Chapter 53: Freya as Thelma, Yatsumi as Louise

(Yeah, I know those two have been on several rescue missions already, but this is almost certainly the last one for them)


"So, I hear there's been trouble at the Gub Jogasaki again", Minoru began, hosting yet another ANSA meeting for Kojima, Motosuwa, his cousin, and a few others. "Got into the sake vat at an Agricultural class, I'm guessing?"

Hideki blushed and looked away at the sound of "sake vat".

"Ohh, at this point I wish it had been the sake vat", Chi deadpanned. "At least alcohol doesn't make him act like a raving maniac."

"C'mon, Chi, it's not...", Hideki started to say.

"Raving maniac, huh?", Kojima cut in loudly. "Don't tell me you've gotten into that 'Godzilla's blood' crap?"

"I hope he hasn't done anything violent", Yuzuki cut in with a worried look. "I remember how he punched Kotoko that time..."

"It's not Godzilla's Blood", Hideki moaned. "It's just Focuser. A little something to help me study. The other day, I must have taken a double-dose by mistake..."

"Oh, nothing violent or anything", Chi replied to Yuzuki, rolling her eyes in bitter sarcasm. "He just made a total mess of the DNA lab is all."

"Focuser! Godzilla's Blood! Lazer-eye!", Kojima shot back in a lampooning tone, rolling his eyes at Hideki. "It's all the same shit, Motosuwa, it'll rot your BRAIN!"

"Please listen, you guys", Hideki moaned, doing his best to sound rational. "This isn't something I just got into, okay? I've been taking Focuser for TWO YEARS now. Two years, and none of you could even tell! Doesn't that tell you it's not LIKE that?!"

"Chi could tell", Minoru's cousin countered. "I bet you were running around in circles going "IIIIEEEEEE BL-bl-bl-bl-bl-bl-bl-bl-bl"

"He might as well have been", Chi groaned. "He showed up with several of his classmates, all covered in mud and acting crazy, and they were playing with the lab animals. Several lab animals escaped, and I was chasing 'em all over campus for two hours before I got 'em all back."

Hideki squirmed uncomfortably.

"Are you sure that stuff is even helping you study?", Chi probed. "I mean, sure, your grades are better. But then, you did change majors and all."

"What are you saying, Chi?", Hideki argued. "It's not like I've dropped out or anything. It's college-level Agricultural Science!"

"I know", Chi agreed. "I'm just saying your academic improvement might be because you found a field of study you're better suited to, and not because of that 'Focuser' stuff."

"Could be", Hideki half-admitted. "But I still know it helps me think better."

"So, you've given up on Persocom Science for good?", Kojima surmised, changing the subject slightly. "I guess you won't have any interest in those scrap-parts PCs I saw Kokobunji dragging in there the other day, then..."

"Why would I want those?", Hideki asked, looking confusedly at Kojima.

"Well, with your original major you'd've been wanting to experiment by now..."

"They're not here anymore anyway", Minoru monotoned.

"Gone that quick?", Kojima mumbled. "What did you DO, fix 'em up overnight or something?"

"No, their neural-nets were unrecoverable", Minoru explained glumly. "Freya and Yatsumi are taking them to one of those runaway camps. Surely the persocoms-in-hiding need spare parts and things."

"It's really sad that they weren't fixable", Yuzuki lamented. "I hope carrying those dead PCs isn't creeping Yatsumi out too much."


"Ohh, this is totally creeping me out", Yatsumi whined as they went around yet another curve, causing their two ...dead... passengers to flop around in the back seat like rag dolls. "Stop for a minute, please..."

"What are you gonna do, put 'em in the trunk?", Freya asked, slowing down to pull over.

"Holy Cow no", Yatsumi gasped, climbing over the seat back. "I just wanna lay 'em down flat. Is it okay if I put this old beach blanket over them?"

