Sanctuary and Asylum 99

by Negative-Z

In the aftermath of torment our aliens find their foresight. By the gravity of freedom our friends search out their starlight.

3. Verse Thirteen is Sympathy

Standard Disclaimer:

I thank all the owners of the Tenchi characters who have chosen not to sue me for suggesting some alternative uses for them.

Standard Advertisement:

I thank all the readers who have perused my other submissions and favorite authors.

Standard Procedure:

Check malfunctioning machinery for the simplest solution first.

Tenchi Muyo: Sanctuary and Asylum

-Verse Thirteen is Sympathy-

Watch as shy yet staying questions---come to grudges, start to share.

Delicate hands hide an honest face---and fistfuls of discolored hair.

Bowed, bent out, and back again---to search in circles unaware.

What does it take to give it up---as if the will were never there?

-ZJS

Just as the elderly and the meteorologists who listened to them predicted, winter had been intense and short-lived. Ice water and dirty slush lingered in allies or crept up doorways to cause minor water-damage in those older places. Tenchi thought of describing it to his fellow students as a "sore loser season" but he worried it would make him sound like someone older than he was, and not in a good way. Nonetheless, he stored it away in case he had to make conversation with one of social science teachers. Almost without fail, the softer subject professors were ever anxious to engage their students in academic diatribe. Something to fill the time between regurgitating loose and looser facts, Tenchi supposed.

Even grandfather had been surprised when Noboyuki suggested his son take some of the "less important" classes this semester. How could an overworked architect have a bout of almost motherly advice? What would be a mystery to most was all too obvious to Tenchi; he tried to imagine some unforeseen positives of absentee guilt, but decided not to think about it at all. There were enough pressures on his mind apart from his dad's attempts to act as his wife's medium. The very idea had taken about an hour to burry.

"Sore loser."

Tenchi mumbled under his cloudy breath as a bitter wind pulled his arms together. Early spring mornings were still cold enough to make him wear a sweater, re-named for the sweat it would be absorbing when he got to chipping away at the semi-frozen soil. He looked over at the sunrise; through with admiring its beauty, he frowned for it to be warmer this time. The crisp green rebirth around him was still dulled gray by sparse light and paled by patches of frost. With luck the tools he'd strategically- accidentally left at the fields would not rust.

Changing direction, he kept his eyes on the ground to avoid the low sun's glare. Another nibbling wind made him wish he'd stayed for the cup of hot chocolate Aeka had offered him. He tried to imagine the taste of it, but some memories of Aeka's other offerings snuck by instead.

Tenchi remembered the look of retrained euphoria on Aeka's face when they'd finally decided to part and go in for dinner. It had almost scared him into forgetting the intense hunger still imbedded in his lips. He'd begun to sweat for visions of the princess formally announcing how the house and shrine would be remodeled to accommodate their wedding.

But these were only drops. Soon he'd pictured everything, from a giggled up and over celebration of their finally-realized love, to a surprise elopement aboard Ryo-oh, where she would...dress him in that Jurain outfit he'd liked so much.

Helping to prepare dinner had been difficult, his attention teetering on the edge of Aeka's own reactions. But all she did was blush feverishly and maintain an awkward silence till Sasami came in to do the real work. Everyone had eaten like a family who was reasonably content, the approach of Tenchi's new semester making a ready and diverting scapegoat for every possible tension.

Both of them had remained motionless and silent on opposite couches till the rest of the house slept. He'd gradually turned the volume down on the television before turning it off, wondering if his hand looked presentable as Aeka watched it lay the remote down.

The rest of that night replayed slowed Tenchi to the pace of a man who had far more to remember.

---

"Lord Tenchi," Aeka began softly as ever.

"Yes," it took a moment for Tenchi to blink out an answer.

"I don't want to foolishly assume anything about what we have shared today, I can only tell you what it meant to me."

The way she refused to take her eyes off him made it hard to place the passivity in her voice.

"Okay."

But Tenchi certainly didn't feel in any position to take control.

"I love you, Tenchi. I cannot tell you how much it means to me---to be able to say this now. Our kiss has made this day the happiest I can remember, but also the most frightening. I tried to hide my nervousness--- in hopes that you might give some sign of our next step...if, if there is to be one."

Tenchi melted at the worry in her voice, almost falling over himself to reassure what he could.

"Aeka, I'm just as confused as you are. It all just happened like-."

She looked ready to burst into tears as he rushed to sit next to her.

"Don't worry Aeka, I'm---I'm happy too. It was beautiful. It was all beautiful. And I guess I'm sort of glad---that you're as confused as I am, I mean."

His weak chuckle elicited a similar smile, and he was ready to commend her for remembering to drop the title from his name, but her face quickly pulled itself into a serious line.

"I am ^not^ uncertain, Lord Tenchi. I want to be with you, I want to offer you my hand and my heart for the rest of our lives. I---I want this to be only the first of many nights where I can be so close to you." She gently spread her hand over his and looked up to plead mere invitations dry.

The weight settled again and he scratched the back of his neck, slow then slower when he realized it didn't help any more. It had subsided or exhausted itself during dinner, but there it was again, a pain that blunt fear wished it could achieve. He would either be pulled completely into Aeka's passions or into his own doubts again if he didn't secure some time to think.

"Don't worry Aeka, tonight meant something to me too. But let's just keep this to ourselves till I've figured some things out. In the meantime we can just---move slowly."

His warmest if not entirely focused smile would have to do.

Aeka lowered her head and perhaps intentionally obscured her reaction. She soon looked back at him, however, showing agreement or at least adoring restraint.

"As you wish, Lord Tenchi. Sleep well."

Aeka kissed him then, only a soft moment, perfectly calculated to make him think only of every step she took to her room.

---

The memory had since deflated and accelerated like a balloon, blowing through the sleepless nights and tightened days that followed. He could not dismiss the threat of potential betrothal and betrayal, disapproval and disownment. His fear of Emperor Azusa continued to haunt him almost as much as his bitter, almost spiteful final memories of Ryoko. It came as small comfort that he was able to say he wasn't worrying about Seita without inviting his memory back.

A malady of despaired faces and overburdened responsibility continued as the only other option to the almost narcotic rush promised him. Every time he'd been able to manage something like an outing, or catch something like a private moment with the princess, they'd kissed. Perhaps he was still unnerved by the sheer passion he could feel her restraining, but more than likely it was his own burdened mind that kept severing each connection before it even grasped the beauty of the first. Tenchi felt his throat swell with all the imaginary words absent from their most recent goodnight. He the real thoughts instead, again.

* It's just like I feared more than anything; now that I have an easy opportunity, barely even a decision anymore, I can't even reach for it without yanking my hand back like a scared little boy. Now she's going to think there's something wrong with her.

Tenchi's face tightened, brow settling in to give himself another merciless blow.

*And all I can say is "I don't know". Now what in the world made me think that would help anything? If I'm going to torture us both with this I might as well just lie to her!

His feet stopped numbly enough for a lost or forgotten path. He even seemed ready to scan about to re-orientate himself, but only hung his head lower to make sure his next steps were slow-paced and firmly placed.

*No Tenchi, you know you couldn't do that. Just because you can't say what it is doesn't mean there's nothing there. There's got to be a reason I'm so-

"Good morning, Tenchi."

The unfamiliar voice politely introduced a man younger and more dignified than he could ever imagine his father being. Not wanting to be taken off guard by whoever it was, he took a quick and modest defensive step back before even looking up.

"Master Katshuhito told me about your tendency to let your guard down, and he suggested that I keep you working on it."

Arms crossed too condescendingly for someone his age and voice too friendly for a new teacher, the young man smiled at the confusion on Tenchi's face. They managed to level off though, as the student slowly pulled in some predictably shocked realization.

"Grandpa?"

"Yes, my uncle. He called me here to take over his duties at the shrine-" the new relative tilted his small glasses to catch the sun in a hauntingly familiar way "and his duties as your instructor. It seems you're lucky I was not an attacker."

