Wade did his best to move down the hall making enough noise so that he wouldn't startle an awake Ninja, but not wake up a sleeping Ninja. Actually, he had no idea how to do that, but his heart was in the right place. First, he walked to the end of the hall to the holo-room, opened the door a crack and called softly, "Hello? Anyone here?"
Hearing nothing, he opened the door and stepped in. The air was warm and humid with a cool breeze providing contrast. Looking around, he noticed that whoever had been here had tweaked his simulation. The main change was that the pool area had been expanded with an illusion, as he saw several cartoon characters relaxing in the illusory half of the pool. The walls were now open on two sides with a garden at one side and a snowy peaked mountain visible from the other side.
He smelled a pretty floral scent, probably a shampoo or body wash. Must be his guest, he and his dad preferred spice based 'sports' scents and his mom liked a citrus/fruity scent.
Going back down the hall to the other end, he noticed the guest room door was open. Standing in the doorway, he looked in to see a sleeping girl laying on her side facing the door, with a hand tucked under her pillow and a comforter pulled up past her shoulder. He recognized her from their previous video conversation. She was pretty, not Internet beautiful maybe, and that thought made Wade feel a little embarrassed because his parents had stressed that he shouldn't be shallow and certainly not judge people on appearances.
He padded quietly back to his bedroom/ops center and pulled out a cold bottle of water and a sports drink from his mini-fridge. Sneaking back to the guest room he quietly put the drinks on coasters on the small table by the bed and slipped off to go back upstairs.
Katsumi watched him leave through slitted eyes. Relaxing her grip on the short baton she had under her pillow, she thought, "What a thoughtful young man…and kind of a cute butt." and drifted back to her semi-sleep napping. She had no problem with sleeping with a weapon under her pillow. Even though she had seen stories on the Internet of American boys taking liberties with female guests, even their female friends(!), Raven had vouched for the young tech genius. Still, as Wanda had pointed out many times, 'You should always carry weapons, particularly in places where weapons are not allowed.'
STD 2018-
Warhok walked down the narrow passageway of the Lowardian Survey Ship Carterista. Coming to Med Bay Number 2, he slid the door open and slipped in. Laying on the bed was the woman of his dreams, dark green hair spilling over her pale green skin. Being of the warrior class, her tall, muscular body looked a little cramped on the bunk.
"She is doing well, Warhok," the small medic said, "we have replenished her fluids and have accelerated healing on the stump of her right arm. Unfortunately, she is one of the small percentage of the population that can't accept regenerated body parts. We don't have the capability to install an artificial hand here. That will have to wait until we get back to the Empire."
The body on the bunk stirred. The woman opened her eyes and Warhok's heart leaped as sparkling red irises surrounded by a golden sclera looked back at him with sleepy warmth and love.
"My love, where am I? This isn't a capital ship; the bunks are too small."
"You're on a survey ship, 'Monga," he replied, reaching out to gently run his fingers through her hair, "something told me to come and find you. Your lander was only about a quarter of the way back when I found you. I'll have you back to the fleet doctors as soon as I can."
"Don't be silly 'Hok," she sat up, only wobbling a little, and held up her bandaged stump, "the medics here are sufficient to bio-weld a hook on the end of this. We need to get back to the planet. They have a wormhole technology that is unbelievable. I have seen with my own eyes a wormhole small and stable enough to use for individual warrior transport. The lander has technical data that will let us find the endpoints for the one I saw personally. 'Hok, you can check the videos.
The wormhole I saw appeared to be an open doorway into a room inside a building on a planet and I was on its moon. Think of what that would mean to deploy an assault squad! You could deploy troops directly to the inside of a building, no need for using an assault shuttle to fight through defenses!"
"Love, you don't have all your strength back yet, surely you want to be on the discovery team, you need time to…"
"Don't give me that 'but love, you need time to recover' crap, 'Hok," she interrupted with a growl, "give me a day with an engineer and a medic and I'll have a combat hook installed on this stump." She softened her glare to something more smoldering, "Then give me a night with food and drink and your body pressed against mine and I will be ready for anything…"
She stopped and stared carefully at her battle mate who was starting to show a swert eating grin.
"Wait, we're not on the way back to the fleet, are we?"
