An Explosive Clashing of Rivals

- Part 3: Reunion? -

That was when Haruhi completely lost her mind.

I don't mean her identifying the girl who was hiding behind Sasaki as Yuki Nagato. I mean, there were obvious differences – instead of the crystalline cool, unshakable "No Reaction Girl" who had been our most successful client, this trembling girl with an unkempt mop of short hair looked ready to burst into tears at the slightest provocation, and she wore glasses – but all the same, I had to agree with Haruhi: It was her. Somehow, our beloved impassive songstress had hidden herself away as an innocuous employee of Warm Tones Studio.

When I say Haruhi lost her mind, what I'm talking about is lunging forward with a cry of "Yuki!" and throwing her arms around Nagato. Right in the middle of a public thoroughfare, mind you, and right in front of the gaping eyes of our rivals.

"I missed you so much!" she gushed into Nagato's ear, oblivious to the fact that the woman she was embracing had gone rigid with bewildered terror. "And this time, you're back with us for good, aren't you? The first time we met, it wasn't quite right – it wasn't what Mr. Destiny wanted. But this is the moment we were meant to meet, I can feel it! And with you back on our side, nothing can stop us!" She squeezed Nagato harder, nuzzling her shoulder like she was an estranged daughter who'd just returned home.

"Guh... guh..." Nagato swallowed, then pitched out an ear-piercing scream and began flailing her arms out to the sides like a character in a bad anime, or more realistically, like she desperately wanted to smack Haruhi off of her but was too terrified to actually hit her.

"Wow! You usually aren't this loud unless you've got a microphone in hand, Yuki!"

Asahina dove in and grabbed Haruhi's left shoulder with one hand, planting the other hand on Nagato's shoulder for leverage to pry her off. "Alright, that's enough! Let her go!"

Haruhi had all the fabled strength of the insane, and it was obvious that Asahina was taking care not to hurt Nagato, so another pair of hands was needed. Besides, I felt ashamed enough that I hadn't been the first one to take action. I went at Nagato's backside, prying at Haruhi's fingers so that Asahina could more easily pull her off.

I didn't pay enough attention to Nagato's flailing arms, and I caught a good one right in the nose, enough to make me shout a word I should never shout in the presence of women. Our teamwork paid off, though, and me and Asahina ultimately separated Haruhi from the target of her affections.

Upon which, Nagato retreated to the cover of Sasaki's shoulder, and Haruhi promptly jerked her hands out of mine. "Geez! What's your problem?"

"Are you trying to get the police's attention?" I shot back. "What do you think people are going to make of a woman screaming like that?"

Haruhi flushed and looked away. "Okay, okay, so sue me. I got a little emotional."

Sasaki sighed and shook her head. "This is exactly why Ms. Nagato hides behind me when we encounter strangers. So many people mistake her for the Yuki Nagato."

"Hold it," I said. "You're telling me that this woman, who looks exactly like Yuki Nagato except for the glasses and the way she has her hair combed, is named Yuki Nagato, but is a completely different person from the famous idol?"

"Strange coincidences do come along now and then."

"That's a severe understatement. Weren't you the one who told me that no matter how much we might wish for miracles and strange occurrences, the world is persistently normal?"

She flicked a lock of her hair derisively. "You've got it backwards. If she really were the idol singer Yuki Nagato, returned from her disappearance that the tabloids profit from characterizing as 'mysterious', that might be considered a strange occurrence, at least at first glance. But a different woman who looks like the idol singer Yuki Nagato and shares her name is just a coincidence, of the sort that inevitably pop up in a world with 7 billion people."

"Just a coincidence, huh?" Haruhi nodded at her. "I see. They do happen, I guess."

Haruhi now had a very strange and terrifying expression on her face. It reminded me of the poker night SO3 Studio had last year. The cards were consistently not coming my way, so I finally resorted to raising 10,000 yen on a pair of jacks with only one card left to draw. Haruhi had that same inscrutable look on her face when she said, "Oh well... I've laid too much money on this hand to fold now."

I turned to Nagato. "Sorry about that. She wouldn't have hurt you, honest." She was looking at me with almost as much fear as she looked at Haruhi with, but I pressed on: "I know it probably seemed like a crazy fangirl attack, but Yuki Nagato was more than just another idol on our roster. She was our friend."

"I..." Nagato looked at me with wide but gentle, soothing eyes. I caught a glimmer of the Yuki Nagato I knew, in more than just her appearance. "...I understand." She nodded.

