Ranma 1/2 : Money
A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic by Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne
(All characters copyright Rumiko-sama, obviously. If I ever
even considered claiming that these were my own characters I'd
probably be thrown into a small cell where I'd be forced to
eat my own soul to live.)
$
I'll do the official author foreword in a moment, but first,
a word from our sponsors...
* A Note From Kensu:
* What is this? Why did we do this? What is that stuff in the
* inside of Twinkies? This header will answer this question.
* 1This is the result of a collabaration between four of the best
* known Ranma fanfic authors on the 'net;. Me, Kensu, who wrote
* Mamono Hunter Ranma 1/2 and Original Flavor. Stefan Gagne, who
* wrote such memorable fanfics as "Wicked Garden" and "Ministry of
* Confusion". The Legenedary John Walter Biles, who stunned the
* world with "Putting your heart in the right place" "Elseworlds"
* "Still Waters Run Deep" and many MANY others. And Roy Rim, who
* graced the world with the lemon-psychological thriller "Split
* Personalites"
* 2Why did we do this? Kensu (me) thought up the fact that there
* has never been a Ranma 1/2 Halloween episode. Which isn't really
* that strange, but I thought that it was about time someone wrote
* one. After reading the Ninja High School 1995 Yearbook, I thought
* it would be nice to have some of the more famous Ranma 1/2
* authors write a story based on Halloween. Thus, I sent out E-
* Mails. The only authors who never replied were Christian Gadekan
* and Karl Rim. Well, maybe next year. :) (Does anyone know Karl
* Rim's updated address?)
* 3It's lard. No kidding, it's lard. OH NO, WE'RE GOING TO GET
* SUED! :)
$
(Author Foreword.)
Disclaimer. It's not much of a Ranma 1/2 story, and I really
do apologize in advance for that to my readers. It's not funny.
It's not silly. It's not Takahashi.
When approached with the idea of doing a Halloween Ranma
story, I figured, 'GREAT! Horror! Always fun to write.' And I
had planned on it being more Rumik in nature, but clearly I was
developing a story which I liked -- but which wasn't fitting the
criteria of the anime series in question.
Instead of stopping, I continued, and got something of merit
from it. This is a tale of human nature, the way the supernatural
is totally natural, and the evils we do in the name of society and
progress. It's a tale of the falling and rising of the soul.
Perfectly appropriate material for Halloween, especially in a day
and age where we move beyond silly, campy evil and into some more
serious explorations of the topic.
If you want to be entertained, move on.
If you want to think, read on.
And if this intro alone has scared you, that's a good sign.
It means you're still alive.
$
Nabiki cruised along, light coming from the car behind her
glinting off the recently polished rear view mirror, glinting off
her mirrored sunglasses, and glinting back into the road ahead of
her. Anybody foolish enough to step in front of her Porsche as it
whipped along the road at insane speeds would have noticed the
eerie effect of her car having four headlights before they got
turned into chiseled spam.
The car behind her revved up, and shifted lanes. Apparently,
it was some foolhardy moron, quite willing to try to outrun
Nabiki's well tuned speedster. TRY, mind you. Fine, Nabiki
thought, I'm game. Nobody can match me.
The guy was driving a basic Japanese economy car. While
Nabiki loved the Japanese economy and new lax governmental rules
over business, she couldn't stand the cars. There was no style to
them. No class. No price tags that stood out long after you had
pulled the window sticker off, no invisible tags that screamed out,
"I'm so stinking rich that I can not only own a car like this, but
I can afford ANY speeding tickets I receive driving it, AND bribe
any law enforcement types that object if I feel like it!"
So, Nabiki gunned the engine, which purred and leapt at her
will, lurching ahead on the road and sticking to it like peanut
butter, sliding along smooth as teflon. Nabiki smiled, and waved
a driving-glove covered hand to the car behind her which easily
accelerated and cruised right in front of her, red tail lights
glaring down Nabiki's optic nerve like brillo pads.
Nabiki gaped. That car shouldn't be going that fast. And if
it was, it meant Tendom had some serious business to get to to
produce engines that could match it. She made a mental note.
The car slowed down rather deliberately, to mock Nabiki's ill
attempt to outrun it, light casting a nasty red firelight into her
posh leather interior. Nabiki squinted, and tried to make out the
license plate, so she could have her underground contacts crush
this poor sot for daring to mock the CEO of Tendom.
She had learned long ago to read the bar codes being placed on
license plates nowadays, and read them from a distance of six car
lengths. It was a helpful skill, and right now the tag seemed to
read RS7734, diplomatic plate.
A diplomat? Well, whoever he was, his taillights gave a final
burst as he hit the brakes hard. Nabiki yelped and swerved,
skidding to a halt, knowing full well that her car was designed
more for power than crash safety. The annoying domestic car that
nearly totalled her picked velocity and peeled out, leaving small
flametrails behind its tires.
She blinked. Working too late. Definitely. Seeing things.
She reasserted her place on the road and sailed onward, towards
home.
$
"Lights," Nabiki requested, and the house illuminated itself.
A delightful technology; she was glad her corporation had come up
with it first and landed the patents before those wimps at Sony
could. It was one of the last battles Sony bothered to fight
before caving to Nabiki's money machine empire.
Nabiki tossed her jacket on the couch. The servants could
hang it up properly later; right now, she wanted a stuff drink and
a good book. It was a rough week, what with three hostile
takeovers and a legal battle over the rights to a genetic
experiment which had tried to defect over to Greenpeace and escape.
Nabiki managed to prove he was property via some careful research
(not into ethics, mind you, research into finding the right lawyers
for the task) and one or two well placed bribes, and that was that.
Normally, a socialite and businesswoman could adjust to the
hectic pace of life gradually. Not Nabiki. She was only twenty
three. Fastest rise to the top of the business world in history,
propelling technology and society at an equal speed. On the cover
of People magazine, as well as Time and Fortune and Mad. It was
quite an achievement. But still, it was tiring. She could handle
the fatigue, though, knowing that millions of yen poured into her
coffers every day.
Nabiki kicked off her shoes, and collapsed on a chair.
RS7734. There's one speed demon who'll be sorry he crossed her
path, gaijin or not. She'd have to confiscate the car, of course,
take it apart and see what makes it tick. But the whole situation
disturbed her, for some reason... and since she paid people to do
her thinking for her, she tapped her personal communicator.
"Have my private therapist head to the foyer, please," Nabiki
said, and within two minutes he was there.
"Hai, madame chairwoman?" the doctor asked. He didn't
resemble a doctor at all, really, since Nabiki didn't like the
whole white lab coat deal. Her union of Tendom and Microsoft (and
marriage to Bill, who of course became Tendou Bill) showed her new
techniques to make business more comfortable and personable... but
just as ruthlessly efficient. The doctor had all the tools he
required, but they were hidden in better places than a nerdy, over-
intellectual pocket protector.
"I think I got a memory flashback, and I want you to explain
it," Nabiki said.
The doctor nodded, pulling out a small palmtop computer and
pen. "Please describe your situation for the memory search."
Nabiki detailed it, the car, the speed, the plates, the tail
lights which she was still blinking to get rid of the spots caused
by. The doctor fed it into the computer, ran a search on Nabiki's
memory, and handed her the playback disc.
"This is the results of the grep for cars bearing similar
design or license plate," he said. "As usual, I will let you
review at your leisure, and no record of my visit will show on your
bill of health."
Nabiki nodded, and the doctor left, his only task in life
complete. It was vital that nobody found out about Nabiki's few
little quirks. She had an image to maintain, after all. Any of
her competitors that found out about the doctor would have to be
destroyed.
Those quirks were way too abnormal to even consider telling
anybody but her private doctor (who she made a habit of keeping
under memory surveillance, to prevent him from remembering her
little problem for more than six weeks at a time). The dreams, the
flashbacks; all usually consisting of the same thing, involving the
same man, the man whose face she couldn't see. All she remembered
was his laugh. It wasn't a nice laugh at all. It was a laugh
she'd hear minor twangs of in people who hated her for destroying
their lives and assimilating their companies. The laugh of an
enemy.
She made sure to edit the laugh out of a recording of her
nightmares, and give it to her security forces. Anybody matching
that laugh was to be shot on sight. No explanation why, and her
guards fell in step at Nabiki's whim, paid extra not to have moral
questions about their orders. They could worry about coverups
later, if the laughing man was of any importance. Nabiki was not
blind to second sight, and knew a prophetic dream when she saw one.
Precautions were a good thing to have in such cases.
$
Nabiki settled down to sleep, putting on her expensive but
quite covering pajamas, which were more for her comfort than Bill's
excitement. She didn't believe in bothering to arouse her husband,
since the marriage was strictly for business reasons, and he slept
every night in another bed. In Seattle. They'd swap love notes
occasionally, ghost written, over the net so that packet sniffers
could receive them. It was a game, in a way, an amusing ruse.
Nabiki had to admit, Bill's ghost writers were VERY good. The
perfect balance of bodice-ripper romance and tawdriness and good
old fashioned lovey dovey talk.
This almost made her regret marrying someone who couldn't
write like that for real. But marriage is little more than route
to divorce which is route to money, and she felt that eliminating
the middleman of divorce and getting right to the money was better
for everybody's images, on the whole. Money was all that really
mattered in any relationship, anyway.
She fingered the grep-recording the doctor had made, inserting
it into her Tendom Dreemtyme machine. She replaced her normal
pillow with the wiry Dreemtyme one, and signaled the machine to
have her fall asleep within ten seconds. And she did.
$
When you use the Dreemtyme, you're there. Experiencing one of
your own memories. You don't remember who you 'really' are, in
present day, until you wake up and analyze what you dreamed. So,
Nabiki had no concerns as she wandered off to school that day, so
long ago, in Nerima. (This was before it was levelled to make a
colossal shopping mall, which draws more income than any of the
pathetic businesses that were there before.)
Nabiki herself had no concerns, but Saotome Ranma had many.
He was In Cognito, in his usual pathetic disguise of a cold mask
and really big glasses and really big breasts. Nabiki could see
through it instantly, which always puzzled her, since others
couldn't. There were only three girls in Nerima with pig-tails,
and Ranma was the only one who had red hair. Didn't people notice
these things? They couldn't ALL be sheep.
"So, what're you trying to avoid now, Ranma?" Nabiki asked,
falling in step beside him.
"SHHH! I'm in disguise!" Ranma said, shocked Nabiki had
noticed who she was.
"Oh, you mean it's you, Saotome? Gosh, I thought I was
addressing some other Ranma."
"Careful, or you'll blow my cover. Whaddya want?"
"Just curious as to what you did this time."
"I didn't do nothin'!" Ranma balked. "It's all a
misunderstanding."
"Ah. The usual, in other words."
"I was just avoiding Akane's lunch, as usual," Ranma said. "I
went to Nekohanten instead to eat, since Shampoo was offering me a
feast. Then when Ukyou and Akane show at Nekohanten, they demand
to know why I wasn't eating THEIR feasts."
"You forgot it was the anniversary of your arrival in town
again, huh?" Nabiki asked, constantly wondering why some people
chose to see that as a reason to celebrate. "Boy, no wonder Akane
was mad."
"Since they were gonna be overly sensitive girls again, I
sneaked off," Ranma said. "I think I'm gonna have to stay female
for awhile until this cools off. Sheesh, I HATE being a female."
Nabiki's mind ticked away, twisting this situation with new
angles, looking for a place she could intercede... and profit. She
grinned. "Say, how about if I get you off the hook?"
