Chapter Ten
"Seiryo-dono, you have my deepest sympathies."
Seiryo knelt at the Emperor's feet, his head bowed as his liege lord gently rested a hand on his shoulder. "Your father was a brave soldier and a solid man. His presence will be missed as sorely at court as it will no doubt be missed in your own home. Please convey my regrets to your poor mother and sister as well. It is a sad day for all Jurai, that pirates should have broken through our defences and commited such a heinous act of violence."
"Honoured Emperor, you are very kind." Seiryo raised his head, an indescribable look on his face. "As you say, this is a harsh blow for all of us. My father departed on a mission to aid my mother's failing health. Now she is a widow and I fear it won't be long before Suki and I have noone to rely on but ourselves. For this reason, Azusa-heika, I wish to seek your permission to return to the Galaxy Police as soon as possible."
"The Galaxy Police?" The man at Azusa's left hand side stood forward at this, casting a confused look at the young man before them as Azusa gestured for Seiryo to stand. "But with your father so recently dead and your mother so unwell, is such an action wise?"
"I must avenge my father's murder, Lord Haru." Seiryo injected anger and despair into his tones, turning his gaze on the Emperor's brother as he did so. "The pirate responsible must be stopped, you must see that. I can't save my father's life but I can bring his killer to justice. It is my duty as his son and my obligation as an Elite Officer in the Galaxy Police."
He hesitated for just the briefest moment, then, in carefully modulated tones he added.
"My father was so proud of my achievements in uniform. This is what he would have asked of me, had he been able to do so."
"I understand the depth of your grief, Seiryo-dono." Azusa spoke gently. "But to go so soon, when the wound is still so fresh...what of your sister, and your poor dear mother? What have they to say in all this?"
"My mother supports my desire to return." Seiryo said stolidly. "And Suki understands why I must do this thing, to preserve the Tennan family honour. She will care for my mother as best she can, Azusa-heika. I only hope you can release me from my duties with the Council of Jurai - at least until this brutal killer is under arrest. That is all I ask, honoured Emperor. A chance to do right by my father and my family by returning to the Galaxy Police and doing my duty as an officer of the law."
"You speak fine, brave words, Seiryo-dono." Azusa smiled. "And I will grant your request. I understand that some wounds heal harder than others...remember, I lost my father in the battle against Kain, so I know your suffering better than you might think I do. Go now, and prepare for your journey. I think you are right - your father would have wanted you to act in his name."
"Thank you, my Lord." Seiryo bowed again, offering another bow to the Emperor's brother, and then withdrawing from the Throne Room, pausing in the corridor outside to gather his thoughts.
"And I thought maybe I'd done my penance with the Police already." He muttered with a sigh. "But at least it's something I can do and am good at. I did hope maybe I'd get to be Lord of the Manor for a while, but considering everything, I suppose this is my safest course of action. At least Suki will be protected this way. And the life of one pointless Earthling is nothing compared to the honour of the Tennan family. Not even if he does have Jurai blood."
He turned on his heel, striding purposefully down the corridors of the Royal Palace towards the main exit without a glance back.
"Besides, manipulating police records should be easy." He mused. "Tokimi said that he was in the company of a convicted space pirate already. She may be reformed, she may have been pardoned - but she's still a space pirate and very few criminals change their spots so completely. Avenging father's murder seems such a pathetic endeavour on it's own, but if I have to implicate this boy in anything, it seems as likely a crime as any to bring him in for. It serves my purpose, if someone else is incarcerated for his death, after all. And besides, the Emperor may trust Ryoko Hakubi now, but I don't. I've seen her police files, before they were erased. I know what she's done and what she potentially is still capable of. In all this truth is enough to fabricate suspicion at the very least...that Ryoko and her paramour might or might not be involved in such a terrible deed. Yes, the sooner I get back there, the better it will be. No doubt then I will be able to see more clearly what I must do without having to handle Suki's tears along the way. Much as I love my sister, she could not be more of a distraction right at the moment."
"You have done well, Seiryo-san."
