The Dirty Pair: Double Vision 
 
 
Standard Disclaimer: I don't own the Dirty Pair. I don't claim to
either, so don't sue me. Sakura Tenjo and Natsumi Ogawa are
original characters who may not be used without my approval.
Thanks, and enjoy the show. 
 
Cycle Two 
    
     When the Lovely Angel took off from the hanger at the 3WA
Central Field Office, everyone who saw breathed a mental sigh of
relief. Where the Dirty Pair went, chaos and destruction followed
closely, like scantily clad horsewomen of the Apocalypse. And the
rumor was, there were two more of them now. This rumor had spread
so quickly that a number of 3WA executives had applied for
emotional leave or flat out resigned at the very thought. Two
Lovely Angels was a lot, but four of them implied destruction on
a level that would make most cataclysms blush. 
     Sakura Tenjo and Natsumi Ogawa, sitting side by side on a
take-off couch on the Lovely Angel, sneezed almost simultaneously.
They glanced at each other and shrugged, followed closely by the
trademark tensing of the muscles as the ship's interior switched
over from normal-G to Low-G, or microgravity, used during takeoff
from planets with an especially powerful gravitational pull. Once
the gravity had diminished as much as it was going to, the two
girls released the shoulder harnesses holding them to their seats
and floated into the middle of the room, doing slow flips in the
air as they went. 
     Sakura twisted gently so she was hanging upside-down in the
air, and folded her arms across her chest. For several seconds she
floated this way, looking pensively at the wall. Silence reigned
until Natsumi moved across the room in slow, loopy somersaults,
giggling all the way. She poked her friend with her foot and asked,
"What's chewing on you? You look like a wet-headed trainee on your
first time in Low-G training. Whoop..!" She began flailing madly
as she accidentally upended herself, ending up floating upside down
like Sakura, if not looking as graceful. 
     The pink-haired girl smirked at her wobbling friend. "Says
you, Wingnut." She grew more serious. "Natsumi, I've been
thinking.and I'm a little concerned. This is it, you know. No more
training. Now we're really doing this, going out on patrol and
getting the bad guys. When we screwed up in training, we just
looked silly. Now if we screw up, someone could die, most likely
us." 
     Natsumi took on a thoughtful expression and began to rotate
backwards head over heels. Finally, she said, "So what you're
saying is that you're scared." 
     Sakura kicked at her lightly and answered, "Am not! I'm just
being serious. One of us has to, after all.God knows that Kei and
Yuri will be." 
     She trailed off at the sounds of combat from the hallway. Both
girls instinctively looked for a weapon. But before they could do
more than consider what could be swung hard enough to do damage,
the airlock shot open and the Lovely Angels tumbled through, locked
in a fierce tangle of flailing limbs and blunt objects. After a
brief squall of activity, they broke apart and revealed their
weapons: matching flight couch pillows. Kei smacked Yuri hard
enough to bounce her head over heels across the room. Kei stuck her
tongue out at her and taunted, "That'll teach you to goose me, you
pervert!"  
     Yuri flipped Kei off and shot back, "Don't flatter yourself!
I mistook your butt for a grav-couch and tried to hang on!" 
     The red-haired Angel raised her pillow threateningly. "You
saying I have a big butt?" 
     Yuri pulled one lower eyelid down and stuck her tongue out
again. "Are you kidding? When you walk it looks like two mastiffs
fighting over a steak in a canvas sack!" 
      Both girls raised their pillows for another round. Before
they could do more, Sakura cleared her throat nervously. Kei and
Yuri paused, looked at them, and smiled sheepishly. Yuri flipped
her hair out of her face and said, "Oh, sorry about that.we sort
of forgot about you two. This is how most of our trips start out,
y'see." 
     The two new agents nodded nervously. Yuri misinterpreted their
startled expressions and waved her hands hastily and added, "Not
that we're, like, lesbians or anything! We just have a close
friendship, that's all!"  
     Natsumi and Sakura made hurried assurances that the thought
had never crossed their minds.  
This resolved, Kei floated towards a couch and called over her
shoulder, "I'd grab on, ladies, if I were you. The Angel's gravitic
stabilizers will be kicking in any second now." 
     Even as the words left her mouth, Sakura and Natsumi felt
their weight begin to resettle towards the floor. The two young
agents and Yuri floated over to a couch and sat down quickly,
holding themselves in place by gripping straps on the seats of the
couches. A low humming emanated from the ship as it created a field
of normal Earth gravity in it's interior. Yuri and Kei sighed in
relief as the stood up and stretched. Sakura and Natsumi were
satisfied to simply stretch their arms and roll their heads lightly
to get rid of the mild cramps the gravity changes inspired. Once
everyone was done readjusting themselves to regular gravity Kei
piped up, "Let's get you ladies situated in bunks of your own!
First off, we can go get your gear out of the loading hold." 
     At this, Sakura stood up, eyes wide, and exclaimed, "I have
to make sure Le Papillion is okay!" 
      Yuri wrinkled her brow as she tried to recall some of the
French she had learned in college. Finally the word she was
searching for came to her. "The Butterfly?" She asked dubiously.

     Natsumi rolled her eyes and nodded. Kei, intrigued by the
young girl's excitement, asked, "You have a pet butterfly? This I
have to see." 
***** 
     "THAT is `Le Papillion'?!" 
     "Yup! Isn't she pretty?" 
     The Dirty Pair and their two new partners stood in the loading
hold watching in amazement as Sakura presented Le Papillion.
