I:
Rumiko stood and watched the water as it surged up from the nozzle, hidden underneath the seemingly tranquil pool. None of the other people gathered in the small park seemed to give it much notice. But then, there was a large sign at the gateway to the park that informed all who entered of the artificial geyser ("Erupts every hour on the half-hour!") within. And perhaps many of those here were residents of the city, and so were inured to its marvels.
She was not, however, and hoped that she would never be. Rumiko had seen geysers before, from Tatsumaki Jigoku in her native Japan to the American Old Faithful, which she'd visited while traveling eastward from New Coast City. But only in America, she thought, would people think to create an artificial version of a natural phenomenon ... and then become so accustomed to its presence as to ignore it.
She liked it here.
As she stood watching, she became aware that, behind her and to her right, a young man who had not been impressed by the geyser was certainly impressed by her - or at least her appearance. Rolling her green eyes, the legacy of an American grandfather, she turned to meet his gaze evenly, with a polite smile.
He blanched at the sight of the still-red scar that reached from the bottom of her left eye down to her jawbone, and turned back to converse with his friends.
Rumiko shook her head, more amused than angry. She had treasured her beauty, before the injury, but afterwards she had still been able to look in the mirror and believe herself attractive. And after all, her blue-black hair - truly blue, the legacy of a mutagenic hair dye used by her mother - still attracted gazes. It was to the gazers' misfortune that they could not see past the scar. Character, after all, was more enduring than appearance.
She gave a last glimpse at the geyser, and idly wondered as to how she would go about acquiring permission to meditate above it. She had once meditated beneath the flow of an icy waterfall, but reached the conclusion that enlightenment could not be found through freezing oneself to death. Nor could it probably be reached by boiling oneself, either, so she walked away from the geyser and out of the park completely.
Surveying the early afternoon streets and sidewalks of Opal City, Rumiko finally settled on Bridwell's as her next destination. Her sandals were beginning to get a bit ratty, and it might be a good idea to obtain a new pair. With that in mind, she strolled towards the internationally-known shopping centre, and walked in the door.
The scanners were so well-incorporated into the architecture that she almost didn't notice them, but she was not surprised when an officious gentleman with a bulge under his left shoulder and a microphone in that ear approached her casually. "Excuse me, Miz, but could I have a word with you?
"Are you with store security?" she asked in even, unflustered American.
"Yes, Miz. Our scanners detected --"
"Just a moment, please." She slowly reached into her pocket, and drew out her wallet. Flipping it open, she displayed the card identifying her self as Nagai Rumiko, a Licensed and Bonded Antiquities Dealer, with permission to carry (but not use) the daisho detected in the bag she carried over her shoulder. "Would you care to see my papers?"
The agent examined her card, pursed his lips, and finally said, "No, I don't think that will be necessary. But we will insist on locking the bag during your visit here."
She assented to this insistence, and watched as the agent applied a bonding agent to the zipper fastener on the bag while assuring her that it could be removed at any time she decided to leave the store. She thanked him for the assurance, and didn't bother to mention the bag's false bottom that would allow her access to her weapons within a second.
One quick examination of the store's directory later, she stepped into a bounce tube marked with an upwards-pointing arrow. The hair on her spine stood up as she ascended through the tube to the eighth floor (Men's and Women's Shoes, Jewelry) while looking down through the empty shaft. As soon as she reached her destination, she raised a foot. "Sensing" the shift in weight, the force field under her feet froze as she stepped out of the tube.
That had been quite an adventure. She smiled at the thought -- then frowned suddenly.
Something was horribly wrong.
II:
Tara Markov, if that's who she really was, looked casually around as she browsed through the jewelry department. She was relatively certain that she'd made at least three of the surveillance cameras, and the best set-up she'd ever heard about only used five on any given area. Not that she wanted to shoplift.
At least, she didn't want to want to shoplift.
That was how a lot of her thought processes went. She'd woken up a few years ago in a small cave just outside Los Angeles, near an open clone chamber, identified by the conveniently placed clone chamber manual. The last thing she remembered clearly was talking with Prince Brian Markov, the older half-brother of her presumed gamete donor, and hoping that they weren't related. He'd produced a file that had refuted the possibility, and she had been enormously relieved, as the original Tara Markov had been an out-and-out psychopath.
Unfortunately, beside the clone chamber manual had been what appeared to be a copy of that report, which showed that Brian had been lyin'. She was genetically identical to Tara Markov.