Tenchi tightened his inspection of the new old man on the mountain, tilting his head almost rudely. A strong urge to chuckle at the situation began to push aside previous musings and a sneaky idea whispered sharply. He straightened and bowed, just enough to sneak under the glare of new glasses to the same wise eyes he'd known all his life. Behind his concealed smile he hoped his good humor might show through.

"Master Yosho, please forgive my inattentiveness, I must have forgotten the exact time of your arrival."

Master Yosho did a masterful job of concealing the embarrassing knowledge that Master Katshuhito had forgotten to name said time. It was enough to soften the sternness on his mouth.

"No harm done, Tenchi. Your grandfather already wrote me many letters explaining the shrine, you, and your home in great detail."

"Did he?" Tenchi asked with slightly exaggerated formality. As he rose from the bow he noticed his obscured kin raising an eyebrow to join the expansion of their semi-private joke.

"Indeed he did, I look forward to truly testing your skills."

"As do I, it will be a privilege to train with such a ^young^ instructor. Not to dishonor my dear grandfather, but I think his age was beginning to slow him down. He made the right decision in retiring."

"Oh?" A suppressed chuckle almost spade the charade.

Tenchi smiled widely.

"Tradition is important of course, but I'm eager to learn from someone who at least has a concept of modern principles."

"Now I don't remember my uncle as being ^that^ much of an old coot."

A wonderful pain began to take hold of Tenchi's cheeks, the first bit of lightheartedness he'd taken for himself in how long. But just as he was about to give away the joke, he gave away its humor. Thinking about the sudden absence of unpleasant thoughts would still invite them back. In a desperate attempt to keep at least some part outside the pit, he grew sincere and solemnly nostalgic.

"No, he's no old coot, I'm sure he's just as wise where he is now as he was when I first began training with him. There aren't many Shinto priests around these days, and there are probably even fewer as good as him." The extra bit of straw loaded onto Tenchi's emotions gave him a small choke. "Of course, there will only ever be one 'Grandpa'."

Yosho began to smile a proud old man's smile. At the sight of this, the younger kin stood straight and calm without need for exaggeration.

"But I wish Master Katshuhito the best, if anyone deserves a real vacation it's him."

It comforted Tenchi now, to be looking his grandfather in the eye again, unconcerned with the changes. But he must have still looked in need of some comforting. Yosho stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder with the sincere ease of someone who'd done so countless times.

"I'm sure the greatest honor you can do him is to honor what he has taught you."

Tenchi blinked slowly and looked up with slightly reluctant acceptance.

"Don't worry Tenchi, I'm sure you'll visit your grandfather many times yet, and he's likely not through with you completely, not by a long shot." Yosho pulled Tenchi's smile out with his own. "But don't forget, little cousin, I'm your family too."

The gentle squeeze left on his shoulder spread through Tenchi's chest like a sip of warm tea, though he still blew into his hands before excusing himself.

"Thank you, master Yosho. If you need anything at all I'll be getting the fields ready for planting." Tenchi bowed and began to turn away, still smiling over his shoulder. "Its cold now, but I'm sure it will warm up soon."

"I certainly hope so," Yosho grinned and rubbed his arms in kind.

After only a few steps, Tenchi froze at the even more imposing voice his grandfather must have frightened servants with back on Jurai.

"Tenchi!"

Surely he must have done something wrong, but he tried not to cower as he turned.

"Y-Yes, Master Yosho?"

"Tenchi, I---I was informed that there was a woman staying with you who was- --who was handy with machines."

Tenchi could hardly believe the nervousness that had snuck out of Yosho's mouth. Surprise quickly remembered amusement, however, when the former prince of Jurai conjured such a blush it could be seen even with the faint morning light behind him.

"Why, she's almost always in one place."

"And where is this?" Yosho mirrored Tenchi's renewed playfulness but couldn't blur his own hesitation.

"In her lab beneath the stairs, of course."

"Oh, I see."

Yosho chuckled and actually began to scratch the back of his neck, turning comical into surreal for someone who'd just lost the mannerism themselves. Tenchi remained wide-eyed as he listened to his new instructor swallow his fear, practically command that the field be tended without any more delay, and walk toward the house in no particular hurry. It took some moments before either of them could chuckle at the situation, and a few more to remember the difficult thoughts they'd interrupted.

***

The wooden salad bowl beat a deep drum against the linoleum, echoing the soft splash of freshly torn lettuce. A few pieces fell onto Sasami's feet as the bowl rolled and turned and gyrated out. Yosho looked at the mess he was in; his youngest half-sister would have to be caught soon, or parried.

"^Brother^?" Sasami tried to reflect the ghost she was looking at.

The picture perfect memory considered making a joke, but 'is this how we greet new guests around here' was the best he could think of, and it didn't seem enough. Instead he simply softened and nodded his head with a yielding smile.

"Yes, Sasami. This is how I will look for a while now, remember, somebody had to replace the aging priest."

Looking up to see her expression unchanged gave his smile a moment's worry. All he could offer now was himself. The new shrine keeper extended his arms with the loving smile he always saved for his sisters and hoped he hadn't forgotten.

"But you're welcome to call me 'Brother Yosho', if you like."

A giggle shook a few tears loose from Sasami's face, but she held it in during her dash across the lettuce and over the bowl till she could release it properly. After a few sniffs, and a few more wipes against Yosho's chest, they were all laughs.

"It's so nice to see you like this again!"

"I really do not feel especially different."

"Yeah, well, I still like it better."

Yosho chuckled along with her for a few moments as Sasami swayed their embrace from side to side. He placed a hand over what had been pigtails for so long, watching the French-braid ponytail dangle.

"You're certainly growing, Sasami."

She pushed away and sighed nonchalantly at his compliment.

"Yeah, yeah. Everyone keeps telling me that, especially Aeka."

"I'm sure you'll be just as lovely as her before you know it."

Sasami was silent, keeping her eyes down. Her face blanked slightly off to the side, and she rubbed her arms uneasily. Yosho expected a spirited protest asking if she wasn't already, then worried for a moment that she might mean it. Before he could deepen his concern she bit her lip and smiled up some mischief.

"I bet ^Little^-Washu will like the new look."

Yosho watched his little sister's eyes sparkle a bit more for every layer of red added to his cheeks. He tried to laugh it off.

"Ah-ha---yes. That reminds me; she wouldn't be in her lab right now, would she?"

His chuckle sputtered out into thin air, and he realized with a strange shock that he'd been scratching the back of his neck again. When he looked down he noticed a similarly perplexed expression on Sasami's face.

"Of course, where else would she be?"

He sighed, trying not to hang his head too low or drag his feet too long as he walked past Sasami toward the closet. She managed to dodge a bit when he moved to ruffle her hair.

"Thanks, Sasami."

By the time Yosho thought to move with more dignity he was already reaching for the doorknob. He heard the unmistakable static of someone suppressing a laugh and turned toward Sasami.

"Hey, Brother Yosho?"

"Yes, Sasami?"

She tried to hold back the intense blush with both hands, her braid swaying.

"Are you guys gonna play doctor now?"

Yosho heard a microscopic gasp escape his throat and felt all the excess blood in his face leave, taking the normally present amount with it. He stared at her with wide eyes, trying to focus his thoughts enough to tell himself that she hadn't said what he thought she'd said. Better to make doubly sure.

"Wha-What did you say Sasami?"

"Oh dear, now what am I going to do about the salad." She answered in a soap commercial voice, turning to fix the dainty crisis.

He blinked a few more times, and considered asking again when some of the blood returned to his face. Sasami was clicking her tongue at herself as she turned over the bowl and began tossing bits of lettuce into it. Hardly bothering to hold his head up anymore, not bothering to knock, he began to open the closet door.

"Brother Yosho, while you're down there tell Washu that lunch may be late." Sasami called out plainly.

Yosho nodded to the darkness. The door closed behind him very quietly.

