Ed hummed to herself as she skipped along, Ein trotting at her
heels. She didn't really want to admit it, but it felt really good tobe free again. The -Bebop- had been good, but she'd felt the shaping ofthings to come, knew that it would be no place for a little girl, or a
dog.
Seeing fatherfigure again had been what'd finally made herdecision. Nothing bound him; he lived the life he wanted the way he wanted and was happy. Ed had been happy on Bebop, but it hadn't been the right kind of happy. Here the air always moved, gravity never changed, and the only things that Ed had to worry about were keeping her computer out of the rain and the occasional rock fall. On the -Bebop-there had always been the sensation, like hacking over an open line,hat something was sneaking up behind you, something never quite seen and all the more terrifying because of it.The computer gave a peculiar beep, and Ed jumped in surprise,dropping it. It beeped again and she flipped back onto her hands,turning a cartwheel. "Yeah! Info for Edward!" she cried, dropping in front of the screen. Following her departure she'd set up several programs to monitor the TV and 'Net news bands, and one of them had come up with something.Ein yipped, putting his front paws on Ed's leg so that he could see the screen as well. It was a news report from AP-on-Mars. There'd been
a bloody coup within the Red Dragon syndicate that had left more than a hundred dead, including the syndicate leaders, and millions of wulong in property damage. The report's end contained an addendum mentioning a battle between syndicate ships and an unidentified freighter previous to the coup, which had apparently been the catalyst for the war.Ed sat for a moment after finishing the article, then scrolled back to the beginning and read it again. After finishing the second time,she picked up Ein and buried her face against his back. "It caught
them," she said, and cried into his fur.
Jet slowly drew the welder along the plate seam, watching the metal vacuum seal as the heat pulled away. The old plate was where he'd left it and it bumped against his shoulder when he turned. The noise startled him. The only sound in the EVA suit had been the soft whir of the air recyclers and the sudden clang made him drop the torch. The scorched plate went spinning off in one direction, the torch in another. He leapt after the torch, grabbing it, but then starting to tumble out of control. He jerked to a stop as he hit the end of his tether, the torch again flying from his grip. He sighed as he watched it spin off into space, then let his body go limp. He could disengage the tether and go after it; the suit had limited thrusters and retrieving something as small and slow moving as the torch would require very little delta vee, but he found that he didn't have the energy to make himself care. It didn't really matter, one torch. He'd almost finished repairs to the -Bebop-. It wouldn't fall apart for want of new hull panels, and he was sure he had another torch in his workshop.His leg hurt. He must've strained it pushing off of the -Bebop-.He might have even reopened the bullet wound in his thigh. He mighteven be bleeding out, coagulation inhibited by the weightless environment. He could bleed to death out here, but he couldn't make himself care.Jet found something grimly amusing in his complete lack of concern. There was something strangely seductive about giving into the overwhelming lethargy that gripped him. He closed his eyes, letting his body go limp. It was so silent out in space that he could pretend that aside from himself, there was absolutely nothing else at all.Nonexistence felt strangely appealing. His suit beeped, projecting a warning message onto the inside of his visor. His air tanks were running low, and the recyclers were at their limit. Jet ignored it.His tether suddenly pulled taut, tugging him back towards the -Bebop-. He let it pull him along, not moving until he'd been pulled back into the hanger, the shutters closed behind him and the atmosphere
restored.As he climbed out of the suit he noted that his bandage was still clean. So he hadn't been in any danger of bleeding out. The revelation moved him no more than the possibility of death had. He stowed his suit, going through the motions with almost mechanical precision.He closed the locker and headed up to the bridge, where Faye was lounging, seemingly not paying attention to anything in particular. Jet though about asking her who'd activated the tether control, but it would've been pointlessly antagonistic, and he couldn't find the energy
even for that. "We're going to have to set a course sometime," Faye said finally.
"Any idea of where to go?"
