Folly
by Rob Morris
Chapter Two - The Folly Of Young Women
NORTH KOREA
A little man imagined that he was about to become very big indeed. He imagined that his state was about to become the Kuwait of bio-weaponry. No, not just the Kuwait. His state would be like those states in his one-time vice, American comic books. Like Latveria. Like Zandia. Small in size, but never ever to be touched. Never touched out of fear. Never touched out of respect.
And such a state had no need for sponsors. No need for guardian bears or dragons. No tolerance for a false imposed state that lay beneath an artificial line and kept half his lands from his grasp.
He chuckled inwardly. He'd always liked Hawaii. He now realized he could have it.
He even imagined the once-unthinkable. Since he was founding a new state, shouldn't he, and not his father, stand as supreme icon? His father, after all, had been a mere revolutionary promoted by Stalin for his purposes. His father's son was to be the God Of The New World.
The one set of trains arrived at last, and were scanned for radiation. There was none, only the massive amounts of grains, meats and the ultra-high-tech his former allies had been forced to yield up. He nodded, and the trains carrying Chinese diplomats, businessmen and other nationals went on its way. But no sighs of relief came from the released hostages. From those train cars, there were only screams.
The Dear One made a brief if odd mental note : After Japan had a more manageable government installed, he would make a state visit and check out the seaside villa of Kamakura. There he would look up a friend from one of the many elite colleges he had attended : Professor Yu Kakuzawa, with whom he had kicked back a lot of good brandy while complaining about tyrannical fathers. For the record, he would in fact soon be seeing Professor Kakuzawa.
The Chinese train conductors locked down the controls, with only a few knowing that this routine action sent a signal that activated all the high tech that had been demanded from the People's Republic at the point of the lives of its citizens and interests. This technology, which was said to be able to scan for American missiles even if launched from the East Coast, was in fact a series of satellite relays with facial recognition technology. The identities of the leader and all those just below him in rank were confirmed and confirmed again, well past the trained doubles who many times stood in for this elite. They were all really there.
Seventeen minutes past the time the trains laden with Chinese nationals had crossed into the provinces just after the border regions, these relays were put into use. China was not a place of fools. Nuclear weapons were not put into play for all the obvious reasons, diplomatic and practical. Plus, it was said a cockroach could survive a nuke-but a steel-toed boot slamming down on it was another story.
The large, compulsory gathering of everyone who mattered even a little in the small state was, as was once said, a target-rich environment. There are those who argued that weapons such as gravity bombs and thermobaric weapons were, to the ones being killed, far worse than nuclear weapons. If anyone in North Korea had survived that day, they might have debated this.
CHINA
China had not wished this. But in the many scenarios created in the event North Korea had to be brought to heel, it was decided that the response would be based on psychoanalysis of the late leader's level and depth of swagger in his defiance. They reasoned that even a seeming madman could pull a huge bluff, and the analysis would show whether he had dragon's breath, or was merely full of hot air.
The trained professionals did their work quickly, and were assured that this was no exercise to create a desired outcome. If the leader could be talked down, this was what they wanted.
The analysts soon issued a three-word report on the state of mind of the man who was now their enemy, and their target.
"Hitler in 1940."
Hail and Farewell, North Korea.
It should be noted, that, in its press releases regarding this horror, 'North Korea' was the name China used. When asked, those who would answer would merely say that the phrase 'Democratic People's Republic of Korea' was the name given to a steadfast ally, not the demon rogue brought down for reasons it would not discuss with anyone.
A message was transmitted to the official who had begun this sad sequence of events.
"The small, rabid dog has been put down. Our Thanks for making us aware the mongrel had turned."
The Minister knew his job prospects had now dramatically increased. He could even see those chambers in Beijing that no one ever saw, at least one day. But his appetite was gone, and images of what the people of Pyongyang must have gone through as they died haunted even his waking moments. He barely noticed his aide, Hu, enter the room.
