CHAPTER FOUR "Which one of you ordered the cheesecake?" The waiter stared at the order in one hand while balancing two dessert plates on his other arm. "That's me!" said Kei, waving anxiously. "You sure? I could've sworn..." "Trust us," said Yuri, annoyed, "we know what we ordered." "Of course, of course, I'm so sorry." The waiter placed the food in front of them and left, red-faced. "Where do they get these people?" said Kei. "If he thinks he's getting a tip--" "Oh, come on, Kei, be nice. He's probably just rushed. Look how busy it is today." Kei and Yuri were seated in an open-air dining court on the top floor of the mall. The domed roof was open, allowing breeze and sunlight in, as well as providing a view of the city. Both girls had used their cards to buy new outfits and were wearing them, having relegated their uniforms to one of the numerous shopping bags sitting next to them. As Yuri had pointed out, the place was very busy. The entire mall seemed filled to the bursting point with people. "Oh, alright," relented Kei. "It's not like I can't afford to be generous." "Yeah!" Yuri agreed, digging into her ice cream. "We're rich! Man, ten thousand credits, and he said the price would `more than cover it'! We're not gonna have worry about the 3WA anymore. We can retire before they fire us!" "Retire, huh?" That thought didn't go down too well with Kei. "Sure. You know, stop working. There's lots of places in the galaxy I've always wanted to see. Now I won't have to wait for a mission to take us there!" "I think I'd be bored stiff." "Well, what else are you going to do?" Yuri laughed. "Join a mercenary corps?" "Maybe." Yuri choked on her ice cream. "Okay, not really a mercenary corps," admitted Kei. "There's this outfit called the Crushers." "Isn't that a terraforming organization?" Yuri asked, cleaning herself off with a napkin. "Pardon me for doubting you, but I can't see you building atmosphere generators." "Well, they also do a little troubleshooting on the side. Some organizations prefer to deal with them rather than the 3WA, since the Crushers aren't in with the United Galactica yet. Might be interesting to hang around with them." Yuri pouted. "I'd miss you." "You could come along--OW!" Someone slapped Kei on back, hard. It was an older man, running, wearing a dirty blazer and a loosened necktie. The impact with Kei knocked him off his feet, sending him sprawling. Before the stunned girls could react, the man had gotten to his feet and resumed running madly across the court. "What the heck was that about?!" said Yuri. She tried to follow the man with her eyes, but lost him. She turned back to Kei. "Kei, are you al--?" Kei was gone. Kei picked, weaved, and shoved her way through the crowd, trying desperately to keep the man in sight. Exactly why she had decided to chase him, she wasn't sure. It just seemed really important for some reason. She figured she'd rather catch him first and then figure out why, rather than have the reason strike her after it was too late. "Hey! Somebody stop him!" Kei knew before she shouted how little good it would do, but tried anyway. Those who didn't ignore her merely acted annoyed. Kei almost lost track of her quarry, then sighted him again, trying to run down a staircase. Kei found a closer set of stairs that led to the same level and headed down herself. As she ran down the steps, she kept one eye on the man running down the other staircase, with the unfortunate result that she ran right into a fat man walking up the same steps. Both Kei and the fat man bounced painfully down the steps, ending up in a tangled heap at the bottom. Kei picked herself up... * * * ...and brushed the dirt off her face. The fat merchant scrambled about, trying to gather his chickens together. "You stone-headed tart! That's my livelihood flying off!" "Oh, shut up, you fat boob!" Kei shot back. "You saw me coming down the ladder!" The merchant continued to rant at her, but Kei ignored him, scanning the marketplace for any sign of the man she was chasing. She caught sight of his purple robe halfway across the courtyard, heading toward toward the area where the cloth merchants had set up shop. She picked up her sword and gave chase, the shoppers only too eager to get out of her way. Kei reached the cloth market tent, only to once again lose sight of the man. Figuring that causing a panic would only help him escape, she replaced her sword in the scabbard. Kei entered the tent and began to search. Kei strolled between the vast array of tables, most of which held piles of cloth high enough to conceal someone behind them. she thought. She quickened her pace, trying to cover the area as fast as possible. "YAAAH!" Kei screeched as someone tapped her on the back. She whirled, swept the attacker's legs out and stepped on his throat. It was the wrong man, a tall skinny one with a mustache. "No need for hysterics, madam," he said, after Kei had released his neck, "I was merely about to ask if you required assistance." "No, no