Jet shrugged slowly. "Ganymede I suppose. One place is as good as another." What he wanted to say was that one place was as pointless as another. They could go to Jupiter, or Venus, or Earth, and they could chase bounties, but why, how, did any of it fit into a larger scheme?What really ate away at him was that it was no different than what they had done before, but it hadn't seemed so futile, so pointless then.Faye carelessly entered a few commands into the navigation computer and then stood. She was wearing an unassuming, full length red dress,its hem fluttering around her ankles; Jet hadn't seen her golden hiphuggers in more than a week. The dress was elegant, in a plain sort of way, but she wore it well. Jet thought about asking her about it,but he couldn't summon the motivation to care.He lingered on the bridge for a short while, for no other reason than that he didn't feel like investing the effort to go anywhere else.Sometimes he worried about the black depression that gripped the two of them. This was not the first time that either of them had lost someone they were close to, it shouldn't have affected them so severely. It shouldn't be like this. He turned his eyes towards the view ports, at the steadily burning stars, and let his thoughts drift to nothing.Hunger was what finally brought his attention back within the ship and he left the bridge, taking several minutes to cross through the rotating
neck, to the habitation ring. Faye was sitting on the couch, a cigarette in her hand, half of its length ash.The ship was too big Jet decided. It'd never seemed that way when Spike had been there. Two guys, they needed their space, their own territory to stretch out in. When Ed and Ein had been there as well, the -Bebop- had seemed downright cozy.However, with just him and Faye the ship was too big, and being alone felt wrong. They spent most of their time in the common room, not talking, just taking silent solace in the other's presence, while the
-Bebop- drifted on without destination.The ash cylinder fell from Faye's cigarette, breaking apart as it hit
her leg. "Why are we like this?" she asked in a flat tone, brushing away the ash as he walked through the hatch. "We don't even know that Spike is dead. If we'd waited longer, he might have come back."
"Just like the other times."
"Yeah. He was the cat with a million lives. He always came back. But...-" Faye dropped her cigarette into the already overflowing ashtray. "-when I met Julia, the moment I saw her, I knew that this time, he wouldn't be."
"The foresight of your romani blood showing through?" Jet asked,taking a seat on the stairs.Faye threw her arms across the back of the couch and dropped her head back to look at him. "Spike always had his destiny. It was impossible not to feel it. Even when it seemed like we were just spinning our wheels, you could feel it pulling him in. And we couldn't help but be pulled along too. No matter how hard you tried it was too strong to escape. Now that he's gone, it's gone, and we're left drifting." "It's certainly strange to hear you wax philosophic." Faye's head snapped up and she turned to look directly at Jet. "Look at me. What destiny do I have? I spent seventy years in the void. Everything I had, everything that I knew, everything that I was is gone! I met one of my childhood friends on Earth; she was a grandmother with one foot already in the grave. I've been alive again for two years, and I still feel like a stranger here. Isn't it obvious that I have no place here, no purpose? How about you, Jet, what do you live for? What is your destiny?"Jet stared at her for a moment. Neither of them had been this impassioned for a long while. "I don't know," he admitted finally."That's what I thought." Faye said, lighting another cigarette, although she made no move to put it to her lips.
Spike flexed his hand slowly, turning it over, watching the skin shift as he moved. He'd been afraid that his entire body would look like Jet's arm. The syndicate's doctors however, were on the cutting edge of modern cybernetics and had manufactured enough synthetic flesh to cover all the metal, making it feel soft, almost real to the casual touch. Still, his body was no longer quite as slender as it had once been, and he doubted that he'd ever get used to the numbness. He had pressure sense over most of his body, but the only place that he had any
real sensation was in his fingertips.He felt disconnected from his body, separate. Sometimes it felt like none of this was really happening to him, that he was watching a video program though someone else's eyes. The doctor had warned him that cyber surgery on the scale that he'd undergone frequently lead to what the doctor had termed 'third person syndrome.' Although cybernetic technology had advanced to the point where almost any part of the body could be successfully duplicated, recreating the nerves for tactile input was just too complex, too time consuming, and ultimately too bulky to make it practical for use except for in a few select areas. When so
much of the total sensory input was eliminated it became difficult to convince the nervous system that the body was intact and functioning normally. Sometime Spike felt so detached that all it would take was a small breeze and he'd simply drift away. At times like these the doctor would inject him with something and he'd feel better, for a little while."Mr. Speigel?" Dagara Uikusu asked tentatively. He'd fallen into place as Spike's liaison to the syndicate while the other man was still in the medical clinic, then made himself Spike's unofficial second in command after he'd gotten out. No one had tried to contest the position, yet. Spike hadn't tried to do anything more than assume _de facto_ control until Mars and Europa were back in the fold. The Martian cells had almost all been willing to fall in line behind Spike with minimal persuasion, but Europa had proven reluctant to listen to
anything other than force. What?" Spike asked. "The ship you were asking about. It made it back to orbit about three weeks ago and headed out-system without filing a destination. It hasn't registered at any other port, nor has anyone reported seeing it since it broke orbit. I can commit syndicate resources to an active search if-."
