>
> THIRD-PERSON INTERLUDE
> MAIN STREET, WORCESTER
> NEAR THE FEDERAL BLDG.
>
> It started to sink in as Sakura walked up Elm Street,
RACE <Sakura>: Didn't I just fall asleep? Why am I outside? And why is a tall Choi Bounge stalking me?
> and by
> the time she was halfway to the bus station, she was so mad at her
> father that she couldn't see straight.
MMK <pedestrian>: Lady, watch out!
GAVOK: ERRRRRRRRRRR!! *crash*
TBS: The fact that bumped into a half-dozen telephone poles and two fire
hydrants was a bit of a tip-off.
> Where does he get off? she asked herself.
S.D., RACE: I'm not touching that.
[S.D. and RACE blink and look at each other.]
> I mean, it's not
> like I do drugs or anything like that.
GAVOK <Sakura>: Though I did take some testosterone pills before recording my voice for Capcom vs SNK.
> So I like the martial arts, so
> I want to learn from the best there is. What's wrong with that? I'll
> tell you this much, if it was my brother doing this, Pop sure as hell
> wouldn't disown -him-. He'd be overjoyed that his son was following
> such a manly path. But his daughter? An embarrassment.
ARL <Sakura>: I'll bet Kasumi Todo doesn't have to put up with this...
> To hell with him anyway, she thought as she turned the corner
> onto Main Street. Who needs him?
> Just then, the grey, threatening sky stopped threatening and
> started raining.
TBS <sky>: I didn't want to do this! You made me do this!
> Perfect, thought Sakura. Just exactly what I
> needed.
ARL: Seriously. She hadn't showered for a week.
S.D. <Sakura>: A dreary enviroment brought forth to provide subtle
foreshadowing to the tragedy that is about to befall me.
> She was so wrapped up in becoming steadily angrier at her
> father that she didn't even see the guy walk out of the alley behind
> the Federal Building until she ran into him. That flustered her so
> much she started apologizing in Japanese before she remembered where
> she was.
> "Oh! Gomen - er, I'm sorry, I didn't see you there."
> "Well, hey there, sailor girl," he said with a smile, taking a
> couple of steps back and looking her over. Sakura didn't like the
> look on his face. Come to that, she didn't like his face much; it was
> wide and oily. In fact, "wide and oily" describes the whole person
> pretty well; he had on a greasy t-shirt that looked too small for his
> shoulder muscles and jeans that had seen better decades.
ARL <singing>: He's got greasy hair, greasy smile, he says "Lord this
must be my destination..."
[ALL stare blankly at ARL.]
ARL: ...what?
GAVOK: Dude, your taste in music sucks.
> "New in
> town?" he continued, and his grin changed to a leer.
> Harsh laughter from behind Sakura; she stole a glance over her
> shoulder to see another, similar but shorter guy stepping around the
> corner of the building.
GAVOK <Boo Boo>: Gee, Yogi. Ranger Smith said we shouldn't harass little girls.
RACE: Laurel and Hardy really hit the skids...
> She realized she must have walked right past
> him on that side of the building before turning the corner herself.
> "Yeah," chortled the shorter one. "New."
> Two to one, hmm? thought Sakura. I've dealt with worse.
> "Not for long," she replied. "Soon as I can catch a bus, I'm
> out of this dump."
> "Aww, leaving so soon?" the one in front asked, stepping
> closer. Sakura stood her ground, concentrating on the rhythm of her
> breathing, her heartbeat, her center. "Hey, I've got an idea," the
> man in front of her said. "Why don't you stay a while and party with
> my friend and me?"
> "Yeah," said the shorter one behind me. "Party."
RACE: So Sakura's dealing with the Ameoba Boys?
S.D.: Or Chang and Choi.
GAVOK: Nonono. Then it would be "Yessssssssssss! Party!"
> Perhaps unfortunately, Sakura didn't feel she was in any
> danger.
ARL: Social Darwinism in action.
> In fact, given the day she'd had, she was looking forward to
> what was developing here.
MMK: Certainly not her chest!
(Racewing punches MMK on the arm)
> She could feel her ki pulsing in time with
> her heartbeat, so she gathered it.
> "No thanks," she said. "Got a bus to catch and all. Maybe
> next time I'm in town."
> "Oh, well, y'know, how do we know we're gonna be in town when
> you're here next?"
