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.

3. Part 3: Who Are You

Part Three: Who Are You

Shasti opened her eyes slowly, trying to hold on to the images in her head. Unfortunately, the more she thought about them, the more they slipped away, until with a groan of frustration she realised that she had once _again_ forgotten what she was dreaming about.

Letting out a small sigh, she looked around the spacious room. She had been given a guest room in the palace, and was currently occupying a four-poster bed that was big enough for four people, eight if they were friendly. Not that that would ever happen in a place like this. *People don't get _that_ friendly in Oz,* she reminded herself.

She'd been here for three days now, trying to recover from her recent operation. The first night, she had been panicked about falling asleep, convinced she would have another nightmare. However, when sleep finally came, she found that the dreams she had were actually very pleasant. At least she presumed they were. Every time she woke up, trying to remember what she had dreamt about, the images faded away, until she was left with nothing more than a vague feeling that they were happy.

On the other hand, she could still recall her nightmare with brutal clarity. It came back to her again as she changed, putting on one of the long, flowing gowns that Glinda had loaned her. At least this one didn't have a corset, but the echoes of her nightmare still flicked through her head. Even worse, she'd agreed to go on a picnic today, though she doubted that a butter knife would do much damage to the metal gentleman she'd be eating with.

Having finally managed to get herself looking like she belonged in Oz, more or less, Shasti opened the door. This proved to be a mistake, as almost immediately a long, insect-like creature fell into the room.

Shasti sighed. Despite the fact that being in Oz was supposed to be restful, there were still annoyances in her life. The largest of them was just getting up, brushing imaginary dust off of his coat-tails.

"Good morning, Professor Wogglebug. How nice of you to drop in," Shasti said dryly.

Wogglebug looked at her blankly, then suddenly burst out laughing. "I see!" he chortled. "You were making a joke! Very nice play-on-words there, Miss Shasti. It's a shame you can't truly appreciate it the same way that I can."

"Of course not. After all, I haven't been thoroughly educated." Shasti rolled her eyes. Wogglebug was a harmless nuisance, but a nuisance nonetheless. He seemed fascinated with her history, and had been following her ever since they'd met.

"So how are you feeling today, Miss Shasti? Any new feelings or emotions? I could examine you if I like - I am a Highly Magnified -- "

Shasti wasn't in a very good mood to begin with, and the bug was doing nothing to alleviate it. She turned on him. "Look, I feel the same as I have since I got here, which is fine. If I stop feeling fine, I'll let you know. In the meantime, and pardon me for being impolite, take your woggle and bug off!"

Wogglebug seemed to have been rendered speechless. It was only temporary, however. "Of course, Miss Shasti. But be sure to see me if you feel anything new happening to you!"

Shasti clenched her fists and nodded.

Wogglebug bowed deeply and went on his way, muttering to himself and drawing figures in the air.

Shasti tried to regain a bit of good humour. Despite what she'd told Wogglebug, she wasn't feeling good. In fact, the last thing she wanted to do was go on a picnic. She'd tried to see Glinda yesterday to discuss her situation, but Glinda had been busy elsewhere.

Walking along to the grand staircase, she managed once again to slip and almost fall. Glinda had mentioned that they were magic stairs, but Shasti couldn't shake the feeling that her feet were supposed to be going downwards.

She smiled when she arrived at the bottom of the steps, seeing Tik- Tok carrying a large picnic basket, not really realising that he looked a little silly. Tik-Tok was one of the people she got along best with in Oz, mostly because he allowed her to keep her own counsel, unlike Wogglebug. She appreciated that, as she had been doing some serious thinking these past three days.

"Good mor-ning, Miss Shas-ti. I've heard that you want to post-pone our pic-nic."

Shasti blinked. "You did? From whom?"

"Glin-da in-formed me that her book said that you would be com-ing to see her this mor-ning, and that I should wait un-til la-ter to have our pic-nic."

*That book again,* Shasti thought, her eyes narrowing. Glinda had a book that told her what was happening and would be happening in Oz. Unfortunately, this meant that every time Shasti tried to do something spontaneous, someone would be there to help her, saying that Glinda's book had told them she'd be doing whatever it was she was doing.

Truth to tell, she _had_ been thinking of postponing the picnic to see if she could get in to see Glinda. She didn't like to be told what to do, though. For a moment, she considered rebelling and going on the picnic anyway, but then realised that Glinda would probably know that would happen as well. Finally, she just sighed.

"Yeah, all right, I'll go and see her. We can have the picnic afterwards, okay, Tik-Tok?"

Tik-Tok nodded. "I have noth-ing else sched-uled for the day, so I shall wait here for your re-turn."

"All right, if that's what you want. Make sure you don't wind down."

"I had my-self ful-ly wound up this mor-ning in an-tic-i-pa-tion of our meal, Miss Shas-ti."

Shasti nodded, smiled at Tik-Tok once more, and then went off in search of Glinda.

Glinda had her own set of rooms for when she stayed at the Palace, taking up the entire South wing. Towards this end of the palace, the walls tended to get a little less emerald green than the others, possibly as Glinda had a hand in the decoration.

Shasti raised a hand to knock on the door, but quickly found it opening of its own accord. "Come in!" a cheerful voice replied.

Shasti found Glinda sitting in an incredibly large chair, reading from her book. *Probably rehearsing her lines so she can sound realistic when she talks to me,* Shasti thought sarcastically. Nevertheless, she curtsied deeply, knowing in some primal way that showing disrespect to Glinda would definitely be a _wrong_ thing to do.

"Um...Glinda, I was wondering if I could talk to you for a few minutes." Shasti was uncertain how to go about expressing her doubts. She'd normally talk to Deirdre, but that wasn't an option. So Glinda would have to do.

Glinda smiled brightly. "Of course, Shasti, come right in! Have a seat!" The servants that had been unobtrusively bustling around the room suddenly vanished, leaving the two women alone.

Shasti sat down, still fairly uncomfortable. It wasn't so much the fact that Glinda was incredibly powerful, although that was part of it; it was the fact that she was so _happy_ all the time. Glinda seemed to exist in a perpetual state of cheerfulness, the kind Shasti had only ever seen before on heavy drug users. If she didn't know better, she'd swear that Glinda had been frolicking in the poppies a few too many times.

Then she remembered the reason she had come here. Steeling herself, she looked Glinda straight in the eye.

"Glinda, why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing? I mean, I know I have to recover from my operation and being fully human and all that, but I can't see exactly how to go about it. Everyone said that Oz would be the perfect place for me to recuperate. I still haven't been able to understand why." There was a whining tone to her voice that made Shasti cringe, but she kept going; this was the culmination of three days of worry coming out of her.

Glinda listened to her rant smiling and nodding. After Shasti had wound down, she got up and moved over to tend to some plants, talking over her shoulder to Shasti as she did so.

"The primary reason you are here is to recover your sanity, Shasti. Your mind was not ready for the changes you have been through, which are both physical and psychological. The reason for your breakdowns was mostly physical. You no longer have thousands of tiny little machines regulating your body functions and nerve impulses; instead you have the one great big machine we all do; the brain. Your own mind is fighting itself, trying to rebel and do things as it used to."

Shasti was surprised. Usually Glinda, in addition to her constant cheeriness, gave the impression of being not slightly out of touch with reality. While talking to Shasti, however, Glinda seemed to be direct and to the point, and Shasti realised how serious this really was.

Glinda turned back towards Shasti, coming over to take her hand. "This is a very different place from the world you come from, or the world of the Long family. Here we have peace. And I don't just mean a lack of war or evil. I mean that Oz is a place of total tranquillity. This is good, for it enables your mind to relax, and stop fighting itself."

Shasti frowned. "What about when I have to leave?"

A crease appeared on Glinda's forehead. "How can I explain this? I know! Your mind, here in Oz, is learning how to behave itself. It is getting used to this state of mind as your normal one. By the time you go back to your own world, your mind should have 'gotten used to' sanity, enabling you to function normally."

The idea of gradually sinking into a state of sanity disturbed Shasti somewhat, but it did answer her question. "I see. Thank you, Glinda, you've helped me a lot -- "

Glinda continued as if Shasti had not even spoken. "Then there is the other, more important reason why they chose Oz for you to recuperate."

About to stand up, Shasti had to shift her weight awkwardly to avoid falling. "What?"

Glinda smiled again. "Shasti, think about your childhood."

"I didn't have a childhood," Shasti replied automatically.

"Precisely," Glinda replied, a touch of sadness coming to her eyes. "The organisation that created you did not create a human being; they created a thing, an agent to use in the furtherance of their goals. You surpassed everyone's expectations, Shasti, and became human, in your soul if nothing else. And now you are human in body as well."

Getting up, Glinda took Shasti's hand, leading her to the window looking out over the South End of the palace. In the distance, Shasti could see various homes and gardens, as well as a path made of yellow brick wending its way towards the land of Glinda's people.

Glinda continued to speak to her. "A childhood is one of the most important aspects of human life. It gives you socialisation skills, it fosters imagination, it prepares you for the wonders of being a grownup. You were never allowed to go through that stage, Shasti, and that is what we are trying to give to you here. Tell me, where are you going after this?"

Shasti was so caught up in Glinda's words that she had to think for a few moments. "Um, I was going on a picnic with Tik-Tok..."

"A very good idea. Don't be afraid to have fun, though. You've been walking around here for the past three days on eggshells, afraid that you'll do something wrong. Don't worry about that. Think of this as being the chance to do things you've never been able to do before. You could go swimming in the river, or have Tik-Tok show you around the caves to the north of here. This is your chance to do whatever you want. Don't waste it."

Shasti looked at Glinda for a moment, then back out to the view from the window. Childhood. The idea was a little silly; after all, she had physically and mentally been a grownup for years. Besides, how much would the addition of a few days playing really add to her well- being?

Suddenly she remembered an incident from a few years ago. A tickle fight that had broken out among a few agents. Shasti had at first been completely puzzled as to the purpose it served, but had let her social personality take over and started to join in. Unfortunately, as the tickling intensified, her mind had interpreted it as an attack, which automatically brought up the warrior personality. One broken arm later, Deirdre was left apologising to everyone while Shasti sat in the corner of the room, everyone avoiding her.

Now she was one mind, just Shasti. Moreover, that mind was still unused to being human. She remembered hitting Cory in the hallway heading for the ship. She could lose control again like that.

She turned back to Glinda. "What sort of fun would you suggest?"

Glinda's smile twitched cutely. "You're supposed to come up with them yourself, Shasti. Find out what you think is fun. Do it. Let your own mind develop."

Shasti wasn't all too certain how much fun she could come up with on her own, but didn't want to say anything about it. Instead she just smiled. "All right, I'll give it a try. Thank you, Glinda."

"Anytime, anytime!" Glinda was back to being her usual flighty self, and accidentally knocked over a flowerpot. Shasti beat a quick retreat.

She headed back towards the main hallway with thoughts whirring through her head. Fun. Childhood breeds imagination. She'd need something like that. Moreover, this was the best opportunity to let her mind heal itself. Stop worrying, enjoy the time spent here.

For no matter how much she tried to relax here, she knew she'd have to leave soon. Jimmy was back. Shasti didn't know how, as she'd seen his body lying dead at her feet, but he was back. It was her fault for running away before she'd made sure of his death. And now all of 3WA was paying for her mistake.

She'd get better. Then Jimmy would die. She'd killed him once, she could kill him again.

***

Jimmy Daltreys lined the walls. At least thirty of them, floating serenely in a liquid solution Asuka recognised from when the trainees had been shown the cloning process. She slowly walked along, looking at each one in turn, scarcely daring to believe that she was actually seeing this.

What made it even worse was that the Jimmy clones turned to stare at her as she passed by. They seemed to have a vague intelligence about them. It wasn't anything near sentience...in fact, the glassy-eyed smile each of them presented looked far from intelligent. It was just a readiness. Each of these bodies was waiting here, ready to be called upon in case they were needed by Jimmy Daltrey.

It was a rarity that Asuka found herself unable to speak. Her jaw was hanging open, her brain unable to comprehend what she was seeing. It couldn't last, though, and she quickly found her voice once again.

"I CAN'T _BELIEVE_ THIS!!!" She turned to Rei. "This creep is actually...um...what have you found?"

Asuka had assumed that Rei had been gawping at the bodies along with her. Instead, Rei had walked over to what appeared to be an old- fashioned computer, and was busy trying to coax information from it. Unfortunately, the computer was proving to be stubborn, as the screen remained black. Rei's eyebrows were coming together, her equivalent of fury. "The computer isn't acknowledging me."

Puzzled, Asuka tried it. Nothing. "You turned it on, right?"

Rei looked genuinely puzzled. "What?"

Despite the environment, Asuka actually managed to giggle. "I can't believe that for once, I know more than you do! This is an old keyboard and terminal computer. You can't even jack in or anything, you just switch it on."

Doing so, Asuka quickly got to a command prompt and started searching for files that could tell them more. Rei noticed that Asuka was getting somewhere where she couldn't, shrugged, and moved over to the clones.

Asuka was secretly loving this. She'd discovered the uses of these types of computers since she joined the 3WA. Dataplugs and information uploads gave her headaches, and so she turned to keyboard computers as an alternative. Even though there were only a couple of them in the 3WA, there was never any problem getting logged in; most of the agents and trainees preferred to go with the state-of-the-art cyberware, and regarded the old computers as little more than toys. Asuka had quickly discovered that these toys, however, could be just as useful as the Central Computer's databanks; and even more so in some circumstances.

This one seemed to have a simple enough file system. There were only three directories, each taking up a large amount of memory. *Lessee...* she thought, *here's one called Jimmy, that'll probably have the stuff we need...ooh, a directory on Shasti as well! Betcha _that_ has the missing information from those uploads!*

Asuka was getting more excited now, as she discovered what seemed to be the answer to their prayers. *And...um...Rei. Rei?* Asuka paused for a moment, staring back at the computer. "Rei, is there anyone else in the 3WA with your name?"

Rei had been examining the controls that went with the tanks; she came back over to the computer. Looking at the directories elicited a gasp from her. Asuka blinked, and felt tempted to clean out her ears to make sure she'd heard correctly. "It _is_ you, isn't it? Why would Jimmy have a directory on you?"