I'm not shopping," Kei said, and cursed to herself. If her quarry had still been in the cloth market, he almost certainly could have made a break for it during her little outburst. She considered leaving the tent. The salesman proved to be more persistent that Kei had anticipated. "Well, if you'd reconsider, I'm certain I could fashion you a garment that would be much more stylish than that two-piece armor suit you're wearing now. Armor and fur just aren't in this year, I'm afraid." "I'm not interested, okay?" Kei pushed a pile of cloth samples aside to see behind it. Unfortunately, the salesman took this action to mean that she was interested in the sample at the bottom. "Ah, yes!" He picked up the cloth and held it next to her, a sample of a fine, lime-green-colored silk. "This would look absolutely breathtaking on you! I see an evening dress, or perhaps something more intimate?" "No, that's not my color, that's..." She remembered a face, but couldn't place a name to it. "Oh, I beg to differ, madam. You'd look positively radiant! See how the shade contrasts ever so delicately with your red hair?" "Shut...UP!!!" To hell with subtlety. Kei drew her sword and held it at the ready, a look of death on her face. "Of course, if you're really not interested, I quite understand..." The salesman backed away, grinning nervously. Kei decided she had been wrong about causing a panic. She held her sword in the air for all to see and screamed "EVERYBODY OUT!!" With an overhead swing, she cleaved the nearest table in two. The result was predictable and immediate, as all the shoppers suddenly had an overpowering urge to examine other areas of the marketplace. Kei leapt upon another table, kicking another pile of flowery fabric out of the way, and examined the crowd that was stampeding for the exits. Kei had noticed during her search that nobody in the tent was wearing the type of purple robe that was on the man she was chasing, further evidence that he came from elsewhere. She hoped to be able to pick it out in the crowd, providing he was still in the tent. He was. Kei caught sight of his robe as the man left through an exit on the far side of the tent. Using the threat of her sword to part the crowd, Kei hurried after. As Kei walked out into the full sunlight once more, she was startled by something that whizzed by her cheek and imbedded itself in one of the posts that held up the tent. It was a crossbow bolt. It had been shot by one of three approaching armed men, dressed in tacky blue cloaks with medallions. Their uniforms were supposed to lend an air of authority, but it was obvious how little authority these men carried other than what was supplied by their weapons. thought Kei. She ran through the crowd, figuring that not even someone as stupid as most market enforcers would fire into the crowd. Again, she lost her quarry. This time, though, Kei could feel a general sense of commotion directly ahead. Kei reached a ledge and looked down. The man had climbed almost all the way down the ladder. Kei now saw where he was heading. From the foot of the ladder, it was just a few running steps to the horse stables. Unless Kei planned to steal a horse herself, she had to act now. She swallowed hard as she realized she'd have to jump. "I hope this hurts you more than it hurts me," she said, and leapt off the ledge. As she landed on him, she decided it couldn't have hurt him worse: he was still conscious. He was still trying to wriggle away from her, for that matter. She punched him on the chin, causing her new bruises to scream in protest. She dragged him to his feet by his collar and (without understanding why) demanded, "Where's the key?!" The man looked completely confused. "The key?" "Yes, you bastard, the key! What have you done with it?!" "I--I gave it to you!" Kei thought, "Christ, lady, why are you doing this to me? I'm trying to help you! Let me go before..." The man's eyes made an alarmed glance at something behind Kei. Kei turned around to see the market enforcers approaching. The man jerked out of Kei's grasp and tried to make a stumbling run for the stables. One of the enforcers raised his crossbow, but instead of firing a bolt, there was a sound like a whip cracking and the man fell down, blood oozing from his back. Kei had heard the phrase "her head swam" before, but didn't know it referred to a literal feeling. Kei was so confused she could feel it like water about her head. Her knees buckled and she collapsed, unconscious... * * * ...awakening a moment later to find Yuri standing over her. The girl was quite winded, speaking in between breaths. "Are (puff), are you okay?" "Y...yeah," said Kei. "Where am I?" "Well, a few more steps and you'd be in the parking garage. For awhile there, I didn't think I was going to catch up with you. I don't believe you jumped off the balcony like that. Are you sure you're okay?" "Yeah, I'm fine." Still, she winced as she got to her feet. "What were you trying to do?" asked Yuri. "I--" Kei