Rather, Yuri and Kei were staring and Natsumi was smiling and
shaking her head. Le Papillion was a bright lavender rocket
launcher a good five feet long. With long-practiced ease, Sakura
lugged it from it's case and began expertly disassembling and
cleaning it. Kei was more than a little interested, so she squatted
down beside the younger girl and ran a finger over the side of the
cheery-looking weapon of mass destruction. "What kind of launcher
is this? Anti-Tank?" 
     Sakura shook her head without looking up and began oiling the
firing mechanism. As she did, she explained. "No, it's primarily
Anti-Personnel, though I can adapt it to load Anti-Tank or even
Anti-Aircraft rockets pretty easily. Basically, it's just a
souped-up LAWS launcher. I reinforced the tube and added a
removable five-round clip, and put on a stronger shoulder harness.
It already had a pair of legs for freestanding firing, but I took
those off to make room for a gyro-mount system. See that socket
back behind the rear grip? That can fit into any of the standard
3WA Gyro-mount suits currently in use. The only other thing I
changed was putting in a better targeting system." 
     Kei looked at the launcher amusedly. "And what about the
butterfly decals?"  
     Sakura shrugged. "I just think those are pretty."  
     Yuri rolled her eyes and pushed off from the wall she had been
leaning against. As she dusted her hands off in a business-like
fashion, she said, "Well, as exciting as all of this gun-fondling
is, we should go see what our first mission as a foursome is." 
     Kei scowled slightly and responded, "Yeah, I suppose so." She
looked at the two new recruits and said, "Listen, while we're out
on patrol or whatever, you two just watch what we do, okay? We've
been doing this so long that we can do these system patrols in our
sleep." 
     As Sakura opened her mouth to respond, a red light began
flashing accompanied by a trilling siren. She blinked and looked
around in surprise. "What's that noise?" 
     Yuri and Kei were already in motion, running down the
corridor. Over her shoulder Kei yelled, "Distress call on the
radio! Meet us up on the bridge!" 
     After teaming up to disassemble Le Papillion, the two girls
raced up to the bridge. By the time they got there, Kei and Yuri
were at the transmission station sending a response of some sort
Sakura and Natsumi leaned over the backs of their seats and looked
at the screen as a burst of coded symbols crawled over it. Natsumi
asked, "What is it? Where did the signal come from?"  
     While Yuri typed some response in the same coded language, Kei
answered, "It's a distress signal from Koppe Aqualogy.they're not
that far from here, actually." 
     Sakura looked at the screen with new interest. "An aqualogy?
I've never been to one of those before." 
     Kei glanced over at her. "Really? Yuri and I used to go to
this really nice one outside of Darinius during summer break while
we were in the Academy." 
     Yuri sent another message and turned to look at them with a
worried look. "I'm not getting any response Kei. Think we should
go take a look?" 
     The red-haired agent glanced at the empty screen, devoid of
any sign of response. "How far are they?" 
     "Not far. Maybe sixty thousand klicks or thereabouts. We could
be there in minutes at cruising speed." 
     Kei considered this. "Any other 3WA ships that close or
closer?" 
     Yuri shook her head ruefully. "Nope. We're the only one within
three times that distance. I've radioed for some back-up, in case
it looks ugly, but odds are we're going to have to go in there, and
alone at that." 
     Kei swore, then sat back and thought for a minute. Finally,
after some deliberation, she turned to Natsumi and Sakura. "Okay,
look you two," She said, "I hate to just toss two new agents fresh
from their Academy bunks into combat like this, but I have a
feeling this may get a bit nasty, and we'll need all the help we
can get. Have you two been issued your regulation side-arms yet?"
Both girls nodded. "Well, go get them. We have some flak jackets
you can wear if you really want them." 
     By the time the girls had fetched their guns, Kuan Yin
Electromags, and returned to the bridge, Kei and Yuri were nowhere
to be seen and the ship was nearing final approach on Koppe
Aqualogy. Sakura peered out of the nose windows to look at the
destination with considerable interest. The aqualogy, an underwater
farm and lifeform sanctuary, was, unlike most of its ilk, actually
on a planet, Mochica to be exact. From the stratosphere, the
aqualogy appeared as a gray strip of metal floating in a massive
ocean, which in fact covered 99% of Mochica's surface. But as they
neared the surface, Sakura could see the glow of the underwater
part of the aqualogy. From school lessons on economics she recalled
that aqualogies, which commonly stretched for miles underwater in
every direction, were a massively important part of their system's
economy. She could already see huge lengths of eerily glowing
passages far below the surface, like a lost city. However, she
could also see patches of flames and oily smoke boiling up from the
above-water part, the landing docks, apparently. 
     "Pretty messy, isn't it?" The two girls turned to see Kei and
Yuri re-enter the room, dressed in their notorious silver battle
bikinis.  
     Natsumi muttered something under her breath as Sakura smiled
embarrassedly/nervously and asked, "Umm, are you guys sure it's a
good idea to wear those things?" 
     Kei blinked and asked, "Whattaya mean? These are our
uniforms." 
     Sakura laughed uncomfortably and went on, "Well, I mean, if
we're going to get shot at, don't you think you ought to wear some
body armor or something? What if you get hit?" 
     Yuri shrugged, a gesture that made both Sakura and Natsumi
blush, considering what she was wearing, and replied, "So we get
hit. So what? We've both taken hits before, and it's not that big
of a deal. Besides, we don't have to worry. We're the Lovely
Angels, we can't die." 