Rei seemed to be having difficulty looking Asuka in the eye; in fact, she was even flushing red. *Good God, I've done her more good than I thought!* Asuka mused.

Rei finally answered, "I...Jimmy did a lot of my training before we were partners. That's probably why I'm in there. Why don't you look at the files on Shasti?"

Asuka's eyes narrowed; she'd been given the run-around enough times in the past day or two to know Rei was hiding something. Still, their mission was more important, though Asuka resolved to look at it later. "OK, let's see what we've got." She typed quickly, bringing up the files on Shasti.

***

Jimmy whistled as he walked down the hall towards the main computer area. Things were going rather well, despite the setback the loss of the Angels had caused. The entire base was being evacuated at Jimmy's order, due to terrorist activities. Half the agents were gone, already at the new base of operations he'd chosen. Rei and Asuka were trying to get at Shasti one way, while Bast was trying another. One of them should be good enough to flush Shasti out of her little hiding place. Then he'd be able to move on to Phase Two.

Cory was busy getting ready to send out a hypersonic signal to the various 3WA agents. An improvement on the one he'd used during his last fight with Shasti, this would effectively give him a fighting force of about 150 agents. All the people who'd gotten a physical in the past year would be affected.

He ruminated on his failure during their last fight. He'd let himself become too cocky, showing up in the open like that. It was lucky that he'd been prepared with a clone body, or things would have ended right there. He'd also allowed himself to be distracted by the Dirty Pair. He'd been amused when he realised that a few of the agents he'd mindwiped were their friends, and had let the fight progress until Kei and Yuri had to kill all of them. While it had been emotionally satisfying, it was another example of poor planning.

Still, he had learned from his mistakes. This new scheme was far more elaborate, but the goal was single-minded: revenge on Shasti. It had gotten to the point where he didn't even remember why he had started to hate her, or even care why. He just knew that his life would not be complete until she lay dead at his feet.

Everything he had done recently was a means to that end. Even Cory, much as she would like to think otherwise. The other Cory Emerson had gotten very close to Shasti when they were at 3WA. A clone of her had at first merely been a convenience, as her disappearance would have been hard to explain. But then when the clone came out of the tank, it had proven to be...very different from the moral, prudish little journalist. This Cory was power hungry, and knew exactly what to do to achieve that power.

He'd learned this when she showed up in his office one night, supposedly to discuss the final version of the "story" she had been working on. He hadn't been willing to give in to her on a few points, so she quickly started trying to persuade him. Jimmy had always been too busy attempting to gain more power to bother with sex. Anyway, sleeping his way to the top wasn't his style. It was certainly Cory's, though, and after that night she had become his on-again, off-again mistress, whenever she could take a break from her journalistic career, and later her talk show.

So, with Cory taking care of the other agents, and Rei and Bast taking care of ferreting out Shasti, that left only one loose end that Jimmy had to take care of. And this loose end was one he was going to take extreme pleasure in cutting himself.

Entering the main computer area, he quickly sat down on one of the reclining chairs and jacked himself into a terminal. Quickly he found himself floating in cyberspace, with high-tech computer grids and the like in the background. He merely spun around in slow circles, waiting. He didn't have to announce himself.

Sure enough, after a few moments, a large digital "happy face" popped into the air beside him. Jimmy grimaced; this was a quirk of the Central Computer's he'd always found childish. Considering the amount of power it had, it should act like a grown-up.

None of this showed on his face, of course. Instead, he gave his usual lopsided grin and waved at the CC. "Hi there!" he chirped. He could feel the happiness wash through him, knowing what he was about to do.

The Central Computer's smiley face was in an absolutely flat line today. "Hello there, Jimmy. What can I do for you?"

For the past year or so, the Central Computer and Jimmy had been playing a little game. Each of them knew that the other wanted him dead, but that wasn't the object. The object was to make death inevitable, and totally inescapable. They had never discussed this, of course, but each knew it to be true. Rei was the major battle between them, a battle Jimmy knew he had won. Now it was time for the endgame, no more lies.

"I've come here to kill you." Jimmy quickly stopped himself from sneering; it would make him look like a villain. "Things have gotten far enough. Rei is mine, and Shasti will soon be dead. The 3WA doesn't even listen to you anymore. I win."

For almost a minute there was silence, as Jimmy waited for the Central Computer's reaction. When it came, he was rather surprised.

"Go ahead, then. Kill me."

This momentarily flustered Jimmy. He hated it when situations didn't go as he planned. He had expected anger. "Don't think you can try to weasel your way out of this one."

The happy face blinked. "As you have already told me, I can't. There's nothing more here for me to do, and I don't think I'd want to try. I presume you're not going to destroy the entire system."

Jimmy smiled. This was more like it. "Of course not. I'm not interested in the chaos that would cause. In fact, you'll be helping me a lot in my final battle."

"Is that what you're calling it now?" the Central Computer said dryly.

Jimmy ignored it and went on, not letting anything interrupt his good mood. "No, I'm referring to your sentience. Rather closely guarded secret, isn't it? No one knows what makes you a real thinking being. Or at least, no one did. I've been doing some research on you for the past few years, and -- "

"You have the virus with you, I hope. I'd hate to have to wait here while you ran and got it." The Central Computer's voice sounded tired. If it had been an actual insult, Jimmy would have taken it with equanimity. But it was clear that the CC was only going through the motions of putting up a fight. Perhaps it realised that it had never stood a chance of winning against someone of Jimmy's calibre.

Jimmy smiled one last time. "I have to go now. You understand, I hope."

The smiley face turned, and seemed to stare directly into Jimmy's eyes for a moment. "Yes, Jimmy. I understand you perfectly."

Jimmy's smile slipped for a moment, then he quickly turned away and stepped out of this virtual world. Unjacking, he got out the software he'd carefully programmed, plugged it into one of the terminals, and ran it.

The effect took some time to produce. Jimmy had needed to have someone develop a new map of the Central Computer's architecture. He wanted to degrade the network so the CC's sentience would slip away like grains of sand through fingers, but the main functions would still work. Jimmy was not all that upset at the slow speed, he wanted to savour this.

Sure enough, after about thirty seconds the lights on one of the consoles began to flicker. The room seemed to dim for a moment, and a babble of voices resounded through the speakers.

Then suddenly there was a high-pitched whine, sounding uncannily like a scream. It resonated through every outlet throughout the 3WA. Every single agent still on the planet paused, listening to the sound. It lasted for over two minutes, getting louder and louder.

Just as suddenly as it began, it stopped. The lights flickered back to normal, and the room looked exactly the same. Jimmy quickly rejacked into the computer, to double-check, but it was merely a formality. He knew. He'd known the instant he heard that scream. It was perhaps the most wonderful sound he'd ever heard in his life.

Getting off the couch, he took one last look around the room. Lights flashed, devices pinged, it looked for all the world like one of the busiest places on the planet.

But to Jimmy, it had never seemed more empty.

Chuckling to himself, Jimmy walked back to his office, softly singing an old twentieth-century tune to himself.

~Daisy, daisy...~

***

Asuka had thought that nothing more could possibly have shocked her. The information she found in this old computer, however, was almost too much for her to bear. It was bad enough when she had realised that the head of 3WA was corrupt. She could deal with Jimmy in a singular sense. But this...the files showed that the corruption in 3WA began long before Jimmy was even created.

She pored through the information, soaking all of it up. Shasti's creation, and the problems that plagued her throughout her entire life. Asuka had to try to avoid feeling pity for Shasti. She had lived through some really bad times, and still managed to survive. *She's still a murderer, though, whether it was forced on her or not,* Asuka reminded herself.

The files on Jimmy were even more enlightening, and sometimes terrifying. He had been created before Shasti had gone rogue, back when she was considered to be a success. When she snapped, the Jimmy project was supposed to have been abandoned, at the orders of Director Ayoob. But for some reason the project continued, this time in secret.

This led to more troubles. Jimmy couldn't have the same social acclimatisation that Shasti had, and also lacked a friend like Deirdre. He ended up having a brilliant mind for tactics, but it was tempered by his own personality, whose unpredictability led to disasters. It was clear right off the bat that he could not be a 3WA agent, and they tried to bury him in management and hope no one would notice.

Reading this, Asuka wasn't certain if the 3WA were totally corrupt or just morons. Giving Jimmy a position where he could use his skills, warped though they may be, was just asking for trouble. Sure enough, he began to rise through the ranks incredibly quickly.

This last piece of information puzzled Asuka. There was no way that he could possibly have done this by himself. He must have had help. Asuka wondered if there was another mole, still within the organisation, who they would have to watch out for.

After a while, the point of view of the files changed, and it became apparent that Jimmy was now conducting his own research. Asuka had finally gotten to a point where she refused to be surprised, so she just continued to read, an apprehensive look crossing her face.

This was too easy. They weren't supposed to be able to merely stroll up to a computer and find all the answers they'd been looking for. It was like the villain in those movies who explained his entire plan to the hero at the climax. It left Asuka feeling as if she was missing something.

She decided to take a short break from the files, and walked over to Rei, who had taken off the front of the machine that appeared to control the clones' environment and was now crawling around inside of it. "Any luck?" Asuka asked.

Rei slid out from under the panel. "In a way. There is a way to effectively kill the clones, but it will take time. It seems there was a device that would have given all the clones a quick, painless death, but it was disabled. Jimmy must not have wanted that to happen."

Asuka blinked. "You know, I think that's the biggest speech I've ever heard you say. Nice job." She grinned and then turned back to the clones. "So what _can_ we do about them?"

"We have to disable them individually."

Asuka gaped at Rei. "You talk like we're just shutting them off. What you're saying is we have to smash each tank and then kill them."

Rei looked up at Asuka. "Yes."

Asuka glanced up at the tanks, looking a little ill. Each of the Jimmy clones gazed back at her, smiling a empty-headed smile. The effect was extremely unnerving.

"Well...let's divide it up. You do the first five, while I look through the computer some more to see if there's anything quicker. Then we'll switch. Okay?"

Rei nodded, and without a word turned to the first tube. Removing her pistol, she shot at the glass five times, cracking it until it finally broke. A viscous fluid poured from the tank, covering the floor on that end of the room. The clone fell forwards onto the floor, not even seeming to notice. Rei walked up to it and put another shot into its head. Asuka looked at all of this with horror. _She'd_ have to do this as well? How could Rei be so casual about it all?

Looking back at Asuka, Rei said, "You'd better get back to the computer, before the room gets soaked. And...try to find a quicker way to do this. Please." Her voice sounded tighter than usual.

Asuka nodded, feeling much better. So Rei wasn't completely unaffected by it all. She sat down at the computer and went back to work, trying to find a reference in the cloning files to any process to get rid of them.

She tore through the remaining files on the Jimmy clones. The information they needed seemed to be eluding her. Then she noticed that one of the files was cross-referenced with the Rei directory. It was a file on Jimmy's split personalities. Which was odd, as Asuka hadn't noticed he'd had any. Another question found with no answer forthcoming, she thought sourly.

She looked back at Rei for a moment, then quickly opened up the new link and started reading.

After a while she knew that she should stop. She knew that she should just shut the computer off, get out her gun, help Rei kill the other clones, and forget this ever happened. But she couldn't stop clicking open files, almost mechanically, one after the other.

Rei was a bioroid. Just like Jimmy, just like Shasti. A third. Shasti had been created at the behest of the 3WA higher-ups. Jimmy was a secret project, unconnected with 3WA's leaders. Rei had only 2 creators, Jimmy and the Central Computer. Both of them taking an equal interest in her upbringing, almost like parents. No, thought Asuka as she thought of her own family, like competing parents.

She noticed the precautions they'd taken with her. Using the information they'd gotten from Shasti and Jimmy's creation, they were able to get her intelligence to the point where a split personality was not necessary. Unfortunately Rei, like Shasti, lacked the emotions necessary to a good agent. If they'd wanted a robot, they could have just built one. They wanted to create life.

So they'd decided to take a page from Shasti's training and find her a partner. Someone who could help her discover her emotions, draw them out to the point where she could function as a 'perfect' agent. Jimmy had been the one who'd made the suggestion; an agent who had almost been let go because of 'personality problems', but one who would fit Rei perfectly.

Soryuu Asuka Langley.

Asuka stared at the screen for a moment, the white text blinking at her.

Soryuu Asuka Langley.

The Central Computer had run some simulations, and agreed that they would be the best pairing.

Soryuu Asuka Langley.

Both Jimmy and the Central Computer agreed that for this to work, there would need to be some preliminary work done. Jimmy said he would take care of it, that he could combine the training with memory erasure and ensure that the project was not compromised.

Behind her, she heard the sound of smashing glass and the soft 'squish' of exploding heads stop. Steps walking over to her. The steps of Rei Ayanami, the Third Child of this process, who had been assigned to be a partner to --

Asuka suddenly snapped out of her near-fugue state. Spinning around in her chair, she backhanded Rei across the face, following it up with a kick to the midsection that sent Rei flying across the room, to land on a pile of corpses. Asuka got up out of the chair, noting absentmindedly that there were tears running down her cheeks.

"You betrayed me! You bitch! I can't believe I ever started to like you!" Asuka let out all the rage that she normally held back, all of the pain and anger she dealt with every day. Rei was starting to get up, but Asuka hit her again, sending her sprawling.

Rei, for her part, looked incredibly guilty. If she had been confused, or even surprised, Asuka might have been ready to stop and listen. It was that expression of shame on her face, the fact that she knew, she KNEW --

Asuka screamed again, a cry of nearly incoherent fury. She went to hit Rei again, but this time the other agent was ready for her. She grabbed Asuka's arm and pulled her round so that her arms were held behind her back. Asuka dropped to the ground, taking Rei with her as a result, and managed to get out of the hold, spinning around. Unfortunately, it was her turn to fall across another body, ending up on her back in a mess of liquid goop and blood.

The Jimmy clones. At that moment, staring at the corpse - no, the THING in front of her, the focus of Asuka's rage changed. She got up and began to stalk towards the door. Rei took a defensive position, ready for almost anything, but Asuka ignored her until she got to the door.