"Minister, it's a report from the train stations our people were evacuated to. The first report had thirty people dead. It was interrupted and then resumed ten minutes later."
The Minister was not a spiritual man. But he felt judgment was at hand.
"And?"
Hu was in a daze, only duty spurring him to complete his report.
"They next said that, in the surrounding area, the death toll is at thirty thousand."
Hu stopped, breathed, and spoke again.
"It has been twenty minutes now, and another report has come in. But-I cannot bear to look at it."
Hu was forgiven this failure.
KAMAKURA, JAPAN
The Agent closed her secured cell-phone. Being roused from slumber was nothing she didn't expect. The news of the day was another story.
"Well, that lets out the North Koreans."
Inside her, her soul was chilled at what had just occurred, and doubly so that it was China had done so, taking out its own ally, however fractious. If China were that unnerved, it didn't bode well for anyone, horned or otherwise.
Without realizing it, she pulled out her gun. Instinct had taken over and she knew why when she looked over at the other futon in her room.
"Nozomi?"
Dropping the safety, she automatically checked Anna's room. She was sleeping quietly. While some of the math acumen she had known as a living computer had returned, her thoughts were now vastly less complicated than they had been, and she could sleep with ease.
*How I envy you, girl. Easy sleep and I are long past being fast friends.*
A sudden noise and a small laugh set her senses on fire. Moving like lightning for its source, she pushed a door open, to reveal Nozomi.
"Umm-a little privacy, if you don't mind?"
Blushing, the Agent closed the lavatory door and went back to their room. Nozomi emerged a few minutes later, still scowling.
"The first time all day I make it to the toilet without incident, and now this?"
"I'm-sorry. I saw you were gone, and feared the worst."
Nozomi sighed.
"I know you don't like to be alone, but still..."
The Agent bristled.
"I never said that! Why would you think such a thing?"
Nozomi shook her head.
"You're right-you have no fear of being alone-"
"Damned right!"
"-and I wear these diapers as a fashion statement."
Caught by a sharp observer whose courage was growing daily, the Agent moved quickly to change the subject.
"Where are all the others?"
"Hmm? Nana is helping Kenjiro-San, Arika-San and Hana-chan gather their things together before they move in. Kouta-San has made a home away from home at his former Professor's offices. Yuka-chan is staying with Emiko-Dono for a few nights. Wanta takes himself for little walks of late. Kurama-San is needed so much with the outbreak on so many fronts, and I can only say he is not here right now. As for Mayu-Chan? She spends her summer nights honoring the memory of one she cared for, a man who saved her from Nyu's other self. She cleans the beachfront in Enoshima he called home."
The Agent punched herself mentally for being a spy who didn't know all this to start with. Her sensei would never have forgiven her. Then again, he was never the forgiving type.
"Huh? My phone again? Yes, it's...Sensei? You're up and about? Someone you want me to...Hai, Sensei. Always."
Nozomi saw the stunned look on her face.
"You weren't expecting to hear from him?"
"Frankly, No. My-my sensei was badly wounded on a couple of occasions. Also, when I left his training, he made it clear I was not to contact him, ever again."
"And now?"
The Agent removed her glasses and wiped her face with a towel.
"Now, he wants to meet me down at the beach. Nozomi, do you remember what I told you?"
The once-gentle girl had seen her home invaded, her friends brutalized, and her gift nearly taken from her. So the words she next said were sad but no surprise.
"Headshots. Always go for headshots."
As Nozomi began the process of loading her gun, the Agent moved to at last confront her past. To confront the man who had left her with her crippling fear of being alone.
Down on that same beachfront, a young woman continued to fulfill what she saw as her duty.
"I know what you'd say, Bando-Saw."
A little joke of hers. The man she honored had always sounded like he was about to cut something in half.
"Yes, Yes, I Know."
She tried not to think about him directly. Even thinking about the ice that had grown between Kouta and Yuka was less painful. She tried another tack.
"I wonder where Wanta is..."