"Just forget about it. It's not important." So even that part of Spike's life was lost. There was nothing left to connect him to that part of his past. _Spike-_. He suddenly clenched his hands into fists. "Take a swing at me."
"Excuse me?" Flow like water._. "I haven't tried putting myself through the paces yet so I want you to give me a little test. Go ahead, take a swing." _Flow like water_.Dagara shrugged a bit uncertainly. "If you say so sir," he said,making a fist._Flow like water._ Spike thought as he raised his hands. _Flow like-_. He hit the floor hard. His jaw didn't hurt where Dagara had struck him, although the sensation that he'd felt wasn't exactly pleasant either.
"Are you all right sir?" Dagara asked, wincing and shaking out his hand. "Didn't feel a thing," Spike replied with a hangman's grin. He fought hard against the urge to start laughing, because he knew that if he did he wouldn't be able to stop, not until the doctor came and put the ice into his brain. "Not a thing at all."
"Was it... what you were expecting?" "Expecting? Maybe. Hoping for; no." Spike thought about a friend, and it took him a moment to remember his name: Jet Black. He'd never asked Jet what it had been like to have part of your body replaced with a machine. He'd seen Jet use his cybernetic arm to take a bullet or a hard blow on more than one occasion, and once Jet'd accidentally set it on fire while cooking, not noticing that his arm was burning until Spike had pointed it out to him.He pushed himself to his feet, watching the alien motion of his hand flexing as it pressed against the floor. His style of fighting,his very way of moving had been based around a perfect familiarity with his own body, complete trust with himself. That was gone and now that he'd been put into this stranger's body, he could never achieve the familiarity that he'd had before, and he doubted that he would ever trust it completely. _Spike was-_.He suddenly felt dizzy. What was left of Spike Spiegel? That man's body, his friends, even his enemies, all of them were gone. He ran his hands up his face. It felt almost real, so close too alive, but not quite. His hands reached up to his hair, and he clenched his fingers. Such a close imitation, but none of it anything that he could
point to and say, 'this was Spike.' There was a sharp, ripping sound as he pulled out a double handful of hair. There was no pain, only the brief sensation of pulling, and he stared down at the strands caught between his fingers. So almost real...
"What the hell-! I mean, sir, are you all right?"Spike looked up at Dagara and realized that ever since they'd met,he'd never seen the other man without his sunglasses. "The shades, take 'em off," he ordered abruptly.
Dagara lifted one hand half way to his face, then hesitated. "You can't trust a man until you've looked him straight in the eye," Spike offered in the way of explanation. "They're the windows to the soul you know." He waved a hand, letting the hair fall. "So take 'em off." Dagara slowly removed his sunglasses, holding them tightly in one hand. Spike stepped forward until his nose was almost touching
Dagara's. The other man's eyes were pale, watery blue, and wide, trembling slightly. They were the eyes of a man who was afraid that he was watching the world fall apart before him."Are you satisfied?" Dagara asked, managing to keep most of the tension out of his voice. "You pass muster," Spike replied. When he raised his hand to put his shades back on, Spike grabbed him by the wrist. "So what did you see? In my soul?"
Dagara opened his mouth and then closed it without a sound emerging. Finally he opened it again. "I saw-."
"Chips and conduits, silicon and electrons." Spike said and turned away. _Spike was dead_. "You can go now."
"Mr. Spiegel-"He whirled, his fingers curled like a gun, pointing at Dagara."You were the one that wanted me to be the new big man, so how about a little less talk back and a little more order following?" His smile was all teeth and threats.Dagara swallowed. "Yes sir. I will see you tomorrow morning.Sir." "Turn the lights off on your way out, would you?"
"Of course, sir," Dagara replied, backing quickly towards the door,his hand shaking visibly as he reached for the handle.
There was no lag between sleep and consciousness, no pause as his body acclimated itself to its waking state. He opened his eyes and was immediately ready to go. It was like turning on a switch and as a result it was difficult for his mind to realize the change in state, that the dreams were over and it was now reality. He'd been dreaming about a man named Spike and a woman named Julia, a dream that'd had the feel of memory. The two were in bed together,just lying there, enjoying being near each other. Her hand had run down his side, over the fresh bullet scar on his thigh. The bandages had only come off the day before."Is this how you thought it'd be," she whispered in his ear, her fingers pressing against the flaw in his skin, "when you were young?"
