I have a message from another time... Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presents UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT Silver Guardian Benjamin D. Hutchins (c) 2007 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited SATURDAY, MARCH 7, 2410 01:17 GST NEKOMIKOKA, TOMODACHI Hiroshi Morisato stood on a ridge overlooking the city of Nekomikoka, pondering his next move. In his right hand, Hiroshi held a small gold object about the size and shape of a stack of three credit cards, its surface delicately filigreed with the distinctive angular traces of circuitry. These traces all converged on a circular blank spot a little bigger than a ten-centicredit coin, a little to the right of center. The object seemed to have a slight inner radiance of its own. It gave an impression of great, restrained energy, waiting to be unleashed. Hiroshi stood looking at it, his greatest achievement, for several long, thoughtful seconds. The device was the fruit of a project he'd been working on for the better part of a year. He could hardly believe it was complete... but he'd triple-checked everything. The design, bold and brilliant, was fully expressed in the end product, finished in a final 48-hour burst of furious inspiration following his slightly disquieting conversation with his cousin Corwin on Wednesday. There was nothing more to do. Well, nothing but test it. Raising the card above his head, Hiroshi placed the ball of his thumb in the blank spot on its face, took a deep breath, hesitated for just a moment, and then, in a clear voice, spoke the command word. "Metamorforce!" Things happened very quickly from that point. From Hiroshi's point of view, there was only a bright flash of light, a curious but not painful "crawling" sensation all over his body, and then... then a feeling of undeniable -power-. Blinking, he looked down at himself. "It works," he murmured, then blinked again at the unfamiliar sound of his voice. "Ha! Vocal disguise filter works too," he added, chiding himself for being startled. He had, after all, -designed- the thing to mask his voice as well as his physical form. And mask him it had; in the spot where Hiroshi Morisato, skinny college kid, had been standing a moment before, there now stood a burly, helmeted, caped figure whose only exposed facial feature was a lantern jaw. No one looking on would know that this outward appearance was only an illusion - a "hard light" hologram covering up the unfathomable complexities of a nine-dimensional space-warping force field. "Let's see if gravity manipulation works," Hiroshi mused to himself - and just like that, he was flying. Well, technically speaking, he wasn't; he was remaining stationary inside the tiny pocket universe his invention had created around him. That was what a nine-dimensional space-warping force field did, after all, at least when it was tuned like this. The -field- was flying, though, and since its event horizon was conformal within an angstrom or so of Hiroshi's skin, he had the sensation of flight as well. That part had been critical, and hard to achieve. Any idiot could create a pocket microdimension with access to the right parts. The trick was making it conformal, making it constantly adaptive, and making the experience of inhabiting it "transparent". Hiroshi wasn't interested in reinventing the portable hole. He was after a much more specialized, much more dramatic application of technology. It WORKS! Hiroshi thought exultantly as he soared over the city, putting on more speed, trying out some maneuvers. The "suit" reacted instantly to his every mental command, as closely linked to his perceptions and desires as his own body. The experience truly was 100 percent transparent. He -was- this mighty being, he -was- soaring over the city of his birth, looking down at it from a perspective he'd never seen before. Okay, so it would only work for about ten minutes at a time because of a limitation in the power source, but Hiroshi was pretty sure he had a line on that problem. He'd have it licked in the second model. In the meantime, the system's actual -functions- seemed to be working perfectly - and ten minutes at a whack ought to be plenty for the first phase of operations anyway. Had he made slightly different choices in his younger life, Hiroshi could have been a literal god. Instead, in this moment, he was convinced he had made himself something -better-. In his revolutionary new application of dimensional fold dynamics, he had created what he believed to be the ultimate supersuit. "As long as I have this," he whispered to himself, then grinned and said aloud, "As long as I have THIS - I can be a SUPER - wha?!" His declaration was interrupted by a sudden, indescribable sensation - and suddenly, his field of view was filled with strobing red warning messages, projected directly onto his retinas. Something was interfering with the "suit", destabilizing its field matrix. It should have auto-corrected, but