Won't Get Fooled Again

by Sean Gaffney

A sequel to my fic I Am One, this is a crossover between the Dirty Pair, Robert Heinlein's Future History, and certain characters from Evangelion. And lots of other stuff. It's big. I wrote it in 1997. Enjoy.

2. Part 2: The Dirty Jobs

(Note: in this part, there are two characters called Jamie. When in separate rooms, they will be referred to as Jamie. When together, one of them will be called by her nickname, Zen.)

(Yes, _that_ Zen.)

Part Two: The Dirty Jobs

There was absolutely no sense of waking up. Shasti found herself fully conscious, walking along a forest path. She looked down at herself, and saw she was wearing a ridiculously impractical dress, with a large hoop skirt, and what felt like a whalebone corset. *What in God's name was I thinking*, she asked herself. She attempted to stop and get a better look at her surroundings, but her body did not seem to be listening to her. Despite every attempt her brain made to tell it to stop, it continued along the path.

Finally giving up, Shasti began to get a little scared. After all, she had only recently recovered from her multiple personality disorder, not to mention the trauma of being, as Cory put it, 'slightly psychotic'. Had something happened to her? Was one of her personalities in charge again, and if so, why couldn't she communicate with it?

She was unable to think much on the subject, however, as she saw a fork in the path in the distance, with a figure standing by it. On closer inspection, it turned out to be Deirdre, wearing a dress every bit as silly as Shasti's, but in blue instead of Shasti's dark green. "There you are!" Deirdre exclaimed. "I was beginning to think you'd never make it. I sent Kei and Yuri along to set everything up."

Shasti tried to tell Deirdre what was happening to her, but something completely different came from her lips. "Yes, I would have been here sooner, but it took me _ages_ to find the right dress."

Deirdre laughed. "Really, Shasti, it's not as if there will be any men on this picnic. I see you even put on the corset."

"One never knows when a man might come popping up, Deirdre my sweet, and I intend to be prepared for any eventuality." Shasti simply could not believe what she was saying. What the hell was happening to her?

As they entered the clearing, Shasti saw Kei and Yuri, dressed in clothing just as fancy as hers, spreading out a couple of blankets and putting down a truly incredible amount of food. As Shasti gaped from inside her mind, she saw Kei lift a finger into the air, and laugh as a bird settled down onto it and started to twitter.

Yuri glanced over. "Kei, I wish I had your command with the birds and animals. How do you get them to do that?"

Kei blushed. Shasti felt like rubbing her eyes to make sure she'd seen that properly. Her voice was different, too, very quiet and shy. "They know that I would never hurt them, Yuri, that's all."

Deirdre and Shasti walked over. Shasti felt herself talking, again seemingly without any conscious control. "I take it that Kei's presence here means that we won't be having any pheasant?"

The bird on Kei's hand twittered and flew off. Kei turned a disapproving stare on Shasti. "You did that on purpose."

Deirdre interrupted. "It might have been a good idea, Kei, for we have all this food, and we cannot give it all to the birds."

Kei smiled shyly. "Considering the number of cakes that Yuri packed, you are probably correct. Besides, that much sugar is surely bad for their constitution."

The four of them sat down and Yuri began to pass around the plates. Deirdre took a bun. "Shasti, would you be a dear and pass me the butter knife?"

Shasti saw herself pick up the knife. But instead of handing it to Deirdre, she gripped it by the blade and threw it right at Deirdre. Despite the blunt edge, it cut through Deirdre's neck, sending her head flying onto the blanket. It landed directly on Yuri's plate.

Inside her head, Shasti screamed in horror. But Kei and Yuri's only reaction seemed to be distaste. "Shasti, we have told you that this penchant for killing your best friend has got to stop. Now go put her body with the others, and we shall try to get back to our meal."

Numbly, Shasti attempted to sob. But all that her body did was carefully gather up the body under one arm, take Deirdre's head in the other, and set out for a point just off to the side of the clearing.

Shasti had thought that this could not possibly get any worse. She had promised Deirdre that she would never kill her again. Now it seemed that she had broken that promise. But as she came over the rise, she saw a sight that filled her with loathing. Finally, she had control of her body, and she let go of Deirdre and fell to the ground, retching and screaming.

Before her lay at least a hundred corpses. All of them had the same thing in common: they were all Deirdre. Some had been decapitated, others were blackened, as if burned. Still others looked pruny and sickly with poison. And all of them had their eyes turned towards Shasti, accusing her without words but only with their dead gazes.

Shasti looked back at the clearing, but Kei and Yuri had disappeared. She let out another scream, finally able to express the confusion, rage and grief that had consumed her since she first woke.

"So. It seems that I was wrong about you."

Shasti turned in shock. Standing on the other side of the corpses was Cory Emerson, looking at Shasti with hatred and disgust.

Cory continued. "I should have known better than to think you could reform. After all, you're not a real person. You're just a robot, a robot whose programming was faulty. Look around you, look at all the death and pain you've caused. You killed them all, Shasti."

Shasti rose to her feet, shaking. "No, I didn't. It's not true! I'm better now, I didn't kill her, I -- "

Cory walked across the pile of bodies and slapped Shasti across the face. "Look around you! Deirdre is dead a hundred times over, and I see you standing here covered in blood. What else am I supposed to believe?"

Looking down at herself, Shasti could now see that she was covered in blood and gore, seeping through her dress and staining her skin. She turned back to Cory in terror.

But Cory had already turned, and was beginning to walk away. "I can't believe I ever considered you a friend." Then she was gone.

Shasti began to panic, desperately trying to convince Cory that she was innocent, despite all the evidence before her. But she was finding it increasingly hard to move. She didn't want to look down, but couldn't help herself.

Deirdre's corpses were raising themselves up and attempting to drag Shasti down to the ground. She vainly attempted to resist, but there were so many of them, so many Deirdres that she'd killed, and they were beginning to succeed. Shasti slipped and fell to the ground, and then they were on top of her, choking and pummelling her.

Shasti screamed one last time, as she felt her neck snap...

***

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIHGGHGHGGGGGGGGGH!!!!!!"

The scream made everyone in the room jump. Ishtar and Deirdre ran across the room, the former attempting to find out what the problem was, the latter holding her partner while trying to soothe her.

Gradually, the screams died down, and then Shasti opened her eyes. Cory, Kei and Yuri came over now, looking at Shasti with concern in their eyes.

She screamed again and tried to struggle out of Deirdre's arms. "No, I killed you. I saw it."

Deirdre tried to reassure her. "Shasti, that was a long time ago..."

Shasti was beginning to tremble, and her head was shaking back and forth. "No, just now. I couldn't stop myself. We were having a picnic, and I decapitated you, and Cory wouldn't speak to me, and all of these corpses with your face tried to kill me..." The last was all but unintelligible, as she started to sob again.

Cory blinked. "It sounds like Shasti had a nightmare."

Deirdre shook her head. "No, it can't be. Shasti's never been able to have nightmares bef..." She slowly ground to a halt, staring at the woman in her arms. "Could it be...is this one of the things she'd get from being made completely human? Ishtar?"

Ishtar, who had been checking on Shasti's condition, shrugged. "I don't see why not. Shasti's clone body is just as human as the rest of us."

Deirdre's brow furrowed. "But her brain is the same. I thought that would be what would control her dreams and nightmares. Why would the sudden change of bodies cause it?"

Ishtar frowned as well. "Perhaps Shasti has always been able to dream, and has just suppressed it until now. On the other hand, there were so many devices implanted in her body that we didn't know about. Thought controllers, metabolic regulators, you name it. Any one of those could have been responsible for Shasti's lack of dreaming. Now that she doesn't have them anymore...I imagine it would be quite a shock to her, judging from the description of her nightmare."

Deirdre nodded. "It sounded like her worst fears coming true. Not being able to control her actions, killing me, Cory abandoning her..." She turned her attention back to Shasti, who was still shuddering, albeit less violently. "Shasti, it's alright. I'm here, and I'm not dead. It must have been a nightmare, Shasti. You just had a nightmare."

After a few moments, Shasti's tear-streaked face came into view. "A nightmare? As in dreaming?"

"Yes, Shasti," Cory put in. "Ishtar says that you should be able to dream just as easily as the rest of us now."

"A nightmare...I had an actual nightmare..."

Suddenly Shasti's face split into a grin, and she began to laugh. "I did it! I dreamed! Deirdre, *I did it*!"

The others were rather alarmed at this change in Shasti's demeanour, but Deirdre knew why she was acting this way. Not being able to dream had weighed heavily on Shasti's mind. It was one of the things that constantly reminded her she wasn't human. To her, a dream, even a bad one, would be seen as coming one step closer to her goal. Deirdre grinned, and hugged Shasti tightly. "You said it, partner. You did it!"

Just as quickly, Shasti became serious again. "Oh god, it was so real. I couldn't believe what was happening to me! I knew what was happening, but I couldn't control myself..."

"Shasti, it's OK. A lot of dreams are like that..." Cory said soothingly.

But Shasti wasn't listening. "And then I threw the butter knife and decapitated Deirdre, and Yuri made me take the body away."

Despite herself, Deirdre giggled. "You decapitated me with a butter knife? Wow, Shasti, you're more talented than I thought!"

Shasti, as more details of her nightmare came back to her, began to laugh as well. "And we were having a picnic with Kei and Yuri, and I was wearing a corset, and Kei was a shy young thing who was kind to small animals! A bird actually landed on her finger!"

Cory and Yuri, catching on to what Deirdre was trying to do, began to laugh as well. Kei was a little more reticent. "I don't see why the idea of me being sweet is so funny," she grumbled.

Shasti was shaking with laughter. "And then Yuri, rather than being horrified when you died, just snootily told me to put the body with the others! And I went over to this hill, and there were *hundreds* of you, and they were all dead and they were looking at me and then Cory called me a murderer and I couldn't move again and they came to life and you all started to kill me! NO! KEEP AWAY FROM ME!"

Shasti's speech had grown from hysterical laughter to hysteria, and she finally managed to hurl herself out of the bed and away from the other, inadvertently ripping out her IV in the process. She curled up in the corner and started to shake again.

Deirdre's face fell. She had hoped that Shasti would be able to take to being fully human easily, but it seemed that it was going to be more complicated than that. She turned to Ishtar. "This is a result of the operation, isn't it?" Her voice held a note of accusation.

Ishtar sighed. "For the most part, although I think Shasti's sense of self still being underdeveloped might be an additional problem. This sort of operation is never easy. Even the most well-adjusted patients take at least a week to recover fully, usually more."

"The problem is, Shasti is not just dealing with a new body. She's dealing with glands, and hormones, and other things that were, for simplicity's sake, programmed into her bioroid body. She thinks that she can control her emotions, but she can't. It's something she's going to have to learn. I wish Briareos was here."

"Who?"

"One of the reasons I went ahead with this is because we had done something like it before. Although Briareos had been human once before being converted to a cyborg. Plus he was far more well-adjusted than Shasti was. In any case, he and Deunan are off planet now, so Shasti's recovery will have to be handled by all of us."

Ishtar looked at the shape huddled in the corner. "It could take a lot of time. At least a month."

"We don't have a month."

Everyone turned to the doorway. Hilda was standing there with a determined look on her face.

"The Circle has declared this a major operation, and we need everyone we can get. That includes Shasti. I need her to be up and ready to fight in a week."

Ishtar, unfazed, rose to her feet and marched over to Hilda. "A week is impossible. I simply do not have the resources. Hilda, look at her. I could try to do a quick paste-up recovery, but it might cripple her mind later on. Do you want to take that risk?"

Hilda's face remained unchanging. Even though the doctor was at least a foot and a half taller, it seemed as if Hilda was towering over her. "We have the resources. I've already talked with the Circle about this, and we can get Shasti to a place where she can recover extremely quickly."

"Where is that?"

"Oz."

Ishtar slumped into a chair, putting her head in her hands. "Oh, for God's sake, Hilda."

"I can't think of a better place. We have Glinda there to make sure that Shasti can't inadvertently cause any harm. Ozma is ready to talk to her about multiple personalities; after all, she was Tip for several years."

"That's not quite the same thing."

"No, but she's willing to give it a try. And the sheer number of creatures there who consider themselves fully sentient, despite being made of straw, or wood, or pumpkins, or clockwork...in fact, Tik-Tok has expressed a keen interest in talking to Shasti."

Ishtar sighed. It was no good arguing with Hilda when she got like this. She turned to the others. "Do any of you have any opinions on this?"

Deirdre was the one who spoke up. "From what I've read, I suppose Oz would be as good a place as any...we are talking about the books by L. Frank Baum?"

