beef, salmon, crab, and other delicacies were overpowering. "It smells delicious! I'm sorry I didn't make dinner, but I have wonderful news!" She took a bag from her mother's arms and retrieved a bottle of soda from the floor.
"That's okay," said Aki. She bent to reclaimed the remaining bottle of flavored seltzer. "Why don't you set the table while I open the food? I have news too." She tired to smile, but she was unsure how Natsumi would take the announcement that there was something important to discuss.
Natsumi looked at her mother suspiciously, "This doesn't have anything to do with why you've been working three hours late for the last few weeks?"
Aki smiled and nodded yes, then added, "I hadn't thought you'd noticed my late work anymore."
"Oh Mama!" said Natsumi with a little girl shake of her head. For a moment she looked like she was a sports-obsessed seventh grader again, instead of an environmentally conscious maturing teenager, "I always notice when you work extra late, Mama. Even after all these years."
Aki would have hugged her daughter; if either of them had a hand to spare. Instead, she said softly, "Thank you, Natsumi."
Hanene had run all the way to the cabana, crashing through brush that lined the trail, and ignorant of the bugs that swarmed in the garden spotlights. Kururu slouched over at a much slower pace. Kukukuku, she doesn't suspect a thing. When he finally cracked the porch door, Hanene was on the bed, sprawled face down with pillows under her belly and behind her knees. She glanced at him and then immediately turned her attention back to the television, which was broadcasting in a completely foreign, to him and he intuited her as well, Pokopenian language.
He retrieved his hiking backpack from his rucksack and his barely used Keronian Military issue multifunction blade. He then visited the bathroom and opened the cabinet under the sink. A quick peek confirmed that Hanene was completely engrossed in the flickering images and motley disembodied sounds. He removed a chameleon clothed bundle from the back corner and stuffed it in and then laid two towels atop the invisible object. He peeked at Hanene again. Her attention was still on the television. He tiptoed around the corner into the kitchenette and without room lights, opened the small cubical refrigerator. From the drawer at the bottom, behind some leftovers from yesterday's dinner, he procured a bottle of chilled, and for this island, expensive wine. He stabilized the bottle with additional towels this time from a drawer by the stove. Two wine flutes from the shelf over the stove were the final addition.
With one flute in his hand, he gulped. Can I pull this off? Will she believe me? "Airman," he said. "A final walk on the beach and a glass of wine?" He smiled his best bucktoothed grin and waved the flute temptingly. He filled his mind with the taste of cold Blue Nun, the texture of wet and dry gray sand grains under his bare feet, the sound of waves cresting, crowning, crashing and then sliding up in a churning, effervescent froth, which smelled of salt, and seaweed, and medical waste, and all things ocean.
Hanene looked deeply into his glasses. She shivered. She grinned. She licked her lips. She said, "Sure," with an enthusiasm that communicated instantly to Kururu that he was forgiven, though only just barely. She dragged herself from the pillows and followed Kururu, wine flute in hand, out the door to the lanai, and from there out the screened door to the three steps onto the sandy beach. She was silent until they had walked forty paces and were well enshrouded by the darkness. The beach was lit only by the horns of the crescent moon rising from the watery horizon. A stiff breeze fluttered the wings of her cap.
Kururu set down the backpack and unscrewed the capped bottle. He filled one flute and passed it to Hanene and then filled his own. "It's not Keronian Cream," he cackled, "but then what is?"
Hanene raised the glass to the starlight and looked at Kururu through the shimmering red liquid. She sniffed it and said, "I'd think you'd hate grapes?"
"You read the files?" he giggled. "Well, it was a good plan and if my anti-metabolite had worked? Invasion would have been simplicity." He raised his glass. "As the Pokopenians say, I propose a toast."
"To what?" she asked coquettishly. She flirted and batted her long lashes. "To us?"
Kururu shook his head, "To the most entertaining and exhausting vacation I've ever had! Just enough of myself and just enough of everyone else. We'll have to do this again next year? Kanpai!" He clinked his glass against hers and lowered the flute to his lips and sipped the tiniest amount. The liquid was thick and dry on his tongue and had the slightest hint of grape-like fire as it dribbled down his throat.
Hanene lowered her glass and stared into the circular pool of refracting purplish darkness. She looked vaguely disappointed by his evocation. She answered with a half-hearted, "Hear him." and swallowed a gulp. Kururu had already shouldered his bag and was walking through the darkness. She had to slug down another gulp of enriched wine and jog to catch him. Somehow she slipped and slid and pelted across the sand without spilling a drop from her glass. She caught him by the arm.
"I'm sorry. I just worked so long for that puppy and to have it stolen out from under me... that made me frustrated and angry and unhappy. And... and... I took it out on you. I'm still taking it out on you. I just want you, you know? I'm sorry to be so annoying."
Kururu uncharacteristically grunted and gulped another swallow of wine. He abandoned the insufficient flute and took a deep swig out of the bottle. "Know what really annoys me about women like you?" Hanene was taken aback, but he continued, "You flirt and flirt and flirt.. and you never deliver. You disappear the moment your mouth writes a check your butt can't cash!"
He stalked toward her angrily. His left hand gestured with the wine bottle, while his right, unseen, unsnapped the bottom flap of his pack. "You never know how to accept another's feelings or a compliment!" He snared the invisible stuffy with one hand and tore it loose, extended his arm, and with his final words blew off the chameleon cloth, "Or a gift."
Hanene's cross-eyed, astonished stare was focused fully at the mechanical puppy still sealed in cellophane wrapper that Kururu held under the tip of her snout. He chugged another half-liter of wine and cheerily burped at her. He waited for her to do something, say something, anything, but she only stood there and stared. He tossed the now empty bottle aside and placed the gift in her hands with both of his.
She looked to the puppy, then looked to him, then back to the gift. She dropped the toy to the sand where it landed with a cellophane crinkle and a thin sandy pop. She stepped over the package, stood on the discarded chameleon cloth and wrapped her arms around him. Her head nestled on his shoulder; she resonated her name in an airy, breathless squeal and rubbed her cheek against his.
He rocked her in his weak technician's arms and against the wind croaked his own slurred and wine infused resonation.
The harmonized hug and cheek rub was a sort of "Thank you, Kururu." And for once, and for the first time in a long time, he felt completely in control of the situation.
Aki, alone in the kitchen and clearing the remains of the repast, could not identify the moment when dinner had spun out of her control. It certainly wasn't when she had unpacked the food, nor when Natsumi had set the table, nor when Fuyuki had arrived and had pounded up the stairs to shower before joining them. The thick, well vegetated and rich beef stew had gone down quickly and easily enough, as had the curried and sweetened vegetables in the salad.
Dinner still felt under control when Natsumi had announced, "I have a job now, Mama." and then she'd babbled happily about her employment cleaning cages and tanks; feeding reptiles, fish, and amphibians - Not that much of a change admittedly, Aki giggled - and serving customers while merchandising pet supplies. Natsumi's excitement did not falter when Aki had insisted on meeting the employer, explaining that she didn't trust an owner who would hire a customer off the street without even an interview. Natsumi had acquiesced after much whining, sobered by the thought that Allan's largess might not be completely above board. Even Natsumi's resistance had not seemed out of Aki's control.
Fuyuki's trio of announcements came next over the main course of tuna and yellow-tail sashimi and artisan sushi. He first had announced what was already a foregone conclusion: that he and Momoka were officially an item. His sober pronouncement had brought giggles from both his female relatives and a soda toast from Natsumi. Perhaps I lost it when I laughed and warned him to keep his pants on, Aki pondered as she ladled the leftover stew back into a storage tub. He glared at me, like it was none of my business that he behave like a gentleman!
