chm173s@nic.smsu.edu (here she comes again) ROBOTECH: THE MISFOLD Part 3 Written by Many; Edited by Chris Meadows This is part 3 of the Robotech: The Misfold, a collaborative work of fiction written by several authors at once and edited by me. If you would like to write a contribution for the story, or would simply like more information, please E-mail me at chm173s@nic.smsu.edu or cmeadows@nyx.cs.du.edu. SECTION NUMBERING AND AVAILABILITY: These are the current section numbers. They are available for anonymous FTP from wpi.wpi.edu, located in the /anime/FanFiction directory, and also can be found on rec.arts.anime.stories, if that's where you're reading this at the moment. PART 1 The ROOSEVELT misfolds into the wrong earthspace. Lt. Joe Walker is sent out, makes contact with General Mitchell of the U.S.A.F. Asuka Suzuki and Ivory Tanaka prepare to send up a VR-controlled scout drone to recon the ROOSEVELT. Lt. Stefan Anderson wipes out the record of the erroneous misfold coordinates. Lt. Walker's Veritech is attacked by a mysterious Stealth fighter and loses contact with the ROOSEVELT. It lands at Langley. Captain Kranz sends out Commander Carter to find Walker, then the ROOSEVELT moves to a higher orbit. PART 2 Lieutenant Walker meets with President Bush, then returns to Langley to meet Commander Carter. They find that a mysterious team of technicians accompanied by a strange form of power armor have been attempting to dismantle Walker's Veritech for study. Two Pentagon officers deliver stolen flight log tapes of the UFO to an agent of ELITE, who was behind the stealth plane. Ivory Tanaka's recon drone is destroyed and she is shocked into unconsciousness during the recon run on the ROOSEVELT. EDITOR'S NOTES: For those of you who don't know, MegaZone, Gryphon, ReRob, and all the other strange-sounding names that Brian Bikowicz mentions in his segments are real people (mostly real, anyway)--they're Brian himself and all his friends at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Most of their nicknames come from the computer account IDs they chose. MegaZone/Zoner is Brian Bikowicz (megazone@wpi.WPI.EDU), for example. If you'd like to hear all about their amazing adventures (plug plug plug), the stories coauthored by MegaZone, Gryphon, and ReRob (that Zoner mentions in his segment) are available for anonymous FTP from wpi.wpi.edu, under the /anime/FanFiction directory. There are waaaay too many to list, but if you want them all, then mget dp.u* and they'll pop right onto your account. (They're gzipped, so be sure to get them in binary mode.) They're terrific and funny, and I highly recommend them, especially if you like Robotech, Dirty Pair, Bubblegum Crisis, and/or a lot of other anime (and this is NOT just an idle plug--I LOVE those stories...). Now, normally I regard all characters in this story as "community property," that any author can do anything with. However, since Zoner and friends are REAL PEOPLE, anything you write which involves them should probably be sent to MegaZone for his approval/editing first (I'll be sending any such segments I receive to him anyway, regardless). This segment was slapped together in about a week, as opposed to the previous ones which usually had at least 2 or 3 each. It's also a great deal larger than the previous two at 95k as opposed to 60k. This is because I wanted to get it together and get it out before Thanksgiving Vacation. Also, I had the thing completed and almost ready to send out, when Brian Bikowicz's submission arrived, and I had to shift the order of my segments all around to fit his and write some additional stuff to make it all work. (Not that I mind or anything...his segments are GREAT!) So, if the order of this one seems slightly mixed up, or it's kind of hard to follow, just pity me and the job I had editing it, okay? :) I will probably edit it further later on, to make it more clear. So much for my explanations. Now on with what you've been waiting for--Part 3 of Robotech: The Misfold! megazone@wpi.WPI.EDU (B Bikowicz) AND chm173s@nic.smsu.edu (Chris Meadows): In a small room under Chyenne Mountain a group of techs were very busy. "The UFO is locked in geosynch over DC," one of them called out. "Right. What've we got on line?" asked General Phillips, the current commanding officer at NORAD's headquarters in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. "There's a Keyhole coming up in five minutes and the Lacrosse bird is still over the horizon," the tech replied. "Ok. Get the numbers for an orbital modification on the Lacrosse. I want a full ELINT spread on the craft. Run a SAR picture and send it through photo-eval ASAP. Get the Keyhole alligned for a visual pass. I want a full spectrum of coverage. Thermal, visual, the works." "Ok, got it. We're running the figures now. We should have good data within the hour. Anything else?" "Yeah, the President wants everything we've got." Phillips had worked his way up as a computer technician, and could often be found working in the labs and in the field with them, in blatant defiance of military protocol. It was fun for him, and he really didn't give a damn about protocol--when you're a Lieutenant General and always get results, you don't really have to. The techs respected him for this, and for his other slightly unorthodox methods of getting things done--to most of NORAD's comp-techs, he was one of them. "See if we can call in some favors and get some of the big boys to help us out. Doesn't Palomar owe us something? And get the National Observatory on this too. But for god's sake keep it quiet." "Got it. What do you think it is anyway? I heard they were time travellers from after World War III..." "I don't have time for that. What we don't need right now is a horde of rumors filling everyone's heads. All we need is for the press to get ahold of a 'Man from Mars' tale and the shit hits the fan. It's bad enough any schmoe with a telescope in their back yard and a 35mm can probably catch it on film. I'm surprised it hasn't happened already." "Ok. Whatever, we're on it." chm173s@nic.smsu.edu (Chris Meadows): In an infinite space, a grey cloud hung, vast and nebulous. It was not made of stellar gas, however, but of pure computer data, a symbolic representation of a large system of storage files. It shifted gently, as if disturbed by an unknown breeze. These shifts soon became more and more pronounced as the cloud contracted, drawing in upon itself under the influence of some unknown force, much as the nebula that created the solar system contracted under the influence of its own gravity. Over an eternity, the grey cloud grew smaller and smaller, and thicker and thicker, and began to take on a definite shape. A humanoid shape, in a fetal position. Though still fuzzy and grey, it grew sharper-defined and brighter as it continued to shrink and mold itself into its new form. Then, as the last fuzziness began to disappear and the shape took on colors, it slowly raised itself out of its fetal position and stood erect. The form was that of a woman. An tall woman, with shiny black hair that fell past her thighs, and distinct Oriental features. Her green eyes took in the strange landscape around her with an expression of utter bewilderment, then she looked down at herself to find that she was utterly nude. As her face took on an expression of disapproval at her immodest appearance, a worksuit appeared over her naked body, and her hair shortened to its customary length, ending halfway down her back. Thus garbed, Ivory Tanaka looked cautiously around the strange place she found herself in. It appeared to be an infinite space, with glowing lines running all through it. It seemed familiar, but she couldn't place it. And what was she doing here? The last thing she remembered, she had been flying the recon drone up toward that strange alien ship, and then something had happened--Ivory gasped as the intense pain came back to her. It had been as if someone had been trying to rip her mind right out of her body. Then Ivory realized what she had just done--she had caused clothes to appear on herself just by thinking about it, and had mentally adjusted the length of her own hair. -How did I do that?- she wondered. Out of curiosity, she imagined making her clothes vanish--and they did. And with a mere thought, her lustrous black hair cascaded to her ankles. "What is happening?" Ivory wondered. She walked over to a wall, not wondering how she could walk though there was no floor beneath her feet, and willed a window to appear in it. Looking through it, she saw a small room with about a dozen computer terminals in it, with men and women in uniforms sitting at them and typing. The point of view was from above and to the side of them, as if from a ceiling-mounted security camera. -This is all too strange..." Ivory thought. "It's almost as if--No. No, it can't be.- But as Ivory Tanaka looked around, she began to realize that somehow, her mind HAD been ripped from her body. Somehow, she was INSIDE the alien ship's computer. Or at least, her mind was... "I have to get out of here!" Ivory gasped, looking around for the nearest exit. She found one, and zoomed over to it, not even bothering with trying to walk. She passed through it, extremely long hair flying behind her, and winked out of sight. The whole process, from nebulous data cloud to hasty exit, took approximately 4.2 seconds, realtime. megazone@wpi.WPI.EDU (B Bikowicz): Commander Clarence Johnson thanked his lucky stars for the millionth time since he got his assignment. He was one of the few people who got to fly the blackest of the black planes, and he had been told that this could be the most important mission he ever flew. Visions of a promotion danced in Johnson's head--it was very possible, if he got this mission right. He checked his guages one last time before preparing for his run. Mach 5.7 at 130,000 feet. Everything was in the green. SAR in standby, thermal ready. No worries. "Ok Fritzy. I'm green up here, how about your toys." "Ready to go. You sure you know what we're doing? I mean this really is an oddball profile," Lt. Fredrick Stodt replied from the rear cockpit. "No sweat. I've been flying Auroras since the testing phase. She can do it. We just accelerate up and start a nice slow roll and we go exo-at. Just make sure you get your pictures, we won't have enough fuel to do it again. As it is we're going to have to plug an Extender as soon as we drop back in." "Yeah, yeah. Don't worry about me. Ready when you are Kelly." The Aurora began its slow climb towards space and the ROOSEVELT. chm173s@nic.smsu.edu (Chris Meadows): Operative One was not happy. He had just been informed of the failure of the Darkstar stealth fighter to down the Veritech fighter, and the subsequent failure of the team of armed technicians to discover much beyond an examination of the external engine parts. "But what we've seen reinforces our idea that their technology is much more advanced than ours," the lead technician reported over the viewscreen, trying to be cheerful. "Oh, shut up!" Operative One slammed his fist down on the panel to shut off the communication link. "We knew that already." He pressed the panel again, to open communications to a different area. "Operative One to Operative Seven. Respond, please." The screen flickered, and the same hooded figure whom the cyborg Deems had been in touch with appeared. He gave the ELITE salute and said, "Reporting as ordered, sir." "The failure of