A Year and Change - Part Two
A Sailor Moon fan fiction by Thomas Sewell (sewell_thomas@hotmail.com)
...... Thought quotation
Chapter 6: Mika's Woe
Cambridge, Massachusetts
MIKA KAYAMA had always thought herself a sensible girl. With her grades, she could easily have gone to Tokyo University, or one of the other prestigious Japanese colleges. She was also proud to be a Japanese, even if she was one of those funny folks who had used to almost all live in the North, the ones that looked almost like gaijin. But she was too sensible to stay in Japan, or even go to college there, because as a woman in a male preserve like Engineering, she simply wouldn't get as far as she could overseas. Once she had established her reputation, she would return to Japan, and perhaps do her part to change tradition, in this one place.
What particularly fascinated her was biomechanics and bioelectronics. Maybe it was her old fascination with dolls that lead her to it. She wanted to build machines that could reproduce human or animal behavior better than had been done before--and perhaps provide prosthetic devices that were as good or even better that the limbs they had replaced. Mika remembered her grandfather and two great uncles, men who had been maimed in the Pacific War. When Mika pictured them trying to get along with their clumsy artifical limbs, she wondered why there wasn't anything better.
For all the promises--the famous "Boston Arm" of the Seventies, and the like--nothing much had really changed since then. In fact, the Boston Arm program was abandoned before Mika was even born.
Her researches in high school had uncovered only one researcher who had seemed to be going beyond that failed program, an obscure man named Professor Tomoe Souichi. But after a laboratory explosion, he had withdrawn from the field, and started a special school that was rumored to be the headquarters of a cult. Another explosion, and fires from it, had destroyed most of that school, and it had been closed afterward.
Mika had assumed that was the end of Professor Tomoe. However, one night, with a lot on her mind, and her new American study partner fast asleep, she decided to take another look. She decided to look for the professor's obituary--perhaps he was alive.
But he wasn't, it turned out. Tomoe had been dead for a long time, for ten years, though he had lived for almost two years since his special school had closed. The obituary mentioned very little about his work, but it did give Mika a fact she had not suspected before: Professor Tomoe was survived by one child, a daughter, Hotaru.
Hotaru, Mika thought. Another irony. The same name as Shingo's wife.
The sensible girl woke her study mate and told her it was time for her to go back to her room. Once Rachel was gone, Mika went to bed herself. But it took her a long time to get to sleep. She thought about Shingo's Hotaru, who had faced the decision Mika was facing now. But not quite the same decision, because Shingo had not had a wife and a child then.
When Mika asked for a meeting at a quiet place off-campus, Shingo took her to a cafe on the Boston side of the Charles, explaining that they had wonderful tarts. He was right. "How did you ever find this place?" asked Mika, finishing her second, feeling far removed from care, for just the moment.
Shingo said, "Hotaru suggested I look for it. She remembers it from when she was very small. Her mother and father brought her here. I was surprised to find it still here."
"Yes. There have been many changes." Mika was brought back to the reason she had come to this place. Why did he chose a place that is special to Hotaru? "Change is not always good, is it?"
"No, Mika-chan, I suppose it is not." He took a last contemplative sip of his coffee, and said, "There has surely been a big change between us. Is that why we are here?"
"Yes, Shingo-chan." Mika looked back over her shoulder. They had taken a table outside, the only ones to brave the cool evening. She saw the campus of MIT across the river, a boat moving up the Charles, and a car stopped just across the street. She noticed the driver was looking at her. The car moved on, and she put it from her mind. "I am pregnant."
"Pregnant? Are you sure?"
"Yes." She turned back to Shingo, and saw that he had bowed his head, and closed his eyes. "Aren't you going to ask if I am going to have the baby?"
"No," he said, without looking up. "I know you. If you weren't sure you were not going to have it, you would not have told me."
Mika reached across the tiny table to take Shingo's hands. "It is not your fault. You slipped once. Just once."
Shingo looked up at her. "We made love only once for real, but I have made love to you many times in my mind." He shook his head. "I cannot go on like this. You are the one I love."