The next bit of news had been that Fuyuki had not made the baseball team, but would audition again next year. That droll delivery - not that he hadn't made it, but that he was resolved to try again- was somewhat shocking. Natsumi was really sympathetic. she thought as she spatula lifted the spiced zebra rice rolls into a flat container, Maybe I should have been more sympathetic? I tried. Really I d id! Fuyuki seemed determined to antagonize me?
Perhaps I lost it when he announced that he was taking shooting lessons with Paul, Aki reflected as she cleared the table, I said "absolutely not" and he made some offer which I didn't hear. Guns? Was he crazy? He stomped out the door after calling me an old-fashioned bitch. That's when I lost control...
Natsumi had raced after her brother, calling his name into the night, leaving only Keroro at the table, who had been fixedly staring into a compact mirror he had propped against a pepper grinder for the entire meal. The alien had eaten sparingly, all the while humming a steady tune of compliments to his reflection. So, Aki had told the Keronian her big news. He had seemed little interested, even when she had suggested that he could write articles on customizing gunpla for extra cash. He'd merely raised his eyes to her, mumbled something about "me time" and excused himself, leaving Aki with a half-finished dinner and three empty seats.
This couldn't have gone so badly if I'd tried. Aki thought with a bite to her lip as she placed the empty dishes in the sink. Everyone was acting so strangely. Have I really been so busy as to not notice?
The mechanized puppy stuffy was warm and dry against her belly and Kururu was a cool and sticky presence a half-meter behind her back. Hanene wanted to sleep, but the questions kept swirling and percolating endlessly - she had to know. She rolled over, gathering the cotton sheets around her, so that she faced the hacker frog with a layer of cloth to insulate and separate them. "How did you know and when?" she whispered. Kururu merely stirred at the sound of her voice and so she shook him. His eyes opened, the golden irises diffracting behind the swirly lenses, and he moaned incoherently. She repeated her question.
"Know what?" he groaned. He was still a quarter drunk, but largely tired. "How did I know you wanted the puppy? Was obvious." He propped himself up on one balled fist and the fluffy pillow and flopped over on his hump. "You were obsessed," he said to the ceiling. He pried the headphones away from his earpads and massaged the cranial pits afore and behind.
"No", Hanene amplified as she slipped from beneath the sheet, crabbed over, and laid her head on he potbelly, "How did you know I was telepathic? How long did you know?"
Kururu tapped at his left lens. "The volleyball game. The heads-up can read etheric and auric disturbance so that I can see..."
"...through women's clothing," interjected Hanene with a giggle.
"Through walls." Kururu corrected with a waggle of one finger and a stuttered grin, "And you, Airman, glow even in sunlight. You're not an endotherm; you're cold blooded. So what's left?" he ticked off possibilities on his fingers, "radioactive, quantum static, and telepathic. You never set off the Geiger counters in my lab, so nix radioactive. I can quite easily determine your position and relative velocity, so you're not quantum static. That leaves etheric manipulation..."
"So the least explanation is the best?" asked Hanene. She raised her head to look over his sternum. He was filling his head with swirling thoughts of sunnies and carp swimming busily in a 50 gallon drum, while he blasted away with a newly designed sonic-beam weapon. He hit nothing, but the fish were floating dead to the surface from the shock waves. Your "shooting fish in a barrel" gun, maybe?
"Mostly. And you have a reflexive tendency to look into people's eyes and stare, like you're watching a good porno." He thumped her snout playfully with all four of his digits. "I've devised means to block you - thinking random thoughts and concentrating very hard - now that I know what you can do, but don't worry: I won't tell anyone. Now, it's my turn?"
"It is a reflex. When someone talks, you look at them. Well you don't, but most people do. When someone talks to me, I look at them and scan them." She shrugged slightly and flirted gallantly, "Your turn to what?" She stroked his collarbone with splayed fingers and wriggled her head up to his chest so that they were almost snout to snout.
He flipped up her KAP wings so that the blue black lining with its pinpoint starlights glittered like the night sky. On the opposite side the gray clouds scudded around the light blue. where his hand touched, an orange glow formed a highlight of sunshine and the faux-clouds shadowed and lit in response. He tugged at the brownish bun tied beneath so that her hair spilled loose. He ran the glossy strands through his fingers. "When I left Keron, wigs and tattoos were all that. When did you get implanted follicles?"
Hanene cocked her head and hugely grinned. "A lot has changed in a hundred years. This is all natural and all mine. Now granted, when I got a stimulation treatment to rearrange the recessive DNA, Mum and Dad had a fit, but they got used to it." She rubbed her cheek against his and wriggled atop him. The hair was oilier than mammal hair and smelled of aquatic Keronian flesh more than arid human skin, but as she buried her face against his shoulder, the learning of watching multiple aroused couples more than Keronian instinct told him what to do: he slid her cap off and stroked the brown strands from raven dark root to brownish tip and embraced her.
Lying chest to chest, with Hanene half atop Kururu and her arm hooked over his shoulder and behind his neck, and both his arms about her and one hand buried in her hair, such was the final position that on their final night they fell to sleep.
Aki heard the two sets of house-slippered feet on the steps a moment after the lights at the upstairs landing lit. There was the exchange of grunts: one female the other teen male. There were no voices, as if nothing had needed to be said, or everything had been said. Aki heard one door open and then close, then the light snapped off and another door opened and then closed. She counted slowly to a thousand, then a hundred more for good measure; she slid her feet to the floor, into her slippers, and pulled her robe close about her. She cracked the door to the hall. Crescent moonlight spilled through the skylight casting the hallway in a purplish, inky, darkness. She padded down to Fuyuki's room and tried the doorknob. She was not surprised that the light was out and the door was locked. She backtracked to Natsumi's room.
Natsumi sat at her desk, feeding crickets one at a time to the Amazonian tree frog, in the indirect light of her desklamp, which was pointed to the far wall. The walls reflected the evil light of classic heavy metal posters, a few of which Aki recognized from the collection she'd squirreled away: memories of Natsumi's father. Her daughter looked up as Aki closed the door behind her and sat on the end of the bed closest to the desk, the seat, and the pajama-clad teenager. Aki waited patiently as Natsumi sealed the bag of live crickets and capped the frog's tank.
The two regarded each other, both nervously wondering which would speak first. Aki started with "Natsumi" at the same moment that Natsumi started "mama" and they both backed off with apologies and insistence that the other continue. They sat in silence as the digital clock silently flipped digits a minute closer to midnight. "You first Mama," Natsumi repeated.
Aki swallowed, "I had news too, remember?' And she told Natsumi the tale of the writer and the financier, their plans, and how and why she quit her job as an art editoress. She apologized that money would become tighter, but comforted that after the first year of issues they'd be clearly in the black and her initial shares would be easily enough to erase the personal debt incurred and more. Natsumi nodded her way through the explanation, the apology, the predictions and the risks. I hope I ended on a positive note, thought Aki.
"Mama, does this mean I'll have to wait on university?" asked Natsumi straightaway. Her eyes held a frightened expectation. "I mean, someday? Will you need my college fund?"
"Oh, I don't think so, Natsumi." She leaned forward and hugged her daughter. "We're not going to be that poor for that long." At least I hope not. I always thought Natsumi would go on a sports scholarship and Fuyuki on his academics and that money wouldn't be so important. Then again... I didn't even know Natsumi was thinking about university or taking her boards. "When did you start thinking about higher education?" she questioned.
