This story comes first chronologically in the SME time-line but actually should be read following "The Babe Wore Blue" by Mark Latus. In his story, the character of Magnesite is fully explained. This concerns a series of events about three years prior to the Black Moon War in Crystal Tokyo. Prologue. He entered the palace without escort or fanfare and walked alone down the corridors to the greeting hall where dignitaries were received. Dressed in a blue uniform of a navy long defunct he appeared to be every inch the warrior. As a token to his position, he retained the sword and pistol that hung from his belt. No other who was not among the inner circle was allowed to be armed in the presence of the queen and king of Crystal Tokyo. He strode purposefully down the carpeted hallways, intent on his duty to a king and kingdom both long dead. It was little wonder he paid no attention to a small white and purple cat that watched his passage interestedly from underneath a table. Sweeping by, he went into the audience hall and the heavy bronze portals closed silently behind him. The cat pricked up its ears to try and hear what was said beyond the doors but they blocked all sound. She twitched her tail in frustration but waited patiently. Not more than twenty minutes passed before the doors swung open again to emit the man once again. Anger flushed his cheeks and a ribbon that once hung proudly on his breast was no longer there and the gold that once decorated his shoulders was also gone. He paused in his retreat and turned back to the open doors and the room beyond. "Mark my words," he pointed a warning finger at those within, "unless you do something now, others will suffer for your hesitancy. They are coming and they only understand power in its most naked application. The deaths to come of many men, women and children will be on your heads because you stood by and did nothing." He pointed an accusing finger at all within and added, "All of you!" With a wave of disgust he swept angrily down the hallway. The cat gazed in rapt attention at the display. Sailor Moon Expanded Presents A Frank Barr Production Magnesite P.I. in . . . "The Case of the Missing Senshi" Fade in on a cheap, cramped office full of battered furniture circa post WWII . . . There are a billion stories in the crystal city. Mine's one of them. I'm a private dick. Best in Crystal Tokyo. Maybe you've heard of me? The name's Ite, Magnesite. It's a thankless job, a life where you can't trust anyone--your clients least of all. To ferret out the truth I have to prowl the dark gritty underbelly of the city, a nightmarish underworld I know like the back of my hand . . . Oh, who am I kidding? Crystal Tokyo doesn't HAVE a dark gritty underbelly. If anything it's got a light fluffy underbelly, just like everything else in this Metallia-damned utopian society. I'm the best PI in the city because I'm the *only* one in the city, and even so I'm lucky to get one messy divorce case and three lost pets in a year. On the other hand, when crimes do get past the C.T.P.D. they tend to be huge. Like those cultists fifty years back . . . total nutballs, trying to resurrect Queen Metallia. Crazy, yeah, but smart enough to avoid the cops and the Senshi. They might've managed it if I hadn't been brought in. Cases like that one keep me from hanging up my trenchcoat. In between the big ones, though, there's not much to do. Every five years or so I throw a Bogie film festival; got to keep my idol's memory alive somehow. If it wasn't for that, the whole concept of private investigators would've gone the way of the Gardinel in this city. I've got a sneaking suspicion I'll be needed again soon. Most of the locals were born and raised in this best of all possible worlds; they wouldn't recognize raw evil if it walked up and ripped out their heart crystals. I hail from the Dark Kingdom, and I know trouble when I smell it. I'm smelling it now. Dark times are coming . . . my kind of times. Down these clean streets a man must walk . . . I got a call from some private secretary about eight in the morning requesting an appointment for this afternoon. Her voice was cold, hard but polite and I was immediately intrigued. Most of my trade is divorce cases where I'm supposed to get pictures of one spouse or another stepping out on their partner. This secretary's voice had all the earmarks of someone from outside Crystal Tokyo. Here all the secretaries are sunny and pleasant unlike this one who was coldy professional. When I ask what the case is about, she says that it will be explained by Mr. Irons during the appointment. Checking my schedule, I see that I was going to watch Casablanca on the vid again but I bump that little activity for a paying client. If it had been "Maltese Falcon" he would have had to wait until six. Even back when I was an almost-General in the Dark Kingdom, I made time to watch Bogie. Not only did he look like me, he had the right style, the right attitude. That's why I'm in this line of work, cause my hero did it. Crystal Tokyo is probably the worst place for a private dick, though. Every now and then I think this is some elaborate scheme of torture that Serenity thought up just for me. At four o'clock, on the dot he steps in the door like he owns the place. Tall, dark, kind of a pretty boy but his eyes had a hardness that said he'd seen a lot in his days. He had a fashion sense you don't see often in Crystal Tokyo. He was dressed in a tuxedo with a black trenchcoat and grey fedora. Something told me, though, he was trouble with a capital T. "Good afternoon Magnesite," He says formally. Hm, I notice that he doesn't bother with the "Mr." stuff. That's unusual because most people struggle with that Mr., -san, -sama crap until I tell em' to knock it off. In the Dark Kingdom your name alone should command all the respect and fear you needed without titles. "That's very informative," he says, "I'll make a note of it." Damn. I must have been narrating out loud. That bad little psychosis . . . er, quirk of mine was a byproduct having been trapped inside a psycho-plasm crystal with only myself to talk to. With nothing else to do, I started replaying memories to myself. You sit there talkin' to yourself for a few centuries and it's hard to break the habit. He takes a breath to say more then is seized with a racking cough. Pulling a breathing mask out of his pocket he places it before his mouth and gasps for air. "Do you mind if I crack a window?" he asks between coughs, "the cigarette smoke in here is lethal." "It keeps the roaches down," I say, "but be my guest." Humph! I should be so lucky, I doubt there is a roach in this entire city outside of the insectarium. Actually, I didn't notice. He walks over and opens the windows letting in the pristine, smog-less air of Crystal Tokyo. I light up a cigarette in keeping with my image and take a deep drag. The poisonous, cancer causing, menthol flavored smoke nestles deep inside my lungs doing untold damage. Or it would if I weren't really a solidified psycho-plasm ghost. In my escape from the Dark Kingdom when the whole universe collapsed I was transformed from your nice, normal, magic wielding youma to pure psychoplasm. A little fact I used to get revenge on some former underlings who double-crossed me known collectively as the Dark Kingdom Renegades. Oops, almost forgot to exhale. I blow a few smoke rings for effect. When the air clears after a minute, he puts away the filter and says, "I'll come straight to the point. I'm looking for someone who has been missing in this city for quite sometime. She might not be alive anymore but certain reliable sources have hinted that she is. I've got to find out one way or another, regardless." "So why come to me?" I ask, "it sounds like a case for the Crystal Tokyo police department." "This investigation must be kept as quiet as possible; I don't want to involve the authorities." "Not that I care what this person's done but it could complicate things if they're wanted." "No, she's not a criminal but it is vital I not alert the authorities to her or my presence in the city." "So who are you and why do you want to keep this secret. And none of that 'Mr. Irons' crap. I can spot a phony name a mile away." He smirks at my remarks and says, "Why is not for you to know, but I will say that it is nothing illegal. As to whom I am, I am Ferrite." I'd heard of him, he was a mysterious figure that came and went amongst the high circles of Crystal Tokyo. Rumor had it he was sort of like Beryl's Generals though I never heard of him even killing an underling. It was hard to place him in the hierarchy. He's supposed to be related to Endymion somehow but his title and function are not widely known. "I try to keep a low profile," Ferrite says. There I go again! Then I ask, "Okay, so who is this missing person?" "A girl by the name of Osaka Naru." "What does she look like?" "Kinky reddish brown hair, green eyes, about one point three meters tall. When I last saw her, she was fifteen years old." "And how long has she been missing?" "Approximately one thousand years." I pause and look at him before asking, "You're kidding, right?" "No, I'm not." Ha, this ought to be an easy way to make a buck, do some inquiries, find an Osaka Naru in the cemetery and boom, it's supper time. Ferrite folds his arms across his chest and glares at me. Uh-oh must have been narrating out loud again. "Yes you were," He says sternly, "and just to make sure you earn your pay. I'm going to accompany you every step of the way." "I work alone," I say definitely, "I don't need some amateur getting in the way of an investigation." "And I refuse to hire a slacker who's going to do a half-assed job and quit a the first opportunity," he says just as definitively, "It's either take me with you or I'll find her on my own." "All right, all right," I say quickly, "I do quality work it's just I wouldn't hold out much hope she's still alive after all this time unless she's immortal . . . she isn't, is she?" "I didn't think so," he says thoughtfully, "but my source is reliable so maybe there's some special circumstance. But enough of this, are you going to take the case?" "Certainly, just sign on the dotted line," I say taking out one of my standard life-force for services rendered contracts. Since I'm a psychoplasm ghost, I need life force to survive. Since most people don't willingly part with it and the Senshi would blast me if I started taking it, I set up this means of barter. The bad thing is, it's rare that an interesting case comes through the door, like this one. "I'll just add some special stipulations if you don't mind," he says pulling this long piece of paper out of his pocket. He lays it out on the table in front of me and it has over a hundred clauses on it that make plain a few points I left purposely vague in my own contract. "What?" I ask with a Bogie sneer, "you had a shyster look over my contract?" "I had whole platoons of 'shysters' look over your contract," he says, "In brief, these clarify 'services rendered' and allows me to take retributive action if you sell me out to the police afterwards." I wasn't going to do it, after all, Rei is no friend of mine but the thought had crossed my mind. "What? You gonna' sue me for the life force back?" I sneer. "No, I'll buy the Crystal Tokyo Broadcasting Network and run advertisements twenty four hours a day saying how untrustworthy and indiscreet you are," he sneers back. "Break your contract or blab to anybody and you'll be out in the street begging for life force with a tin cup," he says with finality. I slide my contract over with a smile. Ferrite goes up a notch in my estimation. It's not often you meet a human with such youma-like ruthlessness. He even has my idiom down. If nothing else, it'll get me out of the office for a change. After signing he asks, "So where to first?" "The hall of records," I answer, "maybe there's something there that didn't make it into the databases." Before I can point out that we are supposed to be adopting a low profile, he pulls out a disguise pen and changes