Mika drew back. "Shingo! You love Hotaru, and she is your wife!"
"But I love you, Mika. I think I always have . . . "
Perhaps because Shingo was beginning to lose control, Mika clamped down on her own turbulant emotions. "Shingo, you love Hotaru. I have seen you together. You cannot tell me that you do not love her."
"Yes. But I love you . . . If you are going to have my child anyway, then--"
Mika did not let him finish. "Then I am going to have your child, and we will explain it to our families. But not now, Shingo-chan." She rose, and kissed him on his brow. "I hope Hotaru will forgive me. But I would not forgive myself if I let you do something even more foolish now."
Then Mika found herself running from the cafe before Shingo could follow and somehow thwart her resolve again. And that is when she noticed that the strange car, with the strange man, was pulling in ahead . . .
Chapter 7: Little Moons
Kensington, California
Shingo's call came in just after Sarah had returned from school. Olivia picked up, but Chibi-Usa started listening in as soon as she heard Olivia scream. Sarah cut in and got the most important facts: Mika had been taken only a few minutes before, and Shingo had gotten a look at the car. Before Olivia could protest, Chibi Moon was off.
Her mother came home just a few minutes later, but it took her an hour to get enough senshi together to teleport to Boston.
Boston, Massachusetts
Chibi Moon did have a good idea of what the car looked like, but unfortunately it was a commonplace car--by the time the other senshi started arriving, she had stopped five, and created gridlock through much of the Boston Metropolitan Area.
Sailor Venus was much the general when she arrived. She made a hard choice. She sent the fastest chibi sailors out to search the three main routes out of town: Pleione and Deja to the north, Zoe and Zara to the south, and Kimi Moon to the east, with Hotaru--Not as fast as Kimi, but faster than Venus, Mars, and of course Jupiter. She kept Chibi Moon with her central group, despite her great speed and firepower, because she needed to know where Chibi Moon had searched. Her final orders to the six she sent out were, "Don't fight if you can avoid it. Call for help if you have any trouble."
Kayama Mika was feeling horribly scared by that time, but she was beyond even Chibi Venus' range. She was not even in the same car.
The man who had taken her was smart. He'd stolen the car he'd used to stalk, and left it in to a parking garage only a few blocks from MIT. He might have stopped to enjoy his catch earlier, but the sight of an angel shooting violet bolts made him decide to move to a safer place, further away.
He would have turned off the interstate in one more exit if he hadn't been caught in traffic. A jacknifed big rig. And then he might have been all right, if he hadn't spotted a Massachusetts State Cop ahead that he thought he recognized--one that had stopped him earlier in the day.
But all was not lost. He was just past an off-ramp--there was enough room on the shoulder to back up and get off. The girl was beginning to bang around in the lockbox . . . He backed up in one smooth move, and was on the exit ramp. Other people got the same idea, so the cops wouldn't know who to chase.
This good luck was balanced out by the fact that Kimi Moon noticed the unusual motion from ten miles away. She zeroed in, and saw a woman locked away. She flew ahead of Saturn, not wanting to lose sight of the pickup for a second.
The man who had taken Mika did not drive that far after he got off the interstate. He found an orchard. A quick snip with bolt cutters, and he was through the gate, with less than a minute of delay. Another two minutes, and he was parked amid the deserted orchard.
He was getting too excited; trying to jump up in the bed, he fell, hurting his knees and dropping the keys. He had to fumble around in the dark, but fortunately, they had fallen inside the truck bed. The girl was screaming and banging the box frantically now. He banged on the top, and kicked the sides. It wouldn't make any difference. Then he found the lock, and was about to put in the right key when he heard the sound of wings. He was buffeted, and dropped the keys again. He batted at whatever it was. It screamed--like a little girl. Suddenly he was dazzled by a bright light in his face.
He pulled out his knife and slashed. There was another scream, of pain--he'd struck something. The light was gone, but the flash had ruined his night vision. He heard the wings again, and he lunged toward the sound--and fell over the side of the bed. That hurt, but he still had the knife--a "trench knife" with brass knuckles built into the grip guard, so it was all but impossible to lose in a fight. And he was in a fight. He slashed the knife around in the air above him before he got up.