> "Yeah," said the shorter one. "In town."
TBS <tall guy, forcefully>: Thank you Steve, but I think she can hear
me just fine...
GAVOK <short guy>: Yeah. Just fine.
[TBS <tall guy> facepalms.]
> That little habit was starting to get on her nerves.
> "You got anyplace else to be?" Sakura asked the taller one.
> "Not really," he replied.
> "Well, there you go," she replied. "I do. So if you'll excuse
> me... "
TBS: (makes a fart noise)
> "Now honey," he said, and moved a little closer. He was
> trying to back Sakura into his friend, but she wasn't giving ground;
> looking a little impressed, he backed up again and put his hand on her
> shoulder.
GAVOK <tall man>: Vulcan Nerve Pinch!
> "That's no way to be," he continued. "All we want is for
> you to stay and party with us for a while, and then you can go and do
> what you want. I mean, it's a dangerous city, Worcester. You don't
> play your cards right, you could get hurt."
MMK: You can get papercuts and stuff.
ARL <Chinese accent>: But if you play your cards right, you live to talk
about it!
> "Yeah," said the shorter one, "play," as the taller one
> tightened his grip on her shoulder until it hurt.
> All right, I've had enough of this crap, said Sakura to
> herself. She took a half-step back, twisted her shoulder out of the
> tall one's grip in the process of backstepping into a fighting stance,
> and right on schedule she felt her ki surge and her hands tingle.
S.D.: ...and her evil blood began boiling... wait, wrong teenaged
butt-kicker trained by the main character of a video game series.
MMK: Oh yeah, Rock's got more taste than Sakura too, doesn't he? Huh, fancy that...
TBS <receptionist>: Right, I can fit you in for ki-surging and hand-tingling at three, if that's okay with you...
> "HADOKEN!" she cried, thrusting her hands forward, and the
> fireball burst out, smashing into the tall one's chest and face and
> knocking him sprawling on his back. Stepping into the follow-through,
> Sakura turned to face the short one.
> "Wha' th' fu' - ?" he blurted.
> Ooh, thought Sakura, handsome -and- articulate! Just the way
> I like them.
ALL <singing>: Uh-huh uh-huh! That's the way, uh-huh uh-huh, I like them, uh-huh uh-huh...
> He lunged at her and tasted one of her shoes as she snapped a
> high kick under his chin. Staggering back, he wiped at his bloody
> lip.
> "Hey!" he cried. "That hurt!"
> "Yeah," Sakura replied, "hurt. SHO-OKEN!" It wasn't quite a
> perfect Rising Dragon Fist, but Sakura's version of the classic
> Shotokan uppercut did the job anyway, drilling the short one straight
> into unconsciousness.
> Dusting off her hands, Sakura turned to resume her journey to
> the bus station.
> And skidded right back to a stop again.
> The tall one was back on his feet already, singed and dazed,
> but conscious... and three other guys were filling up the sidewalk
> behind him.
GAVOK: Now if this was Metro City, this would be interesting.
> -Now- Sakura was beginning to feel a little threatened, but
> she put it aside as they rushed her. This part of the brawl started
> out pretty well for her, really, but her concentration started to fall
> apart before she'd taken even one of them down - a combination of her
> own rising panic as it began to dawn on her what they would do to her
> if they won,
ARL <Sakura>: I can't party! It's a school night!
> and fatigue. It had been a longer day, and a more tiring
> journey, than she thought.
> Get it together, Sakura, she told herself as she barely
> avoided getting clipped by one of their fists. Get it together or
> you're going to lose, and this is no friendly sparring match. You
> wanted to be a street fighter, girl... here you are. Get it --
> Together!
> She spun on one heel, lifting into the air. "Shunpuu -
> KYAKU!" Truth to tell, she wasn't entirely happy with this move
> either - it only turned her around once, it wasn't much of a Rising
> Cyclone Kick - but it worked well enough to lay out the one in the
> orange shirt.
MMK <Charlie Brown>: Good grief!
> The one in blue lunged; Sakura caught his arm and swung
> his face into the side of the Federal Building.
ARL: A practical use for government offices. Fancy that.
> She turned and
> squared off with the tall guy and his one remaining helper, this one
> in a green t-shirt, and grinned.