It didn't help. The small dog liked to wander Kamakura, and he always came back safely, just like the night he ditched that nasty woman and came back to her. She could no longer feel panic when he vanished. Even when Nyu was Lucy, she wouldn't hurt him, and Wanta had taken some painful hits.
"I know what you'd say, Saw-San. That no matter how much I clean it up, it's still the same damn dirty beach."
"It's still the same damn dirty beach."
"Well, of course you'd say that, Bando-San..."
She turned so fast she nearly pulled a neck muscle. Her eyes teared up immediately.
"Nooooooo..."
The twice-rebuilt man managed his facsimile of a smile.
"Now, you stupid brat. Didn't I tell you that nothing could ever kill my beautiful self?"
She embraced him, not caring if he batted her away. The fact that he didn't almost made her suspicious. Instead, his artificial right hand mussed her hair.
"Hey-HEY! I'll rust, you weepy monster! These gears cost money-not to mention my prospects of ever getting laid again."
Mayu thought she saw Wanta out of the corner of her eye, but instead of calling to him she took in the meaning of Bando's crude words.
"I lied to you."
"Yeah...was kinda wondering about that."
Mayu had shot from cosmic joy to cosmic shame in all of ten seconds. It almost made her feel ill.
"I am SOOOOO sorry, Bando-San! You cared for me enough to save my life from that monster, and I..."
Bando covered her mouth.
"Hey! I know that you lied. We established that, alright? What I wanna know is why."
Mayu found she could not look at him as she spoke.
"I...I never had a real home, before the Kaede-Sou. I learned one day I meant nothing to my mother, and my stepfather could be...very cruel...I mean by that he would speak harshly to me for no reason at all..."
As she fumbled in and out of words, she again found that she had used up Bando's limited patience once more.
"Still lying to me?"
"I wasn't, I swear it!"
Bando audibly sighed.
"Let me tell you a quick story. The current Chief of the Kamakura PD was once a fellow SAT officer. We actually got along, and still do. After Lucy tore me apart, he was in the local precinct offices when they brought in a chikan who grabbed a chick's ass at Gokurakuji Station. Now, the SAT had people dead and wounded because of Lucy, but the Kakuzawas up and told us to stay the hell out of it. The Chikan hears him yell about a dangerous little girl, and the slime then brags on how he 'knows how to handle' little girls. That's all my pal had to hear. He unloaded his weapon into the jerk, and ends up basically demoted to local cop, even if it's as Chief."
Mayu felt a chill run through her as Bando kept on.
"The guy he killed was a pedo with a record. That pedo had a stepdaughter. That stepdaughter better stop lying to me, like, yesterday."
Mayu felt an eruption inside her. Kouta-San knowing her shame was one thing. He would never bring up or discuss what he knew with her. The only reason he'd even brought it up was to assure her that her stepfather was dead and could no longer haunt her. But Bando-San had treated it almost lightly. Her debts to him aside, that she could not permit.
"You want to know why I lied about knowing Nyu? Because up until that night on the beach, Nyu had been my sister! My boob-grabbing, mentally-challenged, floor-wetting, annoying-as-hell sister who happened to have horns! I made my promise to you while barely getting you to keep to yours concerning my safety! I care for Bando-san, but consider my position. I went from a house where I was either a doll who had grown too large for the little girl my mother proved to be and where the man who had agreed before God to be my father and instead used me..."
Her voice broke, but she regained it.
"...used me. I left that place, and then met the streets. I wasn't on them as long as some, and they didn't drain me as much as some. But it was all so close, and then I met Kouta and Yuka. You know Kouta, Bando-San? The one who did what you couldn't? What the entire Japanese military failed to?"
She felt the raw rage that her horned sisters knew all too well, not to mention the man she called 'Papa', the one who had brought down Lucy, not with a gun, but with love alone in his heart.
