Nadesico Fan Fiction ❯ Chasing the Darkness ❯ [09] Sleep is for the Weak ( Chapter 9 )

PART NINE: Sleep is for the Weak

******

"A sister ship?" Lapis blinked sleepily, her toes blindly searching for her slippers as she motioned Ruri to sit and then settled formally on the edge of her bed. "It's called the Hyacinth, but I've never even seen it. I have no idea where it is right now. Why do you ask?" She kept her voice low so as not to disturb the occupant of the other bed-- a lump of a person completely covered with a blanket except for a wild patch of spiky hair sticking up from the pillow.

"I wanted to look through the virtual files-- it's for a theory Ines has been working on." It was not Ruri's style to lie, but for the sake of caution she didn't want to say anything more about her discovery than she had to. "It probably would have been in the Eucharis's database but since the ship was destroyed I was hoping I could pull up the class's computer type."

"Computer type...?"

"Many ships of a certain class have the same computer program. Like Omoikane, who runs all the Nadesico class ships."

"Oh! you want to talk to Aiphis." Lapis said, standing up and quickly crossing the room.

"Aiphis?" Ruri prompted as Lapis began rifling through one of Akito's suitcases.

"It isn't as advanced as Omoikane and it didn't have a name, only a number-- Prototype 56317 v.4.2. When Akito first introduced us, he said it was the IFS machine. So I thought its name was Aiphis--IFS." Lapis blushed slightly at her silly mistake. "I know better now but the name sort of stuck."

Ruri watched as the younger girl straightened, brandishing an almost flat rectangular box. Years of cynicism and cool appraisal were all that kept her from snatching it from Lapis's arms. "A backup copy of a whole ship's computer?"

"Sort of." Lapis explained apologetically, opening the laptop and logging on. "Akito's Aestivallis was never compatible with the Eucharis because it was redesigned to be a completely autonomous unit. But I was always on the Eucharis when he needed my help and so we needed a way to connect the two. We did it by downloading Aiphis into the Black Sarena and uplinking it to the Eucharis with Akito's laptop. So Aiphis should still be in here somewhere if you want to talk to it."

She placed the computer in Ruri's lap. Ruri's hands began to glow in the familiar pattern as she logged herself in.

Welcome, Lapis Lazuli. the screen came up. Ruri frowned and tried logging in again. The same thing happened.

"Try logging out first." Lapis suggested shyly, which Ruri did. But when she logged back in Aiphis still addressed her as Lapis.

"Must be a glitch or something," Lapis explained. "I'm really the only one who uses this so maybe it's stuck and I just never noticed."

Ruri gave up and started to search through the VR files. It was harder than she had originally expected, since she couldn't actually go into VR and look for a little black box on a laptop. She didn't have the freedom of movement a search this extensive would normally call for.

To break the weird silence, Lapis began to ask questions; just a few at first, to try to fathom Ruri's motives, and then more as her curiosity refused to be satiated. Ruri found herself telling Lapis the entire story in bits and pieces without any reservations, almost as if she were talking to herself. It was unnerving, but she'd been surprised enough for one day. One of the drawbacks of being brilliant, she decided, was that she hated the idea that unexpected things like this could happen and seriously screw her plans for the future.

Whatever happened to that little girl who couldn't be fazed, even by the idiotic adults that surrounded her?

Baka, her mind replied nastily. She grew up.

******

"Well, I'd love to finish our conversation, but I have a meeting with the board members now," Akatsuki said offhand, making his way towards the door. "Don't go making any important discoveries until I get back."

"Will you untie me now?" Yoshio protested, but Akatsuki had already left, Erina hot on his heels. Yoshio sighed and sat back in disappointment, noticing as he did so a long shadow off to his side. Raising his head, he found himself staring at a very tall, grinning Jovian. The wickedly pleased look on his face made Yoshio cringe in fear.

******

"What the hell do you mean?!" Aritomo thundered, causing all activity in the Center to come to a screeching halt. The young man who bore the brunt of Aritomo's fury quailed under the leader's withering gaze and backed up a couple of steps.

"Sir, I'm sorry, sir, but none of us has as many years experience tucked under our belts as Mr. Yamasaki did; we're all here trying to finish up our degrees..."

"Yamasaki Yoshio was not the only person who ever worked on the Artifact!" Aritomo snapped. "Are you telling me that everyone on your team is a graduate student? What the hell happened to all those musty old professors who insisted they could unravel the secrets of boson jumping?"