the source of the interference was apparently too powerful - his sensors were reading a TWELFTH POWER energy field, how was that even POSSIBLE - Only then did he notice the meteor, or at least that's what he took it for at first: a hurtling ball of coruscating orange light, streaking out of the starry sky and heading straight for him. Hiroshi tried to get out of the way, but the suit was frozen, locked in position by its own automatic safety systems. This was the suit's final attempt to prevent the dimensional curve from collapsing and ejecting its operator into either the real world, which would've been bad at 15,000 feet, or the space-time vortex, which would've arguably been worse. The fireball filled his vision, and then - Hiroshi opened his eyes to find himself floating in... well, it looked a bit like a holo he'd seen once of a hyperspace wormhole, a "tunnel" of swirling blue-green light with a black void at the end. He looked down at himself and saw that he was naked save for the brilliantly glowing gold "supersuit" device, which seemed to be stuck to the center of his chest. Somehow, I didn't figure the afterlife would look like this, he observed to himself. Probably because I've -been- there, and it -didn't-. A disembodied voice, solemn and kindly, spoke. "Human," it said. "There has been an... accident." "Tell me about it," Hiroshi replied wryly. "Where am I? And where are -you-, for that matter?" "We are... well, in a sense, we are nowhere," the voice replied. Out of the mists of the swirling vortex before him, Hiroshi saw the ghostly outline of a giant face, vaguely humanoid but machine-sleek and with large, faintly glowing eyes, appear before him. "My name, rendered in a form your consciousness can understand, is Dash," the presence said. "I come from an area of space known to your people as Reflection Nebula Messier 78, in the constellation Orion. My people are beings of light, not matter, as are most species you know. We travel the universe in search of wisdom, knowledge... sometimes merely diversion. To do this, we warp space using constructs we call travel spheres. "Your device," Dash went on, indicating Hiroshi's "suit" generator with a nod of his phantom head, "creates a similar spatial warping effect. It is most unusual in my experience, and far in advance of any technology my people would expect to encounter in this galaxy. Its presence interfered with my travel sphere, pulling me off my intended course. A collision was... unavoidable." The ethereal presence paused for a moment, then added solemnly, "I regret to say your physical form was destroyed." Hiroshi blinked. "Then... I -am- dead," he said, surprised as how calmly he was taking the news. "Not necessarily. Your matter shell is lost, but your lifeforce remains. Unlike my people, yours cannot normally survive in a pure energy state, and outside this dimensional warp, you would perish. As would I." "But you just said this is your people's normal state," Hiroshi objected. "The disruption of my travel sphere has injured me as well," Dash explained. "Only the shelter provided by your invention sustains me, and I sense its energy reserves will not last much longer." "So we're -both- done for. Great. I make first contact with an alien intelligence from beyond the galaxy - which is, I think, an all-time first, by the way - and it's in an ultraspatial -traffic accident- that leaves us both dead. That's just my luck." The energy alien's aspect seemed slightly amused by this outburst. "Not necessarily," he said. "There is a way that we can both survive - I think - but it will require a... pact of sorts." Hiroshi arched an eyebrow. "I'm listening." "Your lifeforce is intact, but your body is destroyed. I possess the power to manipulate matter, but my lifeforce is flickering. Only as a single being can we hope to survive." Hiroshi blinked. "Two souls, one body?" Dash shook his giant, phantom head slowly. "No, human," he said. "-One- soul." Hiroshi tried to wrap his head around that notion for a moment. "The choice is yours," Dash said. "I will not force such a change on any being for the sake of my own survival. It is against our code. But decide quickly, human. My time in the light is short." Hiroshi thought for a moment longer. Then - feeling a ripple of surprise from the alien consciousness as he did so - he grinned. "Sign me up," he said. "Excellent," said Dash, radiating a pulse of satisfaction. "Prepare yourself, human. This will feel strange... " A pause - a microsecond flash of wry humor. "... even by today's standards." On the ridge where Hiroshi had activated his invention a few minutes before, there was another brilliant flash of light, this one blue-white instead of gold - and Hiroshi stood where he had been, surrounded by a three-foot circle of scorched grass, steam rising gently from his clothes. "Whoa," he said, blinking into the darkness. He looked down at his right hand. In it he held his invention - but it had changed. It