I have a message from another time...

                     Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
                               presents

                UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT
                   - SYMPHONY OF THE SWORD No. 4 -

                      The Kindness of Strangers

                         Benjamin D. Hutchins
                           with Anne Cross
                            Janice Barlow
                             Pearson Mui

                (c) 2002 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited

        
                         FRIDAY, MAY 1, 2409
                               3:49 PM
                          1140 WILDWOOD ROAD
                        NEKOMIKOKA, TOMODACHI

        Anne Cross sat on the front steps, duffel bag at her side, and
glanced at her watch again.  Kate's brother was hours late; he was
supposed to have come in the morning, and it was now nearly four in
the afternoon.  Weren't the two of them supposed to -be- somewhere at
four?
        She sighed.  She was dissatisfied with this entire
arrangement, though she knew it wasn't really anyone's fault.  She'd
come crashing into their lives without much warning or time to plan,
and there were bound to be some things they'd arranged beforehand that
couldn't be REarranged to accommodate her.
        Case in point: This weekend, nobody was going to be home.
Kaitlyn was off to a three-day conference on something called
"electro-symphonic musical integration" with Miki; the Tenjous had to
leave that evening for a meeting on their homeworld.  Anne hadn't
received the full story of their lives yet, only the tidied-up
abridged version, so she knew only that they were persons of some
importance there.
        Either way, they were going to be gone, and no one felt it was
a good idea to leave Anne by her own on Tomodachi.  The others all had
things to do that weekend which could have been adjusted to make space
for the girl, but when Kate discussed the matter by phone with her
brother, he offered to look after her student instead.  They'd all
assured her that it'd work out, but of course it made her feel awkward
anyway.
        Not as awkward as it could have, though.  Anne Cross had long
experience in being places where she wasn't truly wanted, but rather
than make her neurotically assume that she was -never- wanted, the
experience had given her the ability to sense when it was and wasn't
so.  Her instincts and her experience both told her that she -was-
wanted here, that in the short time she'd been here she'd become part
of the household.  It was a new and unique feeling, and she focused on
it now, using it to blunt the awkwardness as she waited for Corwin.
        What she didn't know, what she was uncertain of in this
situation, was how welcome she'd be in -his- life.  He didn't live on
Tomodachi; he lived in New Avalon, sharing an apartment downtown with
Miki Kaoru's sister Kozue.  Kate, Utena, and Anthy had told her that
and a good deal more about him, and they'd all assured him that he'd
enjoy looking after her for the weekend.
        So where was he?
        The door behind her opened as she reached that point in her
train of thought.  Twisting to look up over her shoulder, she saw
Utena Tenjou frowning out into the street.
        "He's still not here?" she wondered rhetorically.
        "Nope," Anne replied.
        Utena made an irritated noise.  "Times like this I wish I'd
bothered becoming a Lensman.  Hang on, I'll go call Wakaba and see if
she can raise him.  He's probably - "
        At that moment, the sound of a high-powered internal combustion 
engine reached them, and a couple of seconds later a very strange
vehicle rounded the corner a block down and came up the street toward
the house.
        To Anne, who had seen all manner of odd vehicles out on the
Rim, it looked like a truck... kind of.  It had the square nose and
sturdy wheels of a truck, wheels that were doubled on the rear axle,
but its cabin was oddly sloped, and instead of a cargo bay or a set of
utility compartments, it was taken up aft of the cab by a bulky,
angular contraption whose purpose Anne could not readily determine.
It was either faded black or very dark matte grey, and it had little
yellow markers at the corners and an orange-and-white roundel with the
figure "88" on the door.
        This remarkable vehicle rumbled up the dead-end spur of
Wildwood Road and pulled into 1140's driveway.  Utena stepped down
from the porch and went to it; curious, Anne followed behind as the
Duelist leaned over the passenger door and said to the driver, "Where
the hell've you been?"
        "Ah, the usual," he replied, sounding harried.  "Anyway, I'm
here now.  Is this her?"
        "This is her," Utena confirmed.  "I'd hoped you'd have some
time to get acquainted before running off, but... "  She shrugged.
"Anne Cross - Corwin Ravenhair."
        The man in the driver's seat of the peculiar truck-like
vehicle leaned toward the passenger side, one hand still on the wheel,
and grinned around Utena at Anne.  "Hi," he said.  "Sorry to rush you,
but we've got to burn some rubber if we're going to save the rest of
the day's schedule."
        Utena gave Anne a smiling what-can-you-do shrug and opened the
passenger door for her.  Feeling slightly out of place, she climbed
aboard and found that the interior of the vehicle was just as odd as
the exterior.  A rollover cage of metal tubes restricted the interior
space, making the cabin narrower than it looked from the outside, so
the seats were a bit closer together than in most cars Anne had seen.
        Behind the headrests was a jumble of electronic equipment that
looked like it had been installed by hand.  The dashboard was covered
with knobs, toggle switches, dials, and sliders; there was a cluster
of analog gauges in front of the driver and a semi-projective
holographic multi-function display in the center console.  Right now,
 the display was showing a wireframe diagram of the vehicle itself,
slowly rotating in three dimensions.  Above it floated the blue-green
words "HB-88C-3 NORMAL OK".
        Anne positioned her duffel bag at her feet, looked around for
the seat belt, didn't find one, and sat very straight, a bit
uncomfortable.
        Utena shut the passenger door, patted her on the arm and said,
"Relax.  Have a good time.  He'll look after you."  She looked across
the girl at Corwin and said, "See you Monday?"
        "Wouldn't miss it," Corwin replied, giving her a thumbs-up.
        She grinned.  "OK.  You take care."
        "Oh, we will," Corwin assured her; then he put the vehicle in
reverse, backed out of the driveway, and headed back toward town.
        Anne sat in silence for a few blocks and watched him drive,
getting her first good look at him.
        He was handsome, she decided, in a craggy sort of way, with
high Nordic cheekbones, very fair skin, and ice-blue eyes.  The skin
and eyes contrasted sharply with his thick, unruly hair, which was
black as coal - except for one lock of hair hanging squarely down the
center of his forehead, which was pure snow white.  He had what looked
like tattoos on the points of his cheeks, little blue triangles, and a
circle with a dot in the center on his forehead.
        Anne couldn't tell how tall he was, since he was sitting down,
but he was broad-shouldered and his arms, bare to just above the
elbows, looked powerful.  She could see the muscles shifting under the
skin as he steered the truck.  His hands were big and knuckly but
deft, working the steering wheel and gearshift lever with authority
but without roughness.  He was dressed in a grey coverall spattered
here and there with various fluids one might find in a garage, but his
arms and face were clean.  As he made the turn onto the Nekomikoka
Perimeter Highway, steering hand over hand around the sharp right, his
wristwatch gleamed at her and quietly told her mind that he was a
Lensman too.
        Her assessment of him took perhaps four minutes, by which time
their strange conveyance was growling up to speed on the Perimeter
Highway without appreciable effort.
        He seemed aware that she was all but staring at him, but he
didn't really react except to smile a little, as if to himself.  Then,
without taking his eyes off the road, he managed somehow to transfer
the smile to her and say pleasantly, "What?"
        "Nothing," Anne replied, reddening and glancing away.  Then,
feeling like she ought to say -something-, she went on, "Um... so...
you're Kate's half-brother?"
        Corwin nodded.  "We don't usually make the distinction,
though," he said - not defensively, just conversationally.
        Now that she was actually in the car with him, Anne felt more
than the little bit awkward she'd felt before.  Her mind chased itself
around in circles for a few moments, wondering how she could start a
conversation with someone like this - until she remembered an
offhanded comment Utena had made, half in jest, about that very
subject when they'd discussed this plan the previous day.
        "If you get stuck for a topic of conversation," Utena had said
with a confidential grin, "just ask him about some piece of hardware.
He'll talk about gear with anyone, anytime."
        Being fond of technology herself, and having, coincidentally,
a question about a piece of hardware in mind anyway, Anne decided she
could certainly do -that-.
        "Um... " she said.
        Corwin raised an eyebrow, inviting her to go on, and said,
"Mm?"
        "... What kind of car is this?" she asked.  "I've never seen
anything like it before."
        Corwin grinned.  "Well," he said, "that's kind of a long
story, but if you don't mind a - " Then he trailed off, faint lines
appearing between his eyebrows, and his eyes flicked to the rearview
mirror outside his side window.
        "What?" asked Anne, but as she asked, she felt it too - a
vague, undefinable but undeniable sensation of menace.  It was a
feeling she'd had all too often out on the Rim, and she'd learned to
trust it.
        "Do you know anybody who drives a SoroSuub TK-250 sport
speeder and likes to follow around antique test vehicles in pre-rush
traffic?" Corwin asked conversationally.
        "What color?" Anne replied, trying to sound casual, though she
thought she already knew the answer and her heart was sinking inside
her.
        "Black," Corwin replied.  "Ah, there's another one.  These
guys are as obvious as a weasel on acid.  Do they not realize who I am
or something?  I mean, not that I want to brag, but I'm only a Grey
Lensman... "  Then he thumped the steering wheel lightly with the
heel of his hand.  "Of course... it's because I'm not driving my usual
car.  They -don't- realize who I am - they don't recognize the
Eighty-Eight."
        Anne looked around at the numerous unmarked controls, but
Corwin anticipated her question and shook his head.  "She's a research
testbed, not a gunship," he said.  "But don't worry.  I know a few
tricks... "  He patted the dash affectionately.  "... and so does she." 
He glanced at the mirror again.  "Aha.  One of 'em's making his move."
        Seemingly unconcerned, Corwin kept an eye on the traffic ahead
and one on the black speeders moving in on them from behind, reached
with his right hand, and manipulated a series of controls.  His
movements were brisk, precise; he didn't look at the dash as he
flicked switches and turned knobs.  Behind them, Anne felt a curious
'thump' and then a gentle, slowly rising vibration.  The status
display turned yellow, its banner now reading, "HB-88G-3 PURSUIT OK".
Inside the little diagram, something that looked like a jet engine
started throbbing in dull orange.  The growl of the engine up front
suddenly got much louder as the exhaust system shifted from mufflers
to straight pipes.
        Anne looked around over her shoulder, but that was futile,
since the equipment jammed into the back of the vehicle obstructed any
rear view she might have had.  Instead of a window on what was going
on behind them, she found herself looking at a multifaceted little
alloy gizmo mounted in a set of gimbals between the two seats'
headrests.  She wondered what it was, but was too concerned about the
whole situation to ask as she glanced over at Corwin.
        He was still intent on both the wing mirror and the road
ahead; traffic was moderate, fairly dense but moving along well.  He
almost seemed to be counting... 

