Disclaimer: I don't own Nadesico or any of the characters appearing in the television anime series or manga. This fanfiction is meant purely to entertain. So please don't sue me, I'm not worth it. I openly admit that I don't own Nadesico, and I'm not trying to pass this off as a completely original story. Also, I don't own Golden Boy or Transformers, but I do use a few lines from both and a lot of mecha from Transformers, but I do own the characters Finn Saotome, Yumi Yoshino, Sanoske/Sakura Hashima, Mr. Noda, Mrs. Noda, and I think that's about it. If you want pictures of the mecha, don't hesitate to e-mail me at soundwave100@hotmail.com  Thanks!

Act 9

Mars Colony

          "Finn, wake up. It's already past noon. You don't want to sleep the whole day away again, do you?" came a sweet voice belonging to a young woman. Finn opened his eyes a crack, bright sunlight poured in through an open window.

          "What?" he asked, shielding his eyes.

          "Finally, it's time to get up. You're going to become nocturnal or something if you keep sleeping in this late," came the young woman's voice again.

          Finn suddenly burst upright, his eyes wide open, looking around the room.

          "What's the matter? Are you alright?" the young woman asked. Finn looked at her. She was fairly tall with a long braid of dark red hair down her back. She was wearing black track pants and a dark blue turtleneck. Altogether she was very good looking and looked like the kind of girl who'd throw herself in front of an oncoming train to rescue a puppy. "We're having dinner tonight with the Tenkawas, so you'd better snap out of whatever flaked out mood you're in fast."

          "What…huh?"

          "You're not sick are you?" she pressed her hand against his forehead. "You seem to be alright. What's the matter with you? I haven't seen you like this since the time you were attacked by those giant man-eating octopi."

          "Man-eating octopi," Finn repeated. "What day is it?"

          "The 12th, Sunday," the young woman answered. "What's wrong with you? I know you're weird, but I've never seen you so wigged out before. You're still in one piece, right?"

Finn looked himself over. "It would seem so…but…I don't know," he scratched his head. "I guess I'm ok."

          "Good," she gave him a peck on the cheek. "Come on, hurry up. We were going over the wedding plans today. You don't want anyone making decisions for you, do you?"

          "Right, I'll be out in a few minutes," Finn said and the young woman left. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. "What the hell is wrong with me?" he asked himself. He noticed a wallet sitting on the night table beside the bed and picked it up. Inside he found driver's license, cards, and a few bucks in cash. The license had his picture and name printed on it. "At least I know I'm not totally crazy," but still, something puzzled him. A picture fell out of the wallet and onto the floor. Picking it up, Finn noticed it was a picture of himself and the young woman at the beach. He knew who he was, where he was, but he didn't. It was like being in some strange dream. However, he knew well enough this was real. He examined his hands and found all ten digits still where they were supposed to be. However, something on the backs of his hands bothered him, or rather, lack there of. "What's going on here?"

          Suddenly, things began to fall into place. "Ok," he said to himself. "Finn Saotome, 188cm tall, 67kg. I know that much. And," he examined the picture. "This is…hmm…now I remember. She's Yumi Yoshino. It's starting to come back. Man, what's wrong with me? Snap out of it." He got up and stumbled his way towards the bathroom. Discarded pieces of clothing caused him to stumble around. T-shirts and track pants were primarily to blame. It was at this time that he took a good look at his surroundings. The bedroom was small, with a double bed along the right-hand side of the room with a large window, the curtains drawn back, and sun pouring through. There was a chest of drawers to the left, with a window facing the outside. He wandered over and stared outside, which was sunny with not a cloud in the sky. When he opened the window he felt a sudden rush of warm air. Something puzzled Finn though. He knew this was the apartment he shared with Yumi and he knew that they were going to have dinner with the Tenkawas. But at the same time, he didn't. It was like this was all new to him, even though he knew perfectly well where he was.

          It was a beautiful day outside, the sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud to be seen as Finn opened the window and took in a breath of the Martian air. "Isn't it a glorious day, Mr. Sun?"

          "It's always a good day, Finn," the Sun replied. "With two scoops of raisins." The Sun then dumped two scoops of giant raisins onto the colony.

          When he had showered and dressed, Finn made his way to the main room of the small apartment. On his way through the doorway between the bedroom, however, he bashed his head against the low doorframe.

          "You alright?" Yumi asked, coming over and finding a dazed Finn on the floor, a minibandage across his forehead.

"Mum, I'd like some chocolate Mum. I want some Mars bars," Finn babbled

"First thing we're doing once we're married is getting a house, or at least a bigger apartment." Yumi said, shaking her head. Even though he was still seeing stars, these words stuck Finn like a bolt of lightning. "Still with me there?" she poked him with a ruler.

          "Nah, never better!" Finn jumped up, only to crush his head into his neck on the low-hanging doorframe. "That's going to require some surgery," he squeaked.

          Once Finn had recovered from his daily concussions, he and Yumi had lunch at a small café down the street from their apartment building.

          "I'm still getting used to the red sky," Yumi remarked when they had finished their meal and were taking a walk around the Utopia colony.

          'That's right, Yumi's from Earth,' Finn thought. 'Damnit, what's wrong with me? Why do I feel like this is…so different?'

          "But you'd probably think a blue sky's weird," Yumi continued. "I know the wedding's two months away, but do you think we could go there for our honeymoon? Or do you think you'll be able to leave Mars? The trip is hell, I'll give you that, but once you get there, ah, it's so beautiful,"

          "Well, I guess a planetary construction site isn't the most romantic getaway," Finn admitted. "And I've never flown in space before." They stopped at the travel office and picked up a few brochures. "I don't think I'd ever get used to the seasons on Earth. Freezing snow one part of the year and frying heat in the summer? Crazy,"

          "Doesn't the same weather ever get boring though?" asked Yumi. "I mean, I know I've only been on Mars a few years, but I'd like to see a little variation once and a while."

          "Crazy Earthlings," Finn smirked.

          "Martian freaks," Yumi teased. "I don't know how you stand it."

          "It's like a new pair of underwear," Finn explained.

          "How's that?"

          "At first it's strange and confining, but then it becomes a part of you." Yumi burst into a fit of laughter. Finn, though laughing himself, almost braced himself for something, as though Yumi were about to knock his lights out. Yumi rested her head on his shoulder and he slipped his arm around her waist.

          They arrived at a small building a little while later.

          "Hello, can I help you?" asked a woman, coming out from the back of the store. There were dresses, flowers, and pictures of brides along the walls.

          "We're here to see Izumi about how things are going," Yumi answered. "It's under the name Saotome." Finn's expression changed ever so slightly at the mention of this name, but his train of thought derailed before he could think about it too much.

          "Oh right," the woman said. "Please, come this way." She motioned for them to follow her to the back of the shop where they found a woman wearing an artist's smock and thick glasses hovering over a small model of a church during a wedding. There were little model people sitting and a model bride and groom at the alter.

          "How's it going?" Yumi asked.

          "Everything's set," the woman, who Finn figured to be Izumi, said, referring to the model. She stood up and pulled a small pointer out of her pocket. "It takes two people to run a wedding. Not one, two. One out front and one inside. Finn, you're friend Kazuya will run the backstage team. Yumi, you're friend Yoroko will be the liaison between Kazuya's backstage team and my frontstage team, which includes myself at the door."

          "Sounds ok to me," Finn said, looking at the model.

          "Now, to the left and the right of the alter," Izumi placed two more models into the setting. "are the machine gun nests, filled with MK16 brownings. Now these babies tend to heat up, so fire in three second bursts. In the event of capture, I will personally deliver cyanide capsules to be placed under the tongue like so." She placed a sugar pill under her tongue in demonstration. Finn and Yumi both sweatdropped.  " Now, as for your attire. Full body armour underneath with Kevlar making up the outside. Yumi, your veil will be made from a Kevlar base with fibreglass support frames. Any questions?"

          "I have a question," Finn said, daring to raise his hand. "When did you turn into a nutbar?"

          Yumi elbowed him in the stomach lightly, but Finn instinctively braced for something more. "We're not expecting a war-zone." There was an awkward silence.

"Well, we can always go with the standard set up," Izumi said.

"Tell me why we're doing this through her, again?" asked Finn after he and Yumi had left the shop.

"Akito and Yurika had Izumi plan their wedding," Yumi replied.

"Yeah, and remember the mandatory DNA samples they took at the door?" Finn rubbed his arm. "I still think they took too much marrow."

          "Outta my way!" someone said and burst between the two of them, knocking both of them to the ground.

          "What the?" Finn picked himself up. "You alright?"

          "Yeah, I'm fine," Yumi answered.

          "Come back here!" came a shout from behind. A man stood on the sidewalk outside a shop shaking his fists.

          "Looks like you'd better get to work," Yumi said, dusting herself off.

          "What do you mean?" asked a confused Finn.

          "You're a cop, so get after him."

          "What?" Finn's brain began to start working.

          "You a cop?" the man asked, running up to them.

          "Well…technically yeah, I'm just the…" 'What am I?' he asked himself. 'I don't know…'

          "I don't care if you're the coffee boy, if you're a cop, go after him!"

          "Alright, alright," Finn caved. "Damnit, what's wrong with me?" he asked himself for the fourth time that day. "You're coming too," he grabbed Yumi's arm and took off.

          "What are you bringing me along for? I'm just a traffic officer!" Yumi protested.

          " 'I don't care if you're the coffee boy' " Finn grinned. "Come on, we'll loose him," 'what am I doing? I'm not a street guy, I'm just the forensic profiler,' he thought. Something didn't quite fit, but he shrugged it off. 'Probably too much Jolt cola,' he concluded. A part of him would have felt a lot easier if he had a gun. 'What am I thinking? I've only fired at the range…'

          They were steadily gaining on their target, who was carrying a small box under his arm and was repeatedly looking over his shoulder.

          "We've got him now,' Yumi grinned as they approached a corner.

          "Shouldn't there be anyone on patrol around here?" asked Finn. They rounded the corner.

          "Aw crap," Yumi came to a halt before they collided with a huge crowd of people. "I forgot, about the anniversary celebration.'

          "The what?"

          "You know, the colony's fifty year anniversary," Yumi explained. "What's wrong with you?"

          "Wish I knew," Finn said under his breath. He spotted someone rushing through the crowd not far from them. "And so the hunt begins."

          "You see him?"

          "Take the left side, I'll come up the right. He's pushing his way towards the far end of the street."

          "Come on," Yumi grabbed his arm and dragged him down a narrow side street.

          "Huh?"

          "No one knows the city streets better than a traffic cop," Yumi smirked. "Just follow me," she led him down a series of small side streets before they finally came back out into the crowd. "And here you have it." Their man was coming right for them. However, as they began to advance, he spotted them and ducked into a narrow alley. Finn was about to run off after him, but Yumi held him back. "Relax, it's a dead end."

          "Right," Finn reached for where he would have expected to find his gun. 'Oh, right.'

          They made their way through the crowd and to the alley. Finn poked his head around the corner and saw their man trying to scale the brick walls up a drainpipe. Finn stepped into the alleyway, but assailant didn't seem to notice, and motioned for Yumi to follow.

          "Nu uh," she whispered. "Suicide's not in my job description."

          Finn stared at her, these words…he had heard them before somewhere. He was snapped out of his trance when the assailant slid down the drainpipe and back to the ground.

          "I guess I should tell you to give it up, you've got nowhere to run," Finn said, the man jumped and clutched the box.

          "What do you want? Who are you?" he asked, seeming very jittery and anxious.

          "I'm Lieutenant…I mean Detective Saotome, Utopia Colony police. Look, if you give up now the charges won't be as hard. I really don't want to have to tack resisting arrest onto what I'm assuming is already a larceny," Finn took a step closer and the man pressed his back into the end of the alleyway.

          "Just stay away from me, please. Just go away. They're after me, you're one of them!"

          'Hmm…no go,' Finn looked at Yumi, who shrugged. "What exactly do you have there anyway?"

          "Just go away. You're one of them," the man said accusingly. This just puzzled Finn even more.

          "One of them? What are you talking about? I sit at a desk all day and play virtual pinball and sometimes I connect the dots, so to speak. I'm not part of the UF or anything, if that's what you're afraid of."

          "Just back away. Leave me alone."

          Finn's eye twitched. "Look, I'm not going to hurt you. Believe it or not, I'm trying to help you," the man still clutched the box. "K, how about this? For every question you answer I'll take one step back. How's that sound?"

          "No tricks? How can I trust you?" the man asked. His face relaxed somewhat, but his body stance was still wound up like some kind of spring-loaded toy.

          "Alright, for starters, what's your name?"

          "Keitaro Onishi," the man said, Finn took a step back.

          "Ok. So what's in the box?" Finn asked, but the man remained quiet. "I'm not carrying a gun or anything, I told you, I sit at a desk and play pinball most of the time."

          "It's a stone."

          "Like a diamond or something?" Finn asked, taking another step back.

          "No, it's a rock."

          "Where did it come from originally?"

          "The south pole."

          "And what's so special about this rock?"

          "Hey, Yumi!" came a loud voice from the street. "Where's your boyfriend? I thought you didn't let him out of your sight."

          'Aw crap, just what we needed,' Finn thought, looking over his shoulder. A small group of people came up to Yumi, led by a tall man wearing sunglasses.

          "What are you doing here?" asked Yumi, noticing they were in uniform. "I thought everyone had the day off today."