"In their sight, I have food, and I have warmth. On a day where all she does is smile at me before I go to school, Yuka-San shows me more concern than my false mother had in years, maybe in whole life. I know Kouta Oto-San is a young man, but satisfying his urges at my expense would never enter his mind. For me and the others, he, with no training, grabbed a gun and held it to someone's head. Could he have taken down that monster-man like you did? Maybe not. But he would have died trying, and done it gladly. You think YOU suffered by way of Lucy-San? And in his house, I have had multiple sisters and known things like peace, safety, love and acceptance. Those things were as alien to me as to Lucy, and if not for him, I could be like she was, willing to kill a sister to gain her silence. That is Maple House, Bando-San, and that is why I lied to you. Not to mention, getting close to you can drive a girl crazy-because you can be the world's biggest ASSHOLE, Human or Diclonius!"
She dropped to the sands beneath her, exhausted and spent. Bando started chuckling.
"There. Was that so hard?"
As she breathed in all the air she had expelled during her rant, Mayu saw Bando nod and keep on.
"So, in other words, you had it good in your new home and were unwilling to let old Bando step in and blow it up, even for the sake of honor?"
Mayu found she couldn't meet his gaze.
"Forgive me. You gave up so much to aid me, and you gave that aid without hesitation. I have repaid you with lies and invective. I ask forgiveness for my betrayal of your trust."
Bando used his cane to nudge her to stand up.
"Now, look at me. BRAT, I SAID LOOK AT ME!"
She managed this with great difficulty, tear-filled eyes awaiting final judgment.
"I'm..."
"Shut Up. Having your hide tanned from the inside out by a sadistic fuck, then having the ones who were supposed to keep you well shove you aside like a used scumbag can make your morals and judgment slip away like the grease on these gears of mine."
He then said words that she could never have expected.
"And I should know, right?"
As promised, Emiko had set aside a space in her family's burial place near the shrines for the late and tragic Mariko Kurama. The ashes of her recovered head and legs lay beneath the marker, as there was little else.
"Onee-Sama? Nana is here to honor your memory and speak with you. I am here to say that I am keeping our Papa well, and he now lives with me at Maple House. I wish you could have come there to live, Marikonee. In your short time, you never knew how the world is full of so many wonderful things. Nana has trouble even listing them all-or I will, when I learn how to write better."
She looked about. She was alone, and so did not have to adjust her talk to keep out certain details.
"Of course, the war with the other girls like us is keeping Papa away right now. You know the other girls-the sad ones who have no Papa or Mama - Nana has about six of those, last time she checked, seven, if you count Emiko-Dono, who also has horns like us but no arms-no extra arms. I hope Hiromi-Dono is at peace. Nana never even found out her name till after we met, Marikonee, but...but Nana once thought she was my Mama, too. I feel like I stole from you. Nana didn't mean to."
While Mariko had been nearly two years her junior, Nana felt that calling her the elder sister was proper, owing to her being Kurama's true daughter.
"Nana knows that, when we all walk in Heaven together, Papa will hold you first, and save a hug for me."
She had already sensed him walk up behind her, even as she broke into tears.
"Nana, there's no need to be so dramatic. The way you're falling apart, someone would think that I was the one who died. Your Papa is right here, and he adores you. Even if-hmph-you do cheat on him with Kouta-San."
His smile was warm and genuine, and his desire to hold her was undiminished by his missing arm. But his tiny joke set her off.
"Nana does not cheat, Papa! But Kouta-San gives so much of himself so easily, and his face feels good in my chest."
Kurama waited a moment for Nana to say she was only joking. He sighed and shook his head.
"There are things we will have to talk about..."
"Nana loves Papa and wants to make babies with him!"
"Yes...things like that."
She caught the downturn of his face, enough to make her concerned and a little bit afraid, but not enough to actually hurt her or make her panic.
"Hear this. Hear it well, and hear it without editing or wishful thinking. This is the unshakeable will of Daisuke Kurama..."
"Your name is Daisuke?"
"Yes, I..."
"How come Nana never heard your given name before?"
"That's not important right now."
"Ummm...and since Lucy wasn't Nyu's real name either, and you had her captive..."
