Seeing Stars
By Jason Ulloa
Original story by Moonsong
Continued with her permission.


Chapter 34

Diane dropped her bags and stretched. That flight was so damn LONG! And boring, too. She 
didn't like being cramped up for that long. However, being able to rest her head on Jack's 
shoulder for a good deal of the flight.... That made it a whole lot more acceptable. And 
feeling him lean back against her....

It was a good thing Jack was using the restroom. She didn't want to see her grinning like 
an idiot. She was probably blushing, too.

She shook her head and picked up her things, wondering how in the world she had started to 
develop feelings for the cop turned P.I. Not that she didn't think that he was a great guy 
or anything, it was just that she didn't have time for this. She had to find Hotaru and 
Ryoku. Her love life was something she could deal with later, after she did what she had to 
do.

Diane glanced around, looking for Jack. She didn't think that it would take him this long to 
use the restroom, unless he REALLY wasn't feeling well.

Oh, wait. There he was. He was on one of the pay phones, probably calling Tira to see how 
she was doing. He had told her about what she had discovered before she was shot; that the 
seven Nijizuishou crystals could be used to develop some sort of laser superweapon of some 
sort. She'd have to report that to Artie, but she'd need some proof first. Perhaps if that 
ex-hacker friend of Christy's managed to restore that corrupted file she brought to him, 
then she'd have the proof she'd need.

Jack hung up the phone, picked up his suitcases, and headed over to join her. "Tira says 
hi," he said as she fell into step beside him. "Anyway, she gave me the name of the museum 
that the Violet Nijizuishou crystal is displayed in."

Diane nodded. "As soon as we get our hotel room, we can start making a plan."

"We're not really going to steal the crystal, are we?"

"I hope not, Jack, but if it comes down to it-"

"Yeah, I know," he sighed reluctantly. "Well, if it does come down to it, then I'll be more 
than happy to be Clyde to your Bonnie," he added with a sly grin as they left the airport.

"Jack, they were bank robbers, not jewel theives," she replied with an amused shake of her 
head.

"So?" he asked with a slight shrug as he flagged a cab. "That wasn't what I was referring 
to."

"Oh? So, what were you referring to?" she asked, raising an eyebrow inquisitively.

Jack merely smirked as a taxi came to a stop in front of them. "Think about it," he replied 
and opened the passenger door for her. After Jack put all the luggage in the trunk and 
climbed into the other side of the taxi, she still hadn't guessed what he meant by that last 
remark.

            **********************************************

Christy parked her car next to the curb and got out of her car, checking the address again 
to make sure. Yes, this was 7532 Herriwood St. This was the right place.

She looked over the exterior of the house as she approached the front. It was just an 
average-looking, one-story house, which sort of suprised her, considering the amount of 
money that her friend made. The huge black S.U.V. in the driveway made more sense, though.

Once she reached the front door, she reached up and pressed the doorbell. A few moments 
later, she could hear a slight buzzing sound coming from a small panel to her right. Upon 
closer inspection, it looked more like an intercom speaker.

"Come on in, Christy," Shingo's voice said from the intercom. "I'm in the back working on 
something very important, so make yourself at home. Just turn the knob; the door should be 
open now."

She turned the doorknob, finding that the door was indeed open now. After she stepped 
inside, the door swung closed behind her and clicked. Also, the soft buzzing sound had 
ceased.

Curious, she decided to take a quick tour of the place. The living room didn't seem out of 
the ordinary, however, she did become imediately jealous of the huge 77' wide-screen TV 
sitting at the far end of the room. It had a built-in VCR and DVD player, too. Not to 
mention the killer surround sound system that he had set up as well....

Okay, now she could begin to understand why he didn't live in a more expensive house. Idly, 
she began to wonder how large his movie library was. Had to be huge for a setup like this.

"Normally, people use three or five speakers for surround sound," Shingo's voice said from 
behind. "The five speaker system usually has a forward left and right, a rear left and 
right, and a center speaker.

"I like to use eight speakers," he continued as he walked up next to Christy and grinned 
rougishly. "One for each direction. Total sound immersion. Kinda like in an IMAX theater, 
only done with sound instead of visuals. Try watching one of your favorite scary movies with 
this system. I can almost guarantee that you'll wet your pants the first time you experience 
it."