Tokimi's voice echoed in his thoughts and he stopped dead, his brow creasing as he registered the woman's mental presence.
"What do you want?" He demanded out loud, and he was sure he could hear her laughing.
"Mad people speak to themselves." She taunted him. "Return to the Galaxy Police. Your thoughts are good ones...but I already have another assignment for you."
"What kind of assignment?" Seiryo's eyes narrowed, but this time he transmitted the question telepathically. "You'll have to be clearer with me, Tokimi. I need to know more."
"It will become clear when you reach your destination." Came the reply. "Someone will meet you there, and explain all you need to know. You must act on her instruction at once - and trust the rest to me. Safe travelling, my servant. Do not fail me in what you do."
As abruptly as she had come, the mental link was cut off, and Seiryo frowned, clenching his fists as he fought to control his rising anger and indignation.
"To think I should be forced to play servant to a woman such as that." He muttered to himself. "But for Suki's sake, I must do what I can. I only hope she keeps her side of the bargain in all of this. Whether you're a goddess or a peasant, it never does any good to cross horns with a Tennan!"
-----
So there was only one thing for it.
Washu stepped back from her night's labour, casting it a scrutinous glance as she checked and double-checked that all of her calculations had been correct. At length she sighed, rubbing her temples.
"This is crazy." She muttered. "But there's only one reason I can think of that Clay would be trespassing into my lab. It must have something to do with the Academy - and the only way I can find that out for sure is by going there myself."
She glanced at her hands, biting down hard on her lip as she contemplated what she was about to do. It had been a long time since she had walked the hallowed halls of the Science Academy, cast out as their honorary president in disgrace some years before, and she knew only too well that her exile had been meant as permanent. And yet, something still nagged away at the back of her mind.
"If I know Clay, and I do, I know that he'll have become even more dangerous in the seven or more centuries since we last spoke." She muttered. "He was vociferous and vocal on the subject of my banishment to the cave...convenient since I had discovered his plagiaristic tendancies only days before I was forcibly summoned to that hearing. If he was working with Kagato-dono then, I don't know - but the whole situation was nicely contrived to get me out of the way - something which would benefit many people. I may be crazy in the eyes of the Academy, but they have no idea about the evil that burns within some of their most revered members. That is, if Clay is still an alumni at the Science Academy. It's been many years...many many years. We didn't cross paths in my brief stay there as Honorary President, and it didn't occur to me to ask after his department when I returned. In fact, giving the nature of his biology, he should be dead by now. I wonder whose formula he stole to prevent the onset of death. Some unfortunate student, no doubt!"
Her brows knitted together in determination, and she ran her fingers over the keys of her device, watching with eagle eyes as it hummed and glowed, opening a doorway that flickered at the edges, indicating it's lack of stability. Washu hesitated for a moment, then shook her head, as if to clear it.
"Old scores must rest. I must know what he's up to and there's noone else I can send in my place." She told herself firmly. "Washu-chan, it's time to face some old ghosts and some even older enemies."
With that she stepped through the portal, closing her eyes against the turbulence that buffeted her as she stepped through the tear she had created in space. Making her way blindly towards the light at the other end, she fumbled her way through subspace, at long last placing her feet firmly on solid ground and opening her eyes with a sigh of relief.
"Stop right there!"
It was to be shortlived. As she regained her wits, she realised that she was surrounded by security droids in Science Academy uniform, dispassionate expressions on their identical faces.
"You have contravened dimensional Academy rules. Please state your name and department."
Washu hesitated for a moment, then drew herself up to her full height, meeting the gaze of the nearest droid face on.
"Washu Hakubi." She said softly. "Research and Development: New Sciences."
"Scanning database..."
A soft beam shot out from the droid's brow, running over Washu's diminuitive form as it did so. "Confirming ident - Professor Washu Hakubi. Alert...member is exiled. Apprehend!"
"Damn them." Washu grimaced, stepping back towards her doorway, but only hard steel greeted her as she found herself stopped in her tracks. "I'm not here to do any damage! I'm here to see Dr Clay!"