"So when Haruhi saw you, she couldn't help but get excited."

"I understand," she said again. "I'm sorry I screamed and hit you."

"Don't worry about it," I laughed. It was kind of funny, now that I thought about it, that she'd overreacted so badly. The Nagato we knew would never have acted like that in a million years. Besides, it was such a relief to have the crisis averted, I couldn't help but laugh. I'd have to thank Asahina for his help later. It seemed that in addition to being an exceptionally pleasant person to be around, he was a handy guy to have with you in a pinch. I wondered if I could convince Sasaki to trade him for Koizumi.

"Nonetheless, in honor of your namesake and her great service to SO3 Studio," Haruhi said, obviously not having heard a word of the exchange between me and Nagato, "...you are welcome to join our exciting agency! If you don't want to be an idol, we can offer you a position as our public relations representative."

It felt like the entire street had turned to ice.

Did... did Haruhi just try to poach an employee of the top talent agency in Japan? Right in front of four other employees of the agency, including the president? Right after she'd scared that employee half to death? And with a starting offer of the same position that I was repeatedly denied a promotion to after working for this agency for over two years?

Nagato fidgeted and squeaked out something about how that was nice of her but Asahina and Tachibana were her friends and she couldn't... I didn't really hear anything beyond that, because I was squeezing my head to keep it from exploding at the volume of tactlessness. "Haruhi, you can't just ask someone to leave their job right in front of their boss and co-workers."

"Huh? Why not? She has to give them notice anyway, doesn't she?"

"You're assuming that she wants to leave them at all. Are you even listening to what she's saying right now?"

"Of cou-"

We were interrupted by the sound of Sasaki laughing. Which was unusual enough in itself, but this was no normal everyday laughter. At the risk of being melodramatic, I'd describe it as cruel mocking laughter.

"Sasaki?" I said, a little nervous that we might be attracting attention.

Her laughter clipped off smoothly, like it was a recorded performance she switched off. "You really are perfectly absurd. You think Miss Nagato would leave her job just to climb onto your sinking ship? Your own vice president put in an application to Warm Tones Studio last week."

I turned my head to the other male member of the agency. Annoyingly, Haruhi turned her head to him at the same time. "Koizumi?"

He laughed nervously. "Well, I..."

"Of course, we couldn't offer a vice presidential position to someone with such lacking experience," she continued, as if oblivious to Koizumi's stammered words. "But we could offer you something in the mail room."

Where he'd probably still make more money than he is as vice president of SO3 Studio. A perfectly sensible attempt at a career move, even if the fact that he didn't tell us about it makes him kind of a -

"Backstabbing traitor!" Haruhi thrust an accusatory finger at Koizumi.

He retreated a step. "Miss Suzumiya, I was only preparing for the eventuality of you shutting the agency down."

"Oh, really? I thought you had faith in me!"

Asahina leaned close to Sasaki and said softly, "Miss Sasaki, please. You have to get my sister out of this situation. She'll accept the most modest terms available, but if you'll just commit to a contract -"

Haruhi's head snapped towards him. "I heard that!"

Miss Asahina's brother froze in terror. Poor guy. He'd been pretty quiet – I only heard him because I'd taken a few steps away from Haruhi's explosion – but Haruhi has ears like a cat sometimes.

Her voice took on a dangerous tone. "Are you suggesting that Mikuru would consider leaving SO3 Studio to sign with your agency?"

Asahina didn't look ready to answer that, and that in itself was all the answer you needed, really. He wasn't just suggesting that; he and Miss Asahina had already been discussing it. That was why the awkward moment between them earlier.

Sasaki flicked a lock of her hair. "Miss Suzumiya, you're really astounding me with your ignorance of affairs in your own agency. For months now, Mr. Asahina has been trying to persuade me to sign his sister on to Warm Tones Studio. Her audition was unimpressive, even painful, but they're desperate enough to continue pleading with me after I told them no. I finally decided to give her a second audition. An agency the size of Warm Tones Studio doesn't need to limit itself to potential superstars."

Haruhi looked ready to spew a fireball out of her head and right into Sasaki's face. "You're lying."