himself into a nondescript government worker type. Hm, he must be pretty important to rate a trinket like that. I change my form to a bookish looking student and we're set. A quick hop on the metro and we arrive at the hall of records. The clerk asks us if she can be of help with an attitude that can only be described as "perky." Sometimes I wonder how I haven't gone on a rampage at the unending wall of cheerfulness I face day to day. Then I remember how scary the Senshi are now and stop wondering. I ask to see the marriage records for 1996 to 2026. Ferrite slaps his head in overlooking so obvious a line of investigation. "A girl can't wait forever," I point out. "Humph!" he grunts in agreement, "I just hope this doesn't turn into an expensive lesson in humility." I hope that it does, though, I still might be able to catch Casablanca. She leads us down several flights of stairs deep into the basement. We walk past several micro fiche racks to a row of ancient filing cabinets. "I'm sorry that these haven't been copied into the database," she apologies earnestly, "but money for transcription of these old records just never seems to find its way into the budget. Do you need my help in finding something specific?" "That's okay," I say to get rid of her, "We prefer hardcopy anyway." Looking at the rows of filing cabinets, Ferrite says, "Ah, yeah. Love it." She leaves us alone and I turn to Ferrite. "You say the last record you have of her is in two-thousand?" "Yeah, all I have is her graduation from college and then that's it." "Okay," I say stepping over to the appropriate filing cabinet, "Starting from there, let's see what we can find . . . " After about an hour and a half of flipping through reams of documents, I find what I'm looking for. "Ah, here we are," I say reading aloud, "the marriage license for Osaka Naru and Umino Guiro, February fourteenth on the year two-thousand one. So now we just go upstairs and do a search on their data terminals for Naru Guiro." "Already on it," Ferrite says hunched over a laptop that he got from somewhere. His fingers fly over the keyboard and he mutters, "Hm . . . Naru and Umino Guiro, date greater than February fourteenth two-thousand, hospital, civil service, voting registration, retirement, order by date . . . fetch." The computer sits there and chews on the search for a few minutes before it beeps announcing it's done. He looks at the results and strokes his chin thoughtfully. "Let's see here . . . voting records show them moving to an apartment after they're married . . . get jobs and pay a little into their retirement . . . Oh, how sad . . . Umino is killed in an auto accident in 5/9/2004 . . . Naru admitted to the hospital on the same night with slight injuries then released . . . Umino interred in Eternal Rest Cemetery 5/12/2004 . . . Naru Guiro admitted to Juban Mental Health Facility 11/3/2004 by Myuko . . . " He gulps and pauses for a moment, "her . . . her mother." Reading over his shoulder I continue, "Then it gets weird . . . her file is closed at one facility after she escapes and can't be found. Then she reappears about ten years later under the department of welfare in a housing project . . . her file is closed after she turns up missing after a couple of years later . . . Look! There she is again, only this time she's under the department of public health. Hm, her file is closed again after she's lost track of . . . " Looks like this Naru is immortal after all. "This is unbelievable!" Ferrite exclaims, "It looks like she's been lost in the system for centuries." He touches a few keys and the display of the records change, "Notice the names of the caseworkers and organizations keep changing. It looks like she's been shuffled around between psychiatric services, health services, public welfare and the like for ages. Seems once she was first sucked into the system no one bothered to check her date of birth as the idea of a homeless immortal was too ridiculous to consider." "It is too ridiculous to consider," I point out. "Oh, yeah, you're right," he admits, "So anyway, she's been handed around by generations of social workers. She's refusing all efforts at rehabilitation and keeps escaping back to the streets on the occasions they manage to get her institutionalized." I laugh cynically, "Given the nature of CT it's hard to forcibly commit her so they have to keep trying to play nice-nice and persuade her to let them help her. Which she won't, obviously." In the Dark Kingdom we just tossed the infirm or mentally addled out into the wilderness. That's what we would'a done to this Osaka Naru. Inwardly I rejoice, at last something to be cynical about in this pristine utopia. Ferrite looks at some hospital registers and adds, "So whenever they get fed up and try force her, she resists. See this treatment record for this mental health facility? They keep dumping her on the new recruits or anyone who needs disciplining and forgetting about her. I'll bet every now and again someone wonders just how old she is but she's so difficult before long all they want is to dump her on someone else and deal with easier clients." "Looks like crystal Tokyo has a couple of cracks," I say smugly. "The last record is two years ago," Ferrite says paging to the end of the entries, "Then she just disappears." He turns to me and says, "I looked before, there's nothing in the police records about the homeless or similar situations so where will we go now? Do you think Rei might have some files on stuff like that which she doesn't share with the public?" "Rei? Rei only thinks she knows what's going on in this town," I sneer, "I know someone who always keeps her ear to the ground. The problem is she doesn't owe me any favors. Matter of fact I owe her. So if she'll help it'll cost you." "I can afford it," he says dismissively, "let's go talk to her. Er, who is she?" "A little chippie by the name of Margrave," I say. "Margrave?" He asks with a bit of apprehension, "the youma cat- woman?" "Yeah? You've met her?" I ask. "I did a long time ago," he answers, "I hope she still doesn't remember it." Funny, Ferrite doesn't seem like the type who would have to pay for it. "I don't!" He snaps angrily. Oops, I gotta' work on controlling my tendency to narrate out loud. "Look," he says a bit more calmly, "you'd better go see her alone. She might still harbor me some ill will. If she does, she'll just tell us to take a hike if she knew I was involved." "Okay, but you're paying for it," I say. "Fine, here's a credit key for whatever you need, just get the information." He hands me a gold, real gold, credit key to who knows how many yen and says, "be sure to get a receipt." "Okay, let's meet up again at the clock tower in Victory park. It's near Margrave's place." I make a quick call to see if she's in and as luck would have it, her private secretary says she'll see me that afternoon. In the background I hear Margrave say she can always spare the time to torment me. I go up to her penthouse suite and change back to my normal form in the elevator. Stepping out of the elevator I'm almost blinded by the smile of a gorgeous but, business like, blond receptionist out front. Without even asking me who I am, she buzzes me on through. This is still Crystal Tokyo so she's cheerful about it too. The decor of Margave's penthouse domicile can best be described as opulent. The main living area is circular and done up in with twelve Doric columns evenly spaced around the perimeter. Purple drapes serve to highlight the simplicity of the ornamentation. Scattered about the room are reproductions of great works of art from that period. I think she's into the Grecko-Roman styles because it allows her to put up a bunch of naked statues and not have them look tacky. Inside this inner sanctum, Margrave reclines on a red velvet couch like Cleopatra. Next to her is a tray of sweetmeats and a pitcher of wine. The only thing conflicting with the setting is Margrave, she's dressed in cutoff jeans and a white Crystal Tokyo University sweatshirt knotted at her waist. She takes a sip from a golden goblet and spares me a sloe-eyed smile. "Magnesite," she says with a sultry purr, "to what do I owe the honor of your visit? Here to pay me back for the life crystal you owe me?" She looks like the cat that swallowed the canary, so to speak. "No," I answer, "I'm here on behalf of a client seeking certain information." "And who might that be?" "I can't say, he wishes to remain anonymous." "He?" she jumps on my little slip and smiles slightly. "Uh, yeah," "What does 'he' want to know?" "I'm looking for a missing person, they aren't all there in the head and I'm wondering if you know of any local homeless hangouts." "I know of such a place," she says, "What do you offer in exchange for this information." "He's given me a credit key for . . . " I start to say holding out the card. "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie . . . " she says shaking her head. She knows I hate it when people call me that. "That's why I do it," she grins. Damn. Talking out loud again. "So if it's not money you want, what do . . . " I start to ask. "Just sign one of my contracts on his behalf," she explains as if it were the simplest thing in the world. "Sure!" I say eagerly jumping on the offer. Stupid low- class youma trusting someone else to pay off a debt signed by someone else . . . wait a minute . . . this is setting off alarms all inside my head. Margrave trusting me for a life-debt? "What if he won't pay?" I ask suspiciously. "He sounds like an honorable man. After all, look at the quality characters he hires." She laughs. Whatever . . . I shrug and sign the document that she presents me with. Then she says, "There's a group of warehouses down on the north side of the rail-yard that have yet to be converted. Some legal thing about the company being in receivership or other litigation mumbo-jumbo have left them abandoned. What few vagrants and homeless that refuse social services gravitate there." "That sound's like what I needed to know. Thanks kid." "No thanks are necessary. I'm not giving anything away for free. Tell your client that." It's kind of refreshing to deal with a fellow youma. "Count on it," I say. It'll be fun to stick that arrogant Ferrite character with the bill. "There's something else," she says as I start to go, "someone else is making similar inquiries at some of the shadier bars. Reports vary, but they all say that they're really tough looking bruisers from outside Crystal Tokyo. Look's like you've got some competition." "Free information?" I ask, "I'm surprised, kid." "Don't be, if your client gets himself killed, and these characters looked to be capable, I might not get paid. And squeezing it out of you would be more trouble than it's worth." On that youma-like thought, I depart. I head back to the clock tower and find Ferrite sitting there like a government worker taking a long lunch. He's just sitting there calmly feeding the pigeons as if he hadn't a care in the world. When I walk up to him, he scatters the last handful of crumbs and stands up. "I've got the information," I say. "Margrave was actually helpful?" He says incredulously, "I'm surprised. Reports said she bears you quite a lot of antipathy." "Well, I can be really suave when I wanna' be." I think I'll wait until after I collect before I tell him about the life-debt he now owes Margrave. Oops, gotta' be careful I don't want to say that out loud. "Say what out loud?" He asks curiously. "Where we are going," I say looking around as if we were going to be overheard, "No telling who might be listening. Margrave said that someone else was asking the same questions around town we were. Any idea who else might be after Naru?" "I don't know . . . " he starts to say something then clams up. After a second he adds, "Well, whoever it is, we've got to get there before them." He breaks into a trot and says, "come on, there's an automated car rental booth around the corner. The metro takes too long, and we can't waste any time now." Inside the rental booth he holds out his hand