"Um, with all due respect, sir," Miki cut in, "We had them all killed."

Aritomo put his head in his hands in a gesture of defeat. "Can we get the Artifact operational in time?"

"Well," the young man began. "I don't see why not, as long as we can find someone to be the Imaging System. Right now our options are kind of slim, considering most of the original A-class jumpers died in the early experiments."

Aritomo dropped his hands, a determined light flashing in his eyes. "We'll get one."

******

"Come on, come on...." Ryoko urged the screen, pounding on the controller like her life depended on it. "Damn! I think my punch key is busted!"

"I wouldn't be surprised." Hikaru smiled, sipping at her coffee as her player pummeled Ryoko's for the umpteenth time.

"I'm serious!" Ryoko protested, running her card through the slot again. "My damn controller's broken."

"Ryoko, you're just really bad at video games." Hikaru laughed. "We don't have to play anymore..."

"You're just scared that I'll beat you." Ryoko returned, choosing yet another new player. Hikaru sighed and switched her latte to her left hand to play again.

******

"There are so many of them..." Lapis breathed in awe. "And they were all hidden away in our files? Why didn't they take up any memory?"

"Because these aren't the actual files-- they're just the way to open the file." Ruri answered distractedly. There were three thousand four hundred and ninety six of the boson jump files stored in the cache she had opened. Three thousand. How was she going to get through them all? Start at the beginning, that's how.

She began to run the files through her own laptop so Omoikane could process them and display the file histories. With any luck, what she was looking for would be in the beginning somewhere.

"Ano..." Lapis leaned in closer. "They all look the same."

Ruri blinked twice. "Doomsday." she said aloud. "They're all titled 'Doomsday.'"

"What's 'Doomsday?'"

"An English term used to describe the end of the world; after space colonization began, it grew to encompass the end of the entire universe."

Lapis resisted the urge to say "I knew that." She didn't want to insult Hoshino Ruri. "But I don't think Akito could have hidden it from me if he saw the actual end of the universe."

Ruri turned on her suddenly. "You can read Akito's mind?" she demanded; even though the tone of voice never changed from the detached soft-spoken voice typical of Ruri, the demand was clear. Lapis shook her head.

"It's not like that-- not telepathy. I can't ever really tell what he's thinking. But I'm in charge of his subconscious; if he saw Doomsday wouldn't it show up in his dreams?"

"You see Akito's dreams?"

"No, I dream for him. Dreams are essential to boson jumping; the Successors wanted to start a network of jumpers to make boson travel easier, faster, and more efficient. But the project failed, because when they linked Akito and me, we became useless individually."

Ruri set the laptop on the bed, black boxes momentarily forgotten.

"You can't boson jump by yourself?"

"No. I've never had a dream of my own-- without Akito's memories, I wouldn't be able to visualize a jump. And Akito can no longer visualize for himself because all images are automatically transferred to me."

"So you can't communicate with each other, you just build off each other." Ruri closed her eyes thoughtfully, remembering her first encounter with Lapis. "But you said you were Akito's eyes and ears..."

"Yes." Lapis stared at Ruri blankly, as if that should make perfect sense. Ruri opened her eyes.

"I don't really understand. Will you explain it?"

Lapis frowned. "I don't know how to explain. It's like...well, if Akito is eating some really good soba, I get a good taste in my mouth. If he's listening to music, I can feel the beat."

"So if I blindfolded Akito," she gestured to the other bed, "Would you be unable to see?"

"I wouldn't be blind, but I would feel the same disorientation as Akito would feel."

Ruri realized that Lapis had no idea that if Akito was eating some really good soba, he wouldn't know what it tasted like at all. Lapis wasn't aware that she didn't just feel what Akito felt, but robbed him of those sensations.

"And by the way, that's not Akito, that's Harry." Lapis added, glancing back at the bed. Ruri's eyes widened; strangely, she felt her cheeks getting hot. "Yurika didn't come to read me a story last night, so Harry said he'd stay until I fell asleep. I guess he fell asleep, too."

Ruri closed her mouth as soon as she realized it was open and turned back to the laptop. "I want to take these down to Ines's lab now so she can look at them as soon as she gets back."

"Wait, I want to come with you." Lapis said. "If that's all right."

Ruri nodded and handed her Akito's laptop. She debated waking Harry up, but figured he'd probably demand an explanation and she didn't want to take the time to give him one. She settled for letting Lapis write him a note.

