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                          Galaxy Police Mihoshi's
                          A C A D E M Y  D A Y S

                          "The Mihoshi Syndrome"
                                    by
                               Ryan Mathews

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CHAPTER FIVE

        The minutes stretched into hours, as Kiyone and Mihoshi waited,
trapped in their little metal box.  Kiyone's legs ached from having sat in
the same position for so long.  She wasn't ready to give up.  Nevertheless,
what little hope remained was swiftly evaporating.  There was only a hour
remaining until the bridge they were under would open to morning traffic, 
only an hour until they would be jarred loose and fall fifty meters to the 
water.  Kiyone was considering jumping before that happened, to choose the 
moment of her death, rather than letting the traffic decide for her.  She 
hadn't shared that decision with Mihoshi, and she didn't plan to.  It was 
better to let hope remain for as long as possible.
        "Would you like a chocolate bar?" Mihoshi asked.
        "No thanks."
        "C'mon!  Going hungry isn't going to help anything.  Gotta keep 
those wits alert!"
        Kiyone laughed.  If Mihoshi was feigning cheerfulness in order to
cheer her up, she was doing a good job.  Kiyone didn't think Mihoshi was
capable of feigning anything.  She took the candy.
        "Hey!" she said in astonishment.  "This is *real* chocolate!  Earth
chocolate!  How in the world did you get your hands on this?"
        "An officer I know had his ship crash land on Earth.  He figured 
while he was there, he might as well pick up some souvenirs.  He gave me a 
few candy bars.  He said it was so I wouldn't tell anyone he'd visited a 
forbidden planet, but I think maybe he liked me.  I was going to save them 
for a special occasion, but considering the circumstances..."
        Kiyone nodded.  "I guess this is a special occasion, in a way."  She
wrapped the chocolate and took a bite, savoring the flavor.  She hadn't had
real chocolate she had been a small girl.
        "Kiyone?"
        "Yef?" replied Kiyone, her mouth full of chocolate.
        "If we make it back, maybe you should ask for a different partner.
It's okay.  I won't fight it."
        Kiyone sighed in annoyance.  "Oh god, not this again!"
        "But--"
        "Mihoshi, I really don't want to have this discussion again!
Especially not now!"
        "But we've never really had this discussion," said Mihoshi.  "You
always change the subject!"
        "Mihoshi, I--"
        "I mean, I know you don't like working with me."
        "YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!!"
        Mihoshi sat silent, stunned.  Kiyone was surprised herself, 
uncertain where the outburst had come from.
        "I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to shout.  But I really don't
want to talk about it right now.  If we get out of this safely, then I
promise to talk about it if you want to.  But not now, please?"
        "Okay," said Mihoshi.
        "And you've got chocolate all over your mouth."
        Kiyone leaned back in her seat, trying in vein to get comfortable.
Mihoshi was right.  She never had seriously discussed changing partners.  
She had no idea why not.  There were days when the thought of seeing Mihoshi 
again seemed too much to bear.  Yet, whenever she thought of getting a 
different partner, she was consumed by a strong desire to think about 
something else.
        She had never told Mihoshi that it had been Kiyone herself who had  
requested Mihoshi as her partner.  She'd never understood why she'd done it.
Her promise to Tugh all those years ago had been fulfilled the day the two 
of them graduated.  Maybe she was used to Mihoshi.  Maybe she was worried 
that Mihoshi wouldn't fare as well under a different partner.  Maybe, just 
maybe, she loved Mihoshi.  All she knew was that life without Mihoshi would 
feel damned weird, and she wasn't ready to abandon her just yet.
        Kiyone glanced over at her partner, who was still busy licking
chocolate off her lips.  Kiyone was suddenly filled with conviction.  It
wasn't going to end this way.  She wouldn't allow it.  They'd been in worse
scrapes before, and they had always rebounded.
        Rebound...  A thought flickered at the edge of Kiyone's 
consciousness and disappeared before she could grab it.  Still, it 
reenforced Kiyone's belief that there was a solution.
        "Think, Kiyone," she said.  "Think."