     Sakura considered responding to this, but chose not to. Kei
bounced over to the view windows and looked at the smoking mayhem
on the docks. "Wow!" She exclaimed, "Look at this! This looks like
something we might have done!" 
     Yuri joined her and scanned the docks. "I don't see any
movement. When we land, Kei and I will take point. You girls follow
up on rear position, okay?" 
      Mightily resisting the urge to make a joke about the lower
portions of Kei and Yuri's outfits, Sakura nodded. Natsumi asked
as she popped a clip into her Electromag, "Where are your guns?"

     Yuri drew an Electromag identical to theirs from her thigh
holster in response. Kei grinned and stepped out into the hall,
returning with a much larger gun. Hers was a short rifle, as long
as her arm, and bore a pump-action grenade launcher as well. It
also had the phrase, "Mr. Antisocial" emblazoned on its side. At
Sakura and Natsumi's startled looks, she said, "12mm auto-rifle
with a 10-round M-120 mini-grenade launcher. You three can keep
your wimpy little Electromags, I prefer something with a bit
more.kick." This said, she slammed a clip into it, reveling at the
vicious noise it made as it chambered a round automatically. 
     Sakura came over and fondled the gun appreciatively.  She
crooned, "I like it." and began to smile dreamily. Yuri watched the
two girls play with the death-dealing device and smiled
indulgently. "You two will get along just fine." 
     The Lovely Angel set down on the charred landing pad quietly.
There was a low hiss as the hatch swung open and the four agents
hopped out quickly. Kei peered under the belly of the ship and
scanned the area carefully, watching for any movement. As soon as
she was sure that nothing was going to jump at them, she motioned
for the others to come around the ship and onto the main docking
area. With Kei and her rifle in the lead, moving back and forth in
wide sweeps to cover the entire area, the other tree backed her up,
waiting for something to move. But except for the flames, nothing
moved. 
     Someone or something had hit the aqualogy hard, that much was
obvious. Most of the onsite vehicles had been blasted by some
fairly heavy artillery, as had a few groups of barrels, which
apparently had been holding some flammable chemical. Whatever it
was, it had spread over most of the docking area and started a
number of blazes. But the worst part was the bodies. 
     Kei nudged one of the dozens of corpses on the docks, this one
dressed in the white coveralls of a technician. The man had taken
a couple of rounds from a rather big gun through the chest, leaving
two holes the size of oranges in him. "Someone wanted to make sure
these people didn't get up again."  
     Sakura stared at a pile of four bodies heaped against the door
of a fire hose casement. "Most of these people are dressed in black
uniforms. What does that mean?" 
     Yuri came up and eyed the bodies. One of them had had its head
blown away completely, with nothing but some ragged bone shards and
a lot of gore above its Adam's apple. "The ones in black are
aqualogy security. It looks to me like whoever did this was trying
to avoid wasting the technicians in favor of the security. Hell,
it's what I'd do: eliminate anyone who can use a weapon first, to
guarantee they can't shoot you in the back while you do your job.
Smart work, this." 
     Natsumi had turned an unhealthy shade of green at all the
corpses lying around. After seeing a security guard that looked
remarkably as if his torso had exploded from within, she dashed
behind a small building to catch her breath. Once out of sight, she
made the mistake of peeking in a window. The building had
apparently been the security checkpoint, because blood and worse
was sprayed over the walls and ceiling. The source of this gore,
at least ten men, were lying in a pile in the middle of the room.
Natsumi had had enough. She swiveled like she was on coasters and
vomited. And vomited. And vomited. After several minutes of
coughing and dry heaves, she stood and wiped her mouth on the back
of her hand. She froze, hand at her lips and stared at what had
been hidden behind the building. She called over her shoulder,
"Guys! Take a look at this!" 
     The others came around to look at what she had found. It was
a small black ship, sleek and totally unmarked. Kei walked up to
it and rubbed a hand over its side. She whistled appreciatively and
rubbed her hand on her hip unconsciously. "Wow," She said, "Totally
frictionless. This thing was built to move! I wonder what it is..?"

     Natsumi stepped up to it and rubbed her hand over its wheel
strut lovingly and said, "It's a Bolo Mark Ten Stealth.it's been
striped down for speed and radar avoidance. This thing could do a
planetary orbit in about three minutes without making the reactor
sweat." She looked at Sakura plaintively. "I want it." 
     Sakura explained to Kei and Yuri, "Natsumi is something of a
speed freak. She has this perverse need to get a hold of any fast
vehicle she can find and crash it at top speed. I can't explain it,
personally." 
     Natsumi shot her an outraged look and continued stroking one
of the ship's wings as she replied, "I don't mean to crash them!
I just get distracted easily when I'm going fast, that's all."  
     Kei shook her head amusedly. "Let's go ladies. Natsumi, you
can finish molesting that poor ship later. There are bad guys to
shoot." 
****** 
      The four girls entered the reception area across the dock,
stopping only twice to remove the videodisks from two security
cameras they passed. Once the disks had been secured under flaps
in Sakura's flak jacket, they did a hard entry into the reception
area. Yuri and Natsumi stood on either side of the smoking area
with guns ready. Sakura laid on the ground on her back to the left
of the door and slid a small mirror on a rod along the concrete
until she could see in around the corner. With the help of the
mirror, she could see a bloody figure slumped over at the desk, as
well as another on the floor by it. She nodded to Kei, who stood
over her. Kei knelt and pumped the grenade launcher on her rifle.