Just when she'd decided on a tune to hum, Sasami had to stop and turn her head back at some very hurried footsteps descending the stairs. Already two thirds down, Aeka used the next steps to make it look like she hadn't been running at all.

"Sasami, I heard another voice, do we have company."

"No sis, didn't you recognize it; 'Brother Yosho' has finally taken Grandfather's place at the shrine." She began to giggle, wondering what on earth Aeka could have been so worried about.

"Oh." Aeka moved her hand to her mouth, slow and unsettled. "That was today?"

Sasami giggled fully and scooped up a large pile of lettuce.

"Yeah, I was so surprised I dropped the salad. Jurai makes good holograms."

"I see."

Aeka made her way to the kitchen, some bits of celery were fresh and crisp beneath her house shoes. Sasami only giggled again.

"He's down in the lab now, showing Washu his new suit."

Aeka leaned over the counter and began pulling wilted flowers from the vase. Her blinks were long then lethargic as she spoke softly to Sasami through herself.

"I think it may be his 'old' suit, dear. And I'd imagine she's already seen it."

***

"Washu?" Yosho spoke to the mass of machinery at the end of a poorly lit path, his delicate throat matching tender feet. He began recalling his school days back on Jurai, the technology classes in particular. Memories of things he'd heard about the legendary "Mad Professor Hakube" soon followed.

*"She kept specimens around who sometimes "accidentally" ate the students."

*"Once, my friend's uncle's landlord, he said she once gave a lecture on how to turn an entire planet's population female in under a week."

*"Every time one of her experiments failed, she turned her assistants into tiny little frog people."

*"She could have built a weapon to destroy the whole galaxy if she'd wanted to."

*"I heard she had the biggest-"

Yosho shook his head and pinched his sinus. Ahead of him was strange enough equipment to easily replace any rumor with a better one. The hum of energy grew steadily louder while the lights seemed to fade about randomly, yet still he didn't notice anything like scientific activity.

"Washu?"

But this was no time for nervous throats. A few more steps and he'd be able to touch that imposing pillar of wires and glass, if he wanted to.

"Washu?" It was louder, so there really should have been more of an echo.

Turning toward a wall of polished steel, his rusty green reflection glanced around for some robot sensor to point accusingly at his presence. After one last look at the tiny strip of light leading from over his shoulder back into darkness, he tried to remember that some parts of her former lab had actually been beautiful. Braving a breath for courage, he strode toward a space he might be able to walk through.

Sure enough, between the green steel, and what he imagined was a large, metal, storage sphere of sorts, there was space enough for him to move toward a dead end of more wires and even more black glass. For a good five minutes he circled the meeting of machinery at a respectable distance. Adjusting his glasses, he looked up crude towers of cable and down organic twists of silver talons, each with rings of glowing plasma that brightened in color as they moved from base to tip. Eventually he was looking down a narrow space between two walls of light gray iron connected above by a series of crisscrossed arches. .

Not knowing if his annoyance was directed at his nervousness or covering it up, Yosho let them both go. Small lights dotted the walls on either side of him, reflecting from nowhere or impossibly swimming beneath the surface of the metal. The beeps of larger machines welcomed him, no warnings or alarms yet. Each step forward managed to encourage the next. They were just overgrown computers, probably, and the door ahead would lead to Washu, hopefully. Why had Tenchi always seemed so hesitant to come down here? A thought crossed his mind as he neared what he assumed to be the center of the lab.

*But her lab was destroyed, wasn't it? Maybe this is an entirely new set up, or just a spare.

He'd have to save his questions till after the tour; a circle of the floor had detached and begun to rise up with a cylindrical tube beneath it. The caretaker would be emerging from it shortly, that or a vicious cyborg programmed to dispatch intruders without a trace. Better-than-glass plastic shook and shimmered as it moved forward and slid over itself, opening the little elevator to whatever floor they were really on.

Washu stepped out in an unfamiliar suit entirely fitted to her child's form. The humble emerald weave and sharp black rims surprised him, but her folded arms and lowered head caught his attention. He forgot all about the new surroundings and tried to remember that monk of so many years ago, the one who could drain his face to make every funeral procession seem joyful, even the ones pretending to be. It had seemed more than simply a release of distractions, but a draining, a hole bored at the base of him to let everything spill away. His meditations had all been more like little suicides. The memory contained specters of someone comparing peace to emptiness, but Washu looked up before he could recognize the voice and in time to interrupt the chill. She put his look of surprise to shame in half the time.

"Yosho!"

Her hands fell to her sides and she took a quarter step back defensively. Yosho nearly clutched his chest for the exhausted eyes searching him. Something inside, something very old and formal was chiding him for not knocking louder and waiting for her to open the door. He stood a bit straighter, then a mite taller, reacting to surprise defensively, just like she always did. The younger-looking priest thought on this before forcing himself to relax again.

"Hello, Washu. I hope I'm not intruding."

Washu's mouth wavered in hesitation till it clamped shut, deepening a frown that turned to the wall on her left. A large screen appeared in the shadow of a button and switch carnival. She decided on the buttons, and from the sound of it they were in serious need of discipline, or replacement.

"I should have known you were here already. This hunk of junk was ^supposed^ to tell me."

Contrary to instinct, Yosho didn't guard against the possibility of Washu recycling one or another of her elaborately intimidating hunks of junk. Instead he stepped close, then behind her. True to centuries of priesthood, her distress helped him focus.

"Ah, I see, you ^tried^ to tell me he was here, but ^this^ mess
wouldn't let you."

Washu deepened her frown as she sidestepped and marched past her visitor to a totem poll of circuit boxes, circuit globes, and circuits. Yosho considered suggesting that she might be putting more focus into the problem than was needed, but he merely followed with patient steps. If Washu felt comfortable treating these machines like B-movie props then they couldn't be too dangerous.

"Sorry," she sighed a half-sincere self-reprimand, "I guess the lab's not as close to full potential as I let on." Born between the shells of a laugh and a sarcastic grunt, the noise in her mouth seemed to brighten her mood a little. "It's a good thing you didn't stray off the path."

"Oh, and why is that?" Yosho asked, instantly regretting an almost patronizing tone.

"Hm, because you could have ended up wandering around in the darkness for who knows how long. I haven't exactly filled in all the spaces yet."

"I see."

Washu ignored his calm and nearly broke something plastic in frustration.

"There. Now I should have a system worthy of the greatest genius---on a backwater planet, at least."

It wasn't really sarcasm, so he didn't really laugh, and tried not to frown. Again she kept her eyes averted as she moved on to another half- circle of machines. His growing concern decided to keep a safe distance this time; each of her adjustments sharpened claw-like sensors formed from a material clearly meant to remain amorphous.

"So what can I do ya for?" Washu was barely trying to sound more chipper than she really was, but her choice of words put Yosho back where he'd started.

"Um, I beg your pardon."

"Just an expression."

"I see."

"Yes, seems like 'you see' a lot," she lazily mocked his tone, "heck, I bet you don't even need those silly spectacles anymore."

Cross-eyed with momentary indignity, Yosho took of his glasses and began to clean them, frowning back at whatever was holding him and whatever she was holding.

"I take it the exchange is official now, Grandpa Katshuhito for Uncle Yosho."

She was speaking fluidly but in an almost jaded monotone, like a doctor who'd stopped caring ten patients ago. Maybe he could break through with some matched curtness.

"'Cousin' might work best, actually."

"Mmm," Washu tapped robotically on a single button. "So, now you know that it's best not to walk into my lab without knocking?"

"I---yes, I understand."

"Good, that's better than just 'seeing'."

With that she was off toward another station, still no glance in his direction, even less interest in his presence.

*Is she angry with me? But why would she be angry with me? She's the one whose been limiting the depth of our conversations and spending so much time down here.

*Keep talking to her Yosho, listen to your soul; it's saying privacy is what she wants but not what she needs.

"I was going to come down here earlier this morning." Yosho's voice almost became formal as he steered back toward the point.

"Just to tell me about the switch? Why didn't you then? For that matter, why didn't you just tell me at dinner last night."