"Really? You can do that?"
"Certainly."
$
"And so, as you can see," Nabiki said, pointing to the group
of doe-eyed children she had hired out of the local elementary
school and dressed in rags, "Ranma was involved in a charity eat-a-
thon being sponsored by Nekohanten. For every bowl he ate, these
poor, impoverished children would receive a free meal."
"How sweet of you, Ran-chan!" Ukyou smiled. "A real
humanitarian. And such adorable little kids!"
Akane considered this, but realized to attack this lie would
mean insulting the kids... if it was true. "Yeah, whatever," she
dismissed.
"Err, yeah," Ranma said. Nabiki winced. Ranma was terrible
at lying... the way he put one hand behind his head. The err, umm,
well, yeah, I guess, uh-huh, hmm, uhh... sounds, grunts to strip
away the carefully planned farce Nabiki had designed. Honestly,
Ranma was of such little use, unless you planned on having him hit
people for a living or some other physical activity.
Akane sighed. "Alright. I see now. Come on, let's go home."
"If you'll excuse us, Akane, Ranma and I need to finish a
photo shoot with these kids for some paper," Nabiki lied. "We'll
catch up later."
Akane and Ukyou accepted this, and left.
"Alright, kids, good job," Nabiki said, helping them get off
the rags she gave them. "One lollipop each."
The children beamed. Such stimulus/response little creatures,
Nabiki thought sadly. The one on the left looked very much like
her, way, WAY back when, in a time before... well, before the not-
quite-such-a-landmark event of her mother's death. Nabiki didn't
care after that about having parents. Dad was a sop. As long as
she could make money and sustain herself, parentals weren't
particularly needed. Kasumi'd clean the house and Nabiki could
handle herself. She didn't miss her mother. Not one bit. No.
"I can't believe they fell for it," Ranma said, snapping
Nabiki out of her memory trip. "I thought I was a goner!"
"Ranma, Ranma, Ranma. You have never quite learned the way of
the lie."
"Lying is dishonest. I'd never want to stain my honor as a
martial artist with it," Ranma said, crossing his arms.
"Hate to say it, but you just did, Ranma-kun," Nabiki smiled.
"Look, it's not so bad. The kids are gonna get fed, just by their
parents. Just a little white lie, and it doesn't hurt; if anything
this benefits you."
"Benefit?"
"Certainly! Now, you're a humanitarian. What better way to
keep the fiancees from getting mad at you? Remind them of your
noble service."
"What noble service?"
"This one, of course. Just tell yourself you really did it,
smile, and nod your head. The truth is just a lie on fact with a
slight bias in one direction or another. And this is good bias,
right?"
"Hmmm... that makes sense," Ranma said, nodding, but not quite
getting it. "Alright, that works. I'll go with it. You sure do
know a lot, Nabiki."
"One must be wise of the ways of the world and ready to accept
them if they want to succeed in it," Nabiki smiled. "We don't live
in the dark ages anymore, Ranma."
$
The Dreemtyme must have grepped too wide, because the car
didn't arrive until later that day.
Nabiki was busy roaming up and down the shopping district,
taking notes. As an avid consumer of technology, she often would
critique features and pricing and even store location... little
cliff notes for when SHE was a business tycoon, things to look out
for.
Often, Nabiki mused over thoughts of being king of the he...
queen of the heap. It was an enjoyable little fantasy to a basic
high school hustler, and she could probably do it, given enough
time and schooling and whatnot... she didn't know at the time how
soon the dream would happen.
The car read ST7734 in the old plate code, and wasn't the same
model as the one from present day. But it still was quite fast,
and the tail lights had been overamplified, lighting the road
behind it with a dull red as it went along. An economy car...
built with price efficiency in mind, designed for someone who had
better things to do with their cash than buy superior transport.
It peeled to a halt in front of the store Nabiki was window-
browsing, and the driver stepped out.
The driver was totally unremarkable. Middle aged. Slightly
balding. Grey suit, power tie. Something of a tire around the
waist. He walked up next to Nabiki, not noticing her at all; he
was more interested in the hardware on display.
"PhotoCD players," he commented to himself... but why would he
comment to himself, with Nabiki right there? "I can't believe they
sell them as single units. Too expensive, considering that a
computer can handle the format with software that costs nearly one
tenth of the price."
"Exactly..." Nabiki said, puzzled. Wasn't that one of the
notes she had made today?
"Oh, sorry. Please let me introduce myself. I'm a man of
wealth and taste," he said, handing Nabiki a business card. "At
least, I like to think I am. I'm a businessperson, like yourself."
"Err, charmed," Nabiki said, glancing at the card. 'STAN :
CEO', it read, without mentioning the company. Red lettering on
cheap black paper.
"I was wondering if you'd like a ride home?" Stan asked.
"Not, not really, considering that that's a fairly obvious way
to pick up young girls to take somewhere and molest and/or sell
into slavery," Nabiki said flatly.
"Oh," Stan said. "I forgot the level of paranoia nowadays.
Well, it's a healthy attitude to sport, even in a safe town like
Tokyo. Where would you be comfortable talking?"
"I don't really have time to talk. I have an economics test
to study for," Nabiki said. "I should be going home. Not with
you, you understand, just the general idea of going home."
"Five minutes of your time, that's all," Stan stated.
"First I'd like to know what we're going to be talking about,"
Nabiki asked. "Five minutes is still time, and time is money."
"Time is time. What I'd like to discuss with you are several
technological patents I'd like to unload," Stan said.
"Patents? I'm just a student, mister, not a corporation."
"Oh, but you will be. You will be," he said, with the
certainty of fanatic.
Nabiki shrugged off the creeping horrors. Maybe the maniac
had something interesting. And it wouldn't hurt to look.
"Alright. I can spare a few minutes."
$
"I must say, I've taken clients out to lunch before, but
you're quite taxing on the petty cash," Stan joked, as Nabiki
worked on the meal he had to buy to get her to sit down.
"Lunch is the most important meal the day. Now. I'd like to
ask one question before you start," Nabiki started.
"Namely?" Stan asked, folding his hands in a truly relaxed
manner.
"Why me? I'm suspecting this is going to be a load of hot
air, since nobody approaches someone my age unless they're planning
on taking advantage of them."
"Little things," Stan said. "Your grade level, individual
scores on tests proving specialty fields. Past reputation and
confirmed facts of activity. You've got quite a bit of potential
in you as a businesswoman."
"Naturally," Nabiki nodded.
"But it's not that," Stan said. "It's money."
"Isn't it always?" Nabiki joked, sipping her coffee.
"No, not just in a 'wow, cool, it's money' way. I mean Money
with a capital Y. A love of it, a desire for it. Money is a
symbol of power, you see, like voltage for electricity. More money
means more freedom to do what you want. It's a good thing, to love
freedom and embrace it."
Nabiki stifled a yawn. This she could get from her Philosophy
teacher.
"That's why we picked you out, because sure, we could get some
forty year old tycoon to take our patents, but what would they do?
They'd just cash them in, add more money to the pile, and yawn. No
enjoyment in the act whatsoever. You, you don't have a pile yet in
any real manner, but you contemplate thirst for one. So, why not
give the patents to the most needy, the most avid up and coming
person in Japan?"
Nabiki perked an eyebrow. "You really think that of me?"
Stan nodded. "I do. Your greed is a good thing, in my
opinion, it shows you're willing to go the distance it takes to
make that money you want. I'm just offering to help you get there
sooner. Time isn't money, see, because you can't BUY more time.
If you made the kind of money you could make with my gift later in
life, what do you have? Forty, maybe fifty years to spend -- no,
to USE it how you see fit. But if you make it now, you get an
extra decade or two, plus added fame and popularity."
"Fame is more of an annoyance than a blessing. Popularity
too," Nabiki said.
"Exactly! It's the money you really want. And that's what
I'm prepared to give you. Raw, potentially stored money."
"What are these patents, exactly?" Nabiki said. She found no
problems dealing with this man on a serious level; she saw
opportunity here, and wanted to reserve doubt for a time when she
saw the whole picture. THEN she could be skeptical.
Stan pulled a cheap briefcase onto the table, and opened it.
The insides glowed golden briefly before he closed it, handing a
series of documents to Nabiki; sealed, except for the headers.
Nabiki stopped eating her hot dog, and examined. 256-BIT
AFFORDABLE GAMING SYSTEM. LIVE FULL SCREEN 90FPS MPEG COMPRESSED
STREAMING OVER TELEPHONE CABLE. ALTERNATE FUEL BURNING ENGINE.
(This amazed her; usually the oil companies bought such patents
before someone could make the engine. Where did Stan get it?)
HUMAN-MACHINE INTERFACING DESIGN AND NEURAL NETWORK. THE FINAL
REVISION OF UNIX. CLONING. CURE FOR CANCER. PCB-EATING VIRUS.
SENTIENT AND OBEDIENT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. Plus stacks of
other patents, with scientific terms and names she couldn't
recognize, including sub-micron level reality manipulation and
dimensional stack sizing.
"Sealed, I notice," Nabiki said, waving a fork at them. "What
if I agree to whatever price you ask and they turn out to be total
garbage?"
"Then you will have lost little," Stan shrugged. "You haven't
heard my price yet."
"Which is?"
"I need an employee," Stan said. "For awhile."
"Define 'employee' and 'awhile.'"
"I require someone I can put in my work force. Sort of an
executive officer," Stan said. "Since you're quite good with
words, I figured you could do volunteer work for me. We'd be
training you on the job, basically like a zaibatsu--"
"Zaibatsu? Ugh. I'm not sure. I've still got high school to
get through..."
"High school is a complete waste of your time at this point.
You could start right now under me, and work on getting your niche
chiseled out with my patents."
"But I couldn't take on TWO jobs. I'd pretty busy getting
people together who could do something with these patents..."
Nabiki said, glancing at them. She could FEEL the money potential
in those things. Each was worth a pile, no, a HORDE of money.
More than she could make running betting pools on those annoying
martial artists.
"Alright, I see. I can handle that, I just need SOMEONE to
fill the position for awhile. Do you know of anybody else we can
use?" Stan asked.
Unfortunately, that's when Nabiki woke up from her grepped
memory dream.
$
"It doesn't explain anything," Nabiki grumbled, getting up.
She knew her words would be picked up by the in-house security
system, and immediately be routed to her doctor. "I want another
grep done for the rest of that scene."
The doctor arrived promptly, knowing that Nabiki would want a
reply to her out-loud summons. "I don't see why. There's no
information in there that suggests a threat. If I recall, that
deal was the root of your empire, yes? That's a good thing."
"Yes, but... I can't remember all the details of that dream.
Why did the machine wake me before the scene was over?"
"It was the end of the recording," the doctor shrugged.
"Probably it had reached a maximum error inconsistency and aborted.
You simply have forgotten."
"We live in an age where people *CAN'T* forget anything I
don't need them to. Find a way to retrieve the information,"
Nabiki said. "Don't forget who feeds you and keeps your harem from
seeing the public eye, doctor."
The doctor winced. She knew!
But of course Nabiki knew. Her company sold him the cloning
equipment to make those five girls, and the AI programming to
tailor them to his desires. Every transaction, every deal made
with Tendom is a deal with Nabiki. Nabiki knew her customers very,
very well.
Besides, it was an idea she had first.
$
Nabiki stepped into her limousine outside the high-security
Tendom housing complex, ready to face another grueling day at the
office. This whole dream situation was way too stressful; she'd
have to relax a bit before arriving at work. Recorded memories
always put her back into her child mindset, which was far more
naive and emotional. Ugh.