******

"Hikaru and Ryoko are here..." Yurika remarked as the three women slung their purses over into the booth and sat simultaneously. Minato laughed uncomfortably.

"That probably means Izumi will be playing in the coffeehouse later on."

Megumi grimaced. "I can hardly wait."

******

In the shadows of an alley on the other side of the tracks, six dark silhouettes melted together briefly and then separated once more.

******

"So the secret to the Genkigangar program wasn't created by any ancient alien civilization?" Tsukai asked excitedly. Akito nodded, rewinding the tape to watch the snippet again.

"It's a side story that was never fleshed out." he explained as he hit the play button.

"I used the Gekiganium alloy to try to determine exactly when these paintings were made," the badly acted, melodramatic voice of the doctor began. "But the Gekiganium-dating technique doesn't place these paintings in the past-- they're from 300 years in the future!"

"There's so much more to this anime than I ever understood!" Tsukai beamed, picking up the mangas that Akito had brought. "I can understand why this was my brother's favorite. All the elements of greatness are here: heroism, love, justice, good over evil...the artwork is beautifully rendered..."

Akito smiled patiently. He saw himself in the younger man. Well, actually, he saw Gai, but that was because they were brothers, after all. As he watched the pilot's animated face as he drank in each picture in the manga, he felt a wave of nostalgia for that past he had relinquished. He didn't want to destroy Tsukai's illusions, but illusion could quickly degenerate into delusion if he wasn't careful. It was that kind of mistake that started the Jovian War. "It has its bad points, too." he said carefully. "When I was younger, I loved the show so much that I only watched my favorite parts. Then, when a friend of mine was murdered, I decided that I was wrong. I had to take the good with the bad or nothing at all."

"It has to be good, or my big brother would never have liked it." Tsukai said stubbornly. Akito sat back, returning his attention to the movie screen.

"But then I realized something." he continued. "Parts of this show are truly great. They define everything that I ever valued. And while I couldn't pretend the bad parts weren't there, I could focus on the good parts, and let them define me like they always had."

Tsukai closed the manga purposefully, his face set in serious contemplation. "I understand why you were my brother's best friend." he declared. "Only you see the world as he did." He began to tear at the corners of his eyes. "You honor his memory!"

This time the smile was wholehearted. "Thank you."

"Your devotion is truly inspiring. You are a hero straight out of the pages of this wonderful manga!"

But you're a hero now, just like in Gekigangar. Yurika's voice floated through his mind unbidden, Isn't that what you wanted?

Akito's eyes widened. He turned around to look out the window, and gazed in horror at the morning sun, already high in the sky. "I have to go." he said, barely pulling himself to his feet before he started to run.

"Wait!" Tsukai, startled and dismayed to find his reverie broken, also rose. "Where are you going?"

"To be a hero!" Akito murmured bitterly as he flew out the door. He had said it too softly for Tsukai to have heard, but perhaps that telepathy thing kicked in, because Tsukai understood anyway, somehow.

"Wait for me! I'm coming with you!"

******

"And the son of the sun is the morning....and mourning when the son dies..." Izumi sang, strumming her ukulele. Most of the occupants of the coffeehouse busied themselves ignoring her. Many, like Yurika, Megumi, and Minato, had learned to block out Izumi as background noise when necessary. The not so fortunate had crowded around the arcade, which happened to be as far from the speakers as possible. The fuss at the Old School One-on-One Battle Arena soon sparked their attention.

"Hey, old lady, you already lost!" a whiny little boy was tugging Ryoko's sleeve. "It's my turn now!"

"Old lady?!?!" Ryoko shouted, turning on the kid just as Hikaru's player Sugar-Heart Attacked her to a KO. "Aw, dammit! No fair-- one more try!"

"Hey lady...!"

"Shut up, kid. Don't you have to go to school or something?" Ryoko picked up the controller and started pounding at it again.

"Ten bucks on the brunette!" someone called.

Ryoko got KOed again.

"Make that twenty!"

"I got thirty on the kid!"

"Well, if we're going to start gambling..." Hikaru began, smiling, "If I win this time you have to dye your hair green again, Ryoko, okay? And if you win, I'll dye mine."

"What? No! Didn't you and Izumi have enough the first time?"

"Well, if you're afraid..."

Ryoko stopped dead, sat back down, and picked up the controller. "Bring it on."

******

"Stop," one shadow whispered to the other five.

"Yamasaki Yoshio?" another shadow asked.

"Should we get him?"

"He doesn't seem to be in any danger."

