Kaname Sterling was lying on her bed, working on her reading assignment for Introductory Chemistry and trying not to think about her stalker when there came a knock at her door.

"'Sopen," she called. Since she was an RA, she was in the habit of leaving her door unlocked during the day, to make it easier for those who might be seeking her help. (In fact, she had occasionally considered that RAs' rooms might better be equipped with a Dutch door, so busy did things sometimes get on the weekends.)

She closed her chemistry book on her finger and sat up, expecting to see one of her floor's students entering with a problem or question, but instead she saw Lindsey Willows carrying a large silver valise that looked like a cross between an aluminum attache case and one of those expensive camera cases.

"Oh, hi," said Kaname, puzzled. "What's in the box?"

"Just stay right there," Lindsey told her. Humming cheerfully, she put the case down in the middle of Kaname's desk blotter, popped the latches, and opened it up, revealing an intricate arrangement of little articulated shelves and compartments that put Kaname in mind of a high-tech fishing tackle box. From one of the compartments the younger girl removed a pair of bright purple nitrile gloves, which she fitted onto her hands with confident ease.

"Um... what?" said Kaname.

"Well," Lindsey told her, withdrawing a device that looked like a flashlight with delusions of weaponhood from a compartment in the front of the box, "remember earlier when you said you even feel like you're being watched in here? I've been thinking about that ever since yesterday, and so I've come to process your room. If Sgt. Strangelove has been in here, he's left traces, I don't care how careful he was. And if he's left traces," she added with a grin, switching on the light and directing its eerie blue beam at the wall, "I'll find them."

Kaname, slightly too weirded out to respond, pulled her feet up under her and just sat and watched as Lindsey connected a small module with an unusually bright orange status light to Kaname's desktop dataterm. Once that was done, she let it pulse away ominously in the background while she methodically worked over the room, first with the blue light, then with a device like a medical tricorder with a different antenna. Working quickly but carefully, the petite blonde dusted a few of the more likely areas for fingerprints, got down into the corners of the room to scan the dust, climbed under the bed like a mechanic going under a car, delved into the back of the wardrobe, and then climbed up on a chair to inspect the light fixture in the center of the ceiling.

"OK!" she said at the end of an hour or so's work. At the foot of Kaname's bed, she spread out a large sheet of white paper, then arrayed a few small electronic devices, unidentifiable to Kaname's eye, upon it. "Here's what I've got. This is an omnidirectional listening device that was under your desk. Here are a couple of biometric sensors that he installed on the underside of your mattress. This came out of the light fixture, unsurprisingly it's a wide-angle holocamera, and there was a backup in the corner by the window. I'm not even sure what this is, but it definitely doesn't belong where I found it."

Kaname sat, dumbfounded, and looked at Lindsey's haul of surveillance devices while Lindsey peeled off her gloves and continued, "There are unknown fingerprints all over in here, some of them are probably from members of the cleaning staff - I can eliminate them when I get back to my room and slice the personnel department's computers. And speaking of slicing," she added, disconnecting the flashing orange widget from the terminal, "I'm not at all surprised to discover that he's had a keylogger and a camjacker on your term since Christmas. Because I guess surveilling you from only two angles just wasn't good enough."

"... seriously."

"Oh yeah. Not the usual skript-kiddie crap, either, this is some pretty hardcore intrusion software. And this gear is all milspec, too," Lindsey added, gesturing to the array of gadgets on the paper. "Even used I could probably get five, six grand easy for this stuff on SpyBay. Whoever this dude is, he's got some serious backing. He's not just your ordinary pervert. Which reminds me, incidentally, you may be relieved to know that I didn't find any, uh, anomalous biological material whatsoever. If he is doing this to get his jollies, he's not gettin' 'em in here." She winked. "Small favors."

Kaname stared at her, face completely blank, for several seconds. Then her expression slowly hardened, crystallizing from nothing whatever to shock to dismay to a pure, transcendent rage.

She stood up, dropping her chemistry book, and said flatly, "He dies. He dies now. Let's go."