"Where to, ma'am?" the driver asked. It wasn't her usual
driver, but that wasn't uncommon, as drivers tended to find out
things they shouldn't from overhearing Nabiki's phone
conversations, and had to disappear... putting silencer fields
around the passenger area would imply Nabiki had something to hide.
"You know where to go," Nabiki said. She considered her
stress levels, and added, "On second thought, make that location
#462 on your chart, driver. We'll be making a quick stop before
going to work."
"Right, boss," the driver smiled, and put the limo in gear.
Nabiki pulled out her cellular, and called her Other Home.
"Hello, Jerard, ready Kunou-chan #3 for me, if you could. I'm
going to make a pitstop to calm down a bit before getting to the
office. Eh? Well, tell them to stop. Yes, I know they only
listen to me. Just ignore the bad poetry, okay? I'll tame them
when I arrive. Thanks."
"Stressful day, eh?" the driver asked, as Nabiki folded up her
phone.
"Just drive," Nabiki ordered.
"Hey, whatever the lady wants," the driver laughed. That
laugh... "Say, miss, I was wondering. I'm kinda an enterprising
guy myself..."
"Yeah...?" Nabiki asked, trying to stave off her mind from
realizing the laugh as long as possible... without knowing an
effort was being made to stave it.
"I've had a hand in business, and executing orders and getting
things done m'self. I was wondering if I could suggest a modest
proposal to you," he said, turning around with a flick of his
ponytail to look at Nabiki. "I think it'd only be fair,
considering our past..."
Nabiki gaped. The laugh. The face.
Ranma flipped a lever, and his car dropped the illusion of
being a limousine. Nabiki was now in the back of economy car
RS7734, which was rapidly approaching the speed of sound.
"Long time no see," he smiled, in a way that punched straight
through the opposite end of friendliness and into darkness.
"Let me out," Nabiki ordered. "Let me out NOW."
"Awww, you don't want to talk about old times?" Ranma asked.
"How about that time you got me out of a pummeling with a lie, and
used the favor I owed you to duck out of a certain deal? Certainly
you'd like to talk about THAT."
"You CAN'T be you. You died in the earthquake! We saw your
body! Akane cried..." Nabiki trailed off.
Ranma winced. "Akane... yeah, I know about her. And I know
about your deal. I'd like you to meet the man you made that deal
with."
"I already know him. We keep in contact," Nabiki said,
folding her arms.
"Oh, not him. That's just the dummy we put in place, so he'd
still be around. No, I want you to meet my real boss..."
With that, the road in front of them parted, like a fleshy
valve of asphalt, and the car continued down a long tunnel in the
earth, which was probably brimstone.
$
Nabiki gaped.
"Hell. Population 462,263,189,526 and then some," Ranma said.
"I can't believe you didn't figure it out. Probably trying to deny
it, claiming you couldn't remember who Stan really was... humans do
that. It's a way of staying comfortably dumb. I know that for a
fact now."
"You're kidding. This isn't Hell," Nabiki said, looking
around. "It looks like New York."
"Six of one, half a dozen of another," Ranma shrugged, sitting
next to her. Nabiki blinked. How'd he get back here? Who's
driving? "Hell's modernized. We're a thriving urban community.
Efficient, clean, like an oiled machine. Stan's made a lot of
changes since last century, since we needed to find SOME way to
accommodate..."
"No way. I'm having a nervous breakdown," Nabiki said. "This
isn't happening."
"Man, why is it so hard for people to accept this?" Ranma
grumbled. "That's half the problem. Takes years to get some
people to accept where they are and why. We can't get around to
the torture and reformation process when the prisoner denies fact."
"This isn't Hell. I've seen Urotsukidoji. Where's the
tortures and big scaly demons and chaotic sadism?"
"Over there," Ranma said, pointing to a row of unassuming
warehouses on the water... lavafront district. "The Centers. It's
not good to keep such things out in the open, they smell bad. So,
we tidy up and contain things. I must say, Nabiki, you've opened
a door to a great education for me. This has been one hell of an
internship. So to speak. And now I get to pay you back for it,
every day of it--"
"You're not Ranma. You're talking above a third grade level
and you're showing signs of logic capability," Nabiki said. "And
being considerably meaner."
"Hey, you made me this way," Ranma said flatly.
"I did NOT!"
"Yes, you did. You signed my soul over. Thanks a bundle,"
Ranma said, but with a bitter tone. "I hate this place. I've had
to adapt to stay sane, and now I get to play cog in its machine.
I can admire it, and hate it at the same time. That's the nice
thing about this, Hell doesn't want you to like it, so you can
partake in it without needing to enjoy your time here. Kind of
like life."
Nabiki winced. "Ranma, what did they do to you? You're... a
lot more bitter, for one thing."
"I could go into detail," Ranma said. "But I won't. You'll
know soon enough. We're almost there now."
$
Ranma opened the door when RS7734 pulled up to a large office
complex, and helped the trembling Nabiki out. All in all, it
resembled a normal city street... if not for the occasional monster
wandering around with the besuited, betied individuals and the red
sky.
But the buildings loomed. They were taller than tall, tall
enough to make you worry they might fall over, and crush you... the
light, the harsh red light similar to RS7734's brake lights,
penetrated all areas except certain patches of shadow. But the
light played tricks with that shadow... some people walked into
shadow, but not out the other side. Hopefully they were just
wormholes. Hopefully.
Ranma frowned, and picked up a stray Taco Bell wrapper from
the sidewalk. The only piece of litter visible. "Honestly,
they're slacking off in keeping the place clean. Someone in
sanitation's gonna get a few years treatment if this keeps up.
I'll have to tell Stan..."
"I don't understand," Nabiki said. "This... it looks hellish.
But it doesn't FEEL like Hell. It's quite productive..."
"Just because it's Hell doesn't mean it needs to be chaotic,"
Ranma said, closing the door. "Get Stan to explain his design
philosophy to you sometime. Come on, the man going to be waiting
for us."
Nabiki nodded, falling into a slightly unsteady pace behind
Ranma. Some part of her mind, locked away, wanted to assume this
was all another bad dream... like the others, where Ranma towered
over her, hurt her, pushed her around and blamed her for the evils
he faced... and yes, it WAS Ranma in those dreams. The laugh
matched. It wasn't the laugh of the Ranma she knew, before the
quake killed him. It was the laugh of someone put through the meat
grinder, again and again, until all that was left was the part of
him that could handle the pain without flinching. Hardened to the
core.
She considered this. What would it take to change him this
much?... Hell, probably. And she didn't even want to speculate as
to why SHE was here, since knew the answer and it didn't appeal to
her one bit.
So, on the first day, Nabiki remained strong, as the pair
walked along the hallways of the office building. Hallway after
hallway. After hallway after hallway after hallway...
Many ordeals start this way, with long journeys, much like the
Odyssey. Normally they're not through offices, but this wasn't a
normal ordeal.
$
Nabiki didn't know how long this had taken so far. Hours?
Days? Days. Had to be weeks. Months, without eating, drinking,
or sleeping. Ranma didn't seem to care about this, despite the
grumbling of Nabiki's stomach. She would wear down, as they
twisted around through the hallways -- all generic, every door with
a placard and 4 to 5 Far Side cartoons. Patches of black covered
the points of time where she couldn't walk anymore, and had to
sleep... please, no more walking... when are we gonna get there...
"Get up," Ranma said, hauling Nabiki to her feet.
"Tired... hungry..." Nabiki whimpered.
"I see you're getting the hang of it already," Ranma said.
"They'll build up your endurance soon. Don't worry, humans are
disgustingly adaptive."
Nabiki fell asleep in dreamless sleep, yet again. Ranma
started to bark an order, but stopped... and just let her sleep.
A day later, she woke up, refreshed only in the most minor sense of
the word.
"Where are we?" Nabiki asked.
"The 602nd floor. We're getting close," Ranma said. "I
phoned up for a few guides to help us the rest of the way... since
you're too weak to make it without care. Jeez, I'm glad I had some
martial arts training before arriving. Made the transition
easier."
Nabiki's muscles were pushed too far over her limits to allow
her to stand, so Ranma had to help her slowly navigate through the
halls. The journey was clearly wearing the girl down. Ranma
didn't envy her this; but it was requested by Stan himself.
Otherwise, he'd have taken the elevator, which could get him to
Stan's office in seconds, not years.
They met their guides a few days later, when Nabiki was
clearly beyond the point where she'd be dead if she wasn't already.
Instead, she was zombie-like; totally limp, but the mind still
bubbled on the backburner. Trapped in agony.
Ranma wasn't enjoying this. He thought he would! How many
times had he fiddled with one of his technological toys, sending
fantasies of his own punishments of Nabiki into the real world,
into Nabiki's dreams? He was waiting for this moment to finally
let her have it for condemning him to suffering. But Nabiki was
suffering, and suffering a lot... and Ranma wasn't taking pleasure
in it anymore.
Of course, Ranma was capable of fatigue, too. He put up a
false front to fight it off, and look more powerful than Nabiki,
but he was feeling the twinges of going too long without bodily
care as well. So, he chalked up his softness against his sworn
enemy to that.
Ranma could smell the guide coming before she arrived. Roses
have a particular scent to them.
"OOHHOHOHOHHOHOHOHOHOHHOOOO!!!" Kodachi laughed, running in,
twirling her leather ribbon around her. "You've returned, Ranma-
sama! I'm so happy. And I see you brought HER."
Ranma winced. Of all the people who died in that earthquake,
naturally the only one that'd be going where HE would be going was
Kodachi. All part of the master plan for his sentence, though.
The horror.
"Heya, 'dachi. Give me a hand here," Ranma requested,
propping Nabiki's living corpse up. "Did you bring the water
bottle?"
"Water? Bah! The slave needs no water," Kodachi said. "She
can't die. She'll experience worse later. Who cares?"
Ranma grumbled. "I ASKED for water. She's in pain.
Dehydration level three, I'd say."
"Oh, come on now! I'd be no fun to ease her suffering--"
"Are you gonna make me call Stan himself and order this or are
you gonna get me the goddamn water?!" Ranma snapped.
Kodachi blinked. "My, he receives his spine mail order. Very
well, since you threaten, the Black Rose can deliver. I'll leave
my partner to guide you while I fetch fluids."
"Your partner?"
"Oh, yes! I brought one of the Phalli," Kodachi said, as the
many-tentacled beast trudged into view, looking downright
ridiculous in the required business suit. It dripped slightly,
offshoot tentacles sniffing the air around Nabiki. "I figure we
should give Nabiki a little fun before Stan gets his hooks into
her. Won't take but a quarter hour."
Ranma glanced at Nabiki, who was too drained to even
understand what was going on around her. He sighed, replacing his
basic Hell-mask of bitterness with one of compassion; an emotion
rarely usable for his job.
"No," Ranma said.
"Awwwwww, why not? OHOHOHHO! She'll get the same treatment
at one of the many Centers anywa--"
"NO," Ranma said. "Forget it. I'll rip that thing apart if
it even looks at her. Once I figure out where its eyes are."
"I swear, lately, you're no fun. You've changed, Ranma-sama,"
Kodachi said. "These last years have weakened you. You used to be
the hardest there was."
"We'll wait here for the water," Ranma said, setting Nabiki up
against a relatively soft chair. "THEN we can proceed to Stan's
office. No funny business between."
$
They arrived two months later. It could have taken two weeks,
but Ranma stopped periodically, much to Kodachi's disgust.