"But he's walking with one of them."

"Has he betrayed us?"

"Let him go," the first shadow said. "We have no orders concerning him. Our mission must be completed. Move!" the shadows separated once more.

******

"I thought we were going out for coffee." Yoshio said, rather desperately, as he and Saburota walked down the sidewalk.

"We are."

"We just passed two perfectly good kissaten and a Starbucks."

"We're going to my favorite hangout." Saburota said cheerfully. "Most of the pilots spend their breaks there."

Yoshio blanched. He doubted the sanity of anyone who would willingly pilot an Aestivallis. And if they were friends of Saburota's.... Yoshio had been terrified of the Jovian since the day they'd met, when Genpachiro had declared a truce with the UE government. Saburota had singled him out at the reception-- why, he'd never been able to figure out-- to be his drinking buddy. Yoshio had ended up in jail for two days with a major fine to pay and the Jovian "eternally in his debt." Which meant that Saburota bought him drinks whenever they met up. He'd thought he'd gotten away from his new "best friend" when he began his research under Kusakabe, but it was obvious that the gods of irony hated him.

Saburota finally stopped outside what seemed to be a perfectly normal coffeehouse. On the outside. Inside, there was strange music and a huge clump of people crowded around what Yoshio could only guess was a fight of some sort. And Saburota, of course, wouldn't be satisfied until he could not only find out what mayhem was happening, but join the fun.

[*note* Kissaten is Japanese for coffeehouse. I just got tired of using "coffeehouse" and "coffee shop" over and over.]

******

"Hah!" Ryoko shouted triumphantly. "I've got you now!"

"You hit me!" Hikaru said in astonishment. She put down her latte and began to concentrate more on the game. The crowd around them was placing bets and shouting encouragement splattered with some derogatory propositions to the two pilots. Ryoko was hunched over in her seat, focusing all her attention on the little pixilated robot on the screen. This time, Gekigangar was going to beat that stupid fairy.

"Hey, buddy, watch it!"

"What's the big idea?"

"Excuse him, he's crazy," a tired voice apologized somewhere in the background.

"You know, Hikaru, just to be nice, I'll buy the green dye for you," Ryoko smiled, "I just figured out the special attack combo!"

Hikaru didn't answer-- she was busy dodging. Ryoko began to laugh. All she had to do was keep churning out the combos and Hikaru would never have a chance to recover. Her victory was assured.

"Whatcha doing?" A voice asked, so close to her ear that she felt the breath on her neck.

"Gah!" Arms, controller, and forgotten espresso all went flying.

"Pink Cotton Candy Attack!" Hikaru cried, and Gekigangar went down for the count.

"Dammit!" Ryoko shouted. She turned to face Saburota practically breathing fire. "This... is... all... your... fault..."

Saburota frowned. "How's it my fault? You're the one who sucks at video games."

"Ahhhh!" She launched herself at the blond Jovian, determined to pummel his idiotic smirk into next week.

"Ten bucks on the crazy chick!"

******

"Ship?"

"Not there."

"Hotel?"

"Empty."

The leader frowned. Where were the targets? The search of all the likely places had turned up negative. And they could not jump without blowing their cover-- it was getting tedious.

"Sir," the newest member emerged from the shadows, "There's two places we might check."

"Where?"

"One is a restaurant owned by an old crew member. The other is a kissaten run by Nergal. It's supposed to be a popular hangout."

The six shadowy figures exchanged glances, then slipped out of the alley down the street.

******

"Yurika!" Akito couldn't help but cry out as he threw open the doors of the coffee shop. Thirty plus people all turned away from Ryoko and Saburota's wrestling match to see what new psychos the morning had brought. Akito looked around in confusion-- nothing seemed too out of the ordinary. He'd expected screaming and at least a few hysterics.

"Akito?" Yurika's blue-haired head shot up from a booth a little ways down. Seeing his desperate expression, she took it to mean he was concerned about her. "Akito!" she exclaimed happily, launching herself at him. Akito didn't move to stop her, preoccupied by the thought that the Sixsome weren't there. If the clock on the wall was correct, he should have been too late. But even as he thought it, he felt a familiar presence at his back and turned slightly, still holding Yurika by the shoulders.

"I knew you'd come back to me eventually, if I gave you enough time! I don't know why you did it, but you can tell me later! I forgive you for whatever it was, and I hope you can forgive me for not being more supportive of you when you needed me to--Akito?!"