          "We got called in, some punk broke into some place the military sends stuff to be analysed and stole something. We heard he came this way, you seen him?" the man wearing sunglasses asked. "What are you doing by an alley anyway? I'd have thought you'd be at home 'celebrating',' one of the female officers smacked him on the back of the head. Yumi nervously glanced at Finn in the alley. "What's in there? Oh, hey Saotome, taking a leak or something? Ow! Stop hitting me, Ikaru."

          "Aw crap," Finn muttered as the jittery Keitaro dropped the box and drew a knife and charged at him. "Whoa! Hang on a sec!"

          "I knew you were with them!" Keitaro cried and took a slash at Finn, who jumped back. Keitaro dove at Finn and they both crashed to the ground, Keitaro trying to force his blade into Finn's chest.

          "Finn!" Yumi cried, watching as Finn and Keitaro grappled.

          "Alright Saotome, time to let the big boys take over," the man wearing the sunglasses said, taking off his gloves. "Stand aside."

          "Easier said than done," Finn grunted in reply, trying to push Keitaro's knife-wielding hand back. "But I wouldn't mind a hand, if you're not too busy?"

          "Nah, on second thought, I'll let you handle it," the man laughed lightly. "You get so sickly and pale looking spending all your time at the precinct. It's good to see you outside," the other officers made a move to help Finn, but the sunglasses man blocked their way.

          "Finn uses his brain, rather than his fists to catch criminals," Yumi said. "Don't just stand there, help him!"

          "You're an officer, go help him yourself. It'd be good for you to get a little exercise along with him, " the sunglasses man said. Yumi bit her lip and looked at Finn. She made a move towards them, but the sunglasses man stopped her. "I was just kidding there, babe. Wouldn't want to see a pretty face like yours get all dirty." Yumi shook him off.

          "Don't be such a bastard," one of the other officers said.

          "Yeah, Saotome'd give you a hand if you were in the same sitch," someone else said.

          "Er…" the sunglasses man said. Someone gave him a kick in the ass, sending him forward a few steps. "Alright, alright. I was just joking. Jeez. Hang on Saotome."

          Finn quickly slammed his knee into Keitaro's chest, knocking him off his guard. He then hit the knife out of his hands. Keitaro quickly jumped off Finn and made a dive for his weapon. Finn swung his leg around, causing his opponent to fall to the ground, and quickly kicked the knife further away. Keitaro took a swing at Finn, who ducked, dodged, and danced his away past each one before landing a solid blow to the man's stomach, causing him to fall to his knees.

          "Wait!" Yumi cried as Finn was about to deliver another blow.

"What?"

 "That's enough. Someone, cuffs," a pair of handcuffs came sailing over their heads from someone at the back of the small group of officers. She quickly grabbed the stunned Keitaro's hands and locked them behind his back. "Are you alright?" she asked Finn.

          "Yeah, I'm ok," replied Finn as he dusted himself off, a small trickle of blood dripped of his hand from where it had connected with the blade of the knife.

          "You're bleeding, you sure?" Yumi asked.

          "Just a flesh wound," Finn opened and closed his hand. "Ow."

          "Yeah, right."

          "I got it, Yumi," one of the other officers said and brought Keitaro to his feet. "Come on."

          "Thanks for all your help, Nakajima," Finn said with an oh so sweet hint of sarcasm.

          "I was just waiting until you needed some real help," Nakajima said, everyone looked at him. "Come on, he was holding his own."

          "I think he's still mad at you for busting the Ikari case," Yumi whispered to Finn. "Let me see this," she grabbed Finn's hand and dragged him into the sunlight.

          "He should have been mine," Nakajima said, anime waterfalls coming from behind his sunglasses.

          "I think you'll live," Yumi said, ignoring the raving Nakajima and looking at Finn's hand. "I'll patch that up with butterfly tape when we get home."

          "Where's my violin?" someone asked and the crowd chuckled.

          "I'm sure you'll nurse him back to health," the crowed burst out in laughter. "I can just picture Yumi in a tight nurse's outfit!"

          "You should see it," Yumi mock-slapped Finn for that remark. For some reason, he actually braced himself for the real thing.

          "Anyway, thanks for the hand," Nakajima said. "See ya," they hauled Keitaro off to a waiting patrol car at the end of the blocked off street.

          "Wait a sec," Finn disappeared into the shadows of the alley and emerged a sec seconds later. "They forgot this." He held the box in his hands. Glancing towards the end of the street, he just caught the rear of the police car disappear around a corner.

          "You can drop it off at the evidence room tomorrow," Yumi said, what's in there anyway?" Finn lifted the lid and found a lustrous chunk of rock. "I wonder what's so special about a rock, other than the fact that it's somewhat shiny."

          "Looks can be deceiving," Finn said and he closed the box. "Anyway, yeah, I'll just drop it off tomorrow."

          When they arrived home, they crashed on the couch and turned on the TV. "Let's find out what scoobie and the gang are up to," Finn said as he turned the device on.

          "We now return you to the Scooby Doo Murder Files," the narrator on the TV said.

          "Gee wiz gang," said Freddie. "Looks like the killer gutted the victim, strangled him with his own intestines, and then dumped the body in the river."

          "Jinkies." Added Velma.

          "Roobyroo?"

          "You're right Scoob, we're dealing with one sick son of a bitch," Freddie translated.

          "Flip," Yumi said, sounding slightly disgusted. Finn changed the channel.

          "This programme is sponsored by Five Alive and brought to you by the letter H," the narrator said. "You have been watching: Homicide: Life on Sesame Street."

          The scene is two people asleep in bed, you can only see the tops of their heads, one is yellow with black hair and the other is orange with black hair. The phone rings. A yellow arm reaches out to answer.

          "Hello?" Bert asks. "Son of a bitch, alright I'm on my way." Bert gets out of bed and takes a drink from a bottle. "Some guy got his head blown off down at a place called Hoopers,"

          "Bert," says Ernie. "I wish you wouldn't drink so much, Bert."

          "Well Ernie, I wish you wouldn't eat cookies in the damn bed!"

          "Bert, you're shouting again Bert," Ernie cowers.

          "Sheesh," Bert gives up.

Dinner is Served

          "Where're we meeting them again?" asked Finn as he changed into slightly better attire.

          "Yurika said at the restaurant," Yumi answered as she emerged from the shower, a towel draped around her body.

          "What's the occasion?" Finn asked, trying not to let his eyes wander too much over her. However, try as he might, it was like trying to discourage moths from a porch-light. There was some kind of 'gulp' sound that bubbled from his throat.

          "Hard to port!" his brain ordered his eyes.

          "It's no good captn,  we're being sucked in!" his eyes answered.

          "They just adopted a twelve year-old girl," Yumi said, sifting through a drawer of black………socks. The author hears the reader facefault.

          "Hey Yumi," Finn said as looked at a white shirt. "How do you get my clothes so white and fresh smelling?"

          "It's an ancient Chinese secret that very few people know about."

          "Oh, I see," Finn spotted a laundry basket with a box tucked between the clothes. He picked it up. "Wait a sec, Calgon? Ancient Chinese secret huh?"

          "Oh, guess what I found the other day," Yumi grabbed a small CD case from a back on the dresser and tossed it to Finn. "Look at that old one,"

          "Gundam Endless Waltz? Everyone in the world has EW, if you lived in the suburbs you were issued it. It came in the mail with samples of Tide."

          "You," Yumi half-heartedly smacked him on the face.

          The sun had just dipped below the red horizon when Finn and Yumi walked out into the street. Finn was in a navy-blue suit while Yumi wore her red evening dress. As they walked down the street in the direction of Akito's restaurant, Finn noticed a car coming towards them in the fading light. As it passed, he caught a glimpse of a woman in the passenger seat. She had black hair that came down to her shoulders, a mole on her right cheek, and looked like some kind of high-ranking secretary of some sort. There was something about her that made the alarm bells in Finn's head go off.

          "Hey, what's up? Something wrong?" asked Yumi when she saw Finn's perplexed face. "You've been acting strange all day,"

          "It's nothing," Finn replied. "I just thought I recognized someone,"

          "You sure? It's like you don't know where you are, I keep seeing you staring off into space," Yumi said, her concern was clearly visible in her voice.

          "I don't know. It's like…this is a dream or something. I keep expecting to wake up, but I don't even know what I'd wake up to," Finn explained, although not even sure of what he was even saying.

          "Well, just don't do anything too strange."

          "What are you implying?"

          "Remember the time you turned Akito's house into a giant puppet?"

-----------------------------Flashback---------------------------------

          "That's right, I'm the Tenkawa's house!" boomed a voice as the front door of a house opened and closed. "All bow before Tenkawa's house! Bring me a toolshed for I am hungry!"

-----------------------------End Flashback-----------------------------

          They arrived at Akito's restaurant a few minutes later.

          "Hey Akito, I'm surprised the kitchen could spare you on a night like this," Finn said when they entered and found Akito and Yurika waiting for them. It was moderately busy and the large dining area was alive with talk. There was something strange when they shook hands. Of course he had known Akito for years, same with Yurika, who had both been in the Utopia colony all their lives. It was like meeting someone you knew, but didn't remember where from. As though they knew each other in some other way.

          "It's good to see you again," Yurika said. "Ever since you made detective it seems as though you've been working double the hours."

          "What?" asked Finn, everyone looked at him strangely. "Oh right, yeah. I guess it all comes with the territory."

          "Is he alright?" Yurika asked Yumi as Akito led them to their reserved table.

          "He's just been working too much," Yumi said. "They keep him at the precinct till all hours some nights."

          "He just seems…different," Yurika said. "There's nothing going on between you two, is there?"

          "No, we're alright. He's just been kind of flakey all day."

          They were led to a large table, where a girl, looking about twelve or thirteen was waiting for them. She was very pale and had long silvery hair.

          "This is Ruri," Akito said, introducing the girl.

          "Hey Ruri, nice to see you again," Finn said, extending his hand.

          "I've never met you before," Ruri said. Finn looked puzzled.

          "This is what I'm talking about," Yumi whispered to Yurika as they sat down.

          "And yet, you seem familiar," Ruri continued, everyone looked at her. "How very strange."

          "Maybe she was in some kind of trouble and he helped her out?" Yurika suggested.

          "Could be, where is Ruri from anyway?" asked Yumi.

          "From Earth, an institute in Luxemburg was closed and was forced to give up custody of all the children they were 'studying'."

          "Then I doubt it was Finn."

          "I remember I was in a place like this once," Finn said. "It was three o'clock in the morning, and I was looking for 1000 brown M&Ms to fill a brandy glass, or the Chief wouldn't leave his office. Just then, one of the guys from burglary pops around and mentions that there's a little sweets shop not to far away. We go, and, what'll you know, it's closed. So here we are breaking into this little sweets shop. Well, instead of a guard-dog they've got this great, big, bloody Bengal tiger. I managed to take out the tiger with a can of mace, but the shop owner and his son, that's another story all together," Finn stared off into space. "I had to beat them to death with their own shoes." Everyone stared at him, their mouths slightly hanging open. "Or not." Yumi covered her mouth to hide her the stifled laughs that escaped her throat.

          "Idiots," Ruri said under her breath, but couldn't help but crack a smile.

          The night continued as you might expect a gathering of friends to go. They ate, talked, drank, and told old stories. It was strange for Finn because, even though he could accurately remember every event to which the others referred, he felt as though he didn't really live them. It was like he held two sets of memories of the same time period. He knew that he had never met Ruri before, but felt as though he already knew her. Suddenly, a name came to mind.

          "Ruri, can I ask you a question?" he said during a lull in the conversation. Ruri nodded. "Does the name Omoikane mean anything to you? Does that ring any bells?"

          "Where did that come from?" Akito asked.

          "I don't know, it just came from somewhere," Finn replied. "For some reason it rings a bell."

          "As a matter of fact, it does sound familiar," Ruri said. "But I can't remember where from."

          "You feeling alright, Finn?" Akito asked when he saw Finn's expression. "You're acting stranger than usual."

          "Yeah, I…I'm fine," Finn said as he got up from his chair. "Excuse me for a sec," and he left the table for the men's room. "What's wrong with me?" he asked himself, splashing water from the tap into his face. "First I wake up and have no idea who or where I am, next thing I forget what my job is, and now I ask Ruri weird questions. Come on Finn, you're a profiler, you're supposed to explain weird behaviour."

          "You alright, Saotome?" came a voice from the door. Finn looked up and saw Akito there.

          "You know what? I honestly don't know," he replied, drying his face on a piece of paper towel.

          "Yumi said you've been acting strangely all day, anything wrong?"

          "Nothing and everything. Do you ever feel like you're living in a dream? Like you know everything that you've done in your life, but you have a completely separate set of memories from somewhere you don't even know? Probably sounds crazy, I know."

          "Well, that does sound kind of strange," Akito said, scratching his head.

          "I feel like I don't know anything that's happened, like I've been living in a dream world until I woke up this morning."

          "Are you nervous about the wedding? It's only a month away; it's normal to feel kind of anxious. I remember when Yurika and I…"

          "I don't think it has anything to do with that," Finn interrupted. They stood in silence for a few minutes. "I have a favour to ask."

          "What's that?" Akito asked as he and Finn stood face to face.

          "I want you to hit me."

          "Come again?" Akito asked, confused.

          "I want you to hit me," Finn repeated.

          "Are you nuts? I can't hit you."

          "Akito, I'm asking you, hit me."

          "Look, I've known you for a long time, and I've never seen you act this way before. Are you sure there's not something wrong?" Akito asked. Finn looked seriously at his friend.

