Zero dipped out a tiny bit of Beluga caviar, spreading it sparingly on a piece of toast. A few chopped eggs, capers and chives joined it, and she slowly ate it with immense enjoyment. In her time, the cyborg race had colonized hundreds of planets. Each had very interesting native lifeforms, many of which were edible… and most of which tasted utterly foul. Biochemistry was much easier to satisfy than the elusive quality of taste. But with hundreds of worlds to pick from, a dozen species had filled the caviar nitch. Not the original fish, though. This was the first time Zero had ever tasted the original caviar, which had disappeared along with Earth's devastated ecosystem. And it was every bit as good as she had expected.

She grinned to herself as she remembered Spider's expression when she ordered it. She had ordered an ounce of it, at current market prices… which were about a hundred and fifty five dollars an ounce. That was extravagant, even for the flamboyant bounty hunter. She'd given him a sweet smile, took his hand, and quietly told him they could split the bill. He'd gallantly, (if a trifle weakly) offered to pay it all, but she had insisted. Zero was sure Spider was secretly very relieved, especially when she also ordered a bottle of ice wine, to complement the caviar.

So now they were sharing caviar, sipping ice wine and chatting quietly. It was light conversation, about their preferences in books… although Zero had some trouble keeping that going properly. Spider liked the same kind of books she did, but he had naturally never heard of most of the books she knew well. They hadn't been written yet.

Midway through the appetizer, they ordered the main course… Salmon Nicoise for Zero, and butter poached Lobster over Truffled Risotto for Spider. They also decided on the dessert, Crepes Suzzette. Authentic salmon was something else Zero hadn't tasted since before the final war. They had depended too much on vulnerable spawning sites, and it had ended badly for the fragile fish. Lobster, on the other hand, had come through swimmingly. Pun intended.

"So, Rose, why don't you tell me a bit about yourself?" Spider finally said with a small smile, his red eyes twinkling. "And how you know me, sort of." Zero grinned, remembering her comment to him earlier.

She's been considering what to tell him all day, and had finally decided to tell him almost everything. Not everything… that would have taken far too long, she had a thousand years of history… but the main points. She wanted, needed someone to confide in, someone to help her hammer out some real plans. She had a few vague ideas, but eliminating Sigma permanently was going to be a real challenge, even for her. His ability to bail out of bodies was a real problem.

"Mmm… well, you see, I met someone who was pretending to be you last year." She smiled, amused, and ate another piece of toast and caviar, this time with sour cream and chives. "In Giga City, during the Rebellion. You might want to watch yourself a bit… X and Zero think you're a scumbag." Spider was too suave to choke on his wine, but he swallowed a much larger mouthful than most people did of expensive, sweet ice wine. "They also think you're Redips."

"…Who?" Spider frowned. "Wait, that's my name spelt backward…" Zero smiled, pleased with how quick he was. It had taken them much longer to clue in… but then, Spider had a few more clues than they had.

"Exactly. Here, it went like this…" Zero quickly outlined the whole situation for her fascinated audience. She didn't much conceal her part in it… it was quite clear, from her story, that she'd fought beside X. "…So the short part is, they think you're scum and they'll try to kill you on sight."

"Wonderful," Spider said with a small sigh. "I suppose I'll have to contact them." He had no desire to be on the Hunter hit list. Although… "Who are you? A Hunter?" His face was smooth, professionally bland, but his eyes were puzzled. Her story only made sense if she were, but how would she be speaking to him now if that were so?

"Well, yes, I was." Zero said, then hesitated. It sounded stupid, but… "I'm from the future. The year 31XX, in fact… and I'm Zero." Spider looked at her expressionlessly for a moment, then his gaze dropped down to her chest. It wasn't a lingering look, or anything uncouth, but Zero got the message. "I know, I know, but when you're a thousand years old sexual identity looses its importance."

"I'll take your word for it," Spider said, a hint of amusement in his voice. "I don't suppose you have any proof of this?" Zero smiled slowly at that gentle challenge. She reached over, resting her hand in Spiders'.

"Well, there is a strange circle of land with my name on it… but if you want more direct proof…" She said lightly, and Spider suddenly went utterly still under her hand. She smiled as he stared down… at the tiny, semi-organic tendrils that had extruded from her flesh, and were delicately caressing his wrist. As he watched, the tendrils disappeared, swallowed up into her body.

