Sylia suppressed a sneeze, and involuntarily winced from the sudden stress on her sinuses. Awkwardly freezing in position where she had shifted to look into a cardboard box, Sylia shook her head to clear the lingering traces of the near explosion. Then she carefully finished her move and sat back against a support post with a heavy, oblong object wrapped in brown paper.

The attic was short on head room, as attics often were, though the sunlight streaming in through one window brightened the place considerably. As was also often the case, the attic was crammed with boxes and other miscellaneous items long forgotten or only half remembered by their previous owners. Voices accompanied the sunlight from outside—indistinct but for the occasional shout from someone at play—and also drifted up from the open stairwell leading to the rest of the house.

Half of the contents of the box in front of Sylia had already been unpacked and set carefully in the little free area; some of them unwrapped, all of them sporting plain white stickies labeled with Sylia's precise script.

Sylia stretched her face and waited for the side-effects of the dust in the air to diminish to something manageable. The back of one gloved hand lightly wiped a spot on her cheek, adding a streak of gray dust—the first on her face—in contrast to the darker streaks on her jeans, blouse and the kerchief covering her hair.

After a moment, Sylia carefully worked the string off of the object, mentally noting that it was too worn to be reused, and unwrapped her latest prize.

Sylia blinked at the unlabeled photo album and carefully peeled it open.

She sat there for some time, paging through the album and mulling over the decades old photos from her aunt and uncle's high school days. Her aunt and uncle had known each other then, and had married right after they graduated. They had acquired the house not long after that, and had spent the rest of their lives living there. Sylia Stingray and her brother Mackie had spent some time there after their father's untimely demise, but her aunt and uncle had never talked about their time in high school. Then her aunt had died in a traffic accident a year ago, and Sylia's uncle, it seemed, couldn't face life without her aunt and had faded out over the last year. Her cousins had called with the sad news, and she had been obliged to help with the sorting.

Sylia was never sure just what made everything click into place. It may have been the photos themselves, some phrase shouted by one of her nieces, both factors or something else entirely. A look of dread crashed onto her normally calm face and she reached behind her with one hand for the small of her back.

And her hand came back with something and she raised it above her head and the phrase fell from her rapidly drying mouth.…

Force surged from within, and the dust on Sylia, along with her clothing, was flung away into the colorfully glowing aura that had suddenly surrounded her, and left her nothing but herself. The aura spun then, and streamers of light spun in and wrapped themselves around her, condensing into a short blue skirted white sleeveless outfit with a flap in the back and a brown bow at the neckline. Additional streamers wrapped around her feet and hands and condensed into blue boots with a white trim and long white gloves, respectively.

The surge faded and the aura dropped away from the unchanged attic of the Umino residence.

Sailor Pluto lowered her arm and quietly uttered a vulgar curse.

"Would you like more tea?"

Sylia shook her head. "No. Thank you, Mrs. Tsukino," she told her hostess as she set down the empty cup on the coffee table and leaned back in the Tsukino's living room couch.

"Please, call me Mika." Mika tucked an errant lock of her gray streaked hair behind one ear.

Sylia smiled at Mika. "If you insist. I'm afraid you'll have to call me Sylia, then."

Mika smiled and nodded. "Sylia then," she agreed. "What brings you here? If I may ask?"

Sylia paused for a second before replying. "When you were in high school, you knew a Naru, correct?"

"Naru Osaka?" Mika's expression was guarded.

"Naru Umino now, but I believe that was her maiden name."

"I did know her." Mika admitted.

"She was my aunt."

Mika's face brightened. "Oh! Well." She paused for a second. "Yes, I did know her. She was my… a friend of my husband's family. I haven't seen her in ages. How is she doing now?"

"I'm sorry, Mika. She passed away a year ago."

Mika looked downcast. "My condolences. She was too nice for what she had to deal with when we were in school."

Sylia looked faintly embarrassed. "I'm afraid that's really what I'm here for. I wanted to know what her life in high school was like; I stayed with her and uncle Umino for a few years but I never got as close to them as I should have."

Mika nodded. "I'm not surprised they didn't say anything. But how did you find out about me, then?"

Sylia leaned forward and flipped open the album resting on the table. It was already facing Mika, who leaned forward to look. "I found this when I was helping clean their attic. My cousins were able to name a few people in the pictures, and I went from there."

"Oh my. I had.…" Her shoulders slumped.

"I'm sorry, Mika. If this—"

"No." Mika raised a hand and looked up at Sylia. "I'd like to… I should remember this, and them." She lowered her hand. "My husband's sister was Naru's best friend at the time. Shingo and Usagi used to tease each other unmercifully, and Usagi was neither graceful nor the greatest student, but she was the sweetest person.… I should remember her because the world doesn't have enough people like that."

Mika gestured, and Sylia took a seat next to her so the two women could both look over the photo album. They paged through it with Mika identifying the faces unfamiliar to Sylia.

"And these were the girls that Usagi and Naru met during the hauntings." She pointed at each of them in turn. "Rei, Ami, Makoto and Min… Minako, I think."

Sylia arched an eyebrow. "Hauntings?"