suddenly remembered the man she was chasing. She looked toward the garage. Sure enough, there he was, lying in a crumpled heap, surrounded by mall security. Kei ran over. "Is he okay?" "Don't worry, ma'am, he's dead as a doornail," said the leader of the security group. "Thanks for your help in apprehending him. You're one hell of a brave lady." "My help? Why did you kill him? He wasn't dangerous." The guard smiled. "Show her, Bill." "Bill" turned the man over, reached into the now bloodstained jacket and pulled out a small handgun. "He seems dangerous enough to me." thought Kei. Most UG worlds required a suspect to show an intention to use lethal force before a law officer could use such force himself. Yuri grabbed Kei gently by the shoulder. "Let's go, Kei." As she left, Kei muttered to herself, "Mall cops. The lowliest form of law enforcement..." To Yuri's surprise, Kei asked her to drive their rental car back to the hotel. Kei usually griped about Yuri's driving ability, but this time she just rode in silence, looking at the city pass by as the wind whipped through her red hair. It wasn't until they were halfway there that she finally said something. "He wasn't running from me, he was running from them." "Why *would* he have been running from you?" Yuri asked. "All he did was slap you in the back. Hardly something to cause him to fear for his life." Kei didn't say anything for a moment. Then she turned to Yuri. "Yuri, if I tell you something, will you promise not to think I'm nuts?" Yuri smiled. "I already think you're nuts." Kei turned away and started to sulk, so Yuri quickly added "No, Kei, I won't think you're crazy. What's wrong?" "When I was chasing that man, it was like I was someplace else, like I was somebody else. It wasn't a mall anymore. It was an open-air marketplace like you might see in an early civilization. YAAH!" Kei yelled as the car swerved slightly. "D-did you say an open-air market?" Kei nodded. "When Close and his goons were taking us to the hotel, I looked out the window and saw a primitive market instead of a mall. I thought I was daydreaming, because the vision vanished when you shook me. Were you wearing different clothes?" "Yeah, sorta like an armor bikini." "I was too. When I saw the market, I was wearing this silvery robe. You know, it's like..." "...like what the characters in our role-playing campaign wear. I take it back, Yuri. We are nuts." "Both of us nuts in the same way? Not too likely." Kei agreed, at least she thought she did. "Wait," said Kei. "I want to check on Tarc." She and Yuri stopped at Meridian's room, only a few doors from their own. Kei knocked on the door. "Who is it?" came Tarc's voice from inside. "It's us," Kei said, "your partners in this mess." To Kei and Yuri's astonishment, Tarc replied, "Please go away." "Are you alright?" asked Yuri. "I'm perfectly well. I simply don't wish to see anyone at the moment." Kei and Yuri walked to their room, taken aback. Kei flopped onto one of the elegant sofas. "This case just keeps getting weirder and weirder, Yuri." "This is a case now?" asked Yuri as she sat across from Kei. "Not really, but I guess I think of it as one. ENGH!" She started to squirm against the back of the sofa. "Something on my back. Itches." "Let me see." Yuri examined Kei's back. There was a red mark near where the running man had slapped her. "Hey, something's stuck in your back." "Well, get it out!" Closing one eye and sticking out her tongue, Yuri managed to pull the tiny object out of Kei's back with her fingernails. It was a flat, square chip about one millimeter square. "Looks like some kind of microchip. So that's what that guy was trying to hide. Maybe we should tell MacPherson about this when we see her tomorrow." "No," said Kei. "Huh?" "That man... He said he was trying to help me, that he'd given me some kind of key. Obviously he was talking about that thing. And they killed him. Let's find out what's on the chip, then decide whether or not to give it to MacPherson." "Suit yourself," said Yuri. "Gee, where am I gonna put this thing? I'm afraid to breathe on it, it's so small." "Say, Yuri, could we try an experiment?" "Ah! I know what to do!" Yuri opened the mint on the pillow of her bed, ate it, then wrapped the microchip up in the foil, making a little ball. "This'll be a little harder to lose. What kind of experiment?" "Hold my hand." Yuri gave Kei a funny look, then understood what she meant. "You want to try for clairvoyance? That never works." "It did when we were chasing that little ESPer girl." "Yeah, but not on purpose," said Yuri. "I've never been certain that it was us who made that vision and not the girl. The only who really thinks we're psychic is the central computer." "Well, it can't hurt to try," Kei said, holding out her hand. "Oh, alright." Yuri walked over to Kei and took her hand. "We should probably clear our minds or something." "Yeah. Think of a blank computer screen, or a blank sheet of paper." Yuri and Kei held