Zero sipped her coffee, rolling it in her mouth and savoring the taste of real, genuine coffee beans. In 31XX, caffeine had been entirely eliminated from everyone's diet, and the 'coffee' they had tasted pretty much the same, but… she'd always been able to tell the difference. Her doctor child had always insisted it was psychological. Maybe that was so, but it was good to drink genuine coffee again.

The newspaper, on the other hand, was simply annoying. The way she had to pull it open, fold it, and refold it to eat, drink and read simultaneously made her wish for a palm held news viewer. That, she could have set down right beside her plate and read as she ate. She actually did have one, back at her home in the little area that had been brought with her, but without the communication uplinks that supported it, it was useless.

Then she blinked as she read a news article, and winced. Someone had discovered her little area… but it wasn't nearly as little as she had thought. Her eyes widened as she read the article. Four miles, perfectly circular…? She must have been near the outside edge of that circle. Zero silently thanked whatever deity governed such things that the boy who had brought her rations had made it out. The fact that she'd been on the edge of the phenomenon had probably been the only thing that let him escape it. She wondered what the people of this time would make of the technology in her home. Most of it was highly advanced yet fairly basic for her time, so they might be able to take it apart and learn something.

Zero quickly riffled through the newspaper, looking for anything else that was related to her. She groaned, then sighed as she found one thing. There was a strange blight affecting trees near her circle, caused by a most peculiar beetle. No one was coming right out and identifying it as extraterrestrial, just mumblings about unknown genus and possible mutations.

Ju-Ju bugs. Zero grimaced slightly. She'd had all the time in the world to look things up and had been tremendously interested in the natural selection process that had produced Earth's new fauna. So she knew what was about to happen. Ju-Ju bugs loved Broad-leaf bushes, which weren't too invasive but would eventually spread, competing amiably with Terran bushes. Broad-leaf bushes had naturally defenses against Ju-Ju bugs, though, and rarely died from their infestations. Ju-Ju bugs also loved Aspens, Oaks and Poplars, though. Fortunately, they were rather finicky and wouldn't go for other trees, but those three were about to get it in the neck. The lumber industry was not going to be happy, and the change was going to cause a ripple effect in Earth's species. There was no way around it, though. Natural selection would do its work, as always. Other Terran trees would step forward to fill the gap.

Zero smiled slightly, thinking about her flowers. They were called Demi-flowers, because they looked like half a real flower. They came in colors ranging from light blue to jet black to brilliant red, and she was certain they would soon be exploding into the world, even if no one had noticed it yet. Demi-flowers followed the simplest of evolutionary strategies… reproduce, reproduce and reproduce some more. Their life cycle only took four months, and a single Demi-flower would produce thousands of seedlings.

It needed to, too. The slightly alien bio-chemistry was quite compatible with Terran animals, and not just compatible… delicious. Rabbits in particular would love them, and Zero was sure deer, moose and other species that had died out in his time would find them just as tasty. And some honey producers would be a little surprised when their honey took on a new taste. There were many species of insects attracted to Demi-flowers, bees among them. In her time, Demi-honey had been a galactic staple. Demi-flower pollen made it unusually sweet, compared to other flowers. She idly wondered if anyone would think of raising Demi-flowers for the bees, the way they did in her time… huge plantations of glorious little flowers, sometimes shuffling around…

Zero put down the newspaper, and concentrated on finishing her breakfast. Chicken eggs were gone, in her time, but dozens of different alien creatures had filled that part of the breakfast table. If anything, 21XX eggswere rather bland to her. She made a mental note to stick to waffles and pancakes. Those were better, especially with real cream and fruits.

She glanced around, smiling at the décor. She was in the Pyramid Café, at the Luxor casino, Las Vegas. From what she recalled, this was one of Spider's favorite haunts. She might have to hang out for a week or two, but he would eventually be here, at the poker table or losing money on baccarat. Zero grinned at the thought. Spider only wasted money on baccarat when he was completely wasted, and he'd managed to blow his nights winnings on the poker table that way more than once. Fortunately for him, even drunk, he never went into his savings.

Zero slowly stood up, leaving a tip, and went to the cash register to pay her bill. Soon, she was strolling through the casino, admiring the ancient Egyptian decorations. It was really quite glorious and looked authentic, although Zero naturally couldn't be sure about that. She amused herself trying to identify some of the status. Isis? Anubis?

She suddenly stopped, surprised, as she spotted the bounty hunter. Spider was leaning against a statue and reading a magazine. Zero wondered if he was meeting someone here, and suddenly grinned. If that was his plan, she was going to make it her!