Asahina took a step forward, assuming a calm and reasonable frown. "Miss Suzumiya, I realize how you must feel now, but believe me, it was never my nor my sister's intent to -"

"Shut up." Asahina was a brave guy, but Haruhi's tone did not offer the option of retaining all one's vital organs to anyone who contradicted her. He shut up, and Haruhi turned to his sister. "Mikuru, tell me it's not true."

Haruhi's tone was suddenly different. I stepped around her, taking care to maintain a distance of at least a meter, and got a look at her face. Her jaw was clenched, but trembling just slightly, and the look in her eyes gave me the terrifying impression that she was on the verge of tears.

Miss Asahina was quaking like she was being pushed onstage before a full house at Carnegie Hall. "M-M-Miss Suzumiya, I..."

"Not you, Mikuru. Tell me you haven't betrayed me, too."

"I... I was going to tell you... But I wasn't sure they'd have a place for me yet, so..."

"So you didn't want to jeopardize your position at SO3 Studio until you had somewhere else, anywhere else, to go, huh?" She huffed. "Basically, you were only thinking of yourself, not me, or Koizumi, or even Kyon."

"No! That's not true! I -"

"Of course it's true. You already admitted it. Ugh, I hate people trying to back pedal almost as much as I hate traitors!"

"Hmm. It's funny," Sasaki commented. "I'm only now realizing that except for you yourself, Miss Suzumiya, your agency is staffed entirely by my rejects."

What the hell? "Sasaki, that's really not called for. Koizumi and Miss Asahina haven't done anything to you."

She shook her head. "Kyon, if you're assuming that I said that to hurt anyone, then you're the one who's being uncharitable. All I said was the truth. If the truth hurts anyone, then they should focus on changing themselves instead of blaming me for their inadequacies."

That really wasn't like Sasaki. She was always weird, and blunt in her philosophy, but she knew that other people didn't think like her and she was considerate of that. Now she was acting like what other people thought didn't even matter.

I had no time to confront that issue, though, because Haruhi's anger gauge looked like it was rising to an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10, which was equivalent to about a 14 on any normal human's gauge.

"It is the truth, isn't it?" She glared at no one in particular. "All of you are traitors to SO3 Studio, vile leeches only sticking around until you can get a position somewhere else! And after I – after I went through so much to put all of us on the map!"

Koizumi was stupid enough to be the first to open his mouth. "Miss Suzumiya, I -"

"You're fired!" She thrust a finger in his face. "Effective immediately, with no severance pay and no retirement package!"

Good grief. Just the thought of working for Haruhi at retirement age makes me feel a stroke coming on.

"You're all fired! SO3 Studio will be reborn, and I will assemble a team of more talented, more hardworking, more faithful employees, and together we will send Warm Tones Studio into total annihilation! We'll see who's laughing then!"

She strode off with her shoulders set back.

That woman watched one hundred too many cartoons growing up. Also, no one laughed in the first place.

"You should probably go after her," Koizumi said to me.

"No, I definitely shouldn't." I didn't need to have seen that particular stride of Haruhi's or that particular set of her shoulders before to know that the last thing she wanted right now was for someone to follow her. She'd been caught completely flat-footed by the revelations of the past minute, and she hadn't had time to prepare a proper mask for her emotions. "I'm kind of attached to my vital organs. Anyway, she'll be fine by tomorrow morning."

"That was... interesting." Sasaki held a hand over her mouth, giving the disturbing impression that she was hiding a smirk. "If that's what your boss is like, Kyon, I almost wonder why you haven't applied with my outfit yourself. But then you've always lacked the confidence to try for anything higher than the bottom of the barrel. Well, I'm sure we'll see you around."

She strode past us, not even giving me a side glance. Tachibana, who I was now noticing hadn't said a single thing through the whole confrontation, paused to hand me a business card, then continued following Sasaki. Maybe she interpreted Sasaki's last few remarks as an offer to apply for a job with them.

I'm 95% sure that interpretation was wrong. My breakup with Sasaki was not of the "Let's just be friends" variety, and nothing in the encounter we'd just had led me to believe that my long absence had made her heart grow any fonder.

Kuyoh Suoh shot an apologetic glance at Koizumi, Miss Asahina, and me, but also hurried along after Sasaki. Nagato and Asahina both remained behind, though Nagato cast a worried glance in Sasaki's direction, as though wondering if she might be fired for not immediately following.

"Allow me to apologize on our boss's behalf," Asahina said. "I wish I could say that she's not usually like that, but I'm afraid that's her manner and there's no changing it."