was silver now, its circuit traces glowing faintly with a blue inner light, and on its face, where the plain circular spot had been, was a diamond-shaped marking that gleamed scarlet in Nekomikoka's nightglow. "In time of need, call my name," the voice of the alien mind called Dash murmured in his head. "Through the portal of your creation, my power shall be yours to command." Hiroshi stood looking at the transformed device for a few moments, then tucked it carefully into his inside jacket pocket and set off down the ridge for home. "Definitely calls for further study," he muttered to himself. FRIDAY, APRIL 16, 2410 "Hard to believe," said the woman in the scarlet hood of a Big Fire Q-Boss, "that such a small thing can cause as much havoc as you're promising us, Lord Alberto." Shockwave Alberto smirked. "You've seen the reports from New Avalon. We've been refining the process for nearly a year now." Q-Boss folded her arms, apparently unimpressed. "Yes, I've seen the reports." She turned to Alberto's companion, a predatory-looking blonde in a black bodysuit and Zorro mask. "I understand every one of these things you've fielded in New Avalon has been defeated, Agent A." "It's true, the self-appointed defenders of the city have been very helpful in the field test phase of Project Hardshell," A replied coolly. "We would never have achieved such rapid development of the prototypes without them." She patted the item standing on the table between them, a duralloy capsule about the size of a suitcase, with a fond hand. "This is the latest model. We call it the Mark XII. It's an order of magnitude more powerful than the original version, and much smarter. It can be operated remotely or given a mission goal and allowed to function autonomously." "And which will it be doing today?" asked Q-Boss. "Today it's been pre-programmed with a simple mission," Alberto said. "This operation is a demonstration - not only for you, but also for the benefit of the good people of Tomodachi and the galaxy at large." "Up until now," A explained, "K-unit operations have been confined to New Avalon. It's time we showed people that Big Fire's greatest terror weapon can strike anywhere, at any time... and that the IPO's toys can't be everywhere at once." Q-Boss still didn't seem all that impressed. "Uh-huh. And when does the 'demonstration' begin?" "As soon as we reach minimum safe distance," A replied, gesturing toward the waiting car. "Trust me - you don't want to be anywhere near one of these things when it goes off." Hiroshi Morisato was on his way home from school, looking determined as he pedaled his bicycle up Temple Hill. He had, he was quite certain, just aced his physics midterm, and that had him feeling galvanized. Five more weeks of classes to go and he'd be done with his freshman year, free to scout out New Avalon before transferring to NAIS. And not a moment too soon. Since the bizarre incident on the occasion of his first supersuit test, he'd been itching to investigate the changes to his invention, but he hadn't been able to make the time for the kind of examination it would require... and though subsequent events had made him -burn- to try it out, he didn't dare do so until he had a chance to at least -try- to figure out what had happened to it. He felt the ground tremor first, just as he was reaching the crest of the road. Pulling his bike to the curb, Hiroshi thought for a moment it was an earthquake until he heard the sound, like a dull explosion, off to the east. He leaned his bike against a bus shelter, then climbed up on top of the structure for a better vantage point. What he saw made his jaw drop. There was a giant mechanoid down in the docks district. It was more or less humanoid, with huge shoulders and a neckless bullet head. Its arms were slightly longer than would have been proportional, with three very long pointed fingers and a thumb on each hand. It had no face, only a glowing blue optic, and its body was covered in overlapping, segmented bands of dull grey armor. On its broad chestplate it bore a symbol that Hiroshi knew well from news reports from New Avalon: a stylized scarlet torch flame, the emblem of the interstellar terrorist syndicate known as Big Fire. If that weren't enough of a clue what it was, the monster was standing in the middle of what had been a block of warehouses, and was now a crater, but though there appeared to have been an explosion, there was no debris scattered around. The crater and its surroundings were clean of any rubble, for all the mass of the warehouses and their contents had been absorbed to make up the physical structure of the mechanical monster itself. "A K-unit!" Hiroshi breathed. "It's one of those things that have been attacking New Avalon!" he heard a bystander cry. "What's it doing here?" As if it had heard him, the K-unit set about answering his question. Its optic flashed, then spat a beam of bright blue energy that slashed through high-tension towers, cutting