"Maybe," Spike replied. Several strands of her hair lay across his face, and he reached up, playing with them idly."When I was little, I used to sit in the trees and watch the birds flying. They were so beautiful, so happy and free, and more than anything else, I wanted to be a bird. A bird that could spread its wings to the horizons and reach for the heavens." Her mouth moved softly against his neck as she laughed. "Did you ever dream silly dreams like that when you were little?" "Maybe," he said, and smiled when she raised her head to look at him. "I always wanted to be a star." Julia laughed. "Oh really? What kind? A movie star, a rock
star?" "When I was little I would sleep on the highest roof I could find. On clear nights, the sky would open up and they would fill the darkness,sparkling, beautiful. And I would wish that I could be a star."His brain told him that the woman called Julia was still in his arms, the weight of her body pressed down against his chest. The sensation slowly faded as his mind began to differentiate between dream and real, and once it had faded completely he looked down and saw that indeed he was alone in the bed. He wondered what the man called Spike would've thought if he'd known that this stranger, this alien person, was stealing his dreams. It'd been raining when he'd gone to sleep, but the skies were clear now. Through the skylight above his bed he could see a thousand points
of light burning through the night, and he reached up, closing numb fingers around the spark of burning light, feeling nothing. "I wish I was a star."
Dagara stopped as soon as he entered the room. The drapes had been drawn across all the windows save one, leaving the room in near total darkness. He reluctantly let the door close behind him, the comforting butter yellow rectangle of light slimming to nothing. "Mr. Spiegel?" he asked. "Is dead," a voice answered. A shaft of lightning split the sky and Dagara could see someone standing in front of the window. Dagara could barely find his voice. He recognized the silhouette."M-m-mr... Spike?" "Died long before Spiegel." There was another flash of lightning as Dagara stepped up to the window, and he saw the figure's features illuminated clearly. His head was completely bald, except for where metal gleamed through torn skin. His hands rested against the glass of the window and Dagara could see strands of hair caught between the fingers. "Who is this person, this stranger I see standing before me?" the figure asked conversationally, his hand reaching up to touch his own reflection in the window. Dagara began to shake almost uncontrollably. He wanted to run and get the doctor, to just run, but he was afraid of what might happen while he was gone. "I don't know," he answered unsteadily. "He is the leader of the Red Dragon Syndicate. He is the Fan
Kuei."
"Fan..." Dagara's throat closed, choking off the rest of his words. "What about.... Spike Spiegel?" The figure's expression darkened, his hand clenching into a fist, and he stared determinedly out into the rain. "I told you, a man long dead."
Dagara leaned against the wall of the elevator as it descended, trying to calm his racing heart. He wasn't sure how much longer he could hold things together, before it all came apart like the proverbial house of cards. If he lost.--it took him an effort to use the right name-- Kuei now, the syndicate was finished. There was nothing notable about the floor that the elevator stopped at, nothing exceptional about the door he walked towards, aside from the guard standing to one side. Their eyes met briefly and the guard shook his head once before pulling open the door and allowing Dagara to enter.
Like the last one, this room was almost completely dark. The light from the doorway reached far enough to illuminate a single shoe and the cuff of the pants above it, but gave no detail as to the figure to which they belonged.Dagara dropped to one knee as the door closed behind him. "I am afraid, very afraid, and no longer sure of the path which I am set to." He waited a few moments before continuing. "I thought that this was the
best way, that there could be no other, not if I wanted the Red Dragon to survive, but now, I am afraid of him, that despite him, because of him, we might all be doomed.." There was no response from the figure beyond the soft, slow sound of breathing. Dagara shuddered as he thought of his previous confrontation. 'Foreign Devil,' that was not a name, but a-. "I'm not sure how much longer his sanity will hold, if it has not completely snapped already, but the syndicate has been healing under the appearance of his guidance. The snows of Europa are running red with blood. The sessionaries never expected such a strong response and the only ones still fighting are those who burned all their bridges behind them. In face of this, Venus is quiescent, but they are only biding their time, waiting for some sign of weakness. If he breaks now... I am afraid of the future." The figure remained unresponsive and Dagara knelt for several minutes more before he rose, releasing a deep breath. "Thank you for your counsel," he said, and stepped towards the door. "I believe that I now know the path that the Dragon must follow." He stopped at the door and turned towards the figure, bowing deeply. "I thank you for your patience, Sir Vicious."
heels. She didn't really want to admit it, but it felt really good tobe free again. The -Bebop- had been good, but she'd felt the shaping ofthings to come, knew that it would be no place for a little girl, or a
dog.