          "I'm going to ask you one more time," he said. "hit me,"

          "I'm not going to…" Akito was cut off as Finn delivered a solid punch to his face.

          "I'm sorry," Finn said. "Please, I'm asking you, hit me."

          "Alright, if you're serious," Akito said reluctantly, still slightly dazed from the blow. He brought his right arm backand slammed his fist into the side of Finn's face, closing his eyes the second before he connected. "Wow," he said when he opened his eyes. He was surprised to find that Finn had not even flinched. The only sign that Akito had actually done anything to him was a small red mark on his face. "Feeling better?"

          "A little," Finn smirked. "Thanks, I needed that."

          "What happened to you two?" Yumi asked when Finn and Akito returned to the table, noticing the areas on their faces where bruises were beginning to form.

          "I slipped and banged my face on the towel dispenser," Finn answered. "Don't worry about it."

          "I'll have to ask the cleaning crew to use less slippery detergent on the floors," Akito said, Yurika and Yumi sweatdropped. Ruri looked at Finn with a strange curiosity. 

          "Well, I suppose we'd better be going," Yumi said when she noticed the restaurant nearly deserted. Finn glanced at his watch and noticed it was past midnight. They left the table and Finn gave their waiter his tip.

          "Sir, I can't accept this. It was on the house, please, you don't have to worry about it," the waiter said.

          "Alright then," Finn said and waited until the waiter turned his back. When he did so, Finn slipped the money into his pocket without him noticing. Yumi looked at him and shook her head with a smile. "Ok," he said when they were all standing outside in the cool night air. Stars sparkled overhead and they could see both of Mars' moons inching their way across the sky. They exchanged thank-yous and goodbyes and then went their separate ways.

          "Something wrong?" asked Finn when he noticed a distressed look on Yumi's face as they walked home.

          "No, it's nothing," Yumi said and she looked at him, her eyes shimmering.

          "If you're worried about me, don't be. I mean, I'm probably just having a weird day. I'll probably feel better after a good night's sleep."

          "Oh," Yumi said in an overly disappointed voice. "I thought maybe we could spend some time together."

          "Why? What can you and I do together?"

          "Well…"

          "You've got a sick mind!" Finn said accusingly.

          "I'm talking about making love, you moron," Yumi said.

          "Oh, I thought you wanted to kill Akito and his family and harvest their organs for an interplanetary jungle voodoo cult."

          Yumi sweatdropped and Finn laughed to himself. "Well, at least you're acting somewhat normal now, or, at least what can be considered normal for you."

          They arrived at their small apartment a little while later. It was dark and they tripped over their own feet, among other various objects scattered over the floor.

          Due to certain requests from readers, the following explicit, hot, steamy, oh-so-delicious sex scene will not be shown. Instead we give you…the Women's Television Network? * puke *  The author would also like to declare his neutrality in the following rant, that he in no way means to intentionally offend certain groups executives at a TV channel that shall remain nameless.

          "A collection of estragon pumped feminazies who believe that Bic is just a lighter and not a razor too," the fanfic critic says. "A channel so devoid of content and viewers that not even feminine hygiene products want to be advertised on it. And I'm not just saying that because it employs three of my ex-wives."

          "Thank you nutbar fanfic critic," the author says. "Anyway, moving on…"

          "Hey author, how did you get that gash in your hand?" the reader asks.

          "Oh this…I um…" the author taps some device on his ear. "I hurt it in a budging accident." a laser target appears at the side of his head. "I mean, boating accident. I have to go now," the author is dragged into the back room. "We now return you to your regularly scheduled fanfic!"

A Day At The Office

          "Young Saotome!" came a voice from somewhere in the large area of the forensic department of the Utopia Colony Police precinct 6. "Come hither and give heed!"

          "Wow sorry, I don't swing that way," Finn replied as he approached the voice's source.

          "Jeez man, what's with you and the gay jokes?" the young man asked.

          "Alright, what do you need from me today, Kazuya?" Finn asked as he took a seat in at his desk.

          "You made any progress on the 427 case yet?"

          "Not really, the guy is totally erratic, it's taking time to predict where he'll strike next," Finn said as he sifted through a stack of files on his desk.

          "Ah, you're slipping. Fresh out of school you'd have been able to nail that guy by the third strike," Kazuya laughed. "Hey, you're gettin hitched to that chick in Traffic right?"

"Yeah," Finn nodded. "You're supposed to be there."

"Poor you, man. Poor you," Kazuya shook his head. "Been there, tried that, and I'm telling you, no thank you very much."

"Why do you say that?" Finn asked curiously.

"You'll know soon enough. I guess with you two it was one of those 'meant to be' kinda things. I mean, when she walked in here looking for the Chief that first time you were totally out of it. I could have held a gun to your head or thrown a brick in your face. Then you met up with her again at the warehouse incident."

Finn entered reminisce mode.

          Two years ago…

"Hey, what's the sitch here?" Finn asked as he walked onto the crime scene. There had been a drive-by shooting and there were police everywhere, not to mention ambulances.

"Drive-by," one of the officers said.

"Where's the victim?"

"DOA, they've already carried him off, here's the sketch mark," the officer led him over to the chalk outline of the body.

"So why exactly do you need me out here?" asked Finn.

"We think this one's related to the one a few weeks ago," the officer explained.

Finn looked around. It was a commercial/industrial district still under construction. The only buildings that were up and running were the warehouses behind the storefronts. One building in particular stood out to Finn. "Were there any witnesses?"

"Yeah, a guy running the convenience store across the street said he saw the victim come out of that building and head to the payphone, but he got gunned down before he got there," the officer said.

"Hmm," Finn walked over to the warehouse storefront and tried the door. "Locked. Does this thing open from the inside and lock itself from the outside?"

"I don't think so," someone said.

"Is this one being used yet?"

"Yeah, used for foodstuffs."

"So there'd be a lot of people working in there?"

"Yes sir."

Finn entered the warehouse via the main entrance and examined the door from the inside. There was a large exit sign above it and a small electrical box attached to the handle. "Excuse me," he touched a worker on the shoulder. "Has the fire alarm gone off today?"

                    "No, I didn't hear it," the worker replied.

"Ok, thanks," Finn pulled out his radio. "Hey Chief, I got something."

                    "What've you found?" came the reply.

"I'm in the warehouse, I've got something to show you," Finn waited while the Chief and the witness arrived.

                    "What've you found?" the Chief asked again.

"The shop owner said that the victim came out from his emergency exit, right?"

"That's right," the shop-owner said. "He came out that door and walked towards the payphone, then a car came flying around the corner and opened fire, they even hit one of my windows!"

"It's just that this door is wired," Finn said.

                    "So what exactly are you saying?"

"I'm saying this," he pushed the door handle down with his foot and kicked it open. A deafening blare of a fire alarm caused them all to drop whatever they were holding and cover their ears. Finn continued talking.

"I get the point, Saotome!" The Chief shouted. Finn removed his foot and allowed the door to close, the alarm shut off.

"…which means that the victim couldn't possibly have come out this exit without half the city block knowing," Finn concluded.

"Maybe he came out from another one," the Chief suggested.

"I've checked, they're all wired," Finn turned to the shop-owner. "You run the Easy-Mart just on the corner, is that correct?" the witness nodded. Finn left and led them back outside. "Hmm, there's one problem with you're account, sir."

"What's that? I saw him come right out that door," the shop-owner said, crossing his arms.

"Well, it's just that from this angle, that spruce tree blocks your view," Finn walked a little way down the street. "Now, from here I can see your checkout counter, which means…" he followed an invisible trail along the sidewalk and up to the building adjacent to the foodstuffs warehouse. "This is the closest exit from this building. he grabbed one of the officers who was loitering about. "Hey, what's this building being used for anyway?"

"It's empty, the company hasn't moved their stuff in yet," the officer replied. Finn walked up to the main entrance and jiggled the handle.

"It's been tampered with," he said and pushed the door open and disappeared inside, only to emerge a few seconds later via the side exit where he had left the Chief and the shop-owner standing. "Not a peep."

"So I made a mistake, it was from this one," the shop-owner said.

"But it gets better," Finn said and produced a paper bag from behind his back. "And now the million dollar question, can you name that narcotic?" he gave the bag to the Chief.

"I don't recognize it," the Chief said, taking the slightest of whiffs from the bag.

"It's new, the guys at the lab have been calling it dead x, I didn't know what it was myself at first. Now, Finn said, turning to the shop-owner. "Let's go for a little walk," he led them away from the exit towards the chalk outline. "You said you saw him gunned down as a car came around the corner, right? How fast would you say he was going?"

"Fast, about 90km as he rounded the corner and probably 150km while he took off down the street," the shop-owner said.

"I see," Finn walked into the middle of the blocked off street and into the intersection. "You said he was going about 90 when he came around the corner?" the shop-owner nodded. "Were the tires squealing?"

                    "Yeah, really loud."

"It's funny, I'd have thought that making such a sharp turn would have flipped the car," Finn said, looking at the ground.

                    "It had a wide wheel base, it wouldn't have flipped that easily."

"Going 90? Alright, I can see you're point," Finn picked a stone off the pavement. The shop-owner looked slightly relieved. "Just one thing," Finn said, tossing the stone into the air and catching it. "If the car came around the corner that fast, why don't I see any skid marks? If there was such a screech, there should be some skid marks." The shop-owner, at this time, was looking somewhat anxious. "I'm thirsty, you have a slushie machine in your store, right?"

"T-that's right," the shop-owner said and he followed Finn across the street and into the store.

"Alright!" Finn exclaimed when he saw the selection of flavours. "Not very many stores have orange left, it's all that blueberry stuff." He walked over, grabbed a cup and filled it to the brim. "That's a pretty nasty hole in your window there," he added when he brought his drink to the counter.

"I have insurance to pay for it," the shop-owner said. "Don't worry, no charge for the drink."

"Thanks," Finn took a long sip. "Where'd the bullet hit? I don't see any marks in the walls," the shop-owner looked nervous. Finn looked at the floors. "Oh well," he saw something on that sparked his interest. "Hey, a penny," he picked up the metallic object and dropped it in his pocket. "Well, I have run, see you later."

Finn left the store and went over to join his fellow officers. "Hey Chief!" he called. "I got something. What calibre was the victim hit with?"

"Don't know yet, you'll have to wait for the ballistics to come back," the Chief answered.

                    "Best estimate?"

"Something big, no lower than a '45," someone said. "So far no shell casings."

Finn pulled the piece he had picked up off the store's floor out of his pocket. "You requested a shell casing? You're man's that way," he stuck his thumb in the direction of the store.

          A group of armed officers began making their way towards the store.

                    "What makes you so sure?" the Chief asked.

"I hope those guys have body armour on," Finn said, not paying any real attention to the Chief. Some guy fell to the ground clutching his leg as a shot was fired. Finn winced. "Nope."

Eventually the shop-owner was dragged from the store in cuffs, and a few officers had suffered only minor injuries. Finn wandered over to the barricade, where traffic officers were redirecting cars around the crime scene.

"Oh, hey Detective," one of the female officers said. "Taking time to get to know the little folk?"

"Eh?" Finn looked over his shoulder at the person who was talking. "It's you…"

"Of course it's me, I'm not anyone else, am I?" the officer laughed. "I'm Yumi, traffic division."

"I…Detective Finn Saotome," Finn said. "With…"

"Forensic," Yumi finished.

"Right, how'd…?

"Let's just say the gossip goddess filled me in," Yumi nudged her head in another female officer's direction. "You are 188cm tall, weigh 67kg, are single, and you lived in the New Ontario-Mars province to the north before you came to the Utopia Colony, shall I go on?"

Finn sweatdropped. "Jeez, I didn't know I was that popular down in Traffic."

"Believe me pal, every girl in the precinct knows your name," some guy who was listening in on the conversation. Finn turned his head to look at him. "Keep it moving, come on, that's it," he directed cars in the detour's direction. "But if you lay one hand on Aoikie I'll…"

"Don't mind him, he's got this thing for Aokie," Yumi interrupted.

"It's not that…it's just that…I"

"Yeah we know, you couldn't spell your name in front of that girl if you had to."

"Traffic's more interesting than I thought,' Finn thought.

The next few days passed as usual. Finn was busy on and off the crime scene, checking ballistics and connecting the dots in the criminal mind.

On one day in particular he picked up a pair of binoculars and stood at the window looking outside.

"What are you looking at? I see some of the Traffic babes down by the garage," Kazuya pointing in the garage's direction.

"Watching the birds," Finn replied. "Oh look, a blue-breasted honeysucker,"

"Yeah, I see one blue-breasted bird ready to suck my honey," Kazuya said, looking down at the girls. "Ow…" he squeaked when one of the female members of the forensic team beaned him in the head with a paperweight. "Anyway, the Chief wanted to see you for a sec, sounded serious."

Can't be that bad," Finn said, putting the binoculars down.

"Whatever bug crawled up his ass, you might not want to piss it off."

"I'll keep that in mind," Finn said and dropped the binoculars in Kazuya's hands. "Try not to drool all over these things this time."

"Saotome, there you are," the Chief said as Finn walked into the sunny office. There was another person standing by the door as he walked in, someone Finn recognized. "I don't know if either of you have noticed, but lately both of your departments have been running more like a sewing circle than a police station."

"What do you mean, sir?" asked Finn, taking a quick glance at Yumi, who was standing beside him.