       /*  Anthrax  "Pipeline"  _Attack of the Killer B's_  */

        Suddenly, he jammed the accelerator down, and the old truck
roared, springing forward like Sergei the tiger going after a thrown
treat.  Anne expected to be flung back in her seat, but instead she
felt only a gentle pressure on -both- sides, something invisible
behind her seat holding her in place against the sudden G-force's
attempt to push her back.
        The HB-88's sudden spurt of acceleration carried it forward in
the traffic pattern far enough for Corwin to suddenly flick it to the
left.  The heavy, ungainly-looking vehicle switched lanes with an
agility that surprised several of the onlookers - 
        - and a moment later, they got another, ruder surprise as one
of the black TK-250s lashed the spot where the HB-88 had just been
with an ion barrage.  The flurry of blasts from a concealed ion cannon
struck a delivery truck instead, wrecking its electrical system and
crippling it immediately.  It slewed, smoke pouring from under its
hood, its sudden loss of control setting off a chain reaction of
swerving cars, blowing horns and cursing drivers.
        "Well," said Corwin.  He put both hands on the wheel, his face
taking on an expression of intense concentration, and proceeded to put
on the most impressive display of precision driving Anne Cross had
ever seen.  He worked that bulky old truck through the tangle of
traffic like a race driver at the wheel of a polyfiber gravity sled,
always keeping one jump ahead of the pair of black speeders that were
trying to bracket him with ion fire.
        Ahead, the Chyudon Bypass extension to the Perimeter Highway,
nearing completion but not yet open, veered off to the right.
Grinning, Corwin aimed the HB-88 at it and put his foot down.  The
black truck's flat prow smashed aside the orange and black barriers
like the paper tape at the end of a foot race.
        "What'd you do that for?" Anne wondered, craning to look in
her own wing mirror.  "Now we don't have the traffic to protect us - 
and we'll never outrun repulsor speeders in -this- thing."
        Corwin smiled.  "We'll see," he replied; then he reached up
and thumbed another toggle switch into position.  On the screen, below
the flashing red legend "HB-88G-3 S-PURSUIT OK", the outline of the
truck turned red and grew two stubby wings and a vertical stabilizer.
        This time, Anne -was- punched back into her seat, despite the
gentle, insistent pressure of the inertia-control system built into
it, as something behind them screamed.  After a moment's puzzlement,
she recognized the sound from her days of hanging around spaceports;
it was a fusion turbine, like the ones that powered most space
fighters nowadays.  She looked over and saw the orange needle on the
big round analog speedometer make one complete revolution, more slowly
advancing another, shorter, wider needle on the same gauge.
        Outside, the reflective markers at the side of the road
whipped past until they became a continuous blur, the dashed yellow
line in the center of the newly-paved and painted highway smearing
into a solid line, and the towers of Nekomikoka got perceptibly
nearer.  She glanced over at Corwin and saw that his teeth were bared,
but not in a snarl.  The man was grinning from ear to ear, his eyes
sparkling.
        He noticed her looking and turned the grin to her, cocking an
eyebrow as if to say (since she could never have heard him if he'd
spoken), "C'mon.  Is this cool or what?"
        In that moment, whatever ice had existed between them was
broken, and Anne, though neither of them could hear it over the howl
of the turbine, laughed.
        A moment later, though, she pointed and screamed.
        Some distance ahead, the highway ended in a blank concrete
wall - the side of a building.  Anne briefly wondered, as that
distance shrank at an alarming rate, what the hell it was doing there,
blocking a road, until she realized that it must be scheduled for
demolition on Monday morning.
        Well, she thought with a touch of hysterical humor, it looks
like it'll be demolished a little ahead of schedule.
        Corwin didn't seem worried, though; instead, he kept the pedal
down and the wheel straight, aiming the HB-88 straight at the side of
the building.  He reached up with one hand and flicked a couple of
switches mounted about where the rearview mirror should have been.
        The little gizmo in the gimbal housing between the headrests
peeped out a merry little tune, and suddenly a beam of intense
blue-green light burst out from somewhere above the passenger cabin,
lancing straight out in front of the vehicle and splashing against the
fast-approaching concrete wall.  Anne looked at the gizmo, then down
at the status display.  It had gone a matching blue-green color, and
the text surrounding the image now read:

                        HB-88G-3 CROSSOVER OK

              OVERTHRUSTER ARMED - DESTINATION PRESET 3

        She raised her eyes to the windshield, watching the
blue-washed concrete wall grow bigger and bigger.  She expected to
flinch when they actually got to it, but to her surprise - perhaps she
had been infected by Corwin's air of utterly unconcerned confidence -
she didn't.  Instead she blinked wide-eyed as, instead of crashing
into the wall in a fiery conflagration, they plunged through it and
into... 
        ... well, she wasn't really sure what.  She'd seen both
hyperspace and metaspace through the windows of ships she'd taken
passage (or stowed away) aboard, and this wasn't either of those.  It
was similar, though, to both: similar to hyperspace in its mad,
rushing tempo as it flickered past, similar to metaspace in its dark,
brooding, ominous lighting, similar to both in its disorienting sense
of weird otherness.
        It wasn't either one, though.  The colors were all wrong for
either - the predominant color seemed to be a bilious, unhealthy
purple, and instead of the blue-white tumbling light of hyperspace or
the scarlet streakiness of metaspace, the darkness was shot through
with crazy-quilt trees of lightning.  It was disquieting and yet
strangely fascinating.
        The gizmo in the gimbals - Anne guessed it was the
OVERTHRUSTER, whatever that was - beepled again and went dark, taking
the beam with it.
        "Woo HA!" Corwin cried, slapping the steering wheel.  "Sined,
seeled, DELIVERED!"  He threw back his head and laughed good and hard,
then wiped at his eyes and said through aftershocks of mirth, "Oh,
MAN, I wish I could see the looks on those bastards' faces.  Think of
the -report- they're gonna have to write!"
        Anne looked around at the blinking status lights and the
maelstrom of wherever they were, then turned to Corwin gave him a
wordless, amazed look that can easily be summed up as, "The -hell-?"
        Corwin blinked at her, then chuckled.  "Heh, yeah.  Sorry.
Welcome to the Eighth Dimension!  'Course, it isn't, really, but some
journalist called it that one time and the name stuck.  It's really a
transdimension similar to metaspace, but no one knew what metaspace
was back in 1984."
        "... You just drove a -truck- into meta... into something like
metaspace."
        Corwin blinked again, then feigned outrage.  "A truck!" he
replied.  "The immortal Hikita-Banzai Eighty-Eight Jet Car - greatest
human engineering achievement of the twentieth century - first land
vehicle on Earth to break the sound barrier - still futuristic to this
very day - a TRUCK!"  He sat back in his seat, slapped the wheel again
and humphed, "Kids these days."
        Anne giggled.  "Well, as long as those Hunters don't try to
blow it off by saying I can teleport a car, I'm pleased to meet you
both," she said with a smile.
        "Nah," said Corwin, making a dismissive gesture.  "-Someone-
in their command structure will have paid attention in history class.
That'll teach 'em not to try and corner a guy with an OSCILLATION
OVERTHRUSTER on board!"
        She gave him an odd look.  "Why did you say it that way?"
        "What way?"
        "Well... sort of... pompous.  All in caps, like."
        "Oh, heh.  Sorry.  That's how it's written in all the docs."
        "Oh."  Anne turned her head to look at the device that had
beeped.  "There's documentation on this thing?  Are you going to build
one that's not part of a truck?"
        Corwin grinned.  "This one's not part of a truck," he said.
Then, to Anne's slight shock, he reached up, took hold of the gizmo,
twisted it slightly, and popped it out of the gimbal rings, then
dropped it in her lap.  "See?"
        Anne felt proud of herself for not jumping in surprise as the
fist-sized device plopped into her lap.  It was heavier than she would
have expected from its size.  Gingerly, she picked it up, then turned
it gently over in her hands and gave it a dubious look.
        "Um, yeah," she said.  "This little thing's all you need to
blast a truck into the Eighth Dimension?"
        "Ain't it cool?" asked Corwin, his eyes twinkling with
merriment.  "Wish I'd invented it.  Better lemme have it back,
though," he went on unconcernedly, "if you want us to get outta here.
We're coming up on our exit point."
        Anne blinked and handed the Overthruster back hurriedly.
"Right.  Uh... how does it fit in there?"
        Corwin turned it in his hand like a pitcher working into a
split-finger fastball grip, tilted his wrist, and said thoughtfully,
"Just... like... -that-."  On "that" the Overthruster clicked firmly
into the gimbal rings.  A moment later it lit up, pivoted, and
tweedled again.  "Aha!  Nicely timed."
        The beam of energy stabbed out into the gloom of the Eighth
Dimension, creating a swirling patch of blue-green against its
lightning-fractured darkness.  They caught up to that patch, then
plunged through it -
        - and emerged onto a private road in the hills on the
outskirts of New Avalon, the city's distinctive towers rearing up
unmistakably in the distance.
        "Whoa," said Anne, unable to keep the grin off her face.
        Corwin laughed.  "Cool, huh?"
        "Very cool," Anne agreed.  Then, under her breath, she added,
"Maybe I'll major in engineering or something... "
        "It's a very rewarding field," said Corwin, "if you don't mind
getting your hands dirty, skinning your knuckles, and learning new
swear words to put in program comments to break up the monotony."
        "New swear words?" asked Anne, an evil grin spreading over her
face.  "Dirty's fine, and Kaitlyn-sensei's already fractured one
knuckle for me when I let my grip slip.  Can't be any worse than
that."
        "Fractured knuckle?  Ouch," said Corwin, wincing
sympathetically.  "Lucky you've got Anthy around."
        "No kidding," said Anne with a smile.  "Was my own fault,
though, really."
        Corwin nodded.  "Isn't training a bitch sometimes?" he agreed,
then added in a nostalgic tone, "I always think of the time Gwyneth
Longrifle shot me...  Anyway," he went on in a brisker tone, leaving
Anne to do an ineffectual double-take at his last statement, "I was
going to come and get you the old-fashioned way, so as not to pile
more weirdness on your week."
        As Corwin explained, he guided the Jet Car - now back in
normal mode, wings retracted, turbine and overthruster shut down -
down onto a county highway and thence to the Sphere City's ring road.
"But," he added, "I got to tinkering with the Eighty-Eight and lost
track of time."  He grinned.  "I hope you like baseball, 'cause I've
got tickets to see the Knights get whomped by the Hipsville Groove at
4:30."
        "Maybe they'll win?" Anne offered.  "A week and a half ago, I
didn't think I'd ever really escape the Corps, so I guess anything's
possible."
        Corwin chuckled.  "Maybe so.  Let's go find out."