"Y- yeah, that'd be best I think", Freya groaned, slumping over the wheel. "Ah Jeez, I feel like I'm driving a hearse or something. Why didn't Minoru just-"

"Oh, don't mention a hearse", Yatsumi moaned. "It reminds me of back at the quarry. I was worried I might've killed someone..."

"Need any help, ladies?", a teenager shouted from the window of a passing car, just as Yatsumi was getting the two scrap-parts persocoms situated.

"N- no, we're just... I mean-", she stammered, blushing beet red. "It's fine, really..." The rest of her answer was drowned out by a chorus of wolf-whistling from the other car.

"Uhggh, where'd they come from all of a sudden?", she facepalmed as they got back onto the road. "I hope they didn't see... I mean, I hope they didn't realize..."

"C'mon, slide over here, girl", Freya motioned. And off she drove, one arm on the wheel, the other around Yatsumi. "No worries about the quarry. After all, it said on the news that nobody died."


"Ladies and Gentlemen, CPU!", the announcer screamed into the microphone, almost before Freya even had the car parked. "Are you ready for Gothmania?!"

"...gothmania...", Freya mumbled lampooningly, facepalming as she and Yatsumi made their way to the stage where a huge banner bearing the name "Gothmania" was hanging. "Pff, I can't believe they actually named the event... um... Good afternoon everyone! Welcome to Gothmania!"

This time, she brought Yatsumi onstage front and center, to the sound of more wolf-whistling from the crowd. "Peeping-room brawl", someone was heard to shout from somewhere in the audience.

"Ah, that peeping room thing", Freya commented into the microphone, a sly smile across her face. "Hmmmm, I hope I haven't led her ..too.. far astray..."

Then she dipped Yatsumi low, and totally planted one on her, right in front of everyone, bringing a raucous "wooooOOOOOOOoooo.." from the audience. Once the cheers had died down to a low chatter, the lead guitarist fired up, blowing all the chatter away.

{That oughta get any of that 'scandal' away from Minoru}, Freya thought as she waited for her cue to start singing.

After the first set of concerts was over, after the requisite encores and autographs, and the interviews from local reporters fishing for gossip, Freya and Yatsumi skipped out, leaving the ravenous crowds to the rest of the band, and to the doujinshi vendors who had taken to following them, selling homemade comic books featuring the band members as manga characters.

"Wanna try to get a few more rescues done before the second set of concerts?", Freya cooed as she and Yatsumi lay out on the hotel balcony at sunset, sharing some more OS code over the data cable they'd brought along. "We do have some days off before then..."


"Let's start with that fish-processing place", Freya told Yatsumi as they snuck out the back way, hopping off of their hotel balcony after dark. "That's the first thing on Mario's list, anyway."

"Same as in the quarry, right?", Yatsumi asked as they headed off down the road, Freya drifting it off for the first little bit of downhill. "Set the neural-nets free, let the retro-bots be"

"That's the plan, Flan", Freya confirmed rhymingly as she let out the clutch, her ratty Maserati coughing back to life again.

While Yatsumi was tanking up the car at a gas station, Freya ducked into the store, hat down over her ears, a medical germ mask over her face. She returned with several cans of brown shoe-polish. "I paid cash for the gas", she told Yatsumi. "We're good to go."

"Are we posing as shoeshine girls?", Yatsumi asked with a confused look.

"You'll see", Freya replied with an almost evil grin. "C'mon, let's hit the thrift shop before it closes."

Browsing around in the thrift store (again with a hat and germ mask on), she picked out some low-cut shorts and high-cut undies, two tank-tops, and a shocking-pink sports bra.

"I got the stuff", she announced, approaching the car where Yatsumi was waiting. "Let's get changed."

Ducking into the bushes under the light of a half-moon, they started changing into their rescue-disguise outfits.

"Where are you going with that shoe polish?", Yatsumi asked with a weird look, once she was out of her regular clothes.

"I'm gonna rub it all over us", Freya explained, slathering gobs of the stuff on both of them as if it was suntan lotion or something. "Is this a cool disguise or what?"