Spinning around, she delivered one final retort. "I'm going to go find Jimmy and kill him. Then I'm going to find the Central Computer and try to kill IT. And after that, you'd better pray to whatever gods you can make up, because I _will_ be coming after you."

She gave a humourless grin and ran out of the room. She quickly retraced her steps towards 3WA proper, up towards Jimmy. Her anger focused itself into a cold, hard, lump in her chest. She didn't need to stop and try to remember which way they came; she was running entirely on instinct.

All she needed to do was to focus on Jimmy, and how she would kill him.

***

Rei stared at the doorway that Asuka had just run out of. For a moment, her face appeared to twist itself, and she took two steps towards the door.

Then she looked back into the room, at the tanks and the bodies. At the remaining Jimmy Daltreys that still lived.

She took out her gun again, and slapped in a fresh charge. Her first shot took out the computer in an explosion of sparks and metal. Then she turned back to the tanks, firing faster and faster.

The only three who knew her well would have been extremely surprised at the expression of panic and despair on her face.

***

Cory stood in Jimmy's office, watching him pace back and forth. Informing him of her latest failures had not been very pleasant, and she stood by the desk awaiting his reaction.

To her surprise, he began to chuckle. "Do you find something funny about this?" she asked.

Jimmy turned to her, grinning. "I do, in an ironic sort of way. Think about it. Of the top agents that 3WA has produced in the past few years, almost all of them have gone over to the other side. Shasti, Deirdre, the Angels, and now Jamie and Bridget. I should have just hunted down the top five percent of 3WA and killed them all while I had the chance."

Suddenly Jimmy frowned, a thought coming to his mind. "Speaking of which...they would have made a try for him."

Cory furrowed her brow. "Who?"

"The other Jamie. Zen. Our resident sexchanger. I'll have to ask the Centr...no, I guess I won't be doing that." Jimmy went over to his desk and sorted through some papers. Cory had wondered why he didn't just use a computer or implant, but Jimmy just seemed to genuinely love paper. He quickly leafed through a list. "Not on here. Thought so."

Cory suddenly felt herself getting angry again. "They got him as well?"

"They probably got him first. The Angels were always close to him. This annoys me, I was hoping to use him to kill the Angels." he turned back towards Cory, favouring her with a hard glare. Despite herself, she swallowed hard.

"Now, I've been very nice in allowing you to take care of these little details for me. It doesn't seem to have worked. Now, I still want your help, of course. However, from now on, _I_ will be making the major decisions. Do I make myself clear?"

Cory started to protest. "Now hang on! I'd like to have seen anyone else -- "

Suddenly Jimmy was across the room and grabbing her by the throat. She found herself lifted up against the wall, Jimmy's hand around her windpipe. She tried to draw in a breath and found that she couldn't.

Jimmy's eyes seemed to glitter as he looked at her. He grinned. "Let's try that again. Do I make myself absolutely, one hundred percent _CRYSTAL_ clear?"

Being unable to talk, Cory merely nodded, feeling herself get a little dizzy. She was relieved when Jimmy suddenly lowered his arm, leaving her sucking in air in an attempt to breathe normally again.

Jimmy turned and began to pace back and forth between his desk and the door to his office.

"This whole operation is very, very carefully planned, Cory. It has a margin for error, but not a large one. Do you know why?"

Cory did, but shook her head. With Jimmy currently in an unstable frame of mind, it would be best to just go along with him at the moment.

"Because I have been dealing with betrayal. Deirdre betrayed me, allowing herself to be seduced by that witch. The Angels went over to the other side. The Central Computer and Doctor Akagi are both dead. Nobody seems to want to be on _my_ side." He turned back towards Cory. "It is getting very difficult for me to be able to trust people, Cory. I want to, I do. But it's hard. Can I trust you, Cory? Will you stand with me?"

Cory remained tense. Jimmy seemed to be in a very paranoid mood right now. Any answer she gave now could be dangerous. She tried to think how best to frame her reply.

She was interrupted by the door to the office exploding into shards of wood. Before the dust cleared, a shape moved through it, firing into the wall. Cory flattened herself against the floor, trying to see where the attack was coming from.

Suddenly she recognised Asuka through the haze. The agent seemed to be in the grip of a cold fury. Looking around, Cory noticed Jimmy staring at Asuka from behind his desk, seemingly aghast.

Cory saw Asuka raise her gun again, and realised what would happen. She screamed for Jimmy to duck and threw herself across the room, hitting Asuka across the waist just as she fired. From the side, she heard Jimmy let out a scream of pain.

Suddenly Cory found herself gripped by her own rage. She had thrown Asuka against the side of the wall, momentarily stunning her. She took advantage of her disorientation to grab Asuka's pistol. Getting up, she prepared to blast the agent into ashes...

But was stopped, a hand reaching out to move the gun. Shocked, she saw Jimmy standing there before her. He had a hand to the side of his head, and Asuka noted with disgust that his ear seemed to be missing. Despite this, he was lucid enough to get up and take Asuka's gun from her. Walking over to the agent, who was beginning to come to, he viciously smashed the gun against her head, knocking her out once again, bleeding slightly from the gash Jimmy had just left.

Even then Jimmy didn't seem to be finished. He took a few steps back and then turned to fire, hitting Asuka on her right side just below the chest. Firing once more, he hit the inside of her left thigh, her body twitching as the bolt of energy tore through it.

Cory was not what one would call a sane and friendly person, but even she was taken aback by Jimmy's ruthlessness. She started to ask him about his actions when he slumped against the desk, holding himself up with one hand. "First aid," he croaked.

Cory ran over to the medikit in the back of the office, and got out some pads that would temporarily numb the affected area. After getting Jimmy so he could once again stand up, they turned back towards Asuka, who still lay unconscious, bleeding from three wounds.

"Why didn't you want me to kill her?" Cory asked.

Jimmy turned, a manic grin on his face. "She's the latest, Cory. The latest betrayal. Oh, I would have had to kill her anyway, but that's not the point. Everyone's abandoning me. I can't kill her. She won't get off that easily. No, I need to make a statement. A statement to anyone that thinks they can get away with switching sides. She is that statement."

Cory attempted to figure out Jimmy's paranoid logic, then gave up. "What do you mean?"

Jimmy began to chuckle. He went to his desk and picked up a fancy letter opener, in the shape of a dagger. The chuckle turned into a high-pitched giggle.

Brandishing the letter opener like a weapon, he stalked towards Asuka, his laughter growing louder.

***

"Remind me again why we're still here?"

Cory Emerson was not in the best of moods. She and Lazarus had gotten the call to return to Gay Deceiver and abort the mission, but Lazarus had refused to go back. He just said that they weren't finished here, and then clammed up.

Since then they had searched what seemed to be all of Pacifica, finding a tidbit of information here and there. About four hours ago, there had been a flurry of activity, and Lazarus and Cory had been forced to hide until the chaos moved past them. Since then, however, the entire headquarters had seemed deserted.

Lazarus wasn't all that surprised by this. "They're abandoning this place. We know too much about it. I gather Jimmy has a new HQ arranged somewhere, and they're all headed out there."

Cory frowned. She had noticed something odd about the agents who walked past. "Did you notice the look on the faces of the people we saw?"

Lazarus frowned. "They seemed normal enough to me."

"Exactly," Cory said. "I would have expected them to all be zombies or brainwashed or something. But they looked as if it was just another mission."

"Perhaps it is, to them," Lazarus mused.

This brought Cory up short. "What?"

Instead of answering, Lazarus moved quickly towards another door. "I think this is what we've been looking for," he said.

Cory looked around her in disbelief. "The Central Computer? Isn't that sort of like sticking your head in the lion's mouth?"

"From what I've heard, I'm not exactly convinced that the Central Computer is on Jimmy's side."

"Yeah, but that doesn't convince me that it's on our side either. I've dealt with this thing before, and I don't trust it further than I can throw it."

"It doesn't matter anyway, as Jimmy effectively destroyed the Central Computer's mind about half an hour ago." The voice came from a darkened corner of the room.

Cory and Lazarus spun around, but whoever had spoken had already emerged, his hands held high above his head. "Please don't kill me. It would, quite frankly, be rather embarrassing considering the trouble I've been through."

Lazarus took his finger off the trigger of his gun, though he kept it pointed at the newcomer. "Why shouldn't I shoot you?" he asked.

"Because I'm no danger to you at all. And I'm surrendering. In addition, I know enough about this whole situation to give you a big advantage in the battle I now suspect is inevitable." Suddenly, he stuck one of his hands out in front of him. "Sebastian Weinberg, Executive Assistant to Jimmy Daltrey."

Cory laughed shortly. "Ah, well, that makes it clear. Please forgive us for having doubted you." She then marched up and poked him in the chest. "You're going to have to do a little better than that."

The reaction to her gesture surprised her somewhat. Bast paled, and looked as if she'd just shot him in the chest. She stared at her finger. "Did I acquire some new superpower?" she muttered to herself.

After a moment, Bast managed to calm himself down. "I'm sorry. You see...um...you are aware that you have a double here, cloned from you, right?" The look on Cory's face told him all he needed to know. "I see you are. Anyway, she's been around here a few times, considering, and has managed to make her presence felt. I'm...um...I'm sure you're totally different, Miss Emerson, but you see why I might be a little wary at first."

Cory was momentarily taken aback. "Why am I here? I thought this clone was busy being a corporate whore."

Bast began to look even more uncomfortable. "Can I tell you later? We really don't have all that much time."

Glaring, Cory relented. Lazarus decided to take up their end of the interrogation. "Let's try this again. Why are you doing all of this?"

Bast sighed. "Believe it or not, not all of the people here at 3WA are psychotic and evil. Most of the agents are just trying to do their jobs, me included. Unfortunately, Jimmy does not seem to have the 3WA's interests at heart. In fact, to be blunt, our leader is a raving maniac. However, he's an incredibly intelligent, cunning raving maniac. He's managed to pass himself off as a brilliant leader with a few quirks. Most of the agents don't deal with him day-to-day, and simply accept it."

Cory began to get a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. "So the reason that the agents we saw bugging out just now looked normal..."

"Was that they were," Bast finished for her. "Most of 3WA has no idea what's actually going on. They've just been fed this story about evil clones wiping out our best agents and trying to destroy the universe."

Cory began to feel upset. "Why couldn't he just have brainwashed everyone?"

This time it was Bast's turn to glare. "Would you have preferred that?" Then he realised why she was upset. "Look, I'm sorry. I know this would have been easier if you could have thought of the enemy as being irredeemably evil. But it doesn't work that way. Jimmy tried mindwiping a few agents to do his bidding when you were last here. It didn't worked, and almost got him killed. He learns from his mistakes. When you have a force as well-trained as the 3WA, and you feed them the right disinformation, why bother brainwashing?"

Lazarus was also looking grim. "You wanted to think of this in terms of black and white, Cory, but no war is ever that simple. And this has become a war. Jimmy has seen to that."

He turned back to Bast. "You realise this makes it that much harder to trust you."

Bast shrugged. "You don't have to. Quite frankly, you can take me and shove me in a cell until this is over if you like. But you'd be making a mistake. I can help you. Jimmy, for some reason, considered me a confidante, and I know a great deal about his plans. Admittedly, I don't know everything, but I consider that to be more Jimmy's general megalomania than any suspicion he may have of me. All I ask is that you don't leave me here." The haunted look returned to Bast's eyes. "Please."

Lazarus frowned, and looked to be ready to refuse, when Cory interrupted him. "What harm can it do? Worst case scenario, he turns out to be a fake, we knock him out, stick him in a cell, and let him snarl at us."

"Worst case scenario, he manages to escape and kill us, then reports back to Daltrey." Lazarus added tartly. Turning back to Bast, he continued. "What will Mister Daltrey think when he realises that you've disappeared?"

Bast coughed, and looked a little wary. "That's the slightly unbelievable part of my story. You see, Jimmy called me into his office earlier today. He needed to get some information about all of you, to find out about his enemies. He wanted me to infiltrate your ranks. He suggested I pretend to give myself up by claiming he was crazy."

Noting the looks of complete disbelief on Cory and Lazarus' faces, Bast said, "Hey, I couldn't make something like that up! I know it sounds really bad, but...I was planning on doing it anyway. When Jimmy explained it to me I thought he'd found out, and was trying to toy with me before killing me. Hell, for all I know he still might be. Do you people have good doctors?"

Lazarus nodded.

"Then I'd really appreciate it if they took a look at me if you take me back. I don't want to have some program in my head that I don't know about come back to haunt me."

Bast sighed. "Look, either I'm one of the most truly Machiavellian people in the entire world, or I'm telling the truth. It's dangerous enough becoming a double agent. I don't want to be a triple one."

Lazarus looked at Cory, who shrugged. "We didn't really get much here but speculation. Hilda's gonna be mad at you for staying behind anyway. Wouldn't you rather have something to show for it?"

That seemed to convince Lazarus. He still kept his stance guarded, but lowered the gun. "All right. Let's start this mutual level of trust right now. Why is the Central Computer 'dead', as you put it?"

Bast sighed, seeming to relax a little. "Can we move out of here? Every second spent at 3WA while Jimmy is still here is dangerous. Incredibly so."

Lazarus nodded, and they headed out into the halls. He was about to give the signal to Gay to come pick them up, when suddenly the sounds of running footsteps came down the hall. All three of them immediately slipped back into the computer room, readying themselves for the impending attack.

The attack turned out to be a 3WA agent with light blue, almost white hair and pale skin, dressed in the traditional bikini. She was tearing down the hall, not even noticing them as they passed. Her eyes appeared to be red, as if she'd been crying recently. The total impression given was an woman in complete and total panic.

Lazarus and Cory looked at each other, slightly amused. "I guess she missed the last call to ship out," Lazarus said.

Their laughter stopped when they turned to Bast, who had turned white as a sheet. He stared back up the corridor in complete and total disbelief.

"I think things have just gotten worse, if that's even possible." he whispered.

***

Rei remembered her childhood.