expectantly. After a pause, I hand over his credit key. "Can't blame a guy for trying," I say. "Yes I can," he says. After we get into our fuel efficient, pristine, pine scented crysticar, he places a trace-wiper on the back seat and turns it on. A cute little device that electrically cleanses the air of trace particles left behind by people. The device faintly makes my 'skin' tingle as it destroys evidence of our having used this car. What do you want to bet the funds on that credit key are untraceable? He drops his disguise magic, so I revert to my regular form. We make our way down to the warehouses around the railway yard. This section of the city is a bit disused as high speed crystal computers monitor the needs of the citizens on a daily basis. In line with their utopian efficiency, no more than is necessary to fulfill these orders are produced so little or no storage space is needed. Plans are to turn this area into a park, but that's years down the road. Right now it's abandoned, one of the few places the bad kids would hang out, if everyone wasn't so well adjusted. Following Margrave's directions, we pull up at the end of the street and get out after Ferrite collects his gizmo. This is one of the parts of town that has yet to receive the Crystal Tokyo upgrade. The place smells a bit with trash bins that haven't been cleaned in a while. No garbage, this is still Crystal Tokyo, just a bit of disuse to give it atmosphere. And what do my wondering eyes do I see? A rat! At last! A place in this city that isn't so clean you could eat off it. I'm going to have to come back here sometime and pack a picnic lunch to enjoy the ambiance. Parked outside the building are several black crysticars that fairly scream "unmarked police vehicle." But if they were, Rei would make more of a show of it. Maybe these are the guys Margrave hinted at. In either case the quickest way to find out is to walk right up to them. "Hey, wait a minute, Ferrite says, "aren't we going to sneak up on them . . . reconnoiter or something?" "Why bother?" I ask, "The best way to find out what they're doing here is to ask. If they're Crystal Tokyo P.D., they'll give us directions and lollipops." "But what do we say about how we're dressed?" He asks indicating our trench coats and fedoras. "We'll tell them that you're my sidekick, kid," I say with a Bogey sneer. Ferrite shakes his head dubiously and sighs but he keeps going. The doors open on the crysticar and two bully boys that stand a good head taller than either ferrite or I step out. They block the street and one holds out one of his ham-hock hands and says in a shut-up-and-do-as-you're-told voice, "Sorry gentlemen, no one permitted beyond this point." "Gentlemen?" I ask, "You obviously have us mistaken for someone else." "Very funny, wiseass," the other bigger, probably dumber, palooka says sarcastically, "now you take your ugly little hat and your ugly little sidekick and get out of here." "Whose hat are you calling ugly?" I ask feigning belligerence. Actually I can barely keep from laughing at the dirty look on Ferrite's face. The other one tries to be the voice of calm and reason so he says, "This is a Crystal Tokyo internal security matter. I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave." That was a lie, if he were police or internal security those would have been the first words out of his mouth. The one facing Ferrite casually hitches his jacket back as if to straighten it but I recognize it as a move to allow access to a concealed weapon. Good, Ferrite recognizes it too and I see his stance shift slightly. I turn back to the one in front of me and say, "Well, if you're Crystal Tokyo internal security then show us your badges." "Badges? Badges?" The dumb on asks angrily, "We don't need no stinking badges!" His partner flicks out his hand and a vibro knife goes straight for my heart. I block him but he's so strong I have to expend energy to hold him back. The other one tries to do the same with Ferrite but Ferrite springs on him with lighting speed. They start mixing it up with the other goon coming out on the losing end. Ferrite's inside his guard and pounds him back with a hurricane of body blows. Ferrite must be hitting him pretty hard because the shock transmitted through the goon's body cracks the window of the crysticar behind him. With a sudden burst of strength the one facing me twists free and slashes across my chest cutting me open. His vibro knife does a thorough job and I fall back in two pieces. While I go down, he pulls a strangely shaped hunk of rock from under his coat and aims it at Ferrite. "Lookout!" I croak with the last bit of air in my lungs. His crystal weapon discharges with a bright flash of blue green light. The instant before it does, Ferrite grabs the lapels of the one he's beating up and pivots, using his opponent as a shield. A large section of the hapless joker's torso is blown away by the beam. The one with the pistol gawks a moment at his mistake while his partner's body makes a slight buzzing sound. Ferrite shoves the corpse onto the first one and kicks them both, hard. The first one's eyes grow wide in fear and horror as his partner's dead body drapes over him and both go down in a tangle. The buzzing gets a little louder the live one thrashes to get clear of the corpse on top of him. I can see the thought flash across Ferrite's eyes: Leave me to the self-destruct or risk wasting time moving me. Doing the unexpected again, he plants his foot solidly on my chest and squints his eyes shut. We dematerialize and teleport back around ten feet behind the crysticar. With a quiet "foof" the two palookas are consumed in some self destruct the first one had. Ferrite then proceeds to get very violently, noisily sick. I feel a bit tingly, indicating that the teleport was a bad one. Still, any teleport you can walk away from . . . If I had a middle ear, though, the disorientation would have me heaving my guts too, if I had guts. Using that moments quiet respite, made more tranquil by Ferrite's retching, I pull myself together. I stick my halves back together and reabsorb all the leaking fluids. Sitting up, I look around in case these two had any backup but nobody's around. The only thing left of the two "Internal Security" men are a few metal objects like coat buttons and the rims of their sunglasses. How very tidy of them to clean up after themselves. I look back at Ferrite and he seems to have recovered; he's sitting there chugging a liter bottle of some soft drink. Swallowing the last of it, he gives a mighty belch. "All right," he says, "good to go." "Not a bad combat teleport," I complement him, "except for the part where you throw up your lower intestines." "Next time I leave you to the self destruct's tender mercies, funny man," he snaps. Deciding not to push it, I say, "Lighten up kid. Let's see what these two were guarding." "Don't call me kid," he says with a glower, "I'm older than you are." The muffled sound of one of those crystal pistols discharging brings me back to the present and both Ferrite and I drop into a crouch. It came from inside the building but they apparently weren't shooting at us. We stealthily move forward and lean back against the door to listen. "You fool, I meant kill him quietly. It's just a human, use your bare hands next time." A voice says. "Apologies, high one, I will be more careful with this one." Ferrite produces a fiber optic camera on a stalk and peers under the door with it. Absorbed in looking inside, he absently hands me an additional ocular on a wire. I look inside and see the images of about fifteen men like the ones outside walking around the huge warehouse. Trash, cardboard boxes and other debris litter the inside. When the camera switches to thermal imaging I can make out about three bodies on the floor, two of which are cold, one is rapidly cooling on the concrete. He pans around and picks out another warm body crouched down in a large cardboard box. Ferrite zooms in and we can see that it's female. A computerized overlay appears over her and Ferrite whispers, "she matches the profile." "Hm, sixteen of them," he says in a low voice, "not good odds." Ferrite turns back to me and whispers urgently, "Do you know how to use a gun?" I consider saying yes, but since guns are illegal in Crystal Tokyo the closest I've ever gotten to one was one that just made the sound effect. "No," I admit, "Rei considers me too much of a security risk." "Then you'd better use the rail gun," He says reaching into his pocket, "It has an identify friend/foe module." Withdrawing his hand, he pulls out what remarkably looks a lot like a Thompson submachine gun. He takes an ammo drum out of his other pocket and fits them together. "Don't try anything fancy, just point and pull the trigger." He clicks on the power pack and it hums with malevolent energy. "It fires hyper velocity, depleted uranium sabot at one hundred and eighty rounds per minute." He hands it to me and I almost drop it, it's so heavy. I think . . . no I'm definitely in love. "It was built with me in mind," he cautions, "so the recoil will cause it to ride up." "What about . . . " I start to ask when he pulls two oversized pistols out of his pockets. I've seen these in Senshi of Fortune magazine, they're lightning guns. Thick cables attached to the bottom of the grips run into his pockets presumably to some sort of power source. "Our opponents might have a personal shield that blocks either kinetic or radiant energy but not both at the same time. If I look like I'm having trouble with one, spray him with the rail gun. "Okay," he says in a take charge voice, "Here's the plan, I'll kick in the door and throw in a flash bomb. I'll immediately run inside and head straight toward Naru. I'll pop a couple of them with the lighting gun to get them to switch their shields to block energy. When I say, 'go,' you brace the rail-gun on the side of the doorjamb and just hose the whole room down. It'll shoot at everyone but me and nothing in this building is sturdy enough to cause a ricochet. I'll grab her and get her out by the closest exit. You just keep firing, as long as she's with me, she'll be safe from you. The only real danger is them. I just hope they don't accidentally hit her while they're trying to kill us. Wait a minute. I'm a P.I. not a mercenary. What I'm about to do is highly illegal. Fun, but illegal. Then I ask myself what Bogey would do. I curl my lip in the sneer of all Bogie sneers and say, "Lead the way, Jackson." Ferrite braces himself against the doorjamb and rolls a grenade inside the door. I keep my back to the wall tensed for the curtain to come up. FOOM! The grenade goes off really loud and the flash is extremely bright. Ferrite zips inside shouting at the top of his lungs, "Avast! Prepare to die, ye scurvy scum of the sky!" KA-CHOOM! KA-CHOOM! His lightning pistols discharge and I can feel the electricity even out here. One of the men in black gives a strangled cry followed by the sound of his self destruct. This Ferrite is just too much like a youma, no "drop your weapons and surrender" it's just, "prepare to die." "Go! Go! Go!" Ferrite shouts and I spin around so that I've got half cover as I brace the gun against the door like he says. The bad guys are scattered throughout the room turned away from me concentrating on Ferrite. They're lining up on him with those crystal weapons of theirs. "Top of the world, Ma!" I cry as I cut loose with the rail gun, "Top of the world!" (Yeah, I know that was Cagney, but he was almost as cool as Bogey.) BAAAARRRROOARRRSCREECH!!! The gun makes a growling, screeching sound like a chainsaw cutting a plate-glass window. When Ferrite said this thing had a kick he wasn't kidding. It takes everything I've got to just keep it level. The agents seem to appreciate the gun too because they immediately turn their weapons on me. Suckers, they should be ducking. I read once about a human scientist by the name of Darwin who's principle of evolution could be boiled down to a few words, "Survival of the fittest." Over then next few