"Hi, I'd like two sodas, and a large fry," Ranma said to the
food clerk, helping Nabiki have a seat on a chair nearby.
Kodachi frowned. "You're wasting time, Ranma. Stan will NOT
approve."
"I want her to be presentable when we arrive, alright?" Ranma
said, as Nabiki nursed on the soda slowly. "Stan wants to talk to
her, and that'll be hard if she's a vegetable, or chewed meat.
That means not looking like the walking dead. No pun."
"Ranma, she's damned. Greed. One of our watchword sins, yes?
Who cares how she feels right now? She'll be in torment soon.
Why, Stan even promised I could handle it! I've got some lovely
ideas brewing."
"What?!?" Ranma said. "No way! I'll talk to him about that."
"You can't prevent it," Kodachi said, frowning as Ranma fed
Nabiki fries. "Why are you bothering? If I don't handle her
treatment, someone else will. If it doesn't start now, it'll start
later. Nothing can stop her fate."
"I don't care," Ranma said. "And I don't care of Stan gets
mad. I don't want her getting hurt until she has absolutely,
positively NO other way to delay it..."
"She's the one that damned you, you know--"
"Yeah, I know!" Ranma shouted. "Fact. Accepted. Shut up,
'dachi, and help me feed her."
"Too late, Phalli ate all the fries."
"Argh. Now I gotta order more! I'm running out of cash
here."
"Why not ask Miss Moneybags--"
"If you talk one more time, Kodachi, I'll have you sent to the
Centers for sixty years," Ranma said. "For no adequate reason.
I'm busy. Let me do my job and leave me alone."
Kodachi started to say, "But you're not doing your job," but
wisely decided against it. Ranma DID have that power. Stan had
made him a chosen one... a controller, a master over Hell. Quite
a bit of power. And Ranma had always held it with an iron fist,
taught by the father of lies himself.
So why was he working so hard at keeping Nabiki comfortable?
Kodachi shrugged. Allow a man his fancies, she supposed. He'd be
back to his usual devious self after this fiasco. He always did,
even during moments of softness. Ranma could be relied on to sink
back to any depths he climbed out of.
$
When the day arrived that Nabiki entered Stan's office, the
666th room on the 666th floor next to the 43rd bathroom (because
there was no real need for 666 bathrooms, that's just silly), she
was able to walk on her own. She was about at the level she was at
upon arrival; a bit more meek, but physically well.
"Ah, there you are," Stan said, finishing signing a paper and
placing it on his 'Out' box. He retracted the ballpoint, and got
up to greet his visitors.
"Yeah... I'm here," Nabiki said, simply stating what was true.
"You do know, why, yes?" Stan asked. "I can present an
official list of charges, but they're mostly general ones, of
course. Making a pact with me, selling off Ranma, doing some not
entirely moral things in the name of money... the Kunou-harem
didn't help."
Ranma perked an eyebrow.
Nabiki blushed. "So that's it? I'm going to be tortured for
eternity?"
"That's about the shape of it, yes," Stan said. "I was
truthful, mostly, when I first saw you. It's your lust for money
that attracted our attention, and we DID want you. Greed is quite
an easy button to push."
"Why did you even care? Just looking for more innocents to
steal?" Nabiki grumbled.
"Innocents? Has she seen company policy yet, Ranma?"
"No, sir," Ranma said.
"The truly innocent have little to fear from us," Stan said.
"We respect people who can hold their head above water in the
proving grounds of man. No, it's the people teetering into the
dark side that we go after. To test them."
"Test? Torture, you mean."
"Stereotypes," Stan grumbled. "Torture is a tool, yes, but we
gave up using it as the ONLY tool. We test them. We test the
strength of resolution, to overcome temptation of evil. A test was
tailored for Tendou Nabiki, and I'm afraid she failed it pretty
hard. If that wasn't enough, you just kept sinking after that,
even after we set things in motion. You killed hundreds when you
demolished Nerima, including your family."
"They were told to get out! I posted warnings, I tried to get
them to leave... we had to go ahead with the construction date, or
it'd look unusual to our competitors..."
"And you'd lose money. Tendom, the great benefactor. The
money machine," Stan said. "That's not why you're here now. If it
was just your sins, we'd have collected you upon your natural death
instead of inducing it."
"Eh?" Nabiki asked. "Then... why now?"
"Simple. Ranma needs a replacement. He's served long and
hard, but he finally found a contract loophole wherein he could
collect you to be his stand-in, in return for his freedom," Stan
said. "Ranma, you're free to go. Thanks for your help. I've
arranged for your travel papers to Heaven... you'll meet Akane
there."
Ranma looked distant for a moment, then snapped back into the
here and now. "Umm, okay."
"Ranma? You sold me?" Nabiki asked.
"Well... you kind of sold yourself... I mean, just
substituting me didn't guarantee you a way out..." Ranma faltered.
"It's all part of--"
"You sold me!" Nabiki spat. "And you think you're any better
than me? Retribution still means committing evil, regardless of
your intentions, you bastard!"
"Look, it wasn't like that!!" Ranma yelled. "I've paid my
dues, dues I wasn't supposed to pay at all! You forced me in here
and took me away from Akane... to get back to her, I'd do
anything... yeah, even if it means damning you! I don't care.
Take her, Stan, I'm gone."
"Alright. Nabiki, I'll set you up with an office job after
your hazing," Stan said, signing some forms. "I figure a few dozen
years in the Center will make a good opener, to get you used to
things. Do you prefer psychological, physical or sexual torture?"
Nabiki and Ranma gulped.
"Or, if you want, we can custom tailor it so you spend less
time there. But it'd hurt quite a bit. Compression, you see,"
Stan said. "We've got a lot of option plans, so you can pick what
you'd like. Well, not like. But whatever you think you can deal
with and stay sane. If you go insane, it sets us back a few years,
you see--"
"This can't be happening..." Nabiki mumbled.
"Sorry, but it is," Stan said. "Don't worry, you're not the
first to say that. Here, let me give you a quick sampler, so you
can see what's available."
And suddenly, Nabiki wasn't in the office anymore.
She was falling, falling into a void... no. Into a pile.
Green, but not grass. She landed, painfully, in a lump of
quarters, gold bars, hundred dollar bills, thousand yen bills,
pounds, marks, rubles. She broke her leg in half on impact.
Nabiki screamed out loud, and got a mouthful of pennies in
return. She gagged, but the floor of money surged up into a tidal
wave around her, engulfing her totally. She vomited, coughed, and
was only able to breathe nickel, paper and copper... money, all the
money she had ever made with Tendom, filling her lungs, scraping
painfully along her throat, crushing her--
"NO!" Ranma screamed, pulling on Nabiki's arm, jerking her out
of the nightmare. She blinked, and was back in the office,
unharmed, able to breathe.
"Problem?" Stan asked.
"Forget the whole thing. Deal's off," Ranma said. "I want
you to take Nabiki back home."
"She's ours eventually, Ranma--"
"I don't care! I don't... I WON'T be the cause of having this
happen to her," Ranma said. "I don't care if you order me, or
torture me, or keep me here for six million years. I won't do it."
"Ranma..." Nabiki gaped. What was he doing?! If that was a
SAMPLE, what Stan would do to Ranma would be incredibly bad...
"I've had worse," Ranma said, nearly reading Nabiki's
thoughts.
"Insubordination carries a heavy tag," Stan said. "You have
your walking papers, Ranma. You deserve to leave. Take them and
go. She DID damn you..."
"I know, and it doesn't matter anymore," Ranma said. "Let her
go. I'll stay. I'll take whatever you throw at me as punishment,
and I'll never see Akane, but it doesn't matter anymore."
"Ranma, you'd do that for me? After... after all those things
I did..." Nabiki thought, as every memory of her sins surfaced,
unearthed by that taste of pain. All the evils she committed in
the name of progress. In the name of fortune. In the name of
money.
"Yes, I will," Ranma said. "And that's all I have to say."
With that, the room filled with white light... soft, soothing
white light, and they weren't in the office anymore. They weren't
in Hell anymore.
$
"You've passed the final test," Stan said, landing gently on
the shores of a white sanded beach, along with Ranma and Nabiki.
"Eh?" Ranma asked. "Wha..."
"You were given vengeance and wrath on a platter, and chose
self-sacrifice instead of destroying your enemy," Stan said.
"That's commendable. You've learned well, and your reward is this.
Welcome to Heaven."
"Wait, what?" Nabiki asked. "I thought... eternal
punishment..."
"If it was eternal, we'd overcrowd and serve no function in
society," Stan said. "No. We reform. We drive a man to
repentance. Some take a short amount of time, some a longer
amount... Ranma, you've succeeded."
"I'm in Heaven? This isn't a trick by the Irony Department?"
Ranma asked.
"'tis what I said," Stan stated. "Welcome. And I'll miss
you. You were sinister at times, but in the end, I admired your
recovery against the odds we put in front of you."
"If this is Heaven, where--"
"I'm here," Akane said.
Ranma span on a wingtipped heel, face to face with an angel.
This was Akane... in all her grace, her beauty, draped in fine
white robes. Smiling softly, more than she would in her earthly
tomboy attitude.
"Thank you, Ranma," Akane said. "I was worried you'd never be
able to leave..."
"Akane... finally..." Ranma gasped, completely overcome with
joy. He ran to her, and they held each other tight, before
vanishing, off to paradise. The final reward.
"I'll miss the lad," Stan said, wiping an eye. "Of all the
reforms I've orchestrated, his was perfect. A textbook maneuver.
Now... to new business."
Nabiki sighed. "Heaven looks so nice..."
"Hey, you might end up here," Stan smiled.
"..." Nabiki said.
"What, you think you're going back to Hell? Ha ha!" Stan
laughed. "No, no, we just needed to use you to finish Ranma's
repentance. The final tool. If we told you ahead of time, it
wouldn't work, of course..."
"I'm not damned?" Nabiki asked.
"Nobody is," Stan said. "Ranma wasn't damned. He could get
out whenever he wanted. But at first, he assumed he couldn't, and
he sank into evil... assuming he was supposed to, that it was
proper. That guaranteed his internship would last a long time.
That worried me. But you, you helped me crack the shell we put on
him, to bring him back to rights."
"But me! Am I damned? I don't want to go to Hell... I won't
want to be punished..."
"Hey, who does? Except maybe Kodachi. No, you're going to
Earth. But with a warning," Stan noted.
Nabiki nodded, and listened closely.
"If you continue your path of life until death without
changes, you're mine. You have admitted your sins of greed, your
money-lust, your intense desires for it. The horrible lengths
you've gone to to get your money. But there is hope. If you can
go back, knowing what you know now, and work to change that... to
increase your karma, to fix your wrongs, to amend the evil, you'll
get the final reward of paradise. If you don't, well, it'll be a
long stopover in my domain before achieving the final reward."
"I can avoid it? I can repent? There's still time?" Nabiki
asked, eternally hopeful.
"There is always time," Stan said. "No futures are set. But
how you proceed is up to you. You can continue to seek your money,
doing anything for it regardless of what you KNOW is right, or you
can stop and try make repairs. It's that effort that will save
you."
Nabiki nodded, absorbing the information like a sponge,
filling her with energy far more than Ranma's efforts to keep her
alive. Now, she truly was alive; she had noble purpose. She had
a REASON d'etre, beyond the call of the cash. Her path was clear.
"And now," Stan said, as the scene faded, "It's up to you.
Because that's the end of my lesson, and there is nothing more to
say."
