PART THREE: CAROLYN
That's not the beginning of the end
That's the return to yourself
The return to innocence.
Love - Devotion
Feeling - Emotion
Love - Devotion
Feeling - Emotion
Don't be afraid to be weak
Don't be too proud to be strong
Just look into your heart my friend
That will be the return to yourself
The return to innocence.
If you want, then start to laugh
If you must, then start to cry
Be yourself don't hide
Just believe in destiny.
Don't care what people say
Just follow your own way
Don't give up and use the chance
To return to innocence.
That's not the beginning of the end
That's the return to yourself
The return to innocence.
Don't care what people say
Follow just your own way
Follow just your own way
Don't give up, don't give up
To return, to return to innocence.
If you want then laugh
If you must then cry
Be yourself don't hide
Just believe in destiny.
-"Return to Innocence", Enigma
Chapter 24: Graduation
Earth-A
TRIANGLE NEWS SERVICE
EMPEROR PROCLAIMS INTERNET SAFE FOR HUMANITY
Over 20 Million Sites Purged of Objectionable Material, Including Every Trace of Rescue Rangers
AUTHOR'S NOTE: "Purged"? "Purged"? But I was using that fandom! Now what am I going to do? Alright, readers, let's go look at the website for this random fandom over here while I re-group.:
On a web browser, the following address was entered: HELLO KITTY : MM'S ADVENTURES OF POCHACCO & KEROPPI : ABOUT. The page that appeared looked strangely familiar. Here is the Lynx version of the page that appears:
THIS NODE HAS BEEN CERTIFIED TO BE COMPLIANT WITH ALL APPLICABLE IMPERIAL REGULATIONS
HELLO KITTY Fan Node : MM's Adventures of Pochacco & Keroppi : About
About MM's Adventures of Pochacco & Keroppi
CAPTION: Pochacco the Bouncer
CAPTION: Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater
CAPTION: Keroppi the Bouncer
"Once upon a miaow..."
Does anybody remember Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater? It was a cartoon from the '80's where Hello Kitty and friends got their own theater and started acting out their versions of fairy tales and well-known stories.
I think it was a great idea for a series, but what would happen if, instead of a new story every episode, they acted out an epic that lasted an entire season? That's what The Adventures of Pochacco & Keroppi is all about.
Once upon a miaow, Pochacco and Keroppi, best friends, found themselves the only two who could save their monkey friend Monkichi and his dog Grinder from being framed for theft by the dastardly monkey Chi Chai Monchan, the cat Fangora, and the mad inventor Batdz-Maru. In the course of this adventure, Pochacco and Keroppi make three steadfast friends, and after saving Monkichi and Grinder and exposing Chi Chai Monchan's schemes, they decided to remain together as the Daring Do-Gooders, a group dedicated to solving the cases the monkey police are unable to handle.
Here are the main characters and the roles they play:
The site continues on from there, providing enough information to the true fan to reveal the new names to be used for each character. The footer of the page identified the creation date as June 1st and the creator as "MM". There were links for "Episodes", "Fanfiction", "Fanart", "Chatroom" and "Membership". Before clicking on the "Chatroom" link, note the animated background image: the eye with legs with three orbiting dots that identify this as a web page hosted on a Navi server. However, underneath that logo some new text has been added that flashes briefly every few seconds: "Have you ever seen the lain?"
The header of the chat is ASCII art of Pochacco waving hello, followed by the following legal boilerplate:
Welcome to the Adventures of Pochacco & Keroppi Chat (PANDK System v1.2). You are entering private property. Membership is by invitation only. Apply for a login at the HELLO KITTY Fan Node : MM's Adventures of Pochacco & Keroppi : Membership. Unauthorized access is considered trespassing and will be prosecuted.
] The date is Friday, June 12. The time is 23:08 EDT.
] Login: MourningDove
] Password: ************
] Welcome to the chat, MourningDove.
] MyMelody is already here.