seconds, I weed out a few of the unfit. One bully boy jumps forward to take me on hand to hand. Too bad for him either my gun is better than it looks or his shield is not as strong as he thought it was. Like his buddies outside, he neatly cleans up after himself. Another candidate for removal from the gene pool takes cover behind a pile of cardboard boxes. Cardboard boxes! I do Darwin proud. I haven't had this many laughs since the time Zoicite and Kunzite returned from a mission all black and covered in grease. (I didn't laugh where they could hear it, of course. I'm not suicidal.) Things start to change a bit when they get behind some real cover and start lining up their shots on me. One ignores the fact that Ferrite is still running around and a sphere of ball lightening catches him upside the head. My these fellows are tidy. I'm concentrating on keeping their heads down but I see out of the corner of my eye as Ferrite reaches his goal and pulls back the cardboard box covering the woman we saw in the scanner. Naru is dressed in a filthy pink running suit with a stocking cap pulled over her matted brown hair. She cowers in a heap wrapping her arms around a plastic bag of rags and trash. "Naru," Ferrite says, "I'm here to . . . oof!" He tries to take her by the arm when one of the men in black tackles him. The bruiser pulls a knife on Ferrite and they wrestle on the ground for it. While I'm busy and Ferrite is wrapped up, another one of these goons grabs the girl and throws her roughly over his shoulder. When he picks her up, however, she drops her bag of trash. "No!" Naru cries desperately, "My pretty dress. Can't leave my pretty dress!" She reaches frantically for the plastic bag of her possessions but they're beyond her grasp. Ferrite puts everything he has into a punch that momentarily stuns his opponent, shield or no. Rolling to his feet he tries to free himself and go after them. The goon lifts her bodily and tries to carry her out of the room but she proves to be quite a handful and starts to wriggle free. He hits her across the back of the head with the butt of his crystal weapon to try and knock her out. He looks really surprised when she's still moving, he thought he hit her hard enough to render her unconscious. Looks like all he did, though, was make her mad. "NEMESIS . . . " Naru shouts with her lip curled up in a snarl. When she says that word, Ferrite jumps as if someone jabbed him with a red-hot poker. "...VORTEX," she continues as if reciting a litany. "Oh, no!" Ferrite gasps in fear, "not that!" He's terrified and I didn't see him that way when he jumped into a room full of armed men. "...ANNIHILATION!" Naru completes her cry with fire in her eyes. "Hit the deck!" Ferrite shouts as he dives into a shallow mechanic's pit. Before I can do anything, a wind rises to hurricane force and sucks me inside the warehouse. Grabbing a beam as I slide past, it's all I can do just to hang on. Naru is lifted up by the vortex and held suspended there poised in its eye like a ballerina. The bruiser who hit her is wicked away by the vortex and dashed to a paste against a wall. "She's beyond capture," one shouts, "kill her!" They turn their weapons on Naru and unleash a tremendous salvo. Big mistake. The winds deflect their shots from around her body without so much as scratching her. The swirling air increases in violence, battering them and sweeping away anything not nailed down. I'm peppered by debris hard enough to puncture my surface and imbed stones and pebbles inside me. But that's just a preview, then she really starts to retaliate. The winds rise higher, ripping the roof right off the building and flinging it away. Gesturing imperiously, like a queen, she points at various opponents and the storm responds. Lightning, fire, ice and sand lash out at her enemies. It's almost biblical the way the heavens open up to smite her foes. One agent, firing from cover behind a meter-thick, concrete pillar, snaps off a few shots and ducks behind it when she looks in his direction. She gestures and a stream of sand and small rocks scour the pillar and him down to nothing in an instant. VOW! A goon carrying a rifle version of the crystal weapon clips her shoulder with a shot. She unleashes a torrent of lightning upon him. His shield, set to absorb energy attacks actually holds for a second before it is overwhelmed by the force of her assault and he's quick-fried. The fight continues like this for a minute or two as she turns her attentions to one or more attackers until there are none left. I do my best to remain innocuous and just hold on. Finally, as the winds die down, a breeze scoops her bag up and carries it to her hand. She hugs it to her breast with childish delight and says, "my pretty dress." The dust starts to settle and I'm trying to work out what the hell just happened. I start picking the shrapnel out of myself automatically and gaze around in wonder. Times like this I'm glad I'm not flesh and blood. Ferrite stops hugging the ground and leaves his meager cover. He joins me in staring openmouthed at the carnage surrounding us. The girl's squatted down on the floor again, muttering to herself. It was like she exploded . . . I think. To tell the truth I don't know what she did. All I know is one second we're outnumbered and outgunned, then everything goes crazy and there's nothing left of our opponents but smears. She doesn't seem a bit concerned at having just turned ten men into stains. All she seems concerned about is rummaging through her bag of trash. We both start over to check her then make like statues when she looks up angrily. We stay frozen until she loses interest in us and returns her attention to her treasured garbage. This is shaping up to be a lot more than a missing person case. That girl is incredibly powerful, a borderline psychotic, prone to fits of incredible violence, mentally unstable and doesn't turn a hair at reducing humans to hamburger. She reminds me of Beryl. I think I'm in love. "We've got to get out of here," Ferrite says. This much magic will certainly have been detected by someone in the palace. The police could already be on their way here and could arrive at any moment. I look around at the carnage and destruction and say, "Running won't help. We've left a big enough mess so that Rei could trace it right back to us. Their psi-sensitives will pick up our aura traces in a heartbeat. Hell, a mage with a speak with dead spell could question the . . . " "You handle the bodies, I'll handle the psi's," Ferrite says urgently. I don't know what else to do so I go around burning the remnants of our playmates friends to ash. When I look back at Ferrite, he's setting up this canister in the middle of the room. A thick cable runs from it to one of his pockets. "You done?" he asks as I'm about to toast the last of the goons. "Yeah, that's it," I when the last one is burned away. Why can't these guys be neat as youmas? "I hope you're not psi-sensitive," he says as he throws a switch. BUZZZOT! The container emits a loud hum for a second or two like an electrical transformer. "That'll wipe any psionic traces left by us," he says as he disconnects the cable and puts the canister back in his pocket. "Just don't get mad, or scared, or any other strong emotion for that matter or I'll have to do that again." My, my, my, How convenient that he has a psychic impression eraser. Ferrite certainly wants to make sure that no one knows he's been here. He's more prepared than a boy scout convention. "That just leaves our little friend there," I say indicating Naru, who just sat there watching us as she holds her bag to herself muttering. "Yeah," Ferrite agrees, "we've just got to convince her to come quietly with us." "How do we do that? Do you want to try and throw her over your shoulder the way that fool did?" "I've got an idea," he says. When he steps forward, his trenchcoat and fedora fade into a military long coat over a blue uniform like one of Beryl's Generals. "Naru?" He says as he goes to her side, "It's me Ferrite. I need your help again." "Ferrite? It's you!" She says her voice filled with excited recognition. Suddenly, she looks around apprehensively clutching the bag to her chest, "If you're here, then so are the shadows!" As her eyes dart to the dim corners of the room, the air starts to stir. "Shadows all around me . . . pulling at me . . . " Ferrite's clothing fades back into his black coat and grey hat. "Naru, it's okay, Ferrite is gone. It's me Trenchcoat-mask." Trenchcoat-mask, what kind of goofy name is that? "Quiet you!" Ferrite snaps at me. Damn, I was thinking out loud again. "Remember?" He asks Naru gently, "I took you to your mother the night Nephrite . . . " "Nephrite?" She looks around confused, "Nephrite! Don't leave me." She calls out for the dead General. Her call unanswered, she buries her face in her trash bag and cries. "I couldn't save him," she sobs, "couldn't save Umino . . . " Ferrite steps back to me and murmurs, "I've read your story, Magnesite. You can reshape yourself to look like Nephrite. If you do, we might get her to go along with us." "Me? You want me to become the focus of attentions of a nutcase that can squash me like a bug? No thank you. You've got a disguise pen, you do it." "Hell no! She might see around it. I taught her the technique to do that and now would be a rotten time for her to suddenly remember it." He pauses and looks up for a moment. I feel a sensor wave pass over us and I bet he felt it too. "Quit arguing and do it!" He orders, "It's the only thing we have left." "All right, I'll do it but it will cost you extra." I figure I can always teleport away if she goes psycho on me again but I might squeeze a bonus out of the situation. "Damn it you greedy bastard!" He exclaims, "Just do it! We'll discuss whether or not you deserve a bonus afterwards. Narrating out loud again, blast it! I've really got to watch that. Naru still has her face buried in her bundle so she can't see as I concentrate and reshape the psychoplasm my "body" is made of to look like Nephrite. "Well?" I ask Ferrite. "Ditch the fedora," he advises. "Right," I say and absorb the headgear that is actually part of my being. When I've done that he nods and says, "make the voice lower, more gravelly too. She knows how he sounds." "Like this?" I ask in Nephrite's raspy voice. "Nephrite?" Naru looks up at the sound of my voice. "Yes, Naru, It's me," I say. "Nephrite . . . " she whispers stumbling to her feet. "Nephrite! She cries joyfully throwing her arms around me, "Oh, Nephrite, you've come back." "Naru, will you come with me?" I ask. "Anywhere, Nephrite, anywhere." She says nuzzling my shirtfront. I look down and she gazes up at me and I notice how bright green her eyes are despite the dirt. She sighs contentedly and says, "I love you." I gulp uncomfortably. "Come on, let's get out of here," Ferrite urges as we hear the wail of sirens, "they're coming." "Yeah," I agree curtly and teleport us back to my office. After we reappear, Ferrite looks around and listens apprehensively for a moment before he relaxes. We made it out intact and we found who he was looking for. Naru clings affectionately to me like she never wants to let go. I don't know what we're going to do now, though. I certainly can't go out with Naru hanging onto me this way. Ferrite suddenly wrinkles his nose and sniffs distastefully. "Say Magnesite," he says, "does your washroom have a shower?" "Yeah, but it hasn't been used since I moved in here." "Well now might be a good time to try it out," he says and then asks the warm bundle pressing herself against me, "Naru?" She looks at him and sighs contentedly again. "Do you still have your pretty dress?" He asks. She nods vigorously like a child who is eager to please. "Could you show it to us?" Wordlessly she reaches into her filthy bundle of rags and roots around. After a moment she pulls out a violet and white sailor fuku and holds it up triumphantly. "I didn't want it to get dirty," she explains. "Naru, why don't you clean up?" He suggests gently, "you can wear your pretty