Mika shrugged. "That's what some of us called it. I don't think anyone ever figured out what was really going on. It was just so strange and creepy. None of it ever made any sense, even when we were in the middle of it, and then the end of it.…"

"What happened?"

"The strange things just… stopped. But those five just disappeared. Without a trace. Naru was… she didn't take it very well."

"They just stopped?"

"They just stopped around Juuban High School right around when those five vanished, though something just like it happened around Infinity Academy later. Considering how that ended, I think we were fortunate at Juuban."

"Infinity Academy?" Sylia caught herself and a smile quirked across her face. "I'm sorry, Mika. I must sound like an echo."

"It's alright, Sylia." Mika nodded. "About a year… no, two years?… later. That one ended with a few students vanishing and the whole school turning into a crater one night. There was plenty in the papers about that for a while. I suspect just hearing about it made it take longer for Naru.…"

Mika shook herself and flipped to the next page of photos.

Nene shifted uncomfortably in her AD. Police combat gear, and she took a second to gulp oxygen. Behind her, ragged breathing echoed her own condition. She shifted her grip on the length of pipe in her hands and ignored the oils starting to run down the backs of her gloved hands.

It has seemed such a straightforward call, a cleaning boomer gone rogue with Assistant Inspector Nene Romanova and four other AD. P. officers near enough to respond. They hadn't been able to get weapons authorization—some old regulation had recently been shoved on them again—and so had armed themselves with a variety of heavy blunt objects. Four of them had gone into the complex where the boomer was making a mess. Sergeant Leffler and Senior Policeman Matthews had gone into the room where the boomer was polishing some flowers while Nene and Patrolman Tajima were just outside that room. The Inspector and her aide waited for Sergeant Leffler to crush its core processor with a crowbar and stop it so that she could safely examine the remains. But when the Sergeant hit it, the rest of the boomers in the complex had gone crazy.

"You still with me, Tajima?" Nene demanded of the rookie. Her voice quavered.

His voice did not squeak, or break, though it was a near thing. "Yes, ma'am."

Tarou Tajima was a large man, almost on the scale of a sumo wrestler, and with a similar density of muscle. And though he held a dented and bent bar with a death grip, his hands did not shake.

Most of the time.

"Have you—" Nene began, then fell silent. There was some sort of pattern to the boomer attacks.

"Inspector?" Tajima queried. This time his voice did break. He tried again, with better results, and waited for a response.

The data that Nene had seen on the office complex before they went in flashed through her thoughts and dragged with them the list of boomer attacks since they had entered. Data that formed patterns.…

Nene spoke again, this time using her helmet's short-range radio to reach the other patrolman coördinating them with the rest of the AD. P. "Policeman Dolecek." Her voice was low and firm, with all trace of her earlier tension absent. "When do we get some backup?"

"Inspector, ma'am." The voice fumbled for a moment. "Not for a while yet; the rest of AD. P. is after a military boomer on the… on Bayshore Highway #2, somewhere."

Nene's response was almost instant. "No help for it then, we'll have to take them out one at a time. Sergeant Leffler."

"Ma'am?" Another voice crackled over the radio.

"Keep your team moving in a random sweep on fifth. I'll cover sixth with Tajima." She listened to the radio for a few more seconds, adding a word or two of detail, then keyed it off.

She motioned for Tajima to follow her, and the two of them took turns slipping through the complex in a series of random directions that soon had Tajima completely disoriented. Then, when passing by a stairwell, Nene ducked into it.

Tajima blinked and move forward, cautiously searching for whatever had made the Inspector take cover. He got close enough to the stairwell to glance into it, and saw Nene waving him inside.

The patrolman opened his mouth to speak, but Nene frantically shushed him. He stepped into the stairwell.

The Inspector spoke in a low voice. "The boomers have been tapping into the building's security system, which is dead around this stairwell, and on most of fifth." She gestured up at the stairwell security camera, which had a dark indicator light. "They've also been listening to our radios."

Tajima's face darkened. "So what do we do?"

Nene moved down the stairs and motioned for Tajima to follow her. "First, we make sure Leffler and Matthews know." They reached the door to the fifth floor. "C'mon."

Tajima followed her through the door.

"In '33," Nene began quietly as they snuck around the fifth floor, "four boomers attacked AD. P. headquarters. They were independent, but coördinated. That's happened other times, but we got very detailed records in that incident." She stopped for a moment and gestured toward the corner ahead of them. "I think the camera around that corner is operational." She backed them up and started down a different path.

"Right now, unless I miss my guess, a bunch of the boomers in the complex are starting to gather on the sixth floor. Purely by random motion, of course. But when we've finished catching our breath in the stairwell and start our sweep again, our poor little patrol will run into too many boomers and get wiped out. We'll maybe get all of the boomers there too, but there will be just a few too many for us."

"But we're on fif— Oh. Yeah."

Nene flashed a grin back at Tajima. "Exactly.

"Somewhere around here, there's a Buma-LAN server.…" She began to explain as the two of them searched for, then found the other two policemen. The time it took to explain what she had figured out and then invent a plan passed with agonizing slowness, every second increasing the risk that the boomers would realize they had been caught out and overwhelm the policemen.