        Anne was still getting used to the feel of New Avalon when
they headed towards the stadium.  Orron IV was stifling and
suffocating in its ever-so-orderly way.  Tomodachi was considerably
more restful and open.  New Avalon was... well, bustling.  It was a
disorienting, towering beehive of activity, all the more amazing
because it was created from nothing to something very like its present
state by Corwin and Kaitlyn's father.  She remembered again how
unremarkable the man had seemed when she'd first met him.
        In the parking lot at Knights Field, Corwin quickly struggled
out of his coverall and stuffed it under his seat (revealing a white
T-shirt and black jeans), snagged a slightly crumpled black dress
shirt from somewhere behind the seat, and buttoned it on as they
trotted across the parking lot toward the stadium.  As they headed for
the ticket window, they were intercepted by a smiling figure.
        "Hey, your Worship!"  the new arrival exclaimed.  Corwin
sighed, but good-naturedly.  Clearly, some part of him had been
expecting this.
        Their interceptor was tall, almost Corwin's height (for out of
the HB-88, Corwin topped six feet and, judging by his hands, he was
still growing), but thin underneath his blue windbreaker and jeans.  A
Knights cap was perched precariously atop his dark shock of hair.
        "Chip, what're you doing here?"  Corwin asked.
        "What does it look like, O Mighty One?" the fellow (does he
actually -like- being called "Chip"? Anne wondered) replied, holding
up two tickets of his own.  "Spring is in the air, and this young man
is taking care of two fancies with one trip.  Besides, Hipsville was
playing, so of course she wanted to watch.  BTW, if I may ask, who's
your friend?"
        Anne felt somewhat unsettled that the attention had shifted to
her.  Fortunately, Corwin picked up the slack quite nicely.
        "New student of Kaitlyn's, visiting from Tomodachi.  Anne
Cross, this nut is a friend of mine, Chip Mui."
        Chip bowed slightly, with a charming yet somehow ingratiating
smile on his face.  He offered his hand, and after some hesitation,
she took it, whereby he promptly pumped it in a firm grip.
        "Of course, the Mecha Maestro here failed to mention that I'm
his first worshipper," Chip pointed out.
        "Self-proclaimed," Corwin interjected.  Anne got the
impression that this was a conversation they had had many times
before, always with the same outcome.
        "Gods do not live on fast food alone," Chip protested.  "A
little worship in your life - in moderation, of course - wouldn't kill
you."
        "And what would I -do- with worship?"
        Chip shrugged.  "How should -I- know?  I'm not the god in this
group.  I thought that was one of the things that your Mom's side of
the family explained to you."
        "I've managed to make do."
        "Point," Chip conceded, then turned to Anne.  "First time at a
Knights game?"  She nodded, still not sure what to make of him.
"You'll like it, as long as you don't expect the Knights to win.  Just
sit back, relax, and pay no attention to the lovely young lady who is
attempting to sneak up on me."
        Said young lady was lovely indeed, with shoulder-length blonde
hair that curled at the bottom and thoughtful green eyes behind
largish glasses.  She wore a simple blouse covered by a cardigan that
matched her eyes, and completed the outfit with a knee-length pleated
skirt.
        "Charles, how do you always know when I'm present?" she asked,
coming up beside him.
        Chip's smile changed to something considerably more open.  "I
always keep an eye out for my friends.  Anne, this is my girlfriend
and Koopman Memorial High's resident super-genius, Fuu Hououji."
        "It's a pleasure to meet you," replied Fuu pleasantly, bowing
slightly.  Anne returned the favor somewhat awkwardly.  -She- was this
goofball's girlfriend?  With an almost apologetic smile, Fuu went on
in a good-humoredly confidential tone, "Charles tends to exaggerate
somewhat."
        Anne suppressed an inappropriate urge to grin crookedly and
replied "So you're not his girlfriend?"  She supposed, on second
thought, that you couldn't really predict what a person's loved ones
would be like.  She would never have thought Saionji's girlfriend, if
he had one, would be a girl like Wakaba Shinohara either, but the two
of them obviously had a connection that ran a lot deeper than the
variances in their personalities.  Maybe this was the same sort of
thing.
        As they found their seats, Chip nudged Corwin and asked, "So
where's Kozue?"
        "Probably shooting up Gallery Island," Corwin replied.  "She
went right up to the hangar after school, said she was going to change
the magnetos and then wring out Old Exterminator."
        Chip laughed.  "That girl's got a violent streak," he said.
        Corwin looked affectedly stuffy.  "She's just high-spirited,"
he insisted.