"Hi Spider." She said brightly, stepping up to him. Spider lowered the magazine, then blinked at her, slightly confused. He obviously had no idea who she was, and was confused by her costume. Zero had found being mistaken for a human rather tiresome, in some ways, and her ordinary clothing was limited anyway. So she was back to wearing her jumpsuit. The metal gloves hinted that she was no human, despite the strangeness of what looked like a fabric jumpsuit. Zero smiled at him, and he smiled back, almost reluctantly.

"Hello… do I know you?" He tilted his head slightly to one side, and Zero shrugged.

"Sort of yes, sort of no. It's a very long story… perhaps we could discuss it over dinner?" She smiled sweetly at him, and his returning smile had a hint of relief at the thought. Zero suspected he badly wanted to get rid of her, probably because he was indeed meeting someone here. He took her hand, and gently kissed the back of it. Zero blushed, wondering where Spider had picked up that courtly gesture… but she definitely liked it.

"I'd love to. Seven o'clock, at Isis?" Zero blinked, a little surprised. Isis was the gourmet restaurant at the Luxor, and usually required a reservation… how would Spider swing a table? And the food was very expensive. Then she mentally shrugged. He probably knew best.

"That sounds wonderful. I'll see you then." Zero smiled, and slowly walked away, conscious of him watching her. Spider was obviously aware she was more than a simple Reploid or human, and his nature was naturally curious. He would want to know more. She would have to decide how much to tell him…

When Zero had left her enclosure, her prison cell, she'd left many things behind. Most were completely unnecessary and too bulky to carry. Furniture, for example. A cooler, full of ice, drinks, and sweet little snacks she had purchased with her prison credits. Various entertainments. A holographic generator, a VR simulator, all the things she would have enjoyed in her own home. Normally a prisoner on Earth would not have been allowed those comforts, but Zero was a special, minimum security prisoner who had opted for Earth. Special arrangements had been made, partly out of fear for her. Cyborgs could die in a variety of ways, but the most common was suicide. After a few hundred years of life, people seemed to get tired and decide to move on. The usual lifespan was around three hundred, and Zero was a thousand. At her age, boredom wasn't just a nuisance; it was a threat to life.

But even over a thousand years, basic personality doesn't much change. Zero could often be impulsive and more than a little impractical. In her haste to explore, she had left behind some items that would have been useful. She had also left behind something vitally important, on a personal level. Zero hadn't brought her datapad, since the network link that would have kept her in touch with galactic news was inoperable. She had completely forgotten the archive of canned personal messages her family had sent to her. Those messages could be run in two-D format on the datapad, or that the pad could be hooked to a small holographic generator that would create a lifelike simulacrum of the recording. That hologram could be as tiny as a faerie from myth, or up to lifesized, depending on Zero's mood. In a week or two, Zero would have remembered them, regretted her mistake and gone to look for them. But for now, she did not.

Most of the messages only referred to her as Mom or Dad. Her children were all adults, but they were still her children and using her given name would have been completely unnatural for them. Her grandchildren, adult and child, called her Grandmammy or Grandpappy, depending on which sex their parent identified her as. A few dispensed with the distinction entirely, and called her Grandparry. In a future where everyone could switch sexes, and many did, gender-neutral words were coming back into style.

But one message did use Zero's name. A message from her executive daughter, it was not a kind thing to listen to. She had kept it mostly because she had a bad habit of keeping data until even her datapad's capacious storage was full. Eventually, it would have been deleted, but here and now, it was still available for recall. And the datapad was extremely easy to use. It held no sensitive information, so Zero had never bothered with any protections or encryptions. It held saved news reports, data files from scholarly publications, hundreds of books, saved fanfiction… and most damningly of all, from the perspective of keeping her origins secret, it had a date function. A fact Zero had entirely forgotten.

"Hey, Zero!" Axl stumbled to a halt in front of the red Hunter. Zero had his back to a wall and was leaning against it, his arms crossed. "What's with the long face?" Zero was looking at nothing, yet seemed grim. He slowly glanced over at Axl.

"X is visiting Alia." He said. That brief sentence was enough to wilt Axl in his tracks.

Alia was human, but no one had seen anything wrong with her and X getting involved. X being who he was, he wasn't about to be concerned with Alia's frailer body. And there was always the simple fact that X fought constantly. When someone brought up the possible difference in their lifespans, X had only joked about her outliving him if the Mavericks kept plugging away at it. Surely the Mavericks would get lucky someday.