> "Some party, huh?" she started to ask, but she only got about
> as far as "par" before
> POW
GAVOK: A truckload of 60's Batman sound effect cards spilled onto the street! Oh, the humanity!
> the back of her head exploded, or at least, that's how it
> felt.
TBS: So does *she* have head explody, too?
> The world turned red and black, winking out entirely for an
> instant, then returning as a huge, echoing chamber full of red fog and
> pain. Sakura felt a second impact in the small of her back, then a
> third as she crashed to the sidewalk on her chin. Waves of nausea
> rolled over her like breaking surf. She struggled to get up, keep
> fighting, but she felt like she was chained to the ground. She could
> feel rather than see them close in on her...
> Somewhere nearby, there was the sound of a powerful engine, the
> squeal of tires, and the metallic clunk of a car door, followed by a
> voice Sakura hazily thought she recognized:
GAVOK <Sweet Tooth>: HOO-HOO-HEH-HEH-HEH!
> "Back away from the girl right now and I won't hurt you."
> Tramping feet, defiant sounds. Sakura dragged herself to her
> elbows and knees and tried to open her eyes.
> "Fine, have it your way."
TBS: They're being attacked by Burger King employees?
> As a strange coughing sound reached Sakura's ears, her eyes
> opened. She focused dimly on the sidewalk, then looked up in time to
> see Shorty sprawl on his back, a two-by-four with its end oddly
> splintered clattering from his slack hands. A few feet away, MegaZone
> was standing halfway out of the door of a black Suburban pulled up
> onto the curb, a gun with what looked like a spray can on the end in
> his hand.
> Then the wet pavement spiraled up at Sakura as she blacked out
> again.
MMK <Gryphon>: Now WE can have our way with her!
RACE: I will kill you, Howard.
>
> MZ
> While I encouraged the losers' retreat with my Glock, Ben ran
> around the back of the Suburban to kneel by Sakura as she slumped to
> the ground again. She didn't look good - her skin was a foreboding
> shade of grey, her school uniform torn and dirty, with a spatter of
> blood down the front of the tunic from the cuts on her chin.
GAVOK: Sakura was becoming a woman.
TBS: That's not Sakura, that's a zombie!
MMK: Or Zombie Sakura.
GAVOK: "The Shotoclones who Stopped Living and Became Incredibly Mixed-Up Zombies?"
[MMK and TBS shrug.]
> "Oh
> bloody hell," I muttered, unscrewing the custom-made sound suppressor
> from the end of the gun and putting both away as he carried her to the
> truck and laid her gently on the back seat.
> I sat down on the edge of the seat and put my fingers to
> Sakura's throat, looking for her carotid pulse. I found it easily,
> and was relieved to find it strong and regular, like her breathing.
MMK <MZ>: I then moved my hand down, to see if she had any injuries
under her-
[MMK barely ducks a mini-spatula thrown by RACE.]
> If nothing else, she didn't seem to be in any immediate danger. Her
> color was bad, though, and who knew what could result from a head
> injury like that?
GAVOK: I'll go with the Dyne and Dav Saga.
> Sure, Ryu and Ben and their fellow fighters make their living
> knocking each other out, and there's an obvious danger involved with
> that. But at their skill level especially, they have such an intimate
> knowledge of their abilities and the way their bodies work that they
> can do it carefully. Any decent fighter on the circuit knows how to
> take even a knockout blow with minimal damage, and the honorable ones
> know how to throw a knockout blow with care as well, oxymoronic as
> that sounds.
> A common street thug with a two-by-four, on the other hand,
> isn't likely to be as careful or as skilled, and Sakura was both
> inexperienced and taken by surprise. Gryph I glanced at each other,
RACE: Ah. The prequel to Gryph II.
> and didn't need to elaborate on the message we exchanged with that
> brief eye contact.
S.D.: Ah, young love...
> We were both deeply worried.
S.D. <Zoner>: We both forgot to set the VCR, didn't we?
> They'd only just met the day before yesterday... for that
> matter, I'd only just met her the day before yesterday myself. And
> yet I was easily as worried as Ben. Neither of us even like kids.
GAVOK <MZ>: They're too greasy, and there's hardly enough meat on their bones...
ARL: Oh, geez! We get enough of that from Jumpy...