In one smooth motion she rolled across the opening and fired a
grenade into the room, continuing her roll to safety on the other
side. The other three pulled back as the small charge detonated,
belching smoke and debris out of the edifice at them. This done,
all four rushed in, ready to do some damage. 
     Inside, there was no movement. The receptionist, a pretty
young woman, had taken one of the large rounds of ammo through the
chest, making her decidedly less pretty.  So had the security guard
sprawled in the passageway to the left, who hadn't even had time
to draw his gun. The passage to the right was empty and quiet. The
four agents spared little more than a glance for either of the
corpses and followed the trail of destruction down the left hall.
At the hall's end was an elevator. Kei and Yuri looked at each
other and nodded. They turned to Sakura and Natsumi. Yuri looked
at them gravely and said, "Look, it's going to get ugly from this
point on. I don't want you two to think you have to do this part.
If you want, you can stay up here and guard our backs. Actually,
I'd prefer it that way." 
     Sakura shook her head. "Thanks, but no thanks. What happens
if there's a small army down there? Besides, if we get separated,
it'll be that much easier to overwhelm us. We'll go with you guys."

     Natsumi nodded her agreement as she popped a few pieces of gum
into her mouth and began chewing. Kei shrugged and chambered a
grenade. "Suit yourself. Going down, ladies." She hit the call
button on the elevator. 
***** 
     As the elevator, a large freighter, sank into the ocean, Kei
and Yuri outlined their strategy. "When we get in there," Yuri
said, "Kei will take point. She's got the biggest weapon, so we
want her out in front. Sakura you take right flank, I take left.
Natsumi, you take rear. Remember, technically we're here as
officers of the law, so if you see anyone, order them to cease and
desist before you open fire." 
     Kei grinned wolfishly and flipped her hair out of her face.
"But I always felt it was legitimate to tell `em to freeze while
you were already firing. Makes `em easier to hit.just make sure
that it isn't a civvie. Foley hates it when we waste the civvies,
huh Yuri?" 
     Yuri scowled and fingered her pistol. "Dammit, am I ever going
to live that down? Look, Jehovah's Witnesses look a hell of a lot
like terrorists in a low-light scenario! And they were acting
pretty aggressive. How the hell was I supposed to know they weren't
hostiles? They were packing heat, for God's sake!" 
     Kei clicked her tongue reprovingly and said to Sakura and
Natsumi, "Yuri never did learn the Jehovah's Witnesses are
authorized to pack a sidearm when they're passing out those books.
But it's pretty easy to tell a Jehovah's Witness by his pistol: the
only use those little girly guns; y'know, the Chance Defense
two-shots? Yuri saw guns and flipped. You can't really blame her
though, she's just over-trained." 
     Sakura and Natsumi exchanged glances and opted not to comment.
The elevator shuddered to a halt and slid open with a musical
chime. Like giant hunting cats, Kei and Yuri slipped silently into
the hallway, followed closely by a slightly more anxious-looking
Sakura and Natsumi. The Lovely Angels silently motioned for their
new partners to move into position. In tight formation, they moved
down the dim hall. 
     At the end of the fifty-yard passageway, they came to an
airlock. Yuri took up position on the right while Natsumi stepped
to the left. Kei stepped back and covered Sakura while she pulled
a shaped charge from the utility belt attached to her flak jacket.
This she attached to the electronic lock on the barrier and stepped
back. Once she and the others were flattened against the walls, she
pressed the small detonator down lightly, arming the charge. She
slid it back into her pocket alongside the second charge of
explosives. This done, the four girls moved back into formation in
front of the door, thirty feet back. Finally, once all were ready,
Sakura depressed the detonator button. The explosives flared
blinding white and made a sound like a hundred people kicking
garbage cans simultaneously. Heated white-hot, the locking system
melted and oozed down the door, which fell clean off of its hinges
moments later. Making a mental note to use a smaller charge next
time, Sakura rushed alongside Kei and Yuri into the next room. 
     For a fraction of a second, all four of the girls were frozen
by the beauty that surrounded them. They were inside a huge
transparent tunnel suspended a mile below the surface. All around
them huge fish swam and rubbed against the warm transparent plastic
walls. But the beauty of the shimmering fish and crystal-clear
water were erased by the presence of a small group of figures down
the hall. A group of people in black rubber body suits, insectoid
face masks and odd-looking helmets surrounded a pair of service
vehicles. At the four agents' entrance, they had all frozen and
looked up, and were now watching them silently. Sakura raised her
gun, followed closely by the others. Kei yelled, "Freeze, suckers!
3WA!" 
     The figures looked at each other and raised large assault
rifles. Sakura heard Kei mutter, "Fuck."  
     The black-clad people opened fire on them in an explosion of
sound and fury. Kei and Yuri grabbed their partners and dived back
through the airlock onto the floor below the lip of the seal. Like
a swarm of deadly hornets, bullets hummed over their heads, close
enough that they could feel the warm air of their passage on their
cheeks. Yuri conferred with Kei briefly, then turned to whisper to
Natsumi. Kei glanced at Sakura and asked, "Ready?"  