Except that it did change. Sasaki wasn't like that when I knew her.

"It's very likely a part of how she rose so quickly to the top," Koizumi said. "Ruthlessness can be a good asset in business. Besides, I don't think we can claim our boss's behavior was any better. Nor that we ourselves are less to blame for her anger than Miss Sasaki is."

"Don't say that. My sister is under no obligation to give her agency notice before she has another offer on the table, nor are you required to give notice every time you search for a different job. Miss Suzumiya's anger is understandable, but unjustified."

"I second that," I said. "Don't let her make you feel guilty, Miss Asahina."

"Thank you..." She smiled shakily. "But... When I auditioned at Warm Tones Studio, I didn't know Miss Suzumiya was going to enter me into the competition. She was pinning her hopes on me... and even if I didn't mean to, I let her down..."

"She has herself to blame for that. Even if you stuck with SO3 Studio, there's no way we could have you prepared to win the competition in time, not with the late notice she gave us. At worst, she's just disappointed a little earlier."

"Even if I...? Kyon, no! I have to stick with SO3 Studio now!"

My heart felt a burst of warm hope at that, even if my brain was thinking the same thing her brother was now saying: "You can't seriously be thinking about canceling your second audition! The way your boss is treating you is unacceptable!"

"But she didn't always treat me like that... and I..."

She trailed off, and Koizumi interjected, "I think we'd best give Miss Asahina some time to think it over. Clearly she has compelling reasons pulling her in both directions."

Her brother and I both nodded in agreement. The last thing we should be doing in this situation was putting pressure on Miss Asahina. Heck, if it meant she would have to keep putting up with Haruhi's bad side, I wasn't even sure I wanted Miss Asahina to stay with us.

"I'll see you later, then, Miku," Asahina said, and waved goodbye to us.

Nagato's eyes darted over me, Koizumi, and Miss Asahina. "Um... I'm sorry about all this... And, um, if any of you end up coming to work with Warm Tones Studio, I'd be very happy to have you as my co-workers!" She said this last part in a rush, then darted off so quickly that she caught her foot on a lamppost, screamed in dismay, and nearly did a face plant right on the sidewalk. She would have if Asahina hadn't darted over and caught her.

"We've learned to keep a close watch over Miss Nagato," he said to us with a smile.

Nagato blushed and walked away with him in silence.

"Hmm." Koizumi smiled. "Definitely not the Yuki Nagato we knew."

I frowned. "Huh. I wonder..." It couldn't really be a coincidence, could it? On top of everything else, there was Haruhi's prediction that we would meet Nagato again. Not that I believed in that cosmic bunk, but wasn't running into a perfect namesake/lookalike Yuki Nagato after Haruhi made a prediction like that by sheer coincidence even weirder?

Then again, if that was the Yuki Nagato we knew, why was she acting so differently? Did she not want to associate with us anymore, or get out of the limelight of stardom, so she was pretending to be someone different? No; if that were the case, she would be using a different name, too. That also pretty much ruled out amnesia. Although... if she had i.d. on her when she lost her memory, maybe...

Gah! What sort of nonsense am I thinking? Fated reunions, superstars going incognito, amnesia? If I put those thoughts in my dating profile, I'd get matched with Haruhi in a nanosecond.

I didn't sleep very well that night. I had the whole mystery of Yuki Nagato spinning around my head, a fresh reminder of the fact that we were going against some serious competition in this idol contest, the revelation of Koizumi's attempted betrayal, and grave worries about how Miss Asahina's dilemma could be resolved, yet on top of all that I managed to fret over Haruhi meeting Sasaki. As if that even mattered.

Dammit, why did I ever start going out with Sasaki in the first place?

Haruhi hadn't specified a time we were supposed to show up at the SO3 Studio office, and though common sense would suggest that it was 9 a.m. like on weekdays, I put that aside and indulged the morning sluggishness that proceeded from my poor sleep. I finally lurched into SO3 Studio at about 10:20.

I blinked. Something wasn't quite right here. No one else seemed to be in the office that I could see. And wait, hadn't I just seen...?

I darted back outside the office to find Koizumi and Miss Asahina standing there. Miss Asahina was looking at me with a strange sort of concern. Koizumi smiled. "We were wondering when you were going to notice us. Before that, we were wondering when you were going to show up. I gather that you are having trouble waking up this morning?"

"What's going on?" I managed to say without yawning. "Why are you guys out here?"