Natsumi looked at her fingers, which were knitted on her lap. "I didn't think of it because I always thought. Well, I thought, someday I'd marry Saburo." At her mother's shocked look, she added, "Stupid, huh? I'm glad he showed his true colors before..."
Before you did something you'd regret for 18 years of your life? She patted her daughter's shoulder. "I understand. And now? Now you feel like..."
"... like being independent, Mama. Like you. Maybe study overseas like you always wanted to." Natsumi said. She absently picked at the ridge of callus that had formed across her palm in the exact width of the hoe shaft. "I want to make the world a better place, so I've been thinking: maybe sports isn't the best way to make a mark, or poetry. I don't want to just entertain people. I want to help the planet and for that I need sciences and maths and a lot more of them than 'rocks for jocks' and 'chem for fems'. It's okay to change, isn't it Mama?" She looked hopefully at her mother, seeking approval in Aki's demeanor. She was rewarded when Aki smiled and nodded consent.
I understand now. All the sudden changes in Natsumi, she's becoming less selfish and seeing a bigger world than her own backyard. That's good isn't it? Healthy? She always was a bit self-centered and she still wants to be a hero, but not for herself. She wants to benefit others. I couldn't ask for more, except for... Aki changed the subject as deftly as she could, which was admittedly clumsy even to her own ears, "Fuyuki..."
"Fuyuki is in love, Mama. I know how he feels." Natsumi switched from picking at the ridge of callus to digging dirt from underneath her fingernails. She looked her mother straight in the eye, "Do you remember when you first fell in love, Mama? When you first knew you loved my Father, Haruki?" she stopped when her mothers green eyes darkened and downcast.
A husband and a first love? Would she be able to handle the truth? If I told her they're not one and the same? Setec Astronomy: too many secrets? Aki snorted at the memory of her first date with her first love and the grope fest in the back of the darkened midnight third run cinema. You weren't conceived that night my daughter, but then maybe... I was pregnant with you when I met Haruki and you were a year old when we married. "You're all your father, Natsumi. He wanted to change the world too." she said without revealing her thoughts, "and Fuyuki is all me. I wanted to be loved too. That's why I worry so much about him. And this gun thing?" She shook her head and appealed to Natsumi with a palms-up pleading.
She was surprised when Natsumi leaped out of her chair and hugged her. "He just wants to protect the ones he loves, Mother. And you are loved. And I am. And Momoka too. And even those stupid frogs. There is no love lost, ever, even when we all fight."
Aki embraced her daughter and wondered for the second time that week: When did my daughter become so wise?
Hanene topped the crest of Pokopen's atmosphere and the curve of the horizon was gradually flattening as her aquamarine skimmer thundered down in a powered descent. The flanges on her headgear whipped, twisted and billowed out behind her. Kururu had both his arms tight around her belly. His head was directly behind hers and his headphone's noise-blankers took the shriek out of the atmospheric maelstrom that sliced through the deflectors. Asia filled their view and then the Japanese isles and the view narrowed until finally Okinawa hovered into their sight through a break in the high cirrus, just to the south of the long mountainous upthrust of Japan proper. Kururu let out a warcry of the sheerest excitement and pumped one fist into the wind in victory as they rocketed downward. Hanene glanced back at him out of the corner of a single violet eye. She raised her eyelid in surprise. He giggled, and smiled and warwhooped again as she deftly flipped the tiny craft into a barrelroll. Her own chirruping cry joined his and they spiraled through a lower cumulus and leveled off over the Pacific Ocean.
She slowed and activated the NMP field as they glided in over Okinawa city harbor. The rising sun was at their back and the long shadow fingers of the city slanted inland. The towboats were already chugging through the harbor nosing transports of all size and descriptions towards or away from their berths. A single cruise ship was steaming away, turning slowly to the north, with small clusters of travelers jogged her decks. Hanene made a low pass over them: precision weaving between the triple smoke stacks before rocketing off towards shore and the exotic collection of junks at the fishing docks.
They soon left the harbor behind as Hanene hopped and slalomed the skimmer up the city streets. She had Nishizawa towers in the crossbars of her holographic heads-up display and the navigation system glowed a small dot nearby: the Hinata house, the Keronian base, home. She pulled the craft into a steep climb, flipped over at the apex and then again at the baseline in a perfect double Immelman loop. Kururu gripped her more tightly and to his credit he didn't lose his last island breakfast. He giggled again and shout-whispered in her earspot, "Stop showing off!"
She had no intention of stopping: showing off or otherwise. She dropped to street level and flew into oncoming traffic. She dodged left. She dodged right. She hopped over. She slid between buses. She shot under a delivery truck and a jacked SUVs. Kururu woohooed his way through the rollercoaster ride. She slowed only as she swooped a high-angled banking turn near Kisshou School and skimmed up the weekend-quiet street to the Hinata house. The building was much as they left it two weeks before, but as Hanene hovered over the rear fence, she noticed vast differences unobvious from the street. Each south-facing window now had a window box of dirt. The backyard, once covered with grass and haphazardly seeded weeds was now laid out in neat dirt squares. Rows of infant seedlings were sprouting in egg cartons near the patio doors. The bald spot where Giroro's tent had been set was gone, but so was the circular outline of the hidden hangar iris. And there was Natsumi, working with an edger, neatly squaring each garden plot with plastic planter barriers.
For lack of any other place to land, Hanene hovered, hesitated, dithered, and finally set down on the abbreviated patio adjoining the rear stoop. The skimmer's engines keened, then died with a murmur and a final belch of ionized air. She nodded to Kururu who loosed his death grip on her belly. She slipped her feet out of the graviton restraining fields, which held her to the lavender deck plating. She hopped over the cooling engine and released the evergreen strap holding her duffel. She slowly cruised around the rear nacelles and inspected the exhaust ports, first right, then left. She released the matching strap on the opposite side that restrained Kururu's forest-digitally muffled duffelbag. She completed her inspection by examining the intake ports, the front impellers, and the bug-shield deflector generator. She nodded. Her flying machine was in copacetic condition.
Kururu was also in copacetic condition, but he still hadn't stirred. He stood wobbling on equiangularly spread legs as though he might at the slightest feather's pressure topple onto his bony gluteus maximus. She tilted her head at him and quirked a cute smile. "It's okay honey-skin. You can move now."
"Certainly I can. I'm waiting for a propitious moment to want to move." Kururu replied. His knees quaked and he inched his ankles out of the restraining field. He slid backward and by degrees and millimeters brought his knees together. He turned slowly and looked over the hump of the rear motivator between the nacelles. He dived until his lips hit the spiky grass at which point he kissed and hugged the ground like a Catholic pope. "I'm so glad to be down. I'm so glad to be down!"
His act was all to obviously that: an act, and way over the top. This time it was Hanene's turn to giggle. She snagged Kururu's bundle and helped him up to lean against it. "Are you suddenly thinking of safe women?" She braced him as he rose unsteadily to his feet. His knees quaked and he nearly collapsed. She steadied him and lifted him to sit on his duffel while she fetched her own. "C'mon techi-nician. Let's get based."
She shouldered her pack and moved off around the corner of the house. She knew full well she could enter through the back door, emerging into the pantry, but Natsumi was closer and even now with her mission in abeyance she wanted to "interrogate" her target. She walked around the corner and then cut up the path between the soil plots, turned right and approached the bent and industrious Natsumi. "Hey Saburo-girl Natsumi", she simpered. "We're home! Where's your meat, errr.. boyfriend?"