His grin got even larger as he admitted, "No. We are in orbit around the water planet running scans for profitable resources. Your notes were very thorough and well written. We were able to identify the spot on the planet where the wormhole you observed terminated. We have put challenge marks on it plus another around your gauntlet. Someone managed to activate the distress beacon making it easy to find."
She threw her arms around the giant warrior in a hug that would have crushed a weak man of Earth.
"What did I ever do to deserve you?" she asked.
"You made my life complete." he replied, adding, "I sent a message probe to the Imperial Prize Board with your recordings and notes. That will register your claim to the prize money from the wormhole technology when we retrieve and reverse engineer it."
Even missing one hand, she managed to nearly climb up the towering mass of muscle,
"How can I ever express my gratitude?" she murmured.
STD 2018-
The sun was setting when Anne walked out of Tokyo General Hospital. Two young toughs in dark suits, ties, and sunglasses appeared and walked in step with her, one on each side.
"You seem angry, Gekai-sama" (A/N: Gekai is Japanese for "Surgeon")
She tried and failed to conceal her anger, "I am. I did a surgery today. It was a hard one with almost no time to prepare, but I did it. The young man will recover fully."
"You know that?"
"Yes!", the redhead rubbed the bridge of her nose with her fingers, "the problem was a leaking artery, maybe from a blow to the head, but certainly from a weakness that has always been there. After fixing the problem, I had the circulatory system of his head scanned looking for other weak spots. There is always a chance that the scan missed one, but the odds are greatly in his favor. The problem was the surgery team."
"Were they incompetent?"
"Their skills were not the problem, it was their paternalistic, misogynistic attitudes! They kept telling me that I needed to do things differently! The anesthesiologist kept asking me if I was on my period! The surgical assistant kept suggesting that perhaps I should stop the surgery and let a more experienced surgeon handle it later! After I doublechecked my work and closed, I was summarily dismissed and told that experienced surgeons would take over his care!"
"Dia Bosu will not be pleased to hear that you were treated with less than full respect."
"Why would he care? I came here looking for a team to help with my children, I'm surprised that he even heard about it."
"Did you not know that your patient was his nephew? Did it not seem odd that you were asked to do this on such short notice? Dia Bosu spent time on the Internet looking at your qualifications and reputation. He decided that you were the surgeon to help his favorite sister's son."
They stopped at a traffic light and waited for the walk indication.
Anne wondered if she was out of her league here. On the one hand, she guiltily thought that the Yakuza could improve patient care by knocking a few heads together. On the other hand, was she expected to succeed or else? There were politics back at Middleton General, but nothing like this. She stopped wool-gathering when she noticed that she had unconsciously followed her escorts across the crosswalk. She realized she had no idea where she was going, she had been so angry that when she was finished, all she wanted to do was get out of that place.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"We are going to join your sons for dinner. Have you ever eaten okonomiyaki?
"I don't believe so."
"Please allow us to treat you after we link up with the Bouyatachi.
STD 2018-
The syntho-maid demonstration that was held in a large auditorium started out impossibly cute. The twins were standing in the back, wearing slacks and long-sleeved black dress shirts that completely covered their 'ink'. On the stage was a large earthen mound with a miniature storefront. In front of the storefront were two, well, you couldn't call them naked mole rats because they were wearing adorable little maid outfits.
Rufus walked along the storefront and was intercepted by the two maids who chattered at him. Rufus wiggled into some sort of harness and followed the maids into a naked mole rat sized door. A large screen over the earthen mound showed a first-person view from a camera on his harness. The first view from Rufus was of a little room with places to sit and plates with cheeses and other snacks for the maids to serve him.
A narrator spoke in Japanese, and the crowd politely laughed. After a moment during which Rufus was served cheese, there was the sound of a klaxon and the earthen mound settled with a few small sprays of dust.
The narrator spoke more dramatically now, the audience murmured in awe as the two maids morphed slightly to increase the size of their shoulders and claws. The pair of syntho-mole-rat maids sniffed around the collapsed wall and selected a good spot to start digging. Naked mole rats are born to dig and the syntho-mole-rats were almost as good. Rufus and his camera followed the diggers as they clawed through dirt and around pipes and rocks too large to move.
Tim pointed to the screen, "See Mom, this demo is to show the syntho-maid's ability to perform in search and rescue situations."
Jim added, "They are leaving a fine copper wire behind so the rubble can't block communications."
Tim pointed out, "They're radiation resistant, don't need oxygen, they're immune to poison gasses, and can operate sixteen hours before a recharge."