A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic by Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne
(All characters copyright Rumiko-sama, obviously. If I ever
even considered claiming that these were my own characters I'd
probably be thrown into a small cell where I'd be forced to
eat my own soul to live.)
$
I'll do the official author foreword in a moment, but first,
a word from our sponsors...
* A Note From Kensu:
* What is this? Why did we do this? What is that stuff in the
* inside of Twinkies? This header will answer this question.
* 1This is the result of a collabaration between four of the best
* known Ranma fanfic authors on the 'net;. Me, Kensu, who wrote
* Mamono Hunter Ranma 1/2 and Original Flavor. Stefan Gagne, who
* wrote such memorable fanfics as "Wicked Garden" and "Ministry of
* Confusion". The Legenedary John Walter Biles, who stunned the
* world with "Putting your heart in the right place" "Elseworlds"
* "Still Waters Run Deep" and many MANY others. And Roy Rim, who
* graced the world with the lemon-psychological thriller "Split
* Personalites"
* 2Why did we do this? Kensu (me) thought up the fact that there
* has never been a Ranma 1/2 Halloween episode. Which isn't really
* that strange, but I thought that it was about time someone wrote
* one. After reading the Ninja High School 1995 Yearbook, I thought
* it would be nice to have some of the more famous Ranma 1/2
* authors write a story based on Halloween. Thus, I sent out E-
* Mails. The only authors who never replied were Christian Gadekan
* and Karl Rim. Well, maybe next year. :) (Does anyone know Karl
* Rim's updated address?)
* 3It's lard. No kidding, it's lard. OH NO, WE'RE GOING TO GET
* SUED! :)
$
(Author Foreword.)
Disclaimer. It's not much of a Ranma 1/2 story, and I really
do apologize in advance for that to my readers. It's not funny.
It's not silly. It's not Takahashi.
When approached with the idea of doing a Halloween Ranma
story, I figured, 'GREAT! Horror! Always fun to write.' And I
had planned on it being more Rumik in nature, but clearly I was
developing a story which I liked -- but which wasn't fitting the
criteria of the anime series in question.
Instead of stopping, I continued, and got something of merit
from it. This is a tale of human nature, the way the supernatural
is totally natural, and the evils we do in the name of society and
progress. It's a tale of the falling and rising of the soul.
Perfectly appropriate material for Halloween, especially in a day
and age where we move beyond silly, campy evil and into some more
serious explorations of the topic.
If you want to be entertained, move on.
If you want to think, read on.
And if this intro alone has scared you, that's a good sign.
It means you're still alive.
$
Nabiki cruised along, light coming from the car behind her
glinting off the recently polished rear view mirror, glinting off
her mirrored sunglasses, and glinting back into the road ahead of
her. Anybody foolish enough to step in front of her Porsche as it
whipped along the road at insane speeds would have noticed the
eerie effect of her car having four headlights before they got
turned into chiseled spam.
The car behind her revved up, and shifted lanes. Apparently,
it was some foolhardy moron, quite willing to try to outrun
Nabiki's well tuned speedster. TRY, mind you. Fine, Nabiki
thought, I'm game. Nobody can match me.
The guy was driving a basic Japanese economy car. While
Nabiki loved the Japanese economy and new lax governmental rules
over business, she couldn't stand the cars. There was no style to
them. No class. No price tags that stood out long after you had
pulled the window sticker off, no invisible tags that screamed out,
"I'm so stinking rich that I can not only own a car like this, but
I can afford ANY speeding tickets I receive driving it, AND bribe
any law enforcement types that object if I feel like it!"
So, Nabiki gunned the engine, which purred and leapt at her
will, lurching ahead on the road and sticking to it like peanut
butter, sliding along smooth as teflon. Nabiki smiled, and waved
a driving-glove covered hand to the car behind her which easily
accelerated and cruised right in front of her, red tail lights
glaring down Nabiki's optic nerve like brillo pads.
Nabiki gaped. That car shouldn't be going that fast. And if
it was, it meant Tendom had some serious business to get to to
produce engines that could match it. She made a mental note.
The car slowed down rather deliberately, to mock Nabiki's ill
attempt to outrun it, light casting a nasty red firelight into her
posh leather interior. Nabiki squinted, and tried to make out the
license plate, so she could have her underground contacts crush
this poor sot for daring to mock the CEO of Tendom.
She had learned long ago to read the bar codes being placed on
license plates nowadays, and read them from a distance of six car
lengths. It was a helpful skill, and right now the tag seemed to
read RS7734, diplomatic plate.
A diplomat? Well, whoever he was, his taillights gave a final
burst as he hit the brakes hard. Nabiki yelped and swerved,
skidding to a halt, knowing full well that her car was designed
more for power than crash safety. The annoying domestic car that
nearly totalled her picked velocity and peeled out, leaving small
flametrails behind its tires.
She blinked. Working too late. Definitely. Seeing things.
She reasserted her place on the road and sailed onward, towards
home.
$
"Lights," Nabiki requested, and the house illuminated itself.
A delightful technology; she was glad her corporation had come up
with it first and landed the patents before those wimps at Sony
could. It was one of the last battles Sony bothered to fight
before caving to Nabiki's money machine empire.
Nabiki tossed her jacket on the couch. The servants could
hang it up properly later; right now, she wanted a stuff drink and
a good book. It was a rough week, what with three hostile
takeovers and a legal battle over the rights to a genetic
experiment which had tried to defect over to Greenpeace and escape.
Nabiki managed to prove he was property via some careful research
(not into ethics, mind you, research into finding the right lawyers
for the task) and one or two well placed bribes, and that was that.
Normally, a socialite and businesswoman could adjust to the
hectic pace of life gradually. Not Nabiki. She was only twenty
three. Fastest rise to the top of the business world in history,
propelling technology and society at an equal speed. On the cover
of People magazine, as well as Time and Fortune and Mad. It was
quite an achievement. But still, it was tiring. She could handle
the fatigue, though, knowing that millions of yen poured into her
coffers every day.
Nabiki kicked off her shoes, and collapsed on a chair.
RS7734. There's one speed demon who'll be sorry he crossed her
path, gaijin or not. She'd have to confiscate the car, of course,
take it apart and see what makes it tick. But the whole situation
disturbed her, for some reason... and since she paid people to do
her thinking for her, she tapped her personal communicator.
"Have my private therapist head to the foyer, please," Nabiki
said, and within two minutes he was there.
"Hai, madame chairwoman?" the doctor asked. He didn't
resemble a doctor at all, really, since Nabiki didn't like the
whole white lab coat deal. Her union of Tendom and Microsoft (and
marriage to Bill, who of course became Tendou Bill) showed her new
techniques to make business more comfortable and personable... but
just as ruthlessly efficient. The doctor had all the tools he
required, but they were hidden in better places than a nerdy, over-
intellectual pocket protector.
"I think I got a memory flashback, and I want you to explain
it," Nabiki said.
The doctor nodded, pulling out a small palmtop computer and
pen. "Please describe your situation for the memory search."
Nabiki detailed it, the car, the speed, the plates, the tail
lights which she was still blinking to get rid of the spots caused
by. The doctor fed it into the computer, ran a search on Nabiki's
memory, and handed her the playback disc.
"This is the results of the grep for cars bearing similar
design or license plate," he said. "As usual, I will let you
review at your leisure, and no record of my visit will show on your
bill of health."
Nabiki nodded, and the doctor left, his only task in life
complete. It was vital that nobody found out about Nabiki's few
little quirks. She had an image to maintain, after all. Any of
her competitors that found out about the doctor would have to be
destroyed.
Those quirks were way too abnormal to even consider telling
anybody but her private doctor (who she made a habit of keeping
under memory surveillance, to prevent him from remembering her
little problem for more than six weeks at a time). The dreams, the
flashbacks; all usually consisting of the same thing, involving the
same man, the man whose face she couldn't see. All she remembered
was his laugh. It wasn't a nice laugh at all. It was a laugh
she'd hear minor twangs of in people who hated her for destroying
their lives and assimilating their companies. The laugh of an
enemy.
She made sure to edit the laugh out of a recording of her
nightmares, and give it to her security forces. Anybody matching
that laugh was to be shot on sight. No explanation why, and her
guards fell in step at Nabiki's whim, paid extra not to have moral
questions about their orders. They could worry about coverups
later, if the laughing man was of any importance. Nabiki was not
blind to second sight, and knew a prophetic dream when she saw one.
Precautions were a good thing to have in such cases.
$
Nabiki settled down to sleep, putting on her expensive but
quite covering pajamas, which were more for her comfort than Bill's
excitement. She didn't believe in bothering to arouse her husband,
since the marriage was strictly for business reasons, and he slept
every night in another bed. In Seattle. They'd swap love notes
occasionally, ghost written, over the net so that packet sniffers
could receive them. It was a game, in a way, an amusing ruse.
Nabiki had to admit, Bill's ghost writers were VERY good. The
perfect balance of bodice-ripper romance and tawdriness and good
old fashioned lovey dovey talk.
This almost made her regret marrying someone who couldn't
write like that for real. But marriage is little more than route
to divorce which is route to money, and she felt that eliminating
the middleman of divorce and getting right to the money was better
for everybody's images, on the whole. Money was all that really
mattered in any relationship, anyway.
She fingered the grep-recording the doctor had made, inserting
it into her Tendom Dreemtyme machine. She replaced her normal
pillow with the wiry Dreemtyme one, and signaled the machine to
have her fall asleep within ten seconds. And she did.
$
When you use the Dreemtyme, you're there. Experiencing one of
your own memories. You don't remember who you 'really' are, in
present day, until you wake up and analyze what you dreamed. So,
Nabiki had no concerns as she wandered off to school that day, so
long ago, in Nerima. (This was before it was levelled to make a
colossal shopping mall, which draws more income than any of the
pathetic businesses that were there before.)
Nabiki herself had no concerns, but Saotome Ranma had many.
He was In Cognito, in his usual pathetic disguise of a cold mask
and really big glasses and really big breasts. Nabiki could see
through it instantly, which always puzzled her, since others
couldn't. There were only three girls in Nerima with pig-tails,
and Ranma was the only one who had red hair. Didn't people notice
these things? They couldn't ALL be sheep.
"So, what're you trying to avoid now, Ranma?" Nabiki asked,
falling in step beside him.
"SHHH! I'm in disguise!" Ranma said, shocked Nabiki had
noticed who she was.
"Oh, you mean it's you, Saotome? Gosh, I thought I was
addressing some other Ranma."
"Careful, or you'll blow my cover. Whaddya want?"
"Just curious as to what you did this time."
"I didn't do nothin'!" Ranma balked. "It's all a
misunderstanding."
"Ah. The usual, in other words."
"I was just avoiding Akane's lunch, as usual," Ranma said. "I
went to Nekohanten instead to eat, since Shampoo was offering me a
feast. Then when Ukyou and Akane show at Nekohanten, they demand
to know why I wasn't eating THEIR feasts."
"You forgot it was the anniversary of your arrival in town
again, huh?" Nabiki asked, constantly wondering why some people
chose to see that as a reason to celebrate. "Boy, no wonder Akane
was mad."
"Since they were gonna be overly sensitive girls again, I
sneaked off," Ranma said. "I think I'm gonna have to stay female
for awhile until this cools off. Sheesh, I HATE being a female."
Nabiki's mind ticked away, twisting this situation with new
angles, looking for a place she could intercede... and profit. She
grinned. "Say, how about if I get you off the hook?"