              *                       *                       *

        "Think, Kiyone, think."  She had been wracking her brain ever since
she and Mihoshi had been confined to barracks, trying to put the pieces
together, to make sense out of the events of the last two days.
        Obviously, she had seen something she should not have, and obviously
that something had been the dead man.  Or had it?  She had assumed that Shi
had killed the man, but had he?  There was no way Shi could have cleaned up
the corpse and the blood in the short time she and Mihoshi had been out of
sight.  Conclusion:  there had been several other people there, and they had
seen Kiyone and Mihoshi.
        But seen them do what?  Was it just the dead man?  There had been
something odd about the corpse, the way the hand had been maimed as well as
the head.  It seemed familiar, as if she had been thinking about something
similar.  Suddenly she remembered the question on gun safety from her class
earlier that day, and put it together.  The man had been killed by his own
gun.  It had exploded in his hand.
        Had the man been shooting at Shi?  Unlikely.  He hadn't acted like 
an intended murder victim.  He'd acted like he was guilty himself.
        Then, of course, there were the mystery crates in that warehouse.
Piles and piles of crates marked as headed toward the Galaxy Police Academy,
when Dramm had said that the Academy never received any supplies from the
port.
        So what did she have?  Something fishy was going on in the port,
something involving the academy, something involving Shi.  Kiyone knew of 
only one way to get to the bottom of it.
        Mihoshi sat on the floor, pale and nervous, as she'd been since 
Kiyone had finally confided in her about the corpse she'd seen and her fear 
that someone was trying to kill them.
        "I'm worried about Shi," she said.
        "I'm sure he's fine."
        "You don't know that!  I haven't seen him since he was arrested.
Maybe they've already killed him!"
        "Mihoshi..."
        "Shi wouldn't kill anyone!  I know he wouldn't!"
        "I don't think he did," said Kiyone.  "I just think he's mixed up in
something really bad.  And so are we, whether we like it or not."
        There was a knock at the door.  "Meal delivery!"
        Kiyone checked the clock.  "A little early, aren't you?"
        "Tryin' to get my rounds done quicker," said the voice from outside.
"I have leave comin' up.  Could you open the door?"
        "Uh, sure," Kiyone replied.  "Just let us get dressed!"
        Mihoshi gave Kiyone a confused look.  Both of them had on all their
clothes.
        "We've got to get out of here," whispered Kiyone.
        "You think he's a bad guy?" asked Mihoshi.
        The man knocked on the door again.  "Could you please open up?  I'm
in a hurry."
        "Just a moment!" Kiyone yelled back, then whispered to Mihoshi, "If 
he was for real, he would have left the meal at the door by now."
        "How are we getting out?"
        "Out the window."
        "I can't climb down three floors!"
        "You won't have to.  I'll climb down and catch you."  Kiyone took 
off her shoes and socks.  Ever since she was a little girl, she'd been able 
to quickly climb up walls by sticking her fingers and toes in the spaces 
between the bricks.  She was grown up now, her hands and feet were bigger, 
but she could still do it if she was careful.
        She opened the window and crawled out.  She hung from the end of the
windowsill and wiggled her toes into a space.  Slowly, carefully, she 
shuffled to the side, moving out onto the wall, away from the windows.  This 
method of climbing required her center of gravity to be as close as possible 
to the wall, something the breasts of which she was so proud were making 
difficult.  She began wriggling down the wall.
        The "food delivery man" was getting increasingly impatient.  "Will 
you open up, already?!"
        "J-just a minute!" Mihoshi shouted back.  "I'm having trouble with 
my bra!"
        Good job, thought Kiyone.
        After what seemed like an eternity, Kiyone reached the ground.
"Mihoshi!" she shouted, but not too loudly.
        Mihoshi came to the window.
        Kiyone called up to her.  "Hang from the sill and drop!  I'll break
your fall!"
        "I can't!"
        "You have to!  Come on!"
        The man began pounding violently on the door.
        Mihoshi scrambled out the window and hung from the sill as Kiyone 
had asked.  Kiyone waited for her to drop.
        "I c-can't do it!" cried Mihoshi.
        "Are you afraid of heights?"
        "No, I'm afraid of falling!"
        There was a loud bang as the man kicked the door in.  Mihoshi yelped
and let go.  Kiyone got under her, planning to break her fall, but instead
caught her cleanly.  "Wow!" exclaimed Kiyone.  "You don't weigh anything!"
        "I know!  I just can't gain weight, no matter how hard I try!"
        The man poked his head out the window.
        "RUN!" yelled Kiyone.
        The man fired a dart gun at them as they fled.  Kiyone and Mihoshi 
cut a weaving path across the grass, presenting a difficult target that was
swiftly rendered impossible by the evening darkness.
        Once safely out of sight, they paused by one of the classroom
buildings, panting.  Kiyone cursed herself for having left her shoes in the
barracks.  Her poor feet were already cold, wet, and covered with grass
clippings thanks to the dew, and it wasn't going to get much better.  Where
she was planning on going wasn't friendly to bare feet.
        "Mihoshi, we've got to go back to the port."
        "But we'll get in trouble!"
        "We're *already* in trouble!  I don't see how it could possibly get
worse.  I want to have another look at those crates you were climbing on,
maybe open one up."
        "You think maybe there's something illegal inside?"
        "Exactly.  Let's go."