dress for Nephrite. He's never seen you in it right?" "Okay," she agrees brightly and then turns to me. "You'd like that, right Nephrite?" I merely nod and she skips merrily into the washroom. After a minute or two, we hear the water start running. "Okay," Ferrite says when he hears her step into the shower and starts singing, "we can't head to the airport now. If those goons don't spot us then Crystal Tokyo Internal Security will. After all the damage we did, they'll be on the lookout for anybody suspicious, including me. So here's what we'll do: We wait until nightfall and head for the docks. I've got some friends in low places who can get me out of Tokyo quietly if I can contact them." He pulls out a pocket watch and glances at it. "I've just got to go out in about an hour to place a call." I point over to the phone and he says, "It's not that kind of call." "In the meantime," I say leading up to a little point I inadvertently mentioned, "let's talk bonuses." "What do you mean?" He asks. "I mean that I signed up to find a missing person and I wind up in a war. I've used up substantial reserves of energy as a result and I deserve compensation." "Compensation? You mean as in another feeding?" "You read my mind." "Un uh," he shakes his head, "I don't want to risk weakening myself until just before I leave and I don't know if I'll be coming back so a feeding is out of the question. How about something else?" "Other than life energy? No, I don't need material things. I've got enough yen in the bank to cover my rent for centuries. It's make with the life ergs or our association ends now." "Oh yeah?" he says reaching casually into his pocket. I tense for a second, thinking he might be pulling a weapon but instead he takes a black, silk bag out of his pocket. "I think I can tempt you," he says confidently. Undoing the drawstring he slides a small black statuette of a falcon out and sets it down before me. "Is that what I think it is?" I ask. He puts a large manilla envelope in my hand and says, "see for yourself." Inside it are certificates of authenticity on molecular lock paper that's impossible to forge. I riffle through them and they all say the same thing. The hunk of lead he's placed before me is the real McCoy. "The real Maltese Falcon," I breathe reverently. It's the actual one from the movie. My idol touched this . . . this . . . holy relic. It even the one that has the scratches on it. My eyes start to take on that look Bogie had when they found gold in "Treasure of the Sierra Madre." Then I shake my head in disbelief. This can't be. "Wait a minute," I say, "You expect me to believe you just happened to be carrying this around in your pocket?" "I thought I might have to buy your silence," he says, "Looks like I was right. So is this acceptable payment?" Engrossed in looking at the stuff dreams are made of I say absently, "sold." "Where's da' towels?" Naru says, and we start from looking at the falcon. She stands there in the open doorway to the washroom. Water beads and runs down her smooth skin to the floor. She's naked but is unconcerned about it just as a child would be. For a moment both Ferrite and I sit there gaping at her nymphish beauty. I don't know how she turned out so well considering how malnourished she must be but she's got a gorgeous, athletic body with trim but full curves. Even her kinky, reddish brown hair, matted though it is, looks great slicked down the back of her neck. Ferrite hurriedly pulls a bath towel out of his pocket and throws it around her. "Er, let's get you into some clothes, Naru, and do something about your hair." He takes her arm and gently leads her back inside the washroom. As he's about to shut the door, he fixes me with a glare and jabs a warning finger at me. "Not one word from you," he says threateningly. I just pour myself a shot of whiskey and smile. The amusement value of this case alone has been worth the cost. While they're in there, I revert to my normal form. Though I'm psychoplasm, my shape really doesn't matter much but whenever I'm in someone else's shape I start to feel . . . I don't know . . . "itchy." It's good to be in my familiar body. Not knowing what else to do I pace back and forth thinking. I hear a blow dryer start up in the washroom and I can't help but smile. He's even got that in his pockets? After a while, the washroom door opens to let Ferrite and Naru step out. He must have been a barber in one of his past lives because Naru's hair has been cut shoulder length and professionally styled. She's no longer wearing her stained running suit nor that sailor's fuku but a long black dress decorated with black lace. The funeral was a thousand years ago and she's still wearing mourning clothes. She just stands there vulnerable and confused for a moment before she asks forlornly, "Where's Nephrite?" "He had to step out kid," I say as she looks around the office anxiously. I've got to do something to distract her or else things could get messy. Then, I get a brilliant idea. "But he told me to give you this," I say taking a teddy bear dressed in a trenchcoat and fedora off my filing cabinet and handing it to her. Ferrite gives me a funny look when I produce the teddy bear but the girl looks quite taken with it. Seems Titanite did me an inadvertent favor. He's still looking from it to me and seems amused. "Just don't even ask, okay?" Before he can agree, I get a certain tingle which means there's a Senshi in the neighborhood. I know this particular aura far too well. "Damn! Rei's heading this way. I'd say she'll be here in a minute!" No time to hide the girl and I don't have enough juice to teleport us out of here. "Still got that disguise pen?" Forty-five seconds later Rei barges in on me and my client. She takes in the dowdy, late forties woman cradling the cat and dismisses her as a cuckolded wife. The way she looks it's no wonder her husband's looking elsewhere. I've learned the trick is to keep Rei angry enough that she doesn't think straight but not angry enough to barbecue me. It's a very thin line. "You're looking particularly frosty today. Do immortals get P.M.S.?" She doesn't answer the question. Just looks at me and asks, "Why is it when I heard the phrase, 'massive property damage in the warehouse district, cause unknown' I immediately thought of you Magnesite?" "You're intensely paranoid and don't get out enough?" She doesn't laugh. "Somebody blew holes in quite a few buildings not half an hour ago. Something tells me you were mixed up in it." "Really? Perhaps you should check what's burning in that sacred fire of yours. It seems to be causing hallucinations." She's bluffing; We took care to clean the site. When the girl blew away that last batch she must have fried their self destructs. Luckily there wasn't much organic matter left so I was able to burn it away. That on top of psibombing the area to screw up the latents, becoming Nephrite and teleporting all three of us back here took its toll. "I'm flattered you think I'm capable but we both know I've been running on low power for the past few centuries." She tries to see through my facade to assess my true power level but all she gets is confirmation. That's because I've nothing to hide. Repairing myself and all the other little tricks I've done lately have just about tapped out my reserves. Her scowl deepens. "Teddy!" We both turn to my supposed client, Rei's surprised at the interruption, I'm trying to stay calm. That was the girl's voice! She'd been staying quiet and currently looks like a cat so I thought we'd pull this off. Ferrite to the rescue. "She" clamps a hand over the cat's mouth and in a good imitation of the voice starts and angry tirade. "Teddy! The SOB I married! You're supposed to helping me find his floozy so I can take him for every penny he's got! I don't even want him to have a change of underwear!" "I'll be right with you Ma'am. If there's nothing else Rei, I do have a client." She glares but she's got no proof and I've made no slips. Instead she just snaps her fingers. A flunky walks in. I think he's just along to carry the bulging briefcase. "Well Magnesite since you're such a good citizen and had nothing to do with the warehouse incident I'm sure you'll be glad to sign these affidavits. They just state you're not connected." She gives me a smile. "Knowing your fondness for antiques I had them run off on hardcopy." The grunt upends the case and buries my desk in paper. How many trees died for this? I turn one over and wonder if I'll be able to read the printing without a microscope. Rei turns to go. "Read through them and sign in the places indicated. You've got twelve hours." Frigging bitch. "Watch it!" With that she strides off. Now did I say that out loud or just think it? Around Rei it's tricky to be sure. After her footsteps recede down the hallway, the dowdy "woman" gets up quickly and holds a finger to "her" lips. Reaching into his pocket, Ferrite pulls a hand-held magi-sci listening device scanner out and waves it over the pile of papers. A few lights on it flicker as he plays it over the papers just deposited on my desk by Rei's flunky. He stops it over one in particular when all the lights on the scanner turn red. He holds it up before my office light and I can faintly make out a circuit in the paper. Rei! That slimy, old, dried-up . . . Ferrite places his hand over my mouth and his lips silently says "No" amongst other derogatory things and I realize I'm talking out loud again. "Scuze me Ma'am," I say carefully, "Let me file some of these papers properly." I take the bugged document and drop it in the metal trash can. "The real heart of the matter is that you have a husband who . . . " I start talking normally but then I let my voice trail off so that whoever is on the other end of the line should be listening closely with the volume turned all the way up. Blang! Blang! Blang! I whack the side of the metal can so that it rings loudly. In a couple of quick strides I'm across the office and in the washroom. I crumple the paper up and drop it in the toilet. "You know ma'am," I say aloud, "a lot of people call me a real sewer-mouth." With that, I flush the toilet and figuratively send Rei on a little trip. Bon-voyage Senshi Mars. Heh, my job satisfaction just went up a couple more notches. When I turn back to the office, Ferrite has dropped his disguise and is just completing a sweep of the room with his scanner. "That's the only one," he says putting away the device. "Well, that confirms Rei is suspicious of you." "Welcome to my world," I say with a Bogey sneer, "Rei's always suspicious of me." "Then I'd better arrange transport out of here as fast as I can. I can't let them get their hands on her," he says determinedly. I'm about to ask whether he means the men in black or the rulers of Crystal Tokyo but I think better of it. He probably means both. We both look at Naru and she's curled up on the couch clutching the teddybear. She appears to be the picture of innocence. She arranges the teddy's fedora at a rakish angle and smiles. Then, Ferrite does the oddest thing, he takes an ocular on the end of a wire and looks Naru over. I look closely at the thing he's got and I recognize it as a video recorder. A very expensive one from the look of it. Without explanation, he puts it away and turns to me. "You watch her for a while," he says, "I'm going out to make that phone call. It may take some time, so don't move until I get back." Waving his disguise pen over his head, he reinstates his cuckolded wife get up and opens the door. "You find that floozy Teddy's shacking up with and get plenty of pictures," Ferrite screeches in his "shrew from hell" voice, "I'll show that two-timing bastard he can't cheat on me and get away with it!" With that he slams the door and stomps off as if he weighed five hundred pounds. So Ferrite's off on his errand which means I'm stuck here babysitting. Least she's quiet enough, a few minutes after he's left she drapes herself over the couch and dozes off. Still clutching that damned teddybear. Who'd have thought that thing would ever come