What Mayu had warned Kurama about - A Nana Moment - had arrived, and it was just as the young girl said. Kurama did not have time for this. His brief visit to his daughters, living and dead, was nearing its end. Best intelligence said China was giving in to North Korean demands, and he was needed at Saseba HQ.
"Nana! Stop this and listen to me. I love, worship and adore you, but there will be no babies-and no...ummm...efforts in that general direction, either."
"Efforts, Papa?"
He heard Hiromi's chuckles from the afterlife. Even while pregnant, she had joked that he would run like wildfire from his child's questions on that tender subject.
"Nana, we cannot have babies together."
"But you said Nana can have babies, now that she's a Regina-Class Diclonii with chromosomal base pairs exchanged between myself and Lucy upon her passing, leading to a latent tendency towards reproductive capability becoming an active or pronounced tendency."
Kurama' s eyes went wide.
"What did you just say?"
Nana stopped for a second.
"I'm really not sure."
He tried again.
"Nana, for one thing, if your situation has changed, mine has not. After Mariko was born, I had the operations needed to ensure I would never have children again. Mine are the most dangerous genes to pass on, since I am the only one known to have someone that Lucy created in turn infect me."
Nana lit up, and Kurama sensed that nothing good was in the offing.
"Nana hears it's a lot of fun to try! Mayu-chan snuck in this Devadee where these girls meet this taxi driver, and they're really kind of dumb, because he looks like an evil taxi driver, and he doesn't take them where they're supposed to go, and they fall asleep and then wake up and he's taken their..."
"NANA!"
"...cell phones. Yes, Papa?"
He resigned himself to bluntness.
"Nana is my daughter."
She shook her head.
"Nana has said that she does not want to be a substitute for Marikonee. She wants to be your wife."
He almost smiled at the sheer cuteness of 'Marikonee', but kept to his message.
"You are no substitute. Mariko is dead. It hurts like Hell to say it, and to think of how Kakuzawa and Nousou in effect made her death a lingering one cuts me more deeply than Lucy's vectors ever could. But Mariko is dead, and if I ever encountered any more clones, I would have to put them down, as surely as I did a thousand of your infant sisters. Only now, it would be worse, because what I feared of those tiny lives would be true of these copies of my baby."
Nana frowned.
"The one called Barbara almost seemed to remember you. Maybe others like her..."
"We are past that point. Whether through the madness of the Kims or the Kakuzawas, true all-out war is imminent. I have horrid suspicions about what Kakuzawa did to the virus when he weaponized it. Nana as their Queen will see this firsthand and come to a hideous point of choosing. But though she is their Queen, she is my Princess, first, last and always. Even if we could both make babies and have them grow up strong, wise and safe, this can never be for the simple reason I have already stated."
"NO! We'll-figure something out. That goofy lady doctor who spends all her time in the onsen can help us. We'll name the girls Mariko and Hiromi, to honor our family. We'll..."
Kurama did not raise his voice, and that gave what he said added emphasis to bring the point home to a heart-broken Nana.
"You're being ridiculous. Nana is my daughter."
She broke away from him and ran off crying. In the distance, Kurama saw the small dog, Wanta, and almost went to pet the animal for comfort. But he saw him wander off with another dog, an odd-looking Boston Terrier.
"Do dogs have such concerns as ours, Wanta? If not, I think I may even envy you your life."
At the beach front, Mayu stood in abject shock at what she had been told.
"You? You, Saw-San?"
"Saw-San? Heh! I like that, kid. As for what you're askin' after, yeah. I don't go on about it, any more than you. And No-it didn't make me who I came to be. That was always gonna be me, butt-riding psycho or no. It did-well, hell, it nearly broke me."
He paused and spoke again.
"It did break me."
Mayu was no longer certain which questions he would answer, and which ones would be batted back in typical Bando fashion, so she pressed ahead.
"How did it happen-how did it happen to you?"
He knew exactly what she meant, and it had echoes of the question a very broken man had asked himself.