Hilda laughed. "Indeed. Have one of the others tell you about the concept of World-As-Myth."

Deirdre decided to let that pass for the time being. "Well, it could be a very good way of helping Shasti. After all, she never had a real childhood. She came out of the tank, and two months later she's a trouble consultant. The concept of play, in its purest form, is baffling to her. But I don't see how it can take less than a month. Shasti is...not at her best right now. If we were to put her into a battle situation unprepared, we could end up ruining everything we've done for her so far."

Hilda smiled. "I know. If there was any way to avoid this, I'd take it. But we can't just sit and wait for Jimmy to make the first move. We have to be ready for him, and that means we need information. You and Shasti are the two that know him best, one through experience and one through similar upbringing. We need her. Otherwise we might not be able to win this one."

"Jimmy? Jimmy's alive?"

Everyone in the room jumped. Having gotten caught up in the argument, they had totally forgotten about Shasti, huddled in the corner of the room. She was looking up at Hilda, still trembling, but her face was composed.

She asked again. "Jimmy is alive?"

Hilda nodded. "Yes. Furthermore, he's head of 3WA now. We're going to try and stop him. We need your help."

Shasti nodded. "I'll do whatever it takes."

Deirdre and Cory both shouted "Shasti!" at the same time.

"NO!" Shasti bellowed, startling everyone. "I need to do this. Jimmy is partially my fault, if only because of the success of my creation." Shasti pronounced 'success' oddly, as if the word meant something different to her. "If I let you all go without me, I could never forgive myself. I'll do whatever I need to do to...get myself under control." For a moment a giggle burst from her lips, but she quickly suppressed it. Clutching at herself tighter, she added, "Because I'm no use to anyone like this."

***

Shasti and Cory walked up the corridor towards the ship. It had introduced itself to them earlier as Gay Deceiver, which had thrown Shasti into a momentary panic. She was getting worse and worse at controlling her emotions. One moment she'd be happy and laughing, the next, screaming with anger and rage, or sobbing and collapsing onto her bed. Hilda had gradually convinced the rest of them that a trip to Oz would be the best thing for her.

Cory had gotten used to the concept of World-As-Myth, but that didn't mean she had to like it. She hated the idea of being fictional, of some writer somewhere telling her what she could or couldn't feel. In a way, she supposed, Shasti must have felt the same way when her own controls were destroyed by LaCombe.

Kei, Yuri and Deirdre were with Hilda and Lazarus, preparing an initial team to investigate. Against her better judgement, Cory would be joining them later.

Lazarus seemed to be avoiding saying anything upsetting, and would look away whenever she glared in his direction.

*Good,* she thought. *Maybe now he'll understand a little bit of what I felt when he was making all those accusations...*

She quickly filed those thoughts away: she didn't want to get into that now. There were more important things to worry about. Cory had decided to join the team because there was a clone of her out there, somewhere in her universe, making a travesty of her life. *A _talk show_, for God's sake! How on Earth did anyone believe that I could have gotten so shallow so quickly? Sure, I always told my editor I wanted to move on to better stories, but not by totally compromising my credibility!*

This clone, whoever she was, was going to have to be taken care of. The thought of killing anyone still made Cory's skin crawl, but maybe there was some other option. Deirdre had been able to shake off whatever training Jimmy had given her, maybe this clone could as well. Of course, that would still mean that there would still be two Cory Emersons in the world.

Cory's reverie was interrupted as Shasti clutched briefly at her arm. "Shasti, are you all right?" Cory asked.

She could see Shasti pause and take a few deep breaths before trying to reply. "No, I'm not. I hope this works, Cory. I really do. But if it doesn't, if I'm going to be like this for the rest of my life..."

Cory was startled at how troubled Shasti sounded. She attempted to reassure her. "Don't worry, Shasti. Everything will be fine."

Shasti turned towards her. "Cory, I tried to kill myself last night."

Cory's eyes bugged out. "WHAT?!" she yelled.

"I can't think anymore. I try to control myself, but then something happens, and I lose it. Last night, I couldn't take it anymore, and I tried to hang myself. But that stupid computer never goes to sleep, and it told the doctor what I was doing. They strapped me down for the rest of the evening. Cory, they're already treating me as if I was mentally ill..."

"They're trying to protect you." Cory protested.

But Shasti wasn't listening. "Why did I let them do this to me? I was finally beginning to get a hold of my life, and now this happens. Why did I tell them to do this?" Suddenly, she turned on Cory, furious. "You let them. You could have stopped them! WHY DID YOU LET THEM DO THIS TO ME?!"

Cory could see the blow coming, but was so shocked that she didn't even try to dodge. Shasti's punch sent her head rocking back, and she crumpled to the floor. She desperately tried not to pass out, fearing what Shasti might try if she did.

But as quickly as it had come, Shasti's anger vanished. Cory found herself being held in Shasti's arms while the woman stroked her head and wept. "My God, Cory, I hit you! I'm sorry! Why did I hit you, it's not your fault, Oh God I'm sorry, I don't deserve you for a friend, you must hate me, I'm sorry..."

Cory's first reaction was to slap Shasti to snap her out of it, but she realised that that would be the worst thing she could do. Instead, she reached out and gently put her hand over Shasti's mouth. Startled, Shasti stopped for a moment.

"Shasti, I'm fine." Actually, her jaw felt as if it was almost broken, but this wasn't the right time to complain. "You're right, though. This is something you need to do. I'm sorry too, Shasti. Sorry for doubting you. Let's get you over to Gay Deceiver so that we can get you better."

Shasti broke down and began to sob on Cory's shoulder. Cory ached inside; she hated seeing Shasti like this, any confidence she once had now destroyed.

Suddenly, Shasti's sobbing ceased, and she stood up, helping Cory at the same time. "I'm alright now, I think. Let's get to the ship though, I don't know how long it will last."

Cory nodded. "Right."

As they headed down the corridor once more, Shasti's face took on a determined set. She would do this. She would get her mind back together, and she would help her friends. She owed them for so many things, and she would not let them down again. Images of shooting Deirdre in the back flashed across her mind, and she briefly winced.

Not again. Never again.

***

Asuka had promised herself that she would not screw up this partnership. She would be polite, take everyone's feelings into account, not scream at them for being incompetent, and try to let them help out with the mission a bit as well.

Which was why this new partner was driving her up the wall.

She was so passive! *I mean, I know that the Central Computer chose us as partners because we complemented each other, but this is ridiculous!*

One of the things that worried Asuka was the way that Rei tended to pause for a few seconds before responding to any question, as if she was evaluating every single answer in her mind. Asuka hoped that she wasn't going to be like this in a combat situation...because if she froze up in the middle of a shootout, not only would she get herself killed, but Asuka as well.

There were so many questions that Asuka wanted to ask Rei. However, if she got too inquisitive, Rei might want to know something about her in return. A fair question for almost anyone else, the thought of describing her life up to this point to anyone gave Asuka the shakes. So she decided to just live with the fact that her partner was a stiff, and try and do something about it in other ways.

They were currently sitting in the medical bay, waiting for Doctor Akagi to finish with her other patients. Asuka wasn't very comfortable with getting all the information from the computer. Oh, it saved time, but she wanted the experience of being able to ferret out the clues, slowly finding the answer. Using all this technology wasn't as satisfying.

Rei hadn't complained, or even cared. She was sitting quietly in the corner, as if someone had turned off a switch. Who knows, maybe she's some kind of robot, Asuka thought. This left Asuka to lie on a bed and stare at the ceiling, cursing her new partner, the wait the doctor was putting them through, and Shasti for being evil enough to do all this in the first place.

*Not that I'm complaining, but they could have started me off with something easier,* she thought. *She could be anywhere in the galaxy by now, she's got warped clones of three of the best agents the 3WA's ever produced, and they expect us to just waltz up and capture them? Right, I can imagine that scene. Maybe Mr. Daltrey was right. Maybe we will have to kill them.*

Frustrated, she rolled off the bed and got to her feet. Rei continued to ignore her. Asuka finally decided to take action. Maybe she couldn't ask why she was that way, but she could certainly do something about it. Mr. Daltrey had made it her secondary mission to get Rei to open up and have emotions, and that's exactly what Asuka was going to do.

She walked over to Rei and dramatically pointed a finger at her. "This is totally unacceptable! I'm not going to have a partner who just sits and doesn't talk! Mr. Daltrey -- "

"Jimmy," Rei interrupted.

Asuka still had trouble with that. "Don't interrupt me! J-Jimmy told me to handle your emotional needs, and that's just what I'm going to do! For starters, we'll try a laugh. Laugh."

Rei looked blankly at Asuka. There was a ten-second pause before she answered. "Why?"

"Because you need to develop your emotional centres! You won't willingly laugh until you get used to it, so you've got to practice. Go ahead, try it."

For one moment, Asuka thought she saw a look of frustration pass across Rei's face. This might have been her imagination, however, as a second later Rei looked back with her blank face again.

"I'm sorry. I'm not sure..."

"It's easy. Watch me." Asuka threw back her head and laughed. Unfortunately, the combination of the frustration of the day and a lack of anything genuinely funny around her made the laugh sound somewhat maniacal. Asuka flushed, embarrassed.

However, her laugh did have the benefit of making Rei change her expression. Rei cocked her head and looked closer at Asuka. "Are you feeling well?"

Asuka flushed even more. "I'm fine! Dammit, where is that doctor?" She sighed. "Look, let's start smaller. Try at least smiling."

Once again, Rei paused for a few seconds, and then asked, "Why?"

Asuka found herself shouting. *Well,* she thought, *I lasted longer with this one than my other temporary partners.* "Because it's something you need to learn! Because you're happy!"

Rei frowned, and Asuka nearly cried. This was exactly the opposite of what she was going for. Rei's next question startled her, though.

"Am I happy?"

~~~

"Why do you want to be a 3WA agent?"

"To help others."

"That is what you think I want to hear."

"...my mother wants me to."

"That is what she wants. Why do _you_ want to be a 3WA trouble consultant?"

"..."

"To feel needed?"

"No!"

"To feel admired?"

"NO!"

"To find peace?"

"SHUT UP!!!"

"To be happy?"

~~~

As Asuka came back to reality, she saw that Rei was actually shaking her. "Asuka, are you okay?"

Asuka pulled away. Good God, she was even crying! Where had that memory come from? She'd never had any training like that! She turned away from Rei, looking at the wall of the clinic.

"I don't know if you're happy, Rei. But I think you should be. You're an agent in the 3WA, one of the best organisations in the galaxy. The Central Computer personally selected you as one of its best agents. And besides," and here Asuka turned and grinned, "you're partnered with someone as brilliant as me."

Rei listened to all of this impassively. Then, when Asuka got to the end of her speech, Rei's mouth curled upwards. It wasn't an ironic or sarcastic smile, as Asuka used so often. It was genuinely warm.

"You're right. I should be happy."

Asuka gazed with relief at Rei, and found herself grinning widely. Victory.

Suddenly the door opened, and Doctor Ritsuko Akagi stepped into the room. "Sorry to keep you waiting, but my other patient is a troublemaker. If you'll come this way, I'll hook you up to the information you need."

Asuka cursed inwardly. Naturally, the doctor chose *that* moment to show up. Sighing, she got off the bed and followed her, with Rei bringing up the rear. Suddenly, she heard a voice from behind her.

"Asuka...thank you."

Asuka didn't turn around, but she thought she could sense a bit of a smile in the voice.

***

Upon entering the medical bay, the first thing Asuka noticed was the loud argument coming from the next room over. Doctor Akagi sighed.

"You'll have to excuse us. I'm sure by now you heard about the Lovely Angels' latest disaster of a mission. Yuri's been recuperating in here, and Kei is visiting her. As you can imagine, this means that the two of them have been fighting non-stop for the past two hours."

An assistant walked up. "Yeah, the Central Computer cleared them of all the charges, but the 3WA is finding it hard to convince the press of that. No thanks to Cory's talk show. I thought she was supposed to be friends with them?"

Asuka shrugged; she didn't know enough about the Pair's social lives. Oh well, that's the sort of thing that would be in the briefing; Shasti was supposed to have cloned them as well. She turned to Rei.

"Since the Pai--Angels are here, why don't we ask them what their opinions of Shasti are?"

Rei stared at Asuka. "Why? The memory downloads should tell us everything."

Asuka fumed. "We should talk to them anyway! Who knows what might not be in the memory downloads!"

Dr. Akagi's assistant beamed. "The downloads provide a complete picture, agent Asuka. It's impossible to keep something from them. Who is this Shasti anyway?"