in useful? Course the way my luck's been running I'll bet Rei ducks back here before we can hide her again. Why Ferrite's so adamant Mars not find out about her, I still don't know. Hell, why not work through her and do this search officially instead of dealing with a shady operator like me? Makes me wonder what he's got in mind for the girl. Not that care what happens to her. I'm no Renegade! It's just . . . the principle of the thing. That's all. Nothing more to it. Rei dropped off a large pile of forms I'm supposed to fill out. All of which state I had nothing to do with the recent property damage. So I'm looking at perjury if this mess ever comes to light. I'll bet she made them this complicated on purpose. She'll be back to pick them up in the morning so I'd better keep reading and find out exactly what I'm letting myself in for. No saying what she's stuck in the fine print. But I can't concentrate, I keep looking over to the girl. Girl? She was born in the 20th century! She's not much younger than me. In many ways she's older because I was in suspension for centuries. It's getting boring just watching her sleep and I'm beginning to feel a very primal urge. Hunger. I've used up more energy today than I normally would in a month. All those special effects cost power. I can taste her life force from across the room and it's tantalizing. She's asleep and Ferrite didn't say hands off. With her state of mind she'll never notice. All I want is enough to take the edge off my appetite. I cross the room quietly and lay a hand on her shoulder. No sign of defenses, here we go. Sweet Marlowe! I've never tasted anything like this before. I've become a connoisseur of life force over the decades and this is incredible. Pure and unstained. Most of my clients are embittered spouses and that gives their energy a bitter taste. This is simply delicious. Like candy. It's almost as if she really never grew up. It's an effort to disengage. I might try to suck her dry if I keep in contact and I don't need the Senshi hunting me as a vampire. Besides I have the funny feeling that would be as lethal as trying to drink all the water in a lake. Almost as though she's a bottomless reservoir of power. No wonder Nephrite was so fixated on her. "Do you know that you have a couple of Crystal Tokyo's finest camped out on your . . . " Ferrite's voice comes from behind me. I whirl around and see him standing there disguised as a window washer just inside my open window. For a moment, his eyes travel back and forth between me and Naru taking in the situation. In an eye-blink he's on top of me, his face a mask of rage. He's so furious his disguise magic breaks and the window washer get up dissolves back into his black trenchcoat. He jacks me up against the wall one handed and produces this oversized six-gun out of nowhere and sticks it in my face. Normally I'd sneer at such a weapon, all it'd do is just make a hole I'd have to fill in later but this gun is different. There was a youma in the Dark Kingdom by the name of Silicate who had a gun just like that. Rumor has it he got it off a general (little "g") from Beryl's human army that got banished with the rest of them. He was able to use it to obtain his position in Beryl's forces because that pistol could kill any youma he shot with it no matter how strong their defenses. The little punk didn't have half the power I did and he managed to maneuver himself to just below Zoicite in rank. Then one day, an underling of his did a tally of all the opponents Silicate put away with that thing. Six can be an unlucky number if that's all the iron bolts you have. Too bad that element is almost nonexistent in the Dark Kingdom. I don't think Ferrite has any problem getting it here, though. "Listen here, youma," Ferrite spits at me, "you so much as touch her again and I'll blow you away." He prods me in the nose with that big-ass pistol and says, "that rail gun I loaned you in the fight was just a toy compared to this. The only that keeps me from reducing you to burning powder right now is I might need you to get out of the city. If I think for a second that you'll hurt her again, I'll blast you. Got it?" I nod slowly. He puts me down but still holds the lapels of my trenchcoat. "And one more thing," he says in a no-nonsense tone like a police captain straight out of a Bogey film, "This thing is soul bonded to me so it'll follow me to the next incarnation. If you betray me, or even kill me . . . I'll come back, and I'll have this, and I'll be pissed." He releases me with a slight shove and I thump up against the wall. "Do we understand one another?" He asks jamming the gun back under his coat. Straightening my trenchcoat, I pull a cigarette out of my pocket and light it. Pausing to inhale, I let Ferrite simmer just a little bit before I exhale the smoke coolly and say, "Perfectly." He goes over to Naru and places a hand on her brow and then gently checks her pulse. Satisfied that I've done no lasting damage, he turns to me and says, "I contacted my friends and they can pick us up at midnight on pier seventeen. We've just got to be there on time and they'll get us out. When the boat arrives, you get paid and not a moment before. Got it?" I expect him to repeat his threat but he doesn't bother. "Yeah, I got it," I say with the cigarette dangling from my lips. "The trouble is, getting out of this office without alerting the cops. If I know Rei, she's probably got a teleport trace up so they'd be able to follow us. Heck, she might have convinced Serenity to do a teleport reroute so if we tried it we'd wind up in the dungeon." "Rei is that paranoid?" "This is the first big thing to happen in Crystal Tokyo in centuries. She's eager to justify her existence. What about your disguise pen?" "Those fine officers I spotted on my way out were setting up what looked like some sort of detector in their crysticar. I moved away just as they were finishing. No, I think they'd detect disguise magic. You probably have a unique sensor signature that stands out too. I don't think we can sneak out downstairs without them finding us." "So we can't walk out, can't teleport out, what can we do then, fly?" As soon as I say that, we both look over at the sleeping Naru. "Hm . . . " we say in unison. The view of the nighttime Crystal Tokyo skyline is gorgeous. The crystal and glass buildings throw the light around like a chandelier or a diamond necklace on a beautiful woman. (It's really hard to keep my attitude when the whole city is a work of art.) The three of us stand on the roof of my building and the wind tugs at our clothes. Naru stares off into the distance, a majestic black outline against the light. "Okay," Ferrite takes me aside and says, "if we can get to any of the surrounding buildings we'll be outside of their detector range. It's too bad this one is surrounded by so many shorter ones or else I'd just jump. The drop is too far for me to leap to the lower ones and too far to make it across to the ones on our level." "What? You don't have a hang glider in those pockets of yours?" Ferrite smacks his head and pulls out a little note pad. "Hang . . . glider," he writes and puts it away again. "I tried a flight pack but the engineers couldn't reduce the size of the turbojet enough. Anyway, if Naru can fly us over to that building there, we can get to street level without being seen. We can then make our way through the shopping district to the docks. Once there, we just wait for our ride." "And I get paid," I remind him. "And you get paid," he says. Hey, a guy's gotta eat and I'm getting hungry again. "Naru," Ferrite says to the girl enraptured by the city lights. She looks up at him curiously. "Could you please change back to your pretty dress for us? We'd really like to see you wearing it now that your hair is done up so nice." "Well . . . " she hesitates. "Oh please," Ferrite pleads. He nudges me with his elbow and I say, "pretty, please?" "Okay," she says, "but you'll have to turn around while I change." Strange she would get modest now. We turn around and behind us she says, "Nemesis . . . Power . . . Makeup!" I start to look back at her but Ferrite pushes my hat down over my eyes. "No peeking," he hisses. A flash of violet light and a rush of wind later we turn around to behold Sailor Nemesis. Naru stands there, the wind whipping her hair back from her face legs stanced shoulder width apart, arms akimbo. She's got on the standard senshi white and blue sailor's fuku. Her skirt and sleeves are purple, though, and she has knee length purple and white boots. Now that I see her this way, I'll admit she'd give Jupiter a run for her money in the talent department. "Lovely, Naru, lovely," Ferrite applauds. "I yam Saila' Nemesis," Naru recites her speech, "pursuer of evil. And on behalf' a da' planet Nemesis, I will punish ya'!" Who writes this stuff? "Very scary, kid," I say. Actually, standing there with the lights around her she is somewhat awesome in her power. "Could you fly for us, Nemesis?" Ferrite asks. "You look so pretty when you fly." "Well I don't know . . . we're awfully high," she looks apprehensively down at the street below. "It'll be okay," he coaxes, "we'll be with you all the way. Just take our hands and fly." The illogic of it being easier to fly with us weighing her down seems to go right over Naru's head because she says, "Okay." We all stand on the edge of the roof and Naru takes Ferrite and my outstretched hands. Staring straight ahead, she starts to rise, lifting us both with her. Like a ballerina, she pirouettes with us in the air and laughs joyously. "Hey," Ferrite says playfully to her, "I'll bet you can't take us over to that roof there." "Hah! That's easy," Naru says. She leans forward and we take off over the rooftops of crystal Tokyo. The city is spread out below us like a tray of diamonds. Searchlights play back and forth across the sky in celebration of nothing in particular showing the world what a grand utopia the city is. "Yike!" Naru squeals as one of those lights plays across us. "I can't see!" She yells in a panic, "Umino! Watch out for that truck! Oh, God! Umino! Help me!" Then we start to plummet as she reverts to her normal self and wraps herself around me. We tumble and I lose track of Ferrite as we plunge end over end to the street below. All I can think about is the girl who clutches desperately at me and shrieks in terror. If I try and teleport with her, we'll have the same kinetic energy when we reappear and she'll be smashed. Before I can think of anything, a hand grabs my coat collar and Ferrite shouts, "Hold her tight!" I hear a loud "Flumph" and the iron grip on my collar is tested as our fall is arrested. Holding onto Naru, I note that it's a good thing I'm psycho plasm otherwise my collar would be strangling me. I look up and almost laugh. Ferrite is suspended above us by that goofy umbrella that he's always carrying. Only this time it's opened as large as a parachute, stopping our fall. He leans a bit and steers us over to the top of one of the lower buildings and we float gently down to the rooftop. For a moment, I just stand there cradling Naru in my arms. She whimpers, curled up in a fetal position hugging me tightly. Not knowing what else to do, I rock her gently and try to quiet her. Where is Ferrite? He just sets us down and walks off. This comforting stuff is so unyouma-like it almost turns my stomach. Still I can't think of anything else to do so I just stand there holding her. "Here," Ferrite says handing the teddy bear to Naru, "you dropped him Naru. I think he's scared and could use a hug." "Okay," she sniffles and hugs the bear. She starts to unfold as she "comforts" the bear. In a moment, she seems to be okay and I set her on her feet again. She just stands there, rocking and murmuring to the bear. "I'm surprised, Magnesite," Ferrite says as he surveys the rooftop for signs we were detected. "I expected you to abandon us when that happened." "If I teleport I take whatever speed I have with me. I didn't have any other choice but to hold on and hope that she would