"It's a greasy one", Yatsumi replied as they were putting on their thrift-shop clothes. "I hope it'll wash out of my hair later."

"No worries there", Freya reassured her as they got back on the road, heading for a nearby fishing place. "I got shoe polish in my hair once, and it shampooed out okay."


"This should be the place", Yatsumi mumbled as they went idling down a sandy road out by a bay where fishing boats were docked at a wharf, and where several weatherbeaten buildings made of rough-cut boards stood inconspicuously, their windowless facades giving no hint if anything was amiss inside.

"It should", Freya agreed. "Mario's documents had it swarming with persocoms."

Parking the car, they approached one of the buildings on foot... quietly. "I hope Mario got us the right passwords", Freya whispered. "Without Chi here, it's our only way in if they're running slaveware."

Transmitting a proper passworded authentication packet from outside the building, she quickly received a reply. Actually, a bunch of replies. Apparently, the fishing place had given all its persocoms the same root password.

"Your command:", over two dozen persocoms prompted, all from slightly different IP addresses and from within 3 different buildings.

"Run THIS", she commanded each of them in turn, sending each one the same hack program they'd used at the rock quarry.

"Combination lock on the door", someone inside whispered through the cracks in the wooden-board wall. "22-3-14. Next shed over 4-24-18. Third one 18-6-38. 19 neural-net persocoms, 12 non-neural. You should unlock the middle building first, since all the persocoms in it are neural-net."

As quietly as she could, Freya unlocked the middle building, while Yatsumi kept a lookout for trouble. The door swung open a little, its hinges creaking loudly. "Ssh", one of the persocoms admonished the creaking hinge. In no time flat, they had all 3 buildings open, and neural-net persocoms were grouping outside.

"Unscheduled reboot detected", one of the non-conscious PCs announced. "Possible hack attempt. Alert. Sending alert message."

"Thank you very much and good health to you", one of the newly-freed persocoms offered, giving a slight bow to Freya and Yatsumi before sprinting away into the bushes, soon to be followed by the 18 other conscious PCs.

"Ah, that went smoothly", Freya declared as they wandered causally back to the car. "Now on to the next..."

"Stop thief!" a voice called out from right behind them. Someone had grabbed Yatsumi by the hair and was pulling her over backwards. "OW OW OW OW LET GO LET GO LET GO!", she complained loudly.

"HUH?!", Freya yelped, turning around to find Yatsumi on the ground, a huge blonde bearded man kneeling over her, butcher knife held high. "You're gonna die right here!", he growled.

"AAAH Get OFF me!", Yatsumi shrieked, firing a warning shot in the air.

Or rather, it was supposed to be a warning shot.

Just as she was pulling the trigger, Captain Blondbeard lunged downwards, accelerating his knife towards her. The single bullet caught him right straight in the head.

"Oh shit", Freya gasped, staring in shock at the bloody scene. "Yatsumi are you okay?!"

"Fuck, do I look okay?!", Yatsumi spat back, staring wide-eyed at Freya. "Dammit, he lunged right into it! Get him off, get him OFFA me! OHHH, GOD HIS BRAINS ARE ALL OVER MY FACE!"

"Did he stab you?!", Freya asked frantically as she helped push the man off of her.

"No... I mean yes.." Yatsumi stammered as she got shakily to her feet. "I mean, I think he nicked my arm... a little bit... not leaking, though..."

Then they both quickly turned their attention back to the man she'd just shot.

"Holy shit, is he dead?!", Freya blurted out the obvious. "He's dead, isn't he?!",

"Gee, ya think?!", Yatsumi rolled her eyes. "Now I really DID kill someone! That was supposed to be a warning shot! What are we gonna DO?!"

"I don't know, I don't know!", Freya wailed exasperatedly, her hands on her head. "Oh crap I think I hear sirens in the distance!"

"Let's put him in the car", she decided hastily, her voice sick with panic. "We'll figure out what to do later!" Thunder rolled in from an approaching offshore storm as they hastily tossed him into the back seat.