> We went straight to the maze of streets that crawl up Bancroft
> Hill near WPI, as fast as I could safely get the Suburban to go, then
> pulled up at a familiar house. As I entered the house's foyer
> (Gryphon behind me, cradling Sakura in his arms like a big rag doll),
> the jangling bell on the door summoned Dr. Joachim Mueller from the
> back of the house. As he entered the foyer, he recognized us
> immediately, and took in the sight of the three of us impassively.
> Dr. Mueller has known Gryph and I long enough to take this kind of
> thing in stride.
> "Well, well," he murmured, patting his large hands together.
> "You find the most interesting things for old Doctor Mueller to
> handle, don't you?"
[MMK and S.D. snicker. RACE growls.]
> Tall, white-haired, and patrician, Dr. Mueller is from
> Germany, and it still echoes in his English today. He left Germany as
> a young medical student in the late 1930s, just before Hitler plunged
> the nation into the insanity that was the Second World War. Now in
> his late seventies, he was mostly retired, but as an old friend of my
> family's, he still came out from time to time to patch me or Gryph up
> after our less than reportable injuries. I trusted his skills and his
> discretion implicitly.
> "Well, what's the story with this one?" he asked as he led us
> to the guest bedroom he used as an exam room for his infrequent
> visitors and gestured for Gryph to put Sakura down on the bed.
> Gryph and I between us told him as much of the story as we knew.
> Dr. Mueller raised an eyebrow when we got to the part about Gryph's
> ill-fated call to Sakura's father, but he said only, "Mmm, your day is
> just beginning to get complicated, then," as he bent over the guest bed.
> "Pulse is good... breathing is strong. Hello? Young lady, can you hear
> me?" He took a penlight out of his pocket, gently pried open one of
> Sakura's eyes, and shone the light in.
> She blinked, flinched, and then settled slowly into the
> mattress and pillows with a long, descending groan.
> "Pupil reaction is good," mused Dr. Mueller to himself as he
> returned the pen to his pocket. "How do you feel, young lady?"
> "Like a Texaco tank truck ran over me," Sakura replied
> weakly, "backed up, and ran over me again."
> "Well, you remember your English, that's a good sign," Mueller
> replied. "Whenever I get clonked on the head, first thing I do, I
> start speaking in German again."
GAVOK: Me too.
ARL: Gavok, you don't *know* any German.
GAVOK: Sure I do! Watch.
[GAVOK smacks himself in the head with a steel chair.]
GAVOK: Mein luftkissenfahrzeug ist von den aalen voll.
> "If I was speaking German," Sakura said with a wan smile, "I'd
> really be in trouble."
MMK: Well, she knows a *little* German... and as a matter of fact, I know a little German, too!
S.D.: Well aren't *we* special?
MMK: Yup. He's sitting right over there.
[MMK points to TBS, now dressed in leiderhosen.]
TBS: Guten tag!
S.D.: ...
> "Well, let's look at your head, now. Sit up, but slowly, or
> you'll make yourself sick."
> Obediently, Sakura sat gingerly up so Mueller could look at
> the back of her head. He gently moved the blood-matted hair out of
> the way with one hand and used the other to wield the penlight again.
> "Mmm... broken skin and a bit of bleeding, but the scalp is fine, and
> you've got a good strong skull, young lady. If there were anything
> seriously wrong, I doubt I would have been able to wake you by simply
> shining a light in your eye. All right, lie back. Are you hurt
> anywhere else?"
> "Right now I hurt all over," she said, leaning her head gently
> back against the pillow.
TBS <Mueller>: Then let me kiss your booboo.
> "How does your head feel?"
RACE <Sakura>: Round?
> She considered, then reported with a slightly surprised tone,
> "No worse than the rest of me, really."
> "Also a good sign," said Mueller with a smile. "Well, I don't
> think you've suffered any permanent harm." He turned to me. "Keep an
> eye on her for the rest of today. Don't let her go to sleep until you
> turn in tonight, and only a light dinner is in order.
ARL <Mueller>: ...but don't feed her after midnight, all right?
> If she gets
> overwhelmingly drowsy, passes out, or becomes incoherent, call me and
> we'll get her over to UMassMed for some X rays. I'll also leave
> cleaning her up to you - I presume you have the medical knowledge
> necessary to clean a few cuts, ja?"
MMK <Gryphon>: Right. Sponge bath.
> I nodded, his good humor making me grin. "Thanks, Doctor."