The walk from Hamlin Four to Dennis Blair Hall took about ten minutes to accomplish, a fact for which Lindsey Willows was quietly grateful. This meant in the time it took to cross the Commons on that crisp winter evening, Kaname Sterling had stood down from her original state of incandescent fury (what Lindsey thought of as DEFCON 1) to a more reasonable level of driven intent (DEFCON 3). She was always more manageable in this state, and much less likely to break something in the process.

This didn't mean she was easy to talk to at the moment, and Lindsey didn't try. She just walked alongside her, keeping up as best she could while carrying her evidence kit and the plastic bag containing all the stuff she'd found in Kaname's room, and warding off anybody who might get in their way in the process. Not that anybody with a measure of sense would try, seeing Kaname's current expression.

Still intent, Kaname swept through the lobby doors without stopping, and didn't bother waiting for the elevators. Instead, she headed straight for one of the access stairwells and began taking the steps two at a time with her long legs. Lindsey followed along, and double-timed it up the steps to keep pace with her friend.

"So, he's here?" Kaname asked as she opened the stairwell door to the fourth floor. Beyond were several freshmen and sophomores, who looked over curiously as the two entered the hallway from the side door.

"According to the student directory, Blair 407," Lindsey confirmed. She waved cheerfully at a couple of the students that she knew, and then caught up to her friend as she was already halfway down the hallway to the room at the end, nearest to the elevator lounge. She took brief note of the sign on the door ("401: N. Kruger -- Resident Advisor"), even as Kaname was knocking on it.

"Come on, be in already," Kaname muttered under her breath, but then halted in her motions as the door opened. "Oh, good."

Beyond the threshold stood another girl, shorter than Kaname but taller than Lindsey, with long, straight black hair and a serious mien. She was clad in the standard DSM checkered skirt and white shirt, but had apparently replaced the sweater for the evening with a thin orange vest. Her arms were crossed, and she was regarding Kaname with only slight disgruntlement in her green eyes.

"Sterling. It's not like you to be out at this hour. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Kaname sighed, ran a hand through her hair, and looked straight at her fellow RA. "Natsuki. I need to see the inside of one of your students' rooms. Yesterday."

At Natsuki's arched eyebrow, Lindsey added, "We believe that he's been surveilling Kaname for some time now. We observed him following her during the school day, and I found a whole raft of covert ELINT gear in her room less than a half hour ago."

Natsuki frowned. "You're saying he bugged her room? That's a serious charge, Willows. And you're certain that this has been ongoing?"

"Well, I can't be a hundred percent certain, not without running his prints, but I believe we have enough probable cause to warrant it."

"Well, unless you have verifiable proof, I'm afraid that student privacy takes precedence," Natsuki replied, flicking a strand of her hair with her right hand. "You know the rules, Sterling. You went through the training, the same as I did. If you've got that kind of case you need to be talking to the Campus Police."

Kaname groaned. "Oh, come on, Natsuki! We haven't got time to call in the donut jockeys - we need to get on top of this before he spooks and runs!" She gestured down the hallway frantically, before returning her full attention to the other girl. "Look, it's just this once!"

"'Just this once' often turns into 'just one more', Sterling. We can't be abusing our charges, you know that."

"Look, who was it that helped you and your friends with your calculus study group? Who helped sponsor you for the pistol team last year? Who was it that helped vouch for your blue-wolf-thing - oh, hey, Duran - with campus security and ResLife when you wanted to bring him full-time on campus? " Kaname gestured at the large blue-grey wolf in question, which had been lying down at the foot of Natsuki's bed before it heard its name mentioned and looked up at the grouping at the doorway.

Seeing that Natsuki wasn't being moved, Kaname played her final available card. She leaned in close, and pitched her voice low in the hopes that Lindsey wouldn't hear it. "... And who was it who covered for you with ResLife back in early September? When you and Shizuru celebrated your one-year anniversary, and didn't get back from Botrell Beach until the next day?" At Natsuki's widening eyes and growing blush, Kaname grinned, and she knew she had her. "Yeah, I thought so."