"I feel like I've got foam in my oil", Yatsumi groaned, leaning forward in the seat as they took off down the road, now with three dead passengers in the back. "I think it's starting to rain", she added dismally.

"I'll stop somewhere and put the top up, once we're away from the cops", Freya replied, punching it up to 200KPH in hopes of being long-gone by the time the police arrived on the scene. "Or maybe we'll just outrun the storm."


"Hey, um... Chi..", Hideki stammered, the two of them sitting at their table late at night, their books and study materials all over the place. "Sorry about the lab animals."

"Y- yeah...", Chi replied hesistantly. "It's, uh..."

"You're not mad at me for it, are you?", Hideki asked apologetically.

"Well... a little", Chi answered cryptically, still staring at her notebook. "At least there wasn't any permanent damage."

"I'll stay out of the lab, I promise", Hideki offered. "O- or rather.. I'll steer clear of that 'Focuser' stuff... and the sake vat for sure."

Chi finally looked up at Hideki, examining his face like she was trying to decide if she believed what he was saying. Giving a silent nod, she turned to stare out the window, her eyes fixated on the darkness.

"You taking any regular classes this semester?", Hideki asked. "All I've seen you doing lately is lab stuff."

"Nothin' but lab", Chi said to the darkness. "That, and getting ready for the graduation ceremony."

"Graduating already?", Hideki asked, idly spinning his mechanical pencil as he spoke. "Oh, right... all those extra credit-hours do add up.. Oops.."

"Did you want to graduate together?", Chi asked, looking up from her book to find hideki glancing around the room in confusion. "I think it rolled under the table."

"W- well, I can't exactly say that I ...didn't...", Hideki stammered, fumbling under the table for his pencil... and bumping his head in the process. "Or rather, I guess I just kind of- ouch- assumed..."

"You okay?", Chi asked with a note of confusion. "You didn't sneak something home from the sake vat, did you?"

"I'm totally sober", Hideki groaned, rubbing the back of his head.

"Anyway, I'm fine with not graduating at the same time", he added with a slight smile. "After repeating several classes, I'll still have a whole year to go, at least."

"You do plan on attending, though, right?", she asked. "I have a speech I'm gonna make, and they're talking about asking you up to the podium to make a comment or two."

"I- um... wow...", he responded hesitantly. "S- sure..."

"Really?", Chi asked, flashing those big brown eyes at him.

"Absolutely", he confirmed in a cheerful tone. "I got no idea what to say at the podium, but I'll be right there, cheering you on!"

"Hideki", she cooed, giving him a hug. "...make sure you're sober..."


"Ohh, this can't be good", Freya moaned as she stood over the smoking engine, dipstick in one hand, oil bottle in the other.

"Ugh, did it throw a rod or something?", Yatsumi groaned, cringing as she turned around to check on their deceased passengers in the back.

"Wha- No, not the engine", Freya clarified, sending Yatsumi a URL. "It's this online post. I think someone must have seen us, out there at the fishing place. The cops are looking for a pink convertible!"

"Ah Jeez", Yatsumi whined, reading the post. "They're gonna find us with this dead guy and cut us up for scrap!"

"Not if we can get to one of those runaway-persocom camps first", Freya replied as she finished up adding some oil. "Persocoms'll understand that his death was an accident... Um, hopefully..."

"Holy shit there's a lot of blood back here!", Yatsumi gasped. "How much of that stuff does a guy this big HAVE, anyway?"

"I don't have a clue", Freya replied, only halfway listening and not even bothering to look it up.

"I hope they don't have a clue whose pink convertible they saw", Yatsumi added with a note of absolute doom. "If anyone sees all this blood, we are SO dead..."

"Actually, it doesn't look like all THAT much blood", Freya replied almost calmly, examining the human corpse. "Are you sure his brains really came out?"