"Both departments' productivity have dropped like a rock, and both your section chiefs told me you spend more time staring into space than anything remotely related to work," the Chief sat down in his chair. "Which brings me to why you're both here."

'Aww crap, one of us is going to be reassigned,' Finn thought.

The Chief placed a piece of paper on his desk. "The two of you are hereby ordered to go on a date this weekend, here is your itinerary, I expect it followed by the word, understood?"

Both Finn and Yumi blinked. "Um…" they both looked at one another. "Yes sir, understood."

"She's not that bad looking though, great rack, nice ass…" Kazuya went on, Finn snapped back to reality.

"You know, there's more to it than a great body," Finn said. "Ever tried going beyond looks?"

"A novel concept," Kazuya said.  "Anyway, Nakajima came by not too long ago, said he wanted to ask you something about a box? I don't know, I'm just the messenger."

          "Oh, right," Finn removed a box from his bag and set it on the desk. "I found this yesterday when they busted some thief, not that I'll get any credit for it."

          "SAOTOME!" boomed a voice from the other end of the room.

          "Speaking of which," Kazuya sweatropped.

          "Saotome, there you are, you wouldn't happen to have found…"

          "A box containing a rock? Yeah, I got it right here. You're getting too sloppy," Finn said, handing the box over to the sunglass-wearing lunatic.

          "Ahh, here you are, my precious," Nakajima said, opening the box and picking up the rock.

          "What's so special about it anyway?" asked Finn.

          "This, my friend, is a top secret piece of military excavation." Nakajima said. "The feds are going to go ape shit when they find out I found it."

          "Ahem," Finn cleared his throat.

          "Of course, you will receive partial credit for your minute contribution to its recovery," Nakajima added quickly.

          "So just what is it anyway? Looks like a normal chunk of Mars, if you ask me," said Finn.

          "This, my friend, is an unknown mineral only excavated recently at the South Pole," Nakajima explained.

          "Uh hu…so it's a rock?"

          "Basically, here, have a look for yourself," Nakajima tossed the stone in Finn's direction and it proceeded to bounce off the desk and onto the floor. "That one's your fault, Saotome,"

          "Just like everything around here," Finn muttered and he reached down the pick up the stone. When his fingers touched it he received a sudden shock. Images flashed in front of his eyes at an alarming rate. He could feel his mind struggle to process the massive flood images, sounds, tastes, smells, and textures that surged into his head. Suddenly, he found himself laid sprawled out on a windy stretch of grassy land overlooking a cliff, at the bottom of which lay the infinite expanse of the dark blue ocean. Pulling himself up out of the tall grass, he looked around. Behind him lay an open expanse of land that was green all the way to the horizon, in front of him lay the cliff-fringed ocean. A sudden gust of wind blew him forward a few steps. It seemed to guide him somewhere, for when he came within a few feet of the edge of the cliff, the wind subtly changed direction and pushed him to the right along the side of the cliff edge. Even though Finn knew he had never once before experienced this, it all felt somewhat familiar, like the first time he saw Ruri. He followed the path the wind guided him until a faint flicker of yellow to the left caught his eye. He diverted from the chosen path and followed the brief flashes of yellow that appeared in the grass not to far away from him. When he paused for a moment the wind blasted him forward. When he reached his target, he found a girl in a faded yellow sundress laying in the grass. Her short hair was the colour of the glass and she lay there with her eyes shut, apparently asleep. There was something about this girl Finn recognized. It wasn't any one feature, but them as a whole that sent the gears in his head spinning away. She began to stir and her eyes fluttered open. Finn looked at her and she looked at him and he sat on the grass beside her. She smiled at him and grabbed his hand. However, when Finn looked at her with a puzzled look on his face, she withdrew her hand and looked at the ground. When their hands had touched, though, Finn's mind experienced a surge of memories, little captures from whole experiences. He saw giant robots, explosions, ships, and destruction. But he also saw laughter, this girl, he knew her scent, he knew the texture of her hair, and the taste of her lips.

          Suddenly, the ground began to shake violently and pieces began falling out of the cliff face. They both stared in a confused awe at the sight before them. The ground beneath them collapsed and they began to tumble down towards the ocean. Finn grabbed onto the girl's hand and pulled her closer to him. Images, sounds, tastes, smells, and textures flooded into his mind again. They continued tumbling down towards the ocean, which was so deep a hue of blue that it grew black as they approached it. Memories continued to flood into Finn's mind. He now remembered full events, entire conversations. Finally they plunged into the icy water, so forcefully that it tore the two of them apart.

Reality?

          "Saotome, you ok?" Finn heard someone ask.

          "Don't worry, he probably saw Yumi walk by or something. He's fine," answered another.

          "What the?" Finn rubbed his eyes.

          "Yeah, Misato's coffee does the same thing to me too," Kazuya said, looking into his coffee mug. "That's why I always stop on the way to grab a cup."

          "What's going on?" asked Finn.

          "Hmm, this is worse than I thought," Kazuya. "Wait right here, I'll be back in a sec," he got up and left. Nakajima picked the stone up off the floor and dropped it back into its box. Finn sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling fans.

          "You alright?" Nakajima asked, slapping Finn on the back.

          "I was until a second ago," Finn replied, rubbing the sore spot on his back. "What happened?"

          "You just kind of froze there for a sec, like an old hockey player before the helmet rule," Nakajima said. "The coffee really that bad?" However, before Finn could utter a reply, Kazuya came back with a mug of some hideous and foul smelling concoction.

          "Drink up, it'll make you feel better," he said, putting the mug down on Finn's desk.

          ""Dare I ask what it is?" Finn asked, looking at the bubbling black mixture.

          "You don't want to know, just drink it. It'll clear your head. Hey, if it works for me it should work for you,"" Kazuya said.

          Finn looked at the liquid. Finally, after the staring contest was over, he picked the mug up and took the tiniest sip possible.

          "No no, not like that," Kazuya said and he opened Finn's mouth and dumped the mixture down his throat. "You have to take it all at once," Finn sat there, his eyes faded.

          "Is it supposed to do that?" Nakajima asked.

          "Yeah, give it a minute."

          "What was in that anyway?"

          "Artificial sweetener, Tabasco sauce, powdered jalapenos, coke, windex, ketchup, and the leftover grinds in the coffee filter. I have one of these every morning if I have a hangover."

          "Won't that kill him?"

          "Nah, he'll be fine," Kazuya took a mister bottle and sprayed Finn's face with it. "Wakey wakey."

          "Eagh," was the noise that escaped Finn's throat.

          A few minutes pass.

          "I was only trying to help you, dude!" came Kazuya's muffled voice from inside a garbage can. Finn dusted his hands and returned to his desk where he went about his usual business.

          "I'm home!" came Yumi's voice as she walked in the door to the apartment. "Finn, you home?" she asked when there was no reply. She found him at the computer, working away. "Who're you tracking down this time?"

          "Wha? Oh, hey. Just surfing," Finn said.

          "What's this?" Yumi asked, picking up a pad of paper with pages and pages of notes scribbled on it. It read 'Nadesico, Ruri, Captain Yurika, Cook Akito, aestivalis, frame, gravity blast,' and on and on. After a few pages it was just the name 'Ryoko' scribbled over and over again. "What is this?"

          "Wish I knew," Finn said to himself.

          "Are you being weird again?"

          "This name has been driving me nuts all day," Finn explained. There was a box of old police notes beside him. "I've been trying to find out where I've heard it. You wouldn't happen to recognize it, would you?"

          "Never met anyone by the name of Ryoko," Yumi said. The phone rang. "I got it," she said and picked the phone up. "Hello? Yes he is, just a moment," she covered the receiver with her hand. "Finn, it's for you."

          "Hello?" Finn asked as he picked up the phone. "Yes, I'm Saotome,"

          The conversation didn't last long. "What is it?" Yumi asked when he finally put the receiver down.

          "That was the UF Mars office, they want me for some recovery operation," Finn answered, sounding somewhat puzzled himself.

"What exactly does that mean?" asked Yumi.

"Beats me, they didn't say." he grabbed his coat and made his way to the door. "I've got to meet them at the precinct in a few minutes, so I'm off. See ya."

"Saotome, there you are. Where have you been?" the Chief demanded when Finn finally got to the precinct.

"Sorry, they didn't exactly give me a lot of time," Finn said. The sun was beginning to set and the air was warm. "So what exactly do they need us for?"

"Not us, Saotome. Just you. I was only told to make sure you got here, that's all."

"I feel so special." 

"You're ride's over there," the Chief motioned to a large military car in the precinct's parking lot. "Good luck."

"Roger that, sir," Finn gave a mock salute.

"I'm begging you, please don't screw this up."

"Thanks Chief," Finn made his way to the dark military car. The windows were all tinted and the engine was still running.

"Detective Saotome," a man said, getting out of the car and saluting him. "We've been expecting you. I am Colonel Tokai, United Forces, Mars division."

"So what's going on? What does G.I. Joe want from little ol' me" asked Finn.

"I'll explain on the way," Colonel Tokai said.

"Just where are we going?" Finn asked as he climbed into the backseat.

"We're going to the Utopia Colony security branch, where we will then take a helicopter to Mars headquarters, and then to an undisclosed location," Colonel Tokai replied. "From this moment forward you are not to inform anyone of what you may see, is that understood?"

"Right," Finn said, not sounding particularly interested.

"I would like to start off by thanking you for your assistance in recovering the stolen minerals from our labs and the capture of the culprit," Colonel Tokai said.

"No biggie. I take it this has something to do with the rock inside the box?"

"That is correct. We understand that officer Nakajima was in charge of the recovery, he has already been told to remain silent about this matter. To be honest, Detective, we are in serious need of your services. Several months ago, excavation of Mars' south pole began. Ground sonar scans showed interesting mineral deposits under the ice cap. We had several core samples brought up and upon analysis we made a remarkable discovery. No known substance exhibits the properties it has."

"And just what might these properties include?" asked Finn.

"I can't tell you at this time. However, all will be explained to you in due course. If I may continue? This mineral, codenamed novalite, exhibits extraordinary properties. However, several days ago, someone broke into the civilian labs we had sent samples to for analysis and stole the samples. You assisted in the recovery of one of three samples given to these labs. What we need you to do now is help us locate the two missing samples. You must understand that time is of the essence here and they must be located as soon as possible," Colonel Tokai explained.

"So how long are we talking?"

"How ever long it takes."

"That's what I love about you army guys, always a straightforward answer," Finn sweatdropped.

They continued in silence for a while. Finn rested his head against the dark window and watched the sky grow progressively darker. When they finally arrived at the Utopia Colony station, they were escorted to an awaiting helicopter.

"Detective, wake up, we've arrived," Colonel Tokai kicked Finn lightly in the shins.

"Pizza with extra chocolate sauce, please," Finn mumbled in his drowsy state. "Alright, what planet am I on now?"

"I would appreciate it if you took this matter with a certain degree of seriousness, Detective. This is a potentially dangerous situation we're in, which means we have no time to waste, understood?" Colonel Tokai said.

"Right, can I at least call my girlfriend and tell her I won't be home tonight then?" Finn asked with a yawn. The Colonel tossed him a cell phone.

"Make it quick."

"Gotcha," Finn dialled the number. "Hey, it's me. Look, I'm not going to be home tonight, we've got something big here," there was a pause for a moment. "I don't know when, but it shouldn't be all that long. I just called to let you know I haven't been abducted for military experimentation. Alright, see ya," he folded the two parts of the phone back together and handed it back to the Colonel.

"Anything I should know before you take off?" asked Finn. The Colonel looked at him. "I heard the chopper pilot say he was dropping you off somewhere else." The Colonel looked at him suspiciously. "Hey, I can't help it; it's my job to notice these things,

"Yes, I see," the Colonel cleared his throat. "From this moment forward you are to have no communication other than personnel who are involved with this operation. We request that you work as quickly as possible , I cannot stress it enough that time is of the essence."

"So just where are we anyway?"

"Mars, South Pole."

In The Navy!

          "This is our research station at Mars' south pole," the Colonel explained. "From this point on you will be working under the command of Admiral Munetake. That is all," he gave a salute and left, leaving Finn standing around wondering where he could even sneeze without setting off some kind of alarm.

          "Detective Saotome," came an annoying voice. "We've been expecting you. What took you so long?"

          "Eh?" was the sound that escaped Finn's throat as he turned around to face this person. He found a rather short man with nose that looked like a ski slope and a haircut that made him looking like some species of mushroom, or other variety of fungus. However, he was dressed in an admiral's uniform, so Finn swallowed the snickers that were bubbling in his throat. "Right, Saotome here. So what's up?" a gust of wind blasted them, Finn struggled to keep his footing.

          "I just that you have been instructed that this operation is classified as top-secret and that you are, under no circumstances, to repeat or recount anything that you may see or hear while under our command. Is that clear?"

          'Dang, that's a huge nose,' thought Finn. "Yeah, I've heard about that already. Now how about filling me in as to what exactly I'm supposed to be doing here? That's usually a good start," another gust of icy wind blasted them and Finn suddenly realized that it was cold, really cold.

          "Come this way," the Admiral mushroom said and led Finn inside the facility.

          "Gah!" Finn smashed his head on the low doorframe.

          "Yes, watch the doors. This place wasn't designed for people like you," the Admiral said.

          "That's a great comfort," Finn muttered.

          The Admiral led Finn down a series of corridors and finally into a large conference room. Seated around the massive table, which had a holo-projector positioned in its centre, were military officers of every rank, ranging from pilots to generals, people whom Finn presumed to be scientists of some sort.