"Really? You can do that?"
"Certainly."
$
"And so, as you can see," Nabiki said, pointing to the group
of doe-eyed children she had hired out of the local elementary
school and dressed in rags, "Ranma was involved in a charity eat-a-
thon being sponsored by Nekohanten. For every bowl he ate, these
poor, impoverished children would receive a free meal."
"How sweet of you, Ran-chan!" Ukyou smiled. "A real
humanitarian. And such adorable little kids!"
Akane considered this, but realized to attack this lie would
mean insulting the kids... if it was true. "Yeah, whatever," she
dismissed.
"Err, yeah," Ranma said. Nabiki winced. Ranma was terrible
at lying... the way he put one hand behind his head. The err, umm,
well, yeah, I guess, uh-huh, hmm, uhh... sounds, grunts to strip
away the carefully planned farce Nabiki had designed. Honestly,
Ranma was of such little use, unless you planned on having him hit
people for a living or some other physical activity.
Akane sighed. "Alright. I see now. Come on, let's go home."
"If you'll excuse us, Akane, Ranma and I need to finish a
photo shoot with these kids for some paper," Nabiki lied. "We'll
catch up later."
Akane and Ukyou accepted this, and left.
"Alright, kids, good job," Nabiki said, helping them get off
the rags she gave them. "One lollipop each."
The children beamed. Such stimulus/response little creatures,
Nabiki thought sadly. The one on the left looked very much like
her, way, WAY back when, in a time before... well, before the not-
quite-such-a-landmark event of her mother's death. Nabiki didn't
care after that about having parents. Dad was a sop. As long as
she could make money and sustain herself, parentals weren't
particularly needed. Kasumi'd clean the house and Nabiki could
handle herself. She didn't miss her mother. Not one bit. No.
"I can't believe they fell for it," Ranma said, snapping
Nabiki out of her memory trip. "I thought I was a goner!"
"Ranma, Ranma, Ranma. You have never quite learned the way of
the lie."
"Lying is dishonest. I'd never want to stain my honor as a
martial artist with it," Ranma said, crossing his arms.
"Hate to say it, but you just did, Ranma-kun," Nabiki smiled.
"Look, it's not so bad. The kids are gonna get fed, just by their
parents. Just a little white lie, and it doesn't hurt; if anything
this benefits you."
"Benefit?"
"Certainly! Now, you're a humanitarian. What better way to
keep the fiancees from getting mad at you? Remind them of your
noble service."
"What noble service?"
"This one, of course. Just tell yourself you really did it,
smile, and nod your head. The truth is just a lie on fact with a
slight bias in one direction or another. And this is good bias,
right?"
"Hmmm... that makes sense," Ranma said, nodding, but not quite
getting it. "Alright, that works. I'll go with it. You sure do
know a lot, Nabiki."
"One must be wise of the ways of the world and ready to accept
them if they want to succeed in it," Nabiki smiled. "We don't live
in the dark ages anymore, Ranma."
$
The Dreemtyme must have grepped too wide, because the car
didn't arrive until later that day.
Nabiki was busy roaming up and down the shopping district,
taking notes. As an avid consumer of technology, she often would
critique features and pricing and even store location... little
cliff notes for when SHE was a business tycoon, things to look out
for.
Often, Nabiki mused over thoughts of being king of the he...
queen of the heap. It was an enjoyable little fantasy to a basic
high school hustler, and she could probably do it, given enough
time and schooling and whatnot... she didn't know at the time how
soon the dream would happen.
The car read ST7734 in the old plate code, and wasn't the same
model as the one from present day. But it still was quite fast,
and the tail lights had been overamplified, lighting the road
behind it with a dull red as it went along. An economy car...
built with price efficiency in mind, designed for someone who had
better things to do with their cash than buy superior transport.
It peeled to a halt in front of the store Nabiki was window-
browsing, and the driver stepped out.
The driver was totally unremarkable. Middle aged. Slightly
balding. Grey suit, power tie. Something of a tire around the
waist. He walked up next to Nabiki, not noticing her at all; he
was more interested in the hardware on display.
"PhotoCD players," he commented to himself... but why would he
comment to himself, with Nabiki right there? "I can't believe they
sell them as single units. Too expensive, considering that a
computer can handle the format with software that costs nearly one
tenth of the price."
"Exactly..." Nabiki said, puzzled. Wasn't that one of the
notes she had made today?
"Oh, sorry. Please let me introduce myself. I'm a man of
wealth and taste," he said, handing Nabiki a business card. "At
least, I like to think I am. I'm a businessperson, like yourself."
"Err, charmed," Nabiki said, glancing at the card. 'STAN :
CEO', it read, without mentioning the company. Red lettering on
cheap black paper.
"I was wondering if you'd like a ride home?" Stan asked.
"Not, not really, considering that that's a fairly obvious way
to pick up young girls to take somewhere and molest and/or sell
into slavery," Nabiki said flatly.
"Oh," Stan said. "I forgot the level of paranoia nowadays.
Well, it's a healthy attitude to sport, even in a safe town like
Tokyo. Where would you be comfortable talking?"
"I don't really have time to talk. I have an economics test
to study for," Nabiki said. "I should be going home. Not with
you, you understand, just the general idea of going home."
"Five minutes of your time, that's all," Stan stated.
"First I'd like to know what we're going to be talking about,"
Nabiki asked. "Five minutes is still time, and time is money."
"Time is time. What I'd like to discuss with you are several
technological patents I'd like to unload," Stan said.
"Patents? I'm just a student, mister, not a corporation."
"Oh, but you will be. You will be," he said, with the
certainty of fanatic.
Nabiki shrugged off the creeping horrors. Maybe the maniac
had something interesting. And it wouldn't hurt to look.
"Alright. I can spare a few minutes."
$
"I must say, I've taken clients out to lunch before, but
you're quite taxing on the petty cash," Stan joked, as Nabiki
worked on the meal he had to buy to get her to sit down.
"Lunch is the most important meal the day. Now. I'd like to
ask one question before you start," Nabiki started.
"Namely?" Stan asked, folding his hands in a truly relaxed
manner.
"Why me? I'm suspecting this is going to be a load of hot
air, since nobody approaches someone my age unless they're planning
on taking advantage of them."
"Little things," Stan said. "Your grade level, individual
scores on tests proving specialty fields. Past reputation and
confirmed facts of activity. You've got quite a bit of potential
in you as a businesswoman."
"Naturally," Nabiki nodded.
"But it's not that," Stan said. "It's money."
"Isn't it always?" Nabiki joked, sipping her coffee.
"No, not just in a 'wow, cool, it's money' way. I mean Money
with a capital Y. A love of it, a desire for it. Money is a
symbol of power, you see, like voltage for electricity. More money
means more freedom to do what you want. It's a good thing, to love
freedom and embrace it."
Nabiki stifled a yawn. This she could get from her Philosophy
teacher.
"That's why we picked you out, because sure, we could get some
forty year old tycoon to take our patents, but what would they do?
They'd just cash them in, add more money to the pile, and yawn. No
enjoyment in the act whatsoever. You, you don't have a pile yet in
any real manner, but you contemplate thirst for one. So, why not
give the patents to the most needy, the most avid up and coming
person in Japan?"
Nabiki perked an eyebrow. "You really think that of me?"
Stan nodded. "I do. Your greed is a good thing, in my
opinion, it shows you're willing to go the distance it takes to
make that money you want. I'm just offering to help you get there
sooner. Time isn't money, see, because you can't BUY more time.
If you made the kind of money you could make with my gift later in
life, what do you have? Forty, maybe fifty years to spend -- no,
to USE it how you see fit. But if you make it now, you get an
extra decade or two, plus added fame and popularity."
"Fame is more of an annoyance than a blessing. Popularity
too," Nabiki said.
"Exactly! It's the money you really want. And that's what
I'm prepared to give you. Raw, potentially stored money."
"What are these patents, exactly?" Nabiki said. She found no
problems dealing with this man on a serious level; she saw
opportunity here, and wanted to reserve doubt for a time when she
saw the whole picture. THEN she could be skeptical.
Stan pulled a cheap briefcase onto the table, and opened it.
The insides glowed golden briefly before he closed it, handing a
series of documents to Nabiki; sealed, except for the headers.
Nabiki stopped eating her hot dog, and examined. 256-BIT
AFFORDABLE GAMING SYSTEM. LIVE FULL SCREEN 90FPS MPEG COMPRESSED
STREAMING OVER TELEPHONE CABLE. ALTERNATE FUEL BURNING ENGINE.
(This amazed her; usually the oil companies bought such patents
before someone could make the engine. Where did Stan get it?)
HUMAN-MACHINE INTERFACING DESIGN AND NEURAL NETWORK. THE FINAL
REVISION OF UNIX. CLONING. CURE FOR CANCER. PCB-EATING VIRUS.
SENTIENT AND OBEDIENT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. Plus stacks of
other patents, with scientific terms and names she couldn't
recognize, including sub-micron level reality manipulation and
dimensional stack sizing.
"Sealed, I notice," Nabiki said, waving a fork at them. "What
if I agree to whatever price you ask and they turn out to be total
garbage?"
"Then you will have lost little," Stan shrugged. "You haven't
heard my price yet."
"Which is?"
"I need an employee," Stan said. "For awhile."
"Define 'employee' and 'awhile.'"
"I require someone I can put in my work force. Sort of an
executive officer," Stan said. "Since you're quite good with
words, I figured you could do volunteer work for me. We'd be
training you on the job, basically like a zaibatsu--"
"Zaibatsu? Ugh. I'm not sure. I've still got high school to
get through..."
"High school is a complete waste of your time at this point.
You could start right now under me, and work on getting your niche
chiseled out with my patents."
"But I couldn't take on TWO jobs. I'd pretty busy getting
people together who could do something with these patents..."
Nabiki said, glancing at them. She could FEEL the money potential
in those things. Each was worth a pile, no, a HORDE of money.
More than she could make running betting pools on those annoying
martial artists.
"Alright, I see. I can handle that, I just need SOMEONE to
fill the position for awhile. Do you know of anybody else we can
use?" Stan asked.
Unfortunately, that's when Nabiki woke up from her grepped
memory dream.
$
"It doesn't explain anything," Nabiki grumbled, getting up.
She knew her words would be picked up by the in-house security
system, and immediately be routed to her doctor. "I want another
grep done for the rest of that scene."
The doctor arrived promptly, knowing that Nabiki would want a
reply to her out-loud summons. "I don't see why. There's no
information in there that suggests a threat. If I recall, that
deal was the root of your empire, yes? That's a good thing."
"Yes, but... I can't remember all the details of that dream.
Why did the machine wake me before the scene was over?"
"It was the end of the recording," the doctor shrugged.
"Probably it had reached a maximum error inconsistency and aborted.
You simply have forgotten."
"We live in an age where people *CAN'T* forget anything I
don't need them to. Find a way to retrieve the information,"
Nabiki said. "Don't forget who feeds you and keeps your harem from
seeing the public eye, doctor."
The doctor winced. She knew!
But of course Nabiki knew. Her company sold him the cloning
equipment to make those five girls, and the AI programming to
tailor them to his desires. Every transaction, every deal made
with Tendom is a deal with Nabiki. Nabiki knew her customers very,
very well.
Besides, it was an idea she had first.
$
Nabiki stepped into her limousine outside the high-security
Tendom housing complex, ready to face another grueling day at the
office. This whole dream situation was way too stressful; she'd
have to relax a bit before arriving at work. Recorded memories
always put her back into her child mindset, which was far more
naive and emotional. Ugh.