Of course, that raised more questions than it answered. Was *she* a clone of that Tara, who had (according to some research she'd done) disappeared about thirty-five years before? Had that Tara been a clone, or the original Tara somehow restored to life? (That happened, from time to time, and most organized religions were still adjusting to the fact.) Had the clone chamber been a suspended animation pod, so that she was that Tara, or just a clone with implanted memories? (Since that Tara had been born in a defunct future timeline and had false memories implanted about her childhood there, that was a distinct possibility.)
It was very confusing. She wanted very much to meet the idiot who'd decided that having super-powers should involve the possibility that one's personal history might become the subject of a multiple-choice exam. She had several crushing remarks planned. Literally crushing.
But she didn't want to want that, either. Wanting things like that was a good sign that she might be turning into a psychopath. Or possibly turning back into one.
Letting her reverie pass for a moment, she looked at a trio of women - two standing, one seated and trying on a pair of rather fancy looking red shoes with ribbons on the sides. All three finally broke into laughter at the idea of wearing them, and Tara smiled despite herself.
Then, something odd seemed to happen. Two of the women looked up at the third, as though they'd never seen her before. That woman, gold-haired and dressed in an odd outfit with bells on her sleeves, kept right on laughing ... and did so in a very high-pitched cackle. Tara started to frown, as other people on the floor turned to stare at them.
"I'm sorry," that woman said when she finally slowed down to the occasional chuckle. "I just couldn't help hearing and finding what you said to be very funny. Very, very funny. Having a good time, I hope? Considering?"
"Considering what?" asked the seated woman.
"Considering that you're all going to die, of course!" she squealed as she pulled a pair of knives from each of her sleeves, and drove one into the seated woman's eyes and the other into her standing companion's chest.
The ground seemed to tilt under Tara's feet as she watched the sight. Oddly, her first feeling was one of relief. She'd never had the slightest impulse to do anything like that, so maybe she was further from psychopathy than she'd thought.
But then there was no more time to think as the madwoman jerked her knives out of the two bodies before her, and turned to smilingly look right at Tara. With as little warning as before, she flung one - attached by a chain to the sleeve of her shirt, Tara noticed - directly at the young blonde's stomach.
Rumiko stood and watched the water as it surged up from the nozzle, hidden underneath the seemingly tranquil pool. None of the other people gathered in the small park seemed to give it much notice. But then, there was a large sign at the gateway to the park that informed all who entered of the artificial geyser ("Erupts every hour on the half-hour!") within. And perhaps many of those here were residents of the city, and so were inured to its marvels.
She was not, however, and hoped that she would never be. Rumiko had seen geysers before, from Tatsumaki Jigoku in her native Japan to the American Old Faithful, which she'd visited while traveling eastward from New Coast City. But only in America, she thought, would people think to create an artificial version of a natural phenomenon ... and then become so accustomed to its presence as to ignore it.
She liked it here.
As she stood watching, she became aware that, behind her and to her right, a young man who had not been impressed by the geyser was certainly impressed by her - or at least her appearance. Rolling her green eyes, the legacy of an American grandfather, she turned to meet his gaze evenly, with a polite smile.
He blanched at the sight of the still-red scar that reached from the bottom of her left eye down to her jawbone, and turned back to converse with his friends.
Rumiko shook her head, more amused than angry. She had treasured her beauty, before the injury, but afterwards she had still been able to look in the mirror and believe herself attractive. And after all, her blue-black hair - truly blue, the legacy of a mutagenic hair dye used by her mother - still attracted gazes. It was to the gazers' misfortune that they could not see past the scar. Character, after all, was more enduring than appearance.
She gave a last glimpse at the geyser, and idly wondered as to how she would go about acquiring permission to meditate above it. She had once meditated beneath the flow of an icy waterfall, but reached the conclusion that enlightenment could not be found through freezing oneself to death. Nor could it probably be reached by boiling oneself, either, so she walked away from the geyser and out of the park completely.
Surveying the early afternoon streets and sidewalks of Opal City, Rumiko finally settled on Bridwell's as her next destination. Her sandals were beginning to get a bit ratty, and it might be a good idea to obtain a new pair. With that in mind, she strolled towards the internationally-known shopping centre, and walked in the door.
The scanners were so well-incorporated into the architecture that she almost didn't notice them, but she was not surprised when an officious gentleman with a bulge under his left shoulder and a microphone in that ear approached her casually. "Excuse me, Miz, but could I have a word with you?