Natsumi-chan gave her the sparest squint, one she normally reserved for Keroro when he successfully got her goat. Her voice was a measured mix of sarcastic and merry, "Hello Hanene. What rock did you find to crawl out under? And why don't you go back?" The girl giggled at her own cleverness and then became more serious. She cast her eyes down thoughtfully and muttered, "Saburo Mutsumi is wherever Saburo is and I really couldn't care less."
Hanene was taken aback by the girl's declaration. The psychic reflex tickled at her midbrain. She would have studied Natsumi's face. She would have stared into her soul. She would have, but Natsumi was turned back towards the muddied soil and was cutting moistened soil with the flat-edge. S he definitely seemed very much in love with Saburo two weeks ago. S omething feels wrong about this. I don't recall any intelligence about Natsumi liking gardening. She looked to Natsumi's left, where a bucket held dirt and banana slugs and worms. She watched as Natsumi carefully removed another particularly juicy nightcrawler from the soil and placed it kindly and delicately into the bucket. And I definitely recall reading that she hates slugs and worms of all kinds. This doesn't wash. I wish she'd turn so I could read her.
Natsumi continued, under sweat and labored breath, without sparing the aquamarine frog a second glance, "I'm sorry Hanene, but I want to finish this by nightfall." She cracked the patio door without looking left or right. "And I hate to be rude, but you're blocking the sunlight." Her words almost echoed across the yard, over the fence, and maybe all the way to Hawaii. She duck waddled forward to give Hanene room to pass behind her.
Hanene shuffled around Natsumi and pushed her duffelbag through the gap in the door. She sidled through behind the cloth bag. She trusted that Kururu could find his own way around the industrious Natsumi. She breathed hard and relaxed into the familiar sounds of the Hinata home, all seemed right again, until she looked up to the kitchen island's countertop. There, perched on the edge, sat Zeroro: crosslegged and meditative. His emotionlessly calm blue eyes stared fixedly over his face mask at Natsumi working on the other side of passively cooling glass.
Hanene looked up at him and he glared down at her. He drew and then motioned down with his katana, "You!" he said, under his breath, "I know you. Look carefully, half-breed. I will be your death! Or to the least your pain!"
Okayyyyy, that was a little drama queen even for Zeroro, thought Hanene. She recalled the behavioral profile she had memorized on the environmentalist assassin, This is not the Zeroro I met on the tower back at Christmastime. Okay, yeah, the racism is still there, but he wouldn't be sitting here guarding the backdoor would he? And where is his partner? Koyuki should be sitting there with him. Those two are supposed to be inseparable.
He could not be real, like real as in reality, but he was, with his blade an inch from her snout that was quickly withdrawn as Kururu stumbled through the patio door with his own pack in tow. Kururu slid the door closed and looked at her expectantly in the instant Zeroro withdrew his blade. His gaze shifted minutely between Hanene and Kururu and back again: a threat evaluation. Hanene knew an opportunity when she saw one. She refocused her own violet eyes and looked into the blue, ninja frog.
He opened quickly, like a well-read book with a weakened spine, and though she had never been within his mind; everything looked familiar: the disciplined and peaceful mind of a Zen warrior, yes, but littered with the potholes and trenches of traumas past, real and imagined. There, enshrined in the center of his thoughts was Natsumi and beneath them, like a pedestal supporting a statue, an abiding love of nature substituting for a family's nurture. Natsumi? Yes, definitely Natsumi. Someone's Natsumi: Mother's? Brother's? Whose? She couldn't recognize the source of the desire, but it was not Zeroro's own. Hanene shook her head to clear the image. The feeling of foreignness within Zeroro's soul could not escape her notice. Natsumi does not belong there.
Momoka found Tamama shivering in the enormous bed set aside for his exclusive use. She crawled across the wide expanse of comfortable fluffiness of the featherdown quilt. Tamama had ignored the proper bed dressing and was wrapped in fetal position under a rough fiber blanket. He had likewise ignored the pillows in favor of balling up his combat cap and resting his neck on the knotted leather bundle. His eyelids were crusted with mucus and he pawed the air occasionally like a drowning man grasping for the surface or an infant seeking a baby bottle. Sheesh, thought Momoka, neither of those make a bit of sense. Frogs can swim and they don't nurse. She shook the quaking shoulder to hopefully awaken the frog from the throes of his nightmare.
Tamama only rolled away from her hand. He muttered indistinct syllables and drooled, but Momoka was certain she heard, "My soul... sell my soul..."
I didn't think aliens had souls, she thought, but then, I'm not sure I have one either. I wonder what my Fuyuki-kun would say to that? She snorted. Fuyuki would say something very combat zen.
Hanene tipped an imaginary fedora to the iconically unflinching ninja frog and set upon hauling her bundle. She skirted the serving island, passed the television, which displayed a Channel 40 anime that featured some big blathering botho whispering manly words to his angelic love. She watched the screen for some seconds before switching off the viewer with a spare hand. She hauled her bag onwards. She hauled her bag passed the empty couch and out the doorway to the foyer. She plodded down the entry hallway and came opposite the wide gap to the front den.
A woman lay across the divan. One arm trailed over the edge and the other was laid across her forehead. Her legs were stretched out. She had a damp cloth across her forehead and her eyes were closed. This was Fuyuki and Natsumi's mother? She did not look like the master of all masters and thwarter of all plans that Keroro had described in his reports to Headquarters. She looked exhausted: more emotionally than physically. She looked haggardly in in Hanene's direction and Hanene was instantly flooded with a piercing weariness.
Hanene refused to probe more deeply into the woman's obvious depression. She backed herself and Kururu towards the crawlspace door. She was glad when Kururu opened the hinged portal, and happier when she could slide down the ladder, out of the range of of the woman's eyes . T hose eyes? What could cause all that exhaustion? I don't grok it. She slid down, caught the duffels as Kururu dropped them and then nearly caught Kururu as he tried to imitate her acrobatic descent.
"Who was that?" Hanene asked, playing the role of the ignoramus.
Kururu recovered from his pell-mell slide-fall. He lifted his rucksack from the wall against which Hanene had leaned it. "That's the infamous Aki. She is a dynamite woman. A prime example of Pokopenian gorgeousness." he enthused. "Didn't you meet her in all these months? Didn't you read her file?"
Hanene shook her head and shouldered her own sack. "She's so tired. Is she always that way?" At Kururu's shake of head, Hanene added, "I wonder what is causing her depression?"
Fuyuki leveled the lightgun pistol across his face as he tucked and rolled into the bunker. The parabellum was perfectly balanced to feel like a real Sig Sauer P229 9mm, only the power cord that trailed from his wrist, down his arm, and across his shoulder to the battery pack on his neck revealed the device as a harmless imitation. A target popped: a pistol wielding terrorist. Fuyuki's hands flew. He chambered an imaginary round and fired. Though there was no smoke, the gun spoke like a firecracker; the grip kicked identically as a beam of invisible light lanced out and discharged the sensor on the target's chest. The target flattened back into the stage - a critical hit. Two more terrorists at a table were dispatched with headshots of equal precision. All that remained were the two props representing the hostages.
The klaxon sounded the end of the simulation and Fuyuki doffed his helmet. He removed a water bottle from his utility belt and gulped two mouthfuls: the first he spat out on the dirt floor and the second he swallowed. The back wall of the bunker slid upwards to reveal Paul behind a bay window, alone, behind a control desk a story above Fuyuki's head. He pulled a microphone on a serpent boom close to his lips and congratulated the junior soldier, "Good run, my boy. Go again?"
