Review Responses

To: A. Nonymous: I'm quite aware of the concept of dystopias, I read both 1984 and brave new world. I went for that feeling on purpose, although I also went for the feeling of communist USSR under Stalin.
As for how they knew about 626, I'll tell you in this chapter.

To nukrjsr: Emperors? I don't know where you got that idea. But whatever you might be thinking, the emperor's identity will be revealed in this chapter.

To All My Readers and Reviewers: Like I said above, many things will be revealed in this chapter, some you asked about, and others you didn't; and yes, the identity of the emperor is one of them.
BTW, if the next chapter of Gems of Tomorrow doesn't get a decent number of reviews, then I'm just going to quit writing it and let it die off. So if you want me to continue that story, start reviewing it.
Last note, can any of you spot the joke in Cobra Bubbles' real name?

The sound of a lock opening echoed throughout the now thought to be abandoned warehouse that once held the restocking supply of groceries for the surrounding towns. It was thought to be abandoned, but it really served as the makeshift home for a group of a few hundred dirty strangers in dirty clothes, all with their own rifles, handguns and a ready supply of ammo hanging loosely from their belts, jackets, etc.

As the sound of the opening lock was heard, everyone in the immediate area stopped what they were doing. Some knelt down pointing their rifles at the manual garage door serving as an entrance to the warehouse, while others hid behind furniture, shelves, walls, boxes, or anything else that might provide some cover. This was all done however, in a slow, methodical, and perfectly ordered fashion, as if they do this every day.

The garage door opened one foot, squealing like a rake dragged across a chalk board as it did. One of the men walked forward, holding the handle to a shovel, with the shovel itself removed. In its place was a small digital camera duct taped to the end of the stick, and a piece of rope wrapped in a strange way around what looked like part taken off a fishing rod attached to the camera itself.

The man walked over to the garage door, stick in one hand, rope in the other. He poked the camera out of the one foot opening in the garage door and leaned the stick back so it would angle itself upward. He then pulled the rope and a click was heard.

Pulling the stick back into the warehouse, he flipped it over and looked at the image on the LCD screen. It was Nani, looking down at the camera, with some blurry bluish image one could barely see in the bottom left corner.

"Come on in." The man called out.

The garage door lifted slowly up another six feet until there was ample head room for Nani and the four others in her squad to pass under.

At this point all the others in the warehouse began to lower their weapons and come out of the woodwork to look at what Nani had brought back with her.

Something that looked like 626, and something else that looked like Nani's sister. By now they had all heard the recording of that message, but most of them didn't believe it.

Nani walked into the warehouse and continued straight forward as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Following closely behind was Lilo with her wrists bound in telephone wire, and Stitch, his arms tied to his sides with white twine rope and his face in a makeshift muzzle build from three leather belts bond together with duct tape. Stitch could brake these restraints almost without trying of course, but he tolerated them, however indignant they seemed, because Lilo told him to. She told him that she could make them understand that he's their friend, and is here to help them, but seeing the faces of the people he walked by, Stitch severely doubted that.

Stitch only had enough time to glance at each of the faces as he walked by them. They all glared at him in different ways, none of them being particularly comforting. Some looked at him with the most intense of hatred. Some stared wide eyed with fear as if they were looking into the face of death itself. Still others looked at Stitch in confusion. Something that looked like 626, obviously implying that it wasn't. None of them seemed to understand just what was going on, but seeing the very image of Stitch, or as they knew him, 626, made them dare not interfere.

Soon, Nani turned into a makeshift hallway made of plastic and metal bookcases. Arranged on them messily, yet orderly, were guns and ammo, camo jackets and pants of all different sizes, first aid kits, pieces of radios, pieces of car and van engines, jugs of chemicals with hand written notes taped to them describing recipes for tear gasses, nerve gasses, incendiaries, explosives, and cauterizes. The last section of the shelves before a plain wooden door with what had to have been a torn off plastic sign held hundreds of MREs -Meals Ready to Eat- in their plastic pouches.

A guard stood by the door, staring at Stitch with his eyebrow raised, both his hands tightly gripping two pistols shoved into either side of his pants.

"Take the blue thing to the holding area and keep him there until I get back to you." Nani told the man in a most nonchalant manner.