          "This is Detective Saotome of the Utopia Colony police, as requested," Munetake said and pushed Finn into an empty chair.

          "Thank you, Admiral," said a man at one end of the massive table. He looked somewhat familiar to Finn, that strange feeling he'd been having all day became noticeable. "Now, you are all probably wondering why you're here, some more than others," everyone looked at Finn.

          'Why do I get the feeling they're picking on me?' he thought.

          "Three days ago at approximately 0300hrs, several pieces of military property were stolen from civilian labs, a mineral called novalite to be specific. This substance was retrieved from core samples we have dug up through the icecap. The sites are shown here," a hologram of Mars with three red arrows pointing at its surface appeared. "the novalite was stolen from labs in these colonies at the same time, which leads us to believe this is a coordinated and very well organized group we're dealing with."

          "Hey," Finn whistled and raised his hand. Everyone looked at him in surprise. "Hey, sorry for interrupting. But can I ask one question here?"

          "Detective Saotome, I'm not surprised," the Commander at the end of the table muttered. "What is it?" he asked irritably.

          "If this stuff is so secret, why did you send it to civilian labs?" There was a hushed sound of a collective agreement with Finn's question.

          "Fair enough," the Commander said, looking around the table. "The labs we sent samples of novalite because we didn't wish to arouse suspicion. There have been security leaks lately, which means if we sent the samples to military facilities, someone might get a little too interested. But, since we often do business with civilian facilities, we thought this would prevent anyone not connected with the operation from becoming terribly interested. Now, moving on. Two of the samples were retrieved, one from the Utopia Colony and one from New Wellington. However, the samples stolen from the facilities in Iacon were not recovered. We presume that someone within the military leaked information to terrorist groups descended from the Lunar dissidents that were expelled from the Moon over a century ago. It is believed that they wish to use the novalite to enhance operations. The translocation of matter and gravitron concentration properties contained within the novalite could be used in combination for strikes against us and the colonies. I don't have to tell you what kind of devastation being able to translocate a gravitron bomb anywhere could cause. Which brings me to why you are all here. All of you are critical in recovering the stolen novalite. Every available resource and all relevant information will be at your disposal. Saotome?"

          "Hmm?" Finn asked, looking up from his notepad, in which he had been scribbling something.

          "You seem to be taking quite an interest in this operation. You are in charge of collection and interpretation of forensic all forensic evidence recovered."

          "Right," Finn scribbled down a few more notes before returning the notepad to the pocket of his coat. 'Much too educational.'

          "You are to start immediately. It is crucial that the novalite be retrieved and the culprits found. You are all dismissed," the Commander rose from his seat and exited via a door built into the wall at the far side of the room. The rest of the room got up and filed out the main entrance, leaving Finn wondering what exactly whit it was he was supposed to be doing. When the room was empty, with Finn being the exception, the lights returned to normal intensity.

          "Lights are on, but no body's home," Finn muttered and spun around a few times in his chair.

          "Detective?" came a voice.

          "Wha??" Finn looked up and found the Admiral standing not too far away.

          "You have your orders, I suggest you get working," the Admiral said. "Well, what are you waiting for? Get moving!"

          "Whatever you say," Finn got up and left the room. "Toadstool," he added quietly.

          Outside was a maze of corridors; some wide enough for a bus to roll down the middle of, others so narrow it was almost impossible for two people to pass each other. Finally, after two hours of aimlessly wandering around, Finn found himself in front of a direction map.

          "What the?" came a voice from behind him.

          "Oh great, what now?" Finn mumbled as he examined the map.

          "Don't move," the voice said. Finn heard the click of a gun's safety being turned off. "Put your hands in the air." Finn rolled his eyes and complied. "Now turn around, slowly."

          "Alright," Finn turned to face his confronter. It turned out to be a girl, looking about twenty or so, in a pilot's uniform. She had dark hair, almost blue in tint, to her shoulders and held the gun level with Finn's forehead.

          "Who are you?" the girl asked, interrupting Finn's train of thought.

          "Uh…Detective Saotome, Utopia Colony police," he fumbled for words. 'It's her, it's got to be,'  "May I inquire as to who you are?"

          "I'll ask the questions here," the girl said, still holding the gun. "What are you doing here? This area's off limits to civilians,"

          "They brought me here to work on some missing rock case," Finn answered. "And if you know where I'm supposed to be in this mind-boggling labyrinth, please tell me, I don't have a clue."

          "Alright," the girl returned the gun to its holster, she still eyed him suspiciously though. "You must be working on the novalite situation. You're supposed to be sub-section A of the MP wing. I'll show you the way. Come on." She began walking down the corridor to the right before he could even begin to utter a word of thanks. "Hurry up!"

          "Right," Finn followed her and they began to make their way through the twisting corridors. "Gah!" he grunted as he bashed his head on another low hanging doorway. "That's the fifteenth time today."

          "So what exactly is your job here? I didn't think they were bringing in any cops for a military investigation," the girl asked.

          "I work in forensics," Finn said "I look for the one-hair-out-of-place kind of stuff, among other things. They want me to look for any patterns in the thefts to predict who might have stolen the rocks, matching footprints, bla bla bla. It just goes on."

          "Sounds exciting," the girl said with a noticeable hint of sarcasm. They were still in the narrow passageways, but traffic was beginning to pick up.

          " 'Scuse me," a green haired girl said as she pushed her way past. Finn only caught a fleeting glance of her face as she pushed her way through, but their eyes locked for a split second, and that was enough to cause both of them to stop dead in their tracks. They both stared at one another with puzzled expressions.

          "Come on Saotome!" the blue-haired girl boomed. "I don't have all day."

          "Alright, alright," Finn's body began moving in the direction of the girl, who was a fair distance down the corridor at this point, but his eyes remained locked on the green haired girl. There was a sudden clang of something hard striking a steel doorway. "That's number sixteen," the green haired girl stood and watched him disappear down the corridor, until he finally vanished behind a corner and continued on her way. "Excuse me, miss…?"

          "Second-Lieutenant Kanzaki ," Finn's guide said.

          "Right, who was that girl back there?"

          "That was pilot Subaru. I'd keep your distance though, she's more likely to kill you than kiss you," Kanzaki said. "I wouldn't think about that kind of stuff around here, if I were you."

          "No no, it wasn't that, it's just…she looked familiar, that's all. Just out of curiosity, what's her first name?"

          "Ryoko," Kanzaki said. "I'd doubt that you've seen her. You were probably thinking of someone else."

          "Must be," Finn lied. He knew that was the girl that he had seen earlier that day when he touched the fragment of novalite. There was no mistaking it. 'The hair, the eyes, the face, hell, even the figure's the same,' he thought.

          They continued on in silence for some while until Kanzaki finally led him into a large, open hallways where people in white lab coats scurried and soldiers with bands on their arms that read MP on them stood motionless at every corner. Kanzaki opened a door and pretty much booted Finn inside, where several other specialists in his field were busy at computer terminals. He found a binder bearing his name and found instructions as to just what exactly he was to look for. It said that all relevant information was stored in his terminal.

          "And here he is at last, the great Saotome from Utopia Colony," one of the three men said, glancing up from his computer screen. "Where've you been anyway?

          "Just out for a walk," Finn yawned and glanced at his watch, which read four o'clock in the morning. But who knew what time it was in whatever time zone they were in now. "And who might you be?" he asked as he sat down and logged into his computer.

          "Name's Ginza," the man said and they shook hands. "I'm from the Metroplex Colony,"

          "Alright. So what's the sitch? Found anything yet?" Finn asked as he began to go through the reports and other various papers relevant to the case on his computer.

          "You were at the briefing, right? So you know all the break-ins happened at the same time. So it's painfully clear that this is a very well organized operation. Unfortunately both the suspects who were apprehended killed themselves before we could question them. In Utopia and New Wellington they managed to get a few preliminary questions asked, but not much more than that," Ginza said. "The transcripts are on your box."

          "Yes," Finn said, scanning through the reports. "I see. Well, since they killed themselves so soon after they were arrested, it leads me to believe that we're dealing with some pretty fanatical extremists. What was the whole 'lunar dissident' thing G.I. Joe was talking about in the briefing? I haven't heard anything about that."

          "That's the first thing I looked for when I got here," Ginza said. "Apparently there was some kind hardcore extremist group back on Earth a while back, say… a little over a century ago. Anyway, the UF rounded up all the members of this militant group and was prepared to execute them, but there was a little public sympathy for these guys. So the UF gave them an ultimatum, which was basically 'leave the Earth and never come back, or we'll kill you'. Surprisingly enough, the group agreed to leave and, a year later, they were gone, and had resettled on Mars. Problem is, when the UF began plans to colonize Mars, they dropped a couple of nukes to destroy whatever civilization the extremists had built. I guess they missed a few or something."

          "It's not like the military to be so honest," Finn said. "Every other time I've had to work with the UF I was hard pressed to get a name out of them."

          "Remember," the Admiral said, coming out of a shadowy corner. "You are all going to be subject to heavy surveillance when this operation is over, so it would be a good idea to keep your mouths shut, should you be allowed to leave, that is," the Admiral then left them in the dim light of the lab.

          "Toadstool," Finn said and began his work.

          The next few days were spent digging through the gigs and gigs of reports, crime scene pictures, and whatever piece of evidence the three of them could find.

          "And I'm spent," Finn lay in his chair staring at the ceiling, a dozen text files open on his computer. "I'm going to get something to eat, either of you coming?" there was no response. When he looked around him, his two companions were snoring away.

          Finn left them and found his way to the cafeteria, after only getting lost once and bashing his head on two doorways, which was an improvement to the six concussions he had suffered the previous day. Being lunchtime in the time zone they were in, the cafeteria was packed. Finn fought to simply keep his place in line, much less grab a sandwich and a can of pop from the vending machines. Next came the challenge of finding a seat in the already overcrowded mess hall. After about ten minutes of pushing his way through the walls of people that formed around each table, he finally found a vacant area in which to eat. It was a large table with only one other occupant, Ryoko. Finn, however, didn't notice until he had sat down. It felt awkward, being so close to this girl again. Around them, the room became quiet and every set of eyes looked at Finn in shock. For the most part, both of them ate in silence. Finn shrugged off everyone's stare and Ryoko finished her meal and sat with her arms crossed. When Finn had finished the sawdust they were passing off as a roast beef sandwich he sat and examined her with his trained eye.

          "Had a good enough look at me?" Ryoko asked quietly after a few minutes. Finn didn't seem particularly surprised by this.

          "I should ask you the same thing," Finn replied, having noticed her inspection of him.

          Ryoko then rose suddenly. "Follow me," she said, and left. Finn waited a moment before getting up and following her. He stayed a few meters behind her, as to avoid suspicion. En route he snuck into one of the evidence rooms and stuffed a small bag into his pocket.

"Security's slack," he said to himself, but being the South Pole of Mars, it's not like there was anywhere for a would be thief to run, but it still surprised him nonetheless. He caught up to Ryoko and they soon found themselves outside in the cold of the pole.

Sky High

          "I don't suppose I have to introduce myself," Ryoko said with her back turned to Finn. It was cold, really cold. The smallest sliver of sun could be seen poking out of the dark horizon, which provided limited illumination.

          "I don't think that's necessary, Ryoko," Finn said. There was no one else outside. Their only company was a land-frame aestivalis, which was sitting by a launch pad a few hundred meters away. There was an awkward silence. Neither of them seemed quite sure what to say.

          "Can you blame them?" the author said. Ryoko grabbed the author by the collar and tossed him into a snow bank. "I'll be good," came a muffled voice.

          "Let me ask you something," Finn said, resting his back on the cold cement wall of the base in an attempt to get out of the howling wind. "When you woke a few days ago, did you feel as though you had just woken up after being decked in the head with a shovel?"

          "That's pretty blunt," Ryoko smirked.

          "It's my job to ask questions," Finn said simply. Even though everyone on the base avoided Ryoko and shrank into the walls whenever she approached, Finn didn't feel all that intimidated by her.

          "Look, I'm just going to get it out here. Who the hell are you?" Ryoko said, turning around. "Yes, when I woke up this morning I felt as though someone had bashed me over the head with a shovel."

          "And you didn't know exactly who or where you were," Finn finished. "You had the feeling that you were supposed to be somewhere else and that this all looked like some crazy dream."

          "That's putting it lightly, Saotome," she replied. "It was like waking up after an all night bender. At first I thought it was just some kind of stupid dream that I had just come out and could barely remember. So after a few minutes I just shrugged it off and went along as usual. But…" she trailed off.

          "Then I come along," Finn finished for her.

          "And then I freeze the way a cow would looking at an oncoming train. It all comes back."

          "Tell me, you didn't happen too…" Finn stopped as a loud siren suddenly started up.

          "What the hell?" Ryoko asked, running out into the snow and looking up at the sky. "I don't see anything, we're not under attack."

          Finn saw the blast doors around the entrance slide shut, locking them out. There was something being said over the intercom inside. He pressed his ear against the freezing metal shields that blocked the entrance. "Oh crap," he said quietly as all the pieces came together.

          "What's that idiot doing?" Ryoko asked, standing out in the middle of the snow. She saw Finn coming towards her in full sprint. He was shouting something, but she couldn't hear it over the alarms and the biting wind. "What are you babbling about?" she yelled at him, but the howling wind sucked the voice from her throat and threw it into the violent storm.