Fuyuki shook his head. "No Paul-sir. I have to get home." Fuyuki walked through the door below Paul's window and clambered up the staircase to the control and observation level. Through the window he could see the hectare of cylindrical warehouse that Paul had nicknamed "Planet Hell" after, he confided, some obscure television show reference Fuyuki had merely nodded at and pretended to understand. The training facility was extremely flexible for a static area: there were three small bunkers at 120 degree intervals, uneven terrain, and a collection of actuators to simulate weather ranging from high noon in the desert to torrential rains in the dead of night. "What did I score?"
Paul turned his seat away from the gaudy blinkenlight controls. "Five of ten terrorists disabled. All hostages rescued. One injured in crossfire. Tactical score..." Paul leaned back to check the readout. "Thirty-sixth percentile." Fuyuki looked crestfallen and he added, "Really, this isn't bad for a beginner on the easy course."
"Really?" asked Fuyuki. His head cocked and he raised a curious eyebrow. Fuyuki checked the imaginary safety on his "weapon" before detaching the power and actuator cabling. He laid the gun simulacrum on a nearby desk and loosened the straps on the battery backrig. He was sweaty and wanted a shower and to change out of the neon camouflage and into his freshly washed and ironed street clothes.
Paul shut down the board before pressing a stud marked "return". The control deck rose on hydraulics to the third story of the circular building and hooked into tracks. The deck trolleyed slowly sideways, rotating about the simulator a full 180 degrees until the hatch at the back matched the egress hatchway on the wall. Fuyuki unlatched the door and headed for the locker room. "Hey, Paul," he called over his shoulder, "Could you do me a favor?"
Paul poked his head out of the hatchway and looked down the hallway towards Fuyuki before stepping through and bolting the hatch behind him. "I might be able to. It depends on the favor."
Fuyuki walked back to Paul who was adjusting his back with a crackle of popping vertebra. "My Mother doesn't approve of guns and shooting, but I'd like to keep practicing. Could you talk to her?" he inquired earnestly. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hands. "I enjoy the exercise and it really is helping my stamina and aim."
"Go get washed." Paul nodded. "We'll take you home and I'll talk to Aki."
Hanene and Kururu plodded forward. They went left, the left again, and there was Keroro's door. Hanene advanced and her fingers were on the knob when a Pokopenian hand pressed against her own. She jerked back, then fell back, then fell against Kururu, who also fell back and they landed in a heap opposite the green, gold-starred door. A translucent Pokopenian hung there in mid-air. She metronomed a cautionary upright finger in warning and moved to block the entry. She held up a single hand to halt their passage.
Hanene looked to Kururu, who was hall under his own duffel under her duffelbag. He shook his head, "It's a Pokopenian akasha. Ignore it." Hanene straightened him and straightened herself.
"You would pass the spirit of the unsettled undead?" she said incredulously.
"What? Do you want an energy sword to slice it in two?" he replied with a viperish smile. "Ignore her. She is but a blasphemous ectoplasmic remnant. There is no such thing as a spirit if you do not believe", he declared pompously.
Hanene turned and reached through the ephemeral young woman. A chill moved along Hanene's arm as the apparition's etheric disturbance drew heat from her blood. The aluminum doorknob crepitated blue-white with the static electricity at the surfaces and across the joints as Hanene turned it. The bolt slowly withdrew from the doorframe and Hanene cautiously cracked open the door. She peered through the gap and saw events she instantly knew she would never wish to see again.
Saburo, in his t-shirt and boxer shorts was bad enough, and Mois riding his hips was positively sinful, but the paper-sketch outline of Mois, with magic ink smears falling off her onto the sheets and his cheeks, riding his face, was breathtakingly embarrassing. His "magic" pen and a roll of butcher paper lay abandoned on the floor. The worst though was the tassel-capped Keroro, who was studiously ignoring the trio and the creaking of his own bed. He stared into a paddle mirror and spoke kind words to his reflection. He looked over the edge of the mirror at Hanene and yawned hugely at her before saluting with a lazy hand.
Hanene looked into the Sergeant's eyes and, deeper and deeper, and sensed only a wanting... an obsession... of Keroro himself? She glanced over the paper doll's shoulder at the dry-humping Angol's mind, which was not much more substantial than that cardboard cut-out's, and discovered a sexual obsession with Saburo subjugating affections she'd seen many months before when she'd first probed the blond-haired creature. That obsession that did not belong in Mois any more than the obsession with Keroro belonged in Keroro's mind or the obsession with Natsumi belonged in Zeroro's thoughts.
Hanene slammed the door before Kururu could see the orgiastic interior and formulate an inappropriate remark. She turned heel right, abandoned her pack on the concrete floor and strode down the dark hallway. She advanced on and then up the ladder. Kururu was silent on her tail. Had he been any closer and anymore bent to the ground, he could have licked her vents. She and her vents were very much not interested.
"What, what is it?" he questioned, but she shushed him with a flash of her palm. "I thought we were going down to the base?" he protested.
Hanene stopped and put her balled fists on her hips. "There's something really strange going on here," she declared. "I want to find out what. Something happened while we were gone."
Hanene sat on the floor with Natsumi's laptop and poetry journal, Aki's proxidater, Fuyuki's homework schedule, and the paper calendar with family chores marked, arrayed about her. On screen she had opened terminal windows and secured connections to the base computer. She groused and complained about the screen resolution, about the mouse, about the quarter-stroke QWERTY keyboard without Keronian or kata-kana overlays, indeed, about everything up to and including having to translate every number from base 10 to base 4 and back again. The MacIntosh to Keronian Etherspatial interface was not as compatible as she would have liked. She swore a colorful array of foreign language Rigelian curses that widened Kururu's eyes behind his glasses. He was about to help her, when Hanene suddenly linked into the database and brought up the virtual logbooks of Keroro, Tamama, and Mois.
She tapped one earspot, "Passive telepathy remember? Like with the flying spy-eye? All I had to do was make you think about it to know how to fix it."
Oh, thought Kururu. She doesn't need to peer into my soul just to read what I think. She probably spends most of her mental energy trying not to think the extraneous thoughts of others. Like static in a radio clouding the important messages; sometimes there's messages in the static.
She announced she was ready to begin her investigation. First, she opened Natsumi's poetry journal. Starting from a month earlier, she silently read each poem with darting anxious eyes eyes that gradually became more and more heavily lidded and more and more bored. After each entry, she scribbled and muttered and summarized the poem's subject onto a sun-yellow adhesive note, "Saburo..." Pause. "Saburo..." Pause. An endless repetition as she strained to read just one more sappy romantic poems replete with ellipsis, off-rhymes, and scrawled notes."Saburo..." Pause. "Saburo..." Pause. "Oh, wait," said Hanene excitedly, "this is one about the stupidity of frogs... she mentions you by name. Something about you spying on her in the bathtub?"
Kururu knew what day that was, but he only shrugged. "I didn't know she saw me. I was just up to clean the surveillance camera," he half-lied. He filled his mind with thoughts of maintenance left unfinished before the vacation just in case Hanene was probing.
He was relieved when she went back to her perusal of the poetry journal. "And the next day... there's one poem about how beautiful the world can be and then..." Hanene flipped the pages back and forth and then quickly riffled the pages to the end, "...nothing?"
Even Kururu's interest was piqued by the observation. "No more poems about my pet Pokopenian?"
"No more poems at all. No notes. Nothing," Hanene furrowed her brow. "Why would she just suddenly lose interest in poetry and Saburo? Remember what she said to me outside?" Hanene shook her head and carefully dealt the adhesives onto the chores calendar so that each synopsis corresponded to the date on which the poem was written.