        They made their way to the port carefully, avoiding lit areas as
much as possible.  
        Kiyone motioned for Mihoshi to move in front.  "You lead.  You know
the way."
        "The way where?" asked Mihoshi, confused.
        "I want you to show me the back way into that warehouse, the way you
went when I lost track of you before."
        "But I don't really know where I went.  I was looking for Shi and 
got lost."
        "Well, try, okay?  Take it one step at a time.  Try to remember
landmarks."
        "Okay, I'll try."  Mihoshi walked forward, hesitantly.  "I think 
it's this way."
        "But the warehouse isn't that way.  It isn't even close!"
        "You asked me where I went."
        "Okay, okay."  Kiyone followed after Mihoshi, trying not to step on
anything sharp.
        Mihoshi's path meandered this way and that.  Kiyone still didn't see
how the route could possibly lead them to the warehouse and wondered if
Mihoshi was remembering correctly, or if she was guessing.
        "Uh-oh."  Mihoshi stopped.
        "What?"
        "This is as far as I remember.  Here I got really confused and 
really lost and then I was in the warehouse."
        The warehouse they wanted wasn't anywhere nearby.  "Think," said
Kiyone.  "What was your next step?"
        "I don't know!" whined Mihoshi.  "I was lost!"
        "So get lost again!!"  Kiyone grabbed Mihoshi and spun her around.  
"There!  You're lost!  Now where do you go?"
        Dizzy from the spinning, Mihoshi wobbled as she looked around.  Her
eyes went wide.  "Hey!  There it is!"
        "There what is?"  Kiyone looked around, seeing nothing out of the
ordinary.  When she looked back, Mihoshi was gone.
        "Mihoshi?"  Kiyone searched frantically, but there was no sign of 
her.  Just when she was about call out her name, Kiyone caught a glimpse of 
Mihoshi in the corner of her eye.  She lunged in that direction.
        Kiyone was suddenly overcome by dizziness.  She collapsed to her 
knees and waited for the world to stop spinning.
        "Kiyone, are you okay?"
        Kiyone looked up to see Mihoshi standing over her.  She got to her
feet.  "Yeah, I'm fine.  I thought I'd lost--"  She looked around in
astonishment.  They were inside the warehouse.  "How did we get here?"
        "No idea," said Mihoshi.  "Like I said, this kind of stuff happens 
to me all the time."
        The crates about which Kiyone had been so curious were right in 
front of them.  They located a crowbar and opened one.  It was filled with 
guns.  Kiyone took one, a small pistol, and examined it.
        "This isn't anything like what we use at the academy.  Mihoshi,
someone's using the Galaxy Police to smuggle guns!"
        "That's correct, Cadet."
        Kiyone whirled around to find Lieutenant Tugh.  "L-L-Lieutenant!  I
can explain!"
        "You're out of uniform, Cadet.  You're also out past curfew, you're
AWOL, and you're in violation of my confinement order.  I think both of you
can forget about careers in the GP."
        "But-- But someone was trying to kill us!"
        "I know.  It was an unfortunate situation.  I'm glad you escaped, 
but you shouldn't have come here.  It makes the situation even more 
unfortunate."  Tugh took out a gun and trained it on the two of them.
        "No..." was all Kiyone could say.  Finally, it all fit together.  
She wanted to cry.
        "Um, could someone please explain all this to me?" asked Mihoshi.

END CHAPTER FIVE
TO BE CONTINUED