"How did you do that?" Spider said with admirable calm. Some Reploids had tentacles, but as part of their design. Not forming themselves directly from their flesh. Zero shrugged.

"My body is saturated with nanotech, more advanced than anything you have now. Reforming myself isn't difficult… although a full sex change takes a day." Spider took that outrageous statement with remarkable calm.

"I see," he said, trying another piece of caviar. His expression was very serious as he asked his next question. "What is the future like?" Zero paused, thinking. How should she answer that?

"In 31XX… frankly, it's a paradise. X would love it, although our environmental conservation techniques would probably horrify him." Zero smiled with amusement at the thought. The future societies method of dealing with alien ecosystems was to engineer desirable food plants so they could survive the basic environment… heat, oxygen levels, etc. Then they released the flora and fauna, and stood back with a notebook to watch what happened. That was usually a quick demise for all the introduced species, but then they would take the data, reengineer the species and try again. About half ended up being accepted, in the end. "I was in jail when that circle happened, actually. I stole an Er-ship to go exploring." That had been stupid, and she'd known it, but it had also been fun. Zero sighed, and looked down into her wineglass. "I'm going to miss my kids." That startled Spider.

"Kids? Aren't you a Reploid?" That was puzzling. Zero shook her head with a smile.

"No, not anymore. Reploids and humans don't really exist anymore, in 31XX." Zero took a sip of her wine, then frowned. "I suppose it would be possible to shut off the nanites and produce a real human fetus, or build a Reploid… but why bother? They'd just be transferred later. We call ourselves Terrans now, as a race."

"I see. Well, do you have any words of wisdom from the future?" Spider asked with a smile, eyes twinkling. Zero took his hand in a tight grip, and looked at him earnestly.

"Only one… five years from now, in August, in the history I knew, you would have been taking a monorail in Detroit. I don't know where you were going or why, but that monorail derailed. Just… stupid maintenance issues that somehow slipped through the cracks. And everyone aboard died." She squeezed his hand, making him wince faintly at the strength of her grip. "Don't be there this time." Spider was briefly silent, shocked by this revelation of his future death and how it would have happened.

"I won't," he finally murmured, squeezing her hand back. They stared into each other's eyes for a long moment, and Zero felt a faint thrill of excitement. Spider was really quite sexy, and it had been a while…

The waiter… Zero wasn't sure what else to call him, although she was sure there was some kind of fancy name for the position, in a restaurant like this… brought the main course. Zero listened, interested, as he told them a bit about the dishes. She had received this kind of personal attention before… the dining experience hadn't changed much… but it was always a pleasure.

"Tell me… what happens with Sigma?" Spider asked her curiously. "What are the main events?" Zero considered that, then gave him a rundown of the main points.

"Well, there are several more wars and incidents with Sigma before he's finally destroyed entirely. Then, after that, a lunatic named Dr. Weil starts causing trouble. We were trying to make a new kind of power source, and cyber elves and the mother elf were created… he put a curse on the mother elf, so she became the dark elf and… it is NOT funny." She gave Spider a glare, as he tried to control his expression. Then she sighed. "I know, it sounds stupid. Actually, it was stupid. But anyway, X sacrificed himself to seal in the dark elf. I was put into stasis to… purge me of a virus. Anyway, when I was finally reactivated I had amnesia. Eventually, Dr. Weil was destroyed." She skipped over the whole scenario with Neo Arcadia. It didn't seem worth mentioning, in retrospect. "For maybe a hundred years, there was peace… then the Enemy came. Aliens who wanted to reformat Earth for themselves, they started trying to exterminate us. The war that followed was more vicious than you could possibly imagine. We finally won, but it took maybe ten years to throw them off Earth… then another hundred of warfare in space to completely destroy them."

"You… killed them all?" Spider said, a tiny bit shocked. Zero grinned ferally.

"Why not? They tried to kill us. Actually, we would have spared them if they had surrendered, but they never would. Not even when we had one of their planets at our mercy. Even then, they wouldn't speak to us… we still don't know much about them, culturally." Zero snorted. "Not that we care." After the attempt the Enemy had made to utterly destroy them, no one on Earth had the slightest amount of compassion for the aliens. "As for me ending up in a prison on Earth, galactic society has been at peace for maybe four hundred years. I sometimes make trouble, just for the hell of it."