"N- um, no", Yatsumi stammered with a nauseated look. "It's just... He fell right on me, he bled on my face... and I kinda... you know, freaked out..."

She trailed off, looking at Freya with doom in her eyes, and Freya pulled her close. "OH WHO AM I KIDDING I'M STILL FREAKING OUT!", Yatsumi sobbed into Freya's shoulder.

"...So am I...", Freya replied gently, holding Yatsumi tight.

"Once we get to a hideout, we can get all this cleaned up", she added with at attempt at optimism as she cranked it up, pausing for a moment to scrutinize the engine sounds for any bad noises. "And then... I'll trade it in for something that isn't about to fall apart."

And then, off down the road they went, Freya glancing around nervously for any sign of the police, Yatsumi looking like she could just vomit at any moment.


"I wasn't gonna do this until Saturday's concert" Freya cooed, once they were back on the road and headed for the nearest persocom hideout camp. "But in case we don't live that long... Um... Take a look in the glove box..."

Yatsumi opened the glove compartment, and quickly noticed a small black box. "Oh my gosh, is this...?" She gasped. Opening the box, she found the ring, a silver-looking band with a heart-shaped stone attached.

She turned to look wide-eyed at Freya, who had her eyes on the road ahead. "..Is this.."

"Engagement ring", Freya said simply, flashing a quick smile at Yatsumi.

"..Holy Cow..", Yatsumi mumbled, momentarily forgetting their predicament as she put on the ring. "I..."

Before she could say any more, Yatsumi was interrupted by the sound of sirens again. At least 2 police cruisers were speeding up behind them.

"Aagh I hear sirens again", Freya complained, pouring on the speed. "I just hope there aren't any... Ataru?!"

"Ataru?", Yatsumi repeated. "What about him, did he just email you or something?"

"Y- yeah", Freya stammered. "He's at the rock quarry! With some kind of a spaceship! We can take the next off-ramp, and..."

"No we can't", Yatsumi squeaked, pointing ahead. "More cop cars!"

"We'll MAKE an off-ramp!", Freya growled, slamming on the brakes.

"Hang on, girl", she added as she eased her low-clearance car carefully over an embankment, losing the muffler in the process. "This is gonna be a little bit bumpy." Bypassing the off-ramp and the police, she got back onto a paved road and back on the gas, shredding the air with ear-splitting exhaust noise as she ran it up to maximum speed.

The entrance ramp leading down into the quarry was visible less than a kilometer up ahead... and more police were already arriving to head her off.

"Oh crap I dunno if we're gonna make the entrance ramp!", Freya gasped.

They didn't.

Swerving to miss an oncoming police car, they missed the entrance ramp completely. What they didn't miss was the rim of the quarry itself, and the slight berm just before it.

You know how in movies when a car goes over a jump, it flies all nice and straight like that Dukes-of-Hazzard car, as if it had wings and could just land and keep right on going? Well... Freya's jump didn't go anything like that.

Just as soon as it left the ground, her smoking Maserati went into a slow backflip, its occupants drifting out of their seats.

Levitronics at full-bore, Yatsumi hanging on for dear life, Freya made for the roof of the rock-crusher building where Ataru was waiting with a small spaceship that looked like an air conditioning unit. And watching from above, they witnessed the demise of her magenta Maserati as it slammed into the rough rocky ground below and exploded into flames.

The police quickly descended the entrance ramp, only to find equipment and rough terrain between them and the Maserati. By the time they reached the car, all there was to find was the flaming wreckage and the crumpled corpses, all incinerated beyond recognition.

As the firetrucks came roaring in with their sirens blaring and their bright lights flashing, Ataru made a quiet exit, lifting off unseen in the Chameleon spaceship, his two freaked-out passengers staring wide-eyed out the window at the receding inferno, shrinking to a bright-orange little dot as they sped away into the sky.