Seeing fatherfigure again had been what'd finally made herdecision. Nothing bound him; he lived the life he wanted the way he wanted and was happy. Ed had been happy on Bebop, but it hadn't been the right kind of happy. Here the air always moved, gravity never changed, and the only things that Ed had to worry about were keeping her computer out of the rain and the occasional rock fall. On the -Bebop-there had always been the sensation, like hacking over an open line,hat something was sneaking up behind you, something never quite seen and all the more terrifying because of it.The computer gave a peculiar beep, and Ed jumped in surprise,dropping it. It beeped again and she flipped back onto her hands,turning a cartwheel. "Yeah! Info for Edward!" she cried, dropping in front of the screen. Following her departure she'd set up several programs to monitor the TV and 'Net news bands, and one of them had come up with something.Ein yipped, putting his front paws on Ed's leg so that he could see the screen as well. It was a news report from AP-on-Mars. There'd been
a bloody coup within the Red Dragon syndicate that had left more than a hundred dead, including the syndicate leaders, and millions of wulong in property damage. The report's end contained an addendum mentioning a battle between syndicate ships and an unidentified freighter previous to the coup, which had apparently been the catalyst for the war.Ed sat for a moment after finishing the article, then scrolled back to the beginning and read it again. After finishing the second time,she picked up Ein and buried her face against his back. "It caught
them," she said, and cried into his fur.
Jet slowly drew the welder along the plate seam, watching the metal vacuum seal as the heat pulled away. The old plate was where he'd left it and it bumped against his shoulder when he turned. The noise startled him. The only sound in the EVA suit had been the soft whir of the air recyclers and the sudden clang made him drop the torch. The scorched plate went spinning off in one direction, the torch in another. He leapt after the torch, grabbing it, but then starting to tumble out of control. He jerked to a stop as he hit the end of his tether, the torch again flying from his grip. He sighed as he watched it spin off into space, then let his body go limp. He could disengage the tether and go after it; the suit had limited thrusters and retrieving something as small and slow moving as the torch would require very little delta vee, but he found that he didn't have the energy to make himself care. It didn't really matter, one torch. He'd almost finished repairs to the -Bebop-. It wouldn't fall apart for want of new hull panels, and he was sure he had another torch in his workshop.His leg hurt. He must've strained it pushing off of the -Bebop-.He might have even reopened the bullet wound in his thigh. He mighteven be bleeding out, coagulation inhibited by the weightless environment. He could bleed to death out here, but he couldn't make himself care.Jet found something grimly amusing in his complete lack of concern. There was something strangely seductive about giving into the overwhelming lethargy that gripped him. He closed his eyes, letting his body go limp. It was so silent out in space that he could pretend that aside from himself, there was absolutely nothing else at all.Nonexistence felt strangely appealing. His suit beeped, projecting a warning message onto the inside of his visor. His air tanks were running low, and the recyclers were at their limit. Jet ignored it.His tether suddenly pulled taut, tugging him back towards the -Bebop-. He let it pull him along, not moving until he'd been pulled back into the hanger, the shutters closed behind him and the atmosphere
restored.As he climbed out of the suit he noted that his bandage was still clean. So he hadn't been in any danger of bleeding out. The revelation moved him no more than the possibility of death had. He stowed his suit, going through the motions with almost mechanical precision.He closed the locker and headed up to the bridge, where Faye was lounging, seemingly not paying attention to anything in particular. Jet though about asking her who'd activated the tether control, but it would've been pointlessly antagonistic, and he couldn't find the energy
even for that. "We're going to have to set a course sometime," Faye said finally.
"Any idea of where to go?"