"Where to, ma'am?" the driver asked. It wasn't her usual
driver, but that wasn't uncommon, as drivers tended to find out
things they shouldn't from overhearing Nabiki's phone
conversations, and had to disappear... putting silencer fields
around the passenger area would imply Nabiki had something to hide.
"You know where to go," Nabiki said. She considered her
stress levels, and added, "On second thought, make that location
#462 on your chart, driver. We'll be making a quick stop before
going to work."
"Right, boss," the driver smiled, and put the limo in gear.
Nabiki pulled out her cellular, and called her Other Home.
"Hello, Jerard, ready Kunou-chan #3 for me, if you could. I'm
going to make a pitstop to calm down a bit before getting to the
office. Eh? Well, tell them to stop. Yes, I know they only
listen to me. Just ignore the bad poetry, okay? I'll tame them
when I arrive. Thanks."
"Stressful day, eh?" the driver asked, as Nabiki folded up her
phone.
"Just drive," Nabiki ordered.
"Hey, whatever the lady wants," the driver laughed. That
laugh... "Say, miss, I was wondering. I'm kinda an enterprising
guy myself..."
"Yeah...?" Nabiki asked, trying to stave off her mind from
realizing the laugh as long as possible... without knowing an
effort was being made to stave it.
"I've had a hand in business, and executing orders and getting
things done m'self. I was wondering if I could suggest a modest
proposal to you," he said, turning around with a flick of his
ponytail to look at Nabiki. "I think it'd only be fair,
considering our past..."
Nabiki gaped. The laugh. The face.
Ranma flipped a lever, and his car dropped the illusion of
being a limousine. Nabiki was now in the back of economy car
RS7734, which was rapidly approaching the speed of sound.
"Long time no see," he smiled, in a way that punched straight
through the opposite end of friendliness and into darkness.
"Let me out," Nabiki ordered. "Let me out NOW."
"Awww, you don't want to talk about old times?" Ranma asked.
"How about that time you got me out of a pummeling with a lie, and
used the favor I owed you to duck out of a certain deal? Certainly
you'd like to talk about THAT."
"You CAN'T be you. You died in the earthquake! We saw your
body! Akane cried..." Nabiki trailed off.
Ranma winced. "Akane... yeah, I know about her. And I know
about your deal. I'd like you to meet the man you made that deal
with."
"I already know him. We keep in contact," Nabiki said,
folding her arms.
"Oh, not him. That's just the dummy we put in place, so he'd
still be around. No, I want you to meet my real boss..."
With that, the road in front of them parted, like a fleshy
valve of asphalt, and the car continued down a long tunnel in the
earth, which was probably brimstone.
$
Nabiki gaped.
"Hell. Population 462,263,189,526 and then some," Ranma said.
"I can't believe you didn't figure it out. Probably trying to deny
it, claiming you couldn't remember who Stan really was... humans do
that. It's a way of staying comfortably dumb. I know that for a
fact now."
"You're kidding. This isn't Hell," Nabiki said, looking
around. "It looks like New York."
"Six of one, half a dozen of another," Ranma shrugged, sitting
next to her. Nabiki blinked. How'd he get back here? Who's
driving? "Hell's modernized. We're a thriving urban community.
Efficient, clean, like an oiled machine. Stan's made a lot of
changes since last century, since we needed to find SOME way to
accommodate..."
"No way. I'm having a nervous breakdown," Nabiki said. "This
isn't happening."
"Man, why is it so hard for people to accept this?" Ranma
grumbled. "That's half the problem. Takes years to get some
people to accept where they are and why. We can't get around to
the torture and reformation process when the prisoner denies fact."
"This isn't Hell. I've seen Urotsukidoji. Where's the
tortures and big scaly demons and chaotic sadism?"
"Over there," Ranma said, pointing to a row of unassuming
warehouses on the water... lavafront district. "The Centers. It's
not good to keep such things out in the open, they smell bad. So,
we tidy up and contain things. I must say, Nabiki, you've opened
a door to a great education for me. This has been one hell of an
internship. So to speak. And now I get to pay you back for it,
every day of it--"
"You're not Ranma. You're talking above a third grade level
and you're showing signs of logic capability," Nabiki said. "And
being considerably meaner."
"Hey, you made me this way," Ranma said flatly.
"I did NOT!"
"Yes, you did. You signed my soul over. Thanks a bundle,"
Ranma said, but with a bitter tone. "I hate this place. I've had
to adapt to stay sane, and now I get to play cog in its machine.
I can admire it, and hate it at the same time. That's the nice
thing about this, Hell doesn't want you to like it, so you can
partake in it without needing to enjoy your time here. Kind of
like life."
Nabiki winced. "Ranma, what did they do to you? You're... a
lot more bitter, for one thing."
"I could go into detail," Ranma said. "But I won't. You'll
know soon enough. We're almost there now."
$
Ranma opened the door when RS7734 pulled up to a large office
complex, and helped the trembling Nabiki out. All in all, it
resembled a normal city street... if not for the occasional monster
wandering around with the besuited, betied individuals and the red
sky.
But the buildings loomed. They were taller than tall, tall
enough to make you worry they might fall over, and crush you... the
light, the harsh red light similar to RS7734's brake lights,
penetrated all areas except certain patches of shadow. But the
light played tricks with that shadow... some people walked into
shadow, but not out the other side. Hopefully they were just
wormholes. Hopefully.
Ranma frowned, and picked up a stray Taco Bell wrapper from
the sidewalk. The only piece of litter visible. "Honestly,
they're slacking off in keeping the place clean. Someone in
sanitation's gonna get a few years treatment if this keeps up.
I'll have to tell Stan..."
"I don't understand," Nabiki said. "This... it looks hellish.
But it doesn't FEEL like Hell. It's quite productive..."
"Just because it's Hell doesn't mean it needs to be chaotic,"
Ranma said, closing the door. "Get Stan to explain his design
philosophy to you sometime. Come on, the man going to be waiting
for us."
Nabiki nodded, falling into a slightly unsteady pace behind
Ranma. Some part of her mind, locked away, wanted to assume this
was all another bad dream... like the others, where Ranma towered
over her, hurt her, pushed her around and blamed her for the evils
he faced... and yes, it WAS Ranma in those dreams. The laugh
matched. It wasn't the laugh of the Ranma she knew, before the
quake killed him. It was the laugh of someone put through the meat
grinder, again and again, until all that was left was the part of
him that could handle the pain without flinching. Hardened to the
core.
She considered this. What would it take to change him this
much?... Hell, probably. And she didn't even want to speculate as
to why SHE was here, since knew the answer and it didn't appeal to
her one bit.
So, on the first day, Nabiki remained strong, as the pair
walked along the hallways of the office building. Hallway after
hallway. After hallway after hallway after hallway...
Many ordeals start this way, with long journeys, much like the
Odyssey. Normally they're not through offices, but this wasn't a
normal ordeal.
$
Nabiki didn't know how long this had taken so far. Hours?
Days? Days. Had to be weeks. Months, without eating, drinking,
or sleeping. Ranma didn't seem to care about this, despite the
grumbling of Nabiki's stomach. She would wear down, as they
twisted around through the hallways -- all generic, every door with
a placard and 4 to 5 Far Side cartoons. Patches of black covered
the points of time where she couldn't walk anymore, and had to
sleep... please, no more walking... when are we gonna get there...
"Get up," Ranma said, hauling Nabiki to her feet.
"Tired... hungry..." Nabiki whimpered.
"I see you're getting the hang of it already," Ranma said.
"They'll build up your endurance soon. Don't worry, humans are
disgustingly adaptive."
Nabiki fell asleep in dreamless sleep, yet again. Ranma
started to bark an order, but stopped... and just let her sleep.
A day later, she woke up, refreshed only in the most minor sense of
the word.
"Where are we?" Nabiki asked.
"The 602nd floor. We're getting close," Ranma said. "I
phoned up for a few guides to help us the rest of the way... since
you're too weak to make it without care. Jeez, I'm glad I had some
martial arts training before arriving. Made the transition
easier."
Nabiki's muscles were pushed too far over her limits to allow
her to stand, so Ranma had to help her slowly navigate through the
halls. The journey was clearly wearing the girl down. Ranma
didn't envy her this; but it was requested by Stan himself.
Otherwise, he'd have taken the elevator, which could get him to
Stan's office in seconds, not years.
They met their guides a few days later, when Nabiki was
clearly beyond the point where she'd be dead if she wasn't already.
Instead, she was zombie-like; totally limp, but the mind still
bubbled on the backburner. Trapped in agony.
Ranma wasn't enjoying this. He thought he would! How many
times had he fiddled with one of his technological toys, sending
fantasies of his own punishments of Nabiki into the real world,
into Nabiki's dreams? He was waiting for this moment to finally
let her have it for condemning him to suffering. But Nabiki was
suffering, and suffering a lot... and Ranma wasn't taking pleasure
in it anymore.
Of course, Ranma was capable of fatigue, too. He put up a
false front to fight it off, and look more powerful than Nabiki,
but he was feeling the twinges of going too long without bodily
care as well. So, he chalked up his softness against his sworn
enemy to that.
Ranma could smell the guide coming before she arrived. Roses
have a particular scent to them.
"OOHHOHOHOHHOHOHOHOHOHHOOOO!!!" Kodachi laughed, running in,
twirling her leather ribbon around her. "You've returned, Ranma-
sama! I'm so happy. And I see you brought HER."
Ranma winced. Of all the people who died in that earthquake,
naturally the only one that'd be going where HE would be going was
Kodachi. All part of the master plan for his sentence, though.
The horror.
"Heya, 'dachi. Give me a hand here," Ranma requested,
propping Nabiki's living corpse up. "Did you bring the water
bottle?"
"Water? Bah! The slave needs no water," Kodachi said. "She
can't die. She'll experience worse later. Who cares?"
Ranma grumbled. "I ASKED for water. She's in pain.
Dehydration level three, I'd say."
"Oh, come on now! I'd be no fun to ease her suffering--"
"Are you gonna make me call Stan himself and order this or are
you gonna get me the goddamn water?!" Ranma snapped.
Kodachi blinked. "My, he receives his spine mail order. Very
well, since you threaten, the Black Rose can deliver. I'll leave
my partner to guide you while I fetch fluids."
"Your partner?"
"Oh, yes! I brought one of the Phalli," Kodachi said, as the
many-tentacled beast trudged into view, looking downright
ridiculous in the required business suit. It dripped slightly,
offshoot tentacles sniffing the air around Nabiki. "I figure we
should give Nabiki a little fun before Stan gets his hooks into
her. Won't take but a quarter hour."
Ranma glanced at Nabiki, who was too drained to even
understand what was going on around her. He sighed, replacing his
basic Hell-mask of bitterness with one of compassion; an emotion
rarely usable for his job.
"No," Ranma said.
"Awwwwww, why not? OHOHOHHO! She'll get the same treatment
at one of the many Centers anywa--"
"NO," Ranma said. "Forget it. I'll rip that thing apart if
it even looks at her. Once I figure out where its eyes are."
"I swear, lately, you're no fun. You've changed, Ranma-sama,"
Kodachi said. "These last years have weakened you. You used to be
the hardest there was."
"We'll wait here for the water," Ranma said, setting Nabiki up
against a relatively soft chair. "THEN we can proceed to Stan's
office. No funny business between."
$
They arrived two months later. It could have taken two weeks,
but Ranma stopped periodically, much to Kodachi's disgust.