She remembered being brought online, and staring at the blank faces around her, waiting to be told what to do. She remembered meeting Jimmy Daltrey, and the training she received from him. Jimmy telling her all about his secret plans, and the part she would play in them.

She remembered the dreams, when the Central Computer would come to her while she slept and remind her that she should never trust Daltrey, no matter how much she wanted to.

She remembered feeling an emptiness within her, and how Jimmy and the Central Computer were both concerned about it. Stunted emotions, they had said. The Central Computer had recommended a partner, but Jimmy reminded it what had happened with Shasti. Through the discussion, Rei had stood at attention, her mind searching for a way to fill that emptiness, and finding none.

She remembered meeting Asuka, and the training they both endured. Coming closer, learning to rely on each other. Feeling different around Asuka, a sense that the young woman was teaching her, as well as the two of them learning together.

She remembered the screams that would echo from the room as Jimmy and the Central Computer wiped Asuka's mind to ensure secrecy. She had watched this placidly, the emptiness within her feeling larger.

She remembered yesterday's official meeting, where Jimmy had 'introduced' her to Asuka, claiming that they had been selected to be a perfect 3WA team. Rei had reacted the way Jimmy had asked her to, and had shown no signs that she recognised Asuka.

Afterwards, Jimmy had told her the she might have to kill Asuka in order to complete the mission. Rei had agreed, but the feeling of emptiness inside her had grown stronger, almost overwhelming her with its intensity.

For the past day, she and Asuka had worked together, trying to ferret out information on Shasti and later, as their objectives had changed, on Jimmy. Asuka had made it a personal goal to get her to show some emotion, to smile and laugh. Asuka herself appeared to be composed entirely of such emotions, showing very little of the reserve that Rei used to define herself.

And all through this the hollowness within her had gotten larger and larger. When she had smiled at Asuka, she had felt a throbbing pain. When she'd laughed at something Asuka had said, the pain had increased. Even though she knew that this was the goal of the experiment, this was what the Central Computer had wanted to happen, it had still hurt.

Now, as she ran up the corridor towards Jimmy's office, the pain was making it difficult for her to see clearly. The massacre of the Jimmy clones, Asuka's attacking her and screaming about being betrayed...all of these events pressed in on Rei, making her almost faint with pain. She could feel tears running down her face, but knew that they were from the pain, not from any emotion she might feel. She had never felt more empty than she did right now.

Rounding the corner, she noticed that Jimmy's outer office had been entirely destroyed, indicating that Asuka had already been through here. Rei advanced through the rubble and peered into the inner office, leaning on the door to prevent herself from falling over.

At first, the office appeared to be entirely deserted. For a moment Rei feared that Jimmy had captured Asuka and taken her with him to the new base of operations. Then she heard a movement to her right. She turned, expecting the worst.

Asuka was there, spread eagled against the wall. A dagger-like object pierced one hand, holding it in place. A pair of scissors had been driven through the other hand. Her feet were pinned by what appeared to be fountain pens, ink mixing with blood as it trickled. There ware also two other major wounds, one in her side and the other in her left thigh. She raised her head, and Rei could see that she also had a gash there. Her eyes filled with tears. "Rei..." she managed to croak.

Rei stood rooted to the spot, too shocked to move. "As...Asuka?"

Asuka's eyes pleaded with her. "H...help me..."

And then Rei fell back as the pain consumed her, flowing through her veins like a raging flood.

"NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!"

***

Bast felt his blood chill when he first heard the scream. They had followed as quickly as they could, but it seemed that they were too late. And yet...that had not been a scream of despair. It had sounded more like a person in agonising pain. For a moment Bast had a horrible vision of arriving in the office only to see Jimmy standing over Rei's corpse, moving the gun up towards him.

When they arrived, however, the office appeared to be empty aside from Rei. She was crumpled on the floor in a foetal position, writhing and clutching her head as though in agony. Bast went to her side, attempting to see if she'd been shot, but she seemed to be uninjured. Her eyes were wide open, and her mouth voiced a silent scream.

"Oh, my God..."

Bast turned around to find the source of the voice, just in time to see Cory stumble over to the edge of the office and throw up. He looked over towards Lazarus, who was looking very subdued. Then he saw her.

He barely managed to restrain his own nausea. Seeing Asuka pinned to the wall like some exotic butterfly drove home the true extent of Jimmy's insanity. Temporarily abandoning Rei for the moment, he walked over to Lazarus.

"She can't have been there for very long. I'd say only about twenty minutes," Bast whispered.

Lazarus frowned, going over to examine her. "Nevertheless, she's lost a lot of blood. Too much. Look at her, she's been shot in the side and the thigh, has a head wound, as well as the more obvious wounds. I'm trying to think how to get her down without causing more damage."

Bast thought for a few seconds. He noticed Asuka still appeared to be conscious, muttering to herself in German. *Calling for her mother, poor girl,* he thought. He pounded his hand against the wall in frustration, and heard a hollow thump. Blinking, he examined the wall more closely.

"We're in luck, if you can call it that. That section of wall is made of plastic fibreboard. We can cut it down, and use it as a makeshift stretcher while we get her to a hospital."

Lazarus nodded. "Cory?" he said softly.

A sob was the only answer.

"Cory, I need you here." Bast noticed that Lazarus' face had softened, and he seemed to almost regret disturbing her.

From the corner, Cory waved a hand in their direction. "I know, I know," she hiccuped. "Just...give me a second." After a few moments, she got up and stumbled towards them, wiping her face. "What can we do?"

"Help me cut around the wall so that we can move her with the least chance of more blood loss. Also we need to find some sort of first-aid kit. Her head wound doesn't seem that bad, though we should keep her awake. The wound on her left side is more troubling. I can't tell how deep it is, but that's where the major blood loss is coming from. Believe it or not, the impalement wounds are the least of her problems."

Cory nodded, and began to look around for some sort of cutting instrument.

"I think there's a gun you could adjust the settings on in my old o office. Try to see if it survived the damage," Bast said.

"Thanks," Cory said, and quickly ran out of the room. Bast looked after her with a worried expression. He then turned back towards Asuka, but before he could add anything something slammed into him from behind, sending him crashing into the remains of Jimmy's desk.

He tried to roll with the blow and get back up, but in another second hands were around his neck, slowly cutting off his air. He frantically tried to throw them off, but couldn't get anywhere. Finally, in one last desperate burst of energy, he managed to throw his attacker back across the room before falling back down, gasping for air and massaging his throat.

Looking up, Bast found himself staring at an enraged and tearful Rei. Lazarus held her in a strong armlock, but still she struggled to escape, her expression one of fury...the sight of such strong emotion...indeed, any emotion on her face sent Bast into a momentary stupor, and he stood there while she screamed at him.

"You bastard! You knew this would happen! You set us up!"

Bast stared at Rei, trying to figure out why she was suddenly acting this way. A look at Lazarus' face, however, showed him he should respond to her accusations.

"I was trying to help you. But there wasn't much I could do, not without calling attention to myself." He was starting to stammer, trying to figure out a way he could put it. "I tried to do what I could, I gave you the information you needed to..."

Rei cut him off again. Her voice was so choked with emotion, he had trouble making out her words. "You set it all up! You KNEW how Asuka would react! You must have known! And now she's...and I'm..."

Suddenly Rei seemed to collapse, and Lazarus had to take her in both arms to keep her from falling to the floor. She began to cry, with heavy, choking sobs.

Lazarus looked back towards Bast. Cory, who had just come back and caught the end of the scene, glanced over at him too.

Bast felt the situation running away from him. He had known this was going to be difficult, but this was getting ridiculous. Rei an emotional wreck? *Rei*, of all people?

Aloud, all he said was, "I did not want any of this to happen. You have to believe me."

Equally calmly, Lazarus replied, "But did you arrange it so it could happen?"

Sebastian got up slowly from the floor. "No. But I did know that it could."

For a few moments, no one bothered to say anything. The only sound to be heard was Asuka's low muttering. Finally Cory moved over to Asuka and began cutting through the wall section, talking to her softly to try and keep her awake. Lazarus set Rei down in a corner, where she continued to sob, and began to search for a first-aid kit. Bast sat back down in the wreckage and put his head in his hands.

After ensuring Rei would not try to attack Bast again, Lazarus sighed and touched a point near his neck.

"Gay, come find us."

***

Cory sat down limply against the inside wall of Gay Deceiver. There weren't any seats available. Asuka was spread out over the back seat area, which had been set up for her, and Zeb and Deety were up front. Maureen was next to Asuka, prepping her for emergency surgery. Rei was with Lazarus and the twins in one of the bathrooms, while Bast occupied the other, being watched by Minerva and Deirdre.

For a moment, Cory considered asking why a ship this small had two huge bathrooms in it, but then decided against it. She was too tired. Not just sleepy tired, but bone tired. She wanted to go back home, curl up on her couch and scream for the next month. She did _not_ want to go back to Boondock and help plan the next phase of this operation. She did not want to listen as everyone decided the best way to kill the clone who had ruined her life and had apparently scared Bast to death. She did not want to watch as more and more people came back from these missions dead or comatose or crippled.

*It was just as bad the first time,* she thought morosely.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cory sat by the bed, staring into Kei's face, and tried to figure out how everything had gone so spectacularly wrong.

Kei just lay there, of course. Coma victims tended to do that. Her face still looked wrong, the capillaries pushed up to the surface, reminding everyone of the circumstances behind her collapse. Brain haemorrhage. She had felt her partner die, and because they were so closely emotionally linked, it affected her own mind. Now she lay there, Ishtar and the others waiting for her to wake up. If she ever did. They did not seem to be too hopeful.

Cory kept repeating this information to herself, over and over. She hoped that if she did it often enough, she could find something, some sort of solution that would make everything better. But nothing came to mind. Hilda and the others said they were going to try again, try and redo history a second time, but that meant little to Cory. Yuri was dead. You couldn't 'undo' death. It was cheating.

She wasn't really friends with them, of course. They only knew each other from these two assignments, and from the letters they'd written back and forth. Yet somehow Yuri's death hurt, hurt a lot more than it should have.

Maybe it was the image that kept floating up in her mind. The image of Kei and Yuri, the day before the mission, working so smoothly as a team. Not merely a team, she corrected herself. They moved as if they were one being. And the look they had on their faces...it was an inner peace. Something which Cory suspected that they hadn't felt for years. Together, they were able to fight back the guilt and self- loathing that had gripped them. They comforted each other. They loved each other.

And now that was gone. Yuri was dead. Kei lay here, still and unmoving. And all Cory could do was sit here and watch her, and try and figure out what could possibly have gone wrong.

A movement behind her made her turn. Seeing who was standing there made her growl. "Lazarus, now is _not_ the time."

"And what would be a better time? Miss Emerson, we are trying to save both of your friends. I know you find it hard to believe that we can do it, but it _is_ possible. We've already sent a team back to the station, this time 72 hours before the explosion. Hopefully they'll be able to determine the motivations. However, we still need your help. You know Kei and Yuri better than anyone here. You can tell us about them. About how to avoid this tragedy."

Cory's mouth twitched, and for a moment she thought about hitting him. She spun on her heel and walked to the other side of the room. "Why not just watch all those old vids you have of them, or read the stories where we met. You don't need me at all. We're just fiction."

Despite herself, she turned to gauge his reaction. He still looked at her with that same weathered gaze. At least he wasn't smirking this time.

"Cory," he eventually replied, "I am fictional as well, supposedly. I've always refused to accept that. I suggest you do, too. Despite Hilda's claims, we live _real_ lives. If you stop thinking your life is real, then it ceases to be worth living. We need your help because no amount of videos, books or third-party accounts makes up for knowing a person. You knew the Angels. You were friends with them. Help us."

Cory stood for a while, mulling over what he said. He was right, of course. Damn him. "Ask me nicely," she said.

Lazarus blinked at her. "What?"

"Just say 'please'. That's all."

For a moment, she thought he'd refuse. She could see all of that nasty pride of his coming to the surface. Then he closed his eyes briefly. "Please, Cory. Help us."

Cory allowed herself a brief smile. "All right." She looked back at the bed, and the smile vanished. Kei lay there, still as death. "All right, I'll help."

***

Cory looked at the storefront in front of her with disbelief. Lazarus had said that they were going to consult an expert on multiple realities and chaos theory, something which apparently factored into the botched mission. Cory had expected them to stop at a university or some such higher-learning institute.

She had not expected a shop right in the middle of downtown Boondock, with a sign on the front reading 'Big Swifty & Associates: Trendmongers'. She wondered if this man would be any help at all.

Her doubts only increased upon entering the shop. It appeared to have had a cyclone hit it recently. Papers were strewn everywhere, including the floor. There wasn't even a path, and Cory tried to tread lightly on the manuscripts as she walked in. Lazarus seemed untroubled by all the mess, and walked right up to the front desk, ringing the bell.

"Yes? Whad'ya want?" came the voice from the back room. It sounded rather bored.

"Chris, we have an assignment for you," Lazarus replied.

Suddenly there was a small crash from within the room, and a face poked out the door. "Lazarus! Haven't seen you in quite some time! Reality trouble again, huh?"

The proprietor stuck his head back into the room. "Sheila, put the kettle on!" he shouted, and then came out to meet them. Sticking out a grimy hand, he grinned at Cory. "Nice to meet you. Chris Davies, Professor of Chaos Theory and Temporal Predictions."

She took the hand warily. Sure enough, it seemed slightly sticky. "Um...Cory Emerson, reporter."

"With the Pair, right? I remember that series." He didn't seem to notice the glare Cory gave him, but simply sat down on a chair in the corner that hadn't even seemed to have been there before. He stared at his hand for a moment and then wiped it on his jacket.

"Sorry about that," he grinned at her. "You know what they say, 'melts in your mouth, not in your hands'. Rubbish, if you ask me." He put his feet up on a nearly pile of paper. "So, Lazarus, what can I do you for?"

Lazarus seemed to take the man's eccentricities in stride. "Well," he said, "as you can imagine from Cory's presence, the problem concerns the Lovely Angels, Kei and Yuri. As well as their home universe."

Chris nodded. "16, I think that one is. Let me check. SHEILA!!!"

