Session Six

"Told you we should have just gone to Venus in the first place," Faye said, legs dangling over the arm of the navigator's chair on the Bebop's bridge.

"Better to make sure before running off on some wild goose chase. Imagine the fuss you'd make if we went straight to Venus and she wasn't there," Jet said, crossing his arms.

"Well, she is, so I wouldn't fuss. I'd just say 'I told you so'," Faye said sweetly.

Jet sighed. "Isn't that what you're doing now?"

Faye smiled.

Just then Leon climbed the stairs to the deck, wearing a fresh pair of jeans. He had a t-shirt draped over his shoulders as he toweled his hair dry, unabashedly displaying a few scars across his torso. Faye frowned. The clothes Leon was wearing used to be Spike's. Leon didn't notice her annoyance.

After picking up a few vials of Dragon's Eye and collecting his gun, cigarettes, and lighter from Jag, Leon left the Lion's Den. He'd met up with Jet at their arranged drop-off and the two had arrived back at the Bebop a few minutes ago. Leon immediately went to shower all of the make-up and hair product away. He'd rinsed his eyes several times as well, and although they looked better than before, he looked like the victim of a nasty case of pink-eye.

"Oh look who it is!" Faye exclaimed as he looked up from under the towel. "Our resident addict has returned."

Leon stuck his tongue out at her. "Where's Ed?" he asked.

"She's studying that Dragon's Eye you brought back. Why?" Jet asked.

"I need to talk to her about getting this stuff out of my eyes," he tossed his towel onto the shogi board, scattering a few pieces. Jet winced. "Hey, careful!"

"It's not like we were gonna finish the game anyway," Leon said, voice slightly muffled as he pulled his t-shirt over his head. "It's been in stalemate for three days."

Jet sighed. "Eh, you're probably right. Maybe one day I'll actually find a partner who likes the damn game."

Faye rolled her eyes. "Maybe you just need to find a new hobby, Jet."

Jet shrugged. Leon leaned against the shogi table. "So, what now?"

"Head to Venus and get a jump on Villanova," Jet said. "We've got confirmation that she's there and one very good reason to leave Ganymede for a while."

"What's that?" Faye asked.

"Andross," Leon and Jet both answered.

Faye looked lost.

"When Andross finds out that Lucaza doesn't exist any more than his 5,000,000 woolongs, he'll be pissed, to put it mildly," Leon said.

"In which case, he'll likely start a man-hunt for the lousy addict who bummed him out of his best drugs," Jet said.

"You're the one who told him the crazy story in the first place!" Faye pointed accusingly at Leon.

Leon rubbed his neck. "Sorry," he shrugged. "I might've gotten carried away. But hey," he spread his hands, "Jet told me to use whatever story I thought would work best on the guy."

"You have just as much imagination and just as little foresight as Spike," Faye grumbled.

"But it worked, didn't it?"

Faye had to smile. She'd used the same excuse on Jet many times. "It did," she admitted.

"So, on to Venus?" Leon asked.

"On to Venus," Jet agreed.

Leon found Ed in the living room, hunched over her computer in the floor behind the couch. In his few weeks with the Bebop he'd rarely seen Ed sit in a chair. She seemed to prefer hanging, dangling, and sprawling on the ship's floor and other fixtures instead. She had her goggles on and her computer hooked up to a box with a scanner in it. A sample of the Dragon's Eye sat in the scanner.

Leon sat down beside her. Ed didn't look up from her screen. The gibberish flying across the screen at the speed of light made no sense to Leon, but Ed seemed to find something very interesting in it. She kept making small sounds of surprise and then whistled in appreciation.

Finally, Leon couldn't wait any longer. "What is it, Ed?" he asked. "What have you found?"

"This stuff makes you go craaazy!" she exclaimed, swirling a finger in the air by her head.

"Well, I knew that much," Leon said, picking up a second vial of the stuff from the floor beside Ed. He held it up to the light. Dragon's Eye was a thick, deep shade of purple and denser than Red Eye. Leon pulled the stopper out of the vial and gave it a sniff. He wrinkled his nose. It smelled sharper than Red Eye, something like cinnamon and musk. Not exactly pleasant. He stoppered the vial again.