"Alert! Alert!" A siren began to wail through the halls of the Academy as the droids closed in on her. "Exiled member. Apprehend!"
Washu sighed.
"You bunch of traitors." She muttered, clenching her fists. "And to think I helped design that wretched database of yours! You could at least show some gratitude for your creator!"
"Washu Hakubi, surrender yourself and state your purpose!" A young man burst from the centre of the gathered droids, and Washu was aware he had support behind him. He raised his weapon, meeting her gaze with a flinty one of his own. "You have no right to be here. You know full well the terms of your exile - or do you want to be confined to another capsule and deposited on a more remote planet than the Earth?"
"Akira Itokawa." Washu said slowly. "It's been a long time, hasn't it?"
"And I should remember fondly the woman who dragged my sister away from her studies and most likely led her to her death?" Akira's grip on his weapon tightened, an angry flicker in his eyes. "Be glad that Academy law forbids killing...or I would happily take your life here and now for leading Kichi into such a trap."
"I would never have hurt Kichi." Washu said soberly. "She was one of the few people in this crazed institution that I could trust. But it's partly for her sake I'm here. Lower your gun, Akira-san. I'm not here to cause harm. Your sister's work has been stolen and may be being misappropriated by another member of the Academy. I'm here to find out why...because I'm sure he's up to no good."
Akira's eyes narrowed.
"My sister's work was stolen from the Academy a long time ago." He said quietly. "Not much of it resides here. Do I have you to blame for that, also?"
"Kichi entrusted it to me when she left the Academy, and I have honoured my word to her." Washu nodded her head solemnly. "But someone has infiltrated my work and accessed her studies on the magic of Jurai. I know this person to be capable of deceit and treachery on a grand level, Akira-san. Will you hear me out or must I pursue him on my own?"
"I don't trust the word of a mad-woman." Akira told her coldly. "You should not have come here, Washu-sensei. Now you will be arrested and taken before the tribunal. You will be lucky to leave without penalty...or have you forgotten that there are few Academy members with such a record for deceit and treachery as yourself?"
"Fear of genius is a weakness, not something to gloat about." Washu's green eyes hardened. "Very well. If that's your choice - but don't say I didn't warn you."
She hesitated for a moment, then flexed her hands, engulfing her body in a whiteish haze as she lifted herself above the gathered droids. "I have no intention of being detained, Itokawa-san. You would do best to get out of my way."
"Stop her!" Akira yelled, and as one the droids and surrounding officers launched a volley of stun rays in Washu's direction, each of them bouncing harmlessly off the outside of her forcefield as she stared down at them with a mixture of regret and indignation. Then she closed her eyes, focusing all her attention on the laboratory where she had conducted much of her Academy research. Her form flickered and disappeared, re-materialising in the dark emptiness of the deserted laboratory, and slowly she set herself down on the floor, glancing around her to make sure she was alone.
Muttering a curse under her breath in her native language, she crossed the floor to the derelict computer, destroyed and looted after her exile.
"I can't stay here forever, and I can't get all the way back to the Earth without some kind of portal." She muttered. "I should have borrowed Ryo Ohki, but then Ryoko would be asking me questions about where I was going and how I was going to fly the thing. Better I don't have any more of those to deal with until I know exactly what's going on for myself. Right now I have more questions than answers and it's frustrating me."
She ran her fingers over the damaged keypad, letting out a sigh.
"And this is no use. Technology long dead and I don't have the time to revive it." She said regretfully. "So I'll have to resort to plan B...to finding Clay the old fashioned way."
She sighed, glancing at her hands. Then, her expression one of resignation, she pushed them together, sending out a flare of red-orange light towards the back wall of the laboratory. There was a tremendous explosion, smoke and bits of plaster flying in all directions and Washu flung up another forcefield around herself, protecting herself from the worst of the falling debris. Slowly she made her way towards the hole, stepping carefully through the jagged opening into the back-room and stopping dead. Colour drained from her face as she registered that this, too, was empty.