"But..." He tried to argue back, but Nani wouldn't let him speak.

"He will cooperate with you."

"Are you sure?"

Nani looked down at Lilo and scowled at her.

Lilo, never taking her eyes off Nani, leaned over and whispered in Stitch's ear.

"Do what they say Stitch."

Stitch whimpered as he lowered his head and drooped his ears.

"Yes I'm sure." Nani said as she turned back to the guard.

The guard pulled out one of his pistols and pointed it toward Stitch.

"Just come with me, and I won't hurt you." He told Stitch.

None of it could've possibly been true of course. He couldn't hurt Stitch anyway, not with such a primitive weapon as a 9mm semi-automatic. But Lilo told Stitch to cooperate, and she told him that she could get them to treat him like a friend. Stitch doubted she would be able to do this, but if he tried anything now, he would only make things more dangerous for her. Stitch whimpered once again as he began walking away, just in front of the guard who still had his gun set on him.

Stitch paused for a moment to look back at Lilo. She was looking at him. And then he continued.

"Come inside." Nani told Lilo, not looking at her.

Nani opened the door, and Lilo followed her into a plain square room with a hanging ceiling lamp, a buffet table with a large metal box on it, and two dingy looking desk chairs on either side of it.

Nani motioned for Lilo to sit in the far chair and she obeyed. Nani pulled out and flipped open a switch knife, and began walking toward Lilo.

Lilo pressed herself harder against the back of the office chair and tried to shield her face with her bound hands. Nani simply grabbed the telephone wire binding and dragged her forward, and thrust her knife at Lilo.

Snap, and Lilo opened her eyes to see that she had not been stabbed or cut after all. Nani had cut the phone wire binding her hands together and the two halves dropped to the floor.

As Nani flipped her knife closed again and stuck it back in her pocket, Lilo stared at her intently as she rubbed her wrists. The phone wire had made bright red indentations in her skin.

Nani calmly walked back to the other side of the table and sat down. She opened the metal box and took out about a dozen empty syringes. Lilo pressed herself harder against the back of the chair again on seeing Nani's actions. Nani unscrewed the needles from their vials, and put the vials back in the box. The next thing Nani took out of the box was a pair of jumper cables, with large clamps on one end, and tiny clamps on the other. The last thing she took out of the box was a fresh looking car battery.

Nani looked up at Lilo. Lilo had now pushed her chair against the back wall and had her arms sprawled out to her sides, and breathing rapidly. Nani's expression didn't change even so much as a twitch as she looked at Lilo's fear.

"Now that the thing is safely out'a the way, I can conduct a proper interrogation." Nani said in a frighteningly calm and comforting voice.

"What are those things?" Lilo asked in a whisper.

"These are needles. People stick you with 'em and they cause a mildly unpleasant stinging sensation. Hardly an effective tool for interrogation. But hook the needles up to a car battery and you got a much different story."

"Why are you doing this to me?" Lilo pleaded as she started crying.

Nani ignored Lilo's cries, and her question. "Now we can do this the easy way, or we can do it the way that involves stabbing you in very personal areas with electrified needles."

Lilo hugged her knees and buried her face in her legs, now crying rampantly.

Nani still didn't even so much as flinch in reaction.

"First question." Nani spoke up. "Who are you?"

Lilo lifted up her head, still crying, so she could answer. "I'm Lilo! I'm your sister!"

"Spare me kid, would ya'? It's absolutely impossible for you to be Lilo."

"Why?"

"Because Lilo's dead."

Lilo looked up at Nani in shock. Her tears stopped flowing but her mouth hung open and her eyes still suffered from intolerable fear.

She was dead? Or at least the Lilo that was supposed be there, the Lilo that grew up in this time, the Lilo that was supposed to have a mother and father. She was dead. How? She wondered. The only answer that would come to her is that the emperor killed her, whoever that may be.

"So once again," Nani asked. "Who are you?"

"I'm your sister! I told you!" Lilo yelled back at her. "I'm just... not the one you know that's all."

"Not the one I know?"

Lilo nodded her head. "It was mom and dad."

"What about them?"

Lilo paused before talking. "They died... so I went back in time to save them... but when I got back here... the world changed into this."