Next she played Keroro's virtual logbook. Each was a long-winded video report: endless reports of lack of success at even thinking of a new invasion plan, equally endless accounts of Gunpla he was building or modding. The aquamarine frog duly compiled page after page of notes on a green pad of stickies. There were a few personal notes on the staff and Hanene dimpled when her leader breathlessly claimed that Hanene was a competent team member, if only he could find a use for her beyond hangover cures. Hanene and Kururu ceased watching the screen and stared up at the ceiling and listened. She just jotted notes. He turned up the music in his headphones.
Hanene sat up. She tugged at Kururu's arm and motioned that he should lower his personal volume. Kururu obliged and then he heard it, or rather did not hear it too. The log had gone silent.
They could both see Keroro. He was staring out at them from the screen. He reached forward as though to touch them, but was in truth touching his own image below the camera. He cooed at the camera and said "logbook, logbook on my desk, what frog's face just screams good sex?" The pitch of Keroro's voice changed and he answered his question with his own name.
Kururu and Hanene looked significantly at each other and then back to the MacIntosh. There were 14 more virtually identical log entries that followed and then the log terminated. Kururu was the first to speak. "That looked normal to me," he opened with a maniacal giggle.
Hanene laughed. "I looked into his head. He's just as distracted as ever, but now he's distracted by himself. It was like... his selfishness was enhanced."
"Not selfishness," snorted Kururu. "Narcissism. Self-love. Are you familiar with that Pokopenian myth?" Hanene crinkled her left brow and rubbed the ridge of her earspot. She shook her head and deliberately began to deal her green Post-It notes onto the calendar. Kururu continued, "It is very unscientific. There was a stupid and beautiful young Pokopenian named Narcissus who fell so deeply in love with himself that he tried to seduce his own reflection in a pond and drowned. Keroro has been on the laser's edge of that for years," he lied, "It's no wonder he cracked."
Hanene looked up from the calendar as she dealt the last note. "Do you know what I think?"
"No?" Kururu humphed, "I'm not a telepath." Kururu closed his eyes. He intentionally filled his mind with every time that Keroro had behaved arrogantly, proudly, or any manner other than submissive. Granted he was moisture drunk most of those times, kukukuku.
"I think you've been reading too many of Fuyuki's books." She playfully pushed him and was overjoyed when after a moments' reflection he playfully pushed her back, perhaps a bit too hard. She bounced back and knocked him over in a coup de grace before calling his attention back to the time indexes, "Look at this?" she tapped the calendar, "Keroro's strange log entries started on the same day Natsumi stopped writing poetry. I saw him that morning. It was the morning we left. He was working on his newest super deluxe model and broke to sign our DLM-9700AR Leave Request forms in triplicate. He didn't seem obsessed with his own reflection and he globulously wasn't ignoring reality and obsessing over a hand mirror..."
"Hand mirror?" asked Kururu in curiosity.
"Never mind," Hanene said with a flip of her hand, "Point is, he was fine at 0900 and he was different by the time he recorded this at 1700. Whatever happened to change him and Natsumi happened on the day we left, between 9 and 5." Hanene was on a roll. She closed the window on Keroro's logbook and flipped to Mois records, which were thankfully a compendium of written communications logs: recording the times, participants, and digital recording reference number of each transmission to or from the basecom console. There was nothing unusual in the substance of the reports that Hanene could discern.
Kururu pointed over her shoulder at the form blank that was to be filled with her commanding officer's name, "Look at that line?"
"I don't see what you mean?" said Hanene. Kururu paged among the documents. There was a quadruple figure-eight - the symbol of the Angolian heart - after the end of Keroro's name and then suddenly the love-symbol disappeared and for fourteen submissions the heart was absent. Hanene drew a heart on fourteen buckwheat colored notes and pasted them to the calendar. "I see a pattern. Don't you?"
Kururu gulped as quietly as he could. He could see the pattern too. When Hanene scooped up Fuyuki's homework planner, which she'd purloined from the boy's school bookbag, he almost knew what she would find. Fuyuki's room had been filled with books, decorated with posters of fantastical aliens and dragons and occult symbols. Now, however, the room was noticeably different: the books were somewhat fewer, but most notably the posters of extraterrestrials, assaurians, and ideograms were replaced with a single poster of a baseball player in the act of hitting a home run. Someone has been redecorating?
Hanene thumbed through Fuyuki's planner. Every detail of his schoolwork and homework assignments was there: the time the assignment had been given, the time he'd taken to complete a task, and the time he'd scheduled to do the next task. She flipped directly to the first school day 14 days prior and then advanced page by page. 'Look at this!" she twittered, her eyes opening by degrees at each new discovery. "Meet with baseball coach? Occult Club Meeting canceled? Canceled! Baseball scrimmage? Gun practice with Paul! And it all started the day we left!"
"Maybe you did something to them?" Kururu said with mephistophelean insistence. "They were all fine until you left." He suppressed his own thoughts. He filled his mind with puppies balancing on popping pogo sticks. He filled his mind with naked Pokopenian women rubbing their fine breasts over his face and body. He filled his mind with anything but the thought of the design of the affection exchanger. Anything, anything but that.
Hanene turned like a tassel at the end of the post; she whipped about, "Anything but what?" she menaced. Her hand flew out and she grasped Kururu by the throat. The sudden violence shocked him. She drove him back against the opposite wall, "You've been hiding something from me for hours. Filling your head with garbage. What is it you're hiding?" His flailing limbs knocked over the endtable by Aki's double bed. Hanene throttled the yellow frog, thumping his head against the wall, "WHAT DID YOU DO TO THEM, YOU STUPID VENT?!"
Kururu could only gulp and, try as he might not to, think of the No Love Lost gun, "Uhhhhhhh..."
The gun was exactly where Kururu had dropped it before he was hauled away on vacation. Hanene watched as he lifted it, hefted it, and examined the controls built into its stock. If he hadn't explained on the way down, I'd be furious. Of course, having him in a headlock was kind of fun. "So, what did you do?"
"This," he lofted the weapon overhead with both his hands, "copies engrams from one entity with a brain to another. Specifically those engrams associated with affection. I convinced Keroro we could use it for an invasion. I could show you the presentation?"
Hanene shook her head. But you really just wanted to use it to get me off your back? Whose affections were you going to give me? Keroro's? Natsumi's? Maybe Tamama's? "But it had another use, huh?"
"Yes," he admitted sheepishly. "I was going to use it to make you forget about me. And maybe get you killed in the process, but it didn't work. It might be the mental powers or maybe your genes." He shook his head and pondered. "Anyhow, it looks like the transfer energy got away from me. It bounced off you and went..."
He shrugged, "Anywhere... well not anywhere. The transfer is bound by the finite light principle. See this meter? The whole shot took a tenth of a second plus or minus a bit. The transfer could only travel about...," he calculated the conversion silently and then converted to base 10, "30,000 clicks. That rules out another planet let alone an interstellarship and it wouldn't travel in a straight line. It bounced around for 30,000 clicks and transfered infections from one intelligent entity to another."
"So, they could have affections from any of the billions of Pokopenians on this planet?" asked Hanene incredulously. "We'll never get anyone back to normal."
"Who said we can get them back to normal? I suppose if we found everyone who was affected I could just reinforce the old affections by copying them back. I suppose I could modify the trap to imprison the implanted engram instead of copying the topmost one and thereby eliminate the overlay. I don't know for certain," he pondered. The gun's barrel trailed negligently on the floor and Kururu occasionally waved the weapon in exasperation. He ranted, "It's not like I meant this to happen! I just wanted..."
Hanene blocked his path and thumped him on his bony chest. "It doesn't matter what you wanted. It matters what we can do to fix it. Now, you said all we had to do was find the people who were affected."