"I see." Spider gently turned the conversation to other things. Zero chatted about life in the future, and Spider told her some stories about his times as a bounty hunter. She'd heard most of the stories before, but that was fine… it had been so long, they were new again. Although Spider was horrified to find out that in the future, caffeine would be no more.

To her delight, when the meal was coming to a close, they cooked the Crepes Suzzette right beside the table. She had enjoyed them before, but never seen them made, and they were a flambé, it seemed. Zero ate them slowly, drinking the last of the ice wine.

"Wonderful," she sighed. They split the bill, which had come to nearly four hundred dollars, and left an ample tip for the good service. It was still a hefty bill for each of them, but not as painful as either one of them paying the whole thing.

"So, do you play poker?" Spider asked innocently, and Zero smiled.

"Not really… I'm not quite sure of the rules." She gently touched his arm. "Could you teach me?"

"I would be glad to." Spider smiled, tucking her hand into his arm and leading her to the gaming tables.

Several hours later, Spider was bemused. They had left the poker room after she had won several thousand dollars, from a combination of skill and luck. Now they were looking at the statues and other beautiful features of the Luxor as they walked back to her room.

"You don't know the rules?"

"Beginners luck," Zero said serenely, then smiled at Spider innocently. "You surely don't think I would lie about my experience?" Spider considered that, then smiled slowly.

"It occurs to me that after a thousand years, if you've managed to avoid playing poker, you must have led quite a sheltered life."

"That could be, too," she admitted with a small grin. "Perhaps I could make it up to you?"

"Ah? How so?" Spider stopped, and turned her towards him. She smiled sweetly, and touched his cheek.

"Oh, I can think of a way…" They kissed, briefly, before continuing to walk to her room.

Some things could not be done in public, after all.

The next morning, she and Spider were eating at the Pyramid Café when Zero got a particularly rude shock.

She was reading the newspaper, trying to catch up on current events, and Spider was using a PDA to check his messages. He looked up, startled, as she nearly snorted her coffee. Then blinked as she began to quietly swear.

"What's wrong?" He tilted his head, then blinked as she pushed the newspaper towards him. He regarded it for a long moment, then grinned.

"Not the most flattering picture of you. Who is that Reploid you're hanging off of?" Zero glared at him, but couldn't dispute his assessment. The security cameras had caught a picture of her speaking to Douglas, and she looked particularly vacant as she giggled over something he had said.

"That's Douglas. But look at the article!" Spider read it, then shook his head. It included all the salient points about her, the circle that had brought her forward in time, and brightly suggested that anyone who saw her contact a hotline specifically set up for that purpose. "Well, ptth on them. I'll do a physical change later, but for now…" Her DNA copying centres could remain operative for hours at a time… even a full day, if the DNA wasn't too taxing. Zero quickly dispensed with all the curlicues, and assumed a very simple form based on Marino's DNA. Long, green hair reached her waist, and her features were suddenly softer and more feminine. Spider blinked at the abrupt change, then grinned.

"Well, that should solve the problem," he observed, setting the paper down.

"Until I can do a more physical change," Zero agreed, nodding. Given some time, she could darken her hair and alter her features and bearing. "I'm an idiot, though. I left my datapad there!" A horrible thought occurred to her. "That had all my personal messages on it… they must know who I am." The article did not actually state who she was, probably because that information would have been entirely too weird for the public. But they had to know, if they were going to so much trouble to find her. "Oh, wonderful."

"Well, why don't you just go speak to them?" Spider asked reasonably. "Or do you have other plans?" A grin tugged at her lips.

"Oh, indeed I do. I want to get plastered." Spider blinked at that. "I want to have a rip, roaring good time. I want to be in a brawl, I want to go kick Sigma's ass through a wall, I want to play cards with you and spend all my money. Basically, I want to do what I want… at least for a while." She swallowed the last of her coffee. "Maybe I'll grace them with my presence in a month or two. Maybe."

"That sounds like fun. Would you like some company for it?" Spider was flush with money, too, and had no objections to her plans. Even the ones for Sigma. He was willing to bet there was no place in the world safer than beside Zero's side. Zero smiled slowly.

"I would love company." It was what she had been hoping for.