"I'm a soldier who gets sent places to do impossible things. A local Asian looney-toon tin-pot had made it his business to take away some of our Emperor's subjects. I was sent to get info and maybe get some of them back. It didn't go so well. I was -given- to the dick dictator's favorite breaker. While he polluted me, he talked at length about how polluted Japan and South Korea's gene pools were. Did you know they have a thing about blacks up there? I didn't. I mean race-theory stuff that a white-sheeted Klansman from the deepest South in the US you can go would call crazy. I almost think our pals the Kakuzawas might take a pass on it too, but they were into some crazy shit."
Mayu had never felt closer to this man she held so dear.
"You got your revenge, right?"
Bando looked a bit surprised and maybe a bit disappointed to hear this coming from her. His source had told him the dumb-ass incursion Kakuzawa had staged on Maple House had badly shaken its residents. But this was the same girl who had stopped him from killing the sleazeball with the John Lennon spectacles.
"Yeah. I fed him-what he put into me-and NOT by way of cutting them off. You do the math and logistics of that one."
Mayu did, and then said a word he did not want to hear.
"Good. Good for you, Bando-Dono."
The soldier felt he had a duty to snap the civilian out of her war mentality.
"First up, brat-I am never not no damn Dono. I'm a San - I earn my pay. Second, how can you feel good about something as rotten as that? Didn't you hear me? I fed a guy his own junk by bending him in half!"
Mayu didn't seem cold, but nor did she relent in her viewpoint.
"Whoever hurts someone I love is my enemy, and their end should be painful. Did you know I've heard rumors that my mother has been forced to sell herself? I hope it's true. I hope the people she deals with hurt her. I hope she catches a disease and die-"
"SHE'S YOUR MOTHER, SHE GAVE YOU LIFE, YOU UNGRATEFUL LITTLE BITCH!"
Mayu again did not relent.
"She allowed my innocence to be taken by someone she met in a bar, and made me the villain when he abused me. She signed me away in a heartbeat to two college students she did not know at all. Yuka-chan is my mother."
Bando sneered.
"The tsundere head-case with a hitter complex-and probably a few more complexes? Her? Really?"
Mayu leaned forward.
"Who told you she was like that?"
Bando leaned in as well.
"You did."
Mayu softened at last just a bit.
"Would you have me honor and obey that woman, Bando-Saw?"
Bando shrugged, though he had to shift his cane to pull it off without falling.
"Hell, No. You're probably right about what that cunt has coming to her. But you don't ever say that. You owe her life, at least, so wishing her dead is not something you do. Don't waste your hate on someone like her. Now, Lucy-she was one worth hating. She said what she was gonna do to you, and she did it. No hiding behind maze-logic that makes a little girl's rape into a seduction. Hey-she did try and kill you. Why no hate for her?"
Mayu said something outright that Kurama had tried to dance around, when her post-Lucy medical reports came in.
"When she died, Lucy-San reached out and healed not just Kouta-Oto, but all of us in many respects. She couldn't change history, Bando-Saw. But strictly speaking, I am a virgin once again. Even certain damage to my intestinal track and scars have gone away. Her love may have been horribly twisted by her sad life, but I think she really did care for me."
"Yeah-right. Well, forgetting your poor brave eunuch here, what about Ole Blue-Hair, Number Seven? You know, your sister or cousin or-whatever? Her arms and legs aren't growing back anymore than mine are."
"Nana says she has made her peace with Lucy. Also, she no longer ages fast and can have children if she likes."
Again, the restored man was very skeptical.
"With Kurama? He lost his stones years before mine. I..."
He fell silent as she simply embraced him. Against the humanity he had not had replaced, she felt really good.
"I will not debate Bando-Saw. I will simply tell him again that I love him, and am overjoyed that he is returned, and that we can be together at last."
Bando no longer bothered to disguise that he cared for the girl. But he also knew a line had to be drawn.
"Mayu, please back off."