] 4096-bit encryption has been engaged.
MyMelody: Greetings, MourningDove. Welcome to the Pochacco & Keroppi chat.
MourningDove: Hi.
MyMelody: I see you are a new member. There is a task I like to give new members, to gauge how much they will be able to contribute: please come up with a new character for the series.
MourningDove: A test, huh? Hmm...well, I don't know which Sanrio character would be best, but how about a neighbor and best friend for My Melody who keeps her crush from getting too out of hand? They both graduated from high school today.
MyMelody: That will work. :) Glad to see you found us, Honker.
MourningDove: Thanks, QQ. So, a test to distinguish the "true believer" from the merely curious. Good idea. But I'm still worried. Are you sure that you-know-who won't find out about this? The one who pointed me here said she was pretty confident she could use "his" computers without him catching on. Who is she, anyway?
MyMelody: That was ConMouse. I know as little about her now as I did before. But she's proven her worth many times. The guts of this site are all her work, although the basic idea was mine. I've been planning this ever since "he" got his job.
MourningDove: But you don't know who she is? You may have even met her.
MyMelody: Wouldn't be surprised. But I'm not going to pry. ConMouse guards her secrets well, and the last thing we need right now is to drive her off by being too nosy - this movement will end when that happens. How was graduation?
MourningDove: A complete and utter blur. I know I said something between "I've been curious about how the world worked" and "the key to contentment is to always try whatever makes you uncomfortable", but I'll be darned if I can remember a word of it. How was your graduation?
MyMelody: A complete and utter disaster. I don't want to talk about it.
MourningDove: I wish I could have shared it with you.
MyMelody shrugs.
MourningDove: It's been less than two weeks since the edict. You and ConMouse must have been busy. I suppose that means you haven't had any time to write.
MyMelody: I've been writing. Don't have a choice - my counterpart lives her life regardless of what happens to us.
MourningDove: So how far are you?
MyMelody: I'm finished! Other than waiting for you, my main reason for logging in tonight was to tell the fanfic news to anybody who would be willing to hear.
MourningDove: Congratulations!
MyMelody: To be honest, I wasn't sure I'd ever have the patience to follow this thing through for four years.
MourningDove: Can I see it?
MyMelody: Sure. Go to the Fanfiction section on my node, and then add "Academy Days Chapter 12" to the address.
MourningDove: Reading it now.
In his room in Harford, Connecticut, Herbert d'Foote, Jr., one-time next-door neighbor to the Emperor of Earth (and known to his closest friends as "Honker"), sat at his Navi and downloaded the last chapter of a four-year saga covering the high school years of the Sanrio character My Melody. A series of search-and-replace operations later, the document was now about Tammy Chestnutt. The final section of the chapter read as follows:
"Don't take too long with that breath of fresh air," Foxglove told Tammy, who nodded. She then turned and returned to the party.
Tammy took her promised breath, then sat down to wait for the end of the party. As she sat, she thought back on the tumultuous last four years of her life. Years of joy and heartbreak, of new friends and self-discovery. Four years ago, Tammy Chestnutt entered the Allegheny River Academy not knowing who she was. Well, now she knew who she was, she knew her destiny, and she was determined to make the most of it, to reach out her hand like her father had, and to serve her fellow animals like the Rescue Rangers had. She was ready.
A chipmunk's hand came to rest gently on her shoulder.
Tammy turned her head, smiling. "Yes, Chip?"
THE END
] You have been inactive for 5 minutes. Do you wish to log out?
] Disconnected.
Tough security system, thought Honker. But then again, I certainly can't blame her.
Honker logged in again as MourningDove.
MourningDove: OK, read it.
MyMelody: And?
MourningDove: It's good. Better than anything I can write.
MyMelody: Well, you draw much better than I can, so I say we're even.
MourningDove: Point taken. I do have bad news, however: your site's been hacked.
MyMelody: What? Let me check.