"That's not much of a plan, Inspector," Sergeant Leffler grumbled when Nene finished talking.

Nene shook her head. "If we take any longer, the boomers will realize we're not just taking a break."

"Yeah," Leffler agreed sourly.

"And a simple plan has less to get screwed up," Nene muttered darkly. Leffler and Matthews must have heard her as grim smiles crossed their faces. "Okay guys, radio silence, let's finish this."

The four of them crept down the stairwell, heading for the basement.

They were on the second floor when Matthews stopped and raised a hand. Before the others had taken three steps they had all stopped as well and were looking expectantly at him. "Elevator," he said softly. "No, more than one."

"They've figured it out!" Nene hissed. "Go!" Putting action to words, she leapt over the railing and plunged three-fourths of the way to the next floor down. She barely paused to stabilize herself before leaping down another three steps and whipping around to zip down the next flight of stairs. The others followed at similar speed.

"She was wasted in records," Leffler laughed breathlessly as he leapt past Matthews and landed scant steps behind Nene.

The four of them burst through the door to the sub-basement and into the utilities area. They were immediately mobbed by about a dozen of the cleaning boomers with a few, small, humanoid general-purpose models among them. All of the boomers were endlessly repeating the half-dozen or so of their stock phrases, creating an eerie cacophony. Both groups slammed into each other, and Nene dodged and swung at the boomers around her while looking frantically for the box that ran the building's utilities and services.

There! She gestured at it and yelled. "There it is! Tajima!"

The elevators next to the stairwell chimed to announce their arrivals and began to open.

Tajima hefted the bar he had been using as a club and chucked it at the bread-box sized electronic brain… and missed.

Two elevator loads of maintenance and utility boomers swarmed into the room.

Nene swung at the boomers next to her—endlessly repeating "Shall I empty the trash now, sir?"—and hit one, cracking its casing and stunning it for a second. She shifted her grip on the pipe, screamed "Shut up!" and kicked it away even as she swung at another boomer.

The four of them quickly formed up with their backs to each other.

"So much for frontal assault!" Matthews shouted. "Now what?"

"I need—" Nene began, and paused to force two boomers away from her. "Open one up!"

Leffler tossed his length of pipe to Tajima, and the big man slammed it down twice against a boomer next to him, cracking it open. Then, with a mangled electronic squeal it keeled over and stopped.

Two cleaning boomers grabbed it and dragged it away.

"Leffler! Crouch!" Nene yelled.

The Sergeant dropped to one knee and the boomer next to him started slapping his faceplate. He raised his arms to defend himself as well as he could, but almost flattened as Nene jumped on his back and used him as a platform to launched herself toward the cracked and inert boomer.

"Kia!" Nene screamed as she stabbed and fell at the cleaning boomers dragging the inert one away. Her strike missed the still mobile ones, and shot into the inert boomer, wedging fast. Nene followed, slamming chest and faceplate into the jammed pipe at a bad angle.

There was a loud crack and bright flash and Nene bounced away from the now sparking boomer. Her faceplate was dished in around a distorted spider-web of fractures and her arm bent in an abnormal way.

The cleaning boomers grabbed their smoldering load and started dragging it again, while other boomers moved toward Nene.

She screamed hoarsely as Matthews grabbed her by the boot and dragged her clear. The three men formed a protective circle around her. Then the fire alarm cut loose and the sprinkler system rained on them. "How about that?" Leffler laughed, somewhat hysterically.

Across the room, a horde between them, the central computer for the apartment complex was at the edge of the spray targeted at the smoldering boomer that Nene had stabbed. The computer, of course, was a rather cheap commercial box and would never need water resistance. Normally, that is.

There was a faint snap as the computer shorted out, and a second later all the boomers around them started wandering around aimlessly. Stunned, the three men paused for a moment.

Leffler stared. "Nice work," he said softly. Then he shook himself and activated his radio, calling for help as the other two knelt to assist Nene.

Superintendent Daley Wong leaned forward at his desk and spoke into the speaker-phone. "So you took out the coördinating unit and the others quit. I wouldn't have expected that to work."

Nene's voice echoed from the phone. "Neither did I! I was really hoping to run 'Network Shutdown' on it."

"Just like that?"

Daley grinned as Nene replied hotly. "No! Not 'just like that!' But those cheap, commercial boxes are awfully trusting of anything with physical access. You'd think that after fifty years people would— Oooh.… This stuff is good."

"I take it the pain medication just kicked in?"

Nene giggled. "Oooh, yeah."

Daley chuckled. "Okay, just one more thing."

"What is it?"

Daley paused for a second before continuing. "You've been in AD. P. for years, and if you take it on yourself to pull grandstanding stunts like that again… well, in your case you go back to playing traffic cop. I do not want my most experienced people getting themselves killed pulling bone-headed stunts. Understand?"

Nene let out a small "Yes," after few seconds.

"Good." He relented and continued in a more normal voice. "Oh, and take the rest of the week off. There's no sense in your coming in and taking longer to heal up."