off electrical power to the docks and some of the office buildings on the fringe of downtown. Then it began moving inland, heading slowly but purposefully toward the center of town. This is -bad-, Hiroshi thought as he tried to gauge the K-unit's course and figure out where it was headed. Nekomikoka doesn't have anything that can stand up to that monster. Our police don't even have patrol labors, let alone heavy combat Destroids, and only kaiju-class combatants have been able to stand up to the K-units that have attacked New Avalon. I'm sure someone's calling ACROSS right now, but even if they have a jumpship, it'll take them time to scramble. Shading his eyes with one hand, Hiroshi tried to figure out where the K-unit was headed. The same man who had cried out before reached the same conclusion at the same time, leading both men to shout in near-unison, "My God, it's heading for Tomodachi Tower!" -Double- bad, thought Hiroshi as he jumped down, swung onto his bike, and pedaled away from the gathering crowd at the bus shelter. This is the last day before the spring recess. There'll be school groups by the dozen making trips to Tomodachi Tower today. Those bastards! Why can't they attack military targets? What does going after a couple of hundred school kids prove? Somebody's got to do something! -I've-... ... got to do something. Hiroshi swerved into an alley, parked his bike behind a dumpster, and took his invention - for which he had -still- not come up with a catchy name, he thought irrelevantly - from his inside pocket. With the supersuit as I designed it, I could beat that thing, he thought. Not easily, but I could do it. But... what will happen now? Dash said his power would be mine to command. What does that -mean-? What can his people do? ... I guess there's only one way to find out. Holding the device high, he thumbed the red diamond and called out at the top of his lungs: "DAAAAAAAASH!" At a hastily erected police roadblock two blocks from Tomodachi Tower, a rank of uniformed officers in riot helmets stood, weapons at the ready, knowing that their mission was absolutely hopeless. "Well, here he comes," Lieutenant Miyuki Kobayakawa remarked, trying to keep her voice light. Nudging her partner, she added, "You better go try to talk some sense into him." Sergeant Natsumi Tsujimoto snorted. "I'm strong, but I'm not -that- strong," she replied. "Maybe if I was more than an eighth Kryptonian... " "Are you really? I always thought that was just a rumor." Natsumi nodded. "My father's father's mother was from New Kandor." "Huh. Well... thanks for sharing that." Miyuki gave her partner a wan smile. "It's been nice knowing you." Before Natsumi could reply, a beam of brilliant blue-white light suddenly streaked down out of the sky and struck somewhere off to the southwest - in the temple district, she thought, but it was hard to tell from where she was standing. Turning to Miyuki, she asked rhetorically, "What the hell was that?" It took Hiroshi a couple of seconds to realize that he had changed size. Initially, the perspective shift was just too weird for him to get his mind around. He thought he was just flying, until he took an involuntary step forward and felt his foot hit the ground. Then he was so surprised he nearly fell, which wouldn't have done much good for the buildings around him. Fortunately, he was able to pull himself together quickly enough. In just a few huge strides he covered several city blocks, leaving the temple district and entering downtown. At the first building taller than he now was, he paused to check out his reflection in the windows. To his mild surprise, he didn't look a thing like the way he'd designed the supersuit. No cape; no visor; no heroic jaw. He was a gleaming metallic giant 15 stories tall, clad in sleek, aerodynamic silver armor with scarlet go-faster stripes. His head continued the streamlined look, with a shining center ridge that was part fin and part Roman crest, and his face reminded him of an art deco statue he'd seen once. It looked like a metallic version of the ghostly, otherdimensional face of Dash, in fact, with large, almond-shaped, glowing yellow eyes, no nose, and a thin mouth cast in a permanent neutral expression. Not bad, he thought. Not a look I'd have come up with, but it's not bad. There's something kind of nicely non-threatening about the face. It says, "Trust me. I'm the good guy." Hiroshi caught motion out of the corner of his eye and turned to look. Whoops! No time for that now. Natsumi had dared to hope a little when the mini-tanks showed up, but it became obvious in fairly short order that they weren't going to be much help. Their stubby cannons couldn't even scratch the K-unit's armor. The machine ignored the police fire entirely, wading through vehicle-mounted weapons blasts, bullets, hand blaster bolts, and riot-gun rounds with complete indifference. It only paused at the Beiwiru Division's hastily erected barricade because it was considering