"It's been a while, Shingo," Christy said as she glanced toward her friend and former 
teacher. He was wearing an open white shirt with a white undershirt, and light gray slacks 
with a black belt and silver buckle. His light brown hair fell down in short bangs that 
curved toward his brown eyes. A short, thin pony-tail was starting to reach down past his 
shoulder blades. "I see you've changed your look," she commented after giving him an 
appraising look.

"A lot has changed since I went legit, Christy," he replied. "It only seemed appropriate. 
You like?"

"Not bad," she stated. "I think you look better with short hair, though."

He shrugged. "I only wanted to try out something different," he admitted. "Anyway, you said 
you had something important you wanted to ask me about. Drink?" He turned to leave.

"Sure, I'll take whatever you're having. And yeah, I need to ask you a favor."

"A favor?" Shingo called out from the kitchen. "What kind of favor?"

"A friend of mine wants to buy your services."

"My... services," he said dubiously as he stepped back into the living room. "I take it that 
since this person is going through you to procure my... services, that this isn't about a 
CNVA, is it?"

"No, she doesn't need a vulnerability assessment, but it's not like what you're probably 
thinking, either," she told him quickly as she produced a Zip disk. "She just wants you to 
see if you can restore a corrupted file."

"Oh," he said as he tossed her a beer. "Your favorite brand, if I remember correctly."

She glanced down at the can and smiled. "Yeah, that's it, all right. You remembered."

He barked a laugh. "I should. You used to down those almost as much as my favoite sake."

"Do you happen to have any?"

"I wisely drank the rest when you called to say you wanted to visit."

Christy grabbed a cushion from the couch in front of her and threw it at him. "You dick," 
she said in mock anger as she drank some of her beer. "Anyway, do you think you can do it?"

"Let me see the disk."

She handed him the disk. "So, you'll do it?"

"Depends on how difficult it is," he replied. "After all, it's not easy to restore a 
corrupted file. Most times, it's all but impossible. That's why most people don't do it or 
try to figure out how to do it. If I can't do it, I can't do it. However, if I can do it, 
then I'll figure out how much to charge this friend of yours. Come with me."

She nodded. "All right."

Shingo led Christy back toward the room he called his 'home office'. She could see a small 
black and white monitor sitting to one side of the room displaying whatever was currently 
at his front door. Obviously, that was how he knew she was at the door. Next to the monitor 
was a similar intercom speaker, only there was a second button there. That probably 
controlled the locking mechanism, which allowed him to remotely unlock his door.

Sitting beside the monitor was Shingo's pride and joy. The computer was in a server-type 
case, with a polished black finish to it. She didn't know the specs of his computer, but 
knowing him, she could guess what was under the hood, so to speak. Shingo popped the disk 
into his computer, ran a quick virus scan, then opened up the file in question.

"Hmm... interesting," Shingo said as he went through the file.

"What?"

"What do you know about trojans, Christy?" he said as he turned from his computer.

"Trojans? Like Trojan horses?" she repeated. "They're viruses that act as programs, and 
infect target computers whenever they are run. However, not all trojans can be classified 
as viruses, as viruses are malicious code that is capable of self-replication. Most trojans 
do not self-replicate, but merely act as a carrier with a virus payload."

Shingo nodded. "And time-bombs?"

"Time-bombs are viruses that are set to trigger at a specified event, like a certain time, 
or whenever a certain event occurs."

Shingo nodded again, then pointed at a string of code. "Look here. See anything strange?"

Christy frowned and shook her head. "Not that I can see."

"It's viral code."

"A virus?" she said, blinking in shock. "But, didn't you just run a virus scan on it?"

"I did," he confirmed. "Oh, don't worry. This is only a small portion of viral code. It in 
itself is harmless unless it is with the rest of the viral code."

"How do you know that that's part of a virus?" she asked, perplexed.

"I've written a virus or two, myself. I know what to look for." He tapped another string. 
"Here, though." Another tap. "And here." Another tap." And here. It's almost like there're 
multiple viral infections in this file, except that according to what I can discern, it's all 
one virus."

Christy blinked. "ONE virus?"

"It's a brilliant piece of work," he stated, grinning childishly. "It looks like a trojan, 
but it's not, so I'd guess that it's polymorphic in nature. I think that it also has 
time-bomb properties, as it seems to have started whenever this file was downloaded. The 
main thing about this virus is that it looks like it was tailor-made for a specific purpose 
beyond the simple worm-infections or delete-all-executables viruses that we've come to know 
and love."