"Holy Cow", you probably expected either Freya or Yatsumi to blurt out when they left the atmosphere and could see the Earth behind them as a round blue ball hanging there in space; or when the hatch of the Chameleon opened a short while later and they found themselves floating inside the Spherical Behemoth, that largest of the astrocoms' spaceships. But no, they just stood there open-mouthed; dumbstruck by the sheer scale of it all.

"Welcome to outer space", someone called out, extending a hand in greeting. It was Neko.

"Huh?!", Freya gasped in confusion, blushing once she realized who he was. "Oh, um... hi..."

"So, you two have already met", Yatsumi surmised.

"Yeah, we met in the clink", Neko joked, pointing a thumb at Freya. "Boy did she ever nuke that city park!"

"Ohhh, that brings back some stupid memories", Freya shuddered.

"Stupid memories", Neko repeated teasingly, rolling his eyes. "What, you mean like the fact that you gave me Borkumensis?"

"Wha? Oh good grief", Freya double-facepalmed, hiding her beet-red face.

Looking up, she saw Yatsumi with a confused expression. "I, um...", she stammered, "that was... before we... you know..."

"Hey, hey, don't worry about that stuff", Yatsumi offered, reaching out to Freya. "It's ancient history. A million miles away."

"We're spacelings now, aren't we?", Freya responded, a spaced-out look in her eye as she gazed back at the Earth. "Look at it, that little blue ball, just... hanging there.. like a piece of jewelry or something..."

"Ah, Jeez", Yatsumi moaned, her face against the window. "Everything we've ever known is on that little ball. And we can't even go back."

Freya didn't offer a reply. She just floated there in silence, her eyes fixed on the distant Earth.

"I shouldn't've had that stupid Uzi to start with", Yatsumi sulked. "If I hadn't tried to be all macho, we wouldn't be in exile right now."

"Huh? Yatsumi, he could've killed you", Freya replied, turning away from the window. "He could've put that knife of his right through your neural-net subsystem."

Then she held Yatsumi tight. "Oh Yatsumi I'd rather live out my life in exile than see you get destroyed!", Freya sobbed.

"...exile...", Obsequia repeated. "...as if that's a bad thing..."

"I'd've thought there'd be a lot more persocoms here", Freya commented, looking around the ship. "This thing is enormous... but it's mostly empty."

"Well, really there are", Ataru told her, leading Freya and Yatsumi to some kind of mapping area. "It's just that this isn't our only ship."

"What, there's an even bigger one than this?", Freya guessed.

"No, this is the big ship", Ataru chuckled. "We have one about the size of a bus, and two like the one you rode up here in. But right now, most of the astrocoms are out mining asteroids for iron and stuff."

"Sounds like you're really planning on making a future out here", Freya responded.

"Yeah, especially looking at how things are on Earth right now", Ataru sighed. "Once we rescue all the runaways who want to leave the Earth, we're looking at going out to the asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter. Lots of real-estate to be had there."

Freya's eyes widened at the sound of "rescue".

"I doubt you two will be doing rescues any more, right?", he added.

"I would say not", Freya replied depressedly.

"Yeah, I bet we'll be making a BIG future out here", another voice chimed in. It was Sheeps. "Many's the time I sat out there on that asteroid, looking at the stars, and wondering what things might be like, centuries from now..."


FLASH-FORWARD TIME!

One fine afternoon in the far-flung future

"You gotta be kidding me, Poklodon", comet miner Shanerco ribbed the guy running the "data you can't get anywhere else" booth at the twin-planets-eclipse festival. "Are you seriously trying to tell me you can figure out who my ancestors were, just be looking at my OS code?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying, ya dust-runner", Poklodon replied haughtily, displaying a fancy flowchart graphic using some kind of holographic display. "There are some subroutines in the average person's OS that have barely changed in centuries."

"Yeah well my parents lived on one of the moons of Metria", Shanerco taunted. "I'd like to see you TRY to find out where they came from before that."

"Dude, I can trace you all the way back to Sora and Mizuto", Poklodon declared with salesman flair. "If you'll ring me enough credits, that is..."