"And you said," he grumbled, "that there's billions of possibles. Six-point-seven-five thousand million possibles to be precise. I don't know about you, but I don't plan to spend the rest of my life scanning individual Pokopenians for extrinsic engramatic signals!" He swung the gun at the lab table. Glassware shattered. Bottles flew. Random chemicals splashed. Tiny hazardous material cleanup robots whirred out of cubbies in the walls and popped up out of recesses in the floor. They sprayed nanobots and applied sponges and wipes. Their diligence took away some of the satisfaction of smashing stuff. Kururu slammed both hands flat on the tabletop and heaved a ragged exhale.
Hanene walked up behind the heaving hacker and gripped his slight shoulders to either side of his bony hump. She pushed with her thumbs at the tension in his neck: kneaded and massaged until his breathing regulated. She whispered in his ear, "Now, let's cool down a bit. What can we do to narrow down that seven billion person haystack?" She hooked a stool with her left foot and slid it under him. He sat and then she sat. She looked deeply into his swirly lenses, "Think. What does the transfer energy do. Is there anything you haven't told anyone?"
Kururu answered promptly, "It assumes the shape of the affection that's uppermost in the source brain and then is redirected to mold another set of engrams in another brain to match. The more dissimilar the source and destination, the longer the copying requires and the less accurate it is." he shrugged one shoulder. "That's something I didn't tell Keroro."
"Sooo..." whistled Hanene, "that's what happens if the transfer is directed by the gun, right. You can squirt the transfer where you want it to go and make it transform the brains you want. What would happen if the transfer didn't have any, ahem... intelligence directing it?"
"It would transform whatever brain it hit, copying at pure chance, it would..." Kururu paused, "No! wait! It wouldn't! The energy flows 'downhill'. It seeks the easiest path. It would transform engrams that were most similar to the ones it had already transformed! It would go from friend to friend! That's it!"
"What is?" asked Hanene even as Kururu jumped from his stool and charged to his PC. He rattled the keyboard with his staccato keypresses. On the screen, five datatables opened and winnowed and then intersected. By the time the screen had settled, the single result set contained only 200 entries.
"We suspect that Mois, Keroro, Fuyuki, Dororo, and Natsumi were infected, yes?" Kururu asked as his fingers flew. He didn't wait for Hanene to agree before he continued. "Well, by taking each of their phonebooks, contact lists, buddy lists, friend's list and looking for common elements and then eliminating anyone who isn't on Pokopen, and then cross referencing anyone they know who also knows others, we have..."
"A 200 being haystack?" Hanene squinted. “How does that help us?"
Kururu ran back to the lab table and swept up the No Love Lost Gun. He sprang to his workbench and began tossing drawers for tools and supplies. "I'll modify the gun. You..." he dug in a drawer and produced a mobile phone. "Start calling people. Get them here. Make an excuse."
Hanene caught the mobile phone and looked to the list on the screen. My fingers are going to get awfully tired, she thought as she dialed the first of many numbers.
Hanene and Kururu paced in opposite direction up and down the motley cast of characters ringing the base swimming pool. Kururu scanned each individual in turn for foreign affection engrams - indeed, any thought that did not belong. One affection transplant was obvious and required no scanning: Keroro protested that there was nothing wrong with him, nothing at all. He might have been believable if he hadn't delivered the entire flowery protestation to the reflection in his hand mirror.
Most were less obvious. Kururu eliminated the parents Nishizawa first; Bayo was annoyed at the inconvenience to his schedule, but his wife studiously stoic and calmed him. They departed, unconcerned of the remaining proceedings, even as Kururu's scanning detected an affection infection in their beloved daughter. Momoka was tearful that she was abandoned to face uncertainty alone and Fuyuki crossed the glossy tiled floor to hold her and wipe tears from her ruddy cheeks.
Space Detective Kogoru and Rabi were next to be cleared at their own insistence. Kogoru toyed with a tiny, transparent-green, plastic cube he rolled between his powerful fingers as Kururu fruitlessly scanned him. The alien merely chuckled and his sister bowed repeatedly at both of the Keronians. "I'm so sorry! So sorry we didn't have...whatever it is you were looking for! So sorry!" She was still bowing and scraping and apologizing as Hanene all but ejected them with extreme prejudice out the swinging double doors.
Saburo was eliminated next and after Natsumi slapped him hard, he slouched over to a lounge chair and unwrapped a lollipop. He lay there, sucking on the candy, humming, with a little smile on his face and a flaming handprint on his lean left cheek. Aki was relieved when she was the next to be removed from the queue and looked on with concern as both Natsumi and Fuyuki failed.
Meru and Maru surfaced from the pool to be scanned, along with the rest of their royal entourage. A few quick passes on each and Kururu pronounced them unaltered. "Not that fish have a lot of engrams to start with," he muttered. Sumomo and her back-up band were also quick to pass. Her manager was all too anxious to get them back on tour. Hanene shook her head as they departed, "And you think fish don't have engrams?" she confided in Kururu, "That one could give brainless lessons to a fish."
Tamama squeaked and squealed denials when extremely odd patterns were detected in his own neuronal firing - "something more than affection exchange" Kururu muttered. Koyuki seemed unperturbed by her affection alteration as did Paul, Mois, and Dororo. The rest of the crowd, aliens and humans alike, departed, leaving only the nine affected with Kururu and Hanene.
"Well," Kururu drawled as he set down the scanner and shouldered the modified affection exchanger. "I'll sort these out and figure out what goes where." He patted Hanene on the shoulder, "You might as well unpack. I can handle the rest..." he waved the gun's split-barreled muzzles negligently in the direction of his victims, causing everyone remaining to duck or cringe, "... of this lot."
Hanene emptied the second rucksack into her footlocker. There was an emptied pair of miniature plastic sake bottles left over from the beach blanket party. There was the volleyball with the inflation button still indenting the side. There was the bottle of massage oil. There was the collection of shiny pebbles. Each item, once simply an object, was imbued with the gleam of pleasant memories.
Finally, there was the tiny faux-puppy stuffy with floppy ears that barked when she pressed the stud and waddled about intelligently. She clicked the hidden off switch and the light died in the simulacrum's eyes. She concealed Kururu's gift behind the skin care products on the top shelf of her locker. Her knuckles brushed something warm in the darkness behind the tubes and vials. The smooth surface was vibrating slightly, whatever it was. Hanene cleared aside the medicines and peeked over the edge of the shelf.
In the back, the force-ring crystals floated on seeming fluid within the hollow glass tube. The rings were glowing and swirling energetically: aquamarine rings lit the yellow particles in the golden semi-fluid and stirred the glittering mix into a frenzy. Hanene poked the tube and the warmth was electric. She jerked back her hand and then pressed it more experimentally to the base. The black marble was cool. She slid the device from the back and held it before her eyes. It's the gift my father gave me, and I still have no idea what it does. I wish he'd told me?
Art by the Chumducky
She hurriedly tossed the gift under the pillow of her mattress as Keroro trudged into the dormitory. He yawned broadly. "Airman? Would you monitor the base? Kururu is sending us all to bed for a week."
Switching affections suddenly must be draining, Hanene reflected. "Yes, Sergeant. Standing orders?"
Keroro shrugged: "Just keep the lights on, yes? And keep everything quiet? And if headquarters calls; tell them something convenient, de arimasu." He yawned again against the back of his palm and stretched. "My eyes hurt. G'night." He trudged back out the doorway.