"All right, you made your point!" Natsuki exclaimed, and then coughed in an attempt to recover her poise. Behind Kaname, Lindsey made a show of not having heard or noticed anything. "Give me a moment, and I'll get my keys."

As Natsuki rummaged around the depths of her room, Lindsey nudged Kaname and asked quietly, "What was that all about?"

Kaname leaned over and replied, equally quiet, "Let's just say that while I certainly am not going to complain about people's choices in partners, and if they're happy, I'm all for it? But sometimes discretion is the better part of valor."

Further discussion was prevented by Natsuki's return. In her hand was a chunky-looking keyring with several nonstandard keys on it. "All right, I'm ready. Stay there, Duran." Her pet wolf nodded and folded itself back up at the foot of the bed.

Together, the three girls strode down the hallway towards the middle section. The commotion garnered some attention from the other students in the hall, but the look on their RA's face prevented them from asking any questions. The three of them arrived at their target's door ("407: S. Sagara"), and regarded it.

"Well, at least he's not trying to hide where he lives," Lindsey muttered.

Natsuki glanced at Kaname. "I repeat, are you sure about this?"

Kaname nodded brusquely. "Yes. Do it."

To her visible dismay, Natsuki proceeded to knock on the door.

"What the - " Kaname caught herself. " - hell are you doing?!"

"It's polite, and it's policy," Natsuki replied imperturbably. "You really didn't pay attention in resident advisor training, did you?"

"Whose side are you on?!" Kaname demanded. "It's like you want him to get away!"

There was no answer, so Natsuki shrugged inwardly and moved on to the next phase. She had deep misgivings about it - it was entirely contrary to the accepted procedure - but Kaname had her over a barrel.

Like all of the Resident Advisors at DSM, Natsuki had been issued a master key for the dorm rooms on her floor. They were provided for use at the RA's discretion, in the possibility of circumstances (medical emergencies, assisting first responders, crisis resolution) where an adult would not get there immediately. They were an emblem of responsibility that were not handed out lightly.

They were also biometrically and password encoded, to prevent other students from making off with them and trying to duplicate them. Each RA could only use his or her own key, and only for that RA's specific area of responsiblity.

Natsuki inserted the key in question, and then gripped the keyring. With a clear voice, she announced, "Room Door Key Override, Identify - Kruger, Natsuki. Password - Electric Barbarella." There was an answering beep from the keyring, and a reconfiguring sound from within the door lock.

Lindsey and Kaname blinked and looked sideways at Natsuki as she turned the doorknob and opened the door. She glanced back at them, as if daring them to comment, and that settled the matter.

Any further discussion was halted as they stood in the entrance and looked into the room. At first glance it looked like any other single room in Blair Hall. Which is to say, a great deal like a one-bed room at a middling-grade long-stay hotel in some city with a bent for minimalism in its public spaces - Niogi, say, that Bauhaus-influenced neighborhood near the spaceport. The surfaces were mostly white and mostly flat, with sparing accents of chrome or black piano wood, and the simple and handsome furniture was in a complementary style. Through the far window, Kaname could clearly see the façade of Hannibal Hamlin Hall, and she had a strong and sinking suspicion that she could see her own window from here in this room.

The odd thing about Blair 407 was that it was a complete cipher. Most students took advantage of all that flat white wall to personalize their space with posters, holos, what have you. In Blair Hall they were even allowed to paint their rooms if they signed an agreement to paint them back again at the end of the year. This was exactly what the architects had intended, each room as a blank slate for the occupants to stamp their personalities on. This room had absolutely no personality at all. It looked like it had just come out of the shrink wrap, right down to the Mondrian-precise, perfectly smooth black and white counterpane on the bed.

And there was no one home.

Frowning, Natsuki turned back to look at Kaname and Lindsey with a pointed expression and a cool tone of voice. "Well. It looks as if your suspicions were incorrect, Willows. Now, if you'll excuse us, my fellow RA and I need to have a discussion about various things."