"Nobody knew about this room." She whispered. "It had no door, so how could anyone get in? Nobody could possibly have known it was here...but someone obviously found it. My computer...my organic creation...it's gone."
She faltered for a moment, then determination and anger crossed her face.
"I bet this is part of Clay's work." She muttered, clenching her fists. "Damn him! I don't know how, but he's gotten the better of me yet again! And it's been so long since I woke these things inside of me. Once, I would have walked through that wall as if walking through a doorway, but since they exiled me..."
She sighed, rubbing absently at her wrists.
"Being cuffed so long did something to my magic. Truncated it. Killed it." She whispered. "And nobody else could have walked through the wall to that room, not even if my defenses had been dismantled and my technology damaged. Kichi was the only person in the Academy who knew that I could phase through walls, and she's dead. Noone else would have thought of looking for a secret laboratory here unless they'd known...but how could they know? So many thousands of years and I've kept my secrets!"
"Washu Hakubi! Surrender yourself!"
A voice from behind her told her she once more had company and she gritted her teeth, wheeling round to face Akira and his entourage as they spilled into the darkened lab. "What mischief do you hope to cause here?"
"I'm looking for a true traitor to the Academy! One who seeks harm, not one who hunts for new horizons." Washu snapped back at him. "I'm not afraid of you, Akira-san...but you are starting to get on my nerves."
"No more than you are on ours, invading space which you have no right to enter." Akira shot back at her, raising his weapon. "Give yourself up and you may be allowed your freedom! Otherwise you will face the full wrath of the Tribunal!"
Anger flared in Washu's heart, and a surge of strength washed through her, illuminating her aura in a burst of bluish white light as she lifted herself up from the floor, pushing her hands together and sending sparks flying all around her. Despite himself Akira stepped back, and several of his accompanying officers lowered their weapons, making fervent and hasty gestures against demonic possession as they did so. Washu's brows drew together as snippets of their whispered conversation reached her ears.
"She really is a demon!"
"The Gods preserve us, what magic is this?"
"Yes, I'm a demon. Does that make you happy?" She demanded bitterly. "What kind of scientist fears what they don't understand? This Academy is weak...built on false foundations and no longer interested in pushing the boundaries beyond the limit of scientific knowledge."
She clenched her fists, illuminating the whole chamber in a bright white light and dazzling the hapless Academy members as she did so. Then she drew a sharp breath of air into her lungs, focusing her thoughts on another place she had once known well.
When she opened her eyes, she found herself at the door of another laboratory and she hesitated, then touched the door gently with her hand. At first nothing happened, but as she focused her thoughts, drawing more and more of her native instincts to the forefront of her mind, she found she could just about push her fingers through the thick panel surface. At first she withdrew them, glancing at them thoughtfully. Then she summoned all her strength, pushing bravely forward through the door into the laboratory beyond as she channeled all her energy into seperating her atoms. Once successfully on the other side, she leant back against the door, taking a deep breath of air into her lungs as a wave of fatigue washed over her.
"It's been too long. I'm too out of practice." She muttered. "I never thought I'd use this devil-magic again, not after I came here and signed my life away to science - but I guess all skeletons come out of the closet in the long run. And I must find out what Dr Clay is playing at. If I can't get Akira-san or his army of droids to help me, I'll just have to find him myself...however long that takes."
She crossed the floor of the chamber to the big mainframe computer that stood against the far wall, eying it up and down for a moment as she did so. Then she glanced at her hands, a wistful smile touching her lips as she did so.
"Well, this is the test." She murmured. "You built this system more than two milennia ago, Washu-chan. Can you still manipulate your way around it now, so long after the last time you used it? Can they have changed your technology enough to thwart you - or are you still the greatest mind that this Academy ever nurtured?"
She shrugged her shoulders, watching as her fingers glowed and lengthened, her childish digits flexing and extending into the long, slender fingers of an adult woman. Slowly she pressed her palm to the reader, typing in a sequence of numbers as she did so.
"State your name and department." The computer's tinny voice echoed out through the chamber, and Washu frowned.