Asuka sighed. "We can't really talk about it."

The assistant grinned. "Oh, one of *those* cases."

Dr. Akagi walked over. "Here, Maya, these should be the files that they'll need. Agents Shasti, Deirdre, Kei and Yuri."

Maya got up. "Right. I'll be right back." She then left the room with a little spring in her step. Asuka sighed. *I remember when I used to be that perky. When did I become so cynical?*

Dr. Akagi looked closely at her. "Why so glum?"

Asuka narrowed her eyes, but then realised that if she couldn't talk to the 3WA's top physician, then who could she talk to? "I just...the way we're going about this bothers me. Shasti's been hiding for years, why does the 3WA think that we'd just snap her up? This case is being treated way too casually. Plus I don't like the idea of all my detective work being done by these memory downloads. I want to find things out for myself!"

Dr. Akagi smiled. "I sympathise, Agent Asuka, but you have to understand that we have better methods now. You can get the same results with a five-minute download as you could spending a week walking around and talking to people. Also, the downloads include feelings, emotions, impressions - you're not missing anything. Time is of the essence."

Asuka grumbled. "Why don't they just use bioroids for the agents then?"

Dr. Akagi winced. "They tried. That's how Shasti came to be. The downloads should tell you everything."

***

Maya looked at the plugs she had been sent to collect. Everyone was acting very secretive about this mission that those two were on, a lot more so than usual. Ritsuko seemed to know something, but she wasn't telling. Maya could tell she was upset, though.

Maya hated being kept in the dark. There was something going on here, and she wanted to know about it. She snuck a glance at the door. She had a few minutes, she could claim that there was a problem with the patients again. God knows they'd had enough of those today.

Quickly she selected the Shasti plug and inserted it into her cyberjack. If there was something wrong, maybe she'd be able to help Ritsuko get over it...

Maya jerked and her eyes glazed over. The plug wasn't working, something had gone wrong. She tried to yank it out, but found that she no longer seemed able to control her body. Her consciousness seemed farther and farther away. She tried to scream for help, but it was as if she wasn't in her body anymore.

Her mind was wracked with pain, and she began to feel her awareness fade...

***

A hand reached out and plucked the plug from the girl's neck. Maya's body slumped momentarily, but then straightened again. There seemed to be a difference, though, maybe it was in the eyes.

The other occupant in the room sighed. "That was not what was supposed to happen. Dammit."

"What now?"

"Now we go for Plan B. We'll have to let those two run around for a little longer to avoid suspicion while I see if I can prepare another one of these. I only have two. I should have foreseen something like this, but I was having too much fun imagining the torment they'd go through. Well, nothing to be done about it now. Come on."

"Why don't you use the other plug?"

Cory Emerson smiled. "That's the other part of Plan B. The other plug is for Dr. Akagi. That's one I'm going to take special care to make sure is done right."

She looked at the plug in her hand marked Shasti, that contained all that was left of Maya Ibuki. "This should still work as an information plug, though. All we need to do is get rid of the irrelevant data..." She began to giggle.

***

Asuka sighed as she rubbed her temples. The dataplugs were supposed to be a perfect science, but there were still people who had trouble assimilating the information properly. Asuka was one of those; she now had a raging migraine from trying to take in all the information at once. She looked over at Rei, who seemed to be just fine. *Of course,* thought Asuka, *she's perfect in so many other ways, why not?*

Asuka quickly stifled that thought as she reminded herself that she was going to get along with her new partner even if it killed her. She got up off of the bed and walked up to Doctor Akagi. "So, is this it?"

Dr. Akagi blinked at her. "That's it. You should know everything that 3WA knows about the Shasti case. Which, admittedly, isn't much; Shasti was such an enigma in the first place, and there are no other bioroids around to make comparisons to."

Asuka frowned as she sifted through the information in her head. There certainly wasn't much of it.

Shasti was an experimental bioroid designed to be the perfect 3WA agent. It hadn't worked. She'd gone insane, killed her partner, and tried to kill the Lovely Angels before going on a criminal spree of unprecedented proportions. That was it. No background, no possible motive, and most disturbingly, no follow-ups. Jimmy had said that several people had tried to bring Shasti to justice. Why weren't they in here?

She tried to catch the eye of her partner, only to find that Rei was also looking troubled. They both looked at each other, then looked at Doctor Akagi. Not in front of her, Asuka thought. If she's telling us that these plugs are complete, then she might be involved.

Asuka shook herself. She was already beginning to get paranoid. Why shouldn't she trust Dr. Akagi? The 3WA was what she had devoted her whole life to; she had to believe in it.

Still, there was still something nagging at her...

She straightened. "Well, we'd better get back to work. Thank you for your help, Doctor."

Dr. Akagi smiled. "Anytime." She seemed nervous for some reason, which did nothing to quell Asuka's doubts. She saluted and marched out of the room, more confused than ever. Rei quietly followed her, not bothering to salute.

***

Ritsuko watched the agents leave the room, and then turned back to her work. After about five minutes, she heard a noise from behind her, and swiftly turned. Maya was directly behind her, holding one of the memory plugs.

Maya smiled. "Sorry, Dr. Akagi, but there seems to be something wrong with one of these plugs. I was wondering if you'd take a look at it."

*Dr. Akagi?* Ritsuko's unease solidified as she took a look at the plug. Seemed utterly normal. "What's the problem?"

"I'm not really sure. Maybe if you tried uploading it..."

Ritsuko looked up with a flat gaze. "I don't know if that would be a good idea. Worst case scenario, I'd wind up just like you." She put the plug down and quickly raised her gun. She's been wearing it for the past three days, ever since she'd found out that they were going to do an 'official' investigation of Shasti. And official investigation of Shasti, she knew, would lead to Jimmy. And Jimmy was too smart to let some rookie agents discover his past.

There had been several accidents and forced retirements lately. Most of her colleagues were dead or missing now. She knew what was going on, but didn't dare say anything. This was a new administration, and no one knew the shady past it emerged from. No one except Jimmy, and herself.

Maya looked at the gun and her face went slack. "Where did I go wrong?"

"Calling me Dr. Akagi instead of Ritsuko was a big hint. Maya always called me Ritsuko. I think she had a crush on me." Ritsuko watched Maya's face carefully, but there was no reaction. *Damn. So much for any hope of Maya being left in there.*

"I presume this plug is for me, then."

"Indeed." Ritsuko whirled around, and found herself staring at Cory Emerson. What in God's name was she doing there? Good Lord, could this conspiracy have moved even further than she'd thought?

Cory smirked. "As you know, your colleagues from Experiment 101-E have been dropping like flies recently. People have even begun to take notice of it. So, sadly, we can't arrange the same for you. Still, all is not lost. You're fairly high up in the 3WA hierarchy, and could be of considerable use to us. So I came up with another plan. The other plug was supposed to affect Agent Asuka rather than your assistant, but she proved a little too curious."

A small tear escaped Ritsuko's eye. *Oh, Maya...*

Cory looked at the gun that Ritsuko was levelling at her. "I hope you don't think that you could just waltz out of here using that. There's no way you'd get away."

Ritsuko smiled weakly. "I know that. But there's one small thing. I'd rather die than be used by you like that." She quickly raised the gun to her head. "And I never intended to use this gun on anyone else."

Cory snarled, and reached out, but she was far too late to stop Ritsuko from pulling the trigger.

***

Asuka and Rei walked a few doors away from the medical bay before they risked talking. "You noticed too, then?" Asuka began.

Rei nodded. "The plugs are incomplete. Someone deleted information from them before we could access it."

"How do you know that it was deleted? Maybe it wasn't even there in the first place."

"I can feel..." Rei paused, as if to decide how best to say what she was thinking. "I can feel the place where the information used to be. It's like a paper that's had the bottom half torn off. You can still see where it went on."

Asuka blinked, rather surprised. "Is that a wetware package you picked up?"

For a moment, Rei looked uncomfortable, before returning to her impassive mask. "I've always been like this." She paused again. "Asuka, do you like me?"

"What?" The question seemed so unlike Rei that Asuka was taken aback. She turned away from Rei. "Yeah, I suppose. I mean, you're a stiff, but we're working on that. We're partners, right?"

"Yes, we are." There was something in the way that Rei said those words that sent a shiver up Asuka's spine.

Asuka waited for Rei to say something else, but there didn't seem to be anything more. She just put it down to another of Rei's oddities and moved on. "Look, I'm not sure why the information was deleted. Maybe Doctor Akagi is working for Shasti in some way."

"Shasti? You think this has anything to do with Shasti?"

Asuka spun around in shock, though Rei seemed to have expected it. A shape huddled in the doorway, concealed by a cloak. It was clear that he was trying his best to remain anonymous. It was also clear that he wasn't very good at it.

"I suppose that Shasti is involved in an oblique way, but that's not why the plugs were tampered with. You need to -- Aaargh!"

Rei had moved with a lightning-quick speed and grabbed his hands, forcing them behind his back. Asuka grinned. "Now, why don't you tell me who you are...you!"

She had ripped the hood from off his head, and was rather surprised to find Jimmy's secretary, Sebastian, under it. He smiled weakly at her. "Greetings, Fraulein."

She flushed, remembering how he'd embarrassed her at Jimmy's office. "What the hell do you want?"

His eyes darkened. "I want the truth. It's getting increasingly harder to find these days."

Rei looked at him curiously, still holding his hands behind his back. "If you're seeking the truth, why are you hiding in doorways and trying to deceive us?"

"I'm not trying to deceive you at all!" Bast exclaimed, the relaxed a bit. "Look, finding the truth in the WWWA is difficult these days. Plus, it can also kill. I'm not doing this cloak and dagger stuff to hide from you, I'm doing it to hide from _them_."

Asuka noticed his voice was getting more anxious. "Them?" she asked, in her best amused tone.

He glared at her. "Jimmy. And the woman behind him."

"You don't trust your own boss?"

"Of course not. I know Jimmy better than almost anyone else, Agent Asuka. And he scares me. It's a huge risk coming here to talk to you, but I'm doing it because the alternative scares me even more."

Bast gave both Asuka and Rei a level stare. "There are a lot of people who'd been with the Agency for years who have disappeared, or died in mysterious circumstances. He's got his fingers into everything. Hell, he's even got _you_ working for him."

This last statement was directed at Rei, who seemed to flinch a little. Asuka didn't understand why. "We're both working for him."

"Not 3WA, Agent Asuka. For Jimmy himself. Jimmy's plans have nothing to do with the future of our organisation, take it from me." He turned back to Rei. "Well? You do still have some sort of free will, or at least I hope the CC left you that. Do you work for 3WA, or do you work for Jimmy Daltrey?"

Almost a minute went by while Rei blanked out. Bast just nodded, as if he had expected this. Finally, she responded.

"I work for 3WA."

Bast smiled. "Good, so do I. Now, to get to what I was saying. Let's keep this quick, I'm still very nervous about being discovered here. The reason the plugs were wiped has nothing at all to do with Shasti, so don't even bother trying to investigate her past. Anyway, if you follow the lines I'll give you, you'll get that information anyway -- "

Asuka had had enough. "No disrespect, Mr. Weinberg, but to hell with you! I'm not having you tell me what to do! I'm a trained 3WA agent, you know! Plus, why are we supposed to trust you? Here you are, telling us that our leader is this great evil figure? I don't buy it!"

Bast sighed. "Fine, so what _are_ you going to investigate? The plugs gave you nothing you couldn't have gotten from reading old records. I should know, I shredded all the relevant ones myself."

Asuka just got madder. "We'll go question witnesses. The Pai -- the Angels are still in the infirmary. We'll go question them, and I'm sure we'll get a lot more from them than we ever would from you."

Bast was silent for a moment, and then began to laugh. "All right. Question the Pair. I'm sure they'll tell you a lot, though it might not be exactly what you came looking for. I'm done, you can let me go."

Rei paused for a moment, then nodded. Bast quickly put the hood back over his head.

Asuka looked him over. "You're only drawing attention to yourself in that getup."

"Well, I'm not very good at hiding!" Now it was Bast's turn to be angry. "Look, go off and do your detective work. But trust me, if you intend to get to the bottom of this, don't investigate Shasti's past. Investigate Jimmy." Once again, he gave Rei a hard look, which she returned with no expression.

He sighed, and reached into his cloak. "And here, one more thing." He handed Rei an envelope. "Only open this if you have no more options to take. Opening too soon could be deadly. It could be deadly anyway, but the later the better."

Asuka tried to take the envelope, but Bast stopped her. "No. Rei, much as I don't trust her, will take the envelope. You are simply too impulsive."