whether to expend the energy required to blast them. Its secondary directives gave it latitude to do so to any law enforcement forces it found if its expert system believed such action wouldn't endanger the main mission. In this case, there seemed little chance of that, so it powered up its blast array. Just before it could fire, though, its threat warning system detected a new potential threat that overrode all secondary directives. The K-unit aborted the slaughter of police - for the moment - and turned to assess this new threat. At the Big Fire safehouse that she and Alberto had converted into a field control center, Agent A frowned at the unusual readings coming in from K-331. ANOMALOUS READING KAIJU CLASS COMBATANT IDENTIFICATION: UNKNOWN NO MATCH A and Alberto shared a look of surprise and annoyance. Irritated, the Magnificent Ten member turned to Q-Boss. "I thought you said there were no K-class combatants in this city," he snapped. "There aren't any on this -planet-," Q-Boss replied. "Then why is one closing in on my K-unit?" A inquired acidly. Q-Boss blinked. "What?! Let me see that!" "... Okay... not that I'm complaining, but why isn't it wasting us?" Natsumi wondered. Miyuki was wondering the same thing, but she didn't immediately reply; she was observing the K-unit's body language. It was hard to tell, since it had only one featureless eye and no other facial features at all, but it seemed to be -looking- at something... -behind- them. Just as she started to turn around, she heard her colleagues further back in the ranks, including the tank crews, cry out in surprise and consternation - and she finished her turn just in time to see a -second- gigantic figure -step over- the roadblock, and herself. "What the hell is that?!" one of the other cops yelled. "Who cares? Probably another one'a those -things-! Blast it!" another replied. "No, wait!" Miyuki cried, but a few of the tankers and most of the foot cops had opened fire by then. Hiroshi wasn't expecting the cops to start shooting at him, especially the tanks. Their rounds couldn't actually -hurt- him, he was pleased to discover, but they were -distracting-. Plus, so much for the trust-me face, apparently. Half-turning, he looked down at them and snapped, "Not ME, you idiots! I'm on YOUR side!" His voice, amplified to match the rest of him and filtered through a curious harmonic distortion - Dash's voice, he realized, blending with and disguising his own - boomed through the concrete canyons of downtown Nekomikoka, sending cops reeling and cracking a few windows. "Oops," he said, more quietly. "Sorry." He might have gone on, but that was when the K-unit punched him. Ow! Hiroshi thought as he staggered and fell to one knee, cratering the street. I actually -felt- that. He put a hand down for balance, making certain not to crush any cops. I can't fight with all these people underfoot, he remarked. Raising his voice again (though not to the same level as before), he called, "Everyone, get out of here! It's not safe!" The cops seemed confused, uncertain what to do, but Natsumi understood. "ALL UNITS!" she bellowed, her own voice rivaling that of the silver giant. "FALL BACK TO THE TOWER! GIVE THE BIG GUY ROOM TO WORK!" "Are you sure about this, Natsumi?" Miyuki asked as she helped her partner re-establish order in the ranks and move the division out. "Sure I'm sure. Didn't you see his face? I don't know what that guy is, but he's here to help. I'd bet anything on it." Hiroshi took a couple more belts from the K-unit while he covered the cops' retreat. Then, fed up with being a giant robot's punching bag, he blocked the next blow and counterstruck, belting the K-unit straight in the chest. The punch reverberated like a wrecking ball hitting the hull of a starship, sending the monstrous machine skidding back nearly half a block before it regained its balance and halted itself. Not -bad-, Hiroshi thought, glancing at his fist. I could get -used- to this. Setting himself, he charged down the boulevard. The K-unit tried to blast him, but the beam passed over him as he lunged, caught his adversary around the middle, and pushed hard with both legs. His hope was to propel the machine out of the downtown area, back to the docks where the buildings were lower and they wouldn't smash things up as badly. There had been no time to evacuate the downtown towers - any harm to them would mean a lot of people getting hurt. He was in for another pleasant surprise: Not only could he shove the K-unit quite some distance back, he could do so while -flying-. Not until the machine's combat system sensed his momentary inattention and broke his grip did the impromptu journey end, and by then they were nearly to the water's edge, back in the devastated area where the K-unit had originally been activated. Hiroshi rolled to his feet, shaking his head - This thing packs quite a wallop! - and set himself again. The K-unit blasted again; Hiroshi dodged, but in the process