"TEA!!!" came an equally loud voice from the back room. Cory looked up to see a rather statuesque redhead standing in the doorway, an angry expression on her face and a tea tray in her hands. Cory wondered if she was related to the ten or twelve other statuesque redheads she'd seen since she arrived here. *To think I once thought Kei's looks were rather unusual...*

Chris got up, snatching the tray from her hands. "Get me the files on Universe 16, double quick. Should be next to that Lincoln Log cabin."

Lazarus interrupted. "And while you're at it, find me any information you can on probability-altering entities."

Chris paused, staring back at Lazarus. "Ah, so that's what this is all about." He nodded at Sheila, who went back into the back room, a truculent expression on her face. Passing out the tea, he smiled at Lazarus. "Tell me everything."

As Lazarus explained how they had arrived at the current situation, Cory noticed Chris' expression getting more and more serious. When Sheila arrived with a large stack of files, he barely acknowledged it, merely nodding for Lazarus to continue.

As Lazarus finished, Chris sat back in the chair and let out a sigh. "Well, I suppose it couldn't have been helped. Still, I wish you'd called me before attempting anything like this. You knew those two were probability-generators."

Cory blinked. "Excuse me, but what is a probability-generator? Or probability-altering entity?"

"Same thing," Chris said, passing her a folder. Seeing it had tomato-sauce stains all over it, Cory declined. "There are certain people who can affect reality. Or rather, affect the way it reacts around them. It's not exactly a beneficial power, it just exists. Think of them as luck generators. The luck is usually good, to a greater or lesser degree, for them personally. On the other hand, because dropping luck all over the place is a serious drain on entropy, it tends to have a counteractive effect on those around them. You know the Pair's reputation, Cory. They get the job done. They solve the case. But frequently, the planet blows up around them. It's that sort of thing."

He sighed, flicking through more folders. "The thing is, even the definition I gave you isn't entirely true. That would imply that it can be predicted, which it can't. Every probability-generator is different. Usually there's only one or two of them in any universe at any given time, which is a godsend."

He passed a bunch of folders to Lazarus. "Help me find the Pair, would you? They're in here somewhere. Doesn't help that I don't know their last names..." Apparently the lesson had ended, because Chris now flipped through the folders at an incredible rate, muttering to himself. "Teela Brown...Mihoshi Kuramitsu...Justy Ueki Tylor...the _entire_ population of Sagussa..."

Finally he looked up. "Aha! Here we are! And coincidentally, Lazarus, they're right next to Long, comma, Lapis Lazuli and Lorelei Lee." He coughed pointedly as he said this, then got serious again. "Which brings me to my point."

Leaning forward, he passed Lazarus the folders. "You had the Pair, two well-known probability generators, and your two daughters, who are _also_ probability generators, on the same mission. In a sense, you're a very lucky man. You escaped with only one dead and one in a coma. The four of them together could have meant the end of that universe."

Lazarus' brow wrinkled. "You mean we can't put them together."

"Nope. The effects of one of these teams is bad enough on their universes. Putting together two of them...two pairs of two for God's sake...and hoping to succeed...well, there was no way. I could talk to you for an hour on why chaos theory would prevent it, but suffice to say, it would never have succeeded.

"However, I don't see how this affects your _current_ mission. You're trying to go back and prevent this from happening. Fine. Gives me a headache thinking about it, but fine. But Yuri is dead, and Kei is in a coma. They won't be affecting it. And I'd recommend leaving the twins behind as well this time. That way, the mission should succeed on its own merits."

"Despite having the twins and the Angels already there, trying to complete it for the first time?" Lazarus said, a doubtful tome creeping into his voice.

Chris paused with the teacup halfway to his lips. "Ah. Good point. Sorry, wasn't thinking temporally. Hm."

And for the next ten minutes, he didn't seem to move. Cory looked over at Lazarus, but he was too busy reading the files Chris had given him on Kei and Yuri. With a shrug, Cory reached down and started to read one of the many papers that had fallen to the floor.

That was why she nearly jumped out of her seat when Chris shouted again. "AH HAH! Got it! You need a probability dampener!"

Lazarus had jumped as well, but now seemed to be recovered. "Elaborate, please," he said.

"A probability dampener. Opposite of what we're talking about. When they're around, weird stuff ceases. The world flows logically. That sort of thing."

"Can we get someone like that on such short notice?"

A grin split Chris' face. "Sailor Pluto?" Noticing the stern gaze Lazarus returned to him, he went on. "Ah well, had to try. But seriously, not a problem. Probability generators are so rare because of their unpredictability. But since it operates on probability- _dampening_ principles, a dampener can be built. No people necessary."

Lazarus stood up. Cory noticed for the first time how tense he seemed. Apparently he wasn't all that happy to be here either. "How long before you can get one of these things?"

Chris had buried his nose in another file, and waved a hand absentmindedly. "Take that one off of the bookcase. I haven't used it in donkey's years, so..."

Cory felt her temper building up again. It was a familiar feeling that she could take comfort in. "If you had it all along, why did you make us wait so long? Why all the technical talk? Why not just say 'use this'?"

Chris grinned at her again. "I try and get my fun whenever I can, Miss Emerson." Then, to her amazement, he winked. "Good luck."

***

Cory stopped dead in her tracks, feeling her anger rise. After leaving Davies' establishment they had walked along for almost two hours, Cory following Lazarus' increasingly complex directions. And now they appeared to simply be back at the Long residence. She rounded on her companion.

"Was there a point to that? Why didn't we just go back the way we came?"

Lazarus seemed unruffled. Earlier, he'd appeared to be showing Cory a bit of kindness, but that was gone now. "We couldn't go back right away. Things weren't ready yet."

Cory blinked. "I don't understand."

"You will." Lazarus smirked. "Just go through that door."

Cory growled. She'd never used to be this bad-tempered, but something in Lazarus brought out the worst in her. Turning, she saw a side door she hadn't noticed before. It had a picture on its front of a snake eating its own tail. *Charming*, Cory thought.

She turned back to tell Lazarus where he could stick his door, but the man was gone.

She looked at the door again. *I should just forget about it. Go back into the house through the _front_ door and check up on Kei. I don't have to do what he says*. But even as she was thinking this, she found herself walking towards the door and opening it. Her curiosity was getting the better of her once again.

Through the door looked to be a perfectly ordinary hallway, with another door at the far end. As soon as Cory stepped into the hall, the door behind her melted away and vanished, leaving behind a blank expanse of wall. Thumping the wall once in frustration, Cory stalked down the hall towards the other door.

Opening _that_ one proved to be far more interesting. This time Cory found herself in a huge circular room that resembled something from a government senate building. There was a raised dais towards the back which looked like it held the various speakers of power, and chairs all around the edge of the room. Cory noted with irritation that she seemed to be standing right in the middle of the room, and they hadn't even bothered to give her a chair.

"Cory, welcome." Startled, Cory looked up. The chairs on the dais that had been empty just a moment before were now occupied. Lazarus sat in one of them, she noted with disgust. To her surprise, Hilda was in another. She also noticed Jubal Harshaw, the only one with a smile on his face. The rest seemed to be occupied by men and women of various races and types. A young woman with flowing robes and a tiara, an older man with dark green skin. All of them stared in her direction. Cory shivered, feeling like a lab rat that was being put through a maze to see if it was intelligent.

Attempting to take some control of her situation, she marched over to the edge of the circle and sat in a chair. "What is this place?"

Hilda seemed to be speaking for everyone. "This is an experimental organisation. We call it the Circle of Ouroboros."

"Yeah, noticed the snake," Cory said, noticing that Hilda had not answered her question about where they were.

Hilda went on as if Cory had not spoken. "Recently, humanity has come into possession of a device that can take people between universes. You've seen it in action; it brought you here. However, using the device seems to have brought unwanted attention to ourselves. There are certain...other parties that do not want us to have these abilities, and have taken steps to stop us, sometimes by any means necessary. The Circle was designed to take action against these others, and also recently to see if there was any way to alter some of these realities, trying to create a better place."

Cory ran through that twice in her head, just to make sure she got it. "You mess with different universes."

"Yes, although we haven't really started doing that yet. Most of this is purely hypothetical. Lapis Lazuli and Lorelei Lee were attempting a little experiment to see how much we could affect another universe. Unfortunately, you saw what happened when they arrived. Likewise, when we went back to try and correct the problem, we only succeeded in making things worse."

Cory felt the edges of a headache coming on from trying to think in terms of time travel. "But I thought Lazarus told me we were going to go back and try a second time."

Hilda smiled briefly. "He did, and we are." The smile vanished. "But there are more issues at stake here. Every time there is an intervention, paradox comes into play. To go back and try to fix things that first time was a major decision, but I felt it necessary; to see how much we had learned and how much we could do."

"So saving lives had nothing to do with it?" Cory asked.

This time it was Jubal who answered. "Of course it did. But you must understand, Cory, we have to think of the big picture. More important than saving the lives of the people on the station was ensuring that the timeline ran smoothly. If that station had been meant to blow up with a thousand people aboard, we would have let it happen."

Getting nervous, Cory responded, "So it wasn't meant to blow up?"

Jubal smiled again. "No, it wasn't. In fact, in the timeline we first saw, the Lovely Angels weren't there at all. Not that they _caused_ the disaster - although we did examine that as a possibility. But somehow their presence on the station accelerated things to the point that whoever set off that bomb panicked. _Someone_ hired the Angels - apparently to investigate. And that would certainly be enough to panic me." He grinned.

Cory wanted to snarl, but found herself reluctantly agreeing with him. *Wait a minute, then who hired 3WA for the job? Kei and Yuri said it was an odd situation in the first place...* She decided to file that away in her brain for later.

Hilda jumped back in. "What Jubal is trying to say is that there are at least a dozen factors that need to go into this rescue - _one_ of which is trying to save your friends."

"Is there a reason you need me here?" Cory asked. Her headache was getting worse, and she really wanted to go lie down.

Lazarus frowned. "Yuri is dead. Kei is in a coma. As the only other person from their universe, you are the one who has to speak for them."

Cory didn't like the way this was heading. "And...?"

"And we need your permission to attempt a rescue."

Cory blinked. "Um...granted?"

"It's not as simple as that, Cory," Lazarus said. "If we attempt a rescue, it's still going to affect them. We're still not entirely sure about the laws of paradox. Let me put it like this. We go back, make sure the station doesn't blow up, and save Yuri. We then return to Boondock. Yuri is no longer dead."

Nodding slowly, Cory tried to get her mind around the situation. "Gotcha."

Lazarus then fixed her with a cold stare. "Now - what about Kei?"

"Well, she would - " Cory stopped. What would happen to Kei? "She'd...um...not be in a coma anymore."

"Possible, but unlikely." Lazarus continued to stare at her, refusing to let her avert her gaze. "What other possibilities are there?"

*Unlikely?* Cory thought. "Well...if she _is_ still in a coma, Yuri's presence should snap her out of it."

"More likely that Yuri's mind will feel Kei's upon arrival in Boondock and she'll collapse as well. Yuri is just as linked to Kei as Kei is to her."

Cory's head felt like someone was pounding on it with a metal pipe. "Well...why not rescue Kei as well as Yuri? Back on the station, I mean? Then you could bring them both back, and - "

"And what happens to the Kei here?" Lazarus broke in. "That would mean two Keis. Which one is real? For that matter, what if they met? Could they co-exist? We tried that once, and the person involved was killed. We don't want to try it again."

Hilda said, "That's why we're concentrating on only rescuing Yuri and stopping the bomb. The last mission never found the bomb in time, and Yuri was a ways away from them when it went off. There's still a considerable danger of co-existence, but if we concentrate _only_ on Yuri and the bomb, we should be all right. We have a surveillance team there now finding out exactly what the bomb crisis was all about."

Now Cory was puzzled. "It's that organisation - the Bureaucratic Watchdog Office. They were going to..." She trailed off as she noticed Lazarus shaking his head.

"Whoever planned to set off that bomb, it was _not_ the BWO. I don't know what information you three received, but it was probably false. As I said, someone wanted the Angels there, so I suspect they set up a phoney situation to ensure that they would be present."

Cory slumped back in her seat. "So what is the reason?"

"We're trying to find out," Jubal replied.

For a few minutes, Cory just sat there. "What you want me to do is give permission for this rescue, knowing that in all likelihood it will cripple Yuri as well as Kei. Furthermore, you want me to speak for the Angels as well, giving their permission to do this to them."

"Yes," Lazarus said. "As the alternative is Yuri being dead and Kei still in a coma, I think the choice is obvious." Hilda glared at him but said nothing.

They waited while Cory gathered her thoughts. *Why are they doing this to me? Well, because they have to get permission, and I'm the closest thing to next of kin at the moment.* She sighed, and put her head between her knees. *Gods, what's going to happen? What if they never recover? I'll have been responsible...why isn't there some other answer?* She imagined Yuri in a bed next to Kei, both of them blank, unmoving...being fed intravenously for the rest of their lives until their bodies decided to stop. She shuddered and was almost sick.

Then she thought of Yuri, blown up on the space station and dead. And Kei's scream as Yuri was ripped from her mind.

She looked back up at the group, blinking back tears. Lazarus was the face she focused on, staring back at her implacably. God, she hated him.

"Fine. I give you permission to do this."

And having said that, she slumped back into her chair, closed her eyes, and began to cry in earnest.

***

A day or so later, Cory stood by the door of the Dora, wondering what gods she had insulted to get to this point. Lazarus had asked for her to accompany the team on the mission, in order to get Yuri back to Boondock.

Cory had attempted to argue her way out of this. She might occasionally crave excitement, but Kei's fate had brought home to her how dangerous this actually was. The thought of going back onto that station and getting blown up scared the willies out of her. Who's to say that they wouldn't cut their losses and give up after this attempt?

Lazarus was determined, however, and for once Hilda didn't argue with him. "Cory, think about what happened last time. Yuri will be in a state of panic. What had been a cut and dry mission has suddenly turned deadly. We could try to intercept her, but she hasn't known us for very long. Kei is in a coma. You are there to reassure her and get her back onto Dora."

Cory grumbled. "Why not just whack her over the head and drag her back?"