Nene's response sounded more energetic this time. "Is that an order, sir?"

Daley grinned. "Sure. I order you to heal faster. Can you handle that?"

Nene giggled. "I'll give it my best shot, sir!"

A few words and a moment later, Daley hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair.

"Hey! chief," Nene's friend Naoko from Records popped her head in the door. "I've got the rough draft of the report on today's highway chase."

Daley frowned at her. "Don't call me 'chief,' " he complained.

"Okay, chief," she agreed, grinning. Naoko slipped through the door and tossed the report on Daley's desk. He leaned back further in his chair and propped his feet on the report. Naoko looked offended. "Hey! someone put a lot of effort into that, chief!"

"Yes, it's just the right height." Daley looked thoughtfully at her. "You know," a sly grin eased onto his face, "if I'm chief that makes you superintendent… and all this paperwork is yours." His grin widened at Naoko's wide eyed look and the panic creeping into her expression. "In fact, you'd better hurry to get this ready for turnover to the new chief."

Naoko froze for a second. "Ack! that's today, isn't it?" Daley nodded. "Sorry, Daley, I've got to run to get my desk cleared—I thought that was tomorrow!" Naoko scrambled through the door, calling back over her shoulder. "I'll see you at the meeting!"

Daley waited. A moment later Naoko stuck her head through the door again.

"Um, how's Nene?"

"She burned her hands—only first degree—and broke an arm, but she'll be fine. I told her to take some time off, but I'll bet you she shows up for the meeting with the new chief today."

Naoko looked relieved. "Thanks, Daley!" She disappeared again.

Daley waited a moment, then he grabbed the report and began to page through it.

"Cut. Cut! Okay everyone, relax now."

Linna relaxed from the pose in which she had frozen at the end of the scene. She kept an eye on the director as she ran a hand through her short, sweat-damp hair and stretched a little to loosen muscles that threatened to become sore.

Director Forreaux scribbled some notes in his palmtop and looked up at the cast on stage. "Okay everyone, you did good. I'll need a few days to sort out who gets what and I'll let you all know on Monday. Go get some rest. Shoo! Shoo!" His hands fluttered at the cast.

Linna Yamazaki watched him for a moment, grinning at his capering antics, as some of the other try-outs gathered around to beg for hints. She shook her head and headed out to change.

Twenty minutes later she slowed at the sight of the director standing patiently by the exit. "Ah! Ms. Yamazaki!" He nervously scratched behind his ear.

"Mr. Forreaux," Linna responded, a bit slowly. She hadn't worked with him for very long, but already recognized that gesture as a bad sign. Although something didn't add up.

"I have to apologize for delaying you like this," he said, his French accent thicker than usual. "But I wanted to tell you in person.

"I don't think the dance line is where you belong."

Linna stared at him blankly for a moment. "I see," she said in a mildly curious voice. "Where do I belong?"

A wide grin exploded on the director's face, and he told her. "I realize," he added, "that will require you to master a rather challenging solo sequence—"

Jean Forreaux stopped trying to speak as Linna's lips interrupted his. After a moment she pulled away and quietly thanked him.

Then her hand came up and lightly slapped his cheek. "And if you try to tease me again, I shall have to be stern with you." She stated, mock sternly and with a smile still on her face.

The director pulled himself together after a moment, just before the doors closed behind Linna. "The first rehearsal is on Wednesday," he called to her. "Don't forget!"

He watched for a moment through the glass doors at her swaying away, then absently straightened his tie and walked further into the building, humming a cheery little tune.

Linna dodged the spray from traffic and hunched inside her raincoat as the gritty mist permeating Mega-Tokyo threatened to return to rain. She turned the corner at a brisk walk and all but dove into Sylia's waiting car.

"Home, James." Linna sniffed haughtily.

"But I am not James," Sylia protested, even as she pulled into traffic. "I take it the audition went well?"

Linna's grin answered Sylia's small smile. "Better than that, Jean's asked me to take the lead dancing role."

"Jean?"

Linna laughed. "The director. He's a bit hard to read, but I think he likes me. He also tried to pretend he had bad news after the audition." She cheerily summarized her day.

A moment later Linna's voice broke a silence that Sylia hadn't realized was there. "So how much can you talk about it?"

A small crease slipped onto Sylia's face. "If I asked you to stop doing that again, would you?" Linna was getting entirely too good at reading her mood.

"Um, out of everyone we know, is there anyone who would?"

They glanced at each other and nodded. "Nene," they said in unison.

Linna waited a moment, then tried again. "Seriously, Sylia, you look… tense." She waited.

Sylia remained silent.

Linna finally spoke again. "This doesn't have anything to do with our… hobby, does it?"

Sylia smiled a bit, relaxing. "No. It doesn't." The smile faded. "It's something that came up when I helped sort things at my uncle's place."

"Family problems?"

"Of a sort.…"

"Those are always among the hardest ones, aren't they?"

Sylia nodded. "It probably would have been easier if Mackie had been able to make it."

"You were close to them, weren't you?"

