(chapter 19)

Maha, Okinawa

Ding, Dong!

"Could somebody get that?" said Maria. "I'm still hanging out the laundry."

"I'll get it," said a girl's voice from one of the bedrooms.

"Thanks Lucy-chan," replied Maria.

A young woman exited the bedroom. She was around five foot two, mildly curvy, and had heavily invested in her 'Gyaru" appearance. "Just a moment please," she called out, as she briskly walked to the door.

Upon opening the door, Lucy saw three women. The one on the right was tall, curvy, had waist-length black hair, and was dressed like a stereotypical government agent. The one on the left was also tall and curvy, but had waist-length red hair, and green angel wings. She was dressed in beige and black tactical gear. The one in the middle...

"MUUUUM!" Lucy called out. "The ICEP guys just brought some weirdo to our front door!"

"What was that?" Maria called out, as Smith and Freya tried to suppress their laughter.

===/===

"Erika Midori Kobayashi," said Maria. "Twelve years. Twelve years, and only phone calls."

"Aww, man!" said Lucy. "The full name. Mum's not happy with you."

"Why?" asked Maria. "Why didn't you visit earlier? Was it because you didn't know how we'd react to your girlfriend."

Lucy spat out her tea. "Girlfriend?! Erika has a girlfriend? Where is she?"

"Right here," replied Freya, raising her hand slightly and waving it.

"That's one of the reasons," said Erika. "The other reason was because of what happened twelve years ago."

"You mean back when Mum and Dad tried to lecture you about not phoning for two weeks, and then you saying you now work for some research company?" Lucy chimed in.

"Yeah,"replied Erika. "That time. The reason you guys didn't hear from me for two weeks was because I'd actually been kidnapped by that international trafficking ring. …(mumble, mumble, mumble)..."

"What was that last part you just mumbled?" asked Maria.

"I was murdered by them," Erika whispered. "I died twelve years ago. Miss Smith is not just Freya's ICEP coordinator. She's mine too."

The sound of grocery bags falling to the floor comes from behind them, shortly followed by the unmistakable sound of a person passing out and hitting the floor.

===/===

Shiro Kobayashi woke up to concerned voices. The first face he saw was his eldest daughter.

Oh, crap! he thought. I've gone back in time to when Erika was a teenager!

Then the bleached-blonde head of his youngest daughter appeared. Okay, maybe not.

"He doesn't appear to be concussed," said a voice he recognised as 'Freya' from the phone calls that Erika regularly made.

"Was I hearing things, when you said you were murdered?" he asked Erika. "Are you a ghost? I can't see through you."

"Actually, I'm technically haunted armour," replied Erika. "This is just a projected image." She briefly switched off her projection unit, so they could see. Freya caught Erika's micro-drone before it could fall, and manually reactivated it. "I'm actually at the airbase, in a secure hangar."

"Looks like we're not going to have grandchildren to spoil, until either your brother or sister get married," he said.

"...about that..." Freya and Erika said simultaneously.

"Yes," said Maria, with her eyes lighting up.

"The kids are still back home," said Freya. "My eldest is sixteen, and I have some people keeping an eye on them."

"Why didn't you bring them with you?" asked Maria.

"Because there wouldn't be room," replied Erika. "We have several children in our care. So we thought it would be better for just the two of us to visit first, and then work something out for the whole family in the near future. It would also give you a chance to visit Mizuchi and her family. They live close by."

"How many kids are we talking about?" asked Lucy. "Surely it couldn't be that difficult."

"I've counted," said Smith. "They have thirteen people under eighteen in the care of themselves and five, no six, uh ...servants?... for want of a better term. Currently, the Director of ICEP is negotiating to allow Freya to purchase a larger property. They can't all keep split between her ship and both apartments."

"Ship? What sort of ship?" asked Lucy. Images of a yacht sailing between tropical islands flitting across her imagination.

"A mobile dry-dock," replied Freya. "I'm an engineer by trade." The images in Lucy's imagination vanished.

Shiro suddenly realised what his ears heard. "Mizuchi has a family? Her? She's a workaholic, bordering on alcoholic."

"Didn't Uncle Takumi or Aunt Nabiki tell you?" asked Erika. "She had a 'fated meeting' a couple of years ago, and she introduced her to them last year."

"Sounds romantic," said Lucy, with stars in her eyes. "Wait. ...her?"