"What would your reaction be if we did that to you?"

That brought Cory to a halt. She'd be livid. They were only trying to be nice to Yuri. She sighed. "Fine, I'll go."

That having been settled, she then tried to pick apart every aspect of their plan. "What about the spy team you said you placed there? It's been there for 3 days, gathering information. Wouldn't they be ideal for this team?"

Lazarus was already shaking his head. "Cory, the reason that spies are successful is that they are _spies_. They aren't fighters, or bomb defusers. They're people who know how to remain unobtrusive and gather necessary information. We can't afford to let them be part of the team, it might give them away in case we need them for future missions. I've told you that we're being monitored by our enemies."

Cory rolled her eyes. "Who _are_ these enemies of yours? You make it sound like a bad action thriller."

Lazarus started to snap at her, then stopped himself. Rubbing his temples, he continued in a calmer tone. "As far as we've been able to discover, there are three other groups that, like us, have the ability to travel between times and dimensions. The ones calling themselves the 'Time Lords' just want to stop us from using the devices to change histories. The 'Scene Changers' want to eradicate us. And we're not sure about 'The People'. So far, all they've done is ask us for the recipe for our suspicious yellow dip."

Cory looked at Lazarus for a moment in case he was putting her on, but he seemed to be completely serious. "So, because you want this to remain hidden as much as possible from these groups, you aren't using the same team as the one that did surveillance."

"Exactly," Lazarus said.

Trying to think of the next answer to her unspoken question, Cory went on. "And that's why we're not taking any fancy tech from this time back to the station. In case the other groups can sense it."

Lazarus nodded. "That's one of the reasons. More likely, however, is that our detecting and defusing equipment would be completely useless."

That startled Cory. "What?"

"Cory, if you took the most advanced, high-tech device your people have for detecting explosives and other such devices, and took it back to the time of Alexander the Great to find a bomb, would you be successful? Think how those devices work."

Cory's brow furrowed for a moment. "It wouldn't pick up anything. It would be looking for 22nd-century technology, not...um...minus- fourth."

"Right," Lazarus nodded. "Our equipment is calibrated completely differently from yours in the first place, as they are different universes. Your universe is much more reliant on cybertechnology implants, for instance. We never advanced in that direction."

Cory opened her mouth to say something else, and saw a brief look of frustration flash across Lazarus' features. She held back, realising she'd tormented him enough. There was a big difference between getting on Lazarus' nerves and just being a bitch. "OK, fine. I guess I'm all set."

Lazarus sighed in relief. "We should be ready to move in about eight hours. You might want to get some sleep. And remember, your job is to find Yuri and get her back to Dora. If luck holds out, you won't even have to run across the bomber. Short and sweet."

***

For the most part, the mission had been short and sweet. Although the spy team Lazarus and company had sent in couldn't give them a precise location of the bomb, they were able to pinpoint an area, and guarantee that at the time of the squad's arrival, the bomb had already been planted. As Lazarus muttered to her, "It would be really embarrassing to arrive at the right place and discover he hadn't even planted the bomb yet."

The bomb took a lot longer than they had planned. It was filled with failsafes and backups that insured that the defusers would not be able to do what they were doing. Finally Lazarus had to leave them there and hope for the best. He then took a few others and went in search of the bomber.

There wasn't much Cory could do until the bomb was scheduled to go off. Right now, in another part of the station, Kei, Yuri, Laz and Lor were preparing to ambush the wrong people. Cory couldn't risk going in and changing that. Apparently there was a difference between changing things and REALLY changing things.

So she was waiting in the corridor by herself, trying not to do anything that would attract attention. Unfortunately, some guy chose that moment to breeze around the corner at full speed, slamming into her and knocking her to the floor.

Cory smashed into the wall and lay there for a few moments, trying to get her breath back while thinking up a few more amusing tortures for the entire male gender. Opening her eyes, she found the man staring at her with his mouth wide open. Cory looked behind her, wanting to see what had him so amazed. That was when he grabbed her by the throat.

"YOU! You were that reporter who was giving him a hard time! You drove him to this! He was...he was..."

Cory tried to understand what the man was saying, but it was difficult as he had her about two feet off the ground and she was struggling to breathe. He finally lowered her, but kept a choke hold on her neck as he moved down the corridor.

"He's holed himself up in his room. He won't even let me speak to him! How are we supposed to negotiate with Ms. Mizuno if he hides like this?! How..." he paused, a catch in his voice, "how am I supposed to see her? I was going to finally meet her in person!"

Cory was desperately scrabbling at her throat, trying to throw him off, but his other arm had her in a lock behind her back, so she mostly ended up flailing about. *Why didn't I take Kei and Yuri up on that offer to teach me to fight?* She looked into his eyes and began to seriously worry; the man was obviously unhinged. She had a nagging suspicion that this was their bomber. He was headed for Lawson's room, and was certainly crazy enough. Where was everyone? For a packed space station, the corridors certainly were deserted.

The man finally released his hold on her neck, but only to open the door in front of them. Cory renewed her struggles, but he was just too damned strong. Bursting into the room, the man immediately started in on a fresh rant.

"Boss, it's OK! I found the reporter who bothered you so much! Now we can get back to - urk!?"

For a moment, Cory thought she was going to die right there. The guy's arm closed around her neck, almost managing to snap it in half. Her vision began to turn red, but that didn't prevent her from seeing what had caused him to tense up. Two people were sitting up in bed, apparently naked, and looking very post-coital. Cory certainly recognised them. It was Richard Lawson and Ami Mizuno, and suddenly the chat show's talk of 'mergers' had a whole new meaning.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then Cory found herself yanked across the room, as the man leaped to avoid shots from Lazarus and the rest of his team. Cory almost cried out in pain; that last jerk had sprained her wrist at the very least.

Lazarus looked unruffled. "Give it up, Loader. Just come with us."

Loader wasn't listening, but was instead adjusting his grip on Cory in order to reach inside his jacket and produce a small box-like device. "I warn you, I have..."

Lazarus wouldn't let him finish. "You have a device connected to a disarmed bomb. It's too late." Cory visibly relaxed. They'd done it. Unfortunately, this just seemed to upset Loader even more, and he continued to tighten his grip on Cory. Cory looked to Lazarus for some sort of assistance, but he seemed to be chuckling. Cory began to do a slow burn.

Loader was angry as well. "What's so funny?"

Lazarus gave a small grin. "I was just wondering if Miss Emerson was going to deal with you the same way she dealt with me."

Loader, puzzled, looked down, expecting Cory to suddenly pull some sort of judo move.

For a moment, Cory was equally puzzled, and then suddenly realised what Lazarus was talking about. He had her arms, but her legs were still free.

She quickly snapped her leg up as fast as she could, and was rewarded with a scream of pain from Loader as her foot connected with his groin. He let go of her, and she bolted over to the other side of the room. In seconds, several of Lazarus' team had him surrounded and restrained.

Cory didn't have time to relax, though. Lazarus grabbed her and shoved her out of the door. "Yuri."

Still somewhat dazed, Cory nodded and ran out of the room. Now that the crisis was past, she could afford to head towards the room where Kei, Yuri and the twins had cornered the Bureaucratic Watchdog Office. She could also afford to notice the pain in her wrist, which was excruciating. She tried not to move it too much.

Turning a corner, she slammed into another body, flying across the corridor. Again. She also landed on her sprained wrist, and heard a bone snap. She cried out in pain.

This time the other person helped her up. It was Yuri. "Cory, what are you doing here?"

Cory gasped but managed to stand up. "Yuri, we've got to get back to the Dora."

Yuri suddenly remembered why she had been running. "But the bomb! It's not -- "

Cory cut her off. "It's OK. Lazarus took care of it. We're done here, mission accomplished."

Yuri sighed, leaning up against the wall. "Thank God. And Mughi's all right too! For once everything went right!"

Cory smiled wanly. "Yeah, everything's just peachy."

"I'll go get Kei." Yuri started to head back, but Cory grabbed her.

*I'll never forgive myself for this.* "Kei's already back on Boondock. She's...she's waiting for you."

If Yuri noticed Cory's mood, she didn't say anything. She just nodded. "OK. Well then, let's get back to the Dora and get your wrist fixed up."

Cory nodded and let her friend lead her back towards the ship. *I'm sorry, Yuri,* she thought.

***

Cory sat at the foot of the bed, staring at Kei's sleeping face. It was almost exactly the same as when she'd last visited, with one major exception; Yuri now occupied the other bed. As soon as they'd arrived back in Boondock, Yuri had screamed, clutched her head, and collapsed, blood streaming from her nose and mouth.

Now they both lay here, unmoving. Kei still hadn't woken up. Nothing had changed. And Cory sat there staring at them, feeling like their executioner.

A noise from behind her made her jump. Hilda was standing in the doorway, looking sombre. "Still no change?"

Cory looked down. "No."

Hilda walked in and placed a hand on Cory's shoulder. "I thought you'd want a final briefing, to show you what we learned."

A choked laugh came from Cory's throat. "I couldn't care less what you learned. You succeeded, after all. The bomb didn't go off, mission accomplished. And hey, if two of the people never wake up, well, these things happen. After all, Cory gave us permission to fuck with their lives, so she knew -- "

"Cory." Hilda's voice was firm, yes still a whisper. "Do you really believe that?"

There was a long pause. "No. I don't even think Lazarus thinks that, though I wouldn't put it past him. I just..." Cory threw out a fist, hitting the wall. "There's nothing to do now but wait and hope they wake up. I haven't even thought about what I'll do if they don't."

"You're welcome to stay here," Hilda said.

"No." Cory's response was immediate. "No, I can't stay here. I don't...I don't accept what you do. I could never accept it. Manipulating people's history. Even if your motives are to save lives, I just...I couldn't stay here."

Hilda smiled weakly. "I understand. You don't mind if we leave the offer open, though, do you?"

Cory thought for a while, and then looked down at the woman. Even when both of them were sitting on the bed, Cory was still a good deal taller than Hilda. "No, I understand. Thank you."

The two of them sat there like that for a while, and then Cory spoke up again. "All right, give me the briefing."

Hilda continued to keep her voice low, but became somewhat more businesslike. "As you probably guessed, the origin of the problem *did* come from the Bureaucratic Watchdog Office. They were the ones who planted Loader in Mr. Lawson's office, and they were the ones who had him make the bomb. However, they had no idea that he had planted it. They were merely holding it in reserve until after the talks between Lawson and Mizuno's companies had taken place.

"They knew that Loader was, as they put it, 'a weirdo', but for the most part they didn't worry about it. From what I understand, they're going to be more careful from now on."

Cory snapped to attention at this. "What?! Why...why weren't they arrested?"

Hilda shrugged. "Shortly after Loader's capture, the rest of the organisation seemed to disappear. We did manage to find one person, but he reminded us, and quite rightly too, that we couldn't afford to draw attention to ourselves by blowing the whistle on him."

"Dammit," Cory sighed.

Hilda moved on. "In any case, it appeared that our bomber was enamoured with Ms. Mizuno. He had been following her career for some time, and collecting press clippings. A regular John Hinckley."

"Who?" Cory asked.

"Never mind," Hilda said. "In any case, he was asked by Mr. Lawson to arrange these meetings in order to discuss a merger. He was delighted, because not only would he be able to help the BWO, but also to meet Ms. Mizuno.

"And so the two came together, linked by Mr. Loader. Unfortunately, nobody knew the *real* reason for the merger meeting."

Cory snorted. "They were screwing around."

"Essentially, yes," Hilda smiled. "They'd been communicating for some time, and had arranged these 'talks' so that they could finally meet. Apparently it was love at first sight, because when we found them..."

"Right." Cory could begin to see what had been going on. "*That* was why Lawson was acting like such a chowderhead when I questioned him. It wasn't about business, it was about romance."

"Speaking of which," Hilda interrupted, "there wasn't a hope in hell that they could keep that secret what with the capture of the bomber. They went public with it, and announced both the merger and their engagement at the same time."

"Good for them," Cory grinned. Then she remembered something. "I thought Loader was here. We brought him back with us."

Hilda glanced over at the pair on the bed. "Yes, he is."

"Then how did they announce this after his capture?"

Another long pause followed. Finally Hilda spoke. "At the moment, the future of your universe is not completely set. If there's no change here within the week, then we'll find some other way to return Loader. But for now, Loader was captured by the Lovely Angels and brought to justice. Everyone was surprised that they managed to do it with so few casualties."

Cory looked hopeful. "You mean they could still recover?"

"Of course. Cory, comas are totally unpredictable in the first place. Add to that the fact that these two are the Dirty Pair..."

"...lovely angels..."

Cory and Hilda looked up. Kei and Yuri lay on the bed, still unmoving, but their eyes were open. They glared at Hilda weakly.

"I'll go get Ish," Hilda said and wisely headed out of the room.

Cory barely noticed her leaving. "You're all right!" she shouted, and ran over to hug both of them. She felt as if a giant weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and realised that she was sobbing. She clutched at Kei and Yuri now, taking comfort.

***

It was quiet now. Cory had finally been convinced to get some sleep. Ish had examined the Angels and pronounced them on the mend. Now that they were awake, recovery would be fairly rapid.

Physical recovery.

They lay now, staring at the ceiling. No chatting with each other, they knew what was going through the other's head. They weren't totally telepathic with each other yet, but they were incredibly empathic. They knew each other better than they knew themselves.

Kei was sad. And Yuri was scared.

Yuri stared at the ceiling, her thoughts racing. She was terrified. The telepathic bond between them had almost killed Kei. Both of them had received the full story from Cory about what had happened. And it had scared Yuri half to death.

Her own death didn't bother her as much. She had been prepared for it. Being a trouble consultant was a dangerous job, and even their fabled luck could only last so far. No, she had no fear of death.

But Kei hadn't died. She'd collapsed from a brain haemorrhage and lain here in a coma. Cory said that if they hadn't gone back once more to rescue her, Kei might have lain there for the rest of her life.

Because of Yuri's death. Because of Yuri.

Yuri did not fear her own death, but the thought of her partner dying, or in a coma was too much to bear. She could never have anything like this happen again. No matter what.