Lindsey was not about to be cowed by any cold dismissals, however. She frowned thoughtfully, then tilted her head as a thought occurred to her. "No, wait..." Without waiting for the older girls to comment or try to stop her, she took several steps further in, and reached her arm out in front of her, towards the center of the room.

Her arm vanished halfway into the middle of the air, up to her elbow.

Lindsey grinned. "Now we're getting somewhere. C'mon!" With that, she strode boldly through the newly discovered holoscreen, forcing the other two girls to catch up.

Beyond the screen was the same room in shape and size, but definitely not in decor. Practically every available horizontal surface had been stacked high with boxy electronic equipment, only some of which Kaname recognized. Another device was propped against the window, facing outwards. The corners of the room had what appeared to be the components of an acoustic damper web mounted and active. The collapsed plastic packets of empty MREs filled the room's institute-issue trash can, and a stack of unopened ones were piled nearby. A military foot locker was wedged up against the wall at the foot of the bed. Said bed was only lightly rumpled, as if the owner of the room had just stepped out.

Natsuki stared, her previous glacial calm finally broken by the total incongruity of the revealed contents of the room. ".... what the HELL??"

Lindsey whistled. "There has to be at least twenty thousand credits worth of monitoring equipment in here."

Kaname frowned as she looked around. "But where's the Unknown Soldier?" she asked the air, but even as she said the question she was answered by a quick rustling noise underneath the bed. Startled, Kaname jumped back as the man in question rolled out from underneath, and while still lying on the floor, drew another pistol from somewhere, aiming it up at them.

Before either Kaname or Lindsey could react, Natsuki shoved herself in front of the other two, and in a flash she was holding a pistol of her own -- a small derringer-style pistol with a curious spherical "cylinder". She glared down at Sosuke, her eyes meeting his, as they drew down on each other.

Kaname didn't blank again, for which she was unconsciously very grateful. What she did instead was declare in a commanding voice,

"Whoa whoa WHOA!! Settle down, partner! Heel, boy!"

Sosuke kept his aim steady, not evidently discouraged by the RA's weapon, and said, "We appear to have a standoff, Miss Kruger." Then, with a faint trace of humor - the first Kaname could remember seeing from him - he added, "And I believe you're trespassing."

"You could have mentioned he was armed, Kaname," Natsuki muttered out of the side of her mouth.

"We took it away from him! I didn't think he'd have another!"

"You took a gun off him before and didn't take the matter to the Campus Police? What else haven't you told me?" Natsuki wanted to know.

"Well... he's licensed," Lindsey admitted. "He works for some security firm. His ID checked out, but he's still totally stalking Kaname," she added, more insistently. "That's still not cool."

"I am not stalking anyone," Sosuke objected calmly, then went on, directly addressing Kaname, "I told you. I've been assigned to protect you."

"So what's this stuff all about?!" Kaname demanded, snatching the plastic bag of surveillance equipment from Lindsey and brandishing it.

"I can hardly safeguard you if I'm unaware of your location and activities," Sosuke told her, and somehow made it sound so reasonable a conclusion that she found herself making the you-have-a-point noise before remembering she was supposed to be furious with him.

"That's not - " she began, but before she could get any further, Natsuki cut in with,

"Can we not have this discussion while holding each other at gunpoint?! This is ridiculous."

Sosuke regarded her for a few moments, then relaxed his arm, lowered his Glock, and put it away as he climbed slowly and unthreateningly to his feet. The RA kept holding down on him for a second, then holstered her own weapon as well.

Sosuke sat down on the edge of his bed, his hands on his knees, and said, "I'm sorry if my monitoring equipment disturbed you, Miss Chidori. I'm only trying to do my job."

"Who the hell is - " Natsuki started to murmur to Kaname.

"Skip it," Kaname told her with an exasperated gesture. "So answer me this, dude, what were the biosensors for?"

"Ah. You even found those." Sosuke nodded. "Congratulations, you must be very skilled."

"Actually, that's all me," said Lindsey with a grin.

"Waiting for my answer here," said Kaname testily.

"It's an intruder detection system."

"Intru - oh, man, what." Kaname put her hand to her forehead and said nothing for a few moments as the implications of that worked their way through her head.