     Sakura nodded. Kei waited for the first burst to end, sat up,
and fired off a grenade with a scream. Yuri and Sakura were right
behind her. As the grenade hit, rocking the entire passage, the
other two girls sat up and began picking off shots at the
black-clad assailants. One of them dodged aside from Yuri's range,
only to be caught in Sakura's sights. She winced as she emptied
three bullets into him. To her amazement, he staggered, but raised
his rifle and fired at her. She and Yuri ducked quickly. Sakura
wiped the sweat from her face and muttered, "Stubborn, eh?" She
turned to Yuri and said, "Loan me your gun for a sec." Yuri raised
an eyebrow but complied. The pink-haired agent turned to Kei and
said, "Cover me." 
     Kei grinned and asked, "Gonna pull a Super-Soldier, check? I'm
on it!" 
     The red-headed Lovely Angel stood and began blasting away with
her rifle, ignoring the return fire that zipped around her. Sakura
stood as well, a gun in each hand. She opened fire, roaring like
a mad woman, blasting away with both guns. The one she had wounded
took five bullets to the face, and went over the side of one of the
vehicles, legs kicking madly in his death throes. A second one went
down after taking a whopping six bullets stitched up his left side
from knee to throat. A third caught two rounds from Kei's rifle and
was driven back against the clear wall hard enough to make it shake
all the way down its length before sliding to the ground. A fourth
tried to snipe from behind the closer vehicle, but Sakura emptied
fourteen rounds of ammo into his shoulders, throat and face. He
fell from sight without a sound. The other three looked at each
other and dived into one of the vehicles and roared off in the
opposite direction at top speed.  
      Sakura released the breath she hadn't been aware she was
holding in a slow hiss from between her teeth as she squeezed the
grips of the two guns, making the empty clips fall to the floor.
Yuri stood and dusted herself off. "Where the hell did you learn
to shoot like that? I don't think you missed once." 
     As she handed back the borrowed gun, Sakura said absently,
"Three times. Bullets one, two and nineteen. The others all hit." 

     Yuri shook her head and slid a second clip into place. Sakura
stretched, then looked around. "Wait," She asked worriedly, what
happened to Natsumi?" 
     Natsumi crawled out from under the remaining vehicle down the
hall and waved cheerfully. Sakura stared at her in amazement. "What
the hell were you doing?" Nastumi smiled and waved the detonator
to the shaped charges she had attached to the underside of the
other vehicle. She said, "This."  
     She pressed the button and held a hand to her ear. From some
distance away, there was an echoing explosion. A brief flash of red
light flared down the passageway a bit. She pulled the load she had
attached to the remaining vehicle free and placed it back in her
jacket's pouch. As she walked towards the others, Natsumi causally
said, "Those little trucks go up really nicely." 
    Sakura laughed and shook her head. They gathered around the
corpses and kicked at one of them lightly. Up close, their
assailants were even more unpleasant looking. Their black rubber
suits covered them from head to toe, leaving nothing uncovered.
Each one wore heavy black gauntlets, web belts covered with
devices, and gruesome-looking headsets. Faceted black goggles
covered their eyes and they all wore respirators attached to small
gas vents on their chests. They had external comlinks that made
them look even more like upright insects. Video uplinks ran from
their headsets to their massive rifles. Natsumi walked over to the
one leaning against the wall and picked up his rifle
appreciatively. "Cool," She said. Slinging it over her shoulder,
she said, "Finders keepers, pal." 
     With a sound halfway between a gurgle and a roar, the man,
still oozing blood from the wreckage of his chest, grabbed
Natsumi's ankle. She screamed shrilly. The others made to raise
their guns, but Natsumi beat them to it by slamming his rifle butt
down on his head, hard. He grunted, but held on. Babbling with
terror, Natsumi continued hitting him. 
     "EEEK! <WHAM> Y-you have the r-right <WHAM WHAM WHAM> to
remain silent! <CRACK >" 
     "Ummm.Natsumi-chan?" 
     "Anything you- EEK! -say c-can and will be <THUD THUD> used
against you! <WHAM>" 
     "Natsumi? Natsumi?" 
     "I-if you cannot <WHAM> afford a lawyer, <WHAM WHAM> the 3WA
will provide you with one!" 
     "NATSUMI!!!" 
     Natsumi's head snapped up, blood spattered over her face. She
looked at Sakura who was holding onto her wrist. Her friend pointed
at the battered body Natsumi had been hammering at and said, "I'm
no forensics expert, but I think you got him."  
     She looked down at her accidental victim's head, or rather
where it should have been, which was six inches higher than where
it currently resided, somewhere down in his chest cavity. She put
a hand to her mouth and said, "Oops. I didn't mean to do that. I
just wanted to subdue him." 
     Sakura patted her back and said, "Don't worry. You subdued
him, all right." 
     Kei and Yuri forced themselves to stop staring and examine the
corpses. While Kei admired Sakura's shooting, Yuri examined the
head-set of one of the corpses. She lifted the head of the least
cranially-impaired of the men and hissed through her teeth at what
she found. She motioned for the others to gather around. Holding
up the head, she pointed to the symbol on the rim of the man's
datajack. It was three letters overlapping each other inside a
circle. The letters were B, T and R. Kei swore and said, "BTR
Tac-Int goons. Great, we've gotten involved with a BTR Op. This is
all we need." 
     At the mention of the BTR Sakura and Natsumi paled. "What is
`Tac-Int'?" Sakura asked.  
     Yuri looked up and explained, "Tactics/Intrusion. They're the
BTR's special forces, total killers. They use them when they don't
want humans fighting but can't risk computer failure from a robot.