He heard keys jingling. He could see just enough to make out the side of the truck now. He stabbed over it, and was rewarded with another scream, and the feeling of a more solid strike. But he was overbalanced, and fell; whatever it was escaped again. But there was another flash of light, not directly in his face. He was able to make out a winged form--he was fighting some kind of angel girl, like in the stories.
He had noticed she had been trying to free the girl in the lockbox. He pulled himself up over the side back into the bed, stood up, and yelled, "Come and get her, if you can!" He was excited and angry--and the angel girl was not very big; he'd seen that much, and heard her voice.
The angel girl shined the light in his eyes again, but he reached up and grabbed her, pulled her out of the air. He stabbed and slashed as he struggled with her, finally pinning the angel girl under his knees. He changed the grip on his knife, so that he could stab down, and then raised his knife high to finish off the little pest--and a cold chill bit his upraised arm. Then he felt warm drops falling on his face. He brought the arm down, but didn't feel the knife biting. In fact, against the light coming from the angel girl's head, he didn't see the knife--or his hand.
He didn't have time to really come to terms with this, because his head came off next, under the second sweep of Saturn's glaive. She sliced the lock off the lockbox, and then dropped the glaive to tend to Kimi.
Mika kicked open the lid. She was still bound up, though she had managed to work loose of the tape over her mouth.
"Help me!" Mika screamed again.
"Stay still, you are safe now!" shouted a half-familiar voice. "You too, stay still, while I try to fix you."
"Who are you? Help me!"
"Mika, I can't help you yet!"
Mika recognized the voice. "Hotaru? What are you doing here?"
"Please, just be still!"
"Am I going to die?" asked a tiny voice. "I can't see with my eye."
"No, but you are hurt badly . . . I must call the others . . . Sailor Venus! Come, all of you! We have found Mika, but Kimi Moon is hurt. I cannot heal her completely."
Mika kept asking what was happening in the next minutes, until finally someone helped her up. They didn't take the tape off her eyes, though--the person lifted her out of the box and carried her a little ways until she felt bodies all around her. Then she suddenly felt much warmer, and the air had a different smell.
Two women's voices keened, and one said, "Kimi-chan! Oh no!"
Kimi-chan. Shingo's niece.
There were many voices all together after that. Finally, when all the other voices were gone, someone said, "Sit still," and pulled the tape off her eyes. Then she realized it was Hotaru, Shingo's wife. Only it was not just Hotaru--it was Sailor Saturn. Saturn picked up her glaive, brought up the blade, and moved it toward Mika.
"Hold still, I am not going to hurt you. I am cutting the tape . . . there. Now your legs . . . You are free." She withdrew the glaive, stood up, and transformed, becoming the delicate girl who had stolen Shingo away from Mika. "Follow me."
"Where are we?"
"At my home," answered Hotaru. "I am going up to check on Rhea, and help with the other children."
"What happened? What happened to Kimi?"
"Kimi-chan is a senshi, but she is not a very good fighter yet. She fought the man who put you in the box, and he hurt her quite badly. I have some ability to heal, but it was not enough to fix everything the man did to her."
"What happened to that man?"
"I killed him," Hotaru said, as they got into an elevator.
Mika broke down crying, and embraced Hotaru. "I am sorry! You have saved me, and I . . ."
"Shingo told me."
"Told you? . . . How much did he tell you?"
"Everything important," said Shingo's wife.
That brought on a fresh stream of tears. "I owe you my life! And Kimi--will she be all right?"
Hotaru said, "I do not know. I am not a doctor. Maybe I will become one someday, when my daughter is a little older."
"Oh . . . This is all because of me!" Mika exclaimed.
Hotaru said calmly, "The man would have found another victim. We would not have known in time to save her."
"No, I mean Kimi . . . I am so sorry . . . "
The elevator doors opened, and a tiny woman handed Hotaru a crying baby. Mika watched Hotaru comfort her child, and tried to avoid the hostile looks of the small woman. She knows . . .