        The New Avalon Knights, that perennially terrible, perennially
beloved squad, surprised everyone in attendance that afternoon by not
being routed in the first five by the division-leading Hipsville
Groove.  They had done so the night before and would probably do so in
both ends of the Saturday doubleheader, but on Friday afternoon the
underpaid, overworked Knights pitching staff summoned up a burst of
reserve power from somewhere deep inside themselves and held the
Groove's fearsome batters to a measly three runs in the first seven
innings.
        What was more, the Knights' offense, described by one
prominent sportswriter as "hilarious" in spring training, seemed
determined not to waste their pitchers' hard work.  In the top of the
eighth, with the score tied at three, the much-maligned Knights
bullpen used every trick in its repetoire to make sure it stayed that
way long enough for New Avalon to get more batters up.
        Tensions were high by the end of that half-inning; with two
out, the Groove hadn't managed to score yet, but they had runners at
the corners and the man at third, an Earthman who rejoiced in the
auspicious name of Elvis Haley, was a constant stolen-base threat.
Fuu Hououji's smile as Haley reached third was proof enough that the
Funkotroni expat was looking forward to a broken tie -before- the
Knights got up to bat.
        Those hopes were dashed, though, as Haley misread a sign and
committed an uncharacteristic baserunning blunder, getting caught in a
rundown between the Knights' catcher and third baseman.  As the trap
closed inexorably around the Groove's star base-stealer, the crowd in
the stands at Knights Field came slowly out of their seats, most with
gleeful anticipation and Fuu with something that looked very much, in
her understated way, like outrage.
        When poor Haley was finally tagged out and trudged dejectedly
back toward the visitors' dugout, that outrage came forth in a high,
clear voice that sliced through the cheers of the reprieved Knights
fans like a laser beam:
    "Hay-LEE DIT-SHIZZY yo!  Granny-anny nevva go unda wit'a SUCKA-FOO
SHOOBY-DOO dilly-o!  Homeys oughta haul yo SACKY-DUMP slackit-back'a
NAR SHADDAA!  Prezzy SLUG-TELLY BIZZY-*BAM*!"
        There was a moment of complete silence in Field Seating
Section 11.  Slowly but surely, the look of anger suffusing Fuu
Hououji's face disintegrated, replaced by an expression of pure
horror.  A scarlet flush crawled up from under her collar all the way
to her hairline, and hesitantly she sank back into her seat, head
bowed.
        A moment later all the people staring at her broke into
applause and cheers, which made her feel a little better, but not
much.
        Chip buried his face in his hand, not out of embarrassment,
but to save himself from his girlfriend's wrath should he burst out
laughing at her in public.  It always gave him a kick when Fuu got
agitated enough to slip back into her mother tongue in public.  The
double takes she got were worth the price of admission - but normally
she didn't do it in front of -quite- so many people, nor turn -quite-
that shade of red.
        Fuu was very subdued for the remainder of the eighth, partly
because of that and partly because the Knights somehow managed to
scrape up another run; but the New Avalon bullpen was used up, and the
Groove blew the game out in the top of the ninth, winning 13 to 4 and
restoring Fuu's good spirits.
        Corwin, philosophical in defeat like all good Knights fans,
said goodbye to his friends in the parking lot (Anne wondered why he
called Fuu "Angel", and why Chip didn't seem to mind) and drove his
guest to the World Wide Building.
        In the parking garage under the building, Corwin drove the
HB-88 to the parking spot in the extreme far corner, but he didn't
shut it down.  Instead, smiling happily, he reached down and punched a
long code into a keypad mounted next to the VDU.  A moment after the
string of tones was complete, the truck vibrated, then began moving
downward.  Anne, considering the matter clinically, thought her
surprise reaction was a little muted, but then, she did have to
consider the context of the rest of the day.
        They went down for quite a while - thirty seconds, at least,
and the rate of the lights flashing past the windows indicated that
they were moving at a good clip - before halting in a small
garage-like room with a hiss of pneumatics.  There was a momentary
pause; then the wall in front of them showed itself to be a door by
sliding out of the way, and Corwin drove out into a huge, brightly lit
room.
        Anne suppressed an urge to plaster her face against the
windshield in her desire to get a better look at her surroundings.
The room was huge, the size of a football stadium with a ceiling to
match.  The concrete floor was criscrossed by rails which converged in
places and crossed to huge rolling steel doors in the walls.  The
parts of the walls that weren't doors were covered with shelves, racks
and gantry-like arrangements.  Benches and stands crowded along the
lower walls and divided parts of the room into smaller sub-areas, each
apparently dedicated to a project.
        And what projects - there was a partially dismantled tank in
there, and an old Veritech fighter up on jack stands, its landing gear
in pieces on a nearby bench.  Most of the other things, Anne couldn't
identify other than to be fairly sure they were pieces of heavy
equipment, except for the tanker truck parked off in one corner.
        Corwin parked the HB-88 next to one of the benches, shut it
down, and climbed out.  As Anne got out of the other side, she looked
up (and up, and up) at the single most impressive thing in the room,
which was standing in a gantry along a nearby wall and which was one
of the many things she couldn't identify.
        It was a giant robot, mostly black and red with silver
sections in its arms and legs and golden accents.  Anne had seen
Destroids, military battle robots, in magazines and on the news
before, but they weren't -this- big; she guessed that a heavy Destroid
would probably come to this thing's waist.  The styling was completely
different, too.  Far from looking utilitarian and purposeful like
military robots, this one was bulky and rounded, powerful-looking and
at the same time vaguely comical.
        "Whoa," she said.  "What is that?"
        Corwin grinned.  "It's an old 21st-century commercial Earth
Defense Robot, a Dai-Guard 720 series.  I got it cheap on eBay."
        Anne blinked.  "Wow.  You really -can- get anything on eBay.
Does it still work?"
        Corwin chuckled.  "It does now, but it didn't when I got it,"
he said.  "The Dai-Guard series wasn't particularly successful.  That's 
why it was cheap."
        Anne gave him a quizzical look.  "So what did you -want- it
for?"
        "Everybody needs a hobby," said Corwin with a laugh.  "No,
seriously, I got the specs off the Web a few years ago, and I liked
what I saw.  The problem with the Dai-Guards was that their
manufacturing quality control was crap.  The design's actually pretty
good.  Or it is now that I've updated it with modern materials,
anyway."
        "What are you doing with it?"
        "Well, first I converted it for single pilot drive-by-wire -
the originals had a crew of three because their power handling and
sensor systems weren't automated - and then I replaced the old turbine
power system with a GS-Ride reactor.  After that, weapons design,
materials upgrades, that kind of stuff.  I basically used it as a
prototype testbed for some weapons and systems I was working on for
another robot I'm building - although the styling of the new robot did
come out kind of like this one in the end, 'cause I'd spent so much
time -looking- at this guy.  If you want, I can show you the new one
later on - it's in another hangar."
        "You do that kind of thing for -fun-?"
        "Sure, and because I see a need for more giant battle robots
in the galaxy," said Corwin with a grin.  "Like I say, everybody needs
a hobby.  Originally I built little tiny ones, but hanging out with
Utena made me rich, so I can make the real deal now."
        Anne might have asked him to explain that, but she was too
busy looking at the robot to parse it fully just then.
        After pointing out some of the best features of Dai-Guard,
Corwin led the way to an elevator, which took them up to the top floor
of the World Wide Building itself.  There he gave her the nickel tour,
which didn't take long - his apartment, on the top floor, was a large
one, but it was a studio, so all of it could be seen from the entrance
except the bathroom and the corner curtained off into a bedroom.
        "Hm, Kozue's not home yet," Corwin mused, looking around the
empty apartment.  "Well, toss your bag someplace and let's go see
what's keeping her.  Probably still messing around with her new toy."
        Anne wanted to ask what that new toy was, but she figured
she'd find out soon enough, so she kept quiet as she did as
instructed, then followed him back to the elevator.
        They didn't go all the way down to the underground complex
this time, only to the building's own basement parking garage.  As
they emerged from the elevator lobby into the garage itself, Anne
tensed.
        Someone, a redheaded woman wearing a white T-shirt and
battered black fatigue pants tucked into what looked like
Corellian-issue colonist boots (very popular footgear on the Rim), was
standing near the door.  That wasn't all that remarkable, except that
she was accompanied by a bobbing antigrav device that looked like a
combat remote of some sort.  She was leaning against the concrete
column next to the garage entrance, giving the impression that she was
waiting for someone.
        Hearing the elevator, the stranger turned; one of her eyes
gave Anne brief pause, as it was obviously cybernetic.  As they drew
nearer, Anne relaxed; the T-shirt the stranger wore bore the
unmistakable emblem of the International Police Organization.  Whoever
the woman was, she certainly wasn't a Psi Cop.  Moreover, Corwin
seemed to know her; he smiled broadly as they approached the stoop.
        "Janice!" he said.  "Figured I wouldn't be seeing you for
another month or so.  Need help calibrating your Varista?  Something
wrong with Mitra?"
        "Mitra's fine," the woman replied.  Her voice was surprisingly
deep for the size of her, almost a tenor.  "As for my Varista, I
checked it over last night.  Everything's fine... and that's actually
my problem.  And, oh, Kozue's not home; I already knocked."
        "Oh, she's out blowing stuff up," Corwin replied.  "Which
makes me wonder why you're -not-, honestly; what's the problem?"
        "My landlady," Janice replied with a grunt.  "I had the
collimator lens out of the gun and was inspecting it - you know,
regular maintenance crap - and she dropped by to collect the rent."
        Corwin nodded.  "So what was the problem?"
        "The problem is, she only had a theoretical idea that her
fifth-floor tenant was an IPO officer," Janice said dryly.  "She
didn't quite grasp the realities - like, oh, having a man-portable
Getter Beam in the house.  Apparently, that makes some people
nervous."
        Corwin snorted.  "It would, yes," he replied.  "I'm a little
surprised she knew what it was."
        "She reads gear novels.  You know - 'Flight of the Invader',
'The Hunt for Doq oQt'beH'', that kind of stuff."
        Corwin closed his eyes in understanding.  "Aaaah," he said.
        Janice nodded.  "And I've got until the end of the month to
find someplace else to live, since I'm paid up - she -did- take the
rent, which I found sort of darkly amusing," she said with a rueful
look.  "I figured you might know if your landlord is taking on any
more tenants, or know someone looking for a housemate."
         Corwin scratched his head; finally, he replied, "Hmm.  Is my
landlord renting the other apartments?  In this case... I suppose I
am.  First floor OK?"
        Janice blinked.  "You -own- this place?"
        Corwin nodded.  "I like space," he said with a grin.  "We can
work something out about the rent; just give me a couple of days to
get the first floor into decent shape, and it's yours."
        Janice grinned, then paused.  "I'd ask if this is a horrible
imposition, but it's pretty obviously not.  Thanks, Corwin.  Now to
find people to lug what little stuff I've got over here..."
        "I'm told Anne here - she's Kaitlyn's new student - is good at
lugging stuff," Corwin said, winking at Anne.  "Anne, this is Janice
Barlow, IPO reserve constable; she ships out with us as a security
officer aboard the Valiant every summer."
        "Hi," Anne said.  "You actually own a Getter Beam?"
        "My homeworld has odd taste in firearms," Janice said
placidly.  "But you kinda need that sort of stopping power when the
indigenous life wants to eat you."
        Anne supposed she could see that.
        "Well, I don't want to hold you up," said Janice.  "Thanks for
the help - let me know when I can move in... "
        Corwin nodded and said he would, and Janice trotted off, bound
for the Millrace N station.  Corwin and Anne went into the parking
garage.
        The vehicle they selected there was a long, low black car, the
kind of car Anne would have expected a corporate officer like her
father to ride in back home, except it was much more stylish and
Corwin did his own driving.  He caught her smile as he held the
passenger door for her - my, how courtly - and grinned.
        "You have such neat stuff," she told him as he slid behind the
wheel.  The inside of the car was all red leather and chrome, with big
retro-style knobs surrounding the main video display unit in the
central console and big analog gauges in a cluster before the driver.
Its gleaming retro refinement made for quite a contrast with the
cluttered, perpetually unfinished look of the HB-88.
        "Thank you," Corwin said, his face showing simple, genuine
pleasure as he started up the car's grumbling turbine, then turned and
put his arm over the back of the seat, preparing to back out of the
parking space.  Anne wondered why he didn't just use the backup
monitor like a regular person.
        "I don't know art," Corwin went on with a confidential smile,
"but I know what I like - oh, hey, here she comes now."
        Anne heard the sound of an approaching turbine at the same
time that Corwin made that statement.  She turned to see a motorcycle
banking around the corner from the garage entrance.
        It was a street legal racing model; Anne wasn't enough of a
gearhead with motorcycles, her experience working in a Corley-Ellison
garage on the Rim notwithstanding, to identify its exact make, model,
or vintage by sight, especially since racing bikes all looked pretty
much the same and had since the late twentieth century.  It pulled to
a halt next to the limousine, and Corwin and Anne got out of the limo
to greet its rider.
        Who, Anne realized as the rider shut the cycle down,
straightened up with her feet on the concrete garage floor, and
reached to unfasten her helmet, couldn't be anyone other than Kozue
Kaoru.  She had the same easy carriage as her brother, the same lithe
frame.  As Kozue pulled off her riding gloves, Anne saw that she had
the same artist's hands, too, although Miki certainly didn't varnish
his nails (except on Goth night at Club l'Enfer).
        She stood astride the shut-down cycle while she pulled off
her helmet, raked her fingers through her short blue hair (a shade or
two darker than her brother's, Anne saw), and then stuffed her gloves
into the helmet before hanging it by the chin strap from the
handlebars.  She was wearing field-grey Neudeutscher Bundeswehr fatigue
pants covered in pockets, steel-plate knee reinforcements, black army
boots, and a blue leather New Avalon Police jacket, the double-breasted 
cavalry style that motorcycle and jetpack cops wore - a practical
ensemble, Anne thought, yet one with a bit of style.  That seemed to
be the order of the day for this girl.
        Kozue unbuttoned the top four of her jacket's silver buttons
as she swung off her bike, then turned with a grin to survey the two
people waiting for her.  Corwin she knew, of course.  Having lived
with him two and a half years, she knew his face better than almost
anyone else's, with the possible exceptions of her twin brother's or
her own.  The girl beside him, she'd never met before, but it wasn't
hard to figure out who she must be.  Her age was hard to peg, but
Kozue figured her for around 14, with the look of someone who had been
chronically undernourished but was now making up for it.
        She was still a little scrawny, in Kozue's opinion, but not a
bad-looking girl, all the same.  A few more weeks of Utena's cooking
would take care of the last of the boniness, and she had good skin,
clear eyes and nice dark hair drawn back into a thick braid.  Kozue
noted with a smile that she also had the beginnings of an air of
confidence, her Katsujinkenryuu training already making her stand
straighter and look more directly at things and people.  She'd be a
blunt, direct one once she got over the last of her fugitive fear.
Kozue grinned; just in this short look she could see what Utena meant
when she said the new girl reminded her of herself.
        Of course, the resemblance was accentuated somewhat by Anne's
choice of garments.  She wasn't wearing the red shorts that had been
Utena's trademark back at Ohtori Academy (when it had been -called-
Ohtori Academy), she had on blue jeans instead; but over her grey
t-shirt she was wearing a very familiar high-collared black jacket
with red trim and brass buttons.
        "Hi!" said Kozue, her grin undiminished.  She rounded the back
of the bike, leaned to give Corwin a kiss, then turned to his
companion and said, "You must be Anne."
        Anne nodded.  "And you have to be Kozue Kaoru," she replied
with a slightly hesitant smile.
        Kozue laughed.  "Whether I like it or not," she said.
        Anne was trying to frame a reply when she noticed part of the
shirt under Kozue's jacket.  What she could see was a slogan in large
blue letters - a slogan which didn't make any sense.
        "Join GALACTOR?!" Anne blurted, confused.  The faceless
minions of the paramilitary terror branch of Big Fire known as
Galactor were infamous, even more widely feared and hated than the
Black Hoods, Big Fire's rank and file thugs.  The Galactors were the
personal guard of one of the criminal cabal's most powerful members,
one of the Magnificent Ten, and they were so ruthless, cruel and
vicious that they made the Black Hoods look like Cub Scouts.  Why in
the galaxy would a friend of Utena Tenjou's be wearing a shirt that
said "JOIN GALACTOR" on it?!
        Kozue gave her a "yeah, so?" look for a moment, then laughed,
unbuttoned her jacket, and held it open so Anne could see the rest of
the shirt.
        Below the slogan that had caused Anne such consternation,
there was a picture, a photograph of a man in the distinctive helmet
of a Galactor trooper, designed to intimidate and frighten.
        This particular Galactor, though, wasn't too scary, mainly
because he was in the process of having his head shoved into a
concrete wall by a black-gloved hand whose owner was otherwise outside
the shot.  The man's head was hitting the wall so hard that the
concrete was cratering around it - it was a testament to the
construction of his helmet that his head still had its right shape,
but he certainly didn't look like he was enjoying the experience.
        Lettered below the picture in the same font as the top slogan
were three more words: "LIVE THE ADVENTURE".
        Anne parsed the image in a second, then burst out laughing.
        "Isn't it great?" Kozue said with a grin.  "Rob Shannon made
it.  That's Corwin's dad's hand," she added, pointing.  "MegaZone took
the picture.  You want one?  I think Cap'n Rob probably still has
some."
        Unaccustomed to being offered things by people she'd just met
(well, -good- things, anyway), Anne went a little pink and said,
"Uh... sure!  That'd be great."
        "OK, we'll call him tonight and see," said Kozue.  "So - where
were you two headed without me?" she added with a mischievous grin.
        "Oh, well, I figured since you were too busy blowing stuff up
to bother with us, we'd just head off to the Black Angus," Corwin
replied offhandedly.  "No, actually, we were headed to the airport to
see if you were back yet."
        "The Black Angus!" said Kozue with a raised eyebrow.  "Well,
well!"  She nudged Anne gently with an elbow and added in a sly tone,
"Stick with this one - he really knows how to show a girl a good
time."
        "Only the best for Kate's students," Corwin replied piously.
        "You never take -Saionji- to the Black Angus," Kozue noted.
        "Saionji never visits," Corwin said, trying unsuccessfully to
sound as if his feelings were hurt.  "He never -calls-, he never
-writes-... I don't think I ever really meant anything to him."
        "Uh," said Anne.  Kozue clapped her on the shoulder, laughing.
        "You'll get used to us," she said.  "Shall we?  No, no -
special guests get to ride shotgun.  Besides, I like the back seat of
this car."  She sighed nostalgically as she climbed in and shut the
back door, adding, "If this seat could talk... "
        "Kozue!  Behave," said Corwin with mock severity.
        "Sorry," said Kozue with equally mock contrition.
        When Anne got done controlling the latest blush and wondering
once again if she -would- ever get used to the way Kate's friends
bantered, they were out on the street and headed for the highway.  A
question that had been nagging at Anne's mind for days resurfaced, and
as Corwin guided the black limo up the Highway 17 on-ramp, she asked,
"Listen, how do you guys pay for all this stuff, anyway?  Utena said
she and the others on Tomodachi were living off Kaitlyn-sensei, but
the more I get to know them the less I believe that.  And you're over
here in New Avalon with that underground room full of giant robots and
stuff... "
        "We made our money the old-fashioned way," Kozue told her,
leaning over the back of the front seat between Anne and Corwin with a
grin on her face.  "We beat people up for it!"
        This didn't clear things up much for Anne, so Corwin said,
"You know anything about international prize regulations?"
        "Not a lot," Anne admitted.  "I know pirate hunters get a cut
of whatever they recover, and the value of the pirates' ships if
there's anything left."
        Corwin nodded.  "Exactly.  We're part of an International
Police reserve destroyer crew.  We go on a cruise every summer, and we
usually do pretty well."  He chuckled.  "In some circles they call
Utena 'Lucky Tenjou'."
        "And in others," Kozue added with an air of satisfaction,
"they call me and my brother the Terror Twins."
        "I think the one I liked best was that translation from
Romulan that Imra did.  What was it - 'Twin Engines of Destruction'?"
        "Yeah, that one's good too," said Kozue, grinning wickedly.
"So!" she went on cheerily.  "How was the game?"