The naked mole rats, both real and syntho, dug out through the side of the earthen mound to a round of general applause from the audience. They had carried out a small doll representing a rescued victim. The two puppeteers stood and bowed.
Rufus slipped through the crowd and scrambled up on Tim's shoulder.
"Dinner!" he squeaked.
Fifteen minutes later, they found themselves in a small okonomiyaki shop with the Yakuza soldier making his grandmother's recipe and telling them entertaining stories of his childhood. To this soldier, okonomiyaki was a savory pancake filled with cabbage, shrimp, onions, and mushrooms served with various condiments.
The food was good, the company pleasant and yet Anne kept worrying about her beloved James and how he was doing. And…what was the story about the synthodrone that looked like her from twenty years ago…
STD 2018-
A short, impossibly skinny person walked up and knocked on Amanda Possible's office door.
"Come in."
"Commander Possible, it appears that I was wrong about the amount of time that we had."
"G, I am guessing that we don't have more time than you thought?"
A short set of breathy barks came from under the hood of the navy-blue sweatshirt emblazoned with the words, 'I blamed Aliens before it was cool', "No Commander, we need to extract your son earlier than we planned. I fear tomorrow will be too late."
"What do you know about them, G?"
"Not much Commander. Just that this is not the right time for Earth to be noticed."
"I thought you were a student of history."
"I am. Ancient Earth history, not Ancient Lowardian history."
STD 2018-
"Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends," Wade rubbed his hands together and flexed his fingers in anticipation.
"I am ready Wade-san," his partner sat behind him. They had rearranged his monitors and added a couple more to make nearly a complete circle with two chairs in the middle. This allowed them to cover different monitors for efficiency or collaborate on the same screen if needed.
They started entering information into systems that they had broken into before breakfast. Several they logged into using credentials given to them by Nana. Both of the young hackers considered that cheating but used them anyway.
Katsumi paused to connect to a Team Orange operative. Talking on her headset, she said, "Inshuru-san? Proceed to pick up the livestock. The plan has accelerated, take them straight to Oklahoma City for loading."
Wade reached back and tapped Katsumi on the leg without looking, "Katsumi-san, check this out. Some sort of orbital laser has burned designs into the grass in a couple of spots."
Katsumi spun around and checked the video from a drone that was flying high over Middleton. A letter that looked like a stylized 'M' or 'W' had been written in the grass just behind the main building of the Middleton Space Center. A second appeared on an abandoned runway about a hundred miles to the east.
"What is special about those spots, Wade-san?"
STD 2018-
The Yakuza boss known as Dia Bosu stood nervously at a door with cherry inlay and polished brass hardware. Hearing "Enter" in reply to his knock, he opened the door and walked in.
Striding quickly into the room, he dropped to one knee and bowed his head,
"Alexander-sama, I wish to report on the work done by the sons of James and Anne Possible-sensei."
"My old friend, get up and take a seat. I understand that your news is unexpectedly good." The senior manager smiled at the older lower level manager. Dia Bosu was old-fashioned in many ways, but his loyalty to his people and the Yakuza was the stuff of legends. As was his ability to find ways to simultaneously avoid violence and maximize profits.
"Yes, Alexander-sama. In short, what I saw as a minor opportunity to take over the hostess business in Tokyo has turned out to be an incredible business opportunity. I predict that with respect to revenue, it will surpass all our other profit centers in Japan."
"I have seen the syntho-maids up close in a personal demonstration by Kiri-chan herself." The senior leader smiled, he had thought that the hostess cafes were silly tourist traps, but he had followed his subordinate's recommendation to check them out. The hostess Kiri had become a favorite of his. He tried to stop in once a week for tea and to chat about what she thought was interesting in the world. He found that settled his mind more effectively than an entire afternoon of meditation. And helped keep him apprised of new trends in society.
"Have you thought of applications in areas such as elder care?"
"You still need puppeteers."
"Not if you have one of the foremost robotic Artificial Intelligence experts in the world on the run and looking for sanctuary. We have reason to believe that Dr. Vivian Porter will arrive here in Japan sometime in the next week. Simple software for assisting the elderly should be easy for her to write."
"And the economics?"