It was only then that Mika finally realized that "home" for Shingo's wife meant California. She recognized the place she was now in from some of Shingo's photographs.
Chapter 8: Mika and the Senshi
Kensington, California
MIKA WOKE UP and panicked for a moment, until she remembered where she was, and why she was in the unfamiliar room. The memory of how and why was not comforting, so Mika focused on the room awhile, to help herself really believe that she was safe, and far from the horrible things that had happened. The room had pictures of old airplanes she hadn't noticed much when Hotaru had led her there. Now Mika remembered that Hotaru had told her it had been "Mama Setsuna's" room.
Mika also remembered that she was wearing pajamas borrowed from Hotaru. And that reminded her of what else she had borrowed from Hotaru: Shingo.
The big house was not empty; Mika could hear people sleeping. The first person she found up was a little girl praying at the house shrine, When the girl turned spoke to her, she was startled. "Kimi? I thought you were hurt."
"I am Ishtar," said the little girl. "Kimi is in the hospital now."
Mika said, "Oh . . . I am sorry, but you look and sound like Kimi."
Ishtar said, "Yes. We are sisters. Mamoru is our father."
Mika said, "Yes . . . I remember, Shingo told me that, I should have remembered."
"That is all right," the little girl replied. "You have had a scary thing happen to you. It was not your fault."
"Not my fault . . ."
"It is not your fault Kimi-chan was hurt." Mika now remembered that Ishtar was older than she looked, but she seemed even older than she was to Mika, especially with her next words. "I know you will be having Uncle Shingo's love-child. Do not feel so bad about that. I am a love-child, and so is okasan."
Mika said, "But I have shamed myself. And I have hurt Shingo's wife so much."
Ishtar said, "You have hurt Hotaru. And I think probably Shingo too. But you love Shingo so strongly. Hotaru will forgive you, because of that."
When they were alone, Mika told Shingo's wife what Ishtar had said. Hotaru replied, "Ishtar is exactly right. I can forgive you, because you love Shingo."
"But I shouldn't have," protested Mika.
Hotaru said, "But you did . . . And so did Shingo. He would not have slept with you if he did not have a special love for you. I saw that this might happen long ago, Mika."
"With your powers?"
"No, I don't think so . . . I saw because I know Shingo. You knew him first, but I have been with him most of his life." She glanced down at Rhea, at her breast. "I could not help myself. That is why I have Rhea here. And Rhea is why you had Shingo to yourself long enough for him to realize he has always loved you." Holding Rhea a little closer yet, Hotaru looked back up at Mika, and added, "If your child is a girl, she will almost certainly be a sailor fighter someday."
Mika said, "But I am no senshi! And Shingo--"
Hotaru said quietly, "My Rhea will be a senshi, we are already certain of that. And Shingo is Usagi's brother."
"Usagi? Usagi is a senshi?"
"Usagi is the greatest of us all," said Hotaru, rising to leave. "Usagi is Sailor Moon."
Mika sat by herself, absorbing these new shocks. After some time, Hotaru returned, with a now-sleeping Rhea. "This is the forgetting powder," she said, setting down a tiny phial in front of Mika, next to her tea. "If you take it, you should forget everything that has happened for the last few days. At least for awhile. Maybe forever."
Mika picked it up, and looked at it. "Where does it come from?"
"I cannot tell you. It is safe, though. It has been used for a long time, in other places."
Mika continued to hold the phial, but set down her hand. "I would rather not forget that you saved me."
"And Kimi-chan," said Hotaru.
"Yes . . . " Mika stopped to dab her cheeks. "Is she really going to be all right?"
"Chiba-san says so," answered Hotaru. "But she will be in the hospital for a long time." Hotaru sat down, this time next to Mika rather than across the table. She put a hand out to touch Mika's shoulder. "You would also forget what that terrible man did to you."
Mika shook her head. "I would rather remember . . . I will take this if you insist, but I want to remember. If I forget what you did for me, I might try to take Shingo away from you."