> He waved. "Don't mention it. It's all part of the service."
> Snapping his bag shut, he turned to Sakura again. "Now you be good
> and follow my instructions, and you'll feel much better in the
> morning.
MMK <singing>: The pain will fade as time goes by... what was taken
I won't miss, or I'll replace... never mind me, I'm all right...
> All right?"
> She nodded, kind of a lying-down bow. "I will. Thank you."
> Gryph and I helped Sakura out to the Suburban for the trip
> back down the hill. She was a little unsteady, but her strength was
> returning fast, and she was getting her color back, too, by the time
> we got home a few minutes later. I felt a powerful urge to clean my
> gun.
TBS: God, at least wait until you're alone!
> It's a habit of mine, when I'm upset and don't have anyone to
> vent it on. Gryph doesn't think I know I do it; the truth is, I do it
> so I won't be able to do anything else with the gun.
S.D. <snickering>: Not like you normally do anything with your gun other
than "clean" it...
> While keeping an eye on Sakura in the living room, Gryph and I
> went to the kitchen to heat up some soup.
> "Well, now what the hell do we do?" Gryph wondered.
GAVOK <Zoner>: Put it in the microwave and press ON, you dummy.
> "I have no idea," I replied. I paused before putting the
> soup into the saucepan I had prepared. "She could stay here for a
> while, but... "
> Gryph nodded. "But she doesn't want to."
> I sighed, dumping the soup into the pan and using a wooden spoon
> to scrape out the few noodles stuck to the inside of the can. "Right,"
> I replied. "After all, Ryu's her hero, not us," I added, handing Gryph
> the can to be rinsed and put by the trash. I'm fond of this whole
> recycling thing, although Gryph thinks the stuff all gets thrown in a
> big hole together after it's trucked away anyway.
ARL: Thank you for that irrelevant aside.
> "And just because
> she's welcome doesn't mean she'll stay. We saw proof of that this
> afternoon."
> "She's got talent," Gryph observed. "We were pretty far away
> when the fight started, but I'm pretty sure I saw her throw a hadoken
> at one of them."
> I looked hard at Ben. "She's had how much formal training?"
> "None, as far as I know, unless you count Ryu's two-minute
> explanation-in-layman's-terms of the technique last month."
> I blinked. "Wow. She's got a -lot- of talent."
ARL: Okay, so let me get this straight: A fifteen-year old girl with no
formal training - just watching some guy fight - manages to effectively
emulate the Shotokan style and fight on a level that most people rarely
reach at her age, even *with* formal training.
RACE: Are you complaining?
ARL: No, I'm just saying it's a little weird, is all. I mean, if she's
like this now, then in a few years she should be able to take out most
of the other, well-trained Street Fighters without much trouble. This
is way beyond prodigy; it's closer to contrivance. No offense, Race.
RACE: None taken.
ARL: But I mean, she's got this incredible - and potentially soul
consuming - drive to succeed and be the best, I figure eventually the
Satsui no Hadou is going to kick in, and considering how badly she wants
to fight and *win*, she's probably going to go over to the Dark Side. No
offense again, Race.
RACE: None taken.
S.D.: So there could be a teenaged Little Miss Akuma running around in the
near future?
ARL: Possibly, although Capcom mostly joked about it with Dark Sakura.
[pauses] Although if this took place in '94, then technically it would be
an early twenties master of the Dark Hadou. Well, whatever.
GAVOK: What would an evil twenty-something Sakura wear, anyway?
TBS: Same thing as every other evil twenty-something female villain: Lots
and lots of leather.
MMK: Or very little leather.
[Meanwhile, RACE struggles to stem the flow of blood from his nose with a
handful of tissues.]
[...this never happens in Quasispace...]
> "And she's a good kid," Gryph went on, nodding. "A little
> narrow-focused, but... well... I'll have to talk with her about that.
> She reminds me of Chun Li - "
> "I was just about to say that, yeah - "
> "Before her father died and she got all grim and
> revenge-and-justice -"
> "Yeah. Hopefully what happened to her today will open her eyes
> and make her realize that street fighting isn't a game."
ARL: Irony? Yeah, we got that.
> "If she has enough dedication to work out the hadoken on her
> own, she's serious enough to stick with it regardless," Gryph said, a
> warning note in his voice.