"Can you tell what that purpose is?"

Shingo frowned in concentration as he looked through the code some more. "I'm not sure, but 
I think I can hazard a guess and say that it was made to delete this specific file if anyone 
had ever downloaded it." He leaned back in his seat and looked back at Christy, his vision 
of her upside-down as he hung his head over the top of the chair. "Here's the scenario as 
far as I can see:

"The victim host purposely infected this file with a virus specially-made to delete any 
copies of itself should any unauthorized people - like us, for example - should try and get 
ahold of it. Your friend hacks into their system, finds the file, downloads it, and gets 
out. All seems normal. Then, your friend tries to access the file. I can safely assume that 
there's a password on this file that will deactivate the virus for anyone authorized to view 
and work on it, otherwise, the virus activates and the file goes poof. No more file.

"Now here," he added, sitting back up and pointing at a small string of code that had 
several gaps in it. "There's something else I'm missing that I'm sure is important. I know 
that this is also part of the viral code, but it's gone. Either it got deleted along with 
the original host - since this is only a temp file - or it executed its function already, so 
there was no need to copy itself." He stopped when he heard Christy suddenly gasp behind 
him. "What is it?"

"You don't think...," she began, her expression obviously worried. "Could that piece of code 
possibly have been a trace function?"

Now it was Shingo's turn to look surprised as he whirled back to the computer monitor. "I 
think... you might be right," he finished quietly, then turned back to look at her. "Now, 
why do you look like you're afraid of something? So, it's a trace function. A smart person 
would've bounced their signal before hacking into a system, so it's not like they'll find 
'em right away. You know that." He smirked as he started to laugh. "What, you think that if 
they find your friend that they'll hire a hitman or something?"

Christy blinked. Actually, that was exactly what she was thinking. She was about to say so 
when his laughter slowly died away.

"You're not laughing, Christy," he said as his smile began to fade as well. "Tell me that 
you don't believe that they'd actually send an assassin after your friend."

"N-no, of course not," she said with a slight stammer in her voice. "Ridiculous."

"You always did make a horrible liar when it really counts, Christy," he sighed as he 
reached for his beer. "So, your friend could quite possibly have someone gunning for them." 
He took a long swallow and set the can down again. "Well, maybe we should see why." He 
turned back to the computer screen and started to run a few programs.

"You're going to do it?" she asked. "So, what're you going to charge for this, Shingo?"

He glanced back over his shoulder at her and grinned childishly once again. "Depends on how 
much fun I have."

            **********************************************

He wasn't certain that it would work, but for her sake, he was going to try.

Every day at certain intervals - he couldn't tell what time it was since they took his watch 
along with the rest of his clothes - they served them their breakfast, lunch, and dinner. 
However, they had to open the heavy metal doors in order to feed them and that meant that 
they had to have the keys on them in order to open the doors. Three meals, three 
opportunities for escape.

As far as he could tell, it might be some time around 5pm since the daylight was beginning 
to wane. It was nearing time for their third and final feeding for the day. He hoped that it 
would be something more substantial than just bread and water, but he knew that his hoping 
was ultimately futile. It seemed that their jailors had watched one to many old prison 
movies.

"Hotaru-chan?" he called out as he tapped on the wall.

"Ryo-chan?" she called back, her voice sounding a bit weaker than usual.

"Are you all right, Hotaru-chan?" he asked worriedly.

There was a slight pause before she answered. "I don't feel so good, Ryo-chan. I'm starting 
to feel a little weak, like how I used to feel when I was little."

He nodded, frowning. She told him about how she used to be frail as a little girl and how 
she had worked to strengthen herself to the point were she had the strength of an average 
girl her age. He admired her for that, but now, from the sound of it, she was slowly 
starting to decline. He didn't want all those years of hard work to fade away because some 
bastard kidnapped her and locked her up. It was all the more reason for him to get them out 
of here. Now.

"Hotaru-chan, I'm gonna try and break us out of here. Tonight."

"Tonight?" she gasped, surprised. "How? We don't even know where we are!"

He sighed in frustration. "I know, but it's either waste away here until something happens, 
or take our chances and hopefully find our way to freedom. We're getting out of here 
tonight, Hotaru-chan. I promise you."

There was another pause. "All right, Ryo-chan. I trust you."

Ryoku listened carefully. Yes, there he was, grumbling about having to bring them their 