opened himself up to a charging shoulder block that nearly bowled him over. He skidded, recovered, but took a one-two punch to the head before he could mount a counterattack. It might help if I knew -anything- about fighting, he remarked wryly to himself as he shook his head again, trying to clear the cobwebs. "You do," said a familiar voice within his head. "Dash?" he asked. "You're in here too?" "I'm always with you, Hiroshi. And when you and I are fully one, as we are now, all my skills and knowledge are yours to command - not just my physical power." "Okay... UMF! How - ACK - do I get at them?" "Concentrate," Dash replied. "Clear your mind. Let the Light flow through you and all will be revealed." "Hard to - UNGH - do that with this thing - NGH - beating on me!" "You must, and quickly. We can only function this way for as long as your invention's power lasts. If you do not master our full abilities, and quickly, this battle is lost." Hiroshi looked down at his chest. Set into the center of his scarlet-trimmed breastplate was a diamond-shaped blue gem that he had initially taken for a decoration. Only now did he notice that it had begun, slowly, to flash. As he looked, the flashing increased in tempo. The K-unit bashed him again, then again, driving him to one knee, then seized him by the neck and picked him up. Hiroshi grabbed at its long, spindly fingers, but couldn't break their grip. "You must hurry, Hiroshi," Dash urged. "Concentrate. Ignore the pain. Summon your inner strength." Easy for YOU to say, Hiroshi thought, but even as he did so, he felt a strange sort of serenity welling up within him. The whole getting-choked-to-death thing suddenly seemed very far away. Whether it was because he was really finding his Zen place, or just because the K-unit's grip was cutting off the blood to his brain (Do I still have blood in this form? Or a brain?), he wasn't sure, but either way, he decided to ride it. He saw things, then, that he wouldn't be sure were real for quite some time. He saw Nebula M78, and the region within it whence came Dash's disembodied people, a place they called the Land of Light. He learned of their fondness for exploration, their commitment to justice; how they had dispatched protectors skilled in assuming corporeal forms to thousands of worlds in their part of the cosmos, far removed from the affairs of Mutter's Spiral Galaxy. He learned that these particular denizens of the Land of Light - a sort of knighthood or warrior elite - called themselves "Ultra". He learned the Ultra code, their laws, and their lore. And their ways of battle. Immediacy returned with a freight-train rush, bringing Hiroshi back to the here and now, but it was a different Hiroshi who returned than the one who had departed on the strange inner journey moments before. With a sharp cry, he raised his hands high, then brought them smashing down on the K-unit's arm, snapping the elbow joint. The monster's hand went limp, releasing him. The K-unit retreated a few steps and blasted, but this time Hiroshi blocked it with arms crossed to form a photon shield, then channeled the energy into his own weapons, forming a brilliantly glowing crescent blade in each hand. Uncrossing his arms, he brandished these weapons, then hurled them. The crescent cutters carved spirals of light through the air as they spun end-for-end and sliced both of the K-unit's arms off at the shoulder, looped around behind it, and returned to their owner's hands. Staggering, the K-unit regrouped - it felt no pain, after all - and then charged, its beam weapon preparing to fire again. Hiroshi let the beam crescents dissipate, crossed his fists in front of him once more, and gathered his own energies. His hands left sizzling trails of energy behind them as he snapped them outward and open, then swung them into a very particular and peculiar configuration - right arm bent at a 90-degree angle with the hand straight up, left arm crossed in front of right elbow with that hand straight and palm down. "HAAAAH!" Hiroshi roared as a blinding beam of blue-white energy streamed from the edge of his right hand and tore into the charging K-unit. The Big Fire mechanoid was rocked by the blow, its momentum checked, the last bolt of its beam weapon shooting harmlessly into the air. The K-unit reared back as if trying to escape the ravenous energy burning and boiling through its chest. Then the beam penetrated the armor, tore through the inner workings, and vaporized the core. The K-unit staggered, sank to its knees, and then crumbled, disintegrating into a heap of sand and mechanical wreckage. Hiroshi noted with interest, but not alarm, that the pulsing light on his chest had changed from blue to red. Now that he had some understanding of what he had become, he knew that he still had time to make a graceful exit. He toed at the remains of the K-unit for a moment, making sure it was completely defeated, then turned toward the city. A police patrol car skidded to a