Hotaru gently took the phial from Mika's hand. "You do not have to, then. But you will have to tell the police you have forgotten everything."
Mika said, "Yes, I suppose . . . But I will do that, to keep you safe."
Hotaru said, "To keep you safe, too . . . from being locked up with crazy people, if you tell the police the truth. Usagi could tell you stories about that."
"Usagi?"
Hotaru said, "Yes . . . But do not ask of this for a long time. In fact, it would be better you did not see much of her, until she wants to see you, I think."
"Where is she?" asked Mika.
Hotaru said, "Sleeping. She will be going back to the hospital soon after she gets up."
Mika finished her cup of tea, and got up to get another. She asked if Hotaru would care for some. She did, and showed her where her cup was. Returning, looking for something to talk about besides all the grief she had brought to Shingo's family, Mika asked, "Were you going to go to MIT, before you knew the baby was coming?"
Hotaru said, "No. I was going to go to Harvard."
"Harvard admitted you, but not MIT?"
"Oh, I could have gone, but I chose Harvard. I wanted to do my minor in History, and MIT is not as suitable for that. Besides, my father went to Harvard."
"Your father?" asked Mika. One of the few facts she knew for certain was that the mysterious Professor Tomoe had degrees from Harvard. "Was your father Tomoe Souichi?"
"Yes," answered Hotaru. "How do you know of him?"
Mika said "I wanted to know more about his work. About cybernetic prosthetics. Do you know anything of it? You would have been very young--"
"I know of it," said Hotaru, cutting Mika off. "It ended badly." And that is all that Hotaru would say of it.
Mika took Hotaru's advice and avoided Usagi. That was easy enough, because Usagi spent every possible moment at the hospital.
Mika decided that Dr. Han might be good to talk to about her situation. "You live here, with Dr. Chiba and Usagi. How do you all get along?"
"Carefully," remarked Dr. Han, making an American-style joke that Mika did not understand. But Ginger Han was perceptive enough to see this, and became more serious. "Sometimes I think it would be better to move away. But Lily loves her father, and he loves her, very much. And it is best for us to work together. I could not use my special power very much if I did not have Mamoru and my other friends here to help me."
"That is important for you," said Mika, "But I have no powers."
Dr Han waited a moment before continuing. "Are you afraid you will do the wrong thing with Shingo?"
Mika said, "Yes . . . Aren't you afraid that you will do the wrong thing with Dr. Chiba?"
"No," answered Ginger Han. "Now that he has Usagi, Mamoru would never make love to someone else. He is not like that."
"But Shingo is not Mamoru," said Mika.
Dr. Han said, "No, he is not. But I did not say that Mamoru does not still love me, or his other women. He does. But it is important to him to be faithful. Shingo is much like him in that way." Dr. Han took her hand. "Mamoru did slip once that I know of. He had been with Minako for a long time when he made love to Usagi. That is how Kimi-chan came to be. Mamoru did not make love to another woman for a long time after that. We dated for a year before we made love. I could have married him. But I saw he belonged with Usagi. And if you see that Shingo belongs with Hotaru, you should make the same decision."
Despite herself, Mika blurted, "But what if he belongs with me?"
Ginger Han sighed. "You should talk to Ms. Hino. She has insights about these things. And you should be seeing a lawyer, anyway; you are going to be seeing a lot of police soon enough."
Catching Ms. Hino alone was easier than the others, because she had her own home, much smaller than the mansion, but still large by Japanese standards. It was only a short walk from the mansion.
Mika actually remembered Hino Rei from her childhood, and was uncomfortable going to face a woman who was known for her quick, sharp judgments about people. But she was surprised by the woman she found.
Hino-san divined for Mika in her traditional way, through flames and the flow of smoke from incense. Finally she said, "Your child will be a senshi."
"What of Shingo?" asked Mika. "And Hotaru?"
"There are many paths for the three of you. But all of them bring you together, in some way." Hino-san looked away from the fire, into Mika's eyes. "You will have to work out which path you will take with Shingo and Hotaru."