"Manual Override." She instructed the computer firmly. "Codename: SecretIdent. Username: Washu Hakubi. Academy number 60-9845. Accessing central computer databank."
"Greetings, Washu Hakubi. Voiceprint and palm confirmed. Please enter your password and access code."
"Thank the heavens for that." Relief washed through Washu at this. "They've erased a lot of things, but they haven't got to this."
She raised her voice.
"My password is Kihaku." She said clearly. "Access code 98-98-98."
"Access granted." The computer screen flickered into life, and a series of filenames began to run at speed across the monitor, forming a long list from top to bottom. Washu's quick eyes scanned over them, a frown touching her face.
"Computer, find me the file on Dr Clay." She said quietly. "Academy number 60-9987."
"Searching databanks." The computer whirred and clicked, then a file flashed up onto the screen. "Clay. Academy number 60-9987. Membership terminated. Whereabouts - not recorded."
"I see." Washu bit her lip. "Can you tell me why his membership was terminated, Computer? Did he choose to leave of his own free will, or was he evicted?"
"Searching..." The computer whirred again, then a new document flickered across the screen. Washu skimmed her gaze over it, her expression becoming grimmer with every passing moment.
"So he was exiled for plagiarising other people's ideas, but before he could be sentenced, he managed to make off with a good deal of top secret Science Academy files." She muttered. "Including files from my department - oh, I should have known that he'd be into my database like a vulture as soon as he thought I was out of his way. He already took enough things from me - is that his game again? Does he hope that, from Kichi's files and my own observations, he can build his own Ryoko?"
She sighed.
"Computer, what was the last thing Dr Clay worked on, while at the Academy?" She asked.
"Project 8843. Organic matter conversion in mechanics." The computer responded, as a series of plans flashed one at a time across the screen. "Last registered product patent - serial code 8754. Project name: "Zero"."
"Organic matter...?" Rage flooded Washu's gaze. "But that was what I was researching when he was working in my department! He lifted that right from my work and patented it under his name! How dare he?"
She clenched her fists, sparks flying from her fingers as she did so. "The nerve of this man...but this isn't helping me find him, or work out what he's up to now. Computer, do you have any idea how he escaped so easily from the Academy when he was obviously under secure interdict?"
The computer clunked and whirred once more, scrolling a report up it's big screen and Washu glanced at it, a frown touching her face.
"A dimensional anomaly?" She murmured. "But...these figures look a lot like what I've been getting from the Earth's atmosphere lately. You mean to tell me that the night Clay disappeared from the Science Academy there were similarly weird things going on in the ether? That has to be more than coincidence."
She sighed.
"I just wish I could nail exactly where that force is coming from." She added. "Tenchi's Light Hawk Wings did seem a possibility, but nothing I've found by examining him suggests he's the source of the disturbances. I don't like this. I don't like this at all."
She hesitated, as her sharp ears picked up the sound of footfalls on the corridor outside, and she bit her lip.
"Close down files, Computer." She instructed. "Seal them and seal them firmly against all intrusion."
"Sealing files." The computer agreed.
"Washu faltered, then,
"You mustn't open them even to me from now on." She added, keying in new commands at speed. "Unless I reveal to you an additional code word. Do you understand? You must not."
"Enter additional security code now."
Washu cast an anxious glance at the door behind her, then turned back to the mainframe.
"Ryoko." She said softly. "The additional code is Ryoko."
"Processing. Additional security recorded." The computer responded. "Closing down all files."
"Good." Washu nodded. "And now I have to go. Hopefully someone in the Department of Dimensional Research will have a portal I can appropriate to get back to the Earth - I have a lot of things I need to work on and getting locked up inside this mad place is nowhere near the top of my to do list."
She glanced at her fingers, watching as they shifted and settled back into their original form. Then she clenched her fists, focusing her mind on the department in question.
"I'm glad I decided to take this journey alone." She muttered, as the world blurred and changed around her. "If Ryoko knew I had more magic in me than I've been telling her, she might start asking more questions about her heritage...and about mine. And that's one book I'm determined is going to stay closed, no matter what!"