change back." "But couldn't you have just changed into a bird or a parachute or something?" I slap my head for not thinking of that. Taking out a notebook I keep of shapes to experiment with I write down, "hang . . . glider." The roof door is unlocked and we just take the stairs down to the ground floor. We don't even see so much as a security camera on our way out. Pah, these citizens of Crystal Tokyo are just too complacent in their safety. They've never had to deal with the dark denizens of the shadows the way I have. (Okay, so that's a bit melodramatic but it's my own personal idiom.) Since the C.T.P.D. is looking for people using disguise magic we decide to hide in plain sight and just walk down the street in our normal forms. Ferrite is in his black trenchcoat and grey fedora, I in my tan and brown and Naru walks between us in her black dress holding a teddy bear. Somehow, normal is not the word. We're walking through the shopping district when I notice the tail we've picked up. Two dark types in sunglasses cruising along in a long, black crysticar. "Hey, Ferrite," I mutter, "you see our tail." "Yeah," he says, "I just noticed the two jokers on the opposite side of the street a moment ago." "On foot?" I ask, "Aw for the love of Marlowe I was talking about the ones in the car." "Great," he sighs, "just great." Ferrite leans closer and whispers, "We've got to lose them. I don't want to risk another fight with Naru around. There's no telling if we can get her to come along quietly again and a battle might make her paranoid." We keep walking looking for something to help us escape. Hoping to lose them in the evening shoppers, We turn the corner onto the main drag but the crowds are quite sparse tonight. "You two wait here, I'll draw them off," Ferrite says suddenly pushing us back into the entrance to a mini-mall. Hey I'm not one to play hero, I'm not a Renegade after all, but I'm about to ask why him when Ferrite pulls a hologram projector out of his pocket. Holography is the big thing in techno- entertainment in the outside world. The trouble is, it takes gobs of computer power and a lot of electricity just to get a decent picture. Even the military stuff that I've read about in Senshi of Fortune magazine is kind'a grainy. Ferrite clips the projector to his collar and then rummages around in his pocket for a second before he draws out a cable and connects the end to a socket in the projector. When he throws a switch, images of Naru and myself appear next to him. The doubles are nearly perfect and Naru claps her hands in childish delight. The Naru simulation blinks and waves in response. What the? ...stimulus recognition and visual feedback? A rig to make images as good as these would fill a small building. How much crap can Ferrite fit in those pockets? Another thing too, I remember when he took pictures of her earlier, but when did he get my image? Then I notice the style of the hat that my double is wearing is slightly different and he has a bit more five o'clock shadow than I effect. "Treasure of the Sierra Madre?" I ask. Ferrite glances up from setting the projector and says, "I liked Bogey better in that one, he was more real, more . . . human." I'm about to comment on the danger of reading too much into movies when he says, "Stay in the area until I come back. Be on the lookout for Lauren." Before I can ask him what he meant by that, or how I'm going to get paid if he's killed, he steps back out on the nearly deserted street and hurries away. The images accompany him looking very nervously over their simulated shoulders. Almost immediately, I hear the hum of a crysticar's engine start up. Gently pushing Naru into the slight shadow in the corner of the entrance, I turn my back to the street and wrap my arms around myself placing one hand on my shoulder the other on my side. For good measure I turn my coat light blue and absorb the fedora. To the casual observer we look like a couple making out. Most people will look for a moment at scenes like that then turn away either in embarrassment or disgust. This puts me in the decidedly uncomfortable position of being face to face with Naru as she looks up at me innocently. This close to her, I feel the sweetness of her aura. Her green eyes stare up at me in curiosity as I pretend to be kissing her. Since Ferrite cleaned her up, she's really quite pretty. The heavy tread of two palookas like the ones that fought us earlier intrudes on our little world. Darkness! I wish I'd asked Ferrite to let me have a rail gun again before he left. I'm still low on energy despite my little feed on Naru and I don't think I could handle those characters again. Given our little tiff earlier, though, I doubt he would have given me one anyway. I hear one of the gorillas stop for a second behind me and I brace for attack. Naru, reaches up and touches my face with her fingers and chuckles at my antics. Where her fingers brush my lips, I feel electricity. With a grunt of disgust, I hear the goon stomp off. I breathe a sigh of relief even though I don't need to breathe being psychoplasm. Glancing back over my shoulder, I see them hurrying after Ferrite and our doubles. When I look back at Naru, she's staring very intently at something in the mini-mall but suddenly she looks up at me wistfully. "Ya' know, right downtown . . . " she begins. "Huh?" I ask not sure what she wants. "...there's a cafe where they serve a delicious chocolate parfait." "Chocolate parfait?" I ask. Where did that come from? "Yes, do you like it?" Humoring a schizophrenic capable of laying waste to whole sections of the city generally being a wise thing I say, "Uh, yes I do." She chuckles ironically and chides, "You're lying." A nervous, "huh" escapes my lips. I hesitate to say anything because I'm reminded of how she pulverized ten of those goons because they tried to take her "pretty dress." There's no telling what she might do if I admit to having different taste in food. Even if I still ate food. "Heh, But you're only lying because you want to be nice to me," she says with a slight smile. It's almost as if I'm not even here; like she's replaying some memory from her past. She looks back in the window and says, "I wish we could have a chocolate parfait together. It's been a secret dream I've had ever since I met you but I guess it will never happen, huh?" I look inside and see that she's looking at a little place in the mall called the "Moon Princess Ice-cream shop." Anywhere is better than being exposed out here on the street like this so I say, "Why not? Let's do it!" "Really?" She asks, tears of joy forming in her eyes. "Oh!" Just to be certain she doesn't think I'm trying to double-cross her I ask, "Do you think I'm lying?" "Un uh!" she says, "I'm just happy." She cocks her head at an odd angle and asks, "Tell me, do you have any holidays in that evil kingdom of yours?" The absurdity of her question strikes me as hilarious. Here, this madwoman is asking me, the solidified psychoplasm ghost, whether or not there are any days of celebration in a kingdom based on assassination and ruthless exploitation. I do something I haven't done in centuries. I laugh. "Heh, heh," she laughs with me, "Magnesite, you're laughing. You're actually laughing." She chuckles for a moment and I suddenly start to hear sobs mixed in with here laugher. "Hey, it's funny, I'm laughing and *crying* too." I put my arm around her and lead her inside to the shop, her aura is so pure that I have a hard time restraining my impulse to feed but I don't want to take advantage of her. Then I shake my head at the un-youma like thought and tell myself that I'm just honoring my agreement with Ferrite to take care of her lest he blast me. Yeah that's it. The interior of the shop is decorated like the palace of Crystal Tokyo . . . as imagined by a fourteen-year-old. Everything is covered in gold glitter and encrusted with huge, gaudy plastic gems in a rainbow of tasteless colors. The chairs are pink plush vinyl that looks like thrones. In the background, Moonlight Densetsu plays with relentless monotony. That which isn't shiny and glittery is light pink. I look around and mutter, "I'm in hell." We sit down and the waitress dressed in a senshi-fuku styled uniform comes over looking curiously at Naru who's quieter now but still sniffles into a napkin. When I order a couple of chocolate parfaits, though, Naru blows her nose and smiles slightly at me. The waitress enters it in her keypad and steps back to the counter. Before I can even think of saying anything about the service, she's back again with our order. Smiling brightly, she puts them neatly before us and hopes that we enjoy our desserts. That's one of the things I hate about Crystal Tokyo, there are no surly waitresses, no dirty greasy-spoons, no rat infested tenements, no . . . how am I supposed to maintain the proper attitude when everything so . . . so nice? I'm working myself up over how clean and neat everything is, (hey, you've got to find something to be bitter about) when Naru puts a spoonful of the chocolate parfait under my nose. "Open wide," she says affectionately. Baffled by her action, I open my mouth and she feeds me. I feel the smooth creamy chocolate ice cream slide down my throat. The sticky sweet dessert has a silky taste to it that is almost decadent. There was nothing this delicious in the Dark Kingdom and she is offering it to me. Or at least I imagine that's what it tastes like. Actually, I can't taste anything at all since I'm composed of psycoplasm. It's hard for me to even register its temperature or texture, but I eat of it because she feeds it to me. Slowly, spoonful by spoonful, I consume the desert until it is all gone. She sets the spoon in the empty dish and gazes at me with a strange look in her eyes. A tear rolls down on cheek as she leans forward across the table. "Thank you," she whispers, "thank you for making my dream come true." The breath of her words brushes across my face and she kisses me. The feeling is overwhelming as her lips meet mine. My little earlier stolen connection was nothing compared to this. Her willing affection slams into me like a tidal wave. It's like mainlining a power station. A flood of heat suffuses my being and I'm filled with light and energy. She's sweet and innocent, and pure, and giving, and all of her is for me alone. It's like the greatest screen kiss in every Bogey film all rolled into one. I see lights flash and hear thunder roll. The very earth moves for me. I'm so overwhelmed that I just sit there for a moment, stunned. I blink and she's sitting there across from me, her chin resting in her hands, smiling happily at me. When did she stop? What's happening? Not sure of what to do, I just sit there for a moment. Then, noticing the dish in front of me, I dip my spoon into the chocolate parfait and start to feed her. As I'm giving her the last spoonful, Ferrite walks in the door. Or I should say, Lauren Becall from Key Largo walks in the door. Ferrite must have been practicing because no disguise spell gives you a walk like that. She/he fairly smolders as she/he slinks across the room. Noticing that I'm taking good care of Naru, "she" graces me with a warm smile. If I were a normal man, I melt at the warmth of that smile. When "Lauren" gets closer, I see that "she" is slightly smoldering for real. "What happened to you?" I ask as "she" pulls up a chair and sits next to us crossing his gorgeous gams. "What?" he asks in a fairly good imitation of Lauren's throaty contralto, "didn't you see the flashes or hear the explosions?" At that moment the wailing sirens of emergency vehicles racing to the scene can be heard outside, and I can see the cheery glow of something burning vigorously reflected in the store windows. A crowd of people is clustered at the entrance to the mini-mall gasping and pointing in horror. "What happened to our little fan club?" I ask. "Well," "she" says throatily and leaning provocatively on the table, "you know what happens when you keep a lady waiting, don't you?" "No, I don't," I say stunned by the performance. "She" playfully