"The morphing synthodrones are almost entirely self-assembling given one small processor/interface module and several gallons of goop. The Bouyatachi have already agreed to license their goop formula and designs very inexpensively. We used a sex-doll company called Silicon Joy to make the prototypes. That company's engineers estimate that it will cost no more than one-hundred thousand yen to manufacture one syntho-helper. That assumes that the Artificial Intelligence Processor Module is no more than ten-thousand yen each and that Dr. Porter's software can be licensed at no more per unit than twice what we are paying the Bouyatachi. Maintenance is just a matter of the occasional software update and replacing worn out goop once a year - no more than fifteen thousand yen at fifty percent profit."
(A/N: there is roughly one hundred yen to the dollar)
Dia Bosu could see the excitement grow in his boss's eyes.
"My friend, we can save Japan. We Japanese are a dying race. Why would any girl in this day and age want to grow up to marry and have children when the traditional role of the daughter is to remain at home and take care of both sets of aging parents? Now, our young women can have children and careers with the syntho-helpers assisting with both aged parents and young babies."
Reaching over to pour his subordinate a cup of tea, he continued, "The hand that brings grandmother her tea and rocks the cradle rules the world. I want that to be our hand."
STD 2018-
Joss slid down from the passenger side of the sleeper cab of the semi with the attached cattle trailer. She walked over to where Jessica and Tara were waiting by a pedestrian gate.
"Ron's buddies can squeeze through that gate? Must not be as big as I reckoned..." Joss said, "Well, lead me to them, please and thank you."
"Ron's buddies aren't the neatest housekeepers," Tara said as both girls shuddered, "we already hunted up some."
She opened the gate and a cockroach the size of a large dog walked through stopping between the two girls.
"Joss, this is Roachie," she continued as both blondes reached out and gave its feelers a pet.
The ground shook and Joss turned to see a cockroach larger than any bull she had ever seen had jumped down from a stone wall with a second equally huge one peering down at her.
"And this is Lenard," Jessica laughed at the look on Joss's face. Reaching out to stroke a feeler about the same diameter as her wrist, she continued,
"Boys, this is Joss Possible, cousin of Kim and friend of Ron. She is going to take you to visit them. Would you like that?"
Both insects made hissing and clicking noises.
Roachie did a little dance that made its butt wave around.
'Daddy, did you know what you sent me to pick up? Or does 'Lisabeth have a sense of humor?' she thought before saying, "OK, Well let's see if Lenard and his buddies will fit on this rolling ranch we got here. Are you planning on coming?"
"Yes, Suzie asked us to go until they can link up with Ron or Rufus. She thought that they would trust us more than strangers." Leaning over and speaking privately, Jessica whispered, "I think they freak out Yori a little."
STD 2018-
The two medics hopped out of the ambulance and walked into the lobby of the Middleton General Infectious Disease Isolation Unit.
They showed their identification and papers,
"Good Morning, I'm Susan Jones and this is Anthony Jones, we're here to transport the Possible group to the main hospital."
The clerk stared at the two people with a raised eyebrow, Susan was blonde, in her twenties and had a stocky bodybuilder physique. Anthony was black, in his fifties and looked like an NFL linebacker. Both wore dark aviator sunglasses.
"No relation," Susan said in response to the raised eyebrow.
The clerk typed on her console, "I was wondering when they were going to cut them loose, the epidemiology group cleared them as non-contagious two days ago." Laughing, she added, "It's like someone wants to keep them out of sight like in some spy movie."
Undeterred by the serious expressions on the two medics, she dropped her voice to a whisper, "I think the man isn't all there in the head, I'm glad you are taking him to the main hospital for treatment."
An orderly was called and soon with the orderly and the two medics each pushing a wheelchair, they went down a hall through sliding powered doors to get to the isolation wards.
Knocking on the door with "Possible" and "Porter" marked on folders sitting in a holder on the door, they heard, "Come in."
Entering the room, they saw a man with graying temples who looked pale and a little shaky was sitting across a card table from a blonde woman who was dealing playing cards face down. Sitting cross-legged on the floor by a sunny window was a young red-haired woman holding several power cords in her lap.
"Good morning, doctors, Miss Possible," said the orderly in a cheery voice, "how are the memory exercises going?"
"Just fine Fred," Dr. Porter replied, "short-term memory is excellent, long-term memory seems to be recovering."
"Except I can't remember a lot of the past," grumbled James. He looked at the two medics,
"Are you here to move us to another facility?"
