As before, I claim no ownership of Cowboy Bebop. The story and the character of Juan Raphael are my own.

What was this, some sort of joke? With all the security around the door, Faye scoffed inwardly, you would have thought there was something in here worth stealing! Unbelievable that something like this would have been built here, Faye's eyes roamed the interior of the chamber. It was huge, and appeared to be divided irregularly, without much thought to how things were arranged. To her immediate left, there were scores of what appeared to be books.

"Welcome to Vault 3," Raphael said as he headed towards one of the enclaves in the right side of the building. "This is one of several structures built years ago, when the Earth still feared nuclear destruction. They were placed at various locals around the world, used as repositories for knowledge. The locations were not made public, even after the gate disaster. Approximately forty years ago two of the Vaults were reconstructed off-planet to accommodate humanity's flight to other worlds. The Vault project was originally a co-op between international universities to insure that even if we destroyed ourselves, our history would stand. From such altruistic beginnings we have become information brokers, seeking to catalogue and sell the knowledge we once tried to protect."

Faye observed how Raphael's shoulders slumped as he discussed what the Vaults had become. It made him smaller, aged, weary. For some knowledge was driving, near physical passion. Perhaps she had underestimated him? Or did he simply want her to underestimate him? "Altruism, indeed," she thought, "we shall see."

Raphael turned to face a pair of threadbare chairs that had possibly been gray when purchased, or just aged with grime. Nearby an array of computers, monitors, and printers scattered across several tables and connected with scores of wiring that would have made Viktor Frankenstein proud. He motioned casually for Faye to take a seat as he eased his own frame into the opposite chair.

"So how did you become involved here?" Faye turned to face Raphael, which silhouetted his profile against a flatscreen monitor mounted on the opposing wall. His posture straightened, and Faye recognized a smile of nostalgia playing at his lips.

"I was raised in one of Jupiter's smaller colonies, and went to university on Ganymede. I majored in both Specialized Media Retention - the University's way of saying I knew how to properly restore books - and Earth History. I was working on a Doctoral Thesis dealing with a theory that Earth's history followed four distinct cycles in a pattern that could be traced back thousands of years. It was during my research that I was approached by a member of the Committee. They are the ones that oversee the Vault project. I was given the opportunity to lend my particular areas of expertise to a 'preservation project' stationed on Earth. I didn't want to abandon my Thesis research, but they pressed the urgency of the matter. My curiosity was my undoing."

"Sounds almost like being approached by a syndicate," thought Faye.

"When I arrived there were several major preservation projects that had been cut short due to lack of properly skilled people. Not many people do what I do anymore. I was placed as head of Vault Restoration, which insures manuscripts and other media are properly stored, catalogued, and repaired when necessary. Contact with actual Vault materials by any outside people are rare, but even among ourselves, things still occur that required my attention. I had a secondary position as the assistant to Vault Research, which handled all the inquiries for information and research. When the Director of Vault 3 retired some years later, I was chosen to replace him. This place..." he drifted, "has become my mistress, my teacher. There is so much to know and few years given to know it."

Faye nodded politely, silently wishing he'd only give pertinent information. She hadn't come here for tea. "So when did you meet Jet?"

"I had just started work here, when the ISSP contacted the Ganymede Vault for assistance. It was a rather large project, so the work was spread among four of the Vault's research departments. Each department was given specific contact personnel. Ours was Jet Black. Vault information is never transmitted via interceptable and traceable communication, so we required a human liaison. He struck me as a very serious and fair man. I dealt with him frequently. It was a surprise to hear from him after all these years. I did not realize he had left the ISSP."

Verbosity just wasn't Raphael's style apparently. If he was going to constantly go on like this, Faye could say au revoir to the woolongs. She hoped that he'd get straight to facts when they got around to the business of things. He inclined his head slightly to the right as stray strands of hair fell across his left cheek. After a pause he inquired, "So how did you end up partnering with Mr. Black?"

Faye struggled to find a way to put the story in a good light. She decided there wasn't one, and launched into the spin doctored version. "I actually met Jet's other partner first. I was working undercover at a casino, when Spike and I had a..." she shrugged slightly, as if searching for the proper word, "run-in. I helped them out of a situation involving a misunderstanding with casino security, and managed to get them back to their ship. I met them entirely by accident a bit later, and we eventually agreed that working together might be mutually beneficial for all of us." Her facial muscles felt strained as she tried to hold the smile on her face long enough to be convincing.

"It is good to know that Mr. Black has found reliable help. He deals very straightforwardly with people, it seems."

Faye shifted uncomfortably in her seat, thinking of just how fast those thirty million woolongs from the casino had been spent. Her eyes briefly met Raphael's and she hoped he couldn't read thoughts. Taking a deep breath she asked, "So, what kind of information have you been able to get for us?"

"It seems you've got a ghost on your hands. We've done quite a lot of searching. It's not that we haven't found matching information, but... it's ridiculous really. Nothing seems to be current. We've encountered dead ends that stretch back two hundred years up to the last fifty. Most shocking of all seems to be that most of what matches leads to Earth. That's primarily why we requested someone come here."

"What do you mean ghost?" asked Faye.

"He has no definitive style. Most sociopaths have very specific methods... a modus operandi. Some pattern that makes them unique. We've not been able to identify him, but we think we've figured out what he's up to. Take for instance the first set of Ganymede murders..."

"What about them?"

"Here, look," Raphael stood up and went to a nearby terminal. Faye stood and positioned herself to the side. "The first five murders that we've attributed to him are copycat works. What I mean by that is while the time and location has changed, he's recreated the work of Jack the Ripper, the Earth Victorian Era killer. He's not working off solid facts, but rather off popular belief. They obviously lacked many of the forensic skills we take for granted today, but there may have been as few as four, or as many as nine, victims that were actually the work of this unknown murderer."

Faye faced the monitor where gruesome photos of the Ganymede killings and corroborating details to the 1888 murders flashed in a sickening slide show. She unconsciously moved one hand to her stomach and the other to her mouth, and turned away - unable to look. "Oh god," she murmured. Raphael took her arm and she leaned into him for support. Images of bruised and slit throats, mutilated bodies, gaping wounds, and the stare of corpses ran wild through her mind. She couldn't do this, it was all too much.