Jet shrugged slowly. "Ganymede I suppose. One place is as good as another." What he wanted to say was that one place was as pointless as another. They could go to Jupiter, or Venus, or Earth, and they could chase bounties, but why, how, did any of it fit into a larger scheme?What really ate away at him was that it was no different than what they had done before, but it hadn't seemed so futile, so pointless then.Faye carelessly entered a few commands into the navigation computer and then stood. She was wearing an unassuming, full length red dress,its hem fluttering around her ankles; Jet hadn't seen her golden hiphuggers in more than a week. The dress was elegant, in a plain sort of way, but she wore it well. Jet thought about asking her about it,but he couldn't summon the motivation to care.He lingered on the bridge for a short while, for no other reason than that he didn't feel like investing the effort to go anywhere else.Sometimes he worried about the black depression that gripped the two of them. This was not the first time that either of them had lost someone they were close to, it shouldn't have affected them so severely. It shouldn't be like this. He turned his eyes towards the view ports, at the steadily burning stars, and let his thoughts drift to nothing.Hunger was what finally brought his attention back within the ship and he left the bridge, taking several minutes to cross through the rotating
neck, to the habitation ring. Faye was sitting on the couch, a cigarette in her hand, half of its length ash.The ship was too big Jet decided. It'd never seemed that way when Spike had been there. Two guys, they needed their space, their own territory to stretch out in. When Ed and Ein had been there as well, the -Bebop- had seemed downright cozy.However, with just him and Faye the ship was too big, and being alone felt wrong. They spent most of their time in the common room, not talking, just taking silent solace in the other's presence, while the
-Bebop- drifted on without destination.The ash cylinder fell from Faye's cigarette, breaking apart as it hit
her leg. "Why are we like this?" she asked in a flat tone, brushing away the ash as he walked through the hatch. "We don't even know that Spike is dead. If we'd waited longer, he might have come back."
"Just like the other times."
"Yeah. He was the cat with a million lives. He always came back. But...-" Faye dropped her cigarette into the already overflowing ashtray. "-when I met Julia, the moment I saw her, I knew that this time, he wouldn't be."
"The foresight of your romani blood showing through?" Jet asked,taking a seat on the stairs.Faye threw her arms across the back of the couch and dropped her head back to look at him. "Spike always had his destiny. It was impossible not to feel it. Even when it seemed like we were just spinning our wheels, you could feel it pulling him in. And we couldn't help but be pulled along too. No matter how hard you tried it was too strong to escape. Now that he's gone, it's gone, and we're left drifting." "It's certainly strange to hear you wax philosophic." Faye's head snapped up and she turned to look directly at Jet. "Look at me. What destiny do I have? I spent seventy years in the void. Everything I had, everything that I knew, everything that I was is gone! I met one of my childhood friends on Earth; she was a grandmother with one foot already in the grave. I've been alive again for two years, and I still feel like a stranger here. Isn't it obvious that I have no place here, no purpose? How about you, Jet, what do you live for? What is your destiny?"Jet stared at her for a moment. Neither of them had been this impassioned for a long while. "I don't know," he admitted finally."That's what I thought." Faye said, lighting another cigarette, although she made no move to put it to her lips.
Spike flexed his hand slowly, turning it over, watching the skin shift as he moved. He'd been afraid that his entire body would look like Jet's arm. The syndicate's doctors however, were on the cutting edge of modern cybernetics and had manufactured enough synthetic flesh to cover all the metal, making it feel soft, almost real to the casual touch. Still, his body was no longer quite as slender as it had once been, and he doubted that he'd ever get used to the numbness. He had pressure sense over most of his body, but the only place that he had any
real sensation was in his fingertips.He felt disconnected from his body, separate. Sometimes it felt like none of this was really happening to him, that he was watching a video program though someone else's eyes. The doctor had warned him that cyber surgery on the scale that he'd undergone frequently lead to what the doctor had termed 'third person syndrome.' Although cybernetic technology had advanced to the point where almost any part of the body could be successfully duplicated, recreating the nerves for tactile input was just too complex, too time consuming, and ultimately too bulky to make it practical for use except for in a few select areas. When so
much of the total sensory input was eliminated it became difficult to convince the nervous system that the body was intact and functioning normally. Sometime Spike felt so detached that all it would take was a small breeze and he'd simply drift away. At times like these the doctor would inject him with something and he'd feel better, for a little while."Mr. Speigel?" Dagara Uikusu asked tentatively. He'd fallen into place as Spike's liaison to the syndicate while the other man was still in the medical clinic, then made himself Spike's unofficial second in command after he'd gotten out. No one had tried to contest the position, yet. Spike hadn't tried to do anything more than assume _de facto_ control until Mars and Europa were back in the fold. The Martian cells had almost all been willing to fall in line behind Spike with minimal persuasion, but Europa had proven reluctant to listen to
anything other than force. What?" Spike asked. "The ship you were asking about. It made it back to orbit about three weeks ago and headed out-system without filing a destination. It hasn't registered at any other port, nor has anyone reported seeing it since it broke orbit. I can commit syndicate resources to an active search if-."