        Anne's worries about her weekend in New Avalon turned out to
be happily unfounded.  Corwin, Kozue, and all their friends made her
feel as welcome as the crew on Tomodachi had.  Friday night and
Saturday were spent almost entirely outside, meeting new people,
seeing sights and pursuing fun, except for a few hours of sleep here
and there.  Anne felt driven by a strange energy, as though she felt
obligated to see as much as possible in the time available.
        Sunday morning, she woke to find that feeling had ebbed,
leaving her in the mood for a quieter day.  She seemed destined to get
her wish, too; the apartment was silent except for the soft clicking
of keys from the desk in the far corner.  Anne looked and saw that the
person sitting at the computer was Corwin.  Kozue was nowhere to be
seen; Anne guessed she was probably still asleep.  The big diner-style
wall clock over the TV said it was 11:18 in the morning.
        Anne got up, brushed her teeth, and then went to see what
Corwin was doing.  Watching him for a few moments didn't seem to clear
that up any.  He wasn't surfing the Web or reading email, that was
obvious, but she wasn't sure what he was doing instead.  It looked
like he might be programming something.
        "Morning," he said in a quiet but cheerful tone, reinforcing
Anne's suspicion that Kozue was still in bed.
        "Morning," Anne replied, slipping into the empty chair next to
the desk.  "What are you up to?"
        "Oh, I'm fooling around with this software a guy sent me,"
Corwin replied.  He picked up a small book from the desk and handed it
to her.
        "'Virtual Companion Construction Set XL'?" Anne mused, reading
the title on the cover.
        "Yeah, it's basically a home cybernetic-intelligence kit,"
Corwin explained.  "The company that makes it was founded by a student
of Mom's.  They sell you the CI driver core and some design tools.
You configure the persona and icon, tweak a few adjustable parameters
in the core, and... well, that's it, really."
        "What are you going to do with it?" wondered Anne.
        Corwin shrugged.  "My workshop hasn't had a majordomo since
Dorothy got a life.  I figured I'd see if I could get the Virtual
Companion to run the workshop systems and stuff - but I dunno if I'll
be able to get it to work.  It's really just meant to be a toy, so I
dunno if it'll have the horsepower for a useful job like home
automation."
        "Pretty boring packaging," Anne remarked, putting the plain
white manual down next to the plain white box.
        "This is just a release candidate," said Corwin.  "The
commercial version comes out next month."
        "Huh."  Anne craned her neck to look around the side of the
monitor and watch him work for a moment.
        "Not very interesting, is it?" he inquired, smiling.
        "Not very," Anne admitted.  "It'd be better if the program
screens were in Standard."
        "Well, it's a Tomodachi company," Corwin noted.  "I'm sure
they will be in the release version, though.  I'm just getting a feel
for the personality parameters they let you adjust in the persona
design tool.  See, here's loyalty, that's a slider - though I don't
know why anyone would want to design a disloyal CI."  He pointed to
another of the sliders on the screen.  "This one's honesty... the book
says if you set that all the way to the top you get a program that
can't even lie socially."
        "What's this one?" asked Anne, pointing to the one at the
bottom of the screen.
        Corwin looked, translated the title in his head, and went a
little pink.  "Uh... that's for when you're older."
        "Oh, it's -that- kind of program!" said Anne with a gleefully
wicked grin.
        "No!  Well, I guess it can be," Corwin said with a sheepish
grin, rubbing at the back of his head.  "There are a lot of lonely
programmers out there, OK?"
        Anne's grin widened slightly.  "What are -you- going to set
that one to?  Hmm?  Hmm?"
        "None of your business," Corwin replied haughtily.  "Go take a
shower!"
        "Awww," Anne pouted.
        "Haven't you got some kata you could practice or something?"
Corwin asked, mock-annoyed.  Anne grinned, stuck her tongue out at
him, and went to shower.
        They sparred on the roof that afternoon; Kaitlyn had told her
that dissimilar-style cross-training never hurt anything, she herself
had benefited immensely from training with Utena in her journeyman
phase.  Anne had never seen anybody fight with a staff before, so she
found Corwin's demonstration of his Valkyrie-trained technique with
Kozue, a freestyle Western fencer, as his opponent very interesting.
Kozue's technique was a lot like her brother's (Anne knew that from
watching Miki duel with both Juri and Kaitlyn) but it had a certain
element of wildness that Miki's elegant, refined style lacked.
        After the sparring matches and another round of showers, they
went to Tanjordan's shyamata for dinner.  That night was a quiet one -
some more tinkering around with the Virtual Companion set, old movies
on the big-screen semi-holo TV - since Kozue and Corwin had to go to
school the next day, but Anne didn't mind.  She was too busy enjoying
having another place to feel at home in, another group of people to
feel at home with.  Corwin and Kozue and all their friends made her
feel welcome.  She'd been afraid of feeling like an extra wheel, but
nothing of the sort occurred.