Yosho's offended frown couldn't even deflate completely. He took a deep enough breath to stretch his face smooth, calm, and ready to endure. Centuries of composed fighters defeating enraged ones couldn't be wrong.

"You didn't join us for dinner last night, you remained here. And I didn't come down to tell you what would be obvious enough."

Washu finally looked ready to turn to him, but she was just looking at another screen, directly above her head.

"So what's so important that you couldn't tell me after breakfast, but that you couldn't wait to tell me at lunch."

The confusion that suddenly replaces anger is complete, but Yosho inwardly shook himself to his senses and some precious wit.

"Well for one, Sasami said that lunch will probably be a little late."

"And?"

The ice was stubborn, but iron was iron. It was time to redirect his opponent's energy.

"And I'd like it if you faced me when we spoke."

Washu was silent again, hovering her fingers above buttons she likely didn't need to push. Yosho had become almost impatient enough to fold his arms by the time she turned around, but her face was so pitifully apologetic that he would have now preferred to hold her while they spoke.

The light finally accentuated the bags under her eyes and the almost sallow quality of her skin. On a child the expression was even worse. A few solid blinks temporarily replaced it with a semi-polite version of her own patience.

"There are some things that you've been reluctant to speak about while up at the shrine, I had hoped you might feel more at ease in your lab."

Washu accepted his balanced smile like an extra blanket on a summer night and lowered her eyes before walking toward him.

"I doubt it, but since you've already come this far let's give it a shot." Passing him without a whisper of enthusiasm or thought of contact, she stepped toward the still idling elevator. A few points of color lit up where she touched it. Yosho stepped toward her in hopes that he might catch her eyes again before he tried to make good on the promise he'd made and remade to himself.

"Step inside."

Yosho followed her gesture into the elevator then waited for her to see his confusion before he had to voice it. After a few moments she simply stepped in first.

"This isn't my lab, these are just some mediocre surveillance and scanning equipment I put out here to keep Mihoshi busy. Hopefully I won't need the spare parts."

After biting his tongue on the reflex to say "I see", Yosho realized that he didn't, didn't see how they were both going to fit in that little elevator and didn't see how he was going to pull her out of her shell if she was already inviting him into it. Space and air enough, or not, he approached with his head held high and cool.

"Watch your head."

Officially tired of hearing her make jokes she found no humor in, he ducked inside with an almost formal motion, glad there was basically enough room as they sank below the floor. The small light inside was even dimmer for the portion of his head that obscured it, but it was plain to see that there was nothing to look at outside the elevator save a tight mass of noodle metal. It reminded him of the time he'd taken Tenchi to the museum to walk around inside a real submarine, he'd been thankful then that his grandson hadn't asked him how fast it could go, or how big a boat it could blow up. He wondered if Washu wasn't crossing her fingers for a similar blessing.

Loose hair was taking up a good portion of her space, and only the top parts of her body were visible. Such close proximity without a chance of intimate communication, it began to seem a little too convenient. Yosho considered asking her why she hadn't stayed in adult form, then realized that there probably wouldn't be room enough in the elevator if she were any larger. After looking down in the uncomfortable silence for a while, a side curiosity began pressing on his mind.

"Washu," Yosho began clearly and politely enough to confirm that ^he^ wasn't the one widening any gaps between them.

The Universe's own little genius cradled her fingers behind his neck and pulled him down. He gulped and widened his eyes but didn't pull away or withhold a response. It didn't last long or likely change whatever expression only the floor could see.

"Sorry if that was too strange, but the real old new face really is handsome, and I've missed you." The matter-of-fact monotone said nothing for the romance of close spaces and would have sounded like apathetic line reading if the kiss hadn't been so believable. "Besides, the elevator wouldn't fit the both of us."

"Alright then," Yosho scraped up a smile, "so long as no one saw."

Washu didn't respond, but he didn't think it especially funny himself.

The descent lengthened and quieted. Eventually even the well-meditated former prince felt the need for a childish question or empty conversation.

"This outfit looks nice, is it new?"

"Excuse me?"

Before he could pull anything from her tone, a change in light outside the elevator turned Yosho's head and kept his eyes. A vast chamber had opened all around them and, if he was right to assume the tube ran down the center, it's radius was at least a kilometer. He all but pressed his nose to the window to get a better look.

It would not have struck him as so fantastic if it had just been another huge clutter of circuits and wires, too finely detailed to take in more than the mere size. Instead they were encircled by a procession of semi transparent structures, each wide as a small skyscraper and shaped with drawn out hills and valleys like the legs of rich European furniture. Smooth steel sunk between them like a thick gelatin they'd all struggled through, and reflected the tiny thread elevator light. Large rings of pulsing green energy slid down the structures in perfect and silent unison. They conformed to the changing shape of the tubes like drops of mercury and caught Yosho near hypnosis.

"Don't give this reactor too much credit, I'll be upgrading it to a smaller and more efficient model the second I get a chance." Washu sounded as annoyed with his overwhelmed reaction as she was with her oversized reactor.

Yosho leaned back slightly and looked down. They were descending faster, thus the chamber was even larger than he'd thought. Still, when they breached the bottom and went through another layer of mundane pipes, he barely felt their elevator slow to a stop.

The door slid open and Washu stepped out into complete darkness, quickly welcomed by a path of simple floor lights. Yosho followed, checking either side habitually and finding the same nothing that had not welcomed him when he'd first entered.

"Where are we now?"

"My lab, of course."

"But," Yosho bit his tongue and picked up his pace. He looked over Washu's head as far as he could see, but the path only lit up another meter for every step she took.

"I would expect even a ^young^ priest to have a little more patience."

This time he wanted to smile, and almost did, but for the tiniest fraction of light. A two-dimensional oval appeared, just a fraction blacker than their surroundings. Washu kept walking as he practically ground his heels into the floor. She lifted a hand and disappeared into the portal as mundanely as someone swinging through a saloon door. The familiar sound of holographic laptop buttons did little to beckon him, even if they did seem to be just beyond the shroud.

"Don't be silly Yosho, this subspace passage is no more dangerous than those big slippery steps you walk up all the time."

Lips twisted to the side, self and situation sigh contained, Yosho ducked in after her. The glow of the path behind him was only gone a second before he had to squint. Bold light charged down from a ceiling high as the Misaki living room. Something like checkered panels of opaque bubbly plastic, but Yosho wasn't going to endure another upward glance. Even after his eyes adjusted, the light mimicked a bright sun so well that the absence of indoor plants seemed a waste. In fact there was nothing decorative about the lab, no old photos or empty sculptures, not even any trophies. There was a metal cabinet on short legs that claimed the center two thirds of the right wall, but no papers or equipment strewn about it. For the sake of already germinated drama, he wondered if it had been filled to more or less than its visual capacity.

The room was almost too big for an executive office, but was surely too small for a genius's lab. Yosho watched Washu type at the opposite end of the room, sitting on a large and cradling chair supported by spindly rollers that only whispered against the floor as she paused to stretch. The current keyboard was not a hologram, but a series of lights spread across the bottom of an inverted obsidian pyramid, also too large for the room.

Stepping closer, loudly enough to not be sneaking, Yosho snuck a look at the horizontal screen. The picture shifted from meaningless strings of code to images flashed by too rapidly to assemble.

"I must say; it's not what I expected." Yosho began looking around for a place to sit, while Washu continued typing away. He sensed something approaching from behind and turned to see a larger but otherwise identical chair rolling into him.

"It's not what I'm used to either. But a lack of aesthetics helps me concentrate, sometimes."

She turned and faced him, arms on the armrests, head against the headrest, and sunken eyes locked with his. Yosho averted his gaze this time, looking around at a similar nothing and gradually admitting to himself that he'd made a mistake. What should have been obvious the moment she invited him into the elevator was now painfully clear: he'd get from her what she'd already prepared to give, and not a thing more.