She seemed both shocked and delighted to hear her name from his lips.
"Why? We two care for each other. That sets everything else aside."
What he would do now would hurt them both, but principles sometimes did just that. In fact, they did that most times.
"It doesn't. It can't. Kid, I fought off a disgusting pedo for you. Do you think I did that just so I could turn around and hurt you with your consent?"
"Even if you-it would never hurt. Not with you."
He was on the verge of making a size joke for his vanished body parts, but knew he had to stay on track.
"It can hurt in other ways. You're too young. You still have time to be a kid. I don't even know how long this nightmare of hydraulics and tubes can keep me going."
Mayu insisted on keeping on.
"Then that is how long we'll have together. Whatever we have during that time, whatever form it takes, I will treasure."
He wanted to yell again, but chose a far different tack.
"You remind me of her. You always have."
Before she could respond, he continued.
"Okay. After what I told you went down, I needed retraining. I needed to get my edge back. The American Special Forces were training with their Apache mentors. Tough old Indians who cut their teeth fighting Adolf-and us. Japan requested I be taken in, and they agreed. I met enough Blacks-I mean, African-Americans, to tell me that the scum-sucker who broke me was also full of shit on that racial stuff. I also met her. The whole thing took place in Hawaii, on an island the map kind of overlooks, if you know what I mean."
"She-was Hawaiian?"
Mayu was already feeling jealous of this woman she knew absolutely nothing about.
"Not by birth. She was from the US mainland. Her adopted folks kind of ditched her while they were all on vacation. Said they weren't 'bonding'. Yuppie Scum. The family she found in Hawaii worked her, but they also fed and kept her, and she said she loved them."
The big loud man almost seemed to grow misty.
"She was pretty much your age. You know all the things pedo-types say about the kids they go after? That 'they're so mature for their age' crapola? The practiced bit where they say they have 'a special relationship', and all those other bullshit lines that only make you want to build a giant orange juicer and give them one final squeeze?"
He nodded.
"I used every last one of those, because every last one was true of her. When I-when we were together, I was a man once again, and I treasured the fact that I would see her grow even more beautiful as the years went by."
Mayu was feeling sick to her stomach. She now understood why Kouta had lied to young Nyu about Yuka's gender, and wished Bando would do the same.
"You loved her?"
His yellow electronic eyes looked at her.
"I married her. And that is when the shit hit the fan. Some guys in the unit I trained with hit on girls way too young for anybody's good. But see, they didn't make them their wives. I was thrown out of training-seems our Native American trainer had a granddaughter about the same age. I was told to leave Hawaii, and also that, if I didn't want to have my awesome ass ridden in prison, I was never to contact her again, and to refuse her efforts to contact me."
He sat down on the wooden steps back up to the boardwalk.
"What could I do? Either way, we were gonna be prevented from seeing each other again. Like I said, I am what I am, to quote the sailor. But for her, I wanted to be more, and without her, I felt an ache that nothing Lucy did to me could match. Then along comes you. You found me all wounded, just like she did. And I feel it all over again. The worst part? I think she must hate me. I think she must hate my lousy, deserting guts! She must..."
A third voice interrupted Bando.
"She wants you back. She prays every day just to hear from you, and would take you back if even a tenth of your body was still intact."
Mayu looked and saw the woman she knew as the Agent. Bando shook his head.
"How can that be? I stayed away, even when she was of age."
The very tough woman removed her glasses, and there was only affection in her eyes.
"She knows the kinds of pressure those hypocrites threw at you, and some of them were still in positions of authority for years after."
Mayu asked the obvious.
"Is she the girl you left behind?"
The Agent smiled.
"Only in a manner of speaking. When he left, I gained my fear of being alone. I had to become strong."
Bando touched her cheek.
"You did that. I gave you a hard time in training because it was all I could give you."
Mayu felt an oddity she couldn't place.
"So you are his wife?"
Both operatives laughed loudly at that. Bando rolled his eyes, which had been upgraded for that at his insistence.