        Anne returned to Nekomikoka on Monday morning (Corwin used the
HB-88 to drop her off "on his way" to school - she was almost getting
-used- to the impossible) with the pleasant feeling that she'd made
even more new friends, her circle expanding outward.
        All these people seem to like me, she noted to herself as she
plopped her duffel bag down on her bed.  That must mean -something-... 
        She was a -little- sad, though, about one thing: Having seen
how happy Corwin and his friends, all classmates of his at Koopman
Memorial High in Crescent Heights, were, she wished she could go to
school herself.
        Of course, she couldn't; her presence at one of Tomodachi's
public or private high schools would pose a considerable danger to the
other students and the faculty.  As long as she stayed on the grounds
of Kate's home or went out accompanied by someone in the Duelists'
circle, she was relatively safe and so were her surroundings, but she
couldn't expect any of these folks to go with her to school every day.
        Practically speaking, it wasn't necessary anyway.  She had no
shortage of capable tutors, and was rapidly making up for the time
lost to her education by her time on the run.  Still, even though she
had pretty much always preferred the company of her elders, she found
herself wishing she had a friend or two her own age.
        Ah, well.  Perhaps in the fall, if the pressure eased off some
and she paid attention to her lessons over the summer...
        She heard someone in the doorway before the knock came, and
turned to see Anthy Tenjou smiling there.
        "Welcome back," she said.  "How was your trip?"
        Anne grinned.  "It was great!" she said.  "I had a wonderful
time."
        "I'm very glad to hear it," said Anthy.  "I was concerned that
you might find it... a bit overwhelming, meeting a new social group
when you're still getting comfortable with this one," she added,
making a vague gesture which Anne took to encompass the Tomodachi
Duelists.
        "I was a little worried about that too," she admitted,
following Anthy out to the hall and then the stairs.  "But no, it was
great.  They were all so friendly.  Made me feel so welcome.  We had a
good time."  As they entered the kitchen, she went on, "I like Corwin.
He's really nice."
        Anthy smiled fondly.  "Yes... he is, isn't he?"
        Anne nodded.   "I got the feeling he was trying especially
hard to make me... "  The young girl fumbled momentarily for a word,
then said, "... -belong-.  Not just feel like I belonged, but actually
fit in."
        Anthy's smile became slightly fonder and a bit nostalgic as
she said, "When I came to this world," by which Anne knew she didn't
mean Tomodachi, "he did the same for me.  So did Kaitlyn and the other
Duelists who were at Satori Mandeville at the time.  They were all
very good to me... "  She patted Anne's shoulder.  "I'm glad you feel
the same way I did.  Would you like breakfast?"
        Anne looked faintly uneasy.  "Um... " she said in the tone of
one who is trying to put something potentially unpleasant gracefully,
"you're, uh... not going to try to cook, are you?"
        To her relief, Anthy laughed brightly.  "My goodness, you
learn fast," she said.  "No, don't worry about that.  I thought we'd
go to the Pancake Palace over in Tokioka City."