Faithfully or stubbornly, he forwardly searched her eyes for some clue to this relapse of withdrawal. It could be that hiding herself was easier than hiding the true effects of Ryoko's departure, that would certainly be the simplest answer. Maybe she wouldn't expect him to broach the subject again after making it so clear that he was a powerless outsider within her sterile controlled environment. She was still waiting for him to speak, fearlessly displaying an emotional wall as advertisement of something hidden behind it. If she was indeed hoping for someone bold enough to relieve a burdening secret, then he'd at least have to try. Besides, he always lost when they tried to see who would break a silence first.

"Washu, do you remember what was happening when last you were spending inordinate amounts of time in the lab." Yosho began the interrogation, trying to make the witness believe she was not a suspect.

"Yes." She answered in kind, though he fully expected her to remind the imbecile of necessary repairs.

"Then I don't need to tell you about everyone's concern."

Washu made a point not to shift her eyes or even her feet.

"With all due respect, I don't think you are in a position to speak for 'everyone'."

Yosho tried to hold equally still, but Washu did better, invisibly crossing her hands and softening her mouth. She spoke again; the sublime feminine ability to cry for comfort while screaming for solitude kept him and cowed him indecisive.

"With all due affection, I'm only interested in ^your^ concerns."

Taking a shorter blink and breath, he hoped to throw her off guard by treating her defenses as attacks.

"Well then, could you please step out of your child form first?"

For a moment, Washu seemed to be admiring his face, distracting herself with his increasingly familiar features. If this weren't intentional, her lowered gaze to a small cracking knuckle certainly was. The depressed motion, and more so the sickly sound, made Yosho ready for bold or no further action.

"It wouldn't make a difference."

True to her word and committed to her form; it didn't. For all his experience, for any of his tentative reuse of youthful charm, Yosho could only think of all the ways and ages to be on either side of patronized.

***

"Dammit, the food here is horrible."

Gen Ibana shook his head down at the contents of his long-reusable cafeteria tray. No doubt about it: he was eating the same surprise they'd served last month.

"Blasted---wah can I jush bing mah own?" A few crumbs fell out of his mouth, followed by a few more slapped off his hands. He turned in his chair and looked at a large collection of small monitors, each displaying a different figure in an identical room.

"Becaursh ah ooh lot," Gen gulped and wiped his lips roughly, "^that's^ why."

He spun himself away so hard that he had to walk himself and the chair back to the desk he wasn't supposed to be eating on. A sigh and a grunt gave out disgust and took another large mouthful. This time he was determined to barely taste it before swallowing, belching, and tasting it again. When he chuckled at this it sounded slightly less indulgent than when he resumed complaining.

"I eat their food near all this expensive equipment and I get a slap on the wrist," he reached for another bite but gave the table a dead slap instead, "but lil' Amar keeps a damn calorie bar in his locker and gets ^demoted^."

Standing with careful attention to the weight of his guts, Gen hobbled over to two compartments that really shouldn't have been in a place where food wasn't allowed. He shook leftovers down to incineration and dropped the tray into sterilization.

"Now I gotta train the new guy," he looked up at the monitor on an adjacent wall, "who's on his way now."

Gen began repeating the same sentence to himself, enjoying the sound of lethargy-intoxication.

"Train the new guy. Train the ^new^ guy. Thenewguy. Theneeeeeeeewguy. Train the new new guy---guy------guy."

An entirely desexualized female voice responded to the rapid beeps of a door code.

"Observation post 2-8-red now admitting security personnel---Feingun, Malek".

"The New Guy!"

Gen held out his arms and a yawning smile with just enough exaggerated hospitality to take the scrawny new guard off duty.

"Uh. Hi."

"Welcome to the greatest show in the galaxy. Here, have a seat, in fact, have my seat."

Malek barely caught the chair before it collided with his knees and sat in it hesitantly while Gen plopped himself down in the one with newer padding.

"My name is-" a stiff hand quickly went limp.

"Feingun, Malek." Gen's impersonation of the computer's voice sounded unintentionally perverse, unintentional because he wasn't even looking at the new guy anymore.

"Yeah." Malek walked the chair toward what he assumed was his half of the station.

"Now, they expect me to show you the ropes, but I figure they already paid you for 2 weeks of training, so I'll just spare us both my people skills and answer your questions as they come---and you'd better ask them when they do."

"Alright."

Malek answered Gen's cynical bluntness with indifference, obviously hoping it would make the man either civil or silent. Of course Gen, being a curmudgeon veteran, ate this tactic for bad cafeteria dessert. Before the new guy could begin comparing the real equipment to the practice model, Gen contradicted himself with a wide and wise-guy gesture. He held his hands up to the monitors with the adoration of someone selling a simple and soulless work of art for a small fortune.

"I've been watching these same screens for more than twenty years now, and I'm no Jurain. This is by far the cushiest job you can land if you know how to keep your eyes open...and if you aren't too shaken by the idea of watching deadly maniacs rot in sterilized boxes...^and^ if you aren't here to ^get off^ on watching deadly maniacs rot in sterilized boxes.

"These poor souls, these 'soulless monsters who don't deserve to escape execution', are all here indefinitely. The theory is that by cutting them off from almost all external stimulation they'll eventually go back close enough to blank to forget how deranged they are and be moved to a less expensive security block. The practice, however, is that we don't give the demons in their heads anything to eat, that way they just eat themselves--- so that they can be moved to a less expensive security block."

Gen almost stopped for a breath that could have made him sigh, slouch, or otherwise botch the sale.

"None of them are allowed to mix with the general population, or even each other. Each one of the 'patients' here had to be restrained by military grade ^force^. The reason we don't get any stun sticks or restraining fields is not because this is the safest watch, but because there's nothing we could carry around that would do us a damn bit of good if any of them got loose. We got the alert button on our belt, but my hunch is that it won't save anybody but the people ^outside^ this sector. You hear what I'm saying?"

Malek looked at him blankly, but Gen kept at the screens.

"They are not allowed to write or read letters. I've only ever received a handful of mail for anyone here, and they've always been obvious bad jokes. There actually used to be supervised visitations---a few decades before I started working here. I never asked why they stopped."

Gen frowned; he'd fine-tuned that speech a lot since the last time he'd needed to give it. Towards the end he'd begun to hear the miserable air of it all creep into his throat, but didn't even think to pull up. Now the new guy already knew how much he hated this job, everything it watched over, and some of what it protected. So far this kid was silent, maybe another guard had already given him a similar introduction.

"What are the exceptions?" Malek asked with all the cold iron certainty of a spy slowly revealing all that he isn't supposed to know.

Gen turned slowly toward him with a nearly insulted sneer. Malek wasn't going to flinch or even move till he got his answer. But that was fine, Gen told himself, that's what made good security. Without another word, Gen turned back to his side of the monitors, checking different angles and zooming in a seemingly random pattern. Malek did the same and they both repeated the procedure for two silent hours, exactly how much time Gen figured he'd give the new guy to apologize for asking such a thing.

"You know Feingun, there is nobody watching the watchers on this level, not while we're in here anyway. They expect us to make small talk about a patient's rumors, or bigheaded talk about every patient here. That's because there's nothing else to talk about; we might as well be watching paint dry behind vacuum barriers for all the harm we could do from in here. Our presence is a formality, but finding someone to be this close to them is hard, so they pay us pretty good, or at least they pay me and every other person who can keep cool for a month.

"The only people ever going near those---containment units, are us when hell freezes over and we get legitimate clearance, and the ^owners^ of this facility, different times, once a year."

No response from the new guy, but defiantly no sign of having fully absorbed the little speech Gen barely believed he'd have to give. Maybe someone decided the job called for more than trustworthy nobodies. Maybe he should try to read his face after all.

Malek was still looking at him, same unmoving blankness.

"There is always an exception."

Gen looked ready to spit, then turned back to the screens, leaning forward slightly as he swallowed.

"Alright smart guy, take a look at patient 96 in room B."

Malek frowned in slight annoyance.

"She hasn't moved for the past two hours."