These guys are monsters in every sense of the word. Take a look at
this." 
     This said, she loosened the straps on the face mask on the
corpse and pulled it loose. At what lay below, Sakura and Natsumi
made retching noises and turned away. The man, if indeed he could
still be called that, had little left of a face. His eyes were
gone, replaced with empty metal sockets. Wires ran from the goggles
directly through ports in his gaping sockets to his brain. His nose
was gone, as was his lower jaw. Instead, a thick tube ran from his
throat, was clipped to the roof of his dead mouth, and ran through
a metal frame that replaced the missing lower mandible into the air
filter attached to his chest. His ears were gone and had been
replaced with secondary sockets, most likely used for attaching to
microphones in the headset. There was a metal plate in his throat
over his jugular with a gaping rectangular slot. Yuri let the human
wreckage fall back with a dull thump. Her eyes were grim and voice
were grim as she said, "They are totally committed killers that
don't have the problematic downfalls of robots, such as computer
failure or weakness to EMP, and with all the benefits of human
life; cheap to maintain, and even cheaper to replace." 
     Sakura gagged again and asked weakly, "But what are they doing
here?" 
     Yuri shook her head. "I don't know. We'll have to find that
out. These guys were here for something, and I'm betting it's down
this passage somewhere. Ready to go ladies? Kei, what are you
doing?" 
     Kei looked up from her task at hand, wrestling one of the men
out of his combination web belt and flak jacket. She grinned and
asked, "Have you seen some of the cool stuff these guys get? It
just isn't fair; all this neat tech and no brains to appreciate it
all." 
      Sakura made a shocked sound. "You can't take that stuff!" 
      Kei went on struggling with a strap and asked, "Why not?
These guys don't need it anymore. And even if they did, I wouldn't
let him keep it." 
     Sakura stared. "But, they're dead! That's disgusting!" 
     Kei shrugged and returned all of her attention to the vest.
"Fine. You can be disgusted, and I'll have fun setting off all of
these remote mines and smart-bombs." 
     The pink-haired agent thought about this for a moment, then
began stripping the vest from one of the other corpses. Once she
and Kei had pulled off a belt each and slipped them on, Yuri rolled
her eyes and said, "If you two ghouls are quite finished, can we
get going?" 
     Almost as an after thought, Kei hefted a rifle and tossed it
to Yuri. When she caught it, she looked at Kei questioningly. "It
sure as hell beats that Electromag." Kei said, "There are extra
clips in his chest flaps."  
     Sakura picked up one of her own, holstering her pistol in the
process, as Kei took the last one, tossing "Mr. Antisocial" into
the loading vehicle. Natsumi laid hers alongside it and hopped into
the driver's seat. "All aboard!" She called. 
     Sakura paled at seeing Natsumi preparing to drive, and started
to say something. Kei and Yuri cheerfully hopped in and looked at
her, waiting for her to get in as well. Sakura sighed and shook her
head ruefully. And her day had been going so well, too. 
     Once they were all in, Natsumi started the engine with an
almost reverent expression. At the engine's throaty rumble, she
smiled blissfully. And slammed the gas pedal to the floor. 
***** 
     As they whizzed down the hall at seemingly ludicrous speeds,
Yuri yelled at the top of her lungs, straining to be heard over the
rush of the wind around them. "Aren't we going a bit fast?!"  
     Natsumi responded only by shaking her head. They whipped past
a flaming wreckage, the vehicle Natsumi had booby-trapped earlier.
As they rounded a corner on three wheels, they spotted another
group of the Tac-Int soldiers manhandling a service vehicle towing
a large crate up the hall towards them. They waved and motioned the
girls closer, mistaking them for their compatriots at that
distance. But after a moment of waiting, they seemed to realize
that something was amiss, and raised their rifles. Natsumi cackled
maniacally and slammed on the brakes as she spun the wheel. Yuri,
Kei and Sakura's screams of terror mixed with the screaming of the
tires as the vehicle turned sideways in the passageway and flipped.
They all dived out just before the vehicle slammed into the one the
Tac-Int people had been using. There was a resounding crash when
the two vehicles collided. 
     Natsumi crawled from under a pile of smoking wreckage and
staggered to her feet, a loopy grin plastered on her face.
Scattered around were pieces of the two loading vehicles and
several crushed Tac-Int soldiers. "That was cool." She remarked to
anyone who might have cared. 
     It had been an especially exciting crash. The idea to ram them
that way had been absolutely divinely inspired. For a few moments
Natsumi thrilled over the memory of the crash. But reality
reinserted itself in the form of a Tac-Int soldier with a mangled
leg punching her in the back, hard. Natsumi flew three feet and
slammed into the wall painfully. She gasped and turned around. The
black-clad thing made a husky growling sound and put his right hand
to his left wrist. Natsumi looked around, realizing she had dropped
the nifty rifle she had picked up, and fumbled for her pistol. The
soldier hooked his middle finger through a ring in the wrist of his
left gauntlet and pulled away. With a faint buzzing, a gleaming
wire attached to the ring and glove unraveled out, making a
wicked-looking garrotte wire. Natsumi cursed and continued
struggling with the clasp on her holster. He advanced on Natsumi
slowly, dragging his crushed leg. 