"More to my aunt than uncle, but the two of them were the ones who took in Mackie and I the first year after our father died." Sylia's hands tightened on the wheel.

"Speaking of the little voyeur, how is Mackie doing right now?"

Sylia relaxed a little. "Quite well. Did I mention that he'll be back here in about a week?"

"So soon?" Linna slumped back in her seat, shaking her head. "It seems like he only just left. Come to think of it, though—" she frowned thoughtfully "—you did mention something about it… last month? My. Time flies."

Sylia shook her head, a small smile growing on her lips. "I think you're just keeping yourself a little busy. Working and getting into a musical?" Granted, Linna had cut back to a part-time schedule at her stock brokerage and the musical was still technically in the amateur circuit, still.…

"I am a woman of great talent."

"I see."

"Although I don't suppose my schedule compares to yours. You've practically vanished since you got back from your relatives." Linna paused, Sylia had almost impercepitably started to tense up again. "You're not lining up another round of paint-ball on us, are you?"

"No, nothing like that. I've just been trying to tie up some loose ends, that's all."

Linna looked skeptically at Sylia. "This isn't going to cut into things like last time, is it? I mean, I was hoping you could make time for a night on the town." Linna grinned slyly. "And Nene's buying."

Sylia, finally, laughed softly. "I do not want to miss that."

"There. You see?"

Naoko frowned at Daley for a second, then turned back to watch Nene struggling from a taxi. "She's turned into a workaholic!" Naoko grumbled, then excused herself to go give Nene a hand.

Daley just smiled silently at the retreating Naoko, then, after a glance at the clock, started his own rush down the hall.

Nene made it into the building before Naoko reached her.

"Nene! I can't believe you!" Naoko complained as she reached the pale red-head. She held Nene gingerly at a distance and examined her, frowning at the single layer of gauze on Nene's hands.

Nene frowned back. "I'm not made of glass, you know," she grumbled, a little breathlessly.

"What are you doing here? You've got the day off," Naoko continued as if she hadn't heard. With Nene still moving forward, Naoko relented and escorted Nene toward her desk, fussing over her the whole way.

"Owie," whispered Nene as she settled into her chair, the cast on her arm making a gentle thunk when it bumped her desk.

"You should go home," Naoko insisted again, hovering over her. Nene gingerly flexed her fingers in the cast. "Or at least answer my question," Naoko added.

"It doesn't make any sense." Nene said, staring forward blankly.

"What?"

Nene turned and focused on Naoko. "The rogue boomers in the complex today. The whole thing doesn't make any sense."

Naoko jammed her hands on her hips. "You really should be resting now, you know, not working."

A sly smile teased the corners of Nene's mouth. She leaned back in her chair and placed her feet up on the desk. "Okay, I'm resting," she giggled.

"At least that got you away from the keyboard," Naoko muttered.

"Huh?"

"Nothing."

"Ah Leon! You tease me so!" Daley sighed theatrically as he approached. "I see your influence everywhere." He grinned at the two women and shook his head at Nene. "You do have the rest of the week off you know."

Naoko looked at her watch. "The meeting's over already?"

Daley nodded. "Chief Kobayashi apparently doesn't believe in wasting time. She's already scheduled most of the rest of the month."

"What did I miss?"

"Hmm? Oh, just that she's going to completely overhaul the AD. P." Nene's and Naoko's jaws dropped. Daley paused thoughtfully and continued. "That and she's only here temporarily until she thinks we're ready for a new permanent chief."

"She's a temp?" Nene squeaked.

"Yup. I've heard she's in line for a really high slot, so I guess this is her way of killing time until the red tape is out of the way."

"Where'd you hear—no, Leon, right?"

Daley grinned and looked over at Naoko, who blushed.

"Naoko?"

"Well, I've got this cousin.…"

Daley held up a hand. "Say no more." He looked down at Nene and his smiled faded. "So why are you here?"

Nene slid her feet off the desk and gingerly leaned forward. "The rogue group today; it doesn't make any sense." Naoko rolled her eyes.

"Do you mean today's incident?"

Nene nodded at him. "Yeah, I mean—" Daley raised a hand and cut her off.

He spoke in a toneless voice. "It was a rare type of failure triggered by long term improper maintenance. Genom's people are already looking into it."

Nene scowled at Daley, then blinked and glanced at Naoko, who was fidgeting uneasily. "Um."

"Now," Daley declared, "you really need to get some rest. C'mon, I'll give you a lift home."

Nene sighed. "Okay.…" And with some help from Naoko, got up to hobble down to the parking ramp.

Daley remained uncharacteristicly silent. As they pulled out into city traffic, he opened his mouth as if to say something, closed it, frowned and shook his head, focusing on the controls for a moment as the gritty mist coating the city degenerated into a muddy rain. He smacked the steering column when the wipers failed to start, and was rewarded with them finally flipping into high speed. He fidgeted again for a moment, and punched up a song on the car's decrepit audio player—Nene idly recognized it as a boot-leg Replicants recording—then started the routine of opening his mouth again.