          "Come on!" Finn shouted as he grabbed Ryoko's wrist and kept on running, dragging her along behind him as he ploughed forward through the knee-deep snow.

          "What's the matter with you?" Ryoko demanded when Finn pushed her into the snow and threw himself on top of her. She quickly slipped out and grabbed him by the collar and pushed her knee into his chest. "You've got a lot of nerve…" she was cut short as a massive shock blew her off Finn and sent her sailing into the air. A deafening roar followed, along with a bright flash of light. Finn pressed himself as far into the snow as he could. He forced his hands through the frozen snowpack and used them as anchors, keeping himself pinned to the ground. The violent hiss of the storm was overpowered by the eruption that exploded out from the centre of the base.

          When the tempest regained its domination over the landscape, Finn looked up from the snow. However, he quickly ducked into the impression he had made as a massive slab of partially melted steel crashed mere feet in front of him. He covered his head and endured the hailstorm of flying debris that raining down on him. Thousands of tiny projectiles dug into his back while others the size of cars fell all around him. When all had become quiet again, Finn remained hidden, trying to ignore the searing pain as molten particles embedded themselves in his exposed skin. It was not for some time that he was able to lift his head up and survey the devastation around him. The base, or what was left of it, lay in flames. Scattered around him were pieces of crumbling concrete and melting steel. Heat radiated from the slag, driving the biting cold away and burning Finn's skin. He fell in the snow, where it was quiet and stared up at the black sky, the sun having disappeared behind the mountains that lay to the north.

          He was fully prepared to slip into the soothing sleep that was beginning to creep over him, but something stopped him. Something told him to fight it. He forced himself to sit up and look around him. Small fires from burning debris illuminated the area all around the ruined base. The roar of the fire consuming the base suddenly burst into Finn's ears and he fell back into the melting snow. He didn't know whether or not he should consider himself fortunate to be alive. However, before he could ponder the subject for long, something struck him.

          "Ryoko," he said, choking on the noxious fumes from the burning slag. He forced himself upright and looked about himself. Stumbling in the direction away from the base mere steps at a time and searched for her. He had crossed some hundred meters or so before he finally collapsed in the snow in defeat. There was something about this, this heat. He had felt it once before. His scattered memory searched in vain for the answer. Something brushed against Finn's hand, searing the skin with its heat. He lifted his head out of the snow and looked at the instrument of the sensation. It was not a piece of molten steel, or crumbling concrete. It was a hand, protruding out from under a piece of sheet metal. At first Finn stared in horror at the limb, but during such inspection, he noticed that it was not the removed piece that he first thought it to be. There was a wrist still connected, and the fingers twitched every so slightly. Finn hauled himself to his feet and pushed the scrap metal aside, searing the skin on his unprotected hands. When he had cleared enough of it, he began to dig. Clearing the snow away, he found Ryoko's mangled body. Her face was lacerated and bruised, and her uniform was torn and shredded, but she appeared to be in one piece. Finn pulled her from the snow and held her in his arms. There was still a pulse when he felt her wrist, but who knew how long that would last. However, he did not see or feel any rise or fall of her chest. She was not breathing. Finn laid her down in the snow, clamped her nose, and brought his mouth to hers, forcing air into her lungs. "Come on Ryoko. Don't do this to me," he said between breaths. "I'm not going to let you go, not after I've found you again." However, he wasn't making any headway. Her pulse began to grow faint, but he kept at it. "Damnit!" he cried in frustration and brought his hands down on her chest, his eyes shut and his face contorted by anguish. However, as he did so, Ryoko fell to a fit of violent coughing. Blood dripped from her lips and her eyes struggled to open. "Ryoko! Can you hear me?!" her lips moved in reply, but the roar of the burning building behind them overpowered her. Finn looked at her lips, attempting comprehend what she was trying to tell him. "What are you saying? I can't hear you." Not that he could hear himself. Instead, he concentrated on moving them away from the intense heat of the molten slag around them and the raging fire behind them. It wasn't until they had cleared several hundred meters that the noise and intense heat began to subside. The air was cool here, but not uncomfortably cold. "Can you here me now?" Finn asked as he set Ryoko down in the melting snow. She nodded her head weakly in reply.

          "Saotome," she choked.

          "Don't push yourself. Just rest for a while," Finn said.

          "No, listen to me," she said, weakly grabbing him by what was left of his collar. "The base…it's powered by a nuclear reactor," it was painfully obvious how difficult it was for Ryoko to utter these words. "If the fire punctures the core…"

          "We're both dead," Finn finished. "Is there any way to get clear? Could there be any trucks or jeeps still in one piece?" Ryoko shook her head and Finn's shoulders slumped slightly. "What about the aestivalis I saw by the launch pads? Would it still be operational?"

          "It might be," Ryoko coughed again, blood splattered onto Finn's singed face.

          "Wait here, I'll go get it," Finn said and took off.

          "Wait!" Ryoko said hoarsely, but her words didn't reach him.

          Finn struggled to find his way to the launch pad among the wreckage. He used his arms to guard his face against the intense heat and limped along, his shoes, which had once been freezing due to the cold of being exposed to the Antarctic winds, where now hot, the rubber soles were mushy as they began to melt.

          Finally, Finn saw the aestivalis and he quickened his pace. The robot had been knocked over and thrown into a melting snow bank not far from its original location. There were crates and broken trucks scattered around it, their contents spilled onto the ground. Finn scaled the robot's leg, his hands burning in the intense heat of the armour. When he found the cockpit he punched the emergency hatch release and crawled inside. Surprisingly enough, the inside was only moderately warm, almost comfortable. Finn searched the dark cockpit for any kind of lights. He finally ended up punching a button that brought the main monitors online, which partially illuminated the cockpit. However, his heart sank when he saw the IFS console. Since he didn't have the nanomachine implant, there was no way he could pilot the massive machine a few steps, let along far enough away from the ticking time bomb of the base. For a few moments he sat in the warm pilot's seat and stared out in defeat. Ryoko was in no condition to be moved over to the robot, nor was she in any condition to pilot it. However, what choice was there? If he sat there and did nothing they would surely be destroyed. But Ryoko was in no condition to pilot the robot! 'There's no choice,' concluded Finn and, with great effort, pulled himself out of the cockpit and back outside.

          He tried to slide down the aestivalis' armour, but ended up falling down into the slush that had once been a snow bank. Instead of going back the way he came, he moved between the broken trucks, using them as shields against the heat radiating out from the base. However, before he could get very far, his foot struck a case of military supplies and he crashed back into the snow. When he pulled himself up, he looked at the contents of the case, which had spilled out onto the snow. It was a medical kit of some kind. Quickly, he threw the scattered pieces of medical supplies back into the case, closed it up, and grabbed onto the handle. Along the way back he encountered similar cases and packed as many as he could under his arms. The journey back seemed like an impossible task, and the prospect of having to carry Ryoko all the way back was even more daunting. But Finn pressed on, lugging the supplies he had gathered along with him. However, before he even made it to what he thought to be the halfway mark, his strength gave out and he fall into the snow. The cases fell from his arms and spilt their contents in the snow. Finn lay face down, trying to recover his breath in the noxious fumes from the wreckage. After a few minutes, he painfully brought himself to his knees and began gathering the supplies. One object in particular struck his interest. It looked like a gun, only with some kind of needle at the end of the barrel. Finn stared at the object with great curiosity for some time before realizing what it was.

"Idiot," Ryoko coughed again. She knew there was no way Finn could bring the aesti over, not without the implant, and she was in no shape to pilot it herself. There was a great shudder, which she assumed to be the base's reactor beginning to go critical. There was a slight pause before there was another shudder, louder this time, more intense. Another shudder followed, each one seemed closer than the one before. She could feel the ground tremble again and closed her eyes. 'At least you put up a good fight,' she thought, seeing Finn carry her away from the base in her mind.

          "Come on," came a voice.

          "What? No tunnel?" Ryoko asked aloud.

          "Not today," said the voice. She opened her eyes when she felt herself being lifted up. "Come on," Finn said again as he pulled Ryoko up the aesti's arm and laid her down inside the cockpit. He pulled himself inside and placed his hand on the interface. Even though piloting the aesti was new to him, he felt some strange comfort in the experience.

          He ran as fast as the aesti could go, the light of the base was still visible when they had travelled some way from it.

          "This…" Ryoko tried to say.

          "Don't talk, save your strength," Finn said. He had the atmosphere controls set to as cold as they could go and even though the temperature was hovering around zero C, he could still feel the heat blasting at him.

          "No, listen…" Ryoko said. "We're not going fast enough,"

          "How do I use the treads?" Finn asked, remembering the tank treads built into the aesti's feet.

          "No, not fast enough," Ryoko said. "Use the boosters."

          "How do I do that?" asked Finn, testing out what he thought might work.

          "Jump," Ryoko said. "As high as you can," Finn leapt off with one foot and landed on the other a moment later. "No, use the wings. Imagine you have wings," Ryoko said weakly. Finn tried again, this time soaring into the air and landing a good distance away. However, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ryoko being thrown around by the forces of such action. He brought the robot to a stop. "What are you doing?" she asked when she felt Finn lifting her up. He didn't answer and he lowered her into the seat. "We've got to move,"

          "Don't say anything. Save your strength," Finn said, fastening the seat's restraints around her. "You've got enough bruises,"

          "That's putting it mildly," Ryoko replied hoarsely, her voice beginning to fail her. She felt the sleep beginning to creep back over her.

          "Don't fall asleep on me," Finn said, digging around a few of the cases he had managed to salvage. "Here, drink this," he pressed a bottle of water gently to her lips. She drank as much as her throat could bear, and Finn finished the rest. "Don't worry, there's more where that came from," he then took the controls again and began to leap his way across Mars' Antarctic.

Coming Home

         

          "Still with me there?" Ryoko heard Finn asked after quite some time had passed. She must have drifted into a light sleep.

          "Where are we going?" she asked when she opened her eyes.

          "The closest colony," Finn replied. He sounded tired, but he tried not to show it. "The Utopia Colony's not far away. I just hope we can make it, the battery's beginning to run low," he glanced over his shoulder at her. Even though she was horribly battered, bruised, and, in some places, burnt, she looked a little better. During this quick glance, she noticed a long stream of dried blood down Finn's face. "A little present the base gave me when it blew," he said, noticing her looking at him.

          "How much further?" she asked.

          "It should be another hour or two, I just hope the battery can last that long. You can get some sleep if you want to, just promise you won't die on me."

          They continued onward in silence. Even though the temperature inside the cockpit was still hovering around zero C, they could still feel the raging fire as though the flames were still licking their faces. Finn felt as though he were stuck between realities. On the one hand, he could remember his entire life, as he knew it. He remembered his childhood, going to school, studying for university exams, all it. But on the other hand, he felt like pieces of mirror were beginning to shatter and drop to the floor one piece at a time, letting him see through the mirror that reflected himself and into the other side. He could see Akito and Yurika standing on the bridge of a ship, surrounded by people he knew but couldn't put names to yet. 'Nothing's wrong with me,' he concluded. 'There's something wrong with reality.'

          "Hey, Ryoko," Finn gently nudged her. "Wake up, we're almost there," the jets had given out a long time ago, and the tank treads had been worn down to tin foil, so the aestivalis was moving on foot. "There's a hospital in the south district, not far into the colony, we'll set down there. Just one more hill to climb," Ryoko opened her eyes and stared out the main monitor. When her eyes finally decided to focus, she could see the sun beginning to rise to their left and the sky was a bright blend of ever brightening colour. She could just catch the tops of buildings over the ridge of the hill. However, she did not see the bustling city she had expected. Finn came to a halt when they stood at the hill's summit. Everything was black. All but a few buildings had been reduced to piles of crumbling rubble. Finn couldn't speak. The part of him from this world stared in disbelief at what he saw. The other part of him shook his head grimly. It wasn't until a fit of coughing overtook Ryoko that Finn was brought back to the reality before him. He burst into a full run and skidded down the hill's slope before he ran into the outskirts of the ruined colony. The giant metal feet of the aestivalis made shallow impressions in the paved roads as he tore down them.

          "Warning, power reserves 98% depleted," the computer beeped at him. The battery finally died as they skidded to a stop outside what was left of a recreation centre. It was one of the few buildings still standing, and he could see lights on inside, coming through the broken windows. Finn popped the hatch open and lifted Ryoko out as gently as he could. As he limped closer to the building, he could see people camped out on the steps. They watched as Finn laboriously hauled himself and Ryoko up the steps and through the openings where doors once were. Inside was a mess of people down on blankets. There were faint cries and moans of the wounded as Finn walked further in. Someone came up to Finn and took Ryoko from him.

          "I've got another one!" the man said. "Where'd you come from?" he asked Finn.

          "What do you mean?" Finn asked weakly. "Just help her."

          "I'm sorry," a woman said, coming up to Finn. "They've been pouring in since this morning. Treat those burns first," she instructed the man who then took Ryoko away.

          "What happened here?" Finn asked, resting his back against a fractured wall.

          "We don't know. It was like a bomb going off. I remember hearing this rumbling noise before my house collapsed on me," the woman said. "We've set up a kind of hospital here, since the hospital itself was levelled. Where did you come from? We haven't seen injuries like those of your young lady before, were you downtown when this happened?"

          "Not exactly," Finn said, glancing through the doorway at the aestivalis laying the middle of the street. A few people were looking at it and some kids had climbed onto the leg while others threw a ball against the armoured chest. "Ryoko, the girl I brought in, can you help her?"