"She hasn't moved for the past two days, but that's fairly normal around here."

Uninspired silence urged Gen on, a devious smile held in tightly for moral support.

"Have you ever heard of Prince Yosho?"

"Isn't he some sort of religious icon on Jurai?"

"You could say that. Then I take it you know his claim to fame."

Malek narrowed his eyes at the screen and spoke with a little more interest as he moved the camera in closer.

"Chased off that space pirate, the one the GP could hardly photograph?"

Gen smiled up the side of his face Malek was on and spoke plainly.

"And the one a third of the GP brought to us."

The smile broke into the other side of his face as he heard his coworker's expression collapse like a card castle. He decided he didn't need to survey the damage.

"That's Kagato's--- that's Ryoko?" Malek tried to hide his shock behind skepticism, but Gen didn't even consider it.

"This is one of the only places in the galaxy with the facilities to hold her. Life forms with her kind of power are put in asylums rather than prisons so that, should they escape, they have a less manageable army at their disposal."

"So they finally caught her, after more than 700 years." Malek tried to chuckle with immunity.

"Not exactly, a couple months ago she just flew right into a GP hanger and started blastin' about. She was doing surprisingly minor damage, but they didn't even try to get close till they had an antimatter containment field. She went straight from a religious figure, into ^that^." Gen pointed bitterly at the screen.

Malek narrowed his gaze again and smiled with more convincing deviousness than Gen could have managed, if he'd wanted to.

"Isn't it kind of dangerous, letting anyone know that she's ^alive^--- and ^here^. Correct me if I'm wrong but; doesn't the majority of Jurai society revolve around the idea that their heroic prince vanquished her." There was no irony in his bad sarcasm, or in Gen's response.

"You'll be contacted by Jurai intelligence today, probably on your lunch break. They know what kind of soap you used last year."

Silence, thick enough to hear their fingertips on the monitor controls on every side of patient 96. It endured for the better quarter of an hour before Malek worked up his nerve again.

"So 'J.I.' comes down to keep tabs on her?"

"No." Gen mimicked Malek's earlier monotone.

"They send a GP connection?"

"No."

Malek scowled out the side of his face Gen was on, and went back to work for a shorter stretch of silence.

"It's just one person, right?"

Gen assumed his silence would give him the right kind of affirmation.

"Somebody with connections?"

Same silence as the same response.

"Somebody I'd have heard of."

Gen wondered if he could say 'no' with an equal and opposite silence, but gave up.

"If you're a science buff."

Malek scratched his chin like a cricket broadcasting how smart it was, or would be in just a moment. Gen watched him begin to smile and wanted a canon to shoot down whatever guess he'd constructed.

"You know, I remember an old teacher of mine discussing science ethics off topic. He said something about a bunch of professors who tried making these practically invincible people by mixing their genes with some kind of water sponge. He said it was just before they had strict regulations for all that kind of thing, and long after only one scientist had done it."

Malek was pausing for effect rather than a collection of thoughts. Gen prepared to smack both out of him.

"Yeah, she was in some book of records, crazy like a foxy," Malek laughed alone at his observation, "damn, that was a while ago. She must be full Jurain."

Gen wanted the punk to finish guessing close or give up before he lost his temper.

"So you think she's just checking up on ooold projects?"

"It's her daughter."

"Huh?" Malek went from smart for his age to his age. He glanced over, accusing Gen of misinformation as rudely as he could without cursing. It was enough to clench the older man's fist.

"Her daughter."

"Who, the visitor's or-"

Gen was too upset now to enjoy however stupid Malek may have felt for following up with such a question. He just sighed, and hoped J.I. would make him soil himself before the day was out.

Another silence dug in, short and more than complete for the resentment rising between the two guards. It was clear to Gen soon enough that his future, or rather, 'current' partner had been waiting for him to notice the close attention now being paid to room B. Soon as the voyeur realized he had an audience of his own, he ignored it and let it hear him talk to himself through a weak but haughty scoff.

"Damn, she really does look like hell."

Gen responded with all the monotone he could play off.

"Malek."

Same excess indifference from the new guy.

"Yeah?"

No more jokes from the veteran.

"Shut the hell up."

***

"Hey, Sasami. Hey, Mihoshi."

"Hi, Tenchi!" They answered in bright unison without taking their eyes off the television.

"Hello, Aeka." Voice softened, step slowed, Tenchi approached the dining table. The First Princess was reading a small book the way he'd seen many students study references in the library. She didn't look up either.

"Hello, Tenchi."

"Um, how can you read with the TV on in the same room?"

"If I'm interested in something enough I don't let anything distract me."

*If she's acting meek like this to make me feel sorry for her, then we've a lot of work to do. But...if she just said that to make me feel guilty, then I'm in serious trouble.

Tenchi considered trying to read over her shoulder semi-playfully, but walked over to the couch instead.

"Has anyone seen Gran---er, ^uncle^ Yosho?"

Sasami giggled.

"Yeah, he's-"

The closet door opened, and Yosho closed it behind him so as not to wake a sensitive baby. Tenchi tried to smile at the tired look on his young grandfather's face. The closer this new instructor came, the more futile, then inappropriate his efforts began to feel.

"Hey, uncle Yosho. How's-"

"Tenchi, would you walk me back to the shrine please?"

"Um," he looked around to make sure everyone else heard the forcefully calmed seriousness in Yosho's voice. Aeka had seemed to, but quickly buried herself back in the book. Tenchi began walking alongside his grandfather, watching only the ground before him.

The late afternoon smelled like a good day's progress in the fields and the promise of a hearty dinner. By the time they reached the steps, Yosho was almost ready to surrender another stretch of silence, but his grandson proved more eager.

"Well?"

Tenchi's voice was unusually frank and non-dramatic. It might have sounded rude had he been a few years younger.

"Tenchi, is it better to receive a gift as a surprise, or to know one is waiting for you?"

Short frown contemplating out into worry, Tenchi looked over at his grandfather, hoping he wouldn't really be expected to answer.

"It depends, I guess."

"No, it doesn't."

"Okay."

Tenchi knew that had been rude, but didn't feel a disapproving stare.

"More specifically, it makes less a difference for the person receiving the gift than the one presenting it."

"I don't understand. What does this have to do with Washu?"

"Nothing, if you don't even try to see the connection."

This new instructor didn't have his contemplative questions ordered as well the last. Tenchi had been delayed with enough of them to know when they were just a way to distract or stall.

*Distract or stall...

"Washu is withdrawing from us for reasons other than the repair of her lab. In fact, she didn't even bother giving that as an excuse."

"So you think she's making us a present?" Tenchi poured his heart into hiding his doubt in a hopeful smile, but was ready to dispose of it with one look from his teacher. And he disposed of it. In short moments he was slightly ashamed for not noticing sooner, how his thoughts were so preoccupied with what might be wrong with him and Aeka, but most likely him, that he'd hardly noticed Washu.

"No, Tenchi. She is concealing something from us in plain view, hoping we will want to unveil it before we are permitted."

"Did you? 'Unveil it', I mean." Tenchi asked after a hard silence.

"No, but I want you to try tomorrow."

"Me?" Tenchi stopped walking and looked at his young uncle like a suddenly senile grandfather. "But-but I thought you would be...you know, closer to her. If you can't find out what's going on how do you expect me to?"

Yosho kept walking and speaking with the same calm, but a little more sadness.

"She is an uncommonly intelligent woman, as you must know. If she intended to hide something she would first figure out how to hide it from those closest to her, or undercut their will to search. I should have expected this. Now I can only hope that, since you're the last person she'd expect to sneak into her fortress, she might just let you in."

"But---but you can't expect me to get in ^her^ head." Tenchi almost laughed as he trotted after Yosho, catching up in good time.

"I don't, and neither does she. That is why you must try."

"Alright." The anti-enthusiasm in Tenchi's voice made his grandfather stop and turn.