"Well, Kaname," Natsuki observed after a few seconds' silence, "bizarre as this entire situation is, I don't see anything here that's actually a violation. Mind you, I can't tell visually what most of this stuff is," she muttered.

"I assure you all my equipment is quite legal," Sosuke told her.

"Wait, are you bailing on me here?!" Kaname asked. "This guy's got more spy gear in here than they have at the Tomodachi Ninja Museum, he pulled a gun on you, he's admitted to wiring my room for biometrics, and you're gonna walk?"

"As I tried to tell you when we started," said Natsuki with exaggerated patience, "this is way above my level. Talk to Chief Odo if you want to take the matter further. I'm out." Turning to go, she added privately into Kaname's ear, "I'll be generous and say we're even."

"Bitch," Kaname muttered back, but Natsuki just smiled coolly and sauntered off down the hall, waving bye-bye over her shoulder without looking back.

Kaname glared after her for a second, then seemed to deflate with a sigh and turned back to Sosuke.

"Great, OK, so, I just burned all my political capital on this floor and what have I got to show for it? Bupkis. You are way more trouble than you're worth, mister."

"I apologize," Sosuke said, and he sounded sincere, but unmoved; then he repeated, "I'm only doing my job."

"And you still won't tell me who you're doing it for."

Sosuke shook his head and said flatly, "I can't. Sorry."

"And you're not going to knock it off if I ask you very nicely."

"Again, not on the table."

"I could have you thrown out of school," Kaname said, more as a thought aloud than a threat.

"That would inconvenience me," Sosuke said, "but I could relocate my command post into the hills within an hour. I would be unable to respond to potential incidents as quickly, however. You would be exposing yourself to unnecessary danger."

"Can you even tell me who you're supposed to be protecting me from? I mean, the last time I checked I didn't exactly have enemies. I'm 17, for Spirit's sake."

Sosuke looked her in the eye and replied with perfect seriousness, "Anyone and anything."

For some reason, the look in his eye and the tone in his voice struck Kaname cold. She just stood staring at him for a few seconds, lost for words.

"Ummmmm," said Lindsey hesitantly. Both looked sharply toward her; Kaname had almost forgotten she was there. "OK, look, before we take this to the next level and glass starts getting broken, can I make a suggestion?"

"By all means, Miss Willows," said Sosuke, and then, with that faint trace of humor again, "I'm not unreasonable. Only determined."

"OK. Sergeant What's-your-name, you want to protect Kaname, and you're willing to go live in the woods in winter to do it if we get you tossed out of the Institute."

"Sagara. Sosuke Sagara. And yes, if that's what it takes."

"Well, then... look, Kaname, if he's that serious about it? I think maybe you ought to just go with it." Before Kaname could protest, she went on, "You just need to establish some boundaries. Figure out an arrangement that works for both of you. Like, I'm just throwing this out here, you agree to a listening device and the biometrics, but no camera and the keylogger comes off your terminal, and you," she added to Sosuke, "no more lurking at the edge of the frame all the time. If you want to keep an eye on her that's fine, but the Stalky McStalkerpants crap has to stop. Like, if you want to be sure nobody gets the drop on her at lunch, just, you know, come over to our table and hang out. We don't bite." The little blonde grinned. "Much."

"Lins... " Kaname began, sounding like she was about to get testy again, but then she trailed off and considered the alternatives. What Lindsey was proposing was reasonable, at least compared with the crazy-bucket level of what was already happening. And something about the conviction in the young soldier's face as he'd told her he was prepared to protect her from "anyone and anything" had rattled her a little. It might be a flash of insight from the always-lurking collective, it might be her own instincts, or it might just be her buying into whatever his damage was, but she was inclined to take it seriously.

She sighed. "OK. I can't believe I've arrived at a place where what Lindsey just said was the rational alternative to what's going on in my life, but... OK. You stay on your end of the couch and I won't take this stuff to Odo. But," she added, raising a finger sternly, "you put one toe out of line and I will bury you. Understood?"