          "We'll try. A few ambulances survived and we've brought all their supplies in here. It's not much, but its all we've got," the woman said.

          "Saotome!" came a familiar voice. "Thank God, we thought you were at home when that thing went off," Akito said, coming up to Finn. He looked relatively alright. His clothes were torn and covered in dust and his face was cut in one or two places, but he seemed to be in one piece. "Where've you been?"

          "Hell and back," Finn said quietly.

          "What?" Akito asked, confused.

          "Never mind that. Are Yurika and Ruri alright?"

          "Yeah, they're both fine. Where's Yumi? I saw you bringing someone in, was that her?" Akito asked.

          "Yumi?" Finn asked. Suddenly, it all came back to him. "You mean Yumi isn't here?"

          "No, I thought she'd be with you, I went and checked the apartment but…"

          "Oh no," Finn interrupted and he burst off the wall and flew down the steps and into the street. He spotted someone with a motorbike sitting at the base of the building. His left leg seared with pain, but he forced it out of his mind.

          "Finn! What are you doing?" Akito asked, coming down the steps.

          "I'll be right back," Finn said and he grabbed the bike. "I'll bring it back," he said, grabbing the keys from the owner's hand, and he took off down the street in the direction of his apartment. Akito grabbed a bicycle and slowly followed.

          Finn's path was blocked before he could get very far. He ditched the bike and proceeded on foot. The apartment wasn't that much further and Finn stumbled and tripped his way along through the rubble. When he cleared the debris field he hobbled along the street. Most of the buildings had collapsed into heaps of broken timber and brick. However, he stopped dead in his tracks when he rounded the corner and saw what was left of his home. The building had been knocked clean off its foundations and lay toppled across several streets. There were bits brick and pieces of personal items scattered everywhere. Off in the distance, Finn could see smoke from several fires that were raging out of control. He grabbed onto the broken stump of a streetlight and kept himself upright.

          "Saotome!" Akito ran up to Finn.

          "Akito, tell me. Are there any other shelters close by?" Finn asked in a quiet voice.

          "I'm afraid not," his friend replied grimly.

          "When did this happen?"

          "About 1 in the morning," Aktio answered.

          "So they got here too," Finn said to himself.

          "Where were you when this happened? I'd have thought you'd be with Yumi."

          "I was doing some work for the military," Finn replied, still staring at the building that lay in ruin.

          "I guess that explains the robot," Akito said.

          "The same thing happened at the Pole," Finn continued. "The Antarctic station's been levelled. Who knows how many more colonies were destroyed. Are any communication systems still up?"

          "I don't know," Akito replied. "I've been digging through rubble all morning looking for survivors,"

          "Have you searched through this yet?"

          "No, not yet."

          "Why not?" Finn demanded.

          "We started to, but the gas line's been ruptured. One spark and the whole thing could ignite."

          "And you're sure there are no other shelters nearby?"

          "I'm sorry," Akito said. "But hey, don't give up hope yet. Maybe she wasn't inside when this happened. She might still be out there somewhere," Finn took a few steps forward, but Akito stopped him. "Sorry, but you're in no shape to go climbing through that mess. First, let's get you patched up."

          Finn pushed past him and limped his way forward. He could feel the wounds on his left leg open and close with each movement, a small trickle of blood slowly snaked its way down. However, Akito, again, grabbed him and pulled him back. "Let me go, Tenkawa. I mean it."

          "You're not going anywhere," Akito said, firming his grip on Finn's Finn's wrist.

"She's not dead," Finn grabbed Akito by the collar. "I'm going to find her."

"Look, I know you're worried about Yumi, but if she was in there, she's dead. There's pieces of that building scattered over three blocks!" Akito said, pushing himself out of Finn's grasp. "I'm not saying you should give up hope just yet, but think about it!" Finn looked at the ground and at the small pool of blood that had collected around his ankles. "I'll go around and see if I can find any other shelters, maybe she found one of them." Finn turned around to look again at the remains of what used to be his home. "Don't even think about it," Akito said, sensing that Finn was about to make another go at searching through the remains. "I'm worried about her too, but until we can turn off the gas there's not much either of us can do."

"You can't understand," Finn said. "You just can understand!"

"Listen to me! What if she was in there and somehow managed to survive. Would you run the risk of barbequing her? The safest way is to just leave it alone for now. I'll make sure this is the next building checked, I promise. Now come on," Akito used himself as a crutch, taking the weight off Finn's injured ankle.

It was some time before they finally crossed the debris field and back to their bikes and had returned to the shelter.

"Did you find her?" Yurika asked when Akito emerged from the building after having made sure Finn was being treated. He shook his head and told her what Finn had said about the military. "How's he doing?"

"I think he's in shock. When I left him he took a pen out of his pocket and was scribbling something on the wall," Akito said.

"Hold still!" one of the volunteer nurses said, dabbing Finn's gashed leg with a disinfectant. "You don't want this to get infected, and it's already dirty enough. Does it hurt that bad?"

"What?" Finn asked, looking away from his scribbles on the wall, apparently oblivious to what was going on around him. "Look, don't waste the bandages on me. You've got enough people to put back together without me taking up valuable space."

"We've got enough, now stop doodling and let me have a look your head," the nurse brushed Finn's singed hair aside and examined his forehead. "I guess it's true."

"What's true?" asked Finn.

"Pilots' heads are made of granite."

"What do you mean? I'm not a pilot, I'm a cop," Finn said, backing out of the nurse's grasp. "What made you think that?"

"Doesn't take a rocket scientist," she said and looked at Finn's hand.

"Look, I feel fine. Can I get back to work?"

"You're done, you can go back to your doodles now. But don't even think about running away. Mr. Tenkawa said to keep an eye on you," the nurse moved on to the next person and Finn turned back to the wall and his scribbles.

"How goes it?" Akito said, sitting down beside Finn after a long time had passed.

"I'm going with you when you start searching what's left of the apartment," Finn said. By now he had acquired some paper and had sheets spread around him. "You said the blast erupted from the downtown area, right?"

"Yeah, but, what is this?" Akito picked up a few sheets of paper and looked through the dozens of calculations scribbled on them.

"I've been working on figuring out where exactly my apartment would have landed. I've worked out the blast intensity and factored it into the trig equations. It should have landed where the drug store was across the street," Finn said, still scribbling away.

"I thought you hated math?"

"I do, doesn't mean I suck at it," Finn said.

"So if you've figured out where the apartment landed, what are you still working on?" Akito asked, question marks floated around his head.

"How much of it they used. When are you going to start?"

"I was just on my way to dig out the supply room at the hospital. We need more stuff to treat your burnt friend," Akito said.

"How's she doing?" asked Finn, putting down his pen.

"I…er…"

"That bad?"

"Afraid so," Akito said. However, before he could inquire as to what had actually transpired at the Pole, Finn got up and tacked ten or twelve sheets of paper to the wall. The papers combined to form a rough sketch of what happened to the Utopia Colony. He then tacked another set beside it, showing the base at the Pole. There was a large red X in the centre of each composition where the epicentre for each blast was.

"Damn bastards, right in the centre of the city. Didn't even have a chance. But how they got the stuff inside the Antarctic base…" Finn mumbled and stood a few feet back, examining the drawings.

"Uh…listen, Finn. You feeling alright?" Akito asked.

"What do you mean?" Finn asked, still looking at the drawings.

"I would have thought you'd be more…" Akito searched for the right word. "concerned. You're acting weird. I mean, I know you've always been…you see…"

"Don't have time to be concerned right now," Finn said, sifting through the papers. "I don't think we have a lot of time."

Akito left him to his work and left to find Yurika and Ruri.

"Is he doing any better?" Yurika asked when he finally found her outside filling bottles of water from a broken pipe.

"He's keeping busy, I'll give him that," Akito said, taking a long drink from one of the bottles.

"What's he found out so far?"

"I'm not sure."

"But he's found something, right?"

"I think so, but he's not speaking. He knows something we don't."

"Doesn't he always?" Yurika smirked. "That's typical of him."

"How's Ruri?"

"She's alright. She just had a concussion from where she hit the arm of the chair. I'm just thankful it's nothing more than that," Yurika said. "Does Finn know what happened?"

"Tenkawa!" a voice called. "We're ready to go. We found a route through the sewers that comes out not far from the supply stores,"

"Alright," Akito got up and got into a beat up looking pickup truck, which carried him down the street.

Big Dig

          "Finn?" asked Yurika.

          "Hmm?" mumbled Finn, not even looking up from his work.

          "They're ready. Are you sure you're alright?"

          "Yeah, I'm fine," he said as he gathered up a few papers, rolled them up, and stuffed them into his pocket. "What time is it?"

          "It's half past noon," Yurika said, looking at her watch. "Look, are you sure you're feeling alright?"

          "Yes, Yurika. I'm fine. Just a couple of nicks and scratches," Finn said.

          "I don't mean that way," Yurika said with noticeable concern in her voice. "You don't look like you're at all concerned about anything," she didn't want to go into any specifics. 'A freakin bomb just went off in the middle of town for crying out loud!' she thought.

          "Sorry, Yurika, they're leaving," Finn said as he pushed by. His left leg had a tight length of bandage wrapped around it and he limped a little on it as he pushed his way through to the doors and outside.

          Finn joined Akito outside and climbed into the back of the truck with the rest of the volunteers. He had managed to grab a small piece of chalk from the recreation centre's playroom and had stuffed it into his pocket.

The truck took them around the debris field Finn had crossed earlier that day and down a few side streets. Most of the buildings had collapsed, falling away from the blast and across roads. The going was slow, as the truck slowly bumped and bounced its way over the crushed remains of houses from one section of clear road to another. Those houses that had remained standing stood eerily empty, the windows and doors blown out and the interior stripped. Finally, they made it to their destination and all ten of them hopped down out of the back of the truck and into the street. They were standing on the opposite side from where Finn had first seen what was left of his apartment building.

          "Is the gas off?" he asked Akito, the leader of the search party.

          "Yeah, the main gas line for the colony is…er…was just west of the city. Some guys managed to close the main valve, so we don't have to worry about a barbeque," Akito replied. "Start with at where the top came down!" he called out to the group. "Ready…? What are you doing now?"

          Finn was on his knees with the chalk, drawing a rough sketch of what the building looked like. "Ok," he said, getting up. "We should do this room by room, starting with the bottom floors. They should have sustained less damage than the top floors and didn't fall quite as far,"

          Some of the rescuers had climbed into the debris field and were surveying the damage. "Yo! Tenkawa!" one of them called. "Found something over here!" everyone moved in that direction and converged on his location. The one who had called them over was busy tossing pieces of brick and aside. There was a leg sticking up through the rubble. The other rescuers began clearing the debris away, while Finn flipped between his notes and the area around him. When the building had come down, half of it smashed into the stores across the street while the other half crashed into street itself. Where they were digging now was between the destroyed stores and road. "Is he alive?" he asked when they had cleared the rubble away from the body. Akito shook his head and looked away from the sight. Finn continued onward towards the far corner of the demolished store, his eyes constantly flipping between the notes and his surroundings. He tried to visualize the building toppling over and crumbling under the immense shockwave of the blast. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Akito and the others calling out and listening for any calls for help. Finn was torn in two. It was just like before. One part of him told him to do one thing, while the other part told him to do something else! "Gah! Snap out of it man!" he slapped himself across the face and began sifting through the rubble. This was the spot. All his painstakingly determined calculations told him the apartment should be right here. Once he had cleared the small section of any concrete or brick fragments he could lift, he began to find things that looked familiar. There was a piece of a couch sandwiched between two slabs of concrete and personal things scattered about. He continued to clear as much as he could. His burnt fingers stung soon after and were quickly being worn raw by tossing bricks and blocks away. His mind began to wander and he thought about all he had been through this past day. He thought about Ryoko, and what he had said to her when he pulled her from the burning wreckage. "What am I doing?" he asked himself, frustrated. "I'm searching for what very well could be Yumi's body and I'm thinking about some girl I don't even know!" but even as he uttered these words, he knew them to be false. He pulled the fragment of novalite he had "borrowed" from the base and held it in his hand. Slowly, he felt himself slipping away from reality. His vision flipped between the ruins he had dug himself through to the windy cliff and back. However, before he could loose himself in that place again, he heard a thump. Finn bolted back up and felt his leg convulse in pain, but he bit his lip and looked around. There was another thump, it came from somewhere beside him, within the walls of rubble. Finn put the novalite back in his pocket and listened. There was another thump. Finn shuffled over to where the couch lay crushed between the two giant slabs. There was a small space where the arm of the couch had been torn off and he pushed his arm through it and felt around. It was at this time that Finn saw that the couch was actually upside down and that there was a space under it where the cushions should have been. His fingers connected with something wet and he hastily withdrew his arm; bright red streaks were painted across his hand.

Quickly, he pushed his arm through again and found the source. It was a hand, but when he grabbed onto it, he could feel it squeeze back lightly.

          "Tenkawa!" Finn called, climbing up into the sunlight. "Hey Akito! Over here! MOVE!" he jumped back into the ruins tried ripping the arm of the couch off, but it held fast. "Can you hear me in there?" he called into the hole. There was no response. "If you can hear me, squeeze my hand," he said, pushing his arm through the hole again. He found the hand grabbed onto it, but it didn't did not react to his touch. Finn tapped the side of the couch and something tapped back.

          "Finn, we found something over here you might want to take a look at," Akito said, arriving at the edge of the small pit.