"I take it I don't need to tell you how important this might be." Tenchi was filled with foreboding, despite the lack of it in Yosho's voice. The new priest turned to finish the trek alone, sure that his pupil would take none of their conversation lightly.

"Oh, and Tenchi."

"Yes, Yosho?"

He caught his throat and bent it back into shape, then reflexively glanced about for what he did not know, now hardly a new or thinned-out habit. But uncle Yosho paid no notice, speaking instead like a concerned grandfather.

"I'm not sure how much her lab may have changed since the last time you were in there, but it was very dark."

Tenchi nodded to his grandfather's back and hurried down the steps, letting himself think only when he was halfway home.

***

"It's 4 thousand, right?" Malek asked his watch casually as he stood into a stretch.

"By my clock." Gen similarly tried to ignore any animosity they may have built or any informality they might plan.

"I'm off to lunch then." Pushing the seat neatly back in place, Malek began walking toward the door, turning after a few steps. "So they really don't allow any outside food in the whole facility?"

"Most high security places don't."

"Alright then, where's the cafeteria?" Malek asked with a juvenile sigh.

Gen considered a few curt and or clever answers, but eventually decided not to change things.

"Third floor."

Malek clicked his tongue and confirmed Gen's suspicion that a connection had landed him this job.

"Where on the third floor."

Gen turned in his chair.

"You can't-"

Washu stepped out of her special brand of cloaked subspace portals, dressed in a doctor's dead teal coat and a widow's large indoor sunglasses. If she weren't early, a child, and in an area nobody wanted to think about, she would have been very convincing.

"-miss her." Gen's voice wilted in his throat as he stared behind Malek with eyes frozen before they could widen.

Malek's expression jumped from perturbed to shocked confusion as he turned to look down. A strange little girl in a restricted area who was waiting impatiently for him to stand aside? This had to be a bad joke.

"I take it this is the new kid on the block." Washu spoke to Gen humorlessly, regarding Malek's presence as little more than a photograph.

"Professor Ha-"

Washu walked around the obstacle and toward its chair.

"Is everything in order?"

"Yes but-" Gen's fear bordered on the cusp of career and life and something more precious.

"I apologize for arriving earlier than usual, you can explain the details to him while I'm down there." She leaned back and folded her arms without expression. "Stall me more time from now on."

"Hm, I thought you'd been given the okay on her," Malek cracked his fingers together in a confident basket, "but it looks like she's got you on a commission, eh Gen?"

Gen stared at him as if he'd just asked an emperor to swap wives.

"What, afraid you'll have to share the cut? I'm sure Professor--- Professor-"

Malek watched her materialize a holo-laptop and begin typing robotically. She spoke to the screen, drained, dreary, and past fear.

"Call me Little Washu."

"Little ^what^?"

"Feingun! Stop. Talking. Take a break and forget about this before-"

"Before what? I don't care how much seniority you have, Gen, I always know ^everything^ about my job. So, somebody start explaining fast so I don't miss all of my lunch."

Gen hung his head and Washu answered in an unchanged tone.

"I have an arrangement with Jurain Intelligence; your mother's lawyer is visiting in a month to discuss her will. She planned to split the money between you and your half-sister."

The sound of Malek's silence made Gen raise his head to search for the color in the younger man's face. He had a feeling that few people knew about this passing and fewer about this half-sister, this half-brother not included. Watching the kid shuffle wordlessly out the door would have to wait, though.

"I'm going in now Gen, I might even be done a bit later than usual."

Gen nodded and kept his eyes averted while Washu walked over to the door he'd never had to open. She nearly stood on tiptoe to hold up a card to the retinal scanner.

***

It didn't take long for Washu to begin taking her newly acquired time, delaying steps toward the cage her daughter had put herself in. Spacious corridors with nothing but the sound she made were nothing new, but the space between the cells and the rest of the facility would not transmit sound. These units had been specially designed to confine beings that could not be held by solid matter or would require energy fields far too costly to maintain. The solution was a collection of rounded white cubes that wobbled like gelatin sculptures in nonexistent breeze, like artificial organs chaotically trying to breath or gestate. Each of them were identically attached to the insultingly sky blue ceiling by mundane black umbilical tubes large enough to exchange surveillance equipment, maintenance, and a small child. Washu hated how they reminded her of the inflatable playpen she'd seen kids bouncing around in at one of the local earth fairs.

The security of these bubbles was not elasticity or simply reflecting energy thrown at them, though both had been tried in earlier designs. Perpetual dimensional flux was a well-kept secret, a conductive bladder that would stretch a subspace portal around an object, in this case a simple prison-like room. The portals were designed to constantly battle with themselves; every nanosecond a new empty storage space would fail, collapse, and implode, expelling all matter. Anything that tried to exit the membrane would be thrown back inside from the same point.

Washu remembered being assigned a particularly incompetent team of environmentalists, ethicists, and not one exceptional physicist when asked to design the holding units. Somehow, thorough the paranoia and self- righteousness of her team, she managed to complete a prototype on schedule. But by that time she'd filed it away on the preciously small list of inventions that had unsettled even her. Only once since then had she considered constructing another, only needing a moment to realize its insufficiency.

When she looked at the dozen of them for the first time since their birth, her initial thought had been forcefully self-preserving, indulging, deluding; that Ryoko was safe here. It had been difficult to accept terms of the surrounding world being 'removed' from her, then 'safe' from her. By the time she'd formalized and perfected a procedure for future visits, it was time to return to the original perception; Ryoko was nearly helpless now. Able to move only by thinking of this as temporary, Washu stepped up to the last cell on the right.

In a ritualistic motion, she dragged her gaze up from the floor and held her white card up at an angle to the area where the tube connected. A thread of multicolored light, much like the power signals given off by Jurain trees, extended and touched the tube. It dislodged itself from the ceiling and faced her like a lethargic caterpillar curious to see who had interrupted its feeding. There was only the shine of a subspace portal on the end. Through this came the video feed and the small drones that suggested sustenance, hygiene, and exercise on an exact schedule, but that never gave away the location of the tube's ever-changing entrance point.

Washu thought of Gen watching the collective exteriors and contents of the cells. Right now she assumed he was watching the tube snake its way down and dilate to her height. She had better courtesy than to try and look back at him. After stepping into the tube she would remain in empty subspace till it reconnected and found a new location to put her through. Since she was not a propelled service robot, she once again had to brace for a fall. Somehow, though, she'd never landed directly on the sterile forest green plastic, the hut that boxed in her daughter from the slightly nauseating movement of amorphous cream of portal. The color would have been black if the portals remained active for another hundredth of a nano second.

This was the second time she'd landed a direct few meters from the locked- for-formality door. The vibration of touching, walking on the cell walls was almost too slight to notice. It had taken her an uncommonly short series of arguments to concede that no improvements could be made on the facility. Yet there was still a twinge of raging injustice each time she had to manually unseal the door with her card. This took enough time and created enough noise to make her wonder why she bothered to knock anymore.

*Why bother?

The question appeared in her mind like a theme of itself, a tangible, concentrated God of the very question. It waited for her to bow down or run screaming in terror, full of pride for all she had done recently to fight it off. When the weight of the situation was clear, Washu considered it an extra precaution to invite the question in early, much like a preventative vaccination. Classic medicine or not, her efforts seemed to attract the circling shadow of an enormous vulture that cheered the struggle on. It would land and drip saliva each time she lowered her guard.

Washu closed her eyes and listened to the door seal behind her. Now she was twice sealed against everything save the card that only responded to her DNA and the force that Mihoshi could probably summon if she were upset or daydreaming enough. She cleared her mind before approaching, closed eyes made the first steps easier, the first half of them. Counting opened the floodgates.

Fast as a genius's synapses, she relived every prominent moment, from sharing the destruction inside the GP hanger, to the first visit, to today's near confession and Yosho's quick retreat. Rather than give her strength or inspire a more informed strategy, the string of nightmares and arguments, already overwhelming at their own time, stuck her like a ghost fist. The condensed malady drew blood and killed when it would.