"Miss Suzumiya objected rather strenuously to our going in there. It seems she is holding to her declaration that we are fired."

"...You're joking." Not even Haruhi is that rash.

But Miss Asahina was fervently shaking her head, and I knew that angelic face would never tell a joke in such poor taste. "I thought we should just leave, but Mr. Koizumi convinced me that when you got here, you should be able to calm her down."

"Since when have I ever been able to calm Haruhi down? Any time I try to talk sense, it just makes her angrier and angrier."

"Not so." Koizumi sounded almost offended at my statement. "You may not be able to make her lower the volume of her voice – at least, not yet – but Miss Suzumiya always gives serious consideration to everything you say to her." I opened my mouth to object to that, but my half-asleep brain wasn't fast enough to get anything out in time. "She may argue vehemently with you at great length, and she may even still disagree with you in the end, but all the while she is giving serious thought to everything you say. She follows your advice too often for there to be any other explanation. And whatever the outcome, she is in her own way calm and reasonable with you. It may not seem that way from your perspective, but to Miss Asahina and I, the difference is apparent."

"...Okay, whatever, just stop talking, okay?" I am way too tired for this. "You just want me to try to talk sense into her, right? Fine. I'm stubborn enough to want to try that anyway."

"Excellent."

"Oh, thank you, Kyon!" Miss Asahina bowed.

"Why does it matter to you?" I asked her. "Don't you want to join Warm Tones Studio anyway?"

"There's no guarantee that I'd pass the audition," she sighed. "Besides, whatever happens, I can't leave like this... with Miss Suzumiya angry at me."

"...I think I understand..." On any other day, I would probably have understood without doubt or hesitation, but right then, my brain was dead tired.

I wandered back into the office. There still seemed to be no one else there; the boss's desk was vacant.

"Yo, Haruhi," I called.

No answer.

Maybe she was taking an early lunch break. I headed to the office kitchen, passing between the filing cabinets.

The kitchen was empty. What the hell? Koizumi and Miss Asahina implied that they'd been waiting by the door the whole time, so they would have seen her if she walked out. Had she climbed out a window or something?

Then a stern voice said right in my ear, "What are you doing here?"

"Ya-ya-ya-yaaaaaaaugh!" I screamed, involuntarily backing into a file cabinet and flailing my arms.

Lying on her side atop a row of filing cabinets, her head propped up on her elbow, dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt that she had lazily allowed to ride up past her naval, was my boss.

I was definitely feeling more awake now. "What am I doing here! What the hell are you doing up there?!"

"Reading, obviously," she said, waving a copy of Anna Karenina in front of her. It stole very little attention from her bared stomach. Ordinarily I have the common decency to keep my gaze on a woman's eyes in situations like this (which isn't even difficult in Haruhi's case, because her face is the most attractive part of her body), but my brain was still struggling to run on four hours sleep, so it was soaking in the sight of a part of Haruhi's body that it didn't get to see every weekday. Noticing this, Haruhi's frown turned to an outright scowl, and she tugged her t-shirt down to obstruct the view. "Answer my question! What are you doing here?"

"You told us yesterday that we had to come in today, remember?"

"That was before I fired you, idiot!"

"Fired me?" My bafflement was now being rivaled by anger. "Have you completely lost your mind? I work my ass off for you more than five days a week, for no pay, and I've never disobeyed even your most insane orders! Why the hell would you fire me?"

She turned her head from me and said in a surprisingly (if only relatively) quiet voice, "You betrayed me."

"What are you talking about? Nobody betrayed you. Koizumi and Miss Asahina were just looking into other options, which I think you could understand given the lack of paychecks you've provided them lately, and I don't see how you can say with a straight face that I've betrayed you when I haven't so much as picked up an application for any other company!"

"Not yet, maybe. But I'm sure you'll want to get a job at your girlfriend's company sooner rather than later."

"Ex-girlfriend! Dammit, does every relevant word in a conversation just go in one ear and out the other with you?!"

She still wasn't looking me in the eye. "She's only your ex-girlfriend because she dumped you. You're still in love with her, aren't you."

I was never in love with her. But I didn't say that out loud. Tired as I was, keeping that part silent came automatic to me. "You have lost it. You have really, completely lost it. You're saying you've fired me because you found out I once got dumped?"