Akito shoved her behind him, holding out his arm protectively as six shadows seemed to melt into human beings, arranged in a triangular pattern, just outside the door.

"Akito..." Yurika's voice wavered and she clutched at his outstretched arm in fright. "What are they doing here?"

"You!" Minato yelled shrilly, she and Megumi also standing.

Ryoko and Saburota stopped shouting at each other and turned to face the new threat, ahead of them.

"Tenkawa Akito," the leader of the shadows said smugly. "We meet again."

"Hokushin is dead." Akito said coldly. "You should have disbanded."

"The New Order doesn't disband when a leader is assassinated."

Akito drew two revolvers out from the folds of his cloak. "Maybe you didn't understand me. You should have disbanded before; now I'll do it for you."

"Sugoi!" Hikaru piped up in the background, pulling a notebook out of somewhere. "Great line, Akito-san!"

The new leader of the Sixsome smiled cruelly. "Guns, against us? Nergal isn't here to back you up this time."

The Six shadows each drew a particularly nasty looking weapon. Akito snarled and prepared for a fight, waiting for Ryoko and Saburota. They appeared at his side momentarily, Saburota cracking his knuckles with a gleeful expression plastered to his face. Hikaru was darting ecstatically about, making quick sketches for the doujinshi that was already way past the deadline. All except the most oblivious of the coffeehouse patrons were making their way quietly out the back door.

"Hokushin prophesied this day would come," the leader said. "Tenkawa Akito, you will meet your doom at the hands of the Sixsome!"

"Sixsome, eh?" Saburota commented. "I've heard of you. You're the Successor Secret Police force. You don't look all that scary."

"Not scary? We walk the line between heresy and madness, all for a New Order. We don't fear death, we don't respect the lives of our enemies..."

"The New Order isn't yours for the taking." Akito said quietly. Yurika took a few steps backwards, opening her mouth as if to say something, but Tsukai beat her to it.

"That's...*huff*... ridiculous!" he gasped, placing the box of Gekigangar stuff he had lugged through town neatly to the side and struck his "avenging angel" pose. "The end never justifies the means! People like you don't belong in a New Order of peace and Gekigangar!"

"Sugoi, sugoi!" Hikaru cried, jumping up and down while trying to write frantically in her notebook.

The Sixsome quickly rearranged themselves in a circle to face Tsukai, Akito, Saburota and Ryoko. The leader faced Akito squarely.

"You know why we're here."

Akito's dark glasses hid his eyes, but his face began to glow slightly. Yurika took a moment to realize that he hadn't been glowing as much as he used to. "Yes."

"Very well, then." he smiled cruelly. "It doesn't matter, either way. Perhaps we'll just take you."

Akito snarled. "You can try."

"Akito..." Yurika whispered. She wanted to move closer, but her feet seemed frozen in place.

"Let's end this, Tenkawa Akito."

******

Akito didn't answer. Instead, he raised his gun and opened fire. Between the cracking of pistol shots and the screaming of some of the denser coffeehouse patrons fleeing for their lives, the leader's laughter could be heard.

"You've learned nothing," he spat as Akito tossed the first gun away and lifted the second. "Guns can't harm us." Akito smiled briefly, a disturbing sight for those who saw it before it disappeared. He hadn't been trying to kill anyone, just test the weak spots in their shielding. This man was not a worthy replacement for Hokushin.

By now the entire crew of the Nadesico present had assembled themselves in a tight cluster behind Yurika, while Saburota and Ryoko began to inch forward, not wanting the other one to get ahead. The leader and Akito remained unmoving, Akito's gun trained directly at the man's head.

Yoshio, who had until that moment been sitting quietly in the shadows trying to figure out if he could get out the back door without getting trampled, stood up suddenly.

"Are you insane?" he asked the leader of the Sixsome. "You can't take the A-class jumpers."

"Traitor!" one of the other members of the Sixsome spoke up angrily. Yoshio shook his head. Akito's eyebrows drew together in desperate confusion. This wasn't the way it was supposed to go. And then he realized that Yoshio shouldn't have been there at all. Something had gone drastically wrong.

"They're not going to let themselves be taken alive, you fools." With hands up, trembling and obviously committing the bravest act of his lifetime, Yoshio began to move forward slowly, trying to keep the leader's attention off of Akito and Yurika.

The leader grinned, changing positions slightly. "Then they'll be taken dead."

And Akito suddenly understood what he was doing-- he was going to use Yoshio as a shield so he could jump without Akito getting in the way, taking both Yurika and Yoshio with him.