So she lay there, staring at the ceiling, knowing what she had to tell Kei. And knowing what Kei's response would be. What it had to be.

"Kei?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to ask Ishtar to suppress our abilities. So we can go back to what we were before."

The pause seemed to last forever. No explanations, no rationalisations. None were needed.

"All right."

And Yuri sighed in relief. It would be all right now. Kei would never again die because of her. It would be all right.

She finally dropped off to sleep, smiling slightly.

In the bed next to her, Kei stared at the ceiling, tears glistening down her cheeks. She knew exactly what Yuri was feeling, exactly why she wanted the bond removed. And it didn't help one bit. But in the end she would do what Yuri wanted, in order to give her partner peace of mind. Even if something else had to be sacrificed.

So Kei made sure to cry quietly, so as not to wake her partner.

*I love you, Yuri.*

***

The Angels' recovery was surprisingly quick, given what they'd been through. Cory was there with then every day to help buoy their spirits, and Laz and Lor stopped by a lot as well.

Ishtar and Minerva listened calmly to their request to suppress their empathic abilities. Both of them had been expecting something like this. Minerva tried her best to talk them out of the decision, but the two of them were adamant.

Ishtar assigned their physical rehabilitation to Galahad, a young male doctor who fancied himself a bit of a lothario. He had a bad habit of walking around naked in front of everyone, and was constantly being reminded that there were guests in the hospital. He also took a shine to Yuri, much to her chagrin, and she spent the next few days trying to fight off his attempts to charm her.

Kei and Yuri threw themselves into their combat training, forcing themselves to relearn the old techniques that they had abandoned when they gained their empathic abilities. It was very difficult, even though they had used them for only a short amount of time. Minerva explained to Cory that their subconscious didn't want to give up the link that easily, and they were forcing it into submission.

Cory only attended one of these sessions. It was too hard for her to watch, after she'd seen the way they worked before. Seeing the two of them choose to deliberately lobotomise themselves like this, no matter how much pain they thought they were avoiding...Cory just couldn't watch them do this.

***

Finally, they were ready to return. Cory had her doubts as to the mental stability of the Angels, but Minerva assured her that things should be all right. "They have their reasons for doing this, and we're accepting them. But I don't think they'll be able to move on. In a year or two, perhaps, I think they'll realise their mistake."

"Yeah, but by that time it'll be too late. We can't just pop two universes over any time we want, you know," Cory grumbled.

Minerva didn't respond, but her eyes twinkled.

At that point the Angels arrived at the spaceport, escorting their prisoner. Loader had a haunted look in his eyes, but for once did not look dangerous. Cory looked questioningly at Kei, who grinned.

"We decided to play him a clip Lazarus obtained of Lawson and Mizuno's press conference announcing their engagement. It seemed to take all the fight out of him."

"...shut up..." muttered Loader.

Cory stiffened at the mention of a certain name. "Speaking of which..."

"No, Cory, Lazarus will not be here to send you off." Hilda came in, leading two big men who seemed to be carrying the biggest gyroscope Cory had ever seen, with little extra twiddles added onto it for good measure.

Cory tried to look casual. "Too busy to see us off?"

Hilda glared at her, and Cory stepped back a little. "Actually, Miss Emerson," Hilda said frostily, "it seems that he didn't want to come here because he refused to deal with you."

"What a coincidence," Cory found herself saying without thinking.

"Yes, isn't it." Hilda sighed. "Cory, I realise that you've been through a harrowing experience. But Lazarus Long, despite his supposed treatment of you, is not the reason for it."

"Can we let this drop?" Cory had gotten sick of discussing Lazarus.

"Of course." Hilda turned back to the Angels. "Now, normally we would never even think of doing this. This is an incredibly new prototype, and their are only four of them in existence."

One of the men carrying the strange device grinned. "Well, there _were_ five, but there was that business with Mister Becerra..."

Hilda turned around, "Zebbie," she said sweetly, "may I see you after all this is done?"

The man gulped. "Aye aye, captain."

"Thank you." She turned and gave her attention back to the Angels. "However, there are far too many unanswered questions about this case, the primary one being why you were assigned to it in the first place. The Circle has given an 87 percent probability to it being that someone wanted you to meet Laz and Lor, and wanted this to happen."

Cory blinked. "Whoa there. How could they possibly know you even existed? We don't have magic universe hopping machines."

"Precisely," Hilda said, looking serious. "We don't know how they could know of our presence. And that is worrying." She moved to the device. "That's why we're giving you one of these. I'll have Zeb accompany you to your ship to help mount it."

The Angels seemed to know about this beforehand, but Cory's jaw dropped. "You're giving us one of those? Um...I don't mean to look stupid, but isn't that kind of playing right into the hands of the enemy?"

Hilda smiled. "We have installed a few precautions. For one, if anyone other than one of you three tries to operate this device, it will self-destruct. It's also heavily shielded against your universes' technology."

Sighing, Hilda continued. "Cory, there is another reason we wanted the three of you to have this. We've gotten to like you while you were here, and sending you back felt rather cold after what you've been through. This is an escape. An emergency button. I don't want you to use it to visit us for no reason, but if your lives are ever again in danger, you can come here and we'll guarantee your safety."

Cory stood there silently, trying to take this in. Despite her feelings about Lazarus, she really was regretting having to say goodbye to these people. It took the sting out of it to know that it might not be permanent. Plus it might help Kei and Yuri. They may look better, but Cory doubted it would last more than a year or two. This meant that there could be a way for them to change their minds again, and perhaps truly heal themselves.

Kei and Yuri pouted when they heard that the device was a last resort. "You mean we can't use it for vacations? Come on! I have a long list of cute guys I've read about that I want to try to find!" Yuri swatted her.

Hilda didn't smile. "I meant it. Life-endangering. Cory is right, it is a risk giving this to you. But we decided that it was worth it. You're our friends now." Now she smiled, and looked more her old self. Cory felt herself grinning too.

Kei and Yuri straightened up. "Come on, let's get this yotz back to our universe and give him to the cops. All I want to do now is get back to Pacifica and beat on Goulet until he gives us a vacation," Kei said.

Cory suddenly groaned. "Oh, God, my article!"

Kei and Yuri blinked, and then they groaned as well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cory smiled as she thought about that day. God, had it really been that long ago? She had eventually decided to write up the article exactly as it had happened, leaving nothing out, and then requested it be filed with the Central Computer for security vetting. Within two days, she'd gotten an embarrassed call from Goulet saying that the entire article had vanished from the CC's databanks, and furthermore that it seemed, judging from the publicity surrounding Loader's arrest, that a puff piece on the Angels was no longer needed.

Cory heard the pilots give orders in the cockpit, and knew that they would be instantaneously transported to Boondock, probably with Ishtar at the ready. She desperately wanted to sleep, but knew that Hilda would probably want to grill her.

*Why,* she thought. *Why after all that happened last time did I decide to go on another mission? I'm no trouble consultant!*

She looked over at Asuka, who was still breathing shallowly.

*I don't need excitement like this,* Cory decided.

***

Yuri paced outside of Jamie and Bridget's door, trying to figure out how best to approach them. They would probably still be quite wary of her, considering they'd spent the past year dealing with her evil clone. She therefore needed to be as inoffensive and open as possible, in order to allay their suspicions.

Walking through the door, she put on her best self-effacing grin. "Hi there! I just thought I'd see how the three of you were doing!"

The reaction wasn't the best she had expected. Bridget seemed to flinch, and Jamie merely stared at her with a solemn expression. Even little Rachel was staying at the other end of the room, as far away from Yuri as she could get.

This was turning out to be more difficult than she'd thought. Nevertheless, she continued.

"Kei is in the other room watching over Zen, otherwise she'd be here as well. Um...you're looking much better."

She was finding her conversational skills useless against the twin glares Jamie and Bridget were giving her. She finally decided to try and bring the subject out in the open.

"Look, I'm really sorry about what you had to go through with the clones. We tried to see if there was a way we could arrive and rescue you sooner, but there wasn't. But I'm Yuri, not a clone." Jamie and Bridget continued to stare coldly at her. She gulped. "I'm really me, I mean. There's no reason to be afraid anymore."

Far from soothing them, this seemed to agitate the two of them even more. Bridget got up from the chair where she'd been sitting, and picked Rachel up bodily. "Rachel, let's go get something to eat."

Rachel looked back at Yuri for a moment, then said "Okay." The two of them breezed right by an open-mouthed Yuri, leaving her alone with Jamie.

She turned and started to go after them, but Jamie stopped her. "Yuri, we have to talk."

Yuri shook him off. "That's what I've been trying to _do_!"

"No, you're trying to gloss everything over and pick up where you left off. Well, it doesn't work that way. Sit down."

Yuri was stunned at the coldness in his voice. She found herself sinking into a seat.

Jamie put his hands to the bridge of his nose, as if trying to decide where to begin. "Yuri, according to what we've heard, about a year ago, by our time the two of you escaped to this universe, and Jimmy replaced you with clones. Right?"

This was something Yuri could handle. "Right. Though it's only been a month or so for us. Something about different timestreams, Hilda said..."

Jamie went on as if she hadn't spoken. "These clones replaced the two of you for almost a year. No one seems to notice. Yet you claim these clones are evil versions of you, and that we should trust you now that we're back to the 'real' Lovely Angels."

He sighed. "Yuri, no one noticed that you'd been replaced with clones because they weren't all that much different. They were still the bouncy, upbeat, slightly airheaded girls we'd been dealing with for years. Zen knew the two of you were different, but he thought you'd simply lost it...gone cold. It never occurred to him that they weren't _you_."

Yuri stared at Jamie, trying to make sense of his words. The clones were undetectable? _No one_ knew the difference? "But...but I mean, we would never do the things they did! They killed BILLIONS of people!"

"And you two have killed millions. It's all a matter of degree. Besides, the Central Computer investigated those deaths, and you know what? It wasn't their fault. Exactly the same verdict it gives when you two inadvertently destroy a small city."

"Stop it," Yuri whispered. She put her hands over her ears, but Jamie reached out and grabbed her arms. She looked up to find his eyes boring into hers.

"When was the last time the two of you refused an assignment on ethical grounds? We're allowed to do that, you know. And the 3WA has gotten involved in some pretty shady things. _Every_ agent, at one point, has had a case they simply won't allow themselves to take.

"Except you two. You were the poster children of the 3WA, showing off your bodies and your guns. You took every assignment they gave to you. You usually didn't even read the particulars until you were almost at the mission site. You were the perfect employees."

Suddenly, Yuri felt a rush of anger well up through her. She got up, and before she could stop herself belted Jamie across the face, sending him into a wall. She realised she was crying.

"How could you say that! We were never that cold! Each of those missions affected us!" she screamed.

Jamie screamed right back at her, startling her. "How the fuck were we supposed to know that? You never told us! You never allowed anyone to get close to the two of you! Zen was the only one who claimed he knew what you two were really like! Every time _we_ talked, you two were the happy, bouncy, friendly outer shells you've always been. There was never any trace of regret, of sadness. Where was it? We were supposed to be your friends, yet you never once opened up to us!"

Yuri began to feel a little sick. His words hit her like bricks, shattering her defences. She slumped to the wall in a half-crouch. "I...we never meant to..."

Jamie sighed. "No, you didn't. But it didn't help. You've never let anyone see the real you, Yuri. This is the first time I've ever seen you sad. Why didn't you let us see that side of you?"

There was a long pause. "I don't know."

"Neither do I, Yuri. But don't expect everything to suddenly be back to normal between us. There is no more normal. I'm sure Bridget and I would love to talk to you sometime if you can let your defences drop enough to really talk. But you've never been able to do that. And that's why the clones were so successful. They were almost perfect."

That last sentence made Yuri drop to the floor. She sobbed for a few moments, then got shakily to her feet and fled, heading for Zen's room.

Jamie looked at her run, and sighed. "Rats." He then went off to find his wife and daughter.

***

Kei sat and stared at Zen, willing her to regain consciousness. It didn't seem to be helping much. Ishtar had told her that they'd managed to heal Zen's physical injuries, but she was still locked up mentally. Minerva had tried to coax Zen out of it, but it hadn't worked.

"Too many times when her trust has been violated...and then to have her world turned upside down by the surprise appearance of you two...I'd say she's simply refusing to wake up. There's not much we can do." There had been a hint of something else in Ishtar's voice when she'd said those words, though.

Kei hadn't said anything; she knew what Ish wanted to say. Zen trusted them. Even after all this time. She and Yuri could get inside Zen's head, and help pull her back out. But that would require the reawakening of their empathic powers. And Kei simply refused to entertain the possibility of that happening. Yuri didn't want it, and Kei loved her enough to respect that decision.

So she sat there and looked at Zen, and tried not to think. About anything.

Unfortunately, her not-thoughts were interrupted by Yuri smashing into the room like a hurricane and collapsing into a corner, sobbing. Forgetting about all her inner turmoil for the moment, Kei ran over to help Yuri. She hugged her while whispering in her ear. "Hey, hey, it's okay, it'll be all right. What happened? What's the matter?" She couldn't imagine anyone upsetting Yuri this badly.

Yuri eventually stopped and looked up at Kei, her eyes rimmed with red. "Kei, I'm an open person, right?"

Kei hesitated for only a split second, but it was enough to send Yuri off onto another crying jag. Kei sighed and simply hugged her tighter.

Sniffing, Yuri switched from sobbing to pouting. "Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"It's not exactly something you bring up in conversation, Yuri." Kei was treading around this conversation very carefully. It brought to the fore all the things she'd been trying not to think about. "You can't just say, 'Gee, you know that your sunny, open personality is really just a front you put up to hide how you really feel'." Kei paused again. "Besides, I tend to do the same thing."

Yuri looked at Kei in disbelief. "Oh, come on! You're always open about the way you feel!"

"About the way I want to feel, maybe. About how I want to be seen. Yuri, let me ask you something. How many friends did we have in the 3WA?"

"Lots! There's Zen, and Jamie and Bridget, and Maya - " Kei flinched - "and Lisa and Christine, and -- "

Kei stopped her. "How many of those people would you say were close to us? Close enough to know how we really felt? Close enough to see beyond the 'Lovely Angels'?"