"Are you with store security?" she asked in even, unflustered American.
"Yes, Miz. Our scanners detected --"
"Just a moment, please." She slowly reached into her pocket, and drew out her wallet. Flipping it open, she displayed the card identifying her self as Nagai Rumiko, a Licensed and Bonded Antiquities Dealer, with permission to carry (but not use) the daisho detected in the bag she carried over her shoulder. "Would you care to see my papers?"
The agent examined her card, pursed his lips, and finally said, "No, I don't think that will be necessary. But we will insist on locking the bag during your visit here."
She assented to this insistence, and watched as the agent applied a bonding agent to the zipper fastener on the bag while assuring her that it could be removed at any time she decided to leave the store. She thanked him for the assurance, and didn't bother to mention the bag's false bottom that would allow her access to her weapons within a second.
One quick examination of the store's directory later, she stepped into a bounce tube marked with an upwards-pointing arrow. The hair on her spine stood up as she ascended through the tube to the eighth floor (Men's and Women's Shoes, Jewelry) while looking down through the empty shaft. As soon as she reached her destination, she raised a foot. "Sensing" the shift in weight, the force field under her feet froze as she stepped out of the tube.
That had been quite an adventure. She smiled at the thought -- then frowned suddenly.
Something was horribly wrong.
II:
Tara Markov, if that's who she really was, looked casually around as she browsed through the jewelry department. She was relatively certain that she'd made at least three of the surveillance cameras, and the best set-up she'd ever heard about only used five on any given area. Not that she wanted to shoplift.
At least, she didn't want to want to shoplift.
That was how a lot of her thought processes went. She'd woken up a few years ago in a small cave just outside Los Angeles, near an open clone chamber, identified by the conveniently placed clone chamber manual. The last thing she remembered clearly was talking with Prince Brian Markov, the older half-brother of her presumed gamete donor, and hoping that they weren't related. He'd produced a file that had refuted the possibility, and she had been enormously relieved, as the original Tara Markov had been an out-and-out psychopath.
Unfortunately, beside the clone chamber manual had been what appeared to be a copy of that report, which showed that Brian had been lyin'. She was genetically identical to Tara Markov.
Of course, that raised more questions than it answered. Was *she* a clone of that Tara, who had (according to some research she'd done) disappeared about thirty-five years before? Had that Tara been a clone, or the original Tara somehow restored to life? (That happened, from time to time, and most organized religions were still adjusting to the fact.) Had the clone chamber been a suspended animation pod, so that she was that Tara, or just a clone with implanted memories? (Since that Tara had been born in a defunct future timeline and had false memories implanted about her childhood there, that was a distinct possibility.)
It was very confusing. She wanted very much to meet the idiot who'd decided that having super-powers should involve the possibility that one's personal history might become the subject of a multiple-choice exam. She had several crushing remarks planned. Literally crushing.
But she didn't want to want that, either. Wanting things like that was a good sign that she might be turning into a psychopath. Or possibly turning back into one.
Letting her reverie pass for a moment, she looked at a trio of women - two standing, one seated and trying on a pair of rather fancy looking red shoes with ribbons on the sides. All three finally broke into laughter at the idea of wearing them, and Tara smiled despite herself.
Then, something odd seemed to happen. Two of the women looked up at the third, as though they'd never seen her before. That woman, gold-haired and dressed in an odd outfit with bells on her sleeves, kept right on laughing ... and did so in a very high-pitched cackle. Tara started to frown, as other people on the floor turned to stare at them.
"I'm sorry," that woman said when she finally slowed down to the occasional chuckle. "I just couldn't help hearing and finding what you said to be very funny. Very, very funny. Having a good time, I hope? Considering?"
"Considering what?" asked the seated woman.
"Considering that you're all going to die, of course!" she squealed as she pulled a pair of knives from each of her sleeves, and drove one into the seated woman's eyes and the other into her standing companion's chest.
The ground seemed to tilt under Tara's feet as she watched the sight. Oddly, her first feeling was one of relief. She'd never had the slightest impulse to do anything like that, so maybe she was further from psychopathy than she'd thought.
But then there was no more time to think as the madwoman jerked her knives out of the two bodies before her, and turned to smilingly look right at Tara. With as little warning as before, she flung one - attached by a chain to the sleeve of her shirt, Tara noticed - directly at the young blonde's stomach.