Nene spoke first, her voice oozing sarcasm. " 'A rare type of failure.' "

Daley grinned widely and glanced over at Nene. "Ah! That was beautiful. I couldn't have delivered that line better myself, and you know how I pride myself on my thespian skills."

"You mean on your drama queen skills."

"Well, technically, yes." Daley glanced over at Nene again, and his grin softened at the sight of the small smile on her still too pale face. She followed his statement with a mangled sound, as though she couldn't decide whether to giggle or snort and finally did both.

The lull returned to the car, a bit more relaxed.

"Ah, Leon," Daley muttered wistfully. "If only you'd explain at times."

"I wish the guys on patrol were more like you." Nene broke the lull.

Daley snickered. "Come again?" He glanced over at her. Nene had a wry smile on her face now.

"Most of them don't take me seriously unless I go all formal."

Daley grinned again. "Well, what can you expect? Leffler and Matthews are ex-military. And Leffler has such a traditional background that even I—" Daley indicated himself theatrically "—don't even know his personal name."

Nene frowned thoughtfully. "What about Matthews?"

"Oh. Well.…" Daley paused for a moment to deal with traffic. "It's Guido."

"You're kidding."

"No, I'm not; that's the beauty of it."

"Well," Nene snickered, "no wonder."

Daley grinned with her. "I wouldn't worry about it though. From what I know of them I'd say they were very impressed with you today, and aren't likely to be so old-fashioned anymore. Leffler might even tell you his personal name!"

Nene shook her head at this and winced from the motion.

"If only Leon were so easily impressed," Daley sighed wistfully. Then, in a firmer voice. "How good are you with computers?"

Nene blinked at the shift. "Um, decent, I think. Why?" She frowned at him. "This isn't something where you rope me into fixing your system at home for free, is it?"

" 'Fix' is not the right word.…"

Nene shrugged, still frowning. "And I'm really not up to anything today."

Daley returned the shrug. "That's too bad, because this is kind of a rush project. And it's data recovery, more or less."

Nene was still frowning, but more thoughtfully. "Project? This would be on a contract then?" She received a nod from Daley. "Well why not just go to one of the commercial—" Nene closed her mouth with a snap.

"You catch on quick, grasshopper."

"Noooo.…" Nene breathed slowly. "I mean, why me?"

"According to my sources, you're good and circumspect. And we could use that."

"We?"

Daley smiled. "Ah, now that's not something I can just give away."

"Daley," Nene growled.

"Seriously."

"Hmph."

"The AD. P. is not what it should be, and we're losing our margin for error. We've got a growing list of too many restrictions—the new weapons restrictions you ran into today—and equipment that just isn't keeping up with the technology curve.

"And…" Daley clenched his jaw for a moment. "And we've got leaks."

Nene looked at him silently, her face drawn and pale again.

His voice dropped, and Nene had to strain to make out what he said. "That Genom toady showed up with too much authorization for today to have been an actual malfunction, and he knew just which precinct where we routed all of the gear we collected. Any chance we might have had to look at what happened and plan better for the next incident was gone before we even had a real hand on it. Poof!" Daley snapped his fingers and clenched his jaw.

Then he took a deep breath and let it out. "Sorry," Daley glanced over at Nene and smiled wryly. "Sometimes I get carried away."

"That's okay." Nene said weakly.

"We really need all the advantages we can get, though. If you're willing to help it'll mean extra work, irregular hours, and not much in the way of rewards other than a positive attitude from a few people."

"Um."

"And it might—just might, mind you—give you a few opportunities to move up."

Nene took in a quick breath. "I'm in," she popped the words out, then took a long deep breath.

Daley grinned at her. "There's nothing to be 'in.' I'm only looking for someone to take on one extra job." He winked.

"Now that I've put my foot into it, what's the job?"

Daley shrugged. "Putting together whatever data fragments you can from wireless traffic recorded at the residential incident."

Nene winced. "That's going to be almost nothing. There's likely to be dozens of sources and only a fraction of the packets from any given one. Plus, the stuff we can use is probably encrypted. This is really grasping at straws."

Daley nodded. "If we'd had more time with the hardware.…"

"Yeah. I'll take a look at it, though I don't think I'll get anywhere for a while, if at all."

"You've got the rest of the week off to heal up first," Daley reminded her. "Go ahead and take as long as you like."

"Okay." She paused. "Um, where do I get the recording?"

Daley pulled a data cartridge out of his pocket. "Here you go." He handed it to Nene and smiled wryly. "It's too bad we couldn't make an image of that boomer group server's drive before Genom 'requisitioned' everything."

"Yeah," Nene agreed quietly, "that's too bad." She fumbled the cartridge one-handed for a second and slipped it into her purse.

"You know what we need?" Noriko asked, and then answered her own question. "We need refills." She stared mournfully at the empty glass in front of her.

There were five others—three of them other band members, and two teens from the stage crew—at the table with her. Two tables rather, pulled together in the still sparsely populated bar and with their attendant chairs collected around them. Low sunlight had thrown patches of brilliance nearby and mock-threatened to cover their table before sunset.

"What are you asking me for?" Priss demanded, as she tilted her chair onto two legs and leaned against the wall. She took a pull from the bottle in her hand.