Asuka growled, then spun on her heel and stalked off. Rei looked at Bast for a moment, then followed.

Bast allowed himself a sad smile. "I should have done more. I should be doing more."

Instead, he headed back to Jimmy's office.

***

Cory sat in Dora, slumped in the co-pilot's chair. The bridge was empty at the moment, as Dora was taking care of getting them to their destination. So Cory was faced with a two-hour journey with nothing to do except socialise. That was why she had come up here; to get _away_ for a few minutes and think about how she'd got here.

After making sure Shasti was safely away, she'd come back to the Circle, which was having a full meeting to discuss what needed to be done in order to fix things. She'd been through this once before, on her last visit, but was surprised at how slick the whole thing had become. Her first meeting with what would eventually become The Circle of Ouroboros hadn't gone _nearly_ as smoothly...

~~~~~~~~

It was not a happy crew that returned to Tertius. Kei and Yuri were in shock over Mughi's death, Laz and Lor were upset that they had ended up ruining the timeline, and Cory was blazing mad. She couldn't get over the callous way that the Dora had just run away, leaving everyone on that station to their fate. Lor had said that they might be able to go back a second time to try and fix things, but Laz wasn't sure. "With two of each of us already there, it becomes that much more difficult to get anything done."

They'd radioed ahead saying they were returning with guests. Someone on the other end had asked how it had gone, but the twins just said that they would explain when they arrived.

Four people met them at the landing bay. A tall, leggy blonde dressed in a lab coat and not much else quickly looked everyone over, and then began to examine Kei and Yuri more closely, as they were exhibiting signs of shock.
The other three stood together, and Laz and Lor seemed to defer to them. One was an older man with a white beard and what seemed like a permanent bemused expression fixed on his face. The second was an incredibly small woman, looking rather like a China doll, with long black hair. Her expression was serious.

But it was the last that was the most interesting, at least to Cory. He looked to be in his early to mid-30s, with very red hair and a beard to match. In fact, looking at him more closely, Cory guessed that he was the twins' father; their faces were almost identical. His eyes, though, made him look as if he was much older than he was. His expression at the moment was almost as angry as hers.

Cory listened as Laz and Lor began to tell their story of what happened, and got even more frustrated as they seemed to put most of the blame of the mission's failure on her. She decided, politeness or no, it was time to interrupt.

She walked over and faced the tall redhead; she guessed he was the leader, since the twins seemed to be explaining everything to him. "Excuse me," she began, "but I think we're missing the point. However this was done, the important thing is that people have died. Kei told me that you guys can travel in time. Is it possible to do anything about this?"

The man seemed to be staring at her in shock. The small woman turned quickly to the twins, who simply said "World as Myth." This seemed to satisfy her, and she turned back to face Cory.

The red-headed man finally exploded. "And what gives you the right to order us around? From what I've been hearing, Miss Emerson, it looks as if none of these people would have been killed at all if it hadn't been for that rescue you needed. For what it's worth, we are going to try to see if we can do something about this new situation, but frankly, it doesn't look good. The last thing we need is someone like you telling us all what to do!"

Cory stood there soundlessly for a few seconds, her jaw working itself up and down. Then she brought her leg up, violently, driving her boot into his unprotected groin before turning and running from the room. She had no idea how large the place was, she just needed to get away. Tears began streaming down her face.

***

Lazarus tried to take the blow as best he could, but he had been taken by surprise. He lay on the floor and attempted to recover. Hilda looked down at him with contempt.

"Lazarus, sometimes I don't even know why I waste my breath on you."

He tried to get his breath back and defend himself. "I don't have to take that sort of attitude from -- "

He didn't get very far as Hilda leaned down close to him. "Why not? At least for the moment? She's just been removed from her own universe, against her will from what the twins have told me. She saw a space station explode, killing thousands, including a good friend of hers. Therefore, I think she has every right to be upset. _You_ have no right to be."

He got himself upright again and attempted to explain. "If it hadn't been for that girl -- "

This time it was Jubal that interrupted. "Then something else would have gone wrong. Lazarus, this is only the fifth mission we've ever attempted. All of the others have had massive complications. What makes you think that this one would be any different? Because it was Laz and Lor? That made the probability of disaster go _up_, not down." The twins squeaked, but Jubal ignored them. "We're all as frustrated as you are, Lazarus. But that Emerson girl didn't deserve what you gave her. I'd recommend an apology, but right now we need to figure out how much damage control we can actually _do_."

Hilda nodded, then proceeded to ignore Lazarus. She turned to Ishtar and asked, "Are they all right?"

Ishtar nodded. The Angels were still staring blankly at the wall. "I'd say they're still in shock. From what I can gather, this 'Mughi' meant a lot to them. I'll see if I can have them ready for you to question in twenty-four hours. Not before."

"Fine," Hilda said. "In the meantime, Laz, Lor, I want you to tell us everything you know about these three. Do we have any sources we can use?"

Laz and Lor nodded. By sources Hilda meant fictional stories and shows. Hilda tried not to bring up the 'realness' of anyone, since it was impossible to declare one universe more real than any other. "We've got a complete collection, Aunt Hilda. Um...in fact, we've modelled ourselves a bit after them."

Lazarus' eyes widened. "God help us," he said.

***

Cory had been pushing her emotions aside for the past few hours. She'd been kidnapped, then rescued, then watched as a space station full of thousands blew up right in front of her, taking Mughi with it. Now to be suddenly told by someone she didn't even know that the whole thing could have been avoided if they'd just left her behind...all of Cory's pent-up frustration came out at once. She slumped down in the middle of the corridor and began to weep.

After what seemed like hours but was probably only a few minutes, Cory heard footsteps coming along the corridor. She looked up to see the small dark-haired woman looking down at her, smiling gently. Immediately Cory drew her knees up to her chest, in an unconscious defensive position. "So, are you here to interrogate me?"

The other woman frowned. "Believe it or not, not all of us believe everything that Lazarus says. Hell, nine times out of ten we don't even listen to him. I heard Laz and Lor's report; it may have sounded as if it made you look bad, but it didn't."

She shook her head and smiled. "Sorry, this mission is getting to all of us. Hilda Burroughs-Long. And you are...?"

Cory looked distrustfully at the hand that was now being held out to her, but decided there was no reason to dislike this woman besides her general feelings of paranoia. "Cory Emerson."

"Why don't we try to find someplace to talk? I can assure you, it will be a room devoid of Lazaruses."

Cory couldn't help but smile at that, and allowed herself to be helped up. "I apologise for assaulting him, but...I've just had a bad day."

"So it seems," Hilda said. They walked along the corridor into a huge room with a pool and sauna. With a shock, Cory realised that it was a bathroom. A really _big_ bathroom. "You people are rich, aren't you?"

Hilda smiled. "We can afford to pamper ourselves a bit, yes. Do you want a soak, or would you rather just talk?"

Cory wanted nothing more to sit in the tub for the rest of the evening, but she wasn't *that* comfortable around these people yet. "I'd prefer to talk. To start with, what's with that guy and why does he dislike me so much?"

Hilda sighed. "You've just asked one of the hardest questions in the universe. That 'guy' is Lazarus Long, the oldest living human. You mentioned one of your friends knew who we are; did she say anything about us?"

"Just that you were fictional. Seemed ridiculous enough that I didn't really think much about it. Kei can be a ditz at times..."

Hilda interrupted. "In this case, though, she's probably correct. There are many universes out there, Cory. Millions. And most of them are...how shall I put this? Writers with a strong enough imagination, and a reader base to help that imagination thrive, can create 'worlds', though create is probably not the best term, where these characters exist. Such as Star Trek, or Barsoom. This is one of those worlds; so is yours."

Cory looked up. "What?"

Hilda frowned momentarily. "In _this_ universe, you and your friends are the fictional characters. As a matter of fact, I've got Laz and Lor combing through their archives to try and get as much information about you as we can. Don't worry, though, you won't see any of it. It can be uncomfortable enough to know that some people regard you as fiction without reading your words on a page."

Cory's mouth was still open at this revelation. "So, are you saying that I'm not real?"

Hilda shook her head. "You're as real as I am. Reality is a very fluid concept, Cory. Do you think you're real?"

"Of course!"

"Then why should I tell you differently?"

Cory was getting confused. "But you just said that some writer wrote down things I've done."

"Cory, World-As-Myth is a very new concept. There are parts of it even I don't understand. If you want answers to all of your questions, you should talk to Jubal; he's best at this sort of thing. But for now, trust me. You are as real as ever, no matter which universe you are in. If anything, _we_ control what gets written, not the other way around. Think of it as someone chronicling your life."

Cory had finally gotten completely lost and decided to drop the subject. "Getting back to Lazarus..."

"Yes. As I said, Lazarus is the oldest man alive...almost three thousand years old. That gives him experience and wisdom of several lifetimes, most of which he has put to good use. However, his basic character has remained the same...an overgrown hayseed who doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut and thinks the world revolves around him. It doesn't help that there are a ton of men and women on this planet who practically worship him. Oh, Ish and the others will tell you differently, but when it comes down to a fight, they'll side with Lazarus."

"But I'm not from the same universe as Lazarus, and I can see through most of his bullshit. Zeb and I have been trying to convince people that Lazarus is not God, but it's a slow process. Jubal tries to help, but since he's got several women worshipping _him_, it's not much good."

"STOP!" Cory was getting a headache. "What you're saying is that this Lazarus guy is used to being deferred to."

"Precisely," Hilda smiled. "And when you stepped on his toes, he decided to overreact. He does this sometimes, to gauge how much he can get away with."

"So you're saying I should be nice to him?"

Hilda shook her head. "That would be the worst thing you could do. Keep at him. Let him know that you will not accept the blame for this. It's nobody's fault, really...the twins were too inexperienced, as are we. This is only our fifth mission."

Cory held her hand up. "Stop. Too much, too fast. I'll see if I can take your advice, but right now all I want to do is avoid him."

Laughing, Hilda got up again. "That won't be easy. Right now, we need you to help us figure out what went wrong on that mission. Lazarus will be there. However, you don't have to speak to him."

Cory moaned. "Whatever happened to sleep? And food?"

"What are those?" Hilda asked, then giggled when Cory looked up sharply. "Don't worry. We can't do much anyway, as your friends are still recovering. All we need from you right now is a statement, and then you can sleep as long as you like."

Cory grumbled. *When is this day going to eeeeend?*

***

Despite her need for rest, Cory stopped by the hospital to see how the Angels were doing. Unfortunately, things weren't much better there. Kei and Yuri had snapped out of their shock, though they still looked pale and haggard. Unfortunately, Laz and Lor weren't giving them much of a chance to rest, as the twins kept plying them with questions.

Cory listened to this cacophony for a few seconds, then raised her voice. "KNOCK IT OFF!" she screamed. Startled, the four of them turned to look at her.

Ishtar didn't seem to be around, so Cory realised that it fell to her to be the voice of reason. "Aren't you two supposed to be recovering?" she asked the Angels. Then, turning to Laz and Lor, she added, "And you two aren't helping. What is the problem here?"

The twins were a little taken aback, but managed to explain. "We're trying to find out more about your pasts, and that of your universe," Lor explained.

"The problem is, there's so many different continuities of the fiction and anime that we have that we aren't sure what to believe," Laz cut in.

Cory stared at them, dumbfounded. "Why not try asking them?"

"We were trying to do just that. But they aren't being very co-operative."

For once, Yuri seemed to be the furious one. "Of course not! They waltz in here, with all this personal information on us, most of it being made-up LIES, and expect us to just take it in stride? Kei keeps going on about fictional universes, but I don't know what's up with that! Why are they trying to find out about us in the first place? What do they need to know?"

Cory had just come from a gruelling debriefing, and thought that a chat with the Angels would make her headache go away. Instead, it had just gotten worse. She walked to the middle of the room and began to speak in a very tense voice.

"They are trying to find out about you because they intend to go back and see if they can fix what went wrong. They want to stop the space station from blowing up. They want to stop all those people dying. They want to save Mughi. I would think, with all of that going for them, you could afford to tell them a little bit more about where you went to fucking grade school and what your favourite turn-ons are. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and try to sleep off this headache. Gonna be difficult, since between the four of you and Lazarus, I've got enough stress to make my head explode!"

Her voice had been getting louder and louder, and she was screaming by the end of her speech. She spun on one heel and stalked out of the room and down the corridor.

Unfortunately, the adrenaline rush didn't last long, and soon everything that had happened to her that day began to catch up to her. With a shock, she realised that she hadn't slept since before meeting up with the Angels on Pacifica. Furthermore, she had no idea where to go, since no one had bothered to mention accommodations to her.

She started peeking into rooms, and in the third one she checked she found a nice empty room with a bed. She went in, collapsed on it, and immediately fell asleep.

***

Back in the Angels' room, Kei, Yuri, and the twins were still staring in astonishment at Cory's dramatic exit.

Yuri finally broke herself out of her trance. "Um...I guess I should apologise. We didn't know what you were trying to do."

Laz and Lor also looked embarrassed. "It's just...this was our first big legitimate mission. A chance to make good, and we totally screwed it up. We're trying to figure out what went wrong."

Kei was curious. "So why are you questioning us?"

Lor got a little nervous. "Well...despite your constant denial of blame, it can't be denied that a great deal of disastrous things happen when you two are around. We want to find out why. We're going back to try and fix what went wrong, and if you two come with us, we need to know how you operate and how much of a myth 'The Dirty Pair' really are."

Both of the Angels growled at the use of the hated nickname, but seemed to acquiesce. "So what DO you need to know?" Kei asked.

Unfortunately at this point, Ishtar walked in. "Good, you're up. Feeling all right?" Kei and Yuri nodded. "Fine," Ishtar continued, "then we'll move you to guest quarters. I don't like keeping patients in a hospital environment if they don't need it, and something tells me you two would be bad patients anyway."

"Can we just clear up a few things first, Ish?" Lor asked.

Ishtar nodded.

"OK, now the presence of Cory tells me that we need to focus on the manga. Hmm...Ish, did you notice the amount of cyberware they have implanted in them?"

Ishtar frowned. "Yes, I did. I regard it as unhealthy, but if they want it..." She turned back to the Angels. "I can remove it, if you'd like."

Kei and Yuri both put their hands to their necks protectively. "Are you INSANE?!" Yuri yelled. "How could I possibly do all of my hacking without my cyberware? I've had it since I was little, for crying out loud!"

"What's so bad about it anyway?" Kei asked.

"Over-reliance on technology is always dangerous. You should at least learn how to work without them. I mean, for God's sake, the two of you have extensive intradermal communication in your skull for talking to each other mentally. Why not just use your telepathy?"

Kei and Yuri looked at her for a moment, and then cracked up. "I can't believe we can still hook people in with that stuff," Kei said.