          "No time, I think I've got something," Finn said, listening for another tap.

          "Did you find her?" Akito asked as he jumped into the ruins, the others not far behind.

          "Could be, we need to get under this couch somehow," Finn answered.

          "We could try breaking it open," rescuer 1 said. (The author can't afford to pay extras with actual names; it's cheaper to just use labels) He held an axe in his hand and looked ready to use it.

          "We'd be likely to do more damage to whoever's in there than to the couch," Akito said.

          "We need to get this thing off," Finn said, putting his hand on the slab of concrete that lay on top of the couch. There was another weak tapping coming from underneath. "I'm open to suggestions, and you don't have to raise your hand."

          Akito looked around for any possible point of entry, but where they stood was the only part that wasn't buried beneath tonnes of broken concrete. "What about some kind of lever?"

          "Could work," Finn said, pulling himself up and looking at the rear of the slab. "Is there anything we can use?"

          "There was some rebar from a construction site not far away," rescuer 5 said. "I think it might work."

          "Go and get some," Finn said as there was another tap. "And hurry,"

          Five of the rescuers climbed out and made their way back to the road and then to the construction site, which was bare, with the exception of a foundation and building supplies scattered everywhere. They returned a few minutes later. Each of them grabbed a piece and jammed it between the slab and the solid blocks of concrete at the rear.

          "Together now," Finn said, firming his grip. He forced all his weight into pushing the bar back, which would then push the slab off the couch and onto the ground. 

          "I think I felt it budge," Akito grunted after a few minutes, beads of sweat rolling down his face.

          "That was my seventh hernia," Finn said, gritting his teeth.

          "That's it, I'm done," rescuer 4 said, falling back into the rubble. "I think I landed on my keys."

          "Come on guys…"

          "Wait a sec," Finn interrupted and dropped to the ground, taking heaving lungfuls of air. "Not one of your famous 'we can do it speeches', is it?"

          "But if we all work together…"

          "Mindless effort won't get us anywhere, this isn't working. If it were going to work we could have made some headway by now, so far we have yet to even budge this thing," Finn got that eerie feeling again. "And no, I'm not giving up."

          There was a collective "Hmm."

          "We could use one of the bombs we found," one of the rescuers suggested.

          "Bombs?" asked Finn. "What bombs?"

          "Uh…yeah. I was trying to tell you earlier, we found some kind of arms cache where a piece of the street had collapsed," Akito explained as another faint tap could be heard from beneath them.

          "We'll be right back," Finn said, jumping into the ruins and speaking into the hole. "Alright," he said when he climbed out. "Show me."

They began making their way down the remains of the building and towards where the sidewalk had once been. "What would bombs be doing in a sewer?"

          "I don't know, you're the expert, you tell me," Akito said when they all stood over an exposed part of a small room under the sidewalk,

          "Hmm," Finn took a flashlight from rescuer 2 and jumped into the dark room. Pieces of the sidewalk had collapsed in and dust covered most of the room's contents, which included a locker full of assault rifles, and shelves upon shelves of small devices resembling pipe bombs.

          "Any ideas?" Akito asked, jumping in, and picking up one of the pipe bombs.

          "Don't touch that," Finn said, swiftly grabbing the device away. "I'm surprised these didn't blow when the colony was levelled," he picked up a work suit tossed into the corner and found that it belonged to the colony's water department. "This must have been their storehouse."

          "Why would someone store bombs in a sewer?" asked Akito.

          "I doubt anyone would think of looking in a supply room," Finn said, carefully replacing the device back on one of the shelves. "And by the looks of it, they were planning for something big." Taking out his pen, he pried open the top of the device. "This is X-5, synthetic explosive. There's probably enough here to destroy a couple of buildings,"

          "Who would want to do that?" one of the rescuers asked.

          "No time for that right now," Finn said, thinking back to their buried victim. He took four of the bombs and handed them up to the rescuers. "It's very volatile, don't drop it. Akito, I want you to take the guns and put them in the back of the truck. Make sure you have ammunition. After that, we're going to blow whatever's left."

          "Expecting a war?" Akito asked.

          "This is just the beginning," Finn said, climbing out of the room and hurrying back to where someone still lay buried beneath the rubble, followed by the rescuers. Akito moved back and forth, carrying three or four guns at a time and placing them in the back of the truck.

          Finn took the bomb he had partially dismantled and gently slid the explosives out of their casing. There was enough in just one of them to level a house, so he took a sharp fragment of concrete and carefully cut off a piece the size of a dime. He then wedged the small piece under the slab and stuck the detonator cord inside.

          "Do you know what you're doing?" one of the men asked.

          "You don't spend four years at a forensic academy without learning a thing or two about explosives," Finn replied.

          "Oh, that's good."

          "Too bad I was sick that day," Finn added, everyone sweatdropped. "Alright, this is what I want you guys to do. Two of you take each side and wedge your rebar as far under the slab as you can, make sure that the exposed ends are parallel with the ground. When I tell you to, jump on the ends, and try and force as much weight as you can on it. Got it?" the all nodded. "Good," he held the detonator in his hand. "And…now!" he connected the lines and the small bit of explosive he had wedged under the slab exploded. Combined with the force of four men forcing putting their weight into it, the slab slid off the other side and into the small pit where Finn had first discovered their survivor. With the slab out of the way, they were able to easily lift the overturned couch. There, laying in the broken rubble of the apartment building was Yumi.

The Bell Tolls For Thee

          "Has he moved?" Akito asked, looking in Finn's direction. He sat on the floor at between two blankets, staring at their occupants. To the left lay Ryoko, who was covered in bandages. She had sustained severe burns over most of her body, which had been treated to the best of the makeshift hospital's ability. Fortunately, there was a doctor and some medical equipment had been retrieved from the hospital supply room. To the right lay Yumi, who was in a similar state, only more battered than burnt. Her right leg was broken and her right shoulder had been dislocated. She had also sustained a skin-splitting blow to the head and her ribs were broken.

          "No, he's been like that ever since you brought her in," Yurika replied. By this time, the sun was beginning to set and the backup generator was being hauled up from the centre's basement and connected. The overhead lights flickered to life, illuminating the massive room in which they stood.

          Akito walked over to his friend and placed his hand on his shoulder. "Come on, you need to get out of here for a while," Finn didn't reply, instead, he stared at a stone he held in his hand and was manipulating between his fingers.

          Finn stood at the edge of the cliff, looking out over the dark blue ocean that stretched infinitely out before him. The wind gently brushed against his face and stirred the tall grass. He stepped forward to the very edge and looked down. To his left, he saw Ryoko in her yellow sundress clinging to a piece of rock that jutted out. To his right, he saw Yumi doing much the same. However, he stood still and stared at each of them, for he knew that once he made a move to help one, the other would fall. A sudden gust of wind blasted him and pushed him back a step, but he continued to stare at the two. He knew he had to choose one or the other, but he couldn't bring himself to do so. To save one would mean to destroy the other. His conscious mind told him to help Yumi, but his heart told him to help the other.

          Suddenly, the ground began to rumble and they both began to loose their hold on the rocks. The more Finn hesitated, the more violent the shaking began. It was now or never, save one or loose them both. His eyes met Yumi's for a split second and he then met Ryoko's. "I've made my decision!" he shouted and extended his hand to the one he chose. He could see the other loose her hold and fall towards the deep blue abyss below. Finn pulled her up and onto the grass, but watched helplessly as the other continued to fall, until she was finally engulfed in the blue and out of sight.

          Finn sat with his back against the fractured wall. He held Yumi's hand in one hand and covered his face with the other. Akito and Yurika stood off to the side and looked at their friends. Yurika took a step towards him, but Akito stopped her. The doctor stood over Yumi and placed a small piece of cloth over her face. "I'm sorry," he said in a professional manner, but did seem to respect Finn's grief. "There was severe internal bleeding, there was nothing we could do." It was difficult to tell how Finn actually felt, for his hand still covered his face. The only sign that he was actually alive was the slowly rise and fall of his chest. "We're going to have to move her," the doctor continued. "We need this space for others, I'm sorry." Finn looked up at the doctor and then at Yumi. He brought her cold hand to his lips and he left out the back door.

          Akito waited a few minutes before pursuing his friend. He found him outside in the field behind the centre, laying in the grass and staring up at the night sky. For a while, Akito just stood in the doorway and watched Finn from a distance. Finn still held the stone and rolled it around in his hand. He felt something push past him and saw Ruri moving towards Finn in the bright light of the two moons.

          "Mr. Saotome," she said, standing beside him.

          "Ruri," he replied quietly.

          "Your actions are like those of a child. You are an adult, start acting like one."

          "Somehow I knew you'd say something like that," Finn smirked for a second and turned back to staring at the stars. "Haven't changed a bit."

          "What do you mean?" Ruri asked, puzzled.

          "Catch," he tossed the stone in her direction and waited a few moments before he spoke again. "How about now?"

Ruri took a sharp breath, but composed herself quickly. "What is this…?" she asked herself.

"It wasn't supposed to be this way," Finn said, sitting up. "All the pain and death, it wasn't supposed to happen. But now it's all happening again," he drove his fist into the ground. "It wasn't supposed to be like this."

"You can't blame yourself," Ruri said in an almost sympathetic voice.

"But I am to blame," Finn said quietly. "This…this whole mess would have been avoided, gah, what an idiot I am!" there was a sudden pain in his cheek.

"Pull yourself together," Ruri said sharply. "You made a choice, you did what any of us would have done in the same situation."

"Do you remember, Ruri? Do you remember all the pain and sorrow? All the death? I tried to undo it all, wipe the slate clean and start over, but it's all happening again. Now I've killed her…" He fell onto his back and looked up at the stars. " 'Fate has one great test in store for us all, has mine already come? And have I failed it?' If I hadn't been…if I was never…my own rage is choking me!"

"Who are you angry at?" Ruri stated more than asked.

"Everything and nothing, I don't know. Here I am going on like some kind of deranged idiot. You remember, don't you?" Finn asked, looking at the moon that was hung directly overhead. Ruri made a sound affirming that.

"Yes, I do," she said. "I also remember that if it weren't for you, I, along with thousands of others, would be dead by now,"

"Ruri…I don't know what to do. For the first time in both of my lives, I don't know what to do. I've always had a plan; some guiding thought that pointed me in the right direction. But now…I don't know. I just don't know," Finn heaved a frustrated sigh. "As soon as I saw Yumi there in the rubble…it all left me. And now I've gone and killed her…"

"Giri," Ruri said. "Japanese word, means 'the burden hardest to bear'," Finn continued to stare at the night sky. "I heard about the arms cache," she said when she noticed Finn didn't seem to be paying attention. "I can read the signs, I know what's coming."

"I hopped it wouldn't come to this," Finn said. "This is just the beginning. There's more to come, it's all happening again."

"Is laying on your back and babbling to the stars going to solve anything? Are you going to just give up after all this?"

"I'm tried, Ruri," he closed his eyes for a long time before opening them again to look at the moon. "I've been fighting all my life. I'm just so tired, but…" he trailed off.

"You can't," Ruri finished for him.

"There's more," Finn said, picking up a derailed train of thought. "They've got more."

"Of what?" Ruri asked.

"Of this," he held the fragment of novalite in the moonlight. "They used 23 grams to blow the Utopia Colony, 12 grams to blow the Antarctic base, and they still have 65 grams left, easily enough to take out three more colonies. Who knows? They may have already wiped out the others already."

"What about the UF?" asked Akito, who had been listening in on the conversation.

"They're confused. It could be weeks before they figure out what's going on. We can't rely on them," Finn answered, not particularly surprised to see Akito emerge from the shadows in the doorway. "Anyway, soldier or civilian, these guys are out to destroy us all," Finn tossed the novalite fragment in Akito's direction. "Catch."

"I see," Akito said after a moment, sinking to the ground. "How long to you give us before the Successors strike again?"

"They're probably enjoying the confusion, I'd give them another few weeks. They want us to suffer, what could be more painful than twisting the knife?"

"What do we do?" asked Akito.

"Organizing any kind of defence around whatever's left of the population's a no go," Finn said. "They can jump the bombs wherever they want, so setting up a militia doesn't work. They'd just blow us up from a safe distance."

"What about a counter attack?" Akito asked. "If we found out where they're based than…"

"Nu uh, they're expecting that. They want the UF to start dropping bombs on any suspected Successor sites. Besides, it would only strengthen their resolve. The more you push, the harder they push back," Finn explained, all the while staring up at the sky and speaking in a factual, yet disinterested voice, as though he were recounting something he'd known for a long time. "One thing bothers me about this whole thing."

"What could be worse than this?" Akito asked.

"If they're jumping bombs, that means they've built the jump computer, which means…"

"It's all starting over again," Akito finished.

          With the conversation having reached its conclusion there, Finn's mind wandered back to Yumi. He loved her; there was no doubt in his mind. He felt like a traitor and that he'd committed a grave injustice against her. But he kept thinking what he had felt back on the cliff. He had looked at Yumi and seen nothing but happiness. In the split second their eyes had met, he had seen everything they had done together. All the joyful times they had experienced and the love they had shared. When he had met Ryoko's eyes, he saw pain and death. He saw destruction he had witnessed and the devastation he had caused with his own two hands. The blood that he spilled and the tears he had wrung from others' eyes drowned him in that moment. But it was real! He knew it was real. The life he had lived with Yumi was not his own, but another's, someone who had died the moment Finn awoke that one morning only days ago.

          …to be continued in Act 10

                             End of Act 9