"I'll get it!" Kai enthused, getting up.

"No!" Several voices chorused. Noriko clarified: "Yuu will get it."

Yuu gave her a momentary blank look, then, shrugging, stuffed his hands in his pockets and shuffled up to the bar.

"I could have gotten it," Kai complained as he sat back down. He brushed his bangs out of his eyes.

Noriko snorted. "You'd have brought back that rotgut that Priss likes."

"I would?" Noriko confirmed his question with a nod.

"Noriko," Priss began. "You insulted my drink."

Noriko waved her hand dismissing the issue. "It'll get over it."

Priss shifted her grip on the bottle and grinned viciously at Noriko. "No it won't, but you will," she growled.

Sho and Nobuya—the teens—glanced at each other and tensed.

Priss maintained her glare for a few seconds, then started snickering. Noriko joined in with outright giggles.

"I don't get it." Kai looked back and forth between the two women.

Priss snorted and took another pull from the bottle.

A full pitcher settled on the table. Yuu followed to his seat and refilled the empty glasses.

Noriko rested an elbow next to her glass, then raised it. "To success." She clinked her glass against Yuu's, starting a series that washed across the table and included the two teens.

They took it as a cue and talk turned to the band's tour—their stops past and expected before returning to Mega-Tokyo—and the concerts they had left in Sho and Nobuya's home town before they moved on. When they asked about one of the Replicants' older songs, Priss admitted "We haven't played that one in a long time."

"Why not?" Sho asked her.

"'Cause that one has some tricky chord transitions," Noriko began, "that only Priss had mastered, so she'd have to sing it and play it, too."

"And some things just don't go together," Kai chimed in, "like chocolate and peanut butter." He smiled smugly, then looked blank as laughter rolled around the table. "What?"

Yuu just shook his head at Kai and continued fidgeting with a piece of string.

"Only you would come up with something like that." Priss shook her head at Kai, grinning.

"I don't get it," Kai complained, failing to duck as Noriko reached over and ruffled his hair.

"Don't worry about it, hon'. It's your most endearing quality," Noriko told him.

Nobuya stage whispered to Sho. "If they're going to get started on that again, you get the ice water." A wave of laughter and giggles rippled around the table.

Sho put on a glum expression and stage whispered back. "When Leon shows up you'll have to get used to even more of that."

"But I'm already here!" Kai exclaimed in reference to his stage name. That set off another wave of laughter even as Priss threatened Sho, though she kept grinning through the whole threat. Sho laughed back unrepentantly.

"Hey!" Kai started. "Why do I have to be 'Leon?' Why couldn't I be 'Roy' or something?"

" 'Or something,' just doesn't work, Kai." Priss shook her head at the drummer.

"And 'Roy,' " Noriko waved a hand in Yuu's direction. "is the crazy one. You can't top him there. No one can."

Yuu gave Noriko a long-suffering look, and mouthed "help me" at the boys, setting off another wave of laughter.

"When is Leon supposed to get here, Priss?" Sho asked, after the laughter settled down.

Priss looked at her watch. "He should be getting here any minute now."

"There's someone else named Leon?" Kai asked, surprised.

Noriko nodded. "He's been going out with Priss for six months."

Kai pouted. "She's never gone out with me."

"Kai," Priss began. "Noriko doesn't let anyone go out with you. She's said something about 'protecting the innocent.' "

"I thought Kai was supposed to be the innocent one," Sho said with a hint of uncertainty.

"I think that's what she meant," Nobuya observed.

Priss grinned and shook her head. "You have no idea." Then she set her bottle on the table and fished a phone out of her pocket. "Speak of the devil," she muttered, looking at the display. Then she flipped it open and took the call.

"Damn," she commented after closing the phone.

"He's late again?" Noriko said peevishly.

"He's not going to make it," Priss grimaced. "They had an 'incident' today, and people got killed." She reached for a glass on the table, and Yuu quickly filled it. "Shit," muttered Priss, adding a few more pungent words for good measure.

"Is he.…" Noriko began.

Priss waved a hand as she sipped from the glass. "No, he's fine.…"

"He got saddled with the clean up?" Noriko asked.

"Yup, and probably a triple shift, from the sound of it," Priss admitted. Expressions of sympathy spiked around the table. "You know," Priss began again a moment later, "I think I may try those tricky chords tonight." She held up her hand and looked at it, holding it to shine the light off the scar that ran between her middle fingers on both sides of her hand.

Nobuya blinked and blurted, "Whoa, where'd you get the scar?"

"Now he notices," Sho winced and muttered.

Priss' face tightened as the memory of a boomer slicing open her hard suit flashed through her mind. "Motorcycle accident," she lied.

"That reminds me," said Noriko. She jangled a set of keys in her hand.

Priss narrowed her eyes at Noriko, but put down her glass and tossed the keys from her pocket at Yuu. "Hang on to these for an hour."

Yuu nodded at her and untangled the keys from the cat's cradle they had landed in.