Ishtar looked puzzled. "What?"

"That was just a prank that Kei and I pulled at parties. We used it to get scouted into 3WA as well. We'd pretend to be psychically linking to each other's thoughts, but we'd just be scamming."

Ishtar shook her head. "But you two _are_ psychic."

Kei started to speak. "No, we told you, it was -- "

"Look, I know what you think is the case, but trust me. Our facilities are many orders better than yours, and we can test for these things. I'm looking over your baseline readings. You two are psychic. Not a lot, admittedly. But even without testing, I'd guess the two of you should be able to link with each other quite easily."

Kei and Yuri stared at Ishtar, their mouths hanging open. They had never even considered the possibility that they were genuinely psychic. In their universe, psychic powers were rare. You could augment your mind through cybernetics, of course, but that was artificial. _Genuine_ psychic talent was unheard of. It was the reason that they'd been able to join the 3WA.

Yuri finally found her voice. "You mean...it was all _true_?"

"Well," Laz interrupted, "you two were able to pull off that psychic 'trick' with ease, even among trained 3WA professionals. Probably your real abilities coming through. And you do seem empathic towards each other, almost to the point of a mindlink. How good are those psychic tests that the 3WA made you take?"

"They weren't good at all," Kei said. "I mean, psychic ability is a myth. It's like something out of science fiction..." She paused mid-sentence, realising that they were in exactly that myth right now.

"I think the reason you haven't realised it until now is that your cyberware has pretty much taken over the task," Lor said. "I'm reading some of your history, and you rely on it extensively, especially you, Yuri. You haven't noticed your psychic abilities because you haven't really needed to develop them. If you like, we can run you through some tests, to see if we can awaken them."

Kei and Yuri looked at each other. The idea of real psychic powers was seductive, but they didn't really know what the consequences would be. "Would this affect our ability to be trouble consultants?" Yuri asked.

Laz and Lor nodded. "You bet," Laz replied. "It might make you almost twice as effective."

The Angels' eyes bugged out. "You're on!" they chorused.

Ishtar nodded. "I'll get together with Tamara and Minerva to see what we can do." A little voice inside her was saying that this might not be a wise idea, but it couldn't make itself heard.

***

Kei and Yuri spent the last twenty-four hours attempting to awaken these powers they didn't even know they possessed. At first, they thought they'd succeeded immediately, but Minerva, a young woman with long dark-brown hair, had told them that that was their cyberware attempting to respond to their mental commands. She let them know that if they established psychic contact with each other, it would feel totally different, and they'd know it instantly. "Believe me," she'd said cryptically, "I know the difference between computer linkups and genuine psychic powers."

About six and a half hours later, it happened. Kei suddenly felt as if a warm wave had passed through her body, and suddenly, she could sense Yuri's presence. No, more than just sense. Yuri's feelings, emotions, and thoughts were laid open to her. She also knew that Yuri was experiencing the same things. For a moment she felt a twinge of jealousy, but then relaxed as she came to understand the closeness that the two felt.

They had always been best friends, but had never truly realised what that meant. Kei cried as she saw the extent of Yuri's trust and friendship, and knew that she felt the same way. They felt their minds begin to twine together, and let it happen, lost in a total state of ecstasy...

Which is why it was such a shock to the system when Minerva slapped Kei in the face, snapping her out of her reverie. "Kei, do you hear me? Do you know who you are?"

Kei blinked, and almost began to cry again. "Why did you do that? I was..."

Minerva held Kei's face in her hands. "You were about to lose yourself. I could tell that you and your friend had discovered what you were looking for, but you were going too far. You could have ended up unable to cope with being alone in your own mind again."

Kei felt unable to cope as it was. She felt a gaping hole in her mind where Yuri had been. Gazing over to her partner, she could see a lost look in Yuri's eyes, and knew it mirrored her own.

Minerva smiled. "The two of you seem to be incredibly empathic, which is why you feel so poorly. The comfort of knowing your friend's thoughts and feelings is very seductive. The key is to know yourself, so that you can use those feelings without becoming overwhelmed by them. Now, let's try again. I will try to guide you this time. We didn't know the shape your powers would take at first, so I remained outside. But empathy is definitely something I can help you with. If you will let me."

Kei knew that she would do anything to experience that feeling again. She nodded.

For the rest of the day and into the night, Minerva showed them how to control their empathic abilities. It was incredibly difficult. They managed to transmit sentences and thoughts to each other telepathically, but these were also cluttered with feelings and impressions. It was difficult to concentrate, as the feel of each other in their minds was an entirely new experience. Eventually Minerva sighed and called a halt for the night.

"This is proving to be more difficult than it should. _Something_ is blocking you two, making this harder. I suspect it's nothing more than your own subconscious. You are going to be working as a team, but not with one mind. You need to use your abilities independently."

She paused. "I want you to sleep together tonight," she suddenly said.

Kei and Yuri yelped. "Listen," Yuri said, "I don't know what kind of rumours anyone's been telling you, but we are _not_ _GAY_!!!"

Minerva blinked. "Oh, I didn't mean sex, though it wouldn't bother anyone here if you did. In the Long family, we're almost all bisexual. No, I just meant sleeping in the same bed, being close to each other. You've reached the point where your mind's defences will prevent another control loss such as you suffered earlier, and your unconscious minds may end up succeeding where your conscious ones do not."

Kei and Yuri blushed, but reluctantly agreed.

As they prepared for bed, they avoided each other's gazes, even though they'd spent most of the evening in close mental contact. Finally they settled down and lay on the bed, but sleep eluded them.

"You awake, Yuri?"

"Yup."

"What are you thinking about?"

"About Mughi...and that case that blew up in our faces...and whether these people are telling the truth...and how much we can trust them...and about the way that Cory's been acting very weird since arriving here."

Kei blinked. "That's a lot to think about."

Yuri laughed softly. "That's what I _should_ be thinking about. I try to get my mind to think about those things. But I can't. I keep thinking about you."

Kei smiled. "Yeah, me too."

"Well, of course. I mean, you always think about yourself..."

"That's not what I meant!" Kei sniped. The sound of Yuri's giggling kept her from being too mad, though. Anyway, she was finding it difficult to argue with Yuri anymore at all. She knew her too well.

There was a long pause, then Yuri spoke up again. "Kei, there was...there was so much about you that I never knew. You were always my best friend, but...I never knew you were so complicated."

Kei felt a warm glow in her chest. "Serves you right for underestimating me," she laughed, but inside she was revelling in Yuri's words. "It was the same for me, you know. I found out so many things about your life, about your hopes and feelings."

"Feelings." Yuri picked up on the word. "That's what's keeping me up. How did it feel to you when we finally linked minds?"

Kei took her time before answering. There were no secrets between them anymore, but she still clung to old privacy habits. "It was incredible. I mean, how do you describe it? It was like firing my first gun, eating my first cheesecake, my first orgasm...it was the best thing that's ever happened to me in my life."

Yuri turned, so that her face was right up close to Kei's. "Kei... do you think we can handle being that close? Knowing that much about each other?"

Kei frowned. Yuri was afraid, for some reason. Kei could sense that all of her mental shields were up. What was the problem? "Yuri, what is it?"

Yuri shifted, until her face was almost touching Kei's. "Kei, I love you."

Kei blinked. That had not exactly been the revelation she'd been expecting. "And?"

"And I don't know what to do about it!" Yuri suddenly got up and stomped across the floor. "I could deal with friendship, even close friendship, but..."

Kei could see that Yuri was starting to panic. She was still puzzled by her actions. "Yuri, I love you too. I mean, we both saw into each other's heads..."

Yuri was shaking. "But I'm not a lesbian! I like men! I thought that every time I denied it, I was telling the truth."

Now suddenly, it all became clear for Kei. Yuri wasn't upset by what she saw in Kei's mind. It was what she saw in her own that bothered her. Kei got up and walked over to Yuri, putting her arms around her shoulders. Yuri began to shiver, but Kei stopped her by hugging her harder.

"Yuri, why does this bother you so much? We love each other. Doesn't mean it's a sexual love. I like guys, so do you. I just know that I would give my life for you. I know that you are the one I can tell my closest problems to. I know that living a life without you in it would be hollow and worthless. I know that you and I are so close now, we almost have the same soul."

Yuri was still unconvinced. "I mean, I find you attractive!"

"Damn straight, girl. I'm quite the beauty, and don't you forget it." That made Yuri laugh.

Kei then turned serious again. "Yuri, you're gorgeous. I know that. Answer me this: do you want to have sex with me?"

For almost five minutes, there was not a sound in the room. Finally, Yuri said, "No, I don't."

"Then we don't. Just know that we love each other, and are closer than we've ever been. That's enough. Love doesn't have to be that way."

Yuri smiled, then got up and hugged her partner, properly this time. "I knew there was a reason you were the emotional hothead."

Kei frowned momentarily, and Yuri giggled again.

They both got back into bed, and Kei began to drop off. Just before she fell asleep, she heard Yuri again. "Kei?"

"Nnngh?"

"If I had said yes...what would you have done?"

Kei smiled. "Ask me again sometime and you'll find out."

And with that, Kei dropped off to sleep. It took a few more minutes for Yuri to fall asleep, though.

***

The preparations for a return to Cory and the Angel's universe were a lot more complex this time around. The three of them had been ruthlessly quizzed on the background for their case, including the business and personal history (what little was known) of both Lawson and Mizuno, as well as the Bureaucratic Watchdog Office. Yuri related the information she'd discovered in the stations' computer banks. With this in hand, Laz, Lor, and the Angels began to devise a better (they hoped) plan of attack.

Cory found herself once again superfluous. Lazarus was present at all the meetings, and never let one go by without a little jab at her. Cory tried to match him in verbal repartee, but to her it just ended up sounding whiny.

She hadn't been especially pleased upon meeting the Long extended family, either. For God's sake, even the ones that *weren't* built like an hourglass were absolutely drop dead gorgeous. Plus there was their habit of running around naked at times, as if it was a normal occurrence. This included the men, who all appeared to be hung like horses. BIG horses.

Now, Cory knew that her body wasn't all that bad, but it was not supermodel quality. She could stand to lose a few pounds here and there...and GAIN a few in certain places. Her self-esteem, already thrown off by running around with the Angels, whose breasts were the stuff of legend, had plummeted.

As a result, her mood had soured to the point where all she wanted to do now was stomp around the corridors and growl at people. And that's exactly what she was doing.

Her growling was interrupted by recognisable cries coming from a nearby park area. Veering off, she peered over the edge of a nearby bush. What she saw made her gasp in astonishment.

Kei and Yuri hadn't really been talking to her much lately, but that was mostly due to their new training, as well as their new mindset. They were together _constantly_, and not just in the same room. They seemed to be constantly touching each other, or making any form of contact they possibly could. They were also more relaxed and happier than Cory had ever seen them.

She'd known they were top 3WA agents, and had seen them prove it. But they looked like rookies compared to what she was seeing now. The two of them moved as one person, quickly taking out any targets that they saw. Anticipating this, Hilda, who was conducting the training, set up obstacles to split them up. The split did not seem to impact their efficiency, as they took out the enemies just as quickly.

Cory was stunned. With their new-found psychic abilities, and the training they were receiving from Hilda, they could waste almost anything out there. The universe had better watch out when they got back...

Turning back to her walk, she didn't notice Kei and Yuri immediately reunite after the test, and putting their hands on each other's shoulders...

***

The mission was turning out to be a breeze. Cory was back on the Dora, well-hidden in case anyone had prying sensors, but Kei and Lor were both carrying intradermal cameras, so Cory had a perfect view of what was happening.

The plan was to watch Cory's earlier self be kidnapped, and follow them (while not interfering with the kidnapping, of course). They would then follow one of the kidnappers back to his group, and wrap things up from there. This would prevent the bombing, and all would be well.

If there was a disaster, they had Gay Deceiver standing by as a backup. Gay could, if necessary, home in on their signal and bring them aboard, thus giving them more time to disarm the Watchdog troops and make sure the bomb was not a problem.

This gave Cory a fine view for when things went completely and utterly wrong.

It started off perfectly. They'd found the suite that the BWO was using as a base, and staked it out. After a few hours, Kei saw the guard they'd seduced when they rescued Cory run into the room, and she nodded to the others. They'd gone soundlessly to the entrance, shot down the door, and moved in.

Their luck continued to hold as there were only about ten people in the room, and none of them were armed. Presented with four women with bikinis and guns, most of them decided to come quietly.

The problems began when Kei questioned them about the bomb.

The presumed leader (he was the one the others deferred to) blinked. "Bomb?" he asked, puzzled.

Kei got upset. "Don't play dumb with me, asshole! We know that this place is going to go boom in a few minutes, and we know that it's you guys that do it!"

To her surprise, the man went white as a sheet. Turning to an assistant, he yelled, "I thought you checked out Loader before we left!"

The girl seemed just as scared. "I did! He was clean! There's no way -- "

Yuri interrupted. "There's someone who isn't here?" she asked slowly.

The man nodded furiously. "We managed to plant someone in Lawson Enterprises. Mike Loader, one of our best men. But he's been getting weird lately. We probably should have pulled him out but that would have aroused suspicion!"

Yuri pressed her gun to his chin. "Where is he now?"

The man panicked. "Ahhh! Um, he should be with Lawson! If his last report was right..."

Yuri didn't wait for him to finish, she just took off like a shot, headed down the corridor.

Cory's jaw dropped in amazement. What the hell did she think she was doing? There were only a few minutes left.

Kei evidently thought the same thing, as she took off after her partner.

Lor yelled out so that Cory could hear it. "Cory, take Dora and go! We'll follow in Gay Deceiver!"

Cory thought about arguing, but before she could do anything, Dora had already obeyed the command, and she saw the landing bay at Boondock outside the front viewscreen.

She leaped out the door, and ran to get the others. That was the reason she ended up colliding with Lazarus coming in the other direction, and both of them crumpling to the floor in a heap.

Cory was too panicked at the moment to be annoyed. She turned to Jubal. "Something went wrong! We picked the wrong target, and now Kei and Yuri have gone after him, but there's no time, and -- "

Jubal placed a hand on her shoulder. "Cory, calm down and tell us exactly what happened."

Cory didn't need to, for at that moment, Gay Deceiver arrived right next to Dora. The door opened, and Hilda's voice could be heard. "Get Ishtar in here, pronto! Medical emergency! We have severe brain trauma and mental breakdown! Get Tamara as well!"

Cory ran over to the door, where she saw Hilda, Laz and Lor gathered around a shape on the floor. With a sick feeling, Cory realised that it was Kei. She was convulsing wildly and her face looked wrong, with half of it pale white and the other half speckled with red.

"My God," Cory exclaimed. "Who did that to her?"

Lor looked up, tears running down her cheeks. "Yuri did. We couldn't get to her in time, and she was on the station when it blew up. This is all a result of the psychic feedback that blew through Kei's mind when she felt Yuri's death."

Cory paled, but that was nothing compared to the shock of Hilda's next two sentences.

"We're worried she may not ever recover mentally. It doesn't look good."