hands and concentrated. They cleared their minds of all thoughts, opening them to visions of what was to come. They held their breath, and just when it seemed the moment would burst... Nothing. Yuri let go. "I told you this was useless." Kei shrugged. Kei was having a lovely dream. Everything was back to normal and she and Yuri were laying waste to a operations center of the Lucifer Crime Syndicate. Just as she was about to tell the battle-scarred Syndicate leader to "Go ahead, make my day," she was shaken awake by Meridian. "Wazisitz?" she asked, squinting at him. "The time is right. I go now to confront Nag'sharath. Come with me." "What the hell--? What time is it?" The clock answered her question, about three hours before sunrise. "I suffered a momentary lapse of faith yesterday," Meridian continued, "but I understand now that I have to continue, despite my enemy's attempt to change the rules of the game." "I don't understand a damn thing you're saying." "I would prefer to have at least one of my partners to back me up, but I will go alone if necessary. I chose you because I feel that, deep down, you understand. Efera would merely attempt to talk me out of it." Kei rolled over, away from Meridian. "Oh, man, don't pull this on me now. It's too early, I can't think straight, I don't want to deal with this. If you want to go confront your demon, have a ball, just leave me alone." "So be it." Meridian turned and left. "Idiot," mumbled Kei, pulling the covers over her head and falling asleep again. Kei bolted awake. she thought. She checked the clock. It read twenty minutes later than the last time she checked. She had. "Oh, SHIT!!" She jumped out of bed and started shaking Yuri. "Wake up, wake up, dammit, WAKE UP!" "WAH!" shouted Yuri. "Wutizzit?!" Kei told her. "Oh, Kei, you ditz!" "I know, I know, but c'mon! We gotta stop him!" Yuri jumped out of bed. "I'll call security." She ran over to the vidphone, pressed a button, and was greeted by the bleary eyes of a uniformed security man who apparently hadn't been working the night shift for very long. "Yeah?" he asked. Yuri was momentarily at a loss for words. It occurred to her that if she exaggerated the threat to MacPherson in the slightest, the security forces could get orders to shoot to kill. How could she explain the threat without causing the man to panic? "Uh, I don't know exactly how to say this..." Suddenly, Yuri had it. "I think a friend of ours is sleepwalking, and he might, um, cause some trouble for Ms. MacPherson." "What kind of trouble?" the guard asked, at once giving Yuri his full attention. Yuri thought a bit more. "Well, he, um, was talking about `confronting' her. I think he thinks she, like, did something to him. Like I said, he's, y'know, he's sleepwalking." "Is he armed?" "Oh, no, no! He's perfectly harmless! He's just upset about something, that's all." That seemed to satisfy the guard. At his request, she gave him a brief description of Meridian and hung up. She turned back to Kei. "Well, that should take care of--huh?!" Kei had gotten into her uniform while Yuri had been talking. "Get dressed, Yuri." "Kei, we don't have any jurisdiction here. We're not on a case. If we do something stupid, we're likely to get thrown in prison. And remembering how we left Elenore, I wouldn't count on the 3WA to get us out!" Kei took her pulse-pistol out of a small bag under the bed and stuck it in her holster. "I don't give a damn! I watched the security guards at the mall gun someone down in cold blood. I'm not gonna let that happen to Tarc." Yuri knew the pattern. Once Kei had set her mind on doing something, no force in the galaxy was going to convince her otherwise. So Yuri would tag along, ostensibly to keep Kei from getting into trouble, but invariably Yuri would end up helping her to make things worse. For a moment, Yuri considered crawling back into bed, but instead she sighed and took her uniform out of the drawer. Minutes later, the girls were in one of the central elevators, on a seemingly interminable ride to the very top of the tower. "130 floors to go," announced Yuri. "I wonder what possessed her to live so far above ground." "Well, Tarc did say she liked high places." "That was the first Nora MacPherson." "Was it?" To their disappointment, the elevator stopped fifteen floors short of their destination. "Damn," said Yuri. "Security lock. We can't go any farther without a key." "Well, then we'll just have to take the stairs." Kei ran through the doors before Yuri could protest. The girls arrived at the top floor, puffing a little from the exertion of sprinting up fifteen flights of stairs. Yuri considered herself to have won a partial victory in that she had managed to talk Kei into letting her pick the lock on the door to the stairs rather than shooting it off. Yuri wasn't sure she hadn't set off any alarms with her magnetic lockpicker, but she was damn sure blowing a hole in the door would have attracted attention. "Which way?" she asked Kei. "This