swirls her finger across the surface of the table displaying a perfectly manicured nail and says, "You give her time to assemble an Iron Arms mark V, man-portable, plasma projector gun." "I see . . . " "Don't you think it's time we were on our way?" "Lauren" asks in a sultry tone. "Sure," I answer slowly, "on one condition." "Oh, what did you have in mind?" "She" leans closer and whispers. "That you change back, you're scaring me." Ferrite's Lauren Becall disguise pouts sexily as "she" says, "Maggie, I thought you of all people would appreciate this performance. Here I am drawing on experience from several actor incarnations and you don't like it." "She" gets up and slaps me, hard. "That'll teach me to hang out with an uncultured, lowlife, hoodlum like you!" "She" exclaims loudly and stalks off to the restrooms. Now I'm really scared, I'm teamed up with *two* powerful nutcases. The other patrons don't even notice, though, being absorbed with watching the Crystal Tokyo Fire Department battle the blaze. The things a youma's gotta' do to earn a living. Ferrite's back in a moment, sans disguise and walks up to us again. "Ready to go?" He asks. This time he's disguised in a bit more nondescript way in one of those Crystal Tokyo tunics that's so popular now. I hate that modern clothing, no style, or pleats or collars, no useless things to jazz it up. New aesthetics, bah! (I make a note to myself to remember the "new aesthetics" as something to be cynical about.) "Sorry about 'Lauren'," he says embarrassed, "I was letting one of my actor incarnations drive and got a little carried away." "You were an actress in a past life?" "Actor! Act-or!" he adds emphatically, "one thing that is consistent in my previous incarnations is that I've always been a man. That particular one was alive in England when young men typically played the female roles. To have a woman on stage was unheard of back then. I even worked for the great bard Shakespeare himself. In "Taming of the Shrew" I was brilliant. But it didn't last. In "Merchant of Venice" he threw me over for a younger man with better legs. "Oh, the injustice." "Tell me about it, My legs were fabulous." We pay on the way out and are headed toward the exit to the mini-mall when I get my old familiar tingle again. "Aw, no," I say aloud, "Rei's around." The tingle grows stronger and I say, "and she's headed this way." "She can probably detect you," Ferrite says, "Take care of her and catch up with us later. If you can't, then meet us at pier seventeen." Ferrite then turns away and leads Naru down the mall. I'm about to object but one of the strange things about humans is that certain ones keep their promises. From what I've heard, Ferrite is one of them. I'm watching them retreat down the mall when Rei suddenly rounds the corner. Using that senshi speed of hers, she's next to me almost instantly. I wonder how she can run so fast in those high heels of hers. "Magneisite, fancy meeting you here," she says sarcastically, "You disappear from your office and I get a call about massive fire and destruction. Imagine my surprise when I find you in the area." I turn to her coolly even though I'm about to jump out of my skin. The nice thing about Crystal Tokyo is that it's been so long since anyone used tobacco there are no no-smoking ordinances so I light up to stall for time. "Hi Rei," I say exhaling, "decided to take my advice and get out more? Here to shop for a fashionable new dress? You're in luck, the Lard-butt boutique is still open." She blinks and then I see rage burning in her eyes. Oh, that struck a nerve. She gets right in my face and snarls, "What are you doing here Magnesite and who was that you were just talking to?" As she's giving me the business, I see a couple of C.T.P.D. patrolmen move into position behind her. One word from her and they'll take off down the mall after Ferrite and Naru. I can't think of anything to say until I spot the teddybear under Naru's arm. "That was Teddy and his 'floozy'," I say, "I followed him into the shop to spy on him and asked him for the time to record a sample of his voice." "What? Teddy?" She asks confused. "From the office," I remind her. "Why do you need a voice sample?" She asks still not buying my story. "Sometimes all I can get is audio of 'Oh . . . Ah . . . Oh . . . Ah . . . '" I say loudly feigning a couple approaching climax. Several people in the mall stop to stare. Rei colors a little at my sound effects and I add, "A clear voice clip can help sway a judge. I don't know how the fires started but I do know my next meal is disappearing down the mall. Now if you'll excuse me, you're keeping an honest youma from making an honest living." "Okay, Magnesite," Rei growls, "I don't have anything to hold you on but I'll be watching you. Keep your nose clean you little weasel." I think about grossing her out by pulling off my nose and polishing it on my lapel, but I decide to let well enough alone. The lard-butt comment was pushing the limit. "You can say that again," Rei snaps back over her shoulder. Narrating out loud again. Damn. I catch up to Ferrite and Naru just as they reach pier seventeen. The fog is starting to roll in and I'm thankful for the cover. This looks like the perfect setting for the climax to a Bogey film. We reach the end of the pier and look of into the gloom. The water gently laps against the pilings and boat horns call mournfully across the water. Everything seems quiet but I sense something moving out in the mist. I use up a little energy and reach out with my senses. There's something massive just under the surface of the water near the dock. It's a submarine. Friends in low places, indeed. Ferrite looks at his pocket watch as if he were waiting for a train. At twelve o'clock exactly, he takes an infrared flashlight out of his pocket and switches it on and off three times. Out in the water I hear a slight splash and the barely audible hum of a motor. Ferrite turns to Naru and says, "Naru, we're going on a little boat ride." "Magnesite too?" she asks. "No, I'm afraid that Magnesite is not going with us." Crestfallen she asks Ferrite in a small voice, "Can I say goodbye?" "Very well," he says curtly stepping a little way away in the fog. She turns to me shyly and says, "I wanna' thank you for the chocolate parfait. I hadda' lovely time." What the . . . she makes it sound like we were a couple of kids out on a date. "Maybe we could do it again sometime," I say touched at her demure sweetness. "Really? I'd like that," she says happily. Wait a minute . . . What's all this maudlin stuff? I flip up the collar of my trenchcoat and straighten my hat. Adopting a Bogey sneer I say, "Well, here's where we say goodbye kid. Can't say it hasn't been fun." "Ya' know, Magnesite," she says leaning close to me, "under your rough exterior you're really a nice guy." I can't think of anything to say in response so I just stand there looking at her in the soft light. Then, she kisses me and for the second time tonight my heart melts. "Our ride's here," Ferrite says, "it's time to go Naru." "Goodbye," Naru whispers. "Goodbye," I answer and as she starts to step away my rough exterior breaks and I hug her desperately. Equally passionately she hugs back. After a while, Ferrite gently breaks our embrace and leads Naru over to a heavily muscled young man in a wetsuit. "Take her to your boat and wait for me a few moments, lieutenant," he says. The man nods and leads Naru down the ladder. She looks at me sadly one last time before she sinks out of sight. "I'm not going to ask what that was about, Magnesite," Ferrite says, "She's developed some sort of attachment to you and I can't see why. But she's happy so I don't care. Naru can make up her mind when she's well again. Maybe I'll ask then, maybe not. Regardless, I owe you a debt and now it's time to pay." Methodically he removes his glove finger by finger then he extends his hand to me as if offering it in friendship. It takes all my self control to stop myself from immediately grabbing it and feeding but I hold my palm up stopping him. "First," I say, "tell me what this was all about." "I'm sorry," Ferrite says, "I can't say much without risking Naru's security. I will tell you this, though. There is trouble coming so be prepared for it. Trust no one and if people offer you alliances or make promises, ignore them as their promises are worthless. If who I think is behind this, they seek only their own ends and will discard you at the first opportunity. If you can, move out of Crystal Tokyo. If not, keep a suitcase packed." Humph, sounds just like the Dark Kingdom. "You don't paint a rosy picture," I say. "There's a storm coming on . . . " he says, "A storm that will sweep a lot of people away." The lieutenant clears his throat impatiently at all this melodrama. "Now I must go," Ferrite says holding his hand out to me again. This time I take it and feel his defenses drop. I reach out and the link between us is forged. Where Naru's life force was sweet and pure, his is both mellow and sharp. A thousand flavors play across my senses as I experience the many lifetimes Ferrite has lived. There is a longing that tinges them all however, which makes them bittersweet. After I've had my fill, I release his hand and he staggers a bit despite his great strength. The lieutenant is instantly at his side supporting him. He helps him down the ladder and I glance down to see her one last time but I can barely make out their outlines in the fog. The motor hums and they move quietly out into the gloom. After a while I hear the submarine go under with barely a splash. I stand there for a while waiting for . . . for I don't know what. Finally, I turn and walk back down the dock, my footsteps echoing in the gloom. I could teleport back to my office instantly but this is more appropriate. I light up a cigarette as I walk and think about the case. I'm surprised that I'm the one who came away with the bird. Then I remember that I still owe Margrave a life-force debt. I was so wrapped up with Naru that I forgot to mention it. Dames! They'll do it every time. Get inside your head so you're not thinkin' straight. Maybe Margrave will take a raincheck. So this is the way the story ends: Magnesite, P.I. wends his way back to the hole in the wall office to drink himself to sleep thinking about the babe who left him alone in the mean streets of Crystal Tokyo. The strange thing is, that last thought is probably true. Music swells . . . Fade to black . . . The End Credits: Naoko Takeuchi for creating Sailor Moon, and other characters which populate her Mooniverse which we are borrowing. Mark Latus for creating Magnesite and Margrave, two characters who speak up for themselves. Hell, two characters who just won't shut up! Also for several crucial scenes that really set the story and inspired the ending. Sam Ashley, for Magnesite's opening scene which was too good to leave languishing on the snippet's page of Sailor Moon Expanded. Andy Combs for bringing me together with all these talented people and for establishing the Crystal Tokyo from which many stories shall be launched. Two stories by me are related to this one. "Jupiter's Orbit" precedes this one in the time line and is the reason for Ferrite's motivation in seeking Naru and "Settling Accounts" ties up the Margrave thread established in this story. However, that story also follows events in two other stories planned by Mark and me. The first, "Casablanca Revisited" brings Magnesite, Ferrite and Naru back together and is set during the Black Moon Family invasion. The second, "Trench Warfare" follows up events in Casablanca and ties into the end of the war depicted in Andy Combs' "Crystal Tokyo Stories." If it sounds complicated, it is, but the interweaving of the stories is what SME is all about. A final series, planned by me, will bring our three back together in a multi-part, planet spanning series called, "The Power Behind the Throne." But that's a looong way away. (Trenchcoat Mask one, two, and three have yet to be written.) Now, back to Trenchcoat-Mask...