"I don't think so." Ryoko snapped. "We're going to kick your sorry asses straight to jail!"

"Do not pass Go, do not collect your fried rice," Izumi murmured.

Akito fired two shots, straight upward. The lights overhead shattered, pouring glass and plaster down on the people below. It took everyone by surprise, including the Sixsome, who were directly under one of the lamps and had to cover their heads to avoid the rain of glass. Akito didn't hesitate. He turned and lunged at Yurika, jumping almost before he reached her.

******

"Ines-san..." Ruri began, surprised. She hadn't expected the woman to be back from Mars so soon. Lapis pulled up short behind the Captain and fixed Ines with an identically blank stare. Ines looked up from the console in the dim light of her laboratory, dark glasses perched casually in her hair.

"Ruri-chan," the older woman acknowledged a little too brightly, "Lapis. Come in-- you've saved me the trouble of going to find you."

"Have you succeeded already?" Ruri asked as she approached.

"Already?" Ines laughed; a brittle, nervous sound. "No-- I've been on Mars for weeks now. But my findings have been so incredible that I returned to the second I left so as not to waste any time."

"What did you discover?" Ruri asked, opening the laptop absently and deciding not to go into the paradox of time travel again.

"You were right-- the files were the schematics for a boson jump. But the reason we couldn't open them was not because our technologies were incompatible, as we originally thought. It was because the boson jump files work on a 256-bit system. Our present system works on only 128-bit codes. I had to decipher the additional 128 symbols and convert the computer language back down to its binary form before I could open it."

"So is our entire system a copy of the same ancient technology that created the Artifact?" Lapis asked, glancing over Ruri's shoulder as the latter tapped thoughtfully at the keys.

"It could be," Ines affirmed, "But doesn't it strike you as odd that the ancient civilization works with the same basic bytes that we do? A bit is either a one or a zero, on or off like a light switch. I wouldn't be surprised if every civilization ever in the history of the universe utilized that same principle. But we humans are unique in that we chose to organize those on or off bits into 8-digit bytes. Then we doubled that number whenever we needed more space. 8, 16, 32, 64, 128..."

"256," Ruri murmured. Lapis's eyes widened.

"But the original 8-bits were used in each byte because that was how many bytes were needed to process all the symbols in the American alphabet and number systems. An ancient civilization wouldn't be using the American alphabet, they would be using their own. To them, eight would simply be a random number. So why do both of our civilizations follow a system that uses multiples of eight?"

"Whoever built the first computers on Earth must have been using the lost civilization's technology." Ruri concluded.

"There is one other theory," Ines said excitedly, standing. "I wanted to announce it to everyone, but this is a volatile situation and I can't take that risk until I can get my findings to the JF council. I don't think we were copying the lost civilization at all." Here she paused for dramatic effect. "I think they were copying us."

Lapis stiffened. "But how...?"

"It's just circumstantial evidence, but I think I'm right. When I was sent back to ancient Mars as a little girl, I met the people who had created the Artifact. I knew they were human-like, meaning they had two legs, two arms, a head and were about as tall as human beings. I didn't think they were human because their skin was hard and shiny and they had wires connected to them everywhere. Only in the past few weeks have I truly thought hard about those creatures; as a little girl I wouldn't have known this, but those 'creatures' looked very much like I myself do when I'm suited up and guiding a boson jump. In short, I think the people who created the Artifact were indeed human and were using an advanced form of boson jump technology."

"But I thought you were sent to the past, Ms. Fresange." Lapis said in puzzlement. "Do you mean you actually went to the future?"

"I don't know what time period I went to," Ines admitted. "I have several theories that I need to test. But I'm positive that those people knew of my coming and were expecting me. It was no accident that sent me twenty years into the past. I think the people of that time knew exactly what year I had to return to Mars, so that I would be old enough to unravel the secrets of boson jumping in time to help you."

"Help us?" Lapis frowned. "With what?"

Ines looked at her, her scrutinizing gaze so intense it was almost a glare. Lapis shrank away self-consciously.

"I would have stayed longer on Mars if I could have, but two weeks from now something catastrophic happened. I don't know exactly what it was, but... To put it bluntly," Ines said finally, "The world is about to go to hell."

"Doomsday," Ruri said, eyes fixed vacantly on a spot somewhere past the screen in front of her. She moved her hand across the surface of the laptop one last time, and the list of Akito's boson jumps began to run down Ines's terminal as the blonde woman's eyes widened in shock.

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