~~~~~~~~

Cory shivered as the memories of that day flooded back. That had been one of the worst days of her life. She began to regret coming up here alone, and wished there was someone she could talk to about this.

"Miss Emerson?"

*Well, I walked right into that one,* Cory mused. She turned, and saw Lazarus standing by the door.

They were in Dora, headed for Pacifica in her own universe. The Circle of Ouroboros had seen fit to partner her with Lazarus, for reasons she didn't even pretend to understand. They were trying to see if they could gather more information on Jimmy. In addition, Kei and Yuri had pleaded with the Circle to see if they could rescue a few friends of theirs. Lazarus had balked, but the list turned out to be surprisingly small. The Angels didn't really make friends among their fellow agents, since most didn't see past their reputation. Lazarus finally relented after seeing Kei's eyes begin to brim with tears. Hilda explained privately afterwards that Lazarus could not resist a crying female.

Cory was beginning to wonder whether something was wrong with Lazarus. He continued to avoid speaking to her when he could, a far cry from the Lazarus she knew, who delighted in belittling her.

She turned to look at him, and almost laughed out loud. His expression reminded her of a wounded puppy. It was so different from the face he usually wore around her that she barely recognised him.

"Yes?" she asked.

"I thought we could go over our plan of attack. You still don't have much experience in covert operations..."

Cory thought about getting angry, but decided she was too depressed. She nodded. "Kei and Yuri get their friends, Minerva and Deirdre check out the Central Computer, and you and I see if we can spy on Jimmy."

She noted Lazarus' look again and decided to stop torturing him. "Look, you want to talk to me, talk. I promise to try to listen to you without going nuts."

He sat down in the chair next to her. "I want to call a truce."

Cory narrowed her eyes. "Why?"

He shrugged. "Partly as we're going into what is essentially a war zone. If we get caught, or if something unexpected happens, I want you to know that you can trust me."

Cory nodded. "And you want to know if you can trust _me_."

"That too."

"I won't give you any trouble. You know more about this than I do. Just try not to belittle me too much while we're out there, and we should be fine."

"Miss Emerson..."

"We're partners, call me Cory. Yes, I know you've been nice to me lately. But it's not going to immediately make up for your being nasty to me for so long. Keep it up, and I'll come around. I promise."

He frowned. "I don't know if I like those arrangements..."

She grinned at him. "Tough. I'm going to act like a spoiled brat on this one, because I feel it's the only treatment you'll understand."

"You've been talking to Hilda."

"It shows, huh?"

"Very much. Shall we get on to talking about our plan of attack?"

Cory stretched out like a cat. She'd won, and it made her feel much better. She could feel the depression lift right off of her, and she actually smiled at Lazarus. "Why don't we do that?"

***

Jamie sighed as she headed back to her room. She was so tired, she didn't even think she'd bother to shower and change. She just wanted to lie on her bed and sleep for a thousand years.

She'd been feeling that way more often lately. When she had first started with the 3WA, it had been a life of excitement and adventure, just like the anime. She'd gone on several missions with the Lovely Angels, and blown lots of stuff up. It had been, quite literally, a blast.

But recently things hadn't been the same. She'd been suddenly reassigned, and when she had asked Kei and Yuri why, they'd been very evasive. After that, they seemed to avoid her. That depressed Jamie much more than she cared to admit. Kei and Yuri had been very close to her, and Jamie was wondering how she had offended them.

Then she began to hear the stories of the Angels' latest missions. The casualties had gone up by orders of magnitude. Jamie hadn't believed it at first, but someone on the inside showed her the mission logs. They were not pleasant. There were many, many deaths that could have been easily avoided.

She had confronted them about it one night. They acted as if they were uncomfortable around her, and drew the conversation to a close quickly. Moreover, they didn't seem to feel bad about what they had done -- or even what had happened around them. She remembered nights when she would hold Kei and Yuri tightly, comforting them as they related the newest atrocities that could not be avoided on their missions.

But they were totally different now. Soulless. Jamie eventually decided that they had finally given up. Too much death in too short a time, and all of it blamed on them. They had shut themselves off from the pain, and got on with their lives. At the cost, it would appear, of their humanity.

There were other things that weighed on Jamie's mind too. Their new boss, Jimmy Daltrey, was another cause of her distress. *Now there's a used-car salesman if ever there was one. Zen trusts him as far as Zen can throw him...aaargh, Zen is doing it again.*

Jamie tended sometimes to talk in the third person, when she was excited or wanted to be cute. But lately she had found herself thinking that way far more often...and that was dangerous. If she stopped thinking of herself in the first person, it would be the first step on the road Kei and Yuri had taken.

But what other options were there? The 3WA's retirement policy had gotten incredibly strict lately, especially with the number of agent deaths recently. Jamie was simply too valuable a resource for the Central Computer to consider letting go...especially as the CC was one of the few entities in this universe who _knew_ Jamie's past.

Jamie entered her room and sighed. She didn't want to think about things like this when she was tired, it was a good way to get suicidal. All she needed was a good night's sleep, and she could think more clearly in the morning.

She looked at the sink, contemplating a nice steamy shower to relax. But that would mean changing, and she didn't even have the energy for that. She crashed face-down on the bed, and sighed. A tear fell from her eye.

"Where are you now that I need you? Dammit, I'm the one who needs the shoulder to cry on now."

"Ask and ye shall receive," said a quiet voice from above her head.

Jamie rolled over, and found herself looking into the grinning face of Kei. More to the point, even though Kei was smiling, there was also a tear in her eye.

She turned, and saw Yuri beside the bed...with a hypo. "Zen-chan, we'll explain everything. It'll be all right. I promise."

And with that, she stabbed the spray into Jamie's arm. Everything grew blissfully black.

***

Asuka was sitting in a corner, having nothing to do at the moment but try to watch Rei tap the Central Computer for information. Asuka had thought that the task would be impossible, but Rei told her that she had gotten 'special knowledge' that would help.

It did seem to be helping. Rei was tearing through the system, gathering more and more on Shasti and her past. Bast may have been a jerk about it, but he was right about one thing: Jimmy had lied to them about a great deal of this case. According to the records they had salvaged, Shasti had been one of the Agency's top agents for a couple of years. More importantly, she hadn't decided to turn on her own people and murder them. She had uploaded a copy of the mind of a psychotic criminal into her own head in order to facilitate his capture. Unfortunately, the criminal's psyche had infected her own wetware, and caused her to lose her mind. She had killed her partner, Deirdre, and seriously injured the Lovely Angels, then rookies on one of their first cases.

The final piece of information Rei had uncovered was the most telling. It was a report from Dr. Ritsuko Akagi to the then head of 3WA, a Mr. Ayoob. It stated that the most likely reason for Shasti's breakdown was a flaw in her design. Further, Dr. Akagi had made cryptic statements that 'the other project' should also be watched closely, and not be given any opportunities to advance.

Other project? Asuka had hoped that this search of the Computer's system would answer their questions; instead, it just gave them more without having cleared up anything.

Talking with the Pair hadn't helped. Asuka had taken great pains to be nice to them in an effort to get some answers. But they ignored her questions, instead going on about how they were going to go out and get bombed, then try to pick up some men. Asuka wasn't the most dedicated agent in the world, but even she had been disgusted by their behaviour. These weren't the Lovely Angels that stories were told about; the ones who solved every case, no matter how difficult. They were the subject of the _other_ stories; the stories about the agents who brought death and destruction. The Dirty Pair. From what Asuka had seen, the name fit.

Rei straightened up. Asuka wouldn't have noticed if it were anyone else, but she was training herself to respond to Rei's body language, since she showed so little emotion. Rei straightening up was the equivalent of a loud gasp from anyone else.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"There's someone else trying to break into the system." Rei replied. There was a trace of something in her voice, a tightness that wasn't usually there. Asuka wanted to see if she could bring that out a little. Unfortunately, now was not the time. "See if you can trace them."