"Ne-e-eh," groaned Mika. "I have shamed myself. I did not think I would ever do something so foolish. And so cruel and selfish. What must you think of me? You are the most sensible friend of Usagi that I remember."
"I have not been all that sensible, Kayama-san," said Hino-san. "And not that kind. I was very thoughtless to Yuuichirou for many years before I became his wife. I lost him. And then to get him back, I stole him from a girl he was going to marry. Deja, my oldest, is really our love-child."
Mika said, "But your husband did not have a wife and a child, did he?"
"No," said Hino-san. "But he gave his promise and then he broke it for my sake. And I cannot believe that Hara-san would not be having a happier life if my Yuuichirou was her husband." Hino-san shook her head. "I think it is time to talk about another problem, Kayama-san. The police in Massachusetts are still looking for you. Some of them think Shingo-kun made you disappear. Since you did not take the forgetting powder, you are going to have to tell them a story . . . "
Chapter 9: The Djinn
JACK CRAWFORD had puzzled over the mystery of the Angel Girls for more years than he had ever worked on any other possible story. He had seen them in action personally twice, once during the famous fight at Lake Merritt in Oakland, California and he had seen one kill an assassin fleeing Highland Hospital later in that same city. He'd even had some inside information from a contact inside the National Security Agency about the very secret investigations--and cover-ups--of incidents involving alleged magic girls for more than a decade. But the answer eluded him. All he was sure of was that at least some of the magic girl incidents had been real, and that they seemed to have a connection with some rather reclusive Japanese people who'd come to live in his home, the San Francisco Bay area.
His latest distraction had been a war, or rather, a series of wars. Big news, and bigger issues than who was going to be the top man in the California drug gangs, or sightings of angels--more common than flying saucers, of late. The artificial borders of the Middle East, mostly set nearly a century ago at the end of what had been called the Great War, had now been mostly abolished by what was now called the Great Mideast War. It had begun when the House of Saud had started infighting over the succession to the throne, and its larger neighbors had decided to take advantage. The war had got out of hand, as wars are likely to do. While a NATO/UN force contented itself with protecting what was really important--the Gulf oilfields--the parties proceeded to cross and double-cross one another, using all the deadly toys they had bought with their oil money instead of better lives for their people. A few nukes here, some anthrax there, and liberal applications of war gasses upon civilians, and they came apart--none of them were really homogenous, and once trust or fear of the central governments had gone, ethnic groups had grabbed for what they could get. Iraq shrank drastically; Assyria, Media and Sumeria reappeared on maps, at least in the English versions. Palestine, with Israeli connivance, swallowed all of Jordan and bits of Syria and Arabia. Driven from Jordan, the Sherifian dynasty returned to Mecca. A nominal accommodation was made with their old rivals by marrying the surviving Crown Prince to a Saudi princess. Control of the oil fields was not part of her dowry; that was to be administered by a permanent UN agency.
The Northern Powers (NATO, Russia, and Japan, as they were first called at this time) did not get away entirely unscathed. The United States, in particular, got an unpleasant shock when a small flock of cruise missiles were launched from a nondescript container ship off the East Coast. The White House air defenses stopped one, but, embarrassingly, the Pentagon was damaged by another one. Others hit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia; the UN building in New York; and the USS Theodore Roosevelt, refitting at Newport News, Virginia. Five others malfunctioned, but it was stunning proof that the United States could be the target as well as the launcher of these wonder weapons, no longer beyond the reach of hostile nations.
Jack Crawford wrote and reported all these things--the War was his first big TV exposure, and he found that he could not resist wanting more. But mostly he poked around looking for "small" stories: A refugee family scattered to five different nations; the commander of a Marine battalion arranging a brief "presence" at his daughter's wedding through teleconferencing; a squabble between archeologists and the families of soldiers buried at a dig which had became a part of a battlefield. And, inevitably, stories of angels--or friendly djinn, as the traditions of these people would have them . . .
Southeastern Iraq
Ali stopped. "Listen."
His mother Nur hushed Taloob in her arms, and then whispered, "What do you hear?"