        Anthy, like many of the Tomodachi Duelists, was also a member
of the Nekomi Institute of Technology's Motor Club, an officially
sanctioned student activity club dedicated to the preservation and
appreciation of automobiles and motorcycles old and new.  In this
case, "appreciation" was defined by the club's philosophy and its
faculty advisor, Professor Keiichi Morisato (coincidentally, Corwin's
uncle), as -driving-, not sitting around and admiring as sculpture.
        Many of the club's better-funded members had antique cars of
their own.  Utena had her Cobra, for instance, and Kate had her
much-retrofitted 1962 Impala.  R. Dorothy Wayneright had a blazingly
fast little yellow bolt of lightning Anne had heard called a "Super
7", behind the wheel of which she was a holy terror; driving it was
one of the few things that could make the reserved robot girl smile
outright in public.
        Anthy's car was less ostentatious than that, and made a lot
less noise, but she was just as fond of it as the others were of
theirs.  Since she was the one in the household who did most of the
maintenance (having learned the black art of mechanic work from
Professor Morisato's wife, Corwin's Aunt Belldandy), that meant that
her little purple Austin Mini Cooper was always perfectly shined and
ready for action.
        Now the boxy little car purred down the Mid-Coast Highway
between Nekomikoka and Tokioka, and Anne, in the passenger seat,
leaned her head back against the headrest and let the slipstream toy
with the little sprigs of hair around her face which were too short to
be bound into her customary braid.  Through slitted eyes, she watched
the sunlight sparkle on the waves as they zoomed along the winding
cliffside road which was the most direct route between the capital and
the smaller city of Tokioka.
        She didn't feel nervous about going out for pancakes.  She
didn't feel at all concerned about the speed at which Anthy was
driving, or the steepness of the cliff a few feet beyond her door, or
the twistiness of the Mid-Coast.  She was completely and totally
relaxed - ready for anything, but tense about nothing.  It was such an
unfamiliar feeling that she had to pause and consider it momentarily.
        Seeing the girl smile out of the corner of her eye, Anthy
said, "I'm glad you enjoyed your visit to New Avalon."
        Anne opened her eyes fully, sat up, and grinned.  "Thanks,"
she said.  "It was a fun trip... but it's good to be home."
        Anthy smiled and switched on the radio, and Anne sat back
again to enjoy the ride.

      /*  Rush  "Time Stand Still" (live)  _A Show of Hands_  */

[ANIMATION NOTE!  As you read these     I turn my back to the wind
credits, picture the last scene         To catch my breath
continuing on - the car traveling       Before I start off again
along the Mid-Coast Highway, Anthy      Driven on without a moment to spend
driving with a quiet smile, Juniper     To pass an evening with a drink
leaning back, eyes closed, content,       and a friend
while the song plays on the car radio   I let my skin get too thin
radio and the credits roll over all.    I'd like to pause
Pull back to a longer shot near the     No matter what I pretend
end of the song, then fade to black     Like some pilgrim who learns to
as the last note dies out, before         transcend
the last two centered lines appear.]    Learns to live as if each step was
                                          the end
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
presented                               Time stand still
UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES                   I'm not looking back but I want
FUTURE IMPERFECT                          to look around me now
 - Symphony of the Sword No. 4 -        Time stand still
Entr'acte: The Kindness of Strangers    See more of the people and the places
                                          that surround me now
The Cast                                Time stand still
(in order of appearance)
Anne Cross                              Freeze this moment a little bit longer
Utena Tenjou                            Make each sensation a little bit stronger
Corwin Ravenhair                        Experience slips away
C.P. Mui                                Experience slips away
Fuu Hououji                             Time stand still
Dai-Guard
Janice Barlow                           I turn my face to the sun
Kozue Kaoru                             Close my eyes, let my defenses down
Anthy Tenjou                            All those wounds that I can't get unwound
                                        I let my past go too fast
guest-starring the 2409                 No time to pause
New Avalon Knights                      If I could slow it all down
and                                     Like some captain whose ship runs aground
Hipsville Groove                        I could wait until the tide comes around

Travel agent                            Time stand still
Benjamin D. Hutchins                    I'm not looking back but I want to
                                          look around me
Booking assistant                       Time stand still
Anne Cross                              See more of the people and the places
                                          that surround me now
Security
Janice Barlow                           Freeze this moment a little bit longer
                                        Make each sensation a little bit stronger
Sporting consultant                     Make each impression a little bit stronger
Pearson Mui                             Freeze this motion a little bit longer
                                        The innocence slips away
Funkotroni Language Institute           The innocence slips away
Martin Rose                             Time stand still
                                        Time stand still
Title by
Kelly St. Clair                         I'm not looking back but I want to
                                          look around me now
Structural help                         See more of the people and the places
The Usual Suspects                        that surround me now
                                        Time stand still
Klingon language invented by            Summer's going fast, nights growing
Marc Okrand                               colder
                                        Children growing up, old friends
"Join Galactor" shirt created by          growing older
Rob Shannon                             Freeze this motion a little bit longer
                                        Make each sensation a little bit stronger
Pictures of Anthy's car                 Experience slips away
available on the Automotive             Experience slips away
Reference Imagery page                  The innocence slips away... 

                       The Symphony will return

                         E P U (colour) 2002