"Of course," Rei replied. Her face went slack as she devoted all of her concentration to locating the intruder.

Asuka tried again to uplink to the Central Computer to see what was happening, but she had no more success than before. She was a pretty good hacker; it was another one of those subjects that, after four years of training, she'd managed to excel in. But this wasn't just any computer. The Central Computer was sentient, and therefore hacking into it was dangerous at best, lethal at worst.

Rei had merely watched Asuka get frustrated for a few minutes, then stepped over and inserted a cyberjack. Within seconds, she'd managed to uplink and started finding the information they needed. Asuka didn't know whether to be impressed or disturbed at that.

Now she was once again left out, watching while Rei remained motionless, attempting to draw out their opponent...

***

Minerva winced, and disconnected herself from the computer. "I was spotted."

Deirdre raised an eyebrow. "I thought you said that no one would be able to catch you?"

"No one should have been," Minerva replied, frowning slightly. "At first I thought that the computer itself was fighting me, but it was definitely an organic brain that I felt. Perhaps..."

"Perhaps what?"

Minerva shook her head. "Perhaps we should get out of here. They'll be raising an alert soon."

Deirdre noticed Minerva's attempt to change the subject, but said nothing about it. "I'll have Gay arrange to pick up Kei and Yuri as well. I hope they managed to find everyone they needed..."

***

Asuka was beginning to get concerned. Rei had not moved for over five minutes. Asuka wondered if perhaps the intruder had done something to her.

"Rei? Can you hear me?"

Rei's eyes fluttered and then opened. For just a second, they seemed to show anger and revulsion. Asuka rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't seeing things. By the time she looked back, Rei was favouring her with her usual blank stare.

Rei stood up. "We have to split up."

Asuka blinked. "What?"

"There are some things that need to be done before we can go on. I've fixed the Central Computer; you should be able to hack into it with no problems now."

Asuka was a little confused. "I don't understand. Why do we need to split up? We're partners."

Rei turned to Asuka. "I cannot ask you to do this. Please." For a moment, Rei smiled again.

Asuka wanted to argue, but felt herself wilting. After all, Rei had just smiled again of her own accord. That had to be Asuka's influence on her. So at least some good was coming out of this mission.

Rei got out a datapadd. "This is the area you want to check. Access these files. They should tell you what we need to know. I should be back by the time you're done."

Asuka was beginning to get a little annoyed at being railroaded into this. "Hey!" she snapped. "Who's supposed to be the leader of this team, anyway?"

Rei paused. "Asuka, if you let me do this, afterwards I promise to follow every order you give me."

And with that she ran out of the room.

Asuka stared after her. What the hell had just happened? Rei had seemed different back there, more...driven. It suddenly hit Asuka. That was why Rei had been so passive all this time. She'd had no purpose. The mission itself hadn't been enough for her, she'd needed to achieve things. This was something that Asuka could understand. She too felt a need to go beyond what was needed to complete the mission, to tie up loose ends and find the real truth.

She suddenly felt a lot better about their partnership. *All right, partner,* she thought. *Let's see what you saw in there that got you all het up.*

Asuka inserted the cyberjack to begin downloading the information. This time, there was no resistance - her eyes glazed as her mind made the link to the Central Computer...

***

They crept slowly along the corridor, desperately trying to keep their breathing under control. Only one thing was on their minds; getting to the living quarters, collecting Rachel, and getting OUT. Anywhere, it didn't matter. They just had to get away from the living nightmare that 3WA headquarters had become.

It hadn't always been this way. They had both chosen to become 3WA agents for altruistic reasons, and passed through the training in record time. Separately, they were two of the top agents for the organisation.

Then, fate moved to thrust them together. Jamie's partner was killed on a difficult espionage mission, and reassigning him proved difficult. Bridget had gotten pregnant, and the 3WA decided to reassign her partner in the interim.

Both of them were stuck at 3WA headquarters with nothing much to do. They got to chatting, and eventually fell in love.

This proved difficult within an organisation like 3WA, which frowned strongly on inter-agent relations. Luckily, they had a few friends within the agency. They managed to get themselves assigned as partners, effective right after Bridget recovered from her pregnancy, without arousing too much suspicion. Bridget had a beautiful girl, whom she named Rachel. As for Jamie and Bridget, they rose once again to the top of the 3WA agents list, where they remained for two more years.

Then things started to fall apart. More and more of the assignments that were given to them were of a...questionable nature. 3WA had always been a troubleshooting organisation, but they'd never sunk to terrorism, and many of these assignments smacked of that sort of thing. A few of their friends agreed.

Their own little group began to dissolve. Kei and Yuri seemed to have snapped, and were walking around acting like bimbonic company shills. Zen (or 'the other Jamie', as Bridget called her) retreated further into her own thoughts, eventually shutting everyone else out.

Finally Jamie and Bridget had had enough. There just wasn't any reason to continue. They went to the head of 3WA, Jimmy Daltrey, and handed in their resignations. Unfortunately, this had proved to be the biggest mistake of all. Jimmy had looked at them coldly and informed them that it wasn't feasible for the 3WA to accept their resignations at this time, and that they would be notified should that change.

From that moment on they had been watched by very skilled agents. If Jamie and Bridget hadn't already been incredibly paranoid, they would never have noticed.

An hour ago, in desperation, they had turned to the one friend they thought they had left; Bridget's old partner, Maya Ibuki. They had remained close even after Maya had been reassigned. Maya had been the one friend that had stayed with them when things had fallen apart, the one person they could count on. They had called Maya, told her they would meet her at the clinic, collect Rachel, and leave. Maya had agreed.

They had gotten to the clinic, only to be confronted with the final nightmare: Maya, sneering at them, all traces of warmth or friendship missing from her face. There were also five other 3WA agents in the room, all carrying weapons.

"Did you really think you'd be able to get away?" Maya had asked them. Jamie and Bridget bolted out of the room, then heard the sounds of shouting and pursuit right behind them.

Now they were moving as quickly and silently as they could along an abandoned corridor, trying to find an alternate route back to their quarters. They knew that would be the first place checked, but Rachel's safety was far more important than their own.

Bridget was dealing with her fear and panic by converting it into anger. She still could not believe that an organisation, one that she had felt was one of the best in the galaxy, that could solve any problem thrown at it, could grow so corrupt. She ran along the corridor, her face twisted in rage.

Jamie was far more circumspect, though no less angry. As usual, he let Bridget show the anger for both of them while he tried to think of a way that they could possibly get out of there with their daughter and their lives.

Suddenly both of them were stopped by a figure in the corridor. It was Maya. Her face still held that sneer they had seen earlier, but now there was a note of triumph there as well.

"Did you think you were going somewhere? I wouldn't bother if I were you. Your little grub has already been dealt with."

Bridget let out an incoherent cry of anguish and jumped forward. Maya smiled and raised her gun. Jamie tried to stop her, but knew it was already too late...

And then suddenly Maya's head vanished, disintegrating in a plasma beam. Her corpse fell to the floor. Jamie and Bridget look up, stunned.

Kei was standing in front of them, tears in her eyes, looking down at the woman she'd just killed. She looked to be on the verge of sobbing.

"Maya too," she said. "Gods, when is this gonna stop? How many more friends do we have to kill?"

She was interrupted by Bridget, who, seeing only another former friend she could no longer trust, was attempting to wrestle the gun from her. They began to struggle. Kei tried to explain herself, but was prevented by Bridget's hands around her windpipe. Jamie went over to try and dissuade his wife, but wasn't trying too hard because he wasn't all that sure of Kei's intentions either.

Suddenly there was another figure, pressing a bundle into Bridget's arms...

Bridget looked down and saw the small figure of her daughter, wiping sleep out of her eyes and looking up at her. Suddenly everything else seemed to vanish. Bridget picked up her daughter and hugged her to her chest, sobbing uncontrollably. Seeing her mother so upset caused Rachel to start crying as well, which only fuelled Bridget's tears.

Jamie looked up and saw Yuri looking down at them sympathetically. It was the first sympathetic look he'd seen from her in over a year, and it momentarily threw him for a loop.

Yuri put her hands on his shoulder. "We don't have much time. I know you don't trust us, but please, if you valued our friendship at all, come with us now. We promise that no harm will come to you."

Jamie looked at her doubtfully. He then looked at Kei, who was rubbing her neck. She still had tears in her eyes.

Yuri tried again. "Please. We have to go."

Jamie put his arms around his wife and their child, and finally made his decision. "All right." It was a decision made more from exhaustion and fear than from trust, but they were just too tired to fight anymore.

Yuri then spoke up. "Gay, come find me." Instantly a circular door appeared in the wall right next to them. Kei tried to get Bridget and Rachel to stand, but Bridget refused to move, clutching Rachel to her. Kei looked up at Jamie pleadingly.

Jamie leaned down to whisper in his wife's ear. "C'mon, B-ko. It's okay. We're going to be safe." He then gently got her to her feet and led her through the door, holding Rachel up as she had fallen asleep once more.

Kei and Yuri heard the sounds of feet in the distance, and sighed.

"Only three," Kei said.

"Judging from what we've seen, I think it was as much as we could have hoped for," Yuri mused.

Depressed, they both went through the portal, which immediately vanished. A moment later, three agents came round the corner, but the only sign of a struggle was the headless corpse of Maya Ibuki in the middle of the corridor.

***

It was a subdued and pensive group that returned to Boondock. Kei and Yuri were carrying Zen between them, giving her concerned glances. Jamie and Bridget were walking on their own, with Rachel still in Bridget's arms, but they both looked too numb to even respond. A meek Deirdre and Minerva brought up the rear.

Ishtar's first concern was for her patients. "Let's get everyone to a bed for now. We'll worry about surgery later."

Kei looked up. "Is that wise, Ishtar? You remember what we -- "

Ishtar cut her off. "Your arrival took us completely by surprise, and we were unprepared for what you might do. We've now had a chance to study the implants, and won't get caught off guard if any sleeper programs activate." She looked at the new arrivals. "Right now I think that any viruses in their wetware will be the least of our problems. I want one of you with each of them. Yuri, you go with the family. Kei, can you manage your other friend?"

Kei nodded, and Yuri shifted Zen's weight onto her partner. She went over to Jamie and Bridget, and smiled at them. Jamie merely regarded her coldly, and Bridget flinched. The smile disappeared from Yuri's face, and with a sad voice she said, "Let's get you settled in. I promise, it'll be alright."

They showed no further reaction, and Yuri sighed as she led them out of the room.

Hilda, Minerva, and Deirdre had been involved in a quiet conversation while this was going on, with the two bringing Hilda up to date on what had transpired at 3WA headquarters. No one mentioned Lazarus or Cory, so Hilda decided to ask directly. "Where are they?"

Deirdre looked nervous. "We didn't dare try to contact them...they were right outside Jimmy's office. How much experience does Lazarus have in these types of missions?"

Hilda snorted. "Oh, he has a lot of experience...but he's still not very good at them. He has a tendency to get his butt shot off. Right now, though, I'm more worried about Cory, who does _not_ possess Lazarus' phenomenal luck. It was a mistake to allow Cory on this mission in the first place. I want you to get back in there and pick those two up. I don't care if they've just found proof that Jimmy is Elvis' clone, get them back. From what you've told me, things are getting _bad_ there."

Minerva shrugged. "Lazarus viewed Cory's inclusion as the perfect chance to ingratiate himself with her."

"Lazarus is a fool. He's trying too hard and this latest attempt probably won't accomplish much more than annoying her all over again. I should have said no, but unfortunately, he can still get his own way on occasion. One thing is for sure: she will NOT be in the final operation. Now get going."

Deirdre and Minerva nodded and ran back to Gay Deceiver.

***

Ishtar followed as Kei set Jamie down on a bed. The girl was still unconscious, and Kei was beginning to get concerned. Ishtar, of course, was all business.

"Anything special we should know about this woman?"

That did manage to elicit a giggle from Kei. "Zen is a guy."

Ishtar looked down at the buxom redhead lying on the bed. "Kei, what happened to you while you were there?" she asked concernedly.

Kei realised how her statement would have sounded. "Oh, she's female right now. In fact, she spends most of her time female, as a matter of convenience. But she was born male."

Ishtar raised an eyebrow, and nodded for Kei to continue. Kei sighed.

"I can give you his history later. All you need to know is that steam turns her male, and a splash of water turns him female. I don't understand it much myself."

Despite severe doubts as to the truth of Kei's story, Ishtar decided to let it go and concentrate on the patient before her. She began to study her vital signs, and she did not find the results pleasing.