Jones (the blonde one) replied, "Yes, Dr. Possible, we are. There is a specialist that really wants to see you as soon as we can get you to her."
"Have I met her?"
"I believe you have, sir. Her name is Mrs. Dr. P."
As tears appearing in the haggard face of the graying scientist, he said, "Let's not keep her waiting, then. I have nothing to pack, I'm ready to go."
"What about me?" the redhead sitting on the floor asked.
"Our paperwork says to bring all three of you. How long until you are ready to go, Miss?" asked the other medic.
Erica stood up, reached under the hem of her shirt and pulled loose the power cords. She unplugged them from the wall and coiled them up neatly, carrying them in one hand.
"I'm ready."
"Dr. Porter, ma'am?"
"I'm good to go," she looked at the two medics and wished she could see their eyes, "can we stop for lunch?"
This ambulance was outfitted with captain's chairs in the back instead of stretchers and soon Dr. Possible, Dr. Porter and Erica were (unnecessarily, but really, medics) rolled out, seated and buckled in. As the ambulance drove onto the highway, its markings changed from the standard red and white design to all white with the lettering changing to "Lazy C Airport Shuttle."
STD 2018-
The young med tech in coveralls with CDC in large letters on the back and a filter mask obscuring his face walked into Secret Lab #3, nodding and showing a badge to the two Air Force Security personnel guarding the door.
Hirotaka walked into the lab, ignoring the snickers of the security guys laughing at "those geeks who're scared of germs", he looked around. Wanda, dressed similarly was applying swabs to a room of some sort in the back. Because he knew what to look for, he saw his teammate plant audio listening devices and cameras while she apparently took dust samples from the walls and floor. Turning to his area of responsibility, he walked over to the desk. He picked up the family photograph housed in an ornately decorated frame, one that looked like maybe an art project done by a small child. The frame was originally a plain wooden frame with lots of objects like small stones, beads, and shells glued onto it. Running his hand around the frame, he removed and palmed the camera and memory chip. He sprayed a mist onto the picture and inspected it, no reason, just to provide cover for his actions. Looking around, he saw spare clothes and some hand towels that he placed into a clear plastic specimen bag, which he sealed.
Both Wanda and he looked at each other when they heard three clicks in their earpieces. Leaving the lab, they surrendered their specimen bags for security to officially examine and transfer them to the CDC labs. Finally, they were sloppily searched by the security at the door and allowed to leave. They quickly walked down the hall and slipped up a side stairway to the first floor. Stopping at a restroom to shed and discard their coveralls, they walked out the front door and around to the guest parking lot. Nana-sama had provided credentials and the PIN numbers needed to get them in and out. They had the strangest feeling that these people knew that they weren't who they claimed to be, but were happy to see them anyway.
A quick walk to motorcycle parking where they joined Yori and Suzie, donned leather jackets and helmets, then mounted up and left the premises.
"Why the 'leave now' signal, Yori-san?" Wanda, seated behind Suzie, asked over the encrypted comms in their helmets.
"One of Wade's drones saw a mark drawn on the grounds behind the building. I estimate it was directly over the lab where you and Hiro-san were working." Yori tapped Hirotaka on his shoulder and pointed to the exit to take. "Wade-san believes the source was something in low orbit. I am going to have Hiro-san take me to meet up with Dr. Possible's extraction team. He will return later. I will continue on to Japan."
Stopping at the Possible house, Suzie and Wanda put their bike in the garage and changed into their street disguises, basically jeans, tee shirts, and light jackets. Stopping at the Tweebs rooms, they checked in with the Team Orange hackers long enough to get a copy of the camera's data retrieved by Hirotaka plus the access information for the bugs planted by Wanda put onto a memory stick.
Leaving the house, the pair walked toward the Bueno Nacho when the ground opened under them and they disappeared.
STD 2018-
General Falco stood on an old unused runway. He had an honor guard standing at parade rest, off to the side. This was what he was born for, his destiny. About fifty feet in front of him was the alien glove sitting on a small table. A strange glyph had been drawn around it by an orbiting laser. The back of the glove had a touch screen and virtual keyboard. The techs were telling him that the odds were that it was a communication device and sure enough, it had lit up with some unreadable message yesterday. They had tried various inputs with the virtual keyboard until a single large blinking dot had appeared on the screen. Figuring that they had activated a beacon, they had brought it out here so the General could meet Destiny.