halt at the top of the seawall, and the two cops he'd seen taking point on the Tomodachi Tower roadblock piled out and waved. Hiroshi walked toward the wall and crouched so that his face was level with the car. "Nice work!" the one with the shorter hair declared. Even with their huge difference in scale, Hiroshi could easily read the name tag pinned to her uniform blouse: TSUJIMOTO. "Hey, what's your name?" she went on. Hiroshi hesitated for a second to consider that, then grinned inside, noting with interest that the expression did actually make his metallic face smile slightly. "Ultraman," he replied. Then, after a suitable pause, he added, "Ultraman Dash." "Where did you come from?" asked the other cop (KOBAYAKAWA), who wore lieutenant's bars. Hiroshi thought about that for a second too, then shook his head, still smiling. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Straightening, he raised a hand and announced, "I have to go." "Wait - " said Miyuki, but the giant had already gone, taking to the sky and vanishing into the distance. In mere seconds, all that remained was a distant glint of sun against silver armor, and then that too was out of sight. "... Huh," Natsumi said. "What do you know about that? This town gets weirder every day." Miyuki chuckled, but her face was thoughtful as she got back behind the wheel of the car. "'Ultraman Dash,'" she mused. "Why does that... " Natsumi slid into her seat and shut the door, then gave her partner a puzzled look. "... Hey. Tomodachi to Kobayakawa? You in there?" Miyuki blinked. "Sorry, Natsumi. I was just... thinking." "You do too much of that," Natsumi joked. "It'll rot your brain. Come on, I'm starving. I think we've earned a Code Seven after that little adventure." Miyuki smiled. "Works for me. Call it in." "Well," Q-Boss remarked dryly. "That was... interesting. Not really -useful-, you understand, but interesting." If she hoped to needle some sharp reaction out of Agent A, to whom she'd taken an immediate dislike when Alberto's party had arrived from New Avalon, she was to be disappointed, for A seemed, if anything, pleased. "Oh, on the contrary," the blonde remarked with a wicked smile. "That was -very- useful. Well worth the investment - and it even accomplished the primary objective, after a fashion. We may not have destroyed Tomodachi Tower, but this planet knows it's subject to attack now - and so do many others. Not all of which have giant protectors our local intelligence bureaus didn't warn us about," she added with sweet vitriol. Q-Boss flushed under her hood. "That thing has -never- appeared before. I half suspect you two brought it with you just to spice up the demonstration a bit." Agent A laughed gaily at that. "Oh, 674, you are an imaginative one," she said. "You have a bright future ahead of you, I think. No, I didn't stage that, but it's an excellent idea for some future operation. Lull some unsuspecting city into thinking it has a giant protector, then dash all its hopes in a single day of fire and terror! I -like- the way you think." Q-Boss blinked. "Er... thank you. I think." "At any rate, we hope you enjoyed our little demonstration," said Alberto as A started packing up her portable command set. "We'll be in touch about setting up a permanent K-corps on this world. And I'm definitely going to want to keep tabs on our giant silver friend there." "We'll make investigating it our highest priority." "Excellent. Goodbye for now, Q-674. I'm sure we'll be talking again very soon." Q-Boss squared herself up and shot her right hand stiffly into the air. "Together!" A returned the salute. "Allegiance or death!" "BIG FIRE!" the two women and Alberto chorused as one. Maybe she's not so bad after all, Q-Boss thought as she watched Agent A take her leave. "I'm home!" Hiroshi called as he crossed the threshold of the converted temple where his family made its home. "You're -late-, big brother," his sister Mirai declared. "Mom was about to send out a search party. We were starting to think you'd been caught up in that mess downtown." Hiroshi turned as if to say something in response to that, then seemed to think better of it and just gave his sister an enigmatic smile. "... What?" Mirai asked, puzzled. Then, shaking her head, she dismissed the matter entirely. "You're -weird-," she said, leaving the porch. Hiroshi took his invention - newly christened "the Ultra-Card" on the bike ride home - from his pocket, then tucked it away again, grinning. You have no idea, little sister, he thought. EYRIE PRODUCTIONS, UNLIMITED presented UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT Ultraman Dash: Silver Guardian by Benjamin D. Hutchins starring Hiroshi Morisato Dash of the Ultra Corps Q-Boss No. 674 Alberto Casanegra de Nueva Castilla Clarissa Broadbank Miyuki Kobayakawa Natsumi Tsujimoto Mirai Morisato "Ultraman" created by Eiji Tsuburaya Miyuki and Natsumi created by Kousuke Fujishima With thanks to all the Usual Suspects E P U (colour) 2007