It had all turned distinctly unfunny a year ago. Alia had been feeling tired and weak for months, before she finally passed out at her station. They had rushed her to the hospital, and she had been diagnosed with leukemia.

After that, there were no more jokes. At first, everyone in HQ had come and brought flowers, candy and well wishes. Now, a year later, Alia's condition had deteriorated severely and the people who visited her were mostly X, Axl, Zero and her own family.

"Does she like the game I gave her?" Axl tried to stay cheerful, although it was hard. Zero managed a thin smile.

"X said she loves it. Keeps her busy." Hospital stays were insanely boring, as almost every Hunter knew. They had all had the unpleasant experience of being stuck in the repair bay for days with nothing to do but twiddling thumbs. Alia had sometimes been allowed to go home, but the cancer just kept progressing. She had been through dozens of treatments, but none seemed to work for very long.

The two of them fell silent for a moment. They didn't go with X to see Alia very often… they were deeply in love, still, and needed private time. Instead, Axl and Zero went together at different times. They would be going to see her tomorrow, but it was still depressing to think about.

Zero, there's a message for you from the research team looking into that strange circle. They want to talk to you right away, preferably in person. Zero blinked as Layer's voice came over his communicator. The Hunters had been interested in that strange phenomenon, but only in a peripheral, 'is this going to matter to us?' way. What could they want with him?

"I wonder what that's about?" Zero mused, then glanced at Axl. "Want to come along?" Axl brightened.

"Sure!" That sounded more interesting than hanging around the HQ. They got the address off of Layer, and did a quick teleport over.

"Maverick Hunter Zero! I was so hoping you would come!" The man running the project, a tall scientist with a name tag reading "Martin Cortez" on his chest smiled brightly at them, offering Zero a hand. They shook hands, quickly, then he shook hands with Axl. "I'm Dr. Cortez."

"I'm Axl." Axl offered with a grin. He wasn't nearly as well known as Zero, and he didn't expect people to recognize him on sight, although some did.

"Sir!" A woman bounced into the lobby. She was short, with bright gold hair and laughing eyes. She was also wearing a lab coat, but the nametag read Karen Delacroix. "We've found some really interesting…" Her attention was diverted to Zero, and her eyes widened as she made a small 'oh' sound. "Wow! We should show him message 3 first!"

"What?" Dr. Cortez frowned, confused, and she gestured rapidly.

"Oh look at him sir! He really MUST be that mans' father! The resemblance is just amazing!"

"Say what?" Zero said, taken aback, as Axl stared at her with wide-eyes. "Uh, I happen to be a Reploid, I'm not anyone's father." That was a truly bizarre notion. The woman bounced on her feet, and gripped his arm, pulling him into another room.

"But you might be!" She ignored the garbled protests of her fellow doctor, dragging a bemused Zero over to… he wasn't sure what. It looked like a small hand held device connected to a silvery octagon. They were both lying on the floor, with plenty of room around them. Technicians were working on something else, a partly disassembled box. "We found all these things inside that strange circle, in a little home. The circle is really odd… we took core samples, and we think it extends deep into the earth, maybe two miles deep if it's a perfect circle. But anyway, we found this-"

"Karen, do you MIND?" Dr. Cortez interrupted, his face slightly red. "I AM in charge here."

"Oh, pooh." Karen said, completely unrepentant. But she stepped back with a smile, and gave Axl an urchin grin as he giggled. "Alright, you tell him, you old fogy."

"Thank you," he said sourly, then cleared his throat. "While we are not sure what caused the circular phenomenon, we are certain of what it did. The circular area was sent back in time from the year 31XX." That surprised both Zero and Axl, who looked at the equipment with far more respect.

"How do you know?" Axl asked curiously, and Dr. Cortez smiled, gesturing at the small datapad.

"That has a date function. It also has a treasure trove of information on it, although not much of it will be too useful… mostly books, history, news articles-"

"I still think we should take the books to a publisher," Karen volunteered with a grin. "We could all be stinking, filthy rich! There are hundreds of them, and a lot of them aren't too dated." Dr. Cortez gave her a quelling look, then cleared his throat again.

"AS I was saying, there were also, ahem, personal messages. This seems to be a bit like a PDA… most of the messages were not addressed by name, except for one. We would like to play that for you-"

"No, no no! Play message three first!" Karen said to their assistant, who hesitated, looking between the doctors. Dr. Cortez heaved a deep sigh.

"Oh, fine, play your favorite message," he said, resigned. Zero and Axl both stared as the hologram was activated.