"Just forget about it. It's not important." So even that part of Spike's life was lost. There was nothing left to connect him to that part of his past. _Spike-_. He suddenly clenched his hands into fists. "Take a swing at me."
"Excuse me?" Flow like water._. "I haven't tried putting myself through the paces yet so I want you to give me a little test. Go ahead, take a swing." _Flow like water_.Dagara shrugged a bit uncertainly. "If you say so sir," he said,making a fist._Flow like water._ Spike thought as he raised his hands. _Flow like-_. He hit the floor hard. His jaw didn't hurt where Dagara had struck him, although the sensation that he'd felt wasn't exactly pleasant either.
"Are you all right sir?" Dagara asked, wincing and shaking out his hand. "Didn't feel a thing," Spike replied with a hangman's grin. He fought hard against the urge to start laughing, because he knew that if he did he wouldn't be able to stop, not until the doctor came and put the ice into his brain. "Not a thing at all."
"Was it... what you were expecting?" "Expecting? Maybe. Hoping for; no." Spike thought about a friend, and it took him a moment to remember his name: Jet Black. He'd never asked Jet what it had been like to have part of your body replaced with a machine. He'd seen Jet use his cybernetic arm to take a bullet or a hard blow on more than one occasion, and once Jet'd accidentally set it on fire while cooking, not noticing that his arm was burning until Spike had pointed it out to him.He pushed himself to his feet, watching the alien motion of his hand flexing as it pressed against the floor. His style of fighting,his very way of moving had been based around a perfect familiarity with his own body, complete trust with himself. That was gone and now that he'd been put into this stranger's body, he could never achieve the familiarity that he'd had before, and he doubted that he would ever trust it completely. _Spike was-_.He suddenly felt dizzy. What was left of Spike Spiegel? That man's body, his friends, even his enemies, all of them were gone. He ran his hands up his face. It felt almost real, so close too alive, but not quite. His hands reached up to his hair, and he clenched his fingers. Such a close imitation, but none of it anything that he could
point to and say, 'this was Spike.' There was a sharp, ripping sound as he pulled out a double handful of hair. There was no pain, only the brief sensation of pulling, and he stared down at the strands caught between his fingers. So almost real...
"What the hell-! I mean, sir, are you all right?"Spike looked up at Dagara and realized that ever since they'd met,he'd never seen the other man without his sunglasses. "The shades, take 'em off," he ordered abruptly.
Dagara lifted one hand half way to his face, then hesitated. "You can't trust a man until you've looked him straight in the eye," Spike offered in the way of explanation. "They're the windows to the soul you know." He waved a hand, letting the hair fall. "So take 'em off." Dagara slowly removed his sunglasses, holding them tightly in one hand. Spike stepped forward until his nose was almost touching
Dagara's. The other man's eyes were pale, watery blue, and wide, trembling slightly. They were the eyes of a man who was afraid that he was watching the world fall apart before him."Are you satisfied?" Dagara asked, managing to keep most of the tension out of his voice. "You pass muster," Spike replied. When he raised his hand to put his shades back on, Spike grabbed him by the wrist. "So what did you see? In my soul?"
Dagara opened his mouth and then closed it without a sound emerging. Finally he opened it again. "I saw-."
"Chips and conduits, silicon and electrons." Spike said and turned away. _Spike was dead_. "You can go now."
"Mr. Spiegel-"He whirled, his fingers curled like a gun, pointing at Dagara."You were the one that wanted me to be the new big man, so how about a little less talk back and a little more order following?" His smile was all teeth and threats.Dagara swallowed. "Yes sir. I will see you tomorrow morning.Sir." "Turn the lights off on your way out, would you?"
"Of course, sir," Dagara replied, backing quickly towards the door,his hand shaking visibly as he reached for the handle.
There was no lag between sleep and consciousness, no pause as his body acclimated itself to its waking state. He opened his eyes and was immediately ready to go. It was like turning on a switch and as a result it was difficult for his mind to realize the change in state, that the dreams were over and it was now reality. He'd been dreaming about a man named Spike and a woman named Julia, a dream that'd had the feel of memory. The two were in bed together,just lying there, enjoying being near each other. Her hand had run down his side, over the fresh bullet scar on his thigh. The bandages had only come off the day before."Is this how you thought it'd be," she whispered in his ear, her fingers pressing against the flaw in his skin, "when you were young?"