The temple grounds were dimly lit, though careful placement of the few lights it did have managed to create a welcoming glow. Adding to the wholesome look of the place, the sparking drops from the final burst of evening rain, and the twinkling stars in the now clearing skies rounded out a natural look rare in Mega-Tokyo.

Leon McNichol moved slowly along the path, giving his eyes a chance to adjust to the gentle light.

A hoarse voice growled from the shadows. "By the pricking of my thumb, something wicked this way comes."

Leon snorted. "Hello Roy."

"Oh, it's you." Roy said in a normal voice and stepped out of the shadows to stand in front of one of the lights. He held one hand up to his face and examined his thumb closely.

"I hate it when you do that," Leon groused as he squinted at Roy's silhouette.

His face dimly visible, Roy grinned. "What brings you here, copper?"

"You, actually. Remember?"

Roy pondered for a second. "Hmm, that's right. I did."

Leon looked around. "Where's that oversized shadow of yours, by the way?"

"Clyde's researching the nature of Shinto."

Leon gave him a skeptical look. "A Shinto boomer bodyguard?"

"Shinto priest, if he can manage it."

Silence fell in the temple for a moment as Leon digested this. "I'm going to regret asking, but why?"

Roy spoke as though stating the obvious. "So he can perform my funeral rites after I'm assassinated."

Palming his face, Leon asked, "Since he's a bodyguard, wouldn't he be destroyed first when you're assassinated?"

Roy looked, and sounded, surprised. "Huh. You know, I never thought of that."

Leon shook his head and tried to get back on track. "Worry about it later. Why did you call me?"

Roy shook his head, and stepped out into the light. "Walk with me for a ways." Leon sighed and fell in step with Roy as the two wandered the temple grounds.

Several times Roy seemed just about to speak, but repeatedly just shook his head and continued walking. Finally though, he did speak. "Leon," he stopped and put a hand on Leon's shoulder. "This may come as an unpleasant surprise, but there's something rotten in Genom."

" 'I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.' " Leon said, deadpan.

Roy nodded and retrieved his hand. "I'm sorry, I was afraid you would be." He started walking again. "I'm also afraid I can't be too specific—non-disclosure agreement and all that—but I'll do my best to give you a lead."

"Just a lead?"

"Mmm hmm." Roy affirmed, and lead them into a gloomier section of the temple.

"Your troops took down two rogues today," Roy began after a moment. "One of which went rogue today, and the other of which went rogue, or nearly so, several years ago."

"A recycled rogue?"

"Not really. We caught his incipient instabilities during a routine sweep and shut him down. Then we put him in line for analysis, to be followed by reconstruction." Roy lowered his voice. "He was analyzed, but wasn't directed to be reconstructed, until today."

"Cut to the chase, Roy. What happened?"

Roy stopped walking, and lowered his voice to a near whisper. "Someone replaced the standard, trickle power core with a full-fledged charged one with dummy readouts. We had pulled our troubled boy out of storage and were moving him when someone activated him. I lost some good troops today, Leon. That is not something I can let pass."

Leon nodded. "Neither can I."

As she had several times before, Sailor Pluto stood by a set of immense gates set in an otherwise featureless gray place. Again, she focused her attention on the gates.

After an indeterminate moment and no reaction, Sylia gave up and turned to the next item on her list of experiments. Concentrating briefly, she shifted back to her normal self.

She had a sudden—brief—impression of the gates turning their attention on her, and that she didn't belong there.…

Sylia groaned softly and picked herself up from the floor of her apartment, making a note to never do that again.

After getting some aspirin, she started considering the impression she had gotten from the gates.

Chief Kobayashi paused in setting up her office and studied Leon for a second.

Shades in place and leaning against the door-frame, Leon stared back at the petite gray-haired woman. "Why'd you want to see me?" he asked, bluntly.

It had been a long shift; chasing down a military boomer, and then starting the investigation into its origins had taken their toll and Leon had already been near the end of his normal shift when the chase started. New chief or not, he didn't have the energy left to try to make a good first impression.

On the other hand, he'd heard good things about the woman in front of him. A native of Tokyo, she had been a career policewoman since she graduated from college, though she had been stuck with a dead-end post for years. She had gotten out of that, though, and was making up for it fairly well when the quake hit in '25. Surviving the quake and her efforts in the aftermath had made her briefly semi-famous, and she had risen very rapidly through the ranks since then. He took in her appearance—a plain, pressed dress-suit, long graying hair tied back in a ponytail—and made some effort to straighten up from his slouch.

"I'm going to need to borrow one of your people for a while. I'm afraid I can't be too specific, though it shouldn't be for more than a few weeks." She frowned at him. "How long have you been on shift?"

"I dunno. Is this Tuesday?"

"No." Chief Kobayashi suppressed a sigh. "Look, go home, get some rest, and we'll talk about this more when you get back. For now, I'll give you this to sleep on. I need someone, preferably at the Superintendent level, to work with me as I tear through this precinct and shake out the deadwood. We'll discuss it after you've slept. Clear?"

"Crystal." Leon blinked at her. He waved sloppily as he straightened up from the door-frame and turned to wander toward the elevators.

Chief Kobayashi sighed, shook her head, and returned to setting up her office.