Sosuke's face passed through a fleeting expression that might have been a faint smirk, so quickly gone that Kaname wasn't sure she'd really seen it. Then he got to his feet, squared himself at attention, and saluted her, as he had in the wood the day before.

"Understood. I accept your conditions - provisionally," he said briskly. "We'll need to document the specific rules of engagement as soon as possible to avoid future misunderstandings."

Kaname regarded him for a second, then shook her head, smiling ruefully in spite of herself.

"Are you for real, man?" she wondered.

"I'm as real as it gets, Miss Chidori," Sosuke assured her.

Kaname sighed and returned his salute. She wasn't sure why she kept humoring him that way, but it felt right somehow. She realized in that moment that, whatever else she thought of the guy (and she wasn't sure of most of that yet), she did believe he was a soldier, and not just some random nut.

He might still be some random nut, but not just some random nut.

"All right, uh... carry on, Sgt. Sagara," she said, a little awkwardly. "I'll have my people call your people in the morning and we'll talk specific terms. Think you can survive that long without my room all wired up?"

Sosuke nodded. "Affirmative," he said, gesturing to the device on the tripod in front of the window. "The acoustic laser will suffice for this evening, though if you're planning to go out I would appreciate notification."

"Acoustic - ... yeah, OK, I'm just going to go back over and study and not think about that," Kaname said. "See you, Sgt. Rock."

Sosuke replied stolidly, "Good night, ma'm. Miss Willows," he added with a polite nod to Lindsey.

"Don't even say anything," Kaname said to Natsuki Kruger as she passed the latter's door. Natsuki just smirked, and with a flick of her hair, she turned and closed her door.

"When are you going to tell him your last name's not Chidori?" Lindsey wondered as they descended the stairs.

"I want to see how long it takes him to figure it out for himself," Kaname replied. "It's a little weird that a guy with as much backing as he obviously has got such a crappy briefing he doesn't even know who I am. That's how I know none of my relatives were involved. Ooh, unless they gave him the wrong name on purpose so I wouldn't think it was them. Aaarrrgh." She palmed her forehead and didn't speak again until they were crossing the Common, when she suddenly sighed and observed,

"Lindsey? It's gonna be a looooong semester."

"DSM Panic! Mission 2: Dormitory Observation Protocols" (a Symphony of the Sword Mini-Story) by Benjamin D. Hutchins with Philip Jeremy Moyer
Special to the Eyrie Productions Discussion Forum
© 2011 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited

(Nice bit with the music ref!)

And then the last scene just made me stop and go 'uh, wha?' Kaname backs down on dealing with this guy? I have a really hard time buying that. Regardless of the fact he actually has real credentials this time, as opposed to the source material, Sousuke is in need of a serious beatdown, and I really can't see Kaname not prying some answers out of him.

That said, if the next chapter is her calling her relatives to try and find out why she has a military stalker or something, I'll gladly admit I'm jumping to conclusions. But right now, those last few scenes leave me a little unsettled.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

You. Watched. MyHIME.

If I wasn't a guy, I'd be doing a fairly good imitation of a fangirl 'squee' right about now. Instead, you'll have to settle for a guttural howl of laughter.

Now all we need is Kyohime to show up. Which is, frankly, one of the most badass 'pets' that would grace the pages of UF. Nothing quite like having a 15m tall biomechanical snake-octopus on call, which is rabidly loyal to a fault to it's mistress.

And why do I see Duran + Kyohime ending up as a kind of comedy routine where both of them end up looking on from the sidelines as Shizuru and Natsuki get into an argument or something, and either doing the head tilt, or just sharing a look and then doing the wolf/snake-octopus equivalent of a facepalm?

I'm not even going to bother getting into the Sosuke thing as this is one of those rare crossovers, starring him, where he's waaaaaaaaay out of his league. Canon Chidori is one thing. He's dealing with a Sterling. All of whom seem to genetically blessed with the ability to give unholy beatdowns to anyone else that's in a mecha facing them - Sosuke will rapidly learn to -pray- that his Lambda Driver is in working condition.