MourningDove: It's the background image on your pages.
MyMelody: Yes, I checked the logs, and it looks like that's all that was affected. I'll let ConMouse know. "Have you ever seen the lain"? What does it mean?
MourningDove: It's Japanese. Something weird has been going on in Japan for the past couple of months, but I haven't been able to get a straight answer on any of the English-language nodes. Something about a new "God of the Wired".
MyMelody: Creepy. Are you going to be on much longer?
MourningDove: Yeah, I was thinking of staying online all night. Maybe ConMouse will log in.
MyMelody: As far as I know she hasn't created an account yet. She said she was going to be very busy this week. Well, I'm barely conscious, so I'm going to bed. Be sure to ask any new people that character question I asked you, and treat anybody who fails as a potential spy.
MourningDove: Will do.
] MyMelody has logged out.
] You have been inactive for 5 minutes. Do you wish to log out? No
] You have been inactive for 5 minutes. Do you wish to log out? No
MourningDove: BRB
] You have been inactive for 5 minutes. Do you wish to log out? No
MourningDove: Unbelievable. And nobody here to tell.
] You have been inactive for 5 minutes. Do you wish to log out? No
] You have been inactive for 5 minutes. Do you wish to log out? No
] You have been inactive for 5 minutes. Do you wish to log out? No
] Amnesia1983 has joined.
Amnesia1983: Hello?
MourningDove: Welcome to the Pochacco and Kerapi chat. I take care of the place when MyMelody is away. I see you are a new member. There is a task we like to give new members, to gauge how much they will be able to contribute: please come up with a new character for the Pochacco & Keroppi series.
Amnesia1983: I'm rather attracted to Mimmy Kitty - a Hawaiian lookalike of Hello Kitty who happens to be a con-artist and Hello Kitty's dark side incarnate. Who did you pick, BTW?
MourningDove: The neighbor and best friend for My Melody who keeps her crush from getting too out of hand.
Amnesia1983: Err...I don't remember that character in the cartoon. Oh wait, Herbie? That was a fanchar in QQ's fiction, right?
MourningDove: Bingo.
Amnesia1983: You know, I've been trying to ask QQ about this for the longest time, but she keeps avoiding the question: Where does she get her material? That Academy Days series has been going on forever, and near as I can tell, she's got the characterization nailed. I've never seen anything like it. What's her secret?
MourningDove: I'm sure she's mentioned the subject of "counterparts" before - that ring any bells?
Amnesia1983: Oh, wow. You're kidding. Well, if you're going to share something that big with me, the least I can do is to give you my identity - I'm "her" pilot.
MourningDove: I know.
Amnesia1983: You do?
MourningDove: You already said you work for "them", and you're the only one of their employees that could create all this.
Amnesia1983: Thanks.
MourningDove: That, and you don't sound anything like Lou.
Amnesia1983: Well, if you're going to be that way about it, no more secrets for you. ;) Seriously, though, after what I went through tonight, I'd really like to get in touch with QQ - is she going to log in tonight? She really needs to hear what happened.
MourningDove: She's been and gone, and is not coming back tonight. I can't imagine your news beats mine, though.
Amnesia1983: Oh? You first.
MourningDove: Not twenty minutes ago, "she" dropped out of the sky in a helicopter and stole my pet bat! Can your story beat that?
Amnesia1983: Yes.
Carolyn Maughlarde was sound asleep. Physically, Carolyn was in her bed in a small apartment in Inverness, Florida, that bordered Withlacoochie State Forest.
Mentally, Carolyn Maughlarde was outside amidst the trees in broad daylight, having the time of her life, leaping from branch to branch hundreds of feet above the ground, the wind rushing through her hair. The trees were immense, not only in height, but in every dimension; the average branch was much bigger than she was. Her method of travel was to leap off of a branch, arms and legs outspread, and let wind resistance slow her and the next branch stop her. Something else was helping, though, a steady pull from behind that kept her from slamming into the tree too fast. Carolyn looked back, and saw her tail.