"Helicopters . . . we must get high, if they have the gas." There was nothing like a mountain and very few hills in their marshy homeland near the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates. There was the stump of a microwave relay tower perhaps 300 meters away; it might be high enough.
Ali's sharp hearing bought his family a head start, but Nur was very short, and very plump, and had Taloob to carry, and soon they were behind all the others, except for a small knot of women they passed going the other way. Nur was nearing the end of her strength, and she could people swarming over the broken tower, like ants. She had no breath to warn them, but Ali had. He cried out, "No, ladies, you are going the wrong way!"
Things cracked and whined overhead, and some of the figures fell off the tower ahead. The few fighters among the crowd returned a ragged, futile volley. Nur dropped to the ground, covered Taloob, and prayed. Then she looked back, hoping that the helicopters would pass over without noticing them, hoping they did not have the gas.
The women who had passed her were still there. They threw off their robes; she could see this in the bright moonlight. They were wearing very little, she saw. They shouted in some language she had never heard before. And then they threw bolts of colored fire at the helicopters.
Allah in his mercy had sent djinn to save them.
None of the helicopters fell from the sky. Nur could not see them, except for a second when the colored fire passed them. They shot rockets; more colored fire knocked many of these from the sky. But not all; Nur saw some streak past her, heard explosions behind her, and then many screams. "It is the gas!" someone gargled.
Two djinn appeared overhead, shouting in the same strange language, and then one shouted in a language she recognized but did not understand--English. That one threw fireballs brighter than the Sun, and several helicopters fell in orange pyres. Then a cold, cold mist fell upon Nur, and blotted out the sky.
After a few moments, too terrified to move, Nur heard her son Ali call out, "Here, this is my mother and my brother!"
She looked up. Ali and a woman djinn were bent over her. The djinn had an electric torch. She handed it to Ali, and said to Nur, "Are you well?" She was speaking a very educated Arabic.
"I think so, Madame Djinn."
"Your baby looks well . . . I gave your daughter the antidote, so she should get better." The djinn was wearing a greenish glass over her eyes; it glowed, and there was writing and pictures which kept changing.
"Fatima?"
"She breathed some of the gas," said Ali.
"I am afraid I was too late for most of the others," said the djinn. "We have called for help. The next helicopters will bring help."
The other djinn drew near. Nur recognized the voice of the one who had thrown the fireballs that had destroyed the enemy helicopters, although she did not understand what she was saying. The djinn who could speak Arabic exchanged words with the others, mostly with the powerful one--a girl, really, but with a fierce appearance, festooned with jeweled-skulls like a grim goddess in one of the oldest stories. The kindly one said, "No one will attack you before help comes. The little moon promises that . . . "
The djinn stayed until American helicopters came, with help. The kindly one treated the survivors as if she was a doctor.
Later on, Ali explained to Nur that what the skull-wearing djinn had said was "I will send those fornicators of their own mothers to Hell if they return."
Refugee Center, Northern Kuwait
Five Days Later
Ali explained, "The one with the skulls spoke English sometimes. She always spoke it when she cursed, I think."
"Was there another smaller one who stayed close to her?" Jack Crawford asked.
Ali said, "No. No, she was the shortest of the djinn that we saw, I think. I was as close to them as I am to you. Why do you ask this?"
"I saw her once, with a smaller one," Crawford remarked.
"You saw her?"
"Yes, with a smaller one . . . a man named Jean Sauvage took a famous picture of them."
Unfortunately, the videotape from this interview was recorded over. Only Jack Crawford knew it was deliberate. Because, while talking to this family, survivors of the final gas attack in Sumeria, the last piece of his puzzle fell into place. He did not tell the bright Sumerian youth Ali that he had also seen the kindly djinn before, killing an assassin, and then examining one of his victims, just as if she were a doctor . . . which she was.
Highland Hospital, Oakland, California
One Week Later
Jack Crawford did not believe the "angels" were divine; he never had. But he did believe there was something that twisted their fates together. For why else when he came to find Dr. Mizuno did he find her in the room of a young girl, along with a petite teenager, with strawberry-blond hair, and a voice that millions had heard from Jean Sauvage's tape. The same voice; not even much lower in pitch. And the slight girl with all the tubes in her--when she spoke, he knew that voice, too.