"She's a good influence on Mizuchi. Their daughter, Kanna, is very well behaved, and Tohru has assured me that Mizuchi doesn't drink even half as much as she did when they first met."

Everyone turned to the sound of the front door slamming.

"Bloody Frank and Kazu!" came a male voice from the entryway. "Dragged me all the way to the airport." His voice went sarcastic, "they're bringing in some monsters from Tokyo." His voice went back to normal, "we get to the airbase, and it turns out they're just testing some sort of giant robots."

"Giant robots, really?" said Erika. "Shows that you can't always trust rumours."

"Hi Erika," he said half-heartedly, before doing a double-take. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking at what appears to be a Yanki-version of my brother Luke," replied Erika. "So what were you doing hanging around the airport this morning?"

"Frank, Kazu, and a few others went to protest about letting monster-people into Japan. By the time we rode our bikes to the airbase, the college guys had smashed up some ICEP van, and the robots were going back into the hangar.."

"You do know that some of those liminals were born in Japan?" said Smith.

Luke looked at Smith, suddenly realising the family had guests. "So what if they were," he replied. "It doesn't mean I have to like them."

"It looks like next month's family trip will be awkward," commented Freya. You should at least try to get on with your nieces and nephew."

Luke turned towards the new voice. His jaw dropped, his cheeks went red, and his eyes went all sparkly, and he started speaking gibberish. "She's gorgeous."

"Down! Bad brother!" said Lucy and Erika together.

"Looks like his attitude to liminals just changed said Smith.

===/===

Oborozuka, the O'Reilly apartment

Director Nakahara was drinking a cup of coffee, and talking to the blonde arachne in front of him.

"It's still a lot to take in," he said. "If the others hadn't told me, I would never have known you were holographic."

"I did have to make a couple of adjustments," said Harmony. "My eyes were originally configured to match Kuroko's and Midori's, but then I saw Ventris, and decided to at least match mine up with the arachnes from this world. I kept the blue, though."

"This is pretty good coffee, by the way," commented Nakahara. "What blend is it."

"It comes from a planet a couple of FTL jumps away," she replied. "Don't tell your niece about it, or we'll never be able to keep up with her drinking habit."

Nakahara laughed. "Good point. Her ideal husband would need to take out a small loan, to keep up with her habit. Out of curiosity, why did you pick that shape?"

"It was in one of the other computers linked to my system," she replied. "Hikari was working on making her sister a set of prosthetics to match her original body, and I just decided to 'borrow' the template for myself."

"Fair enough. Anyway, I've pulled a few strings with other government departments, and you can move into that place Hikari and young Kuroko found. The paperwork should be finalised within the next week or two. Ha, young Kuroko. I'm still going to have to get used to that."

"Yeah, that world's versions of your families were pretty close."

"Even Hikari, Mizuchi and Hiroshi have started calling me Uncle Roshi," replied Nakahara. "You don't know the half of it though. When I opened up those video messages, there was a hidden file, set to my voice-print. That 'Gene-loom' thing you guys use can be modified to take advantage of the quadruple-helix that Freya's ancestors have. Although, it's apparently illegal to do the modifications. Young Kuroko and Midori have three mothers. Do not tell them, or my niece just yet."

"I know. I'm guessing you're going to have to speak with Andromeda," said Harmony. "She figured it out straight away, being the Irish Rose's medical system. You myself and her are the only three people in this universe that know. We'll have to tell them eventually."

"Give me some time to figure out how we're going to tell them," said Nakahara. "I'm worried about how my brother-in-law, Hiroto will react."

"I heard there was something that happened, but haven't heard the details."

"Let me tell it," said a woman's voice from the entryway.

"Hi Uncle Roshi," said Mizuchi. "I saw Aunt Shizuka at the train station, looking lost, so I offered to show her around. When she mentioned she was looking for you, I brought her straight here."

"I was surprised to find out this helpful bundle of happiness was Freya's daughter," said Shizuka. "I was even more surprised to find out that you and our niece were keeping tabs on them."

"So, why would Hiroto have issues with Freya?" asked Nakahara.

"When he was fifteen, he had a crush on her. The other soldiers that were staying at the onsen 'encouraged' him to confess to her, even though I told him not to."

"She turned him down?" asked Nakahara.

"No," said Shizuka. "He walked in on her and Mum, uh, enjoying each other's company."

"Well, it was the '60s," said Nakahara. "I'm sure he's gotten over it by now."