It was of a young man, or at least, he appeared to be young. He had very short blond hair and bright blue eyes, and Zero blinked as he saw the resemblance. This young man had a much larger nose, and he wasn't nearly as handsome, but anyone looking at him and Zero together would think they were related.

"Hi, parental unit!" The hologram spoke cheerfully, and Zero was impressed with its quality. It was as if the man was standing in the room with them. "How's prison life suiting you? Mom always did say you were trouble; it was what she loved about you. What's Earth like? I've always wanted to visit it, but no tourist spots, alas! You might be interested in what Sibi's up to, she…" The rest of the message was full of amusing anecdotes about his children, his work… apparently, this man was a doctor at a hospital… and finally… "I love you, dad, even if you're insane. As soon as you get out, look me up… the kids all want to see you." The message shut off, and the hologram disappeared.

"So why are you playing this for me? I admit he looks like me, but…" Zero trailed off, unable to imagine how he could be someone's father, even far in the future. And the message had been to a mother… Dr. Cortez gestured to the assistant, and a second message ran. It was a beautiful young woman with thick, lustrous brown hair, wearing what Axl thought was probably a very stylish dress for the future. The styles had changed so much he couldn't be sure… the colors of it seemed to shift as she moved. The expression on her face was severe.

"Zero, you are an utter disgrace," she got to the point immediately, and Zero stiffened as Axl gasped. "I can't believe I have you for a father! You are-" The rest was a harangue about how bad it made her look at work, and Zero snorted in disgust.

"Can you shut that off? She's seriously annoying." The technician did that with a slightly relieved expression. It was painful to watch, a little like a train wreck. "So that's why you wanted me… do you really think they could somehow be my kids?"

"We suspect so," Dr. Cortez replied. "Not only that, you seemed to be, um, in prison. All the recent messages seem to be sympathetic ones wishing you well in your, ah, incarceration. One of them mentions stealing an Er-ship to try and explore something called the Milaunder Cluster. We're not sure what that's all about. The messages also refer to the owner as both mother and father, which is a bit puzzling. Perhaps some kind of sex changing ability"

"But we think the owner of all this is probably here!" Karen butted in, smiling brightly. "The house showed signs of habitation, and we found footprints from it leading out into the forest." Axl suddenly gasped, and gripped Zero's arm.

"Zero, Rose… Roze! Spell it with a Z and it's an anagram of your name!" Fairly obvious, when he pointed it out. Zero's eyes widened. "And she looked like you!" Axl had mentioned that when he described her, but had assumed it was pure coincidence. "And that's how she knew all about Lumine and the program and…" Axl suddenly sobered. "What she said about you killing me…" Zero winced at the thought. He hadn't liked hearing that piece of information, especially since Axl was certain Rose had been right. And the research scientists had found traces of the download she had destroyed, on checking Axl's systems.

"You know this person?" Dr. Cortez brightened. "We desperately want to speak to him… her… some of this technology is so advanced, we can't make head or tail of it. Even something as simple as that!" Zero followed his gesture to a chunk of metal setting on a table. It seemed like it had been torn from something else. "It's made of a completely unknown material. No weapon we have can make a dent in it."

"And we really want to see what advances there have been in Reploid technology," Karen said brightly. "If she's even a Reploid at all, since all these messages are from children and grandchildren! Maybe she's something else entirely." Zero couldn't help but roll his eyes.

"That'd make me avoid you, that's for sure." He said dryly, confusing both the doctors. "Nevermind. If we see her, we'll let you know, but we're too busy to go hunting for her."

"That's fine," Karen answered, smiling. "We were expecting this person might make contact with you. Please, let us know if she does!"

"We will," Zero promised, and started out… but Axl lingered a bit to talk to Karen. After a few moments, Axl came out beaming. Zero blinked at him. "What, did you ask her on a date?"

"Yes, and she said yes!" He said cheerfully. "For Friday evening. Isn't that great?"

"Ha!" Zero grinned. "Well, she seems like your type. Good luck on that. Let's teleport back…"

Once they were back at Maverick Hunter HQ, something occurred to Axl. He hesitated a moment, then looked at Zero.

"Z… remember how he said that material was so strong, nothing we had could make a dent in it?"

"Yeah, why?" Zero tilted his head, wondering what Axl's point was. Axl looked very serious.

"It looked like it was tore off something, to me. By an explosion. What could have done that?" Zero was briefly silent, then sighed.

"You would have to mention that…" Suddenly, the future did not look very bright.