is your idea, remember?" "I don't know. Let's go this way. Just keep your eye out for Tarc." Yuri thought it would be hard to miss him. The floor seemed completely deserted. The only sound was the barely noticeable hum of the environmental control system. The corridor through which the Angels were walking circled the perimeter of the tower and had a series of plate glass windows along the left side. Yuri tried looking out one, but got dizzy and decided to quit. Kei and Yuri walked briskly, looking for any sign of life. They found some, though not the kind they had hoped for. They turned a corner and nearly ran into two of the shade- wearing bodybuilders that MacPherson used as personal guards. "What are you doing here?" asked one. (Or "Vat ah hyu doing heah?" to be exact.) "A friend of ours got lost," said Yuri. "We thought he might have come up to this level." "This level is restricted," said the other muscleman. "You should not have been able to come up here." "Really?" asked Kei, feigning surprise. "We had no idea! Right, Yuri?" "Sure, no idea, heh, heh..." The guards seemed unconvinced. They walked toward the girls. "Come with us." ("Komm mit uss.") Kei drew her gun. "Hold it right there! I came up here to make sure my friend is safe, and that's what I'm going to do!" Yuri grimaced and drew her own gun. The guards looked at each other and smiled. They leapt forward, one to a girl. Both girls fired. Both girls hit their targets in the chest. Neither wound seemed to have any effect. Then the guards were on top of the girls, ripping the guns out of their hands and throwing them away. "Now you will come with us." The guards each picked up a dumbfounded Angel with one hand and began to walk down the hall. The silence was broken by a faint, high-pitched trilling, and suddenly the window behind them shattered. Kei and Yuri's ears popped as the level began to depressurize. The wind staggered the guards and they dropped the Angels as they tried to keep from being blown out the window. The girls looked to see what had caused the window to break, and saw Meridian standing there. In his hands, Meridian held a sword. Kei thought it was the most beautiful sword she could possibly imagine. It could well have been mistaken for Excalibur, or any of a number of other famous blades, were it not for one amazing difference: you could see through it. The entire sword, from the hilt to the point, was made of the purest crystal. It flashed and shimmered and broke the light that hit it into a thousand tiny rainbows. It was, in a word, breathtaking. "Crystal Knight," said Kei to herself. The wind slowed to a breeze as the atmosphere on the level exhausted itself. The guards looked at the new arrival and sneered. "Meridian." With a bellow, one of the guards rushed Meridian, arms outstretched as if to break his neck. As the guard approached, the sword began to glow from within, a bright, golden light that didn't hurt Kei's eyes when she stared at it. Meridian calmly took a step back and swung the sword in a long arc. The blade went through the guard's midsection like a warm knife through butter. The guard screamed as flames poured first through the hole in his torso, then through his mouth, nose, eyes, ears, and pores. In seconds, all that remained was a charred patch on the carpet. The other guard looked warily at Meridian, unsure of what to do. Similar expressions were on the girls' faces. "Allow me to show you something interesting," said Meridian to Kei and Yuri. He approached the remaining guard, who began to back away. Meridian extended his sword, caught the guard's sunglasses and flicked them away. The guard's eyes were completely black, no pupils, no whites. "You poor, sick thing. Try as it might, it just can't make you completely human, can it?" Yuri found her voice. "W-what is he?" "I'm about to show you." The guard spoke. "You will die. You will all die." Meridian smiled. "That's never stopped me before." He struck the guard across the temple with the flat of the blade, hard, knocking him down. The guard shouted, "Ah! Ah!" as the skin at the contact point began to ripple and melt. The guard clutched at his temple. The effect spread to his hands and they began to change. The changes accelerated. The hair warped into spines and serpentine appendages. The skin grew scaly. A tail burst out of the guard's pants and extended until it was nearly two meters long. The feet extended until the shoes burst, becoming claws similar to the hands. All the while, the creature screamed and writhed. "Hurts just as much going this way as it does the other, doesn't it?" asked Meridian. "But I am nothing if not merciful. You have served your purpose." Meridian drove the blade through the creature's chest and pulled it out. Within seconds, it had burned away to nothing, leaving another smoking patch on the carpet. "Well?" Meridian asked the Angels. "Now do you believe me?" Kei didn't know what she believed anymore. It occurred to her that the galaxy could