> I nodded. "All the better... but she'll need training.
> Unfocused, that talent could become a danger to everyone... and in the
> wrong hands, she could become something truly terrifying."
ARL <Sakura>: Go! To! Hell! [pauses] Come to think of it, a twenty-something Evil Sakura *would* be kind
of cool...
MMK: A twenty-something Evil Sakura wearing practically nothing, you mean.
[RACE passes out. MMK and GAVOK glance over at him.]
GAVOK: Man, that's a lot of blood.
MMK: Looks like a Dusty Rhodes - Terry Funk match took place.
> Our eyes met, and Ben knew exactly whose hands I was talking
> about.
TBS <Gryphon> and S.D. <Zoner>: Jean Luke!
> Ryu had fallen into those same hands once, before either of
> them was a World Warrior, and "truly terrifying" is a good description
> of what he had become, for a time.
GAVOK: Mutton chops and a mullet. Scary times, man.
> "Ryu won't change his mind," Gryph said. "You know how he
> is." He blew a breath out, puffing his cheeks. "All right, look, why
> don't we do it like this. I'll get Rose to come down and look after
> her tomorrow. We can push the timetable on the Area 51 thing up, get
> it out of the way. Once we're back home, I can sit down and figure
> out what the hell I'm going to do with her."
> "-We- can figure out what -we're- going to do," I corrected.
> "Her father didn't make her your responsibility," said Gryph.
> "I don't want to drag you into the mess too... "
> "You're helping me out with this thing for Meg, aren't you?"
> I shrugged. "We're partners. Your problems are my problems."
> He smiled. "Thanks. Have you got the cover story in place
> for the sneak yet?"
ARL: I have a feeling this is going to take a while...
> "Well, I -think- I've got it. DARPA has requested Sky Dancer
> and its contents for transfer to an undisclosed research project. If
> anyone digs into it, it looks like it's under the auspicies of the
> CIA. The CIA will pawn it off on NASA for administration. NASA says
> no, that project was transferred, now being run by the NSA and they
> don't have any need to know where it is. If they manage to get the
> NSA to admit to anything, they thought the Air Force had it at Area 51
> but had unmothballed it and was using it for research. The Air Force,
> of course, says no, it was taken for a research project.
> "Now, either they loop around again, or they find the second
> level of misdirection. Seems the Royal Navy wanted to test its
> submersible capabilities. But if you ask them, they don't know
> anything about it, but they've heard MI-5 is up to something with it.
> MI-5 has absolutely nothing to do with it, you must be thinking of
> MI-6. MI-6 sure doesn't have it, but the Royal Air Force and SAS have
> been testing something. Maybe you should check with them. The SAS
> will tell you to bugger off, but the RAF thinks the Royal Navy is
> using it as a technology demonstrator for an SBS project. No, been
> there? Sorry chap, don't know.
> "OK, so that's a dead end. Back to Area 51 to try again. If
> they dig -really- deep they'll find an indication that it went back to
> the manufacturer. Of course, Lockheed hasn't had it since it left the
> Works. Maybe you meant the chief designer on Project Sky Dancer,
> they'd heard that Mr. Hackenbacker was working on a new project.
ARL <Hackenbacker>: Look! It's errupting like a real volcano!
> Yes,
> we have a business relationship with him. Sorry, we can't give you
> any details. No, I don't care what clearance you have, I know it
> isn't high enough. Mr. Hackenbacker guards his privacy very
> jealously. Good day.
> "In light of what you set up the other day, I think I'll set
> up a fourth level. The Sky Dancer was transferred to the Quest
> Foundation for an indefinite period of time, for research purposes.
> As for who authorized that, well, I pity the person who'll follow that
> path.
GAVOK <Mr. T>: And I shall toss this soul across a far distance.
> What do you think?"
> "I don't want to know how you set it up, but it sounds good.
> As good as we're going to do anyway. How soon can we go?"
> "The sooner the better, I'd like to have it out of there
> before anyone gets curious about the paper trail. But this may just
> be an interesting exercise. We still haven't heard from Meg, after
> all."
> "I suspect Greer'll be pissed if we put him through this for
> nothing," Ben observed.
> "He'll get over it. He's knows what running an op is like,
> things don't always come off the way you planned. Sometimes they
> don't come off at all."
GAVOK: You could always try club soda.