Not wanting to meet Destiny on an empty stomach, he sent a couple of aides out for carryout from Cow and Chow then settled back in an armored command vehicle to wait.
STD 2018-
Betty Director sat back and watched her screens. Everything looked normal as far as she could see - except for the marks on the ground as seen from pictures sent to her from "Team Indigo". She shook her head at that thought, she could tell that Team Indigo was really Wade Load with maybe a helper or two. Was Yamanouchi absorbing all of Team Possible?
Watching her status windows, she saw that the "test animals" going to Japan would arrive at Tinker AFB later tonight. That meant that someone moved the schedule up a day. No matter, the C5A was already there being refueled and serviced. Tinker was the Air Force base in charge of all the huge AWACS and many other large aircraft and getting the GJ's huge transport out of their way a day earlier wouldn't matter to them.
Her comms window blinked with an incoming call. Clicking on 'accept', she said,
"Hello Du, I see that things seem to be moving up a day, what are you seeing?"
Du's characteristic neat hair looked windblown and she swore she saw a grease smudge on his cheek. He also seemed to be uncharacteristically happy,
"Dr. Director, I just got a notification from 'Cowboy's Momma' that both Drs. P have been 'checked out' of Hotel California. I'm currently in Drakken's Nebraska lair. His stealth hoverjet survived the collapse and some of our techs and I have been checking it out. We have it ready to fly and have even installed standard GJ transponders. Request permission to use it to pick up the Drs. P and take them to our cargo plane. In fact, Ma'am, I'd like to ship it to Japan as part of the experimental cargo we are sending to the Hokkaido Global Justice division. I feel that we could finish studying the hoverjet there more effectively away from the prying eyes of the U.S. Military."
"Very well, Agent Du. I will assign you to Hokkaido for three weeks and you will report on your progress at that time."
There was a knock on her door and an aide stuck his head in the door,
"Ma'am, the Yamanouchi Team Cobra was covertly routed from our Bueno Nacho tube to the one by Wade Load's house."
The young man walked and laid a memory stick on her desk.
"They said 'Give Dr. Director our compliments and tell her to analyze the data before putting on a networked computer.' I believe that it is surveillance data from Dr. Possible's lab."
"Thank you, Paul" she replied, reaching into a drawer to pull out a small laptop that was never attached to a network.
STD 2018-
This morning Raven was surprised to see that Ron had already showered and was shaving(!), standing at the sink with a towel wrapped around his waist when she walked into the communal bathroom to start her shower.
"Whoa, Mad Dog, have trouble sleeping?"
"No, I slept fine, just not long enough. Got to work harder on training. I have this bad feeling that I'm not ready."
"Not ready for…?" The dark-haired girl asked.
"Your first dream said that I died trying to save Japan, right? And that I didn't save it."
"Yori said not to focus on dreams, sometimes they are just an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato."
"Uh, is that a direct quote?"
"Yes, I'm pretty sure that is exactly what she said." The look in her dark eyes challenged him to disagree.
"Well, humor me. The MMP seems to cover up my brain problems. If I failed before, it was likely that I was slacking off in training. If I want to be more gravy than grave and break the prophecy, then I have to train hard and be as ready as I can."
"OK," she didn't like thinking about it, but she was here to try to change the prophecy, that is, either help him save Japan or die by his side. "Meet you at the pool?"
Ron splashed water on his face and dried it with a towel.
"Actually, I was thinking that maybe you should…"
"Hurry and take a shower so we can have a nice, hot breakfast before hitting that cold water?" she interrupted, "Great idea, boyfriend! Get cooking, I'll hurry."
Before freshly shaved blond could protest, she put her hand behind his neck and pulled him close until their foreheads touched.
"Ron, my brothers are here, my mom is here, my dad will be here soon. More importantly, you are here. I will not leave you. I'm thinking pancakes and eggs over easy with bacon, please and thank you."
STD 2018-
"That's weird," pointed out Joss, "If giant roaches don't have wings, why does their shell split like this?" They had pulled into a rest stop and were mopping out the space under Lenard's "elytra". At least that was what a quick Web search called it. The same web search pointed out that beetles had this protective 'shell' covering their wings, but normal roaches didn't. They had been discussing how to get James on board the cargo plane without being seen when Lenard, apparently listening, 'popped the lid to his trunk'. There was more than enough space for a couple of adults to lay down. Roaches don't sweat, so the space was really just dusty and musty, easy to clean.
