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Macross Frontier

8:22

By

Raymond Cooper

The following takes place between 8.22 and 8.23 on the final morning to hand in the final Drama assessment.

8:22:00

Klan took giant steps down the street, Alto peering at the ground. Movement in the distance caught his eye, and he saw Sheryl's limousine turn off the main road, heading now towards the school.

"That's Sheryl," he said, pointing. Klan looked, squinting.

"Window's being wound up. It's likely they've already disposed of the evidence."

"I need that assignment!" Alto said urgently, gripping Klan's fingertips with his much-smaller fingers. He looked around wildly, and saw two pieces of paper blown up by the car's movement, drifting away from the ground into the artificial air currents above the surface. Any moment now, they'd be blown higher than Klan could reach. "Klan! There!" He pointed, and she swiped with the hand Alto wasn't standing on, her oversized fingers managing to catch one of the sheets. The other was disrupted, its course becoming erratic and it flew sideways before being blown back to Klan's head.

"No!" yelled Alto, standing suddenly and turning to run towards Klan's head.

8:22:19

Sheryl held up both sheets of her assignment, quickly comparing the work. The handwriting between the two segments, her own work and Grace's copied section from Ranka's assignment, were identical in appearance. Good. She smiled. "Good work, Grace. Thank you for this."

The car was only two blocks now from the school, and Sheryl could see the gates. "Drop me off at the front building."

"We'll be there in a minute," Grace said, confidently.

"Poor Alto-kun. You think he'll make it on time?"

"It's not like you to be concerned with others," Grace replied, glancing in the mirror. "Are you sure you're all right? I don't want you to go on this tour to Gallia-4 if you're not feeling one hundred percent."

"I'm fine," Sheryl said firmly, putting her metaphorical foot down. Privately, she did feel a little under the weather, but that just had to be her schedule more than anything. Moody now, she stared out the window, her chin resting on her hand, watching a Meltrandi in the distance pull back in panic.

What was going on there, she wondered.

8:22:54

"Are you insane?" Klan roared, nearly causing Alto to lose his balance as he ran down the full length of Klan's outstretched arm, jumped from the highest point of her shoulder and used her ear to launch himself on top of her head, his eyes watching the paper floating just now beyond easy reach.

He made Klan go cross-eyed to keep her eyes focussed on him as she tilted her head back a moment after he launched himself into the air without thinking. He stretched – grabbed the second page of Ranka's assignment – and then realising there was nothing between him and the ground so far below apart from a very surprised Zentraedi whose head was now too far behind him to land on again, Alto panicked before gravity reasserted its control over his body and pulled him towards the ground...

8:22:59..

8:23:00

To be continued...

MACROSS CANON: Will Alto survive his deadly fall? Will he make it to school on time? Precisely what kind of dreams is Ranka having about Alto? And what deadly secret does he carry in his bag that has made both Luca and Nanase shocked and horrified beyond belief?