"What does it matter why I fired you!" She glared down at me from her filing cabinet throne. "SO3 Studio has no money, no other employees, and no clients, so there's nothing here for you to do here anyway! Why don't you just leave?"

I folded my arms. "If there's no hope for SO3 Studio, then what are you doing here, especially on a Saturday?"

She blinked. "What am I doing here?"

I nodded.

Her eyes narrowed. Grasping the edge of the file cabinets with both hands, she leaned over until her face was right in mine and screamed, "I live here, you idiot!"

...Oh, right.

Damn it, brain, aren't you ever going to wake up today?

"Is this why you came here?" Her eyes were like lit coals. "To mock your fallen company president? To point out for me that everyone has betrayed me, that I have no money to hire new employees, that nobody wants to be my client, and that I'm living in an office space?"

If it were anyone else, I would have felt sorry for them. I would probably have told them that they had gotten a pretty raw deal, but it wasn't as bad as it seemed, and I would help them get through it.

But not Haruhi Suzumiya. Because I knew that Haruhi Suzumiya did not give up. Ever. Not even for a second. So her current tirade had only one possible interpretation: She was having a pity party for herself, and she expected me to join in.

Not going to happen. "Are you done?" I said. "Because nothing has changed since yesterday morning, when you were all gung ho about Miss Asahina winning the Ultra Stars of the Future idol competition. Koizumi, Miss Asahina, and I are still all on your team, and we're ready to fight for victory. That's why we all showed up today, on a weekend. The only thing new is we now know about Warm Tones Studio and Kuyoh Suoh. But they're just another competitor, and I know you weren't expecting to not face any competition in this thing. If you thought there wouldn't be any competitors for us to beat, you wouldn't have been interested in it in the first place." I held a hand up to her, probably to help her down; I was really too tired to be conscious of my every motive. "Come on. We haven't got much time left before the competition, and Miss Asahina is counting on you to give her a winning training regimen."

She slapped my hand away. "You expect me to help her, after what she did? I brought her up out of nothing, made her! I supported her through thick and thin, with thin being most of it! Then she stabbed me in the back for another company the first chance she got!"

"Well, that's some revisionist history." I wanted to slap her right back. She could say what she wanted about me, but a sweet woman like Miss Asahina didn't deserve this nonsense. "You supported her? You dropped her like a worn-out coat as soon as Yuki Nagato showed up. So long as Nagato was with us, Miss Asahina was lucky when you even mentioned her to a promoter or casting director. So don't criticize her for wanting to abandon you for greener pastures when you already did that to her."

"What are you talking about? I never abandoned Mikuru!" Her face was starting to twitch. "She just... got a little lost in the shuffle now and then, that's all!"

"Right. It must have been confusing, having two different clients to shuffle through."

"Get out! Now!"

"If you could look at it from her perspective for -"

"I said get out!" She hefted Anna Karenina at me. "You don't belong here! This is my office, and I say non-employees are not welcome!"

I could see that she meant it. What little willingness Haruhi had to listen had been turned off. "Fine."

I turned and walked back to the office door, hating her more in that moment than I ever had before. Abusing Miss Asahina the way she did and taking me and Koizumi for granted was bad enough, but I had never thought she'd be willing to throw away everything we had together rather than admit that any of us had reason to even consider working for a different boss.

But as I reached the door, I realized that her view of me was now largely blocked by the other row of filing cabinets. So I couldn't resist one parting shot: "Maybe if you spent just one minute thinking of someone other than yourself, it would have occurred to you that Miss Asahina only wanted to join Warm Tones Studio so that she could be with her brother."

"Get out!" Despite her obscured view, Anna Karenina struck just a half dozen centimeters to my right, making me flinch.

For a second I thought to press my advantage now that she had expended her ammo, but then I remembered that those filing cabinets she was reclining on were filled with accordion files holding twice as many pages as Anna Karenina, so I darted out and shut the door behind me. An instant later, the door shuddered with the impact of a month's worth of paperwork.

Author's notes: I'm well into part four of this story right now, so we're on track to keep up the monthly schedule. In fact, I'd like to put up part 4 about a week earlier; this monthly schedule feels too slow to me nowadays. Also, while visiting my sister for Thanksgiving, the last pieces of the plot fell together very nicely, so if I can just get cranking out prose at proper speed I'll be back in the swing of things. Oh, and it turns out that this is going to be a five-part story. Hopefully that's not a problem. I always appreciate the reviews, so please drop me one letting me know what you think.