     As he lunged at her with the wire, Natsumi screamed and yanked
her gun free just in time to bring it up in front of her face. The
soldier's wire coiled around the barrel of her gun as he lunged for
her throat. In swift succession, Natsumi drove an inner-heel kick
into his kneecap on his wounded leg, followed swiftly by a knee to
his chest when he staggered. He reeled back, pulling on his wire
as he did. There was a faint scraping sound as the wire neatly cut
the Electromag's barrel in two. Natsumi, still rather woozy,
shrieked in alarm as she lost her balance and sat down hard. The
soldier limped towards her. In desperation, Natsumi grabbed around
for something to hit him with. She felt something made of cold
metal encounter her hand. She grabbed it, closed her eyes and swung
it with a scream. 
     She opened her eyes when no attack came. She heard a faint
gurgle. She looked up. The thing she had swung was the rifle, which
had been crushed between the two colliding vehicles. Its barrel had
been broken in half, clipped into a crudely formed point, which was
now imbedded in the chest of the soldier and was protruding from
his back. She dropped the ruined rifle, which fell to the ground
accompanied by the dead soldier. "Sakura!" Natsumi called her
friend's name and staggered off to find her. 
     The two friends found each other further down the hall, where
the other three were looking for Natsumi. When Natsumi staggered
into view, Sakura dropped her purloined rifle and ran to her. As
she hugged her battered friend, she exclaimed, "What happened to
you?! We looked all over for you, you jerk! I was so scared!" 
     Kei and Yuri came up, both looking rather battered and burnt.
Yuri smiled kindly as she smacked Natsumi across the back of her
head. At her pained exclamation, she said, "If you ever think of
pulling a move like that again, do two things first: warn us, and
make sure your will is written out." 
     So reminded, Sakura smacked Natsumi across the head as well.
She ignored her friend's whine and said, "I can't believe you
pulled a move like that! What were you thinking?" 
     Natsumi rubbed her head and muttered, "I'm not sure. All these
blows to the head have damaged my short-term memory."  
     Sakura ignored her and turned to Kei and Yuri. "So, what was
it they were trying to run off with?" 
     Kei shook her head. "We haven't checked yet. Let's go take a
look." 
     They went back to the massive steel crate and perused the
complex electronic lock. Finally, after much deliberation, Kei said
succinctly, "Fuck it." And blasted the lock off with Mr.
Antisocial, which she had retrieved from the wreckage of the
loading vehicle. 
     This done, they pulled the lid open and regarded its contents.
In neat stacks, there were dozens upon dozens of metal cryovac
containers, two feet across and three feet long. Yuri tapped the
transparency button on one of them. All four of them held their
breath as the tinted viewing window lightened, revealing.a book.
The book was three hands high and one and a half wide, with a
carved wooden cover, darkened with age. Strange writing sprawled
across the front cover in an odd, looping language. Sakura gasped.
"This is Old Earthian Arabic!" 
     Kei hit the transparency buttons on several more of the
containers. "They're all books!" She exclaimed. 
     Each container did indeed hold a book, all of them in strange
foreign tongues, many of them with covers made of strange
materials. One of them Kei swore was made of human skin, much to
the disgust of the others. Once all of the cases had been checked
and re-darkened, the four of them sat on the floor leaning against
it and looked out through the clear wall at the shimmering school
of fish, undisturbed by the recent violence inside the underwater
tubes. Finally, Natsumi looked at Kei and Yuri. "So now what?" 
     Kei sighed and looked at Yuri for an answer. Yuri shrugged and
said, "We go topside to wait for our damn late backup and report
to Foley. Not much more we can do."  
     Sakura nodded and asked, "What about these books?" 
     Yuri answered, "We just load them up on the transport and."
She trailed off as she remembered a fairly important fact. She,
Kei, and Sakura looked over at the ruined loading vehicles and the
scattered corpses of the Tac-Int soldiers. They wordlessly turned
and stared at Natsumi. At their looks, she slapped the floor with
her hands and wailed, "I'm sorry!"  
***** 
     Much later, while a group of 3WA forensics technicians perused
the scene, the four girls stood talking with the Chief Inspector,
Dan Garza, and Director Foley, who had come in person at the terse
description of the situation Yuri had given him. After handing over
the disks from the security cameras, Inspector Garza had quickly
loaded them into a Hand-Vid. The six of them crowded around it,
watching the black ship land. While they watched, the hatch opened
and spit out a knot of the Tac-Int killers. They had spread out,
sniping down security guards and technicians alike. The interesting
part was that when the last ones came out, a man with long black
hair stepped out as well, and was apparently giving orders to the
soldiers. For the better part of the tape, he kept his back to the
camera. For a few frames, he stood in profile, giving them a decent
look at him. He had shoulder-length black hair and wore chromed
glasses and a permanent sneer. Yuri and Kei shook their heads when
asked if they recognized him. They watched as the man returned to
the black ship. When Garza paused it, Kei pounded her hand into her
palm and cursed. "I can't believe we didn't think to check inside
that ship!" 
     When they had returned to the surface, the four of them had
found that the ship was gone. Kei had spent at least ten minutes
kicking things and cursing over this fact. Natsumi had joined her
once she realized she would never get a chance to fly the ship. 
     Foley motioned for the four of them to come with him off to
one side. Once they were gathered around him, he said in a low
tone, "Okay, look. I take it you didn't get a chance to look at
your mission disk." They all shook their heads. He went on, "That's
fine. I'm officially reassigning you to this. It turns out that
those books were the collection of one Nakamura Shuichi, an
antiquities collector who died about sixty years ago. These books
had been lost when he was transporting them while they were being
transported to his new home. The ship apparently crash-landed here.