"Kid, our Hula-Girl here is into wool, not sausage. Not that I blame her. With the sheer level of wimpery in this world, even if I went for guys, I'd probably join a monastery first."
The Agent nodded.
"Mayu-chan, the girl-the woman-Sensei is talking about is my mother. I too, am Bando, though it is only now that I can use my father's name."
Bando actually managed a real smile, and looked very proud of his daughter.
"Now, kid-I am so damn happy that the two of you know each other. Like I said, I don't know how long I have, and I would pleased as piss if you two could become friends and-well, sisters. I've never been able to give my girl anything, and someone who can keep her from ending up like me in the few wrong ways I have would mean a lot. Waddya say?"
Mayu now also understood how Yuka felt, when her reunion with Kouta did not go as planned. It was not an insight she had ever desired. In tears, her dream dead on the vine, she fled Bando, father and daughter. The father sighed.
"Well, that could have gone better."
"Gee, Sensei, ya think?"
"Don't snark your dad, ya butch bitch."
She just smiled at him.
"Okay-Papa-or should I say Grandpapa?"
His eyes had no lids, but they went wide.
"What the F-"
She made a pistol-shaped gesture with her finger and thumb. She winked.
"Kidding-Gotcha!"
As Bando's heart regulators kicked in, he wondered exactly why he had passed his sense of humor on to her as well.
A moment later, his cell-phone rang.
"What? Damn. Are you sure? Yeah, I know-but when you give news like that, Kurama-yeah, I planned to stay around Maple House, anyway. I think I'll piss on Lucy's gr-hey, kidding, alright? Just-this is all a bit much. Okay."
Agent Bando regarded her father.
"So?"
The elder Bando now felt his age.
"Ummm...China moved against North Korea. And by move against, I mean to say, there is no North Korea anymore. They did it conventionally, so no radiation clouds. But we think maybe some of Kim's horned girls got in China before it happened."
The Agent had known of the first piece of information, but let her father keep on.
"Why do they think that?"
He got up, and started cleaning the beach.
"You ever seen the Three Gorges Dam, Hula-Girl?"
"Can't say that I have. I never really got out of Beijing, during my 'unofficial visits'. You'd be surprised what an American-looking spy can accomplish there."
She started aiding him in the clean-up without knowing why.
"Well, you're not going to be seeing it, like, ever. Because a force that the Chinese o-press refuses to identify took it out entirely, and they have no idea how many people have been lost to flooding and debris, not to mention power outages like you would not believe. They're also not saying what the Americans just told us. Large armored columns have been activated all over China, but not even one of them is on any of the borders-and oh yeah, the Yank Sat-Intel says that these columns and the soldiers in them aren't doing so well. The Russkies are on high alert, and so are the Iranians, which means everybody else in the Middle East is too...and..."
He stopped.
"I just now realized. We're just over a year out from Kakuzawa's virus launch. Hospitals around the world are gonna be seeing a surprise in the maternity ward, if they haven't already."
The Bandos kept right on cleaning that same damned dirty beach.
In the beneath-campus offices once occupied by the late Professor Kakuzawa, Kouta opened his ringing cell-phone, opened the line but did not speak into it. He simply stared at it as the caller pleaded.
"Kouta-San? Please-I'm sorry. I should not have hit you. I don't mean to-so often. You took me by surprise. Don't be like this-it was only one little slap-MOTHER! I know I shouldn't minimize it when he's so upset, but it really was only a little-"
Kouta finally spoke.
"If you think this is all about a slap, then maybe you really are crazy."
He hung up, and turned the cell-phone off.
At her mother's house, Yuka began to cry.
"I think maybe I really am."
Yuka's mother sensed that it was perhaps time to speak plainly to her daughter.
To Be Continued...
Author's Note : The given name 'Daisuke' for Doctor Kurama is, like the name Emiko for Yuka's mother, derived from the first 'Godzilla' film, being the name of the tragic and tortured scientist, Doctor Serizawa.