"Maybe," Spike replied. Several strands of her hair lay across his face, and he reached up, playing with them idly."When I was little, I used to sit in the trees and watch the birds flying. They were so beautiful, so happy and free, and more than anything else, I wanted to be a bird. A bird that could spread its wings to the horizons and reach for the heavens." Her mouth moved softly against his neck as she laughed. "Did you ever dream silly dreams like that when you were little?" "Maybe," he said, and smiled when she raised her head to look at him. "I always wanted to be a star." Julia laughed. "Oh really? What kind? A movie star, a rock
star?" "When I was little I would sleep on the highest roof I could find. On clear nights, the sky would open up and they would fill the darkness,sparkling, beautiful. And I would wish that I could be a star."His brain told him that the woman called Julia was still in his arms, the weight of her body pressed down against his chest. The sensation slowly faded as his mind began to differentiate between dream and real, and once it had faded completely he looked down and saw that indeed he was alone in the bed. He wondered what the man called Spike would've thought if he'd known that this stranger, this alien person, was stealing his dreams. It'd been raining when he'd gone to sleep, but the skies were clear now. Through the skylight above his bed he could see a thousand points
of light burning through the night, and he reached up, closing numb fingers around the spark of burning light, feeling nothing. "I wish I was a star."
Dagara stopped as soon as he entered the room. The drapes had been drawn across all the windows save one, leaving the room in near total darkness. He reluctantly let the door close behind him, the comforting butter yellow rectangle of light slimming to nothing. "Mr. Spiegel?" he asked. "Is dead," a voice answered. A shaft of lightning split the sky and Dagara could see someone standing in front of the window. Dagara could barely find his voice. He recognized the silhouette."M-m-mr... Spike?" "Died long before Spiegel." There was another flash of lightning as Dagara stepped up to the window, and he saw the figure's features illuminated clearly. His head was completely bald, except for where metal gleamed through torn skin. His hands rested against the glass of the window and Dagara could see strands of hair caught between the fingers. "Who is this person, this stranger I see standing before me?" the figure asked conversationally, his hand reaching up to touch his own reflection in the window. Dagara began to shake almost uncontrollably. He wanted to run and get the doctor, to just run, but he was afraid of what might happen while he was gone. "I don't know," he answered unsteadily. "He is the leader of the Red Dragon Syndicate. He is the Fan
Kuei."
"Fan..." Dagara's throat closed, choking off the rest of his words. "What about.... Spike Spiegel?" The figure's expression darkened, his hand clenching into a fist, and he stared determinedly out into the rain. "I told you, a man long dead."
Dagara leaned against the wall of the elevator as it descended, trying to calm his racing heart. He wasn't sure how much longer he could hold things together, before it all came apart like the proverbial house of cards. If he lost.--it took him an effort to use the right name-- Kuei now, the syndicate was finished. There was nothing notable about the floor that the elevator stopped at, nothing exceptional about the door he walked towards, aside from the guard standing to one side. Their eyes met briefly and the guard shook his head once before pulling open the door and allowing Dagara to enter.
Like the last one, this room was almost completely dark. The light from the doorway reached far enough to illuminate a single shoe and the cuff of the pants above it, but gave no detail as to the figure to which they belonged.Dagara dropped to one knee as the door closed behind him. "I am afraid, very afraid, and no longer sure of the path which I am set to." He waited a few moments before continuing. "I thought that this was the
best way, that there could be no other, not if I wanted the Red Dragon to survive, but now, I am afraid of him, that despite him, because of him, we might all be doomed.." There was no response from the figure beyond the soft, slow sound of breathing. Dagara shuddered as he thought of his previous confrontation. 'Foreign Devil,' that was not a name, but a-. "I'm not sure how much longer his sanity will hold, if it has not completely snapped already, but the syndicate has been healing under the appearance of his guidance. The snows of Europa are running red with blood. The sessionaries never expected such a strong response and the only ones still fighting are those who burned all their bridges behind them. In face of this, Venus is quiescent, but they are only biding their time, waiting for some sign of weakness. If he breaks now... I am afraid of the future." The figure remained unresponsive and Dagara knelt for several minutes more before he rose, releasing a deep breath. "Thank you for your counsel," he said, and stepped towards the door. "I believe that I now know the path that the Dragon must follow." He stopped at the door and turned towards the figure, bowing deeply. "I thank you for your patience, Sir Vicious."