"Tail!"
With a start, Carolyn was suddenly awake. The dream had been so vivid that for a moment she had to check herself to make sure she was still human. She thought back on the dream, and she recognized the tail, and the animal it belonged to. Turning on a bedside lamp, she got out of bed. The outer layer of her bedclothes consisted of an extra-large white tee shirt, on which the following had been silk screened many years ago:
Where Will the Little Green Man Be Next?
Enter the Contest, Daily in the Chronicle!
The back of the shirt read "Ragle Gumm Knows."
Carolyn walked to the closet, opening it to reveal a red football helmet adorned with antennae, wires and various electronic attachments. The helmet was a top-secret prototype, developed by Doctor Elena Irwin for The Company. She called it the Kaon-Emission Paravoyant Neurolyzer, or KEPN. It was designed to read the brainwaves of anyone in the world and to relay those thoughts to the person wearing the helmet. However, on testing it on Agent Drew Maughlarde, it was discovered that the helmet actually detected the thoughts of the user's counterpart in an alternate universe (this meant that the "P" in the acronym had to be replaced with an "E", for "Equivoyant"). While still locked on Agent Maughlarde's avian counterpart, the helmet was stolen by agents of T.H.E.M., who accidentally lost it. From there it passed through the hands of E. Thaddeus Rockwell, who used it to create Darkwing Duck, and, after accidentally changing the frequency of the device, The Rescue Rangers. Rockwell had surrendered the helmet to Maughlarde in return for a chance to hide from the IRS. Carolyn's use of it had resembled Rockwell's, with two differences: she wasn't trying to get rich or famous, and she had tuned the device to her own counterparts in the worlds depicted in the two cartoons.
Suddenly, the door to Carolyn's bedroom burst open and her father pointed an accusing finger in her direction. "Don't you dare!" he cried.
"What?" she protested.
"You were going to put the KEEN on," he said. "Less than six hours after the last time."
"And so what if I was going to put it on?"
"I won't have you abusing this device!"
"You're one to talk-how many versions of yourself have you spied on since we got it?"
"That's different."
"That's different because using it changed you but it didn't change me. You used to be the Masked Marvel. That was your true identity. 'Drew Maughlarde' was just a disguise you put on when you needed to pretend to be normal. What happened to you, Dad? Did you see so many other you's fail that you decided to follow their example?"
This was an argument the two of them had had many times over the past few years, and Drew simply brushed it off. "This isn't about me, it's about you, young lady. Staying on one counterpart and one universe for too long has long-term consequences. The fate of poor Rockwell proved that. That's why you're limited to one session per day. It would have to be an exceptional circumstance before I'd allow you to use it again."
"It is exceptional! I think she's trying to contact me."
"You think Tammy has her own neurolyzer?"
"Yes. I can feel her watching me right now." Carolyn gestured over her left shoulder for emphasis. "Gadget must have invented the device independently while Tammy was in school."
"W...well, that's even more reason to be concerned! We have no idea what would happen if two KEENs got together! I might end up with a squirrel for a daughter!"
"And then maybe you'd get off your behind and save somebody for once! Look, it's perfectly safe. I've practically been in her head for four years now, off and on, and I'm the same person I was before, right?"
"Well, yes, as far as any eighteen-year old can be said to be the same as the fourteen-year old she used to be."
"There, you see?" Picking up the helmet with one hand, she led her father to the kitchen table. She sat him down in one chair, and she took the adjacent chair. "You watch everything that happens, and if you see anything go wrong, you turn it off, OK?"
"You're sure you want to go through with this? Now?"
"Yes and yes, and you're not going to be able to dissuade me." The Masked Marvel would have had a chance, but Drew Maughlarde was hopeless.
And he knew it. "I know that from bitter experience. Good luck, and be careful."
"I will." And in one motion she pulled on the helmet and flicked the switch at the side.