"Went back in time to save Eric and Keala?"

Lilo nodded her head.

"Well you certainly did bang up job."

"Huh?" Lilo cocked her head to the side.

"Nothing. Let's just get back to business. I want the truth kid. Who are you?"

"I already told you! I went back in time with a machine that Jumba built-"

"Jumba?" Nani interrupted. "You mean... Dr. Jookiba?"

"Yeah!"

"This story's getting more and more campy by the minute."

"What do you know about the emperor?" Lilo whispered just loud enough for Nani to hear.

"You're kidding right? You really think I would tell you what we know about the emperor?"

Nani paused and rested her face in her hand for a few seconds. After bringing it back up, she grabbed a needle in hand and held it up, poised to strike at Lilo.

"You know what I think you are?" Nani asked rhetorically.

Lilo shook her head.

"I think your some kid the emperor plucked off the streets and barbied up to look like my sister so he could send you here to confuse us. And while we're trying to figure out you and your little pet, he would strike without warning!"

Lilo again shook her head.

"So... we did this your way, and now we're gonna' do it mine. Take off your shirt kid."

"No!"

"One way or another, this thing's gonna' go into a very, very disagreeable place unless you tell me what I want to know."

"You will do no such thing Nani."

Nani and Lilo both turned around to find that the door to the room was open and a familiar figure was looming in the doorway with his arms crossed.

It was Cobra Bubbles. Only, he was different. He had no shades, he had no suit. Instead he was dressed in the same camo pants and shirt and jean jacket as the rest of inhabitants of the old warehouse. He had hair, long hair, though messy and unkempt, and a clearly ungroomed beard. Cobra was adorned with more weapons than anyone else in the facility. An m4-carbine was slung around his back in one direction, and a painted black sporting rifle slung around his back in the other. Two pistols were stuffed into either of his pockets, and he wore two bandoleers. One hanging with m4 clips, the other with hand grenades. And each of the bandoleers had a stained black bowie knife stuffed beneath it, pressed against his shoulders.

"Sam this isn't your concern." Nani told him.

"Sam?" Asked Lilo.

"Sam Winnfield is my name." Cobra, or rather, Sam responded.

"But aren't you Cobra Bubbles?" Lilo asked again

Sam dropped his arms to his sides and stared at Lilo with one eye raised.

"How do you know that name?" Sam asked.

"You were my social worker, remember?"

Sam lowered his head and looked off to the side in reaction to Lilo's comment.

"I was a social worker." He answered. "That was before the emperor."

"Who's the emperor!" Lilo yelled out at him.

"You're not really gonna' tell her what you know are you?" Nani yelled as well.

Sam just nodded his head at Nani and looked back to Lilo.

"We don't know much about him." Sam began to lecture. "He's some kind of alien. He crashed here in Hawaii about two and a half years ago, apparently on accident, but he made the most of it by forcefully taking over the pacific islands."

"How many?" Lilo asked again.

"Everything from the Hawaii to Fiji. Everything from Palau to French Polynesia. But of course none of them are called that anymore. They're all now called the Empire of the Pacific.
"Now he's set his sights on Malaysia and the Philippines, and it's looking like they won't stand a chance against him."

"But... Who is the emperor? What's his name?"

"We don't know his name. Most of us think he doesn't even have a name. He just calls himself, number 6-2-6."

Number 6-2-6! Stitch! Stitch was the emperor! But how? Lilo couldn't get it through her head. It was too much for her to take. Lilo sat there trying to ponder Stitch as an evil emperor, but she couldn't, nor could she understand how any events could lead to such a circumstance. Lilo sat motionless in utter shock and disbelief at what she heard.

Sam and Nani looked at her for a few seconds. It looked as if she had gone catatonic. But they took advantage of the situation to finish their conversation with each other.

"Put away the interrogation tools, I'm taking over the management of our new guests from now on Nani." Sam told her.

"What?" She stood up to scream back at him so fast that she knocked her chair over. "You can't do that!"

"I can, and I will." Was all Sam said as he walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.

"You don't know what you're doing Sam!" Nani continued to scream through the door. "You've lost it this time! You've gone totally lolo!"