And then the strawberry blond turned suddenly to stare him in the eyes, before he had said a word. Jack Crawford felt a chill, because this one, this mischievous ingenue who loved water fights like the one Jack had seen at Waikiki by chance--this one was perhaps the most dangerous one of them all.
"You know about us," she said, in English, very quietly.
Dr Mizuno, who had been reading from a Japanese book to the patient, looked up. "Chibi-Usa? What do you mean?"
Crawford felt sensations he did not know he could feel, but he also felt satisfaction. I was right, he thought. Then he stepped all the way inside, closing the door behind him. "She means I know about you, Dr. Mizuno. I know that you and this girl--"
"We are sisters," said the one who had probably knocked down five helicopters and Iraq's last hope of holding its Gulf oilfields.
"I know it was you two in the Sauvage video. And it was you, Dr. Mizuno, here at Highland the night the Jones' were murdered. And in Chicago, I think, the day of the fight at Lake Merritt. And both of you together, saving those refugees from the gas attack two weeks ago. And if I'm not mistaken, it was you in Boston about a month ago . . . are you trying to do something to me now? I feel strange feelings."
"She is reading your thoughts," said the injured one.
"You must have some Talent, to feel it," said Dr. Mizuno.
"Some," said the most dangerous one. "I know you don't want to report what you know. Why? I can't read as well as Mom, but I can tell if you are telling the truth."
He looked at Dr. Mizuno in preference to the strawberry blond. "I'm not sure. I don't want to screw up your life, Dr. Mizuno. Or Kev Jones' widow's--she was the first one at the lake. You don't look the same when you're angels, but you are not that different . . . especially the voices. I was closest to her. I don't know who you two are--wait, is your mother Mrs. Chiba?" That day at Waikiki, Mrs. Chiba had been with Dr. Mizuno, and Kevin Jones and his wife . . .
"Yes," said the strawberry blond. "She is our mother."
Dr. Mizuno rose, and asked, "Why are you telling us all this?"
Crawford shrugged. "I wanted to be sure I was right. Also, I know the government is looking for you. Maybe they've already found you. I used to have a contact, but he's gone cold on me." He looked down at the injured girl. "How did you get in this mess?"
"I was trying to help someone. A friend. I can fly faster than most of the others. But I can't fight very good. Very well. The man hurt me before Saturn-san could catch up."
"You saved Mika, Kimi," said the big sister, with the first hint of weakness in her voice.
"You still shouldn't talk too much, Kimi-chan," said Dr. Mizuno.
"I'm sorry," said Crawford, meaning it. Turning to the strawberry sister, he asked, "Boston, right? Another creep with his head cut off, like Chicago.?"
She nodded. "It would not have happened if I had been with Kimi."
"It was not your fault," said Dr. Mizuno. "I think if you had not scared him, that man would have killed Mika before anyone could find her."
"Well, there's another one I won't buy flowers for," remarked Crawford. "You ladies have put a dent in the creep population."
Then the tough little one surprised him. "I should not have destroyed so many of the helicopters. I could hear the last thoughts of some of the men on them."
"It was war," said Crawford, who had come to appreciate war for what it really was.
"Yes. I hate war."
Everyone was quiet for what seemed a long while, but was actually only seconds. Then Dr. Mizuno said something in Japanese. She turned back to Crawford, and after another moment, said, "I told her she is not the only one who gets angry. I did not need to kill that one running away from the hospital. I could have knocked his gun away. But I saw what he had done to Minako's husband and his family. If there had been a hundred of them, I think I would have killed them all."
Next: We spend some time with globetrotting musician Roland Descartes and his family. Even some Parisiennes are clucking their tongues about his living with two women in the same house. What is his daughter Adrienne from his first marriage to make of his new family? And what is Roland to make of Haruka and Michiru's strange friends?
Send comments to: sewell_thomas@hotmail.com