be swallowed by a black hole the next day and she wouldn't be surprised. "Were those...d... demons?" "I suppose that's as good a name as any," Meridian said. "They're depressingly stupid creatures, but they make handy slaves for Nag'sharath. I'm going now to confront Nag'sharath itself." "No." It was Yuri. "Efera. You still do not believe me?" "Whether I believe you or not, it doesn't make any difference. If you're crazy or lying, then you just murdered two people and I can't let you murder another. If you're sane and those really were demons, then it doesn't make any sense to go barreling in there with a sword. We should go back and come up with a real plan. Either way, I can't let you go." "What about you, Jiliora?" Meridian asked Kei. "Yuri's got a point. She's always got a point," she said quietly. Kei was having trouble getting the images of exploding demons out of her mind's eye. "Then I'm sorry." Meridian held up his sword and tilted it back and forth, flashing rainbows into the girls' faces. Kei opened her eyes, groaned, and shook her head. The thin air on this floor was making it hard to wake up. Yuri had already regained consciousness and was struggling to her feet. Kei tried to follow suit. "How long have we been out?" she asked. "I don't think there's any way to tell. We'll just have to hope we're not too late." Yuri picked up her gun and ran in the direction the guards had been trying to keep her from going. Kei groaned again and did the same. They had run what Yuri figured was a quarter of the way to the other side of the tower when they heard Meridian shouting. They immediately turned in the direction of the voice. Meridian was again confronting guards, this time not musclebound personal guards but two uniformed security personnel. One was trying to restrain him as he shouted at them. The crystal sword was nowhere to be seen. Meridian's face showed a mixture of fury and outright astonishment. "Dammit, why are you doing this! Don't you understand! It only wants your destruction!" "Certainly, sir," said the other guard, who was trying to fit a pair of plasti-cuffs on him. "And I just want you to stand still. How about it?" Meridian wasn't done arguing. "You're human! All of you! The wrongness of this should sing in your blood! It's a demon!" "Hey, any demon that pays me 50 credits a week is alright with me!" said the guard behind him. Yuri ran up. "Oh, thank god you caught him in time!" The lead security guard turned his head. "You know this guy?" "Please don't hurt him. He's just a little funny in the head right now. He'll get better, I promise." "If he'll just hold still and let us cuff him, there won't be any problem." Meridian looked at Kei, pleadingly. "Please help me. They don't understand what they're doing." Kei almost thought he was going to cry. She felt her eyes tear up herself, and she turned away. That did something to Meridian. Using the guard behind him as support, he reared back and viciously kicked the other guard to the ground. "You all make me sick!" He came down and pulled out of the other guards grasp. He wheeled and floored the man with a fist to the chin. "What has happened to the human spirit?! Are you all that willing to sell yourself into evil?" "Tarc, stop it!" Yuri shouted. "You're only making it worse!" The guard Meridian had kicked to the floor was far from unconscious. "Crazy bastard," he muttered. He reached into a holster and pulled out what appeared to be a handgun. After that, everything seemed to Kei to happen in slow- motion. "NO!" she screamed. She drew her gun, too late. The man fired a tranquilizer dart into Meridian's back. He staggered and dropped to the floor. The other guard, also not unconscious, saw Kei pull her sidearm. In a single motion he drew his trank-pistol and shot a dart into her side. Kei collapsed as well. Yuri ran over to her friend and pulled out the dart. "Oh, Kei, you idiot," she said, starting to cry. "Please be alright." She looked up to see that the guard that had gunned Kei down had gotten to his feet and was now holding the gun on her. "Sorry, lady, but I'm not taking any chances." He shot Yuri and everything went black. Nora, dressed in a red satin nightgown, dismissed the guards with thanks and the promise of a bonus in their next week's checks. Behind her were three of the muscle guards. Once the men had gone, she turned to the one with the blonde crew-cut. "Therian, have your people take these ladies back to their rooms. I want you to put their nightclothes back on them and put them to bed. Perhaps they'll think it was all a dream. I doubt it, but it's worth a try. They'll have to be eliminated eventually, but I'd like to put that off as long as I can." "Understood." Human males would likely have been excited by the prospect of undressing Kei and Yuri, but the guards merely picked up the two girls without showing the slightest trace of emotion. "What about Meridian?" Therian asked. "He comes with us. He had his chance." END CHAPTER FOUR