> "Right. I guess there's nothing much for it at the moment,
> then."
> "Oh, one thing. Can you call Quest back and see if they can
> shuttle us back west? I'd like to fly the Prince of Thebes out, but
> we'll be flying Sky Dancer direct to Maine. I'd rather not fly
> commercial back to pick up the Prince. It'd be much faster if they
> can just shoot us back out."
> "I don't think it'll be a problem. I'll call them up after we
> eat."
> "OK... this afternoon, just to cover our bets, I figured I'd
> set up the fourth level of the trail. After that, I don't know. I
> was thinking about seeing if Meg wanted to go out for dinner or
> something. It'll give me a chance to talk to her some more."
> "Yeah, right."
> "Give me a break. Of course I'm interested in her. She's
> funny, attractive, intelligent, and she didn't run screaming when she
> met us.
S.D.: ...and most girls *do*?
> All factors in her favor." I was smirking again. It really
> is involuntary.
> "OK, whatever. You can borrow the car, Johnny. Be home by
> midnight. Have fun."
> "Thanks dad," I called over my shoulder on the way to my room,
> "I'll be a good boy. Oh, take over on this soup, would you? Thanks."
> It didn't take long to arrange for the last redirection - it
> is usually easier to work with the truth, or at least partial truth,
> than to make things up from whole cloth. When I returned to the
> kitchen Ben had just started doling the soup out.
GAVOK <Ben>: Hey Zoner, care for some soup?
ARL <MZ>: Sure, I'd-
GAVOK <Ben>: NO! NO SOUP FOR YOU!!
> We finished putting together the light lunch and took it to
> the living room. Sakura said her head was feeling much better, and
> her appetite was undiminished, which was relieving. She was quieter
> this afternoon - it seemed clear that, between being disowned by her
> father and the knock on the head, the day so far had given her some
> heavy things to think about.
S.D. <Sakura>: What if C-A-T spelled "Dog"?
> After lunch, I fiddled with our network for a while, but I
> knew what I was doing - I'm the world's best procrastinator. I was
> nervous about calling Meg, and I didn't want to admit it. Aside from
> personal issues, how would she feel about all the things we'd been
> doing? She never really said she wanted us to do anything, and here
> we were setting things in motion already. I mean, I knew we could
> stop them, but it was going a bit far. In my gut I felt she wouldn't
> mind,
ARL <Meg>: Oh, you're breaking federal laws for me! How sweet!
[S.D. makes gagging noises.]
> but just a little doubt is enough.
> After an hour or so of tweaking things that didn't need
> tweaking in the first place I decided there was nothing for it but to
> call her. If she wanted to go out I'd wait to tell her, I didn't want
> to tell her everything on the phone. I'm much better at that kind of
> thing face to face.
> Of course, first I had to remember what I did with that
> blasted card she had written her number on.
RACE <Zoner>: Oh crap! I gave it to Gambit!
> After silently watching
> several minutes of my frantic searching, Ben picked it up from on top
> of the TV and handed it to me without a word. That was good, because
> it saved me from acknowledging that I had looked right at it at least
> three times. At any rate, I finally dialed. She answered after a
> couple of rings, but the music on her end was so loud we couldn't hear
> each other. Once she turned it down below afterburner level we
> managed to actually converse.
> Small talk ran out after a few minutes, and I decided there was
> nothing for it but to jump straight in.
> "So, ah... have you thought any more about my proposal?"
RACE <Meg>: Yeah. You're a nice guy and all, but I don't want to ruin
the friendship we have... sorry.
> Ouch. Smooth as broken glass.
> Her response was serious, though. "Yeah... yeah, I have. I,
> uh... I talked it over with Mom and Dad. They've heard of you through
> some contacts they still have in the State Department. You didn't tell
> me you do jobs for IMF."
> "Didn't know if you'd been cleared for that," I replied. "I
> hope they haven't heard any of the really bad parts."
> "No, apparently you've got a good reputation on our side. Anyway,
> I've been thinking about it a lot and... well...
ARL <Meg>: I really did like Seven Samurai more than the Magnificent Seven.
> I'd like to go ahead
> with it, if you're still interested."
> I grinned. "I was hoping you'd say that. How'd you like to
> talk out the details over dinner?"
S.D. <Meg>: I don't know. Things you were hoping I would and would not say isn't a very interesting topic.