Hanene retrieved her Father's present from beneath the pillow. The device was still glowing and flickering, and the humming was now audible and syncopated like two heartbeats slowly diverging and then coming into line and then parting again. I need someplace private where I can examine this. Somewhere without sleeping Keronians. She pondered, then brightened. She wrapped the gift in an insulated hot pack and stuffed the whole into her shoulderbag. She whistled and the lights dimmed. A quick trip to the communications console to route any calls from headquarters, then I can examine this thing... again.
Privacy, as it turned out, was difficult to achieve. Hanene had first hidden herself in the hall closet until an exhausted Koyuki and a disgusted Dororo had discovered her. Under a Mimicry blanket, on the living room floor, proved just as worthless. Only minutes had passed there before Mois had jerked the blanket off Hanene and covered herself with the chameleon cloth. Fuyuki's room: no. Under Aki's bed: no. Natsumi's closet? Too crowded with sports equipment and long abandoned toys. Tamama was floating on an air mattress in the pool. Momoka was asleep in a lounge chair. The most private place in the whole house turned out to be the kitchen and so that was where Hanene finally parked herself. The gift sat upon the table and the Airman sat across from it. Studying it. Awaiting inspiration.
She heard the crawlspace door creak open and felt more than heard or saw Kururu's approach. He climbed onto the chair opposite her and flopped the No Love Lost gun onto the Formica surface. "I'm renaming this gun," he announced with morose exhaustion. He weakly held the gun aloft, "How about the 'Love Lost and Found' gun?"
Hanene shifted the cylinder of swirling crystalline chaos to one side and cocked her hebetudinous eyes at him. "Problems?" she inquired with a sympathetic smile. Kururu looks like they put him through the wringer. What can I do to help? No, I won't scan him. There should be some mystery between couples. When did I start thinking of us as a couple? She patted the back of his hand and dulcetly requested, "Tell me about it."
"Okay," he drawled, and cleared his throat before launching into his explanation. He tapped the gun's extendable stock. "The gun copies the neural engrams of affections from one entity to another and I modified it to erase the topmost by reinforcing the replaced affection? Well, that only works if I have all the affection donors and I don't."
"You mean we missed someone?" Hanene asked. At Kururu's nod, she added, "Who?"
"Not one idea." Kururu explained, "I designed this to work on a single donor and potentially multiple recipients. If I'd known about your telepathic abilities; I'd have designed it differently. I'd have made the transfer more... sticky. Now, I can't give Dororo back his love of the environment without leaving Natsumi empty and I can't give Koyuki back her affection for Natsumi, because I don't know where it went. So there are three I can't fix. Everyonelse is back to normal. Sort of."
"Sort of?" Hanene crinkled her brow.
"Well, they all know what its like to have another affection. I don't think our Imperfect Leader will be glued to a mirror anymore, but..." he shrugged. "maybe the others will be..."
"Drawn to their new experiences?" Hanene prompted.
Kururu nodded the depressed admission. "You can lead an equine to the trough, but what if it still likes the Saki? Kukukuku: I think they're happier as they are - fixed or not. So," he reached for the cylinder, "what's your new toy?"
Hanene bridled and snatched her father's gift out of the range of his grasp. "This is no mere toy and it's not new," she declared imperiously. "It's a valuable gift from my father!"
"I have no idea." Hanene admitted flatly.
"Kukukuku, well maybe it does nothing? I could scan it, unless you masochistically want to keep guessing for the rest of your life?" Hanene nodded her assent and Kururu played his pocket scanner over the cylinder from top to bottom and then around the teardrop cap. The device only glowed and swirled in response.
"It hummed earlier when I touched it," Hanene said helpfully. "What is it?" Kururu checked the readings and then made a second confirmatory pass with the scanner node. He sat back in his seat and smirked at her. "Soooo?" Hanene demanded impatiently. "Don't keep me in suspense."
"I'm just enjoying knowing something you don't," giggled Kururu evilly. "It's a nice sensation, but you'll probe me if I don't tell, right? And I cannot keep thinking about goats humping forever now can I? This," he pronounced tapping the base of the cylinder, "Is a quantum transtator - part of an old starship drive. It's not particularly dangerous, and this one is more decorative than most. Probably Deluvian. Deluvians make everything look like an ice cream sculpture," he snorted. "How much do you know about quantumnal-temporale physics?"
Hanene curled her lips sardonically, "I can probably spell it. I don't know what or even where it is?"
"Yareyare," he laughed. "Here's how it goes. Every particle of matter and every photon and every virtual particle has a quantum state. Their exact interaction defines the universe as you percieve it, even though the Uncertainty Principle dictates that you cannot know the exact state of any one particle. Now, to do quantum maths sometimes you have to know all the possible states of a particle and this forms a multiverse of variant solutions. Each solution represents a different universe and they all exist, all at the same time, though some are more likely than others. Following me so far?"
Hanene nodded uncertainly and he continued, "Well, a quantum transtator makes a single reality more likely than it should be in another quantum state. Only works once though and then it has to be replaced. That's why most modern drives use inertial dampeners and slipstream technology. Switching the quantum state of a whole ship and wishing it was already arrived in another quantum universe for every hop was very expensive. Your Dad was correct - it is a valuable gift. I'll bet he gave a couple centuries salary for this antique."
"So, all I do is make a wish and it comes true?" Hanene intuited.
"Nonono, not quite. It doesn't change this reality only another one. You could wish for a billion credits and in some other reality you'll get it. At least you'd be rich in one reality. In this one, you'd still be a KAP E-4 pay grade and eating MREs. So, some Hanene, somewhere, in some universe gets to be happy and rich, but you don't." Kururu reiterated.
Hanene considered. She stroked the warm sides of the cylinder with her fingertips. The device hummed, then silenced, hummed and silenced. So, its a one-wish genie that doesn't help me? I guess I can only hope that another Hanene in another universe wishes for something nice for me. I know what I want to give her, give any of the other me-folk out there. She raised the cylinder to her lips and blew her thought at it lightly. The teardrop at the top instantly went darker, leaving only a single orange spot aglow at its center. The yellow glitter and the aquamarine rings ceased to spin. The purplish and yellowish hues coalesced into single, static stripes. She set down the quantum transtator. She smiled at Kururu.
"Sooo?" Kururu demanded impatiently, "What did you wish for?"
Hanene propped her feet up on the tabletop. She reclined against the backrest and whistled tunelessly at the ceiling, "I'm just enjoying knowing something you don't," she giggled with false malice. "You're right, it is a nice sensation. And you cannot scan me to know what I wished."
"You're not going to tell me are you?" he asked.
"Nope. I have a question though." Hanene giggled and crawled across the tabletop to poke him playfully on the snout. "How come you never scanned yourself? What if your affection for me came from someone we didn't find?"
Kururu looked startled, but he crawled up on the tabletop himself. He glanced down at the scanner and the gun as though considering the possibilities. He looked into her eyes and she into his. He rubbed the tip of his snout against the tip of hers, as close as he cared to a Pokopenian kiss. "Maybe I don't want to know?" he asked, "Maybe I don't care about the water and like the sake just as it is? Maybe this feels good and I want to believe its me?"
"Maybe it is you?" Hanene whispered the hypothesis hopefully.
"Want to go to bed?" Kururu asked suddenly, even as he hopped down and extended spindly yellow arms to her. She leaped down and he caught her, and nearly fell over to do so. Together, arms around each other's shoulders, they set off for the base. The transtator, the scanner, and the Love Lost and Found gun would still be on the table come sunrise.
Copyright ©2008 by the Chumducky
Exclusively distributed by litforge.com. Please do not distribute without prior written permission of the authors and litforge.com.