Ed stopped typing and lifted her goggles. "No, I mean, really crazy," she said.

"Like worse than Red Eye?"

Ed nodded emphatically. "You know what Grey Ash is for, right?"

"Curing Venus sickness."

"Yup! But it does that by rearranging everything in your brain," she twisted herself up in a knot, as if to demonstrate.

"Rearrange your brain?"

"You know, to teach it new tricks!"

"So, what you mean is that this stuff actually changes the way a person's body works?"

"Yup! Grey Ash introduces a new strain of antibodies that fight Venus sickness usually. But if you release this stuff," she tapped the vial of Dragon's Eye in Leon's hand, "without any Venus sickness for it to attack, it goes after your brain instead!" she waved her fingers over Leon's head.

"How much of this do you have to take before it does that?" Leon asked.

"Not much."

"How much would someone normally shoot up?"

Ed looked up, tapping her chin. "I dunno," she shrugged. "Ed doesn't do drugs."

Leon frowned at her. "No kidding. I know you know, Ed. This stuff is science. You don't have to do it to know how it works."

Ed grinned. "You're right. Hmm...maybe half a millileter or so? Depends on the applicator they use."

"And how crazy would that make somebody?"

"Madder than Red Eye, but they'd come down about the same time."

"So one or two uses of this isn't going to affect anyone's brain."

"Not instantly," Ed shook her head, goggles swaying from around her neck.

"But if they kept taking it?"

"Brain short circuits," Ed said, seizing up with arms and legs akimbo and a vacant look on her face.

"You mean, eventually they would get to the point where they wouldn't be able to think for themselves anymore?"

"Exactly. All the wires cut, no more electricity. Everybody turns into a veeegaaataablee," Ed slowly melted to the floor with a goofy smile.

"This is serious, Ed."

Ed sat up, losing the silly expression. "Very," she said. She pointed at the computer screen where a display popped up. It showed two different molecular models. "This," she tapped the model on the left, "is Grey Ash without any modifications."

Leon leaned closer for a better look.

"And this," Ed tapped the model on the right, "is Grey Ash once it's added to Red Eye. They do not match," she proclaimed.

Leon looked at the two models. They were nearly identical, except for a small spur that looked almost like a rose's thorn sticking off of the Grey Ash/Red Eye model. "So what's this?" he asked Ed, pointing at the thorn.

"That's the piece that sticks to your brain," she said. "It grabs on like this," she suddenly grabbed Leon's head.

"Hey!" he yelped, but her hand was firmly tangled in his hair.

"And it never lets go." Ed grinned wickedly.

Leon looked up at her from under her arm. "There wouldn't be a way to get Ed to let go, would there?"

She laughed. "Of course, there is, silly. Ed doesn't want to be stuck to Leo all the time." She let go. He resisted the urge to run a hand through his hair.

"Hey, Ed?"

"Yup?" she was staring at her computer again, enhancing the images of the two models.

"That dye you had Faye put in my eyes. You did say it washes out, right?"

"Sure. Why?" she asked. But Leon detected the beginning of a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"Because now I look like I'm addicted to Pink Eye instead of Red Eye."

This time Ed giggled.

"Aw, c'mon! Don't tell me it stays!"

Ed shook her head. "It doesn't."

Leon sighed.

"It will take some time, but it will wash out. Ed promises!" She crossed her heart with a finger and laid her hand over it.

"Whatever you say, Ed," Leon said, but he couldn't hide the relief in his voice.

He stood up.

"Hey, Leo?" Ed asked as he was about to leave.

"Yeah?" he turned around.

"Can I have some of your blood?"

"My blood?"

"Yeah, you know. For DNA."

"Uh, sure, I guess."

Without looking over at him, Ed held out a small needle and a little plastic dish.

"You were ready for this!?"

"Ed's always ready." She grinned.