Washu took that first week full in the face, the one without food or sleep, when her daughter told her to leave, not merely to leave her alone. It had been a raw palm wetting the coarse asphalt, smearing the chalk of 'protect' and 'escape' into mud. She'd never thought she'd hear her daughter say it, much less mean it, the way she meant that this was where she belonged.

Right on damnably restrictive hour a week schedule, Washu had returned three consecutive times to an entirely unresponsive doll. Every trick of verbal motivation in every book she couldn't discredit was delivered with the meals her daughter didn't touch and thankfully didn't need. Initially they were paced before her, more impassioned than any lecture Washu could remember. Eventually they were held gently against her limp hand and massaged in through barely coherent sobs of devoted desperation. Finally they were shaken into her shoulders by way of raging vengeance for whatever Ryoko thought she was doing, for every action she wasn't thinking, and for any excuse she might have to put her poor mother through it all.

Washu had stopped herself then, realizing that she'd said 'mother' while intending, she told herself, to say 'family'. Half voluntarily backing away, she had looked at the crumpled toy looking at nothing, and she had slumped down in the opposite corner. Her thoughts were clearer then, focused that while she'd guarded against apathy early on, she'd forgot to do the same for vanity. Her daughter was lying in the wake of a nervous breakdown and she herself was falling into self-pity.

That was when the vulture had appeared, smelling the savory gangrene of doubt, waiting for the better than free lunch. Washu could neither preach nor pray and delude herself into believing she was doing it selflessly. She firmly absolved to only extend her love, the raw flame of a mother's devotion that had risen up from the moment Ryoko displayed her gold to the entire universe. Though cumbersome and foul, Washu allowed herself no desire save holding close and dear what was left of her greatest creation.

There were apologies, then promises, so heartfelt and immediate it hurt to speak them without the filter of her mind. It eventually occurred that this was what she'd intended to communicate through all the pacing, hand holding, and shoulder shaking. Ryoko would remember who she was, and would know all that Washu cared to know: that she loved her daughter as much as any mother could.

It was so very draining to enter this semi-meditative state that Washu lost the energy and hence the confidence to continue arguing with the highest authority in the galaxy. Despite the numbing fury that resulted from this potential savior's enduring response, despite her suspicion that he was inspired by something worse than callousness, she saved her pleas.

Having constructed the prison, a crude breakout plan would have been distantly possible, but when Washu finally gave up bargaining on the outside Ryoko made it clear that she was unable to participate in any kind of action. Despite the all-consuming efforts to draw the poison from her daughter's will, the situation only worsened. In what seemed a kind of monstrous progress, Ryoko had looked up at existence through her mother's face with a dead vehemence that Washu did not want to recognize, announcing that she could not live like a person, and should not have tried to.

What had once been a limp doll was the next week a cowering animal, wailing and clawing pitifully away from whatever came near, trying to fold her face over into her neck. Washu made herself cold again, a necessary step to predict how this ^would^ have happened had it happened back at the Misaki home. The budding hypothesis barely made it out of the cell, a strangling misery transcended to an inward collapse, giving-up impossibly worsened into giving-out.

Washu had clutched her head, holding her daughter's desperate scream like an acid bath. Every memory of joy flared away amid an arch of electricity that struck as a premonition of her own madness. Memories of pain simply blackened thick to melt together a smothering blanket. The professor's own screams were inconsequential till the guard asked her about the pained movements she'd made; her throat had required some minor surgery that night.

On the last visit Ryoko had made no attempt to escape her tentative embrace, tentative because it was difficult not to submerge entirely into their psychic connection at close range. Doing so was worse than staring into Seita's oblivion, she knew, having not made the comparison idly. Her daughter had begun repeating various words in what Washu told herself was a trance slightly above a coma.

No change or promise of such by the end of that session. In Washu, however, there had been an abruptly cool ending to her sympathies and concern for correct motivation. Without a touch or a word, she'd screamed out into the emptying hell of her daughter's mind, announcing her decision to take action that would involve no kind of convention. After that she'd been too exhausted to do more than sit by her daughter's side, still afraid to touch her or to speak and give a word to that haunting trance.

Hardly aware of any time she'd taken to recollect the time she'd spent, Washu slowly opened her eyes to lower the access card. Blank as always, the room was decorated only with strands of cyan hair glued down by Ryoko's fluid to well to be lifted by the cleaners' haste. In the usual corner the only patient that could have ever escaped lay still. Huddled like an emaciated fetus, her eyes and mouth hung open for all the world to turn away from with wails of pitiful horror. The once feared space pirate fully displayed the one fear of conscious things that can match the loss of life.

Washu sat down on the bed across from Ryoko and waited for inspiration, finally exhausted enough to lazily curse every mistake she may have made, and to lazily fight the single surrender she was tempted to make. It could go on this way indefinitely, she knew. It might not be too late, she hoped. After all her science had to offer, and after all they had both survived, she hung her head. Confronted with more choices than even a genius would have expected, she tried not to be afraid. She let herself cry.

Gen watched Malek from the corner of his eye as he took his seat again. He waited with clenched fists, ready for some comment regarding the scene in room B. Their shift continued and ended in silence.

***

In concealed angles of reserved space, midpointed-maintained by conveniently overlooked time, they hide and exist indefinitely for the sake of numerous children; housewarming gifts all day and consolation prizes all night.

That's all they ever want.

Alas, that's all they can have.

Even in a broken family they try to look back with what they believe to be the right mother's eyes.

Not often.

It is enough.

In the absence of a library the army of one and the garden of another still grow.

And in the garden of one, digging in for hard truths, stubborn and ambitious weeds threaten all.

But they were there first, and they have flowers as well.

But it's too much. Can't let them take over again. Have to make sure the bed survives the nightmare. If only the crop could be helped further without being turned into plastic house ornaments. If only that other auntie would stop playing in the mud and come back to help till the soil again, for ^this^ other auntie isn't going to be satisfied with minor pruning for long. She will be coming back again soon, testing post-natural new pesticides and fertilizers, all manners of slash and burn or all crudeness for what wants to grow wild...

That's how ^She^ might have tried to take it back---if She herself hadn't gotten it a little too much too fast.

Have to worry and try harder, this other auntie wouldn't be a mother.

This other auntie would be there soon.

This other auntie was here now, stepping into what only She should be able to, easy as stepping into the shade of a tree.

They were both, and it was all, similar enough.

Not expecting another talk before the roots took or didn't, there could have been surprises for both of them.

Two sisters spoke again.

*Welcome sister, I was not expecting to speak with you again so soon. I was not sure if I'd speak to you directly again.

*You obstructed me---you allow for so many variables, it's a wonder you can predict anything.

*You root out so many possibilities, it's a wonder you can get anything to grow.

*Oh, so you have thorns after all.

*I'm more concerned about my new blossoms.

*You should be more concerned with our sister's buds, and roots.

*Are you?

*Don't condescend me, sister. After all she's heard already she may not be able to accept the loss of her favorite flora.

*It isn't lost yet.

*Isn't it? Your champion doesn't seem to be in any position to save it.

*I'm surprised you don't have more faith in him, considering the trouble you were going through to take him as your own.

*I thought that was behind us.

*I thought it was beneath you.

*...very well. If I still need to redeem myself perhaps I should remedy the situation personally.

*You will do no such thing.

*Are you going to stop me...or am I going to 'stop myself'.

*...

*^You've^ uprooted a problem before, and this ^is^ our problem. We can still work together and at last have our sister with us again.

*No. You made this ^my^ problem, just as you continually threaten to make ^yourself^ my problem. I've already tried to fix it, and I seem to have only helped myself, if that.

*So be it. But the way things are going our sister may "know" without ever "understanding", and if that happens...one of us may follow, and one of us may have to lead. One of us might yet end up truly feeling sorry for the other.

*That, sister, is only a hopeful prediction. And hope has never been your strength.

Other auntie left without saying goodbye. Mother went back to her garden, trying not to worry by trying not to plan, too much.