"Hi, I'd like two sodas, and a large fry," Ranma said to the
food clerk, helping Nabiki have a seat on a chair nearby.
Kodachi frowned. "You're wasting time, Ranma. Stan will NOT
approve."
"I want her to be presentable when we arrive, alright?" Ranma
said, as Nabiki nursed on the soda slowly. "Stan wants to talk to
her, and that'll be hard if she's a vegetable, or chewed meat.
That means not looking like the walking dead. No pun."
"Ranma, she's damned. Greed. One of our watchword sins, yes?
Who cares how she feels right now? She'll be in torment soon.
Why, Stan even promised I could handle it! I've got some lovely
ideas brewing."
"What?!?" Ranma said. "No way! I'll talk to him about that."
"You can't prevent it," Kodachi said, frowning as Ranma fed
Nabiki fries. "Why are you bothering? If I don't handle her
treatment, someone else will. If it doesn't start now, it'll start
later. Nothing can stop her fate."
"I don't care," Ranma said. "And I don't care of Stan gets
mad. I don't want her getting hurt until she has absolutely,
positively NO other way to delay it..."
"She's the one that damned you, you know--"
"Yeah, I know!" Ranma shouted. "Fact. Accepted. Shut up,
'dachi, and help me feed her."
"Too late, Phalli ate all the fries."
"Argh. Now I gotta order more! I'm running out of cash
here."
"Why not ask Miss Moneybags--"
"If you talk one more time, Kodachi, I'll have you sent to the
Centers for sixty years," Ranma said. "For no adequate reason.
I'm busy. Let me do my job and leave me alone."
Kodachi started to say, "But you're not doing your job," but
wisely decided against it. Ranma DID have that power. Stan had
made him a chosen one... a controller, a master over Hell. Quite
a bit of power. And Ranma had always held it with an iron fist,
taught by the father of lies himself.
So why was he working so hard at keeping Nabiki comfortable?
Kodachi shrugged. Allow a man his fancies, she supposed. He'd be
back to his usual devious self after this fiasco. He always did,
even during moments of softness. Ranma could be relied on to sink
back to any depths he climbed out of.
$
When the day arrived that Nabiki entered Stan's office, the
666th room on the 666th floor next to the 43rd bathroom (because
there was no real need for 666 bathrooms, that's just silly), she
was able to walk on her own. She was about at the level she was at
upon arrival; a bit more meek, but physically well.
"Ah, there you are," Stan said, finishing signing a paper and
placing it on his 'Out' box. He retracted the ballpoint, and got
up to greet his visitors.
"Yeah... I'm here," Nabiki said, simply stating what was true.
"You do know, why, yes?" Stan asked. "I can present an
official list of charges, but they're mostly general ones, of
course. Making a pact with me, selling off Ranma, doing some not
entirely moral things in the name of money... the Kunou-harem
didn't help."
Ranma perked an eyebrow.
Nabiki blushed. "So that's it? I'm going to be tortured for
eternity?"
"That's about the shape of it, yes," Stan said. "I was
truthful, mostly, when I first saw you. It's your lust for money
that attracted our attention, and we DID want you. Greed is quite
an easy button to push."
"Why did you even care? Just looking for more innocents to
steal?" Nabiki grumbled.
"Innocents? Has she seen company policy yet, Ranma?"
"No, sir," Ranma said.
"The truly innocent have little to fear from us," Stan said.
"We respect people who can hold their head above water in the
proving grounds of man. No, it's the people teetering into the
dark side that we go after. To test them."
"Test? Torture, you mean."
"Stereotypes," Stan grumbled. "Torture is a tool, yes, but we
gave up using it as the ONLY tool. We test them. We test the
strength of resolution, to overcome temptation of evil. A test was
tailored for Tendou Nabiki, and I'm afraid she failed it pretty
hard. If that wasn't enough, you just kept sinking after that,
even after we set things in motion. You killed hundreds when you
demolished Nerima, including your family."
"They were told to get out! I posted warnings, I tried to get
them to leave... we had to go ahead with the construction date, or
it'd look unusual to our competitors..."
"And you'd lose money. Tendom, the great benefactor. The
money machine," Stan said. "That's not why you're here now. If it
was just your sins, we'd have collected you upon your natural death
instead of inducing it."
"Eh?" Nabiki asked. "Then... why now?"
"Simple. Ranma needs a replacement. He's served long and
hard, but he finally found a contract loophole wherein he could
collect you to be his stand-in, in return for his freedom," Stan
said. "Ranma, you're free to go. Thanks for your help. I've
arranged for your travel papers to Heaven... you'll meet Akane
there."
Ranma looked distant for a moment, then snapped back into the
here and now. "Umm, okay."
"Ranma? You sold me?" Nabiki asked.
"Well... you kind of sold yourself... I mean, just
substituting me didn't guarantee you a way out..." Ranma faltered.
"It's all part of--"
"You sold me!" Nabiki spat. "And you think you're any better
than me? Retribution still means committing evil, regardless of
your intentions, you bastard!"
"Look, it wasn't like that!!" Ranma yelled. "I've paid my
dues, dues I wasn't supposed to pay at all! You forced me in here
and took me away from Akane... to get back to her, I'd do
anything... yeah, even if it means damning you! I don't care.
Take her, Stan, I'm gone."
"Alright. Nabiki, I'll set you up with an office job after
your hazing," Stan said, signing some forms. "I figure a few dozen
years in the Center will make a good opener, to get you used to
things. Do you prefer psychological, physical or sexual torture?"
Nabiki and Ranma gulped.
"Or, if you want, we can custom tailor it so you spend less
time there. But it'd hurt quite a bit. Compression, you see,"
Stan said. "We've got a lot of option plans, so you can pick what
you'd like. Well, not like. But whatever you think you can deal
with and stay sane. If you go insane, it sets us back a few years,
you see--"
"This can't be happening..." Nabiki mumbled.
"Sorry, but it is," Stan said. "Don't worry, you're not the
first to say that. Here, let me give you a quick sampler, so you
can see what's available."
And suddenly, Nabiki wasn't in the office anymore.
She was falling, falling into a void... no. Into a pile.
Green, but not grass. She landed, painfully, in a lump of
quarters, gold bars, hundred dollar bills, thousand yen bills,
pounds, marks, rubles. She broke her leg in half on impact.
Nabiki screamed out loud, and got a mouthful of pennies in
return. She gagged, but the floor of money surged up into a tidal
wave around her, engulfing her totally. She vomited, coughed, and
was only able to breathe nickel, paper and copper... money, all the
money she had ever made with Tendom, filling her lungs, scraping
painfully along her throat, crushing her--
"NO!" Ranma screamed, pulling on Nabiki's arm, jerking her out
of the nightmare. She blinked, and was back in the office,
unharmed, able to breathe.
"Problem?" Stan asked.
"Forget the whole thing. Deal's off," Ranma said. "I want
you to take Nabiki back home."
"She's ours eventually, Ranma--"
"I don't care! I don't... I WON'T be the cause of having this
happen to her," Ranma said. "I don't care if you order me, or
torture me, or keep me here for six million years. I won't do it."
"Ranma..." Nabiki gaped. What was he doing?! If that was a
SAMPLE, what Stan would do to Ranma would be incredibly bad...
"I've had worse," Ranma said, nearly reading Nabiki's
thoughts.
"Insubordination carries a heavy tag," Stan said. "You have
your walking papers, Ranma. You deserve to leave. Take them and
go. She DID damn you..."
"I know, and it doesn't matter anymore," Ranma said. "Let her
go. I'll stay. I'll take whatever you throw at me as punishment,
and I'll never see Akane, but it doesn't matter anymore."
"Ranma, you'd do that for me? After... after all those things
I did..." Nabiki thought, as every memory of her sins surfaced,
unearthed by that taste of pain. All the evils she committed in
the name of progress. In the name of fortune. In the name of
money.
"Yes, I will," Ranma said. "And that's all I have to say."
With that, the room filled with white light... soft, soothing
white light, and they weren't in the office anymore. They weren't
in Hell anymore.
$
"You've passed the final test," Stan said, landing gently on
the shores of a white sanded beach, along with Ranma and Nabiki.
"Eh?" Ranma asked. "Wha..."
"You were given vengeance and wrath on a platter, and chose
self-sacrifice instead of destroying your enemy," Stan said.
"That's commendable. You've learned well, and your reward is this.
Welcome to Heaven."
"Wait, what?" Nabiki asked. "I thought... eternal
punishment..."
"If it was eternal, we'd overcrowd and serve no function in
society," Stan said. "No. We reform. We drive a man to
repentance. Some take a short amount of time, some a longer
amount... Ranma, you've succeeded."
"I'm in Heaven? This isn't a trick by the Irony Department?"
Ranma asked.
"'tis what I said," Stan stated. "Welcome. And I'll miss
you. You were sinister at times, but in the end, I admired your
recovery against the odds we put in front of you."
"If this is Heaven, where--"
"I'm here," Akane said.
Ranma span on a wingtipped heel, face to face with an angel.
This was Akane... in all her grace, her beauty, draped in fine
white robes. Smiling softly, more than she would in her earthly
tomboy attitude.
"Thank you, Ranma," Akane said. "I was worried you'd never be
able to leave..."
"Akane... finally..." Ranma gasped, completely overcome with
joy. He ran to her, and they held each other tight, before
vanishing, off to paradise. The final reward.
"I'll miss the lad," Stan said, wiping an eye. "Of all the
reforms I've orchestrated, his was perfect. A textbook maneuver.
Now... to new business."
Nabiki sighed. "Heaven looks so nice..."
"Hey, you might end up here," Stan smiled.
"..." Nabiki said.
"What, you think you're going back to Hell? Ha ha!" Stan
laughed. "No, no, we just needed to use you to finish Ranma's
repentance. The final tool. If we told you ahead of time, it
wouldn't work, of course..."
"I'm not damned?" Nabiki asked.
"Nobody is," Stan said. "Ranma wasn't damned. He could get
out whenever he wanted. But at first, he assumed he couldn't, and
he sank into evil... assuming he was supposed to, that it was
proper. That guaranteed his internship would last a long time.
That worried me. But you, you helped me crack the shell we put on
him, to bring him back to rights."
"But me! Am I damned? I don't want to go to Hell... I won't
want to be punished..."
"Hey, who does? Except maybe Kodachi. No, you're going to
Earth. But with a warning," Stan noted.
Nabiki nodded, and listened closely.
"If you continue your path of life until death without
changes, you're mine. You have admitted your sins of greed, your
money-lust, your intense desires for it. The horrible lengths
you've gone to to get your money. But there is hope. If you can
go back, knowing what you know now, and work to change that... to
increase your karma, to fix your wrongs, to amend the evil, you'll
get the final reward of paradise. If you don't, well, it'll be a
long stopover in my domain before achieving the final reward."
"I can avoid it? I can repent? There's still time?" Nabiki
asked, eternally hopeful.
"There is always time," Stan said. "No futures are set. But
how you proceed is up to you. You can continue to seek your money,
doing anything for it regardless of what you KNOW is right, or you
can stop and try make repairs. It's that effort that will save
you."
Nabiki nodded, absorbing the information like a sponge,
filling her with energy far more than Ranma's efforts to keep her
alive. Now, she truly was alive; she had noble purpose. She had
a REASON d'etre, beyond the call of the cash. Her path was clear.
"And now," Stan said, as the scene faded, "It's up to you.
Because that's the end of my lesson, and there is nothing more to
say."