According to the aqualogy's records, the ship's wreckage was found
a few miles away from here, in a silt pit. The important part is
that he left them to a museum that the 3WA has a controlling
interest in. I don't know how or why, but the BTR wants these books
too. They're sending an official out here to seize them. Aside from
the fact that I have a deep and meaningful loathing for all things
of the BTR, I have a feeling these books are important." 
     His eyes grew serious, "The only thing is, if I admit we have
them, the BTR can exert all kinds of political pressure on me to
hand them over. Instead, I want you girls to keep an eye on them
for me until we can find somewhere to put them. I know you can
protect them, so that's why I ask this. And this isn't an order,
by the way. It's a request." 
     Kei and Yuri looked at each other. Kei shrugged and nodded.
Yuri looked at Foley and said, "We'll take them. But now you owe
us."  
     Foley smiled and answered, "Good, good. I took the precaution
of having them loaded on you ship in advance." 
     Before Kei or Yuri could say anything, Inspector Garza stepped
up and said quietly, "Director Foley, the BTR's representative is
here." 
     Foley scowled and turned as the BTR's man approached. He was
fat and short, almost as short as Foley, and had a bald spot and
spectacles. He sweated constantly and wiped his face with a limp
hanky as he strode up. Foley nodded and said, "Mr. Tate." The man
nodded briefly and said, "I'll take those books now, Director
Foley." 
     Foley gave him a blank look and said, "What books? This is an
aqualogy Mr. Tate, not a library." 
     Tate smirked and answered, "Don't play dumb, Foley. You're far
too clever to play the idiot. I know you found some belongings of
the BTR's, and I'm here to collect them." 
     Foley nodded and pointed to the four girls, who were watching
curiously. "Talk to Agents Kei, Yuri, Sakura and Natsumi. They were
the first on the scene, so they know the most." He gave Kei and
Yuri a significant look and walked away. 
     Sakura and Natsumi followed Kei and Yuri over to the man, who
gave them a condescending look as he said, "Okay girls, where are
those books? Don't bother lying to me, because I'll know." 
     Yuri smiled vacantly and said in an airy tone, "Books? I
didn't see any books." Kei giggled and added breathily, "We don't
like books. They make our heads hurt. Right Sakura?"  
     Sakura twirled her hair around one finger and stared off into
space as she said, "What? I don't get it." Natsumi just looked at
them all and wondered what the hell was going on, honestly
confused. Ironically, she blended right in with the other girls.

     Tate blew his nose into his hanky and said, "Yes, well as
ready I am to believe that you girls are as vapid as you are
acting, I know you have the books. Look, those books are legally
the property of the BTR. I have the documentation right here!" 
     Tate did not notice that Kei had moved behind him so that the
four girls ringed him. Kei cracked her knuckles and asked, "Do you
want me to do it, Yuri?" 
     Yuri smiled and flexed her own fingers. "No, no.please, allow
me."  
     This said, she grabbed his briefcase with one hand and punched
him hard in the stomach. Tate wheezed and staggered. Yuri handed
the briefcase to Sakura. The pink-haired girl grinned evilly. The
others looked away in sympathetic pain as she hit the tubby man
over the head a number of times with his briefcase, saying, "Oh,
vapid am I?!" She wordlessly handed the briefcase to Kei, who
tossed it into the water off the side of the dock. Tate gasped, "My
briefcase!" Kei smiled sweetly and said, "Bye-bye!" With a little
wave she kicked him hard in the rear, sending him over the side
into the water. Natsumi looked around confusedly. "What's going on
here?" She whined. 
     As the four of them walked away, Natsumi still trying to
puzzle out why they punted the fat little man into the water, a
technician ran up and stared at Tate thrashing in the water. "What
the hell happened to him?" Kei, Yuri an Sakura chorused, "He
tripped!" 
***** 
     As they stood at the base of the hatch of the Lovely Angel,
the four girls smiled at each other and shook hands. Kei, shaking
Sakura's hand, said, "I must say, you did impress me with your
shooting. I haven't seen that good of shooting from anyone but,
well, me!" 
     While Sakura tried not to roll her eyes as she thanked Kei for
the compliment, Yuri said to both of them, "Seriously. Now that
we've seen you in action, I think we'll get along. I hope you're
willing to stay with us for the whole mission." 
     Sakura and Natsumi linked arms and nodded happily, bruised,
tired, but exultant. They were real 3WA troubleshooters. The four
girls walked up the causeway onto the waiting ship. As they
entered, Kei hastily added, "The Kei Is God rule is still in
effect, though!" 
     Foley watched the Lovely Angel take off. He smiled as he
cupped his hand around a match and lit a cigarette. As the ship
flew off, a dripping wet Tate came up and stood with Foley. He
glared at him and rubbed his head. "Was that performance really
necessary?" 
     Foley chuckled and answered, "There was no other way I could
think of to guarantee they'd take those books. Those ones are the
only troubleshooters I have good enough and dumb enough to send to
stop the Eden Project. If they went in knowing what they were up
against, they would never do it, and it would get pretty messy for
me too. No, this was the only way." 
     Tate rubbed his head again and said, "I just hope you know
what you're doing." Once he had walked away, Foley muttered, "So
do I. God damn it, so do I." This said, he relished his cigarette
and watched the Lovely Angels fly off into the setting sun. 
 
Continued in Cycle Three