Kei did not notice Ishtar's frown. "We gave Zen-chan a little sedative, to make it easier for us to get out without too much fuss. She should be alright soon."

Ishtar was still frowning. "Well, she's coming round, but I sincerely doubt she'll be alright."

Kei wasn't really listening. Jamie's eyes slowly opened, and Kei grinned down at her. "Hi, Zen-chan. Nice to see you again."

She began to realise things weren't quite right when Jamie looked up at her. Kei could see the pupils in her friend's eyes dilating and contracting as Jamie tried, unsuccessfully, to focus. After a few moments, Jamie spoke.

"It's really you, isn't it?" To Kei, the voice sounded different from what she had heard in Jamie's quarters. It was more tentative, and there seemed to be a touch of fear. She felt tears come to her eyes as she realised that Jamie must have really missed them.

"It's really me, Zen-chan. Yuri's here too. It'll be alright now."

Jamie's response startled Kei. For a moment, she just lay there, continuing to stare at Kei. Then all of a sudden she burst into tears. Great, heaving sobs wracked her body, and she reached out to grab Kei, as if to assure herself of the reality of her friend's presence.

Kei sat on the bed, going through the motions of comforting Jamie while trying to figure out what was going on. "Shh..." she whispered, "it's alright. It's over now." But nothing seemed to stop Jamie's tears. Occasionally the sobs would stop, and Kei could hear a muffled "Thank God. Oh, thank God." Then the crying would start up again, even more violently than before.

Jamie spasmed as her sobs dissolved into a ragged cough and Ishtar instinctively reached for a hypo. The coughing fit became choking, and Jamie was unable to draw air into her lungs. Alarmed, Kei pounded her friend's back, trying to clear the blockage. She watched helplessly as Jamie went into convulsions, spitting up bile, stained red with blood. Ishtar intervened at that point, swiftly injecting the heaving girl with a sedative. Jamie shuddered, and after retching a few more times, collapsed on the floor in a heap.

Kei stared at the body in horror. She had expected her friend to be upset, but this was far more than she had been prepared for. Ishtar did not seem nearly as surprised, though, as she put Jamie back on her bed.

After ensuring that if Jamie woke again she would not do herself an injury, Ishtar turned back to Kei.

"Jamie shows all of the signs of a complete nervous breakdown. She is malnourished, shows signs of a bleeding stomach ulcer, and has hypertension so bad that she's a walking time bomb. For God's sake, Kei, look at her!"

Kei forced herself to look back to the bed. Jamie was twitching in her sleep, her cheek muscles and hands refusing to stay still. The sight made her ill, and she turned away quickly.

"Now you see why we're fighting Jimmy, Kei. Because under his rule - and I can't think of a better way to describe how he runs the 3WA - the agents with conscience have nowhere to turn. She was close to you, right?"

Hilda stood in the doorway. Kei marvelled at her ability to seemingly be everywhere. She nodded. "We were best friends."

"I'm gathering that the clones built in your image were ordered to avoid her as best they could. Think, Kei. Her two best friends are suddenly walking killing machines, and when she tries to confront them, they run away. She didn't know about the clones. I suspect she blamed herself, tried to convince herself that she could have done more."

Kei shuddered. "I have to tell Yuri."

Ishtar frowned. "I still want you to be here when she wakes up again. Hopefully, the initial shock will have worn off, and we can avoid a second fit. It will be hard, though. I can't offer any miracle cures or trips to magical fairylands here. Jamie needs rest and care. She may recover in a few days, or it could take months."

Kei's eyes widened. "But...we brought them here to help us in combat..."

Hilda shook her head. "She is not even remotely ready to go into a combat situation. I'm sorry, Kei. We didn't know things had gotten this bad. Right now, she's no use to anyone."

Kei got ready to argue again, then looked back at Jamie. She lay on the bed, a twitch running across her features every few seconds. A sheen of sweat glistened on her brow.

Kei heard someone sobbing, and thought for a moment that Jamie had woken again. Then she realised that the voice was her own. She collapsed on the bed, holding her friend tightly and weeping bitterly.

***

Asuka almost ripped out the cyberjack and threw it across the room. She could not believe what she'd just found. Almost everything Jimmy had told them had been a lie. He'd just been using them to cover up the mess he'd made.

She had no idea how Rei had come across the information. This time there was no editing or censoring. She'd received a full background on Shasti's past, from her birth through training with her partner. She had information on Jimmy's creation. He was another bioroid, like Shasti. Finally, she'd received a full report, augmented with visuals from hidden cameras, of Shasti's capture and recovery, of her tortuous road back to a sort of sanity, and of Jimmy's psychotic attempts to kill her, using a clone of her dead partner as his instrument of vengeance. The whole thing sounded like some bad movie.

Asuka had always been brought up to respect authority. It was the one thing that her mother had drilled into her almost from birth. And now to find that the man running 3WA, the organisation she had devoted her life to, was in all respects a psychotic murderer...

She got up and threw her chair across the room. She was mad, but had no one to take out her anger on. She hated being used, and she hated being betrayed.

She barely noticed when Rei walked back in. Rei merely stood and watched as Asuka's temper raged. Finally, Asuka seemed to calm down enough to look at Rei. She still had a bit of anger in her eyes. "Have you finished what you needed to do?" she asked, a bit of tension in her voice.

Rei nodded, not seeming to notice, or perhaps just not caring. "What should we do now?"

Asuka had calmed down enough to think clearly. They had all the information they needed, but she still wasn't seeing the full picture. She started to talk out loud unconsciously.

"Jimmy must have something else he's hiding," she said. "His motives can be explained by just jealousy and anger, but I don't think that's it. We're missing something else that's making him use us to do all the dirty jobs. Maybe we should talk to Doctor Akagi, see if we can't get anything out of her..."

Rei interrupted her. "Ritsuko is dead."

"WHAT?!" Asuka's head snapped around. "Dammit...how?"

"I don't know." Rei looked as if she _did_ know, but wasn't going to say. Asuka sighed. She was trying to like this girl, but there were still too many secrets between them. *Like you've opened up about your own past*, a small part of her said. She ignored it and went on.

"I was really hoping to avoid this...but just like he said, there's no other choice. Rei, open up the envelope with Jimmy's name on it."

Rei swiftly removed one of the envelopes from wherever she had been keeping it (there was a third-year course in 3WA about nineteen ways to conceal objects on your person when you're only wearing a bikini), and slit it open. She read the contents quickly. "It's a location, about 30 levels down from here. I don't think there's a passable route; it's an abandoned section."

Asuka snorted, and stomped out of the room. "Then we'll _make_ it accessible."

***

It wasn't quite as easy as she'd predicted. It took two hours to get down to the room Bast told them to investigate. Asuka tried to keep a low profile, concerned that they might be stopped now that their investigations were getting more devious. Rei seemed unconcerned, though, and simply walked down the corridors, blasting her way through steel doors and even, in one case, a cave-in.

Asuka was beginning to feel very tired when they finally arrived. "This room had better be important, or I'm going to pound him."

There was a computer lock on the door, but this time Asuka had no trouble taking it out. The door swooshed open, revealing a room shrouded in darkness.

"This is getting to be more and more like a horror movie. We'll get in there and find monsters that will accidentally awaken and eat our brains," Asuka remarked.

She heard a giggle from behind her. Stunned, she turned around. "Rei, was that _you_ I heard laughing?"

Rei was standing very still, her eyes a little wider than usual. "I laughed..." she said quietly. Turning to Asuka, she said "Was what you said funny?"

Asuka found herself grinning. "Yeah, I guess it was."

Rei's expression got very distant. "It's working," she said. Suddenly her face shut down again, and she stoically turned back towards Asuka. "Let's see if we can get the lights on."

Asuka felt like groaning. She was so close, but still insisted on going back to her base frigid persona. She curbed her reaction, however, not wanting to affect the progress they had made. A giggle, she thought. This might be easier than I thought.

Then Rei turned on the lights. Asuka gasped as she saw Jimmy Daltrey in front of her.

She then dropped her weapon and gaped as the next thirty people she saw were also Jimmy Daltrey.

***

"BAST!"

Bast jumped in his seat. His recent activity had made him even more nervous than he usually was, and Jimmy shouting at him convinced him that this was the end. Paranoia came easily to someone who worked with Jimmy Daltrey.

He quickly walked into the office, trying not to let his guilt show on his face. "Yes, Jimmy?"

Jimmy was by the bar, fixing drinks. Bast flinched inwardly. This was not good.

"Bast, I'm sure you've been keeping yourself up to date with our various crises. You know that I sent those two agents off to work on the Shasti problem."

Bast decided to play along. Maybe he could earn a few more minutes of life. "Yes, I do remember. They've been talking to the Lovely Angels, last I heard."

"Won't get far there," Jimmy muttered, then turned, passing Bast a martini as he sat in his chair. "They aren't the only two agents I've had working on this problem. I think that Shasti got some very interesting help in escaping, and I've been trying to find out what sort of help that is. I think I've been successful."

Jimmy called up a vid screen, and the faces of Kei and Yuri came up. "About a year and a half ago, the lovely Angels had a rather unusual mission. It was assigned to them by the Central Computer, for reasons we were never able to figure out. They gave rather sketchy details in their report, but what happened is that they met people from an advanced civilisation that assisted them."

Bast couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. This was completely new to him. "An advanced civilisation, Jimmy?"

"Don't act so surprised, Bast. We've seen far stranger things at the 3WA. Now I've had some people doing some snooping, and I think that Shasti and her accomplices have sought sanctuary there. I've tried to get someone in, but it's difficult." Jimmy smiled again, and turned back towards Bast. "That's where you come in."

Bast began to feel nervous again. "Me?"

"Things have been quiet in my office lately. There really isn't that much for you to do. Besides, you are the _least_ likely person to be a double agent."

Bast started at Jimmy's words. "Um...Jimmy, I haven't done field work in years!"

"I know, and this is a gamble. But I need people I can trust, Bast. So many people in this organisation are turning against me. It's disturbing. I need someone who I have complete faith in. I can trust you, Bast, and that's more important than any field experience."

Bast tried his best not to laugh. He didn't know whether Jimmy was setting him up or not. It seemed likely. Still, even if he was serious, there wasn't much Bast could do about it. "What do you want me to do, Jimmy?"

"I want you to keep your eyes peeled. Go down to the control room for the central computer, and watch the monitors. If this group has Shasti, they may try to attack us, or at least investigate. I want you to be ready. When you see them, make contact and try to infiltrate their organisation."

The congruity of Jimmy's orders amazed Bast. "How should I try to ingratiate myself?"

Jimmy laughed. "I don't care, make something up. Tell them that you think that I've gone insane and can't be trusted. Anything. Just get inside their base, and find out what you can."

"Just that?"

"Just that," Jimmy replied. "I don't want you trying to kill Shasti or anything like that. You aren't an assassin, you're reconnaissance. Get in, find out what you can, report back. I'll give you the contact point; we're moving out soon." Jimmy rose and waved Bast towards the door.

Bast's mind was still reeling. Now his paranoia was working against him. Had Jimmy been watching his every move? Was this all some elaborate trap? It didn't seem possible, the rational part of him thought. He had to trust his knowledge of Jimmy. While Jimmy was insane, this would be too complicated for him. Jimmy wouldn't have arranged all this just to kill Bast, he would simply have shot him. Actually, the plan seemed more like one of Jimmy's lover and confidante, Cory Emerson. She was the one who liked to be complex and cryptic.

In the end, he decided to take the chance. If he managed to find this 'advanced civilisation' that Jimmy was talking about, maybe he could do what Shasti and the others had apparently done, and seek sanctuary. Whoever they might be, they had to be better than Jimmy.

This all flashed through his mind in a second. He then got up and walked over to the door where Jimmy had gone. "Alright, Jimmy. You can count on me." It was the first time he'd ever told Jimmy an outright lie.

Jimmy smiled. "Good," he said. "I don't mean to disturb you, Bast, but I think this is going to get bloody. There's going to be a war. It hasn't started yet, we haven't even had any skirmishes. But both armies are building up. I want to get you in there before it's too late."

He opened the door to show Bast out. Bast got to the entrance, and then stopped.

The Lovely Angels were lying on the floor just outside Jimmy's office. Their throats had been slit almost through, and their heads lolled at awkward angles. On each of their foreheads was carved the word 'fake'.

Jimmy and Bast said nothing, just staring at the bodies. Finally, Jimmy spoke.

"I take that back, Bast. The war has just begun."

End of Part 2