About fifteen minutes later, Will Du landed next to them and they discovered a problem. James was fixated on getting to Anne and was ready to do a lot worse than ride in the "trunk" of a giant roach. Erica didn't have any fear of closed in spaces or bugs programmed into her personality. Vivian, on the other hand, appeared to have the same problem that Kimberly had with non-flickable bugs.
"Give me your jacket," Jessica told the scientist, stripping off her Middleton High letter jacket. As they swapped tops, she told the skeptical woman, "No sweat, just remember, head high, chest out and smile!"
Vivian held the jacket like it was cursed. She looked at Lenard a second time as if she was reconsidering.
"Remember Vivian-san," Yori pointed out, "People see what they want to see. If people look at you and see your slender form, the cheerleader jacket, and your smile then their brains will see a high school cheerleader, not a world-class robotics expert."
STD 2018-
"I've loaded stranger cargoes," the GJ loadmaster told the visiting Air Force counterpart.
"Really?" the older man scoffed, "I suppose you transported Hannibal's elephants…"
"I can neither confirm nor deny…" the GJ loadmaster grinned then called to the auburn-haired girl standing on top of the first giant roach, "Miss! Pass the webbing strap please!" He caught the strap, connected it to a tie point in the deck, and ratcheted it down nice and snug but not uncomfortably tight. Of course, 'comfortable enough' for a seatbelt on a giant roach was a wild guess.
"OK, Lenard, hang onto this strap, sweetie" a blond girl was connecting short loops or webbing to tie points and guiding the massive insect's feet into them to give it something to hang on to.
'These people are nuts, freakin' nuts…' the old loadmaster said to himself.
STD 2018-
Wade lay in bed trying to sleep. He and Katsumi had monitored and provided computer and drone assistance to the effort to get James to Japan all the way to the GJ C5A reaching international airspace. Wanda had dropped by and told the pair to continue working in shifts after finding that they refused to 'abandon' their posts.
Wade had convinced Katsumi to rest first as she was probably still suffering from jet lag. The young ninja had laid down on his bed 'so it will be easier to wake me if something happens'. Wade found it harder to focus on his screens than usual with his partner sleeping in his bed a few feet away. He put in an order for new silent keyboards. (Wade is a considerate young man.)
He considered it strange that while they were working, she was a smart and skilled database expert. He had been able to show her some things and she taught him a few things. She was nearly the perfect teammate, smart, willing to listen, a great sense of humor; in total, a pleasure to work with. Now that she was asleep, her femininity shone like the moon on a clear night. He wondered how people reconciled the different facets of the people they had relationships with. He resolved to have a talk with his mom and dad.
Three hours later, they switched places. Wade lay in bed and practiced some meditation techniques that Kim had taught him to quiet his thoughts. The problem was the smell. He had switched pillows, but the faint floral scent that he has smelled in the holo-room still teased his senses. Finally, he relaxed into the smell and fell asleep. If his dreams were of a cute ninja with the most amazing smile plus elite computer skills, the gods of sleep were merciful and he did not remember them.
STD 2018-
Anne stood on the road by the little inn that she and Wanda had spent the first night after she arrived in Japan, it seemed a lifetime ago. A gust of wind blew around her and a hoverjet of some sort gradually appeared. The doors opened and people started to exit the craft. Only one mattered, the worn looking man with hair graying at the temples. Running to him, she threw herself into his arms, hugging him fiercely. Pulling back a little, she noticed tears streaming down his face.
"Honey, what's wrong?"
"I remember you," he said softly, pulling her more tightly to his body, "I remember this. The way you feel in my arms," a small sob shook his body, "I didn't forget what was the most important things to me."
CREDITS
All characters are the property of the Disney Company. This is a work of fan fiction.
Suzie Chin (Subira Chen) and her partner in Ninja-hood Wanda Wang, along with Team Panther, Team Twelve, and Team Orange are all from Sentinel103 and his "Once Again" stories.
Mea Culpa There is roughly a 12-hour difference between Japan and the United States. That means that early morning in one spot is early evening in the other. So don't pay too much attention to the concept of simultaneity in this story.
Authors Note Thanks to CajunBear73, Daccu65, and Sentinel103 for basically being beta readers, editors, and plot bunny wranglers.
Published Oct 27th, 2018