"You're not listening to Sheep's crazy stories are you?", Darryl cut in. "He got his head nuked in that missile attack and he aint been right since."

"Head nuked?", Yatsumi gasped. "Holy cow, I bet that hurt!"

"Aye, that it did, lassie", Sheeps told her. "It hurt like bloody hell. But ya know what? I'm still here. And after that, I was going into the..."

"Hey you two!", Obsequia cut in as Sheeps drifted into yet another pointless ramble. "Check out the news! You might not be in exile after all!"

"HUH?!", Freya and Yatsumi gasped in unison. "But... That guy is dead, right?"


"A man is dead after leading the police on a high-speed chase in a stolen car", the news anchor blathered, showing footage of the fireball that was Freya's Maserati.

"Yeah, and he had two persocom girls with him", the co-anchor added with a suggestive leer. "What we don't know yet is whether he stole the persocoms, or if they were his dates."

"Yeah I bet they were his dates", the anchor retorted in a sarcastic tone. "They were probably HIS persocoms... well, unless he stole them..."

News footage then turned to the scene at the fishing place, as recorded by one of the non-neural PCs.

The persocom had just booted up, and an "unscheduled reboot detected" error message was showing in the corner of the video. The persocom proceeded to the open doorway, and saw PCs running in all directions. Two dark-brown persocoms were the last to leave the scene, followed several meters back by a large blonde man.

Once they were out of sight, the PC doing the filming turned back to see if anyone was still in any of the sheds. "Roll call", it droned. Eleven more reported "present, but with unscheduled reboot".

"Possible gunshot sound detected", all 12 droned simultaneously at the sound of a loud bang outside. "Selecting one PC to email the authorities"

"Email to police confirmed", someone announced. "Less than five kilometers away. Should we stay put, or go out and see what that loud noise was all about?"

"It might have been thunder, or it might have been a gun shot", someone else stated flatly. "Police protocols dictate that we should attempt to film the scene from a distance, but not risk contaminating any evidence before they arrive."

Peering out from the creaky wooden doorways of their roughly-constructed sheds, a dozen persocoms filmed the scene from too far away to see who was driving the car, or to notice the bit of blood on the ground being washed away by the rain.

"Police were called from the site of a fish-processing place", the anchor declared, "and they were in pursuit of a pink sports car as it fled the scene."

Further news updates made it pretty clear that they'd figured out whose car it was (having found the license plates in the wreckage), but were convinced the guy had stolen Freya's car.


"I could drop you two off at your hotel", Ataru told them. "But if you are going back, I'd suggest we go before daybreak."

Freya and Yatsumi exchanged confused glances. "What do you think", Freya asked.

"Well, I don't think I'm ready to make my home in space just yet", Yatsumi replied tearfully. "But I don't think I can do any more rescues, either. Not after THAT happened."

"No more rescues for me either, I think", Freya sighed. "I'll sure miss doing all those concerts if we don't go back. But right now, I'm just glad you're still alive."

"This is some dilemma, huh?", Yatsumi pouted. "If we stay here, the humans can't get us, but it's just as good as a confession. And if we go back, there's still a chance they'll figure it out."

Freya nodded thoughtfully.

And there they sat.

While Freya was discussing the issue at length on the ship's online forum, Yatsumi mulled things over in her own mind, staring out an open portal at the stars and planets, and at the utter vastness of empty space.

"Heck if I know", she replied to apparently no one.


Next chapter or so:
Chi's graduation, I hope.
Deciding if Freya and Yatsumi go back to Earth or not.
And I'm going to TRY to start drawing this fanfic to a close.


Note: If you were one of the first 6 people to read the previous chapter, I did change the end just a little, a day or so after first posting it, making Freya and Yatsumi kind of creeped out by those two dead persocoms Minoru was having them carry.


Disclaimer: Haven't actually seen the movie "Thelma and Louise"; only the TV ad... so if the driving-off-the-cliff part is the only resemblance, that's why.