Yuri didn't speak for almost two minutes. When she did, it was almost inaudible. "Zen. And you."

"And even then..." The words were out of Kei's mouth before she could take them back.

Yuri jerked out of Kei's arms. "What do you mean?"

Changing the subject, Kei pointed up to the bed. "Ishtar said to me that they've done as much as they can for Zen. They've healed all of her physical injuries, but she's still in a coma. Minerva tried to use her empathic powers to bring Zen out of it. They even brought in Tamara. None of it is doing any good. Zen has locked herself up inside her own mind, and won't let anyone near her."

Glancing over at Yuri, Kei saw that she was getting the picture. Her eyes were locked on a fixed point midway between Zen and Kei. Nevertheless, Kei continued.

"We could save her, Yuri. Ish and Minerva only dampened our empathic powers, they didn't destroy them. Between the two of us, we could help drag Zen out of her own mind. If she trusts anyone, she'll trust us..."

Kei broke off as she saw Yuri beginning to shake. A hint of uncertainty crept into her voice. She was trying to be the comforting, logical friend, but her own emotional barriers were close to breaking. "Yuri..."

"NO!!!" The scream startled Kei. Yuri jumped to her feet, arms wrapped around her back. "I won't do it! We...we can't be like that again, because something might happen to us, and you might die!" Yuri looked into Kei's eyes. "I did it for you, Kei. I don't want you to die. And I don't want you to be a vegetable if I die. You need to..."

Kei's walls finally broke. She continued to stare at Yuri, but could feel her breath coming in great, heaving sobs that she couldn't control. For a moment that was all she did, then she found herself able to speak.

"You did that...for ME?!?! Are you that much in denial?!?! What makes you think I'd want to live without you? I love you! I love you still, even though you practically lobotomised me! I was the one who did it for _you_!!! I knew how scared you were, and I couldn't stand to see you like that, so I let you do it! And I thought you understood that!" Kei was screaming at the top of her lungs. "You say you did it for ME?!?! If you'd done anything for me, you'd have kept the link! I can't believe I thought you...YOU SELFISH BITCH!!!!!"

The slap echoed across the room, but Kei couldn't hear it. Blood was rushing through her head, and she couldn't hear anything. She couldn't hear Yuri begin to collapse and sob on Zen's bed. Couldn't hear her footsteps as she ran out of the door. All she could hear was her own crying, which seemed as if it would never, ever end.

***

It took much less time for Yuri to finish her crying this time. Perhaps she'd finally hit a breaking point, where there were no more tears to give.

She got up slowly off of the floor and looked at the comatose figure of Zen in the bed. Her lifesigns were normal, she was perfectly all right physically...but she wasn't responding.

And Yuri was pretty sure she knew why now.

She got up and began to walk down the hallways of the hospital with a slow, steady pace. To anyone who passed by, her eyes would appear to be totally unfocused. That didn't mean she was just walking, though. She was finding Kei. She knew she could do this, empathy or no. *Left, right, left, left, right...* she thought to herself as she continued down the hall. Finally she stopped next to a closed door, then pulled it open.

She recognised the room almost immediately. It was the room where she and Kei had stayed the night when their powers had first been awakened; the room where she'd first confessed to Kei how scared she was; the room where Kei had admitted that she loved Yuri.

Kei was here now, curled up on the bed with her arms around her knees, staring at the wall. Her eyes were red, but she didn't appear to be crying.

Yuri came in and closed the door. Kei didn't seem to notice. Yuri then sat down on the other bed, curled up, and mirrored Kei's position, staring out at the opposite wall.

For half an hour, neither of them moved nor spoke. Then Yuri finally broke the silence.

"Am I really that much of a coward?"

Kei didn't respond, but Yuri continued.

"I mean, you hear about people who are scared about what others will think, or scared about what might happen to them. But I'm much worse than that. I'm scared of what _I_ might think. Scared of what I might really feel. So I pretend that I feel differently; that I have other reasons for doing what I do. I deny everything to myself, and hope that it will work, that it will shut out the pain."

Kei finally reacted, rolling over to face Yuri. Yuri turned over as well, so the two of them were looking at each other. "No one can avoid pain, Yuri."

Yuri stared into her eyes. "I know."

Then Kei smiled. "But you can find other people to help you discover joy, which makes the pain bearable."

Yuri couldn't take that smile. "Kei, I'm so sorry..."

Kei broke in. "No, it was my fault. I shouldn't have said things like that to you, not when you were in a state of mind like that."

"But everything you said was true! I was afraid, I couldn't even admit it to myself, and I ruined the bond between us because of that..."

"Yuri, please," Kei said. Then she chuckled. "Y'know, we sound like that story by the candy bar guy."

"Hm?"

"The one where the guy sells his watch to buy a brush for his wife, and she sells her hair to buy him a watch fob?"

Yuri giggled despite herself.

Kei continued. "We both keep thinking of each other, but only as objects. You were wrong, Yuri, you _were_ thinking of me when you made the decision to break our link. You didn't want to see me suffer again if you died. But you weren't thinking of what _I_ was thinking. That was the problem."

There was another pause, while the two of them just looked at each other.

Yuri broke it. "So, do you forgive me?"

"Only if you forgive me," Kei said quietly.

Suddenly the two of them moved at the same time, gathering each other up in a hug so tight it threatened to break their backs, though neither of them even noticed. Each just concentrated on holding her friend as tightly as she could.

And then, without any warning, the link which had been so carefully suppressed by Minerva and Ishtar flared to life, and all of a sudden each was inside the other's head, thoughts, feelings, emotions, all cascading through them. They jumped with the contact, and trembled. All of the memories came back to them, and they suddenly had to devote their full attention to remaining themselves; to establishing their own identities. They nonetheless revelled in the restored link, taking solace in each other's feelings, and seeing that depth of feeling once again. Yuri knew then that there would never be any more secrets, least of all from herself. She could never give up this...this _joy_ again.

They tumbled to the floor, temporarily exhausted by the feelings that had washed over them. Yuri's body and mind were tingling, and Kei felt the same way.

Kei grinned. "Now why can't a _man_ ever make me feel like that?"

Yuri smacked her thigh. "Ecchi."

"Always. Why don't we go and get Zen out of her funk?"

Yuri got up, still unable to remove the grin from her face. "That sounds like a great idea. I think I know what's wrong with her..."

Kei nodded. "Ayep. And I've got a great idea for getting her attention..." As they left the room, she leaned over and whispered to Yuri.

The sound of Yuri's evil laughter echoed down the hall.

***

Darkness.

Not just the usual absence of light, but true darkness. A darkness of the soul, of the mind. A place where any light trying to gain ground would shrivel up and die. It was a desolate, lonely place. Everyone has a small part of it somewhere within them, and most people have discovered it at some point in their lives. Very few people want to return there.

In this darkness, curled up into a metaphorical ball, lay Zen.

He was in his male form here. It was, after all, his own mind. Circumstances might cause him to be female 99% of the time in the outside world, but he _was_ still a male inside. At least, that's what he kept telling himself. It was getting very difficult to believe anything he said, though.

He didn't know why he lay here. His body had tried to pull him to consciousness a few times, but he resisted. He didn't want to face anyone. Ever. Ever again.

So he lay here, in his bolthole, and waited. He didn't really know what he was waiting for. Perhaps for his body to finally give up, and carry him off to oblivion.

He did, however, appreciate the solitude. It gave him time to think. Thoughts that kept turning in on themselves, circling like vultures. Reminding himself of every failure, every argument, every time in his life when something had gone wrong.

Every death.

He was somewhat unsurprised at hearing something else in his mind. He'd been expecting something like this, for someone to try and pull him out. He'd even known that if he waited long enough, it might be the two of them.

"Hi, Zen."

This did not prevent him from flinching when he heard Kei's voice. He did not turn, though.

"So...um...nice place you've got here."

No reaction.

He heard a sigh, and Yuri spoke. "Zen, there's so much we have to tell you. So much we want to talk about. But we don't want to do it here. Wake up. Come back to us. Please."

Zen briefly wondered how long he should wait before giving his answer. After a while, he realised that it didn't really matter, as the answer would still be the same.

"No."

A hand grabbed his shoulder and flipped him over. He closed his eyes. He didn't want to see them, didn't want to look in their eyes. He was terrified of what he would find there.

"Why not?" Kei's voice sounded a little angry. "Are you just going to give up?"

Zen sighed. This was a lot harder than he wanted it to be. He was having trouble maintaining his mood with them around, and that made them dangerous. He didn't want to be talked out of this. Didn't want to think of what would happen if he was. So he decided to try and anger them so much they would leave. Shouldn't be too difficult, they both have short fuses.

"Yes. I'm just going to give up."

There was a long pause.

"No you're not. We won't let you. We'll just sit here and chat until you change your mind."

Kei wasn't getting angry. The thought unnerved him, and he almost opened his eyes to look at her. But then, that was exactly what she wanted to happen. He turned over again, putting his back to them.

That proved to be a mistake. His senses must have been dulled, because he never even heard them get near to him. Or perhaps it was the fact that they were within his mind, and none of this was real. In any case, he suddenly felt hands running all over his body, heading immediately for his weak spots.

When one is being tickled, the reaction is to laugh. It is built up from birth until it becomes totally involuntary. The giggle is forced from you.

Zen, however, had not honestly laughed now in over a year, and did not think he ever would again. Therefore all the tickling ended up doing was igniting his own short fuse.

He uncoiled and stood, almost cracking Yuri across the jaw as he did so. Standing, he looked at them for the first time. They had changed. There was a maturity to their expression that he hadn't seen before, a sense of fulfilment. Sometime in the last year, the Angels had grown up.

The same, of course, could not be said of him.

"GO AWAY!" he shouted.

Yuri didn't shout back. Why weren't they getting mad? "No."

"Why not?"

"Because we care about you, Zen. You're one of our best friends, and it tears us up to see you like this. Because a lot of it is our fault, and we want to be able to try and apologise. Because we don't want to watch you curl up inside yourself and wait to die," Kei said. She was being rather eloquent today, Zen thought.

"You want me to wake up? To come with you?"

"Yes." Both of them spoke at the same time.

"Really?" Zen paced back and forth between the two of them. "Do you promise me that nothing like this will ever happen again?"

"No," Kei said. She looked at him calmly.

He felt his voice getting louder. "Do you promise that I'll never be hurt again, that if I come out everything will be all right?"

"No." Yuri was equally calm.

"Do you promise me -- " his voice cracked, and he swallowed before he continued, "that I won't have to watch any more of my friends die?"

"No." This was from both of them, once again exactly in tune.

Zen stared at them. They still weren't mad. Their eyes didn't hold anger, or pity, or anything he'd been expecting. There was sadness there, but it was an open sadness. Everything about them seemed open now.

He sat back down and covered his face with his hands. "What do you promise?"

They didn't answer. They didn't have to, he knew the answer. Nothing. They couldn't promise him anything, because life wasn't like that. Because life was constantly hammering at you, and you could promise happiness all you wanted, but finding it and keeping it was impossible.

Yuri finally spoke. "We promise to try to make sure none of this ever happens again. To listen to you when you're hurt, and to comfort you when people die. To do this. To never let you give up."

"You're asking us to make promises that are impossible to keep, Zen." Kei's voice was very quiet, as if she was saying the words to herself as much as Zen. "The world isn't predictable. You can't predict when people will die, or be hurt. You can't predict that some loony like Jimmy might not end up doing something like this again. Life is unpredictable, and that's both the best and worst thing about it."

He felt a hand grab his chin, and raise it so he was looking into her eyes once more. She was crying now, tears crawling silently down her cheeks. Yuri stood right next to her, also crying.

"But if you stay here, then we can make lots of promises. If you stay here, we promise that you'll never feel joy or happiness anymore. You'll never be able to laugh, or to smile. You won't be there to watch us as we go through life, making our own mistakes. You won't be there to hold us as we watch people die. And we need that, Zen. We need you, even more than you need us."

Yuri sniffed. "Zen, if you stay here, you'll die."

Zen turned to look at her. By now tears were coursing down his own face. "Why do you think I am here? Because I...because I want to..."

He couldn't say it anymore. He'd spent so much time in here, trying to convince himself to let go, to finally give in and let himself die, but he still couldn't do it. Especially not with Kei and Yuri here. Especially not with the two people who gave him a reason to live.

He broke down, sobs wracking his body. He thought he'd been crying before, but it had been nothing compared to this. Almost immediately, he felt arms wrapping around him, and heard Kei and Yuri whispering to him, trying to soothe him even as they cried.

This went on for an indeterminate time. Zen completely lost track of how long they'd been hugging each other. All he knew was that he had desperately missed it, and that he wasn't ready for it to end.

Eventually, however, the Angels released their hold on him, and the tears ended. When he looked up at them, they were still looking at him with those oddly mature expressions, that seemed so out-of-place on them. They spoke at the same time.

"Will you wake up? Will you come with us?" They were smiling now.

Zen looked around him at the darkness. He'd once promised himself he'd never go near here again, and now look at him. The blackness was absolute, tearing at his soul. He despised it.

"Yes." And with that, all three of them vanished, leaving the blackness alone with itself, waiting for another chance.

***

Kei and Yuri opened their eyes to see Zen still lying on the bed asleep. They looked at Ishtar with concern, but she smiled.

"It should be alright now. Judging from Zen's brainwave patterns, she's sleeping peacefully rather than in a coma. Whatever you two did seems to have -- "

Suddenly an alarm seemed to sound throughout the building. Ishtar moved towards the door. "What is it, Persephone?"

"Lazarus is back, and he's brought casualties. One critical, two minor. Maureen and Minerva are headed there already. Priority one!"

Ishtar was out the door on the first word. Kei and Yuri exchanged worried glances.

"Um, Persephone?" Kei wasn't used to just calling to the air when you needed the computer.

"Yes, Kei?"

"Cory's not hurt, is she?"

"No, she isn't. She does seem to be a little shell-shocked, though."

Yuri got up. "Let's go."

They headed out the door, pausing to give Zen a kiss on the cheek.

End of Part 3