both missions to capture the alien airplane is on your head, Seven," Operative One said. "Be careful not to let any other weighty failures fall upon that head, lest you should stand to lose it suddenly." "Understood, sir. However, I do have some success to report. My prime agent in Washington has obtained all pertinent flight logs and footage from American reconnaissance satellites. They are here, and ready to be burst-transmitted to you." This news went a long way toward appeasing Operative One's anger. "This is indeed good news, Operative Seven. If more such news comes along, you may be able to keep that head of yours after all." "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Burst transmission standing by." Operative One hit a few keys on the control console, dedicating a signifigant portion of available memory to contain the recordings. "Ready to receive." As the transmission commenced, Operative Seven turned to his right and pressed some buttons. "What? Are you sure, Deems?" he said, talking to someone off-screen. "Really? Well, then take whatever measures you deem necessary to capture them! Operative Seven out!" He turned back to face Operative One. "That was my prime agent, sir. He says that he has agents in place ready to capture the alien planes." "Good! This is some of the best news I have heard yet. Carry on, Seven, carry on. Operative One out." The sun was slowly rising to the east as the technicians continued putting the VF-1S back together at Langley. Lieutenant Joe Walker stood in the doorway of the hangar, sipping his third cup of coffee, black, and watching the technicians work. He knew something about Veritech repair, though he was not an expert by any means, and he tended to watch those more skilled than he whenever he could. Besides picking up on the techniques, Walker was also serving a useful purpose--guard duty. His Gallant H-90 had the rifle stock attached to it now, and it packed more than enough wallop (he hoped) to knock that suit of power armor into the Dark Ages if it came back. Also, his Cyclone Cycle was nearby and ready to go in case of trouble. As the technician working on the port booster engine reconnected the last power conduit and slammed the access panel closed, Joe's ears picked up the sound of an engine coming across the tarmac. He turned, and saw a jeep coming toward the hangar. The scanning binoculars around Joe's neck indicated that the driver was General Mitchell. "Hey, General!" he called out, waving. Mitchell pulled up in front of the hangar and turned off the engine. He climbed out, a half-wadded-up sheet of computer paper clutched in his hand. "These are the results of the trace on the gun and ammunition," Mitchell said. "Where is Commander Carter?" "He's at the Alpha...I'll call him." He touched the button on the side of the CVR-3 helmet to activate the built-in radio. "Lieutenant Walker to Commander Carter. Come in, please." In the closed cockpit of Carter's Veritech, music was coming out of the cockpit speakers. "--but you'll never hear me complain...'cause I got friends in low places, where the whiskey drowns, and the beer chases my blues away--" Then the commline beeped, and Commander Carter reached out and touched the control to cut off the FM-band receiver. "Carter here. Go ahead, Walker." "General Mitchell's here, sir, and he's brought the results of the computer search." "Oh? I'll be right there." Carter thumbed the transmission off, then turned the radio back up. "--think I'll slip on down to the o-asis, lord I got friends in low places..." "I think I could get to like this time period," Carter decided. He reached up to open the canopy, then vaulted over the side of the cockpit and ran the twenty meters over to where Mitchell and Walker waited by the hangar. "I'm sorry it took so long, but the search was a bit more difficult than I had thought it would be." Mitchell looked really tired, and there were some coffee stains on his right sleeve that hadn't been there before. "And what have you found?" Commander Carter asked. "That Colt Commando, and the .45 caliber ammunition fired from it, were both reported 'missing' from government warehouses over ten years ago," Mitchell said. "They disappeared between inventories, and were written off as 'sorting errors.'" "No clues as to the culprits?" Carter asked. "They didn't even suspect there WERE culprits," Mitchell said. "Not until now. And that's what scares me." "What do you mean, sir?" Lieutenant Walker asked. "I mean that over the last fifteen years there have been hundreds of disappearances marked as 'sorting errors,' of all sorts of equipment, from crates of ballpoint pens to four fully-armed F-23 Advanced Tactical Fighters awaiting shipment to Guantanimo Bay. And there's no way to tell just how many of those actually WERE sorting errors, or something more sinister. And it's possible that these people have been around for over ten years, unless they bought the weapons from the original thieves." He shuddered. "The kind of resources they could have--it scares even me." Commander Carter changed the subject. "Don't worry. In a couple of hours we'll be safely in space and out of their hands." This gave General Mitchell the perfect opening, but he wasn't sure how to phrase it. He needed to go with them--it was part of the mission President Bush had assigned him--but if he asked the wrong way, he was sure he would turn them off. "How long until your other fighter is repaired?" he asked instead. "Well, it's taken a bit longer than we had originally thought," Walker reported, "but they're confident that it won't be much longer." He turned, scrutinized the technicians' work. "In fact, I'd say they're about done now." "Good. Maybe we can--" BOOM! An explosion further down the runway interrupted what Mitchell had been starting to say. Instead, he said, "What in God's name--?" It was Walker's trained eyes that spied the black, familiar-looking plane overhead. "They're bombing the runway!" he realized, as more explosions occurred. "And that's one of the Stealth planes that attacked my Veritech!" "I've got to scramble the base's fighters!" Mitchell gasped, glancing toward his jeep. "Without the radar warning, they're sitting ducks!" "Not in that you're not," Carter said, grabbing Mitchell's shoulder. "Look!" He pointed across the field to some figures at its edge. There were some that were human, and some human-shaped but larger... Walker grabbed for his binoculars. "Uh-oh. Looks like our friends the saboteurs are back, and they've brought their entire family. And more of that strange power armor." Carter took this all in and made his decision in a flash. "Walker, get to your Cyclone. I'm going to have the Beta pilot take your plane; you cover for him until he can lift off then meet us at the Legios. I'm going to use the smokescreen dispensers to provide cover. General Mitchell, you're coming with me." As machinegun fire began to echo across the tarmac, Mitchell said weakly, "But--" But he was actually thinking, -What an opportunity!- "No buts. It's safer in the Beta than out here. No time for talk, let's go!" "But look at the runway!" Mitchell protested. "There's no way your planes can take off on that!" And he was correct, or would have been if the Veritechs had been ordinary airplanes. The runways were now pitted and scarred beyond useability. Only the area near the hangars had been spared. "Don't worry about that," Carter said. "Now let's move!" Then they were pounding across the pavement toward the fighters, dodging flying chunks of asphault from the blasts on the runway. Lieutenant Walker, as ordered, ran into the hangar to get his Cyclone. "You'd better button her up!" he yelled as he stomped the starter on the Protoculture-powered survival bike. "We're under attack, in case you hadn't noticed!" The technicians made the last connections and slammed the panels down. "Ready to go," they reported, then they too were running toward the Legios. As Walker revved the motorcycle, a man in CVR-3 armor came running in from outside the hangar. This was the Beta pilot, a corporal from the same squadron as Lieutenant Walker. Walker waved to him, then drove the motorcycle out the hangar door. Gun battles had broken out between Langley's MP and soldier forces and the forces of the invaders. Joe could hear the submachine guns firing, and every so often the deeper roar of the Vulcan cannons carried by the enemy power armor. The American soldiers were getting thrashed by the heavier firepower of the enemy. "Time to even the score a little," Walker decided, revving the bike and racing across the uneven runway. The bombing had now stopped, and he was confident he'd be able to make it intact. As he got closer, his bike's targeting sensors began to lock onto the enemy. "Time to shut 'em down." His finger moved toward the trigger on the bike's handlebars, then he decided not to use the mini-missiles mounted on the bike's front wheel hub yet. Instead Joe swept the Cyclone around into a 90-degree skidding halt, and unslung his Gallant H-90 rifle, sighting down the barrel at one of the imposing dark suits of power armor which was about to wipe out four M-16-carrying Marines with its gatling gun. Without pause, he fired. The energy blast took the armor right in the chest, knocking it back. He fired again, and the power armor went down, blood spraying from the large hole in the front. As one of the soldiers he'd just saved turned to look at him, Joe sighted on another suit of power armor. Another few blasts, and this one was no longer a threat either. But now the power armor, and the black-clad soldiers who fought at their side, noticed him as a potent threat and moved to counter it. Joe laughed as the bullets from the footsoldiers' submachine guns rattled off his armor. "You'll have to do better than that!" WHOOSH! "What?" Joe turned to look behind him, and saw one of the armor suits touching down, jump jets on its backpack still smoking. As it raised its arm and pointed the gatling gun straight at him, Walker said, "I'm outta here!," revved the bike, and scooted off. The armor's bullets tore up the pavement behind him. Joe raced for about fifty feet, then skidded the bike around, brought up the rifle, and fired five shots into the enemy armor. It went down, smoking holes all over it. From behind Joe came the high-pitched whine of Veritech engines. He looked and saw the VF Veritech warming up, and poking its nose out of the hangar. For a moment, he felt a twinge of regret that he wasn't flying it, but he suppressed this and turned back to the job at hand--frying the enemy. Commander Carter helped General Mitchell up into the Beta's cockpit. He directed the Air Force general to the seat behind and to the left of the pilot's, the communication/sensory equipment operator's station. "Just sit here and don't touch anything. Lieutenant Walker will be here in a minute and then we'll be taking off." "Uh, of course, Commander." Mitchell sat down, fastened the restraining harness, and looked around at the controls as Carter left. He'd thought the interior of Walker's other plane had looked complicated, but THIS beat that out by far. There were display screens everywhere, and complicated control panels and flight instruments on every surface. -I can't imagine how hard it must be to fly one of these,- Mitchell thought, his respect for the young lieutenant going up a notch. Carter, meanwhile, climbed into the cockpit of the Alpha and pressed the "slave Beta controls to Alpha controls" button. It flashed red and the computer chirped to indicate full control interlock. The commander looked around. The runways were torn up, with smoking craters scattered all around. There was sporadic gunfire as the resident soldiers fought the invading force. There was a whoosh from somewhere nearby as a soldier with a bazooka took out one of the enemy power armor suits, but others kept coming. A mini-missile shot from the left arm of one of the black, menacing units took out a Jeep with a heavy machine gun mounted on the back. And Lieutenant Walker, on his Cyclone, was racing back and forth, firing his Gallant rifle into the attacking crowd. -Time to go,- Carter thought. -But first...- He reached over to his left and flipped up a small panel cover, underneath which were several small buttons. Carter pressed these, and they lit up beneath his touch. -There's our cover.- Thick, black smoke began pouring out of vents all over the Alpha and the Beta. As it expanded, Carter opened radio contact with the VF Veritech. "Angel Flight to Looking Glass. As soon as the smoke covers your present position, switch to Guardian mode and take off. There are sure to be bandits, so kick in your boosters as soon as you're clear and use your speed to shake them off. Do not attempt to engage, unless it's with the head laser going away. Do you understand?" "Looking Glass to Angel Flight. Roger that, Commander. Just watch my dust. Looking Glass out." As the smoke spread, Commander Carter targeted one of the power armors on infra-red and fired a blast from the GU-XX gatling cannon mounted beneath the Alpha's right wing. As expected, the armor disintegrated in a large fireball. Carter grinned--that felt GOOD. Walker rode along at 40 miles per hour on his Cyclone, both hands steadying his Gallant rifle, controlling the Cyclone with mental images alone. It was tricky, but it was feasible with any form of mecha. He raced along, through the enemy, firing left and right and leaving bodies and machinery in the dust. Then he pulled up, and noticed the large clouds of smoke that now nearly encompassed half the runway, including the hangar. The engine noise from the VF Veritech grew louder as it lifted off, and the smoke began to billow outward in response to the downward thrust of its jets. Shading his face with his hand, Lieutenant Walker looked upward in time to see the Guardian-mode Veritech, looking like a cross between an plane and a humanoid robot (which in fact it was), lift out of the top. Then its legs folded up and back, and its arms retracted, and it was an airplane once again. The boosters on its back activated, and it streaked skyward. Joe threw it a salute, then looked around for the enemy. Uh-oh, this looked bad. About ten of the power armors and thirty of the footsoldiers (some with bazookas) had formed up between him and the Legios' location at the center of the smoke cloud. They looked very determined to stop him. "But I'm very determined to succeed!" Joe Walker said out loud, revving the bike. "I think it's time I surprised them." It is impossible to tell just what the ELITE soldiers facing Lieutenant Walker on his Cyclone motorcycle must have thought as he came racing toward them. They all readied their weapons, probably believing this to be a piece of cake. But then, when Walker jumped the bike off of a slab of concrete tipped up by the bombing, and the bike started changing in midair, they must have been quite startled. The Cyclone was undergoing a remarkable transformation. Its front fairing split apart and attached itself to Walker's chest. The front hubs separated from the wheel and attached themselves to his arm. The front wheel swung around to lock beside the back wheel, then the engine and seat slid together and swung up behind Walker's back. Other components from the side of the bike locked onto Walker's hips, and the transformation was complete. The two rear wheels and engine were located on Walker's back; the front wheel missile pods were on his arms, and the front of the bike was attached to his chest. The Cyclone was now a highly mobile suit of power armor, and it was going to kick some mechanized butt. Walker let his momentum carry him into the midst of the enemy power armor, where he cut loose with a jump kick that did for one, then slammed his fist into another, causing massive indentations (and probably massive pain to the pilot inside). Now Joe's momentum had carried him past the enemy armor, and he turned, his Cyclone's hoverjets kicking in to keep him in the air. A small sensor rose out of his right shoulder and positioned itself in front of his right eye. Crosshairs appeared in the center, and locked onto the first power armor. "You're toast," he muttered, and fired one plasma mini-missile from his left arm. It went up in a ball of fire, taking two soldiers with it. Two other armor suits loosed mini-missiles of their own, but Joe easily leaped out of their way and returned fire with two more plasma rockets. Joe's last plasma rocket went to take out the cluster of footsoldiers who were aiming rocket-launchers at him. "All right, enough games!" Joe Walker locked targeting on ALL the armor suits. "Take THIS!" He held down the trigger on the Gallant rifle on full-auto mode and swept it left-to-right across all those armor units that were still functional. After the explosions stopped, none of the black power armor suits were left standing. Lieutenant Walker didn't waste any more time hunting for the enemy. The recon Veritech had taken off, and that was all he'd been covering for. He checked for the Legios on infrared, found it, and zoomed over toward it. After stowing his Cyclone in the cargo bay, where the technicians were also riding, Walker walked up toward the front of the plane and sat down at the pilot's seat. "Hi, General." He punched some buttons on the control console, calling up a systems status check. Commander Carter's face appeared on the main viewscreen. "Stand by for separation. We'll take off in Guardian, and engage the enemy fighters." "Roger." Walker hit some more keys, and Carter's face disappeared to be replaced by an infrared display of the airfield. "What was that about 'Guardian'?" General Mitchell asked. Walker sighed. -I'm going to have to tell him sometime,- he decided. -Might as well be now.- "Well, you know how your F-111 and F-14 planes have variable geometry--their wings fold back for supersonic flight?" "Yes..." Mitchell responded. "And your AV-8B Harrier can reposition its thrust nozzles to take off straight up?" Walker continued, grasping the control yoke. "Yes..." "Well, our Veritechs have put those two things together and expanded on them to an amazing degree. That's all I can tell you right now, but I promise, I'll show you later." Mitchell nodded. He was already beginning to have his suspicions... In the Alpha's cockpit, Commander Carter shut off the smokescreen and hit the special sequence of keys to commence separation of the Alpha and the Beta. Certain components that linked the two planes together separated and retracted, and the planes moved apart under their own separate power. "Separation complete," he reported. "Let's do it!" He reached up to his right and pulled the transformation lever. The engine of his plane transformed into arms and legs, and it took off straight up, under his expert guidance. Lieutenant Walker pressed his own plane's transformation switch, and two of the Beta's three giant engine pods lowered to the ground and then lifted the Beta up, as legs. Walker looked around, moving the control yoke experimentally. -The one good thing about the Beta,- he thought, -is the pure, raw POWER you can get from the engines.- With this in mind, he inclined the yoke, brought the HOTAS control to max thrust, and blasted straight up. Walker's Beta emerged above the smoke cloud and shot up over Carter's Alpha. Walker decreased the thrust somewhat and looked around. There were about twenty stealth fighters, of the type that had attacked him before, closing in on them. Naturally, they didn't show up on radar. "They sure don't want to make it easy for us, do they?" he muttered. "Well, the feeling's mutual!" The Beta's wings retracted, and their housing swung down and forward to become the Beta's arms. The Beta's head popped out of the top, and it was in full Battloid mode. Walker fixed one of the planes in his gunsights and opened up with the ion blasters in the Beta's arms. Holes opened up in the plane, and it fell apart rapidly. "All right! Who's next?!" From then on, it was a battle of epic proportions. Planes dived in and out, and loosed missiles, but Walker danced out of their way with ease, and returned fire with his ion blasters, or some of the missiles hidden in his Beta's legs and chest sections. One by one, the planes went down, but there were still some left. Commander Carter had been taking out planes, too, almost taunting them with his Veritech's speed and maneuverability in Guardian mode. Now there were about ten planes left, and they were all diving at him. By some chance, General Mitchell happened to have a clear line of sight to the Alpha as its front cockpit area flipped up and back, and the head rose up to take its place--the Alpha had transformed to Battloid mode! Mitchell continued watching, awestruck, as panels on the Alpha's arms, legs, and shoulders opened, and all 60 of the short-range missiles stored within streaked outward toward the incoming planes. Needless to say, all but one were entirely blown up. The one remaining fighter turned tail and ran, leaving the area at full afterburner speed. "Okay, let's get out of here," Commander Carter said, switching back to fighter mode. "Lieutenant Walker, stand by for link-up." "Uh, roger that." Walker converted the Beta back into a jet fighter and matched the Alpha's course. They maneuvered in closely, then components matched and the two planes linked up. As soon as the indicator lights flashed, signalling full link-up and control interlock, Joe released his hands from the controls and turned around in his seat. "General Mitchell?" General Mitchell was still in shock from the amazing feat he'd just witnessed. He'd just seen a fighter plane turn into a giant robot. A small voice in the back of his mind told him, -If they have THIS kind of technology, they could take over the WORLD without much trouble.- Mitchell jerked himself back to reality. "I just saw that plane become a robot. I can see that you were not kidding about the advanced degree to which you've taken variable geometry." "That's what Robotechnology is, sir," Lieutenant Walker explained. "Robotic technology for robotic machines." "But how--" Walker shook his head. "I'm no technician." Actually, he did have technical training, but he'd already given too much away. "All I can say is that it has something to do with the special power systems we use, and even that may be saying too much. I really can't tell you anything more than that." Mitchell nodded. "I understand." "You'd better brace yourself," Walker said, turning back to the front and making certain his harness was secure. "We're about to fire the main engines and make orbit, and we don't spare the Gs." "Right," General Mitchell said, taking the necessary steps. He tried to recall everything he'd ever heard about space travel, but he really hadn't attended many briefings--a middle-aged Air Force intelligence general is not the most likely choice to become a future astronaut, after all. He guessed that what he was supposed to do was sit back, relax, and not fight it, so that was just what he did. Then the Beta engaged full thrust, and blasted free of the atmosphere. It was a new experience for General Mitchell, rather like one of those carnival rides where you're pressed to the back of the car and can only hang on and try to make it through without blacking out or throwing up. Because of his long experience behind the controls of high-G fighter planes, Mitchell retained consciousness all throughout the liftoff, and also retained his breakfast. Then, about five minutes later, the pressure eased. General Mitchell looked out through one of the bubble windows on the side of the canopy, and saw--Earth. It was spread out below him like a huge map, covered with fleecy white clouds, and he gasped at its awesome beauty. "So THIS is how the astronauts see it," he breathed. "I've heard them talk about it, but never realized..." "We've made it through," Lieutenant Walker said. "Now, at a cruising speed of Mach 5, it'll be just about seven hours until we make it to the ROOSEVELT. I'm going to take advantage of this time to take a nap. I suggest you do the same, sir." Mitchell nodded, well-knowing the advantage of catching a little sleep any time you could from his years of military experience. One of the things he prided himself on was his ability to go to sleep almost anywhere. But oddly enough, this time it failed him, and he found himself thinking about the remarkable transformation he'd seen the Alpha fighter go through. His resolve was strengthened by what he'd seen. -We MUST not let this technology go to the Soviets or the Japanese,- he thought. -If anyone else were to obtain this advanced military machinery, we could kiss the free world goodbye.- The Beta pilot, who'd taken off in the Super VF recon plane, had rendezvoused without any problems, and together they sped away from the Earth, through space, out toward the S.S. ROOSEVELT. Little did they know the repercussions that the shootout at Langley was soon to cause... hoffmajc@ucunix.san.uc.EDU (Jeffrey Carl Hoffman) AND chm173s@nic.smsu.edu (Chris Meadows): Ghosts of the past. They were here and haunting him as he walked the deck of his ship. -Diana, I wish you were here with me now. I wish you had lived.- Captain Kranz walked the empty corridor that led from the bridge of his ship to his cabin. Thoughts of his wife Diana crossed his mind, as they always did in times of trouble. He'd first met her during the wedding of Admirals Rick Hunter and Lisa Hayes. He'd been just a lowly Ensign then, and she was a Lieutenant, but despite the rank problem, they'd hit it off from the first. Six months later, they'd been married on Tirol, in one of the first weddings to be performed on that liberated planet. Kranz had already been promoted to Lieutenant Commander by that time, as a result of his actions in the Tirolian liberation. His wife, a medical officer, had also received a promotion. During the years of the war that followed, they'd served together on six different starships, including Kranz's first command, the Garfish troop carrier S.S. SPRINGFIELD. But it had been during that time that Diana been taken from him forever. It had been during the liberation of Selugral, a Carbonaran settlement world twenty light-years from Tirol. There had been heavy fighting between the REF and the Invid, and there were many wounded. Diana had insisted that she be in charge of the medical team that treated the wounded in the main army camp. "But it's too dangerous!" he'd protested. "I can't let you go." "Nonsense," she'd told him. "With the REF to protect me, how can I be in any danger? Those men NEED me, Joseph. I have to help them." In the end, she'd won out, and Captain Kranz had sent her down against his better judgement. And his better judgement had been right. Two hours after Diana's planetside arrival, the Invid had attacked in force, all but wiping out the camp. Her remains had never been found. Kranz had resigned his command and not done much of anything except drink for the next eighteen months, then he'd accepted the remotest assignment possible, thinking it might help him get over his grief. Not that it had, but at least it had kept him busy. Kranz sighed. During the past three days of this mistaken journey, so much had befallen his ship. The questions that lurked in his mind were real, he knew, and he could see them in the faces of his crew also. He turned the corner and continued down the hall to his quarters. At the third door on the left he stopped and inserted his access card into the lock placed to the right of the frame. The indicator light on the lock panel flashed green and the door quickly slid to the side allowing him entrance to his suite. Inhaling deeply, he entered and the door slid shut behind him, sealing him off from THEM. How different it was to think of his crew as "them". Until just yesterday it had seemed almost as though this whole incident had not affected the ship at all, but today it was different. Kranz was not a young officer in charge of his first command, and he knew when trouble was brewing aboard his ship. Morale was sinking, and that was something he knew they would all have to face. Kranz walked over to a chair facing the window that looked out upon the earth, and sat down. With a sigh he loosened his collar and then his belt. Tiredly he reached over and pushed a button on the console that was resting on the table beside him. "Personal log, day three, Captain Kranz reporting. "Today marked a new low in the crew's morale. There was a brawl in the cafeteria with some off duty personnel last night. Fortunately security had been alerted to this sort of problem and was available in sufficient numbers to stop the outbreak. I fear, however, that the men and women of this ship are very nervous about what is to come in the next few days. Unfortunately, despite my attempts to keep certain facts from becoming public knowledge, there has been a leak. It is now gossip on the ship that the Earth of this reality does not welcome us. News of the recent attack by the 'remote controlled aircraft' on our ship has gotten loose, as well as the news of the attacks on Lieutenant Walker while flying recon. I really cannot blame them, for it is beginning to seem to me as well that this is a hostile place. "The next problem that we face is that our return to our home is being delayed by someone or some group aboard this ship itself. The security breach and attempt to destroy the fold coordinate file failed, but all attempts to locate the person responsible for these actions have come up blank. None of my officers have been able even to ascertain a possible motive for such an act, and because of the lock out that was imposed to save the file from destruction, we were not even able to access the location of the terminal that was being used to get in. These people must be found, and we haven't been able to even get a start on them. "Finally it would seem that the attack of the 'remote controlled' aircraft earlier was just a ploy to attempt to gain information about our weapons systems and defenses. The 'probes' that it launched attached themselves to our hull and were transmitting data about us back to an untraceable source. It is my hopes that the copy of the operating system of the aircraft that Major Eddings made will be of some use to us in determining the location of where that data was being sent." He paused here, collecting his thoughts. Looking down on the planet Earth through the viewport relaxed him. -Though this may be a different dimension, it's still the same planet. Perhaps there's hope after all.- With a sigh he pressed the button on the console to continue the log entry. "On an encouraging note, the reconnaissance aircraft has been repaired and should be back aboard within the hour. Many of my officers have expressed the opinion that the attacks have all been directed against us by some other group than the government of the United States, and I feel I must concur. This opens the possibility that we may have the cooperation of at least one power on the Earth, and this is something that we may need in the days to come. We can not ignore the fact that we may be here for an indefinite period of time. "This cooperation my prove to be crucial to our existence should our predicament remain stable for a prolonged period of time. There are several supplies that we will surely find ourselves in need of as time goes on, and I feel that if we can establish a relationship with the United States, we may be able to replenish them with a minimum of fuss. "Radio contact with the returning Veritechs has been brief and to the point, for Commander Carter does not want to risk any interception of our communications, no matter how slight the chance. I am told, however, that a representative of the United States government is returning with them; a general in their Air Force intelligence division. "It is my hope that I will be able to use this person to better our relationship with the United States such that should the need arise for aid, they will be willing to support us in return for whatever help we can offer them. I am sure that should things come to that end, it will be a very touchy situation and one that any advantage that we may be able to have will indeed help us." As if on cue, a speaker chimed in the room. Kranz paused the recording and hit the intercom button. "Kranz here." "Sir, the recovery flight is making its final approach. They will be docking at Bay 2 in approximately ten minutes." With a grunt, Kranz stood. "Thank you. When Carter, Walker, and the general they have brought with them are on board, direct them to meet me on the Observation Deck, just above the bridge. Also, inform the tactical staff that the debriefing will be held in the lounge at..." He checked his chronometer. "0500 hours." It was approximately 0430 now. "Understood sir." The intercom clicked off, and once again the room was silent. Kranz began buttoning his collar back up. -This meeting could be one of the most important in the history of this dimension's Earth,- he thought. -Hope it goes well.- The door to his room slid open as Kranz neared it, admitting him to the hallway beyond. Pacing out of the room, again deep in thought of the upcoming meeting, the captain failed to notice that the terminal he was using was still on pause. It beeped and beeped, but there was no one there to hear. chm173s@nic.smsu.edu (Chris Meadows): Two days passed... A glowing, ghostly form wandered through a virtual representation of the ROOSEVELT's computer system. Its form was that of a naked oriental woman, with hair that fell to her ankles. It was Ivory Tanaka. She hadn't bothered to resume wearing her clothes or shorten her hair. No one was going to see her now, after all. She was still in shock from the discovery that she had been separated from her body and placed into the main computer of this starship, but when she'd discovered it, she'd gone positively catatonic, not able to do anything for almost two days. But now she was recovered from that...mostly. "What about my body?" she wondered out loud. "What's happened to it?" A light flashed out of the corner of her eye, and she turned to look at it. It was an indicator of something. Out of curiosity, Ivory made the light enlarge into a window. It led to a virtual representation of a dormitory-style room. Ivory knew instinctively that this was the way the computer was representing the electrical systems in that room to her. She stepped inside to see what was going on. The printer attached to the computer terminal in this room was spewing out paper with "WHAT ABOUT MY BODY? WHAT'S HAPPENED TO IT?" printed on it over and over and over... "Uh-oh. I'd better stop that." As the printer began to print out this new message, Ivory reached out and pressed the virtual "off" switch on the virtual printer. As expected, it stopped. -I'd better be more careful how I speak from now on,- Ivory thought. -It would probably be best for me to remain undiscovered for now.- But in the back of her mind, Ivory knew that it had to take up a great deal of run-time to sustain an artificial intelligence such as she, and that in the long run she was bound to be traced down by system security subroutines. -Guess I'll just have to keep moving...- So Ivory moved. Out this node, up the internal connection to that subprocessor, through this gateway... Ivory found herself in an area that seemed vaguely familiar, even though she was sure she'd never seen anything like it before. This peculiar sensation of deja vu puzzled her, until she realized that the computer was beginning to translate areas directly to her perception instead of to her vision. -It's feeding directly into my MIND,- she realized. -I'm experiencing direct computer-mental interface! Wait 'till I tell Asuka--he'll be ecstatic!- Then her enthusiasm was dampened by the recognition that she might never SEE Asuka again, or even her body, for that matter. But she stopped thinking of that and turned her attention to the area at hand. It was an INTERNET NODE, she realized in astonishment! Somehow the starship's computers were jacked into the Internet! But it wasn't a "natural" connection, Tanaka noticed. In the atmosphere was a subtle air of discord, as though this area had been stuck onto the rest of the system unnaturally. -This is lower-level programming than the rest of the computer,- Ivory realized. -I wonder why...- Because of this mismatch, Ivory was certain that if the need arose, she could crash this node immediately and easily. She was also sure that she could head off an eminent crash equally easily, just by thinking about it. -Oh, the power that comes from being INSIDE the computer,- she thought. -This is almost WORTH giving up my physical body for.- Ivory slipped into the area "next door." It was an FTP site, though almost empty. Ivory noted with amusement that it was set to accept anonymous FTP requests. On purpose or accident? She pulled up the copyright date of this version. March 19, 1996. -Nineteen ninety-SIX? There must be some mistake here...- Ivory pulled up the system date. Mon Jul 23 23:13:32 GMT 2032. -This can't be right. Can it?- Up to now, Ivory had assumed the ship had been built by some other country, in secret. The English lettering on the hull and English language in the computer seemed to bear that out. But these dates-- -Could it be that this ship is from the future of Earth?- Ivory wondered. That would explain the odd dates, and even the discrepancies between the FTP/Internet nodes and the rest of the computer. The programs must have been written under an older version of Unix, and whoever had set them up here had just pulled them out of memory and updated them to run here. -Though he didn't do a very good job of it,- Ivory thought. And he'd left anonymous FTP open, probably didn't know any better. Hmm, this opened some possibilities... BEEEEEEEP! The sudden noise startled Ivory, and she looked up to see a glowing white portal open up on the far wall. At the same time, she became aware of what it was--an anonymous FTP had just logged in. Ivory looked around the area. There were only two or three data files here, mainly instruction files for FTP. And there were few files in the different areas that represented the subdirectories available under FTP. -I might as well bring something in here for whoever that is to find,- she thought. -It's better than being bored.- She reached out at random to different areas of the computer, copying and bringing in the glowing square blocks that represented datafiles in this virtual reality. She shuffled them around to different directories, and waited. Then she became aware of a tickling at the corner of her perception, and she gated back over to the Internet site and looked around. Part of the far wall had become less opaque. Someone was trying to break in! Well, she'd let them, Ivory decided. If they wanted in, they could get in. Meanwhile, she'd run a little trace on their location... megazone@wpi.WPI.EDU (B Bikowicz): "Bored, bored, bored..." Zoner mumbled as he read through alt.test. "Of course I'm bored. If I wasn't bored why would I be reading alt.test...Hello, what's this? Roosevelt.ikazuchi.ref? Dot-ref? What the hell is dot-ref?" Scanning the room for someone he knew he called out, "Hey Prof, you ever see an ending like dot-ref on a site address?" "Ah, no. Why?" "I just found a site called roosevelt.ikazuchi.ref." "Sure it isn't a forgery?" "Hold on, I'll check." Zoner ran a 'finger @roosevelt.ikazuchi.ref' and was rewarded with a list of users. "Nope, finger works just fine." "How odd, I wonder what it is." "No clue...Droid, come here." "Huh? What do you need?" Droid asked, puzzled. "Check this out..." Zoner explained the new site to him. "Bah! Hmm...roosevelt.ikazuchi.ref...Let me try something. I'll get back to you..." "Whatever." Zoner watched as Andrew went to work trying to figure the new site out. "Well, let's see what we can see..." Zoner decided to see just how far he could get with his meager skills. He ran an ftp to the site and gave the normal 'anonymous' login... "Well, well, they have an ftp site. I wonder if they have anything interesting. Doesn't seem to be...Wait a minute, that file wasn't there a minute ago...What the hell is going on? Hey Droid, how's it going?" "Ummm...Ok, they seem to have the rlogin bug...I'm trying to convince the system I belong there." "Cool, they have an anon ftp site too. But something odd is going on, someone is moving the files around as I run ls." "Odd, I don't know wha--Hey, I'm in!" "Cool, what kind of place is it?" "Hard to tell...They're running some form of Unix, but it seems to be a mix of AT&T and BSD. Oh well, at least they have tcsh...Uh, oh." "Uh oh, what uh oh?" "Check this out, it's a mil site. Everyone has some sort of rank." "Milsite? Then why doesn't it have a .mil or .gov suffix?" "Beats me. Who can figure the government out." "Is it an American site?" "Well, it's all in English at least. But I can't seen to get a location on it." "You didn't use your account right?" "Of course not. I'm not stupid." "Ok, ok, just checking. aej probably wouldn't look too favorably on this." "I don't think WPI would look too favorably on this." "Hey, you hacked root right? I mean the rlogin junk." "Yeah, why?" "How about we create some new accounts. I think Lieutenant MegaZone sounds interested. Maybe a Captain Android. Hell, let's do all of GweepCo, ReRob, Truss, Mute, Lightnin...oh don't forget Gryphon." "Why?" "Why not. Come on, you know we're not going to do anything destructive to the system. It'll just be for fun. Hacking not cracking. Besides, I'm bored and it's something to do." "Ok, why not." Zoner and Droid went to work creating new accounts. It would take a few hours to make them all. They had no way of knowing that their progress was being observed the entire time. chm173s@nic.smsu.edu (Chris Meadows): It was after midnight on the campus of the university. The pole lights the Security department had set up as part of its anti-rape program brightly illuminated the sidewalks as the young man walked down them. He was wearing blue jeans, scuffed shoes, and a white University sweatshirt whose hood partially concealed his face. On his back he wore a dark vinyl leatherette backpack that seemed very full of something. Carl Morgan didn't say a word as he walked down the sidewalk, past the dormitory entrances where laughing, talking students were congregating just outside the mag-locked doors. He paid no attention to the other students; he just walked on by, hands in the front pockets of his sweatshirt. He turned left along a brick-paved street, followed it to the end just in front of the football stadium whose garish sign advertised "Taco Bell Express--Grand Opening." Carl didn't know what a "Taco Bell Express" was, nor did he have any desire to find out. His mind was on the job, and the job only. Carl kicked some broken glass out of his way as he turned to the right and walked along the sidewalk to the short stairway down to the patio-like area in front of the Science Hall. The fountain in the center of the plaza was on, and some mist was blowing onto him, but he could stand it. Carl walked along the brightly lit sidewalk to the stairs. He was about to step down them when he heard the grinding sound produced by stepping on glass, coming from behind him. He stopped, and turned back. A student was coming toward him. He had on a red vinyl jacket, and had one of the grey name tags worn by employees of the university, though he was too far away for Carl to read the name. "Hey, what are you doing out so late?" the man asked, in a falsely friendly sort of way. Carl knew it was just a front--this student worked with Campus Security, judging from the walkie-talkie at his belt. "Just out for a walk," Carl replied. The student nodded. "See ya 'round." He passed Carl and continued on down the sidewalk. Carl waited until he was gone before stepping down the stairs to the patio. To his left, he passed the strange statuary that the University had paid to have erected. Resembling a set of columns, it had been seen as a boondoggle by some at the university, and made fun of by others. Carl nodded to it as he passed; he thought it looked a bit cool. Really didn't matter all that much to him, though; he wouldn't see this place again after tonight. Carl stepped up to the Science Hall doors and tried them. Locked, as expected. It didn't faze him, though. He pulled out a wallet-like device from his back pocket and flipped it open to reveal a keypad much like that on a telephone and a liquid-crystal display above it. Carl entered 3-1-4-6 on the keypad, closed the wallet, and held it up to a reader at the door. The red light on the reader blinked, and the door came open when Carl pulled on it. He returned the device to his pocket, making a mental note to thank the Tech division again for the handy little gizmo. Carl stepped inside. The lights were on even though the building was locked. For the night watchmen, he supposed. The building was all concrete. This room was perhaps 40 feet across, with a central well with a couple of tables in it used for studying. The stairs went up from there, one staircase on each side of the well, and met in platforms between the floors themselves. Carl ascended the stairways to the third floor, keeping an eye out for security guards. The way he'd timed it, he should have been between patrols, but he wasn't taking chances. On the third floor, next to the stairs, was a Pepsi machine, a large one--about three times as big around as an ordinary dispenser--with a computer LED screen set into it. The screen was currently flashing "Out of Order." Carl chuckled. This was a machine that would never dispense a drink. He pulled a key out of his pocket and inserted it in the keyhole, twisted first to the left, then to the right. Then he pressed the large square Pepsi button twice, then the smaller Dad's Root Beer button once. The hum of the refrigeration unit stopped, and the LED screen flashed "INITIALIZING . . ." Carl fidgeted, looking warily around. The lighted PEPSI logo on the front of the machine blinked once, then the screen said "READY," then flashed to "Out of Order" once again. Carl pressed the Mountain Dew button, and with a hiss of hydraulics, the front of the machine slid open. What it revealed was NOT rows of soft drink cans ready to slide down to the vending opening. There was some sort of complicated machinery in here. "Looks like I got the right one, baby, uh-huh..." Carl muttered, shrugging out of the knapsack and unzipping it. Inside were several strange-looking metal components, which he took out and snapped into place inside the machine. As he manipulated parts, and pressed buttons on the interior of the ersatz Pepsi machine, the machinery on the interior began to change shape, finally resolving itself into a human-shaped cavity with machinery all around it. Carl pressed a few toggle switches beside the human shape to the down positions, then pulled one last thing out of the knapsack--a gunbelt and automatic pistol. Not that he'd ever needed them before. He buckled them on, then threw the knapsack in the trash. Then he noticed the footfalls down the hall. Fortunately for Carl, the approaching security guard's view was blocked by the back of the cola machine--he'd planned it that way. He had just enough time to step into the man-shaped cavity and press another switch on the interior of the cola machine that caused the front panel to swing around silently and shut in front of him, causing everything to fade to darkness around him. The hum of the machine's simulated refrigerating unit started up again. Carl reached out and flipped a switch in front of him, and a screen lit up in front of his face. It was a view of the exterior of the machine, and it showed a uniformed security guard walking by, looking around, and then continuing. Carl exhaled, realizing that he'd been holding his breath. He chuckled. No need for that--he was in the best hiding place possible. And it would be just a couple more hours before he would be getting out of here. The hours passed. Carl leaned back in his little nook and considered his job. As an agent for ELITE, life was never boring. He was always being sent to one place or another for "acquisitions" of priceless items (usually new scientific discoveries), and it paid well. And with the techical support that ELITE put behind every one of its men, these "acquisitions" were quite easy. Carl's particular beat was college campuses. He was in his early twenties, and passing for a college student was easy for him. This was the eighth such job he'd pulled off this year. Some of them hadn't panned out, but this one--Carl had a feeling that this was going to prove to be his big score. For a diversion, Carl flipped some of the switches on the small control panel in front of him and tapped into the Science Hall's system of security cameras. There was the one in the room he was going to break into--the object was right there on the table! Nice of them to be so obliging and leave it out for him... Just before 3:00 a.m., Carl decided it was time to make his move. He flipped some switches, then pressed the big red button in the middle of the control panel. There were several beeps, hums, and hydraulic hisses as machinery moved, interlocking with other components. Carl pulled his arms back into the cavity as metal parts folded in around them. On the outside, the "Pepsi" sign's light went out, and it broke into three parts, which reversed themselves to become metal armor. The panel with the selector buttons on it turned around as well. The machine split and separated in various ways, parts of it becoming arms and other legs, and a robotic head rose out of the center of the vending machine. Inside, Carl grasped hand controls and mashed his feet down on pedals. The Pepsi machine completed its transformation, a series of lights on the internal control boards indicating its state of readiness. The 10-foot-tall Pepsi robot stomped around the stairwell and down a corridor. He knew just what he was looking for, and where it was. The room was locked, but that mattered not to this machine. Carl simply lashed out and kicked the metal door in. Then he bashed away with the robot's fists until the opening was large enough for it to get through, and walked it inside. It wasn't really much--just a small metallic box. But inside were some special components that the government had been working on for a long time. They had sent sample copies to the university, and ELITE wanted these copies. Carl reached out and grabbed the box, and then the robot's hand retracted up into the arm. A few seconds later, a panel in the side of the cockpit opened, and Carl lifted the box out and set it in a locker behind him. The hand slid back into place, empty. Stepping back into the corridor, Carl noticed a couple of security guards standing slack-jawed in amazement at what they had just seen. Carl ignored them; they didn't have guns and even if they did they wouldn't be a danger. Carl ran the robot back into the central area around the stairs, and toward the plate-glass windows in the front. Without stopping, he crashed through, firing the robot's built-in thrusters for a soft landing. Outside now, Carl Morgan ran up the stairs and turned to the left. Here was the street where his transportation would be waiting--all he had to do was climb on. Then he heard the gunshots. It was a couple of police officers with 9mm automatics, running up from the direction of the stadium. "Hold it!" one of them yelled. "Oh, give me a break," Carl muttered, pulling a trigger. Two small projectiles shot out from a tube in the robot's left arm, landing just in front of the cops. They exploded, releasing a cloud of grey smoke which also acted as knockout gas. As the policemen slumped to the ground, Carl's robot ran over to the street, where a large flatbed truck had just pulled up at the curb. Carl Morgan leaped the machine up onto the bed, and the vehicle started moving again. Carl pressed the large red button in the center of the control panel once again, and the transformation reversed itself. The robot changed back into a Pepsi machine, being transported somewhere in a flatbed truck. Carl was extremely pleased--and he knew ELITE would be pleased, too. Several hours later, at the ELITE Regional Headquarters for the American midwest, Carl watched amusedly as the techs trotted out with their advanced diagnostic equipment, huge racks of odd-looking tools, and specialized loading machines, and started working on...a Pepsi machine. The image always brought a chuckle from him. Carl handed the small metal box to an elaborately-uniformed higher-ranking ELITE officer. He didn't know exactly what was inside, nor did he care--the less he knew about these things, the less expendable he was. He turned to the technicians going over the Pepsi robot. "You can skip the reload machines--I just fired two gas grens, and those can be loaded manually. You'd better start prepping the machine for the IBM job. Make it a Mountain Dew machine..." BEEEEEEEEEP! The comtone interrupted Carl Morgan's instructions to the crew. "If you'll excuse me..." he said, pulling out the small black pocket pager. He flipped up a small panel, which became a 3x2 inch screen. "Morgan here." The screen lit up with a digitally-masked face. Morgan started--it was the supreme commander of ELITE himself, Operative One! The computer-distorted voice spoke. "Operative Carl Morgan. You have distinguished yourself time and time again in the commission of your missions. At 97%, you have the highest success rate of any of our agents." "Thank you, sir," Carl said, his hands trembling so that he nearly dropped the communicator. "But I did not call to exchange pleasantries. Your relative youth enables you to impersonate a college student, which you have done numerous times in the past. However, it will also allow you to impersonate a military cadet." "Sir?" "You are aware of the large UFO now in geosynchronous orbit?" "Yessir," Carl said. "I've read the newspapers, and according to the ELITE technicians I've talked to about it--UFOs are a hobby of mine, sir--it's no hoax. But I have no idea what it could be, or what it's doing here." "You'll find out," Operative One said. "We have been monitoring their operations from the moment they first showed up, and have intercepted communications between them and NORAD. The indications are that they have technology extremely advanced even over our own, and ELITE must have that technology. Therefore, you are going to get it for us." Within hours, Carl Morgan was in ELITE's central HQ, in an undisclosed location. He was fitted for a uniform, then ushered into a briefing room with several superior ELITE officers, and a viewscreen along one wall. Then they got down to business. "All we know about this strange starship is that it appeared in orbit about 48 hours ago, accompanied by massive gravitic disturbances," Colonel Freesport, the main briefing officer, began. "It descended to approximately 250,000 feet, where an American F-15 flight took these pictures." He clicked a remote control-like device in his hand, and slightly shaky video footage of a black and red, wedge-shaped object appeared. There were crosshairs across the center of the picture, and various digital displays in the corners concerning time, altitude, and range to target. "Taken by a gunsight camera, I see," Carl commented. Freesport nodded. "Shortly afterward, it sent out a reconnaissance aircraft," Freesport continued, clicking the hand-held unit again. The screen switched to showing the same pictures that General Mitchell had requested on his monitors a day earlier, then to pictures taken by the gun cameras on Mitchell's Hedgehog squadron. Scenes from the side, and also from the rear. "We've run spectrographic analyses on those engines," Freesport noted, indicating the blue flames coming out of the fighter's thrust ports. "So far, we haven't been able to figure out exactly what that plane is running on. But that's not the best of it." "Oh? Then what is?" Carl Morgan asked. "We have their radio conversation, in which the alien reveals who they are and where they've come from. There's no time to play it for you now, but to sum up, the alien pilot claims that they are from the future of an alternate earth. You are familiar with the theory of alternate timelines?" Morgan nodded. "I've watched 'Cosmos.' With each possible decision, two or more timelines branch off, depending on what decision is made. So they say they're from the future of such an alternate world?" Colonel Freesport nodded. "Yes, but we have no way of knowing whether they're telling the truth. It could just be a line of bull for the benefit of the ignorant earthlings." Freesport fast-forwarded the videotape. "There's one more thing I have to show you." When he stopped, the planes were flying along normally, then one of the F-15s exploded! "What's happening?" Carl asked. "Watch." Freesport split the screen into four segments, three displaying footage from the remaining F-15s' gun cameras as they broke formation. The fourth was from a different point of view, above and behind the squadron. The footage wasn't very coherent, but Freesport could apparently understand it. At a certain point, he froze the footage and pointed to one of the pictures. "There." He pointed at a dark silhouette in the corner of the camera's viewpoint. "Isn't that--?" "Yes. One of our ES-2D DarkStar Stealth fighters. It was supposed to knock the UFO down if it could, so we would have the pieces to examine." Freesport started the tape again. After some more jinking and aerial maneuvering, the ES-2D fired another missile, at the same time as some sort of beam from the underside of the UFO fried the DarkStar. The missile hit the UFO, but barely scratched it. "We recovered the DarkStar's flight recorders later. Actually, the military recovered them, but they were kind enough to turn them over to us." Freesport stopped the tape. "What happened next?" Carl Morgan asked. "The UFO landed at Langley, due to a problem in its electrical systems." "Oh? And what are we doing about that, eh?" Carl asked. Freesport reddened. "I'm not at liberty to say." "I see." Carl knew that they would have a team of Field Agents out there even now--it was standard ELITE procedure. It was also standard Elite procedure not to tell the "litle guys" like himself about it. "Is anybody else doing anything about it?" "What?" The colonel paused, not sure whether or not to be red-faced at this question. "Are any other agencies working on the same thing we are? In other words, who can I expect to run into on this mission?" "Oh! I meant to tell you that, can't see how I forgot." Freesport pulled out a folder from a drawer and handed it to Carl. "This is our primary competition." Morgan took it and glanced at it. A Japanese government intelligence corporation; a minor player compared to ELITE. "Not much to worry about here," he said, passing it back. Freesport nodded. "As you say. Still, it pays to be safe." "What about CIA, MI6, Mossad, KGB?" Morgan asked. "CIA has strict orders from the President to hold back--he's trying to establish diplomatic relations with the ship." Freesport snorted. "MI6 really can't do all that much--the UFO hasn't sent a plane to Britain, and they're not even in what might be called British airspace. Mossad is too busy rooting out suspected Palestinian traitors to take an interest in this. And as you know, the KGB doesn't really exist any more." "Okay, that's the background on the plane. Now what?" "Two hours ago, it began to move into a higher orbit. Geosynchronous, as far as we can tell." Freesport switched the screen to a world map resembling the one at Mission Control, in Houston, and pointed to a small dot hanging over New England. "It's approximately over Washington, D.C. Which ought to be making some U.S. brass rather nervous." Freesport grinned at the prospect. "And this is what I'm to infiltrate?" Carl asked. Freesport nodded. "Indeed." He switched the screen off, and indicated the strange-looking uniform Morgan was wearing. "That uniform you're wearing is going to help. We had the computer do a 3-D simulation of the uniforms the technicians were wearing, and we reproduced it as closely as possible," he explained. "It probably won't pass inspection close-up, but it should be good enough until you can obtain the genuine article." Freesport reached beneath the table and pulled something out. It was a black electricians' vest, full of special tools and equipment. Lock picks, security-defeating gadgets, et cetera. "You'll be taking this, though we really can't be sure how much of it will be useful on that ship." Carl took the vest and put it on. This was standard gear for ELITE field agents. "What's my method of insertion?" "RA-2F Robotic Armor suit. We'll remove all the weapons and outfit it with a total stealth system and extra booster packs. You'll launch from one of our shuttles and make contact three hours later." Carl nodded. The RA-2 was one of ELITE's standard attack craft, capable of limited flight in an atmosphere and normally mounting a 12mm gatling gun and minimissiles. Carl was an expert in its operation. It was one of the most advanced weapon systems on the face of the earth, but Carl got the feeling from what he had just seen that the alien technology completely eclipsed it. "So when do I go?" "We're still waiting for preliminary data on the starship's new position and defenses. You should be able to leave within several days." "Wow. I've been CALLED a space cadet before, but I never thought I'd actually BE one..." The following is an excerpt from that dimension's Central Intelligence Agency handbook of terrorist organizations for the year 1992. ELITE: Entrepreneurial League of Intelligence and Technological Expertise. Membership: Approximately 6,000 Founded: 1983 Base of Operations: Unknown Leader: "Operative One;" real identity unknown Description: More of a high-tech gang of thieves than a true terrorist organization. They have no long-term goals, no ideology. They specialize in stealing technological secrets and selling them to foreign countries or competing corporations. Not considered a threat to national security, but a matter for the FBI to handle. However, the Jack Ryans of this reality were quite wrong about ELITE. In actuality, ELITE was much larger than the CIA thought, with over 40,000 members spread over several continents, and growing rapidly. It had really existed since the early 1960s, in one form or another, and it also had definite goals in addition to the acquisition of wealth. These goals included eventual world domination. Through subsidiary agencies (some of which were listed in the CIA handbook as terrorist organizations in their own right), ELITE was fueling a dozen conflicts worldwide. Supplying arms to Herzogovenia, inciting violence in South Africa--if it was a big pie, ELITE probably had a finger in it. Their plans were to move in with their own high-tech armies and clean up after the violence was over. What high-tech armies? Every piece of technology ELITE stole and sold, it also USED, creating high-tech machinery and weapons, such as the vending machine robot and RA-2 power armor. ELITE was stockpiling these weapons, preparing for the day when they could be used to conquer the world. And ELITE's technology WAS superior, a synthesis of technological secrets from around the world. But all preliminary indications were that the ROOSEVELT's technology was greater...whicy was why Operative One had to have it for ELITE. Ivory watched as false account after false account began to pop up. At first she'd wondered if it might be another intelligence agency that had succeeded in breaking in, but with the strange account names that began coming up, she dismissed this immediately. Captain Android, Lieutenant Truss, Lieutenant ReRob, Lieutenant MegaZone... Megazone...that sounded familiar. -Oh yes, the name of those animated movies about the motorcycle and the giant computer.- Ivory had seen Megazone 23 at the age of 15 when it had first come out, and had been duly impressed by it. Currently the movies were popular in America, especially among American college students... -College students!- she realized. -They must be American college students.- She remembered quite well what American colleges and their students could be like, having attended one herself. The students often delighted in defying authority by breaking into computer accounts. Out of nostalgia, and also curiosity, Ivory Tanaka took steps to protect these new accounts from detection by the ROOSEVELT's command crew. She erased all records of their creation in the logs and also any records of their existance at all, so the accounts were essentially invisible. While she was at it, she also made an account for Major General Jane Doe, for herself. She upped the access of the accounts to command rank level. Then she sat back and waited for someone to log on. megazone@wpi.WPI.EDU (B Bikowicz): "Yo, Ben, what's up?" "Not much, yourself?" "Same old, same old. Oh, got you a new account." "How'd you do that? I don't go to WPI anymore remember?" "Well, this isn't a WPI account. It's at a new site." "What, like world?" "I'm not sure. Droid and I hacked in...Well, Droid hacked in after I found it. You are now gryphon@roosevelt.ikazuchi.ref." "Dot-ref?" "That's what I said. That's why we got in to it. It seems to be some sort of milsite or something." "Oh great. Just what we need. Let's play annoy the feds." "Oh drop it. Ziggy up?" "Yeah, I got him running again." "Can I log in?" "You may as well. I can see we're not going to do any writing until you get this over with." "You're as perceptive as ever." "Funny." Zoner fired up Ben's PC, Ziggy, and called up WPI's annex to telnet to his 'new' account. "It's not much. Just some place to poke around. Really nothing special, just a lot of record keeping. Files, schedules, rosters, etc...I haven't recognized any of the names in here either. It is a bit weird, something is screwed up...Check this out..." Zoner typed 'date' and was rewarded with the following display: Mon Jul 23 23:13:32 GMT 2032. "2032? Whatthehell?" Ben wondered aloud. "I don't know. I just ran across that earlier. I mean the entire thing is screwed up. July? I don't even know if July 23rd in 2032 is a Monday. Maybe, Droid screwed something up. But you'd think someone would have noticed it by now." "I don't think so, Droid is pretty good. What else?" "Well, with an ls -al all the file creation dates are 2000-something," Zoner remarked. "I poked around a bit. What's the current release of Unix?" Ben replied, "Umm...BSD 4.1 I think...AT&T is SysV...Why?" "This machine is running Unix 25.2." "BAAAH! You sure it isn't something else? Ultrix, Linix, Dominatrix, something else?" "Nope, it's called Unix," Zoner affirmed. "And it is release 25.2." "I guess BSD won the lawsuit...Wait a minute! I'm talking like this thing is from the future." "Bingo." "What? You think it is?" "It would certainly explain a lot of things. Either we're dealing with time travel or a really screwed system. Eliminate the stupidly obvious and that seems to leave time travel." "You seem to be taking it in stride." "It takes a lot to fluster a Discordian," Zoner explained smugly. "Oh, do shut up...Hey, what are you doing?" "Hmmm..." Zoner turned back to the screen. Streams of text and graphics were filling the monitor. "I'm not doing that." As they watched the random characters resolved themselves into a face. Actually an extremely beautiful face, with a slight oriental cast. The PC speaker came to life "Greetings. I am Ivory Tanaka." "Umm...Hello...Ummm..." Zoner stuttered. "Good job schmuck, takes a lot to fluster a Discordian huh?" Gryphon remarked sarcastically. "How is she supposed to hear you?" "Uh, yeah, I'll type." #Hello Ivory. Please hold on while we try to rig something up on our end so you can hear us.# "I understand. I'll wait." Her voice, barely comprehensible, came through the PC speaker again. "Is your Sound Blaster connected to your stereo?" "Yeah, why?" "I'd like to hear her voice out of something other than a PC speaker." "Gotcha..." "Where's your mic?" "Why?" "The Blaster has a mic jack right?" "Oh yeah, next to the answering machine." "Got it." #Just a moment.# Zoner and Gryph scrambled to set everything up. It still hadn't hit them that they were talking to an AI. "Don't turn the volume up too high. We don't want feedback." "Gotcha." "Ok, let's rock." Zoner turned the mic on. "Can you hear me?" "Yes." Now that her voice came from Ben's stereo speakers instead of the tinny PC speaker, they noticed that it was definitely feminine, human-sounding, and had a delicate Japanese accent. "Cool!" Zoner exclaimed, drowning out Ben's drawl of "Neeaat..." "Oh, where are my manners...I'm MegaZone, this is Gryphon..." "Actually Ben Hutchins, but you can call me Gryph." "Call me Zoner." "My name is Ivory Tanaka. Where are you located?" "We're in Ben's apartment." Ben slapped his forehead and said, "Duh!" "Oh...In Worcester, Massachusetts. I go to Worcester Polytech, Ben used to. We're coauthors--well, us and ReRob. But he's not here. And I think I'll shut up now." "First intelligent thing you've done so far. So, Ivory, how exactly do you manage to send realtime video and audio two ways on one phone line at 2400 baud?" "I've installed an advanced data compression routine on your system. I could have done better, but your machine is a bit primitive, even by today's standards." "Excuse me, but why us?" Ben asked. "Your friend was the first person to attract my attention. He was searching in the ftp site at the same time I was looking through that area, and this alerted me to your presence. Then someone attempted to and did break into the computer through the Internet node, and I couldn't trace the connection. So I just waited for the next dial-up from one of those accounts. I had guessed that it would be college students who were doing it, and I see that I am correct." "I just need to ask the obvious," Zoner broke in. "You're not a real person are you?" "I am as 'real' as you are. Or at least I used to be. My name is Ivory Tanaka. Somehow my mind, or at least the thought and memory patterns that compose my mind, was ripped out of my body while I was working in a virtual reality system. Now it's just my mind wandering through this computer system but not part of it. You might say that I am an independant entity." "Ah...yeah. So, where are you?" Ben inquired. "I currently reside in the computer systems of the S.S. ROOSEVELT, currently in geosynchronous orbit." "Yeow! Orbit?! Wait a minute. We are currently talking to an AI from the future aboard a ship in orbit?! I'm not dealing," Zoner said as he backed away from the computer. "No, I am not from the future. Only the ship is. I was trapped here only two days ago." "Two days? You mean there is an operating VR system out on Earth already?" Zoner asked, moving back into position. "Well...Yes." Zoner noticed that Ivory seemed a bit hesitant to divulge any detail. -I would be too if I'D invented a VR system!- He decided to hold off on asking her about it until later. "What were you doing with it?" "I was spying on the spacecraft. But something went wrong and I was destroyed. I mean my craft was destroyed, I mean...I'm sorry. I am still a bit confused." "Was your body destroyed?" Ben asked. "Yes...I mean no. Well, I WAS the craft when it was destroyed. But my physical body was still on the surface. I don't even know if it's dead or alive, or what's happened to..." She trailed off, looking a bit wistful. "Of course. The next logical step. Remote control via VR to isolate the pilots physical body from the stresses incurred during flight..." "Will you please shut up?" Ben cut Zoner short. "Let's see if we can find anything out about the ship, or find a way to help her." "Well, excuse me. This is all very interesting, Ivory. Why don't you tell us all about it and then we can answer any questions you have?" chm173s@nic.smsu.edu (Chris Meadows): At that question, Ivory froze for a few seconds. She really didn't KNOW anything about the starship, except that it seemed to be from the future. -Shame on me!- she thought. -I'd better find out what's going on. First, to stop operating at realtime...- Ivory knew she could run faster than realtime. She had been at the start, but had slowed herself down reflexively when she'd seen people standing like statues. Now her objective was to speed herself up, and this she did, drawing on the computer resources of the Ikazuchi to accelerate herself to a thousand, a hundred thousand, a MILLION TIMES normal human speed. At 1,000,000 x chron (her own mental shorthand for the acceleration), she stopped. Now she had all the time in the world to do the research--eleven and one half days in the next one second realtime alone! Ivory reached out and accessed files all over the ship pertaining to its recent history--the last six months or so. She pulled out dozens of them, absorbing the data instinctively, directly to her mind. When she was finished, she had a good working knowledge of why the starship was here, and not even 1/100th of a second had passed, realtime. Ivory reached out and slowed down, dropping back to 1 x chron to tell Zoner and Gryphon what she'd found out. On Ziggy's screen, Ivory's image flickered and changed. Before, only her neck and head had been visible. Now the whole upper portion of her body was visible, and the two observers were better able to see what she looked like. She was definitely Oriental, Japanese judging from her name. Her eyes were a jade green color, and her long bluish-black hair fell past the bottom of the screen. In addition, she was utterly nude, and her...attributes were quite impressive. Zoner opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. "If you want to know why the ship is here, I'll tell you," Ivory said. "This is how it happened. This ship was part of an expeditionary force with orders to liberate planets from a warlike race of alien creatures, out near the galactic rim..." In the central computer core of the S.S. ROOSEVELT, Lieutenant Stefan Anderson was running some routine programs on a terminal, when the computer's performance suddenly slowed down, and the light blinked. Then everything came back up to normal, and the room was full of console operators' muttered "What the hell?"s. "Hey, what happened?" Anderson called across to the tech at the monitoring station by the central computer core. "I don't know myself...Hold on, I'm getting the status report now." "Route it to my station, will you? Terminal...LOGV077A." "Will do...hang on." The tech started hitting keys, then stopped. "I'll be an Invid's uncle. Look at THIS!" "Send it over here so I CAN look at it!" Anderson said. The tech, oblivious to Anderson's comments, half-muttered, "There was a power spike that lasted for three seconds, and a processing operation that took up 82.7% of the computer's run-time for approximately 2.2 seconds...and I'm reading file accesses across the board..." The tech began entering commands on the keyboard and flipping switches. In the end, Anderson had to walk over to the monitoring station and look over the technician's shoulder to see the graphs. The tech looked up. "What do you think it was, Steve?" "Looks like someone was running a high-speed file transfer program, to get in and get whatever files they could before we discovered them. Were any of the accessed files top secret?" The tech shook his head, a puzzled expression on his face. "No, most of them were just routine logs." "Hmmm, that's odd." Stephan cupped his chin in his palm. "And what sort of a file access program takes up 82.7% of the run-time of a computer network like that in this ship? That amount of run-time could operate all this ship's life-support for over a year!" The technician just shrugged. "Try to localize the node where the program was run," Stephan decided. "When we have something, we'll tell Eddings. Meanwhile, let's tighten up security, shall we? Put the computer system on Code II Alert." Code II Alert meant that the computer would verify any attempt to log in, and if it failed, report it immediately. "Yessir." The technician started banging keys, and Lieutenant Anderson stepped into the lavatory down the hall and pulled out his little amber-colored bottle of prescription medication. From the headache he felt coming on, he was certain that this was going to be a two-pill day. The other Ivory Tanaka came slowly back to reality out of a great black void. She opened her eyes, then wished she hadn't as the pain came throbbing back to her. She had one hell of a headache. What had she been doing the night before? Then it came back to her. The EA-2000 drone--the UFO--the PAIN...Tanaka cried out involuntarily at the memory. Then she heard footsteps. She opened her eyes more fully, and as they came back to focus she saw that she was in a bed in a hospital room, and the footsteps belonged to...-Oh, NO,- Ivory thought. -That fool professor who has the crush on me.- He was carrying a box of some kind. -I really hope that's not flowers...I don't think I could deal with that, especially from HIM...- His name was Asuka Suzuki, she remembered, and there was something else...dim memories of being lowered down into his arms, and of him disconnecting the interface cables and calling for an ambulance... "Hello," Suzuki said. "Glad to see you're feeling better. The doc hasn't let me in for two days." "Two...days?" Ivory took in the amount of time she'd been in the hospital with more than a little shock. "Yes. Ever since the accident." He shook his head and pulled up a chair. "The doctor says you'll live." For a moment, Ivory couldn't tell whether or not he was joking. He was, she decided. He had to be. "What happened?" "I thought you'd be curious about that," Suzuki said, "so I brought these." He opened the box and pulled out a pile of computer printouts. "This is the data we got from the drone shortly before it happened. As you can imagine, I've gone over the entire system quite carefully to make sure it wasn't an internal bug that caused it." He handed the sheaf of paper to Ivory Tanaka, then pressed the control to raise the back of her bed so she could read it. Tanaka skimmed over the printouts, then stopped halfway down the third page. A series of statements had been outlined in yellow highlighter. Ivory gasped as she read over the commands again and again. "Someone on that ship broke into the drone flight computer and ran a copy command? But that could--" "It could seriously brain-damage the pilot, for one thing." Tanaka nodded. "And in theory..." She shook her head. "They could have a copy of all my memories, all my experiences in their computers." She shivered. "I feel violated." Tanaka skimmed further, then looked up. "I suppose I owe you my life," she said, pointing to the handwritten notation, "Emergency Cutoff initiated by Suzuki, Asuka." "If you hadn't pressed that button when you did, I could have--have--" "Suffered permanent brain damage," Asuka finished. Ivory nodded. "Indeed." She motioned to Suzuki. "Come here, please." Asuka Suzuki got up and came over. "Yes?" he began, but was shushed by Ivory Tanaka. She beckoned him closer, and he stepped a little closer to her, then she put her arms around him and kissed him. It wasn't a long kiss, or a particularly passionate one, but it was a kiss, and it left Asuka feeling a bit stunned. As he stood there, Ivory leaned back against the bed and closed her eyes. Asuka took the cue and quietly slipped out the door. As soon as he was gone, Ivory Tanaka opened her eyes again and looked after him. -He's not a bad kisser,- she thought. -Maybe...but no. He's not my type.- Ivory turned back to the front of the printout and started going through it again. She had to be CERTAIN... [To be continued, tomorrow...] -- Chris Meadows | Robotech_Master's First Law of Superguy: CHM173S@NIC.SMSU.EDU | Continuity is Overrated. CMEADOWS@NYX.CS.DU.EDU | Robotech_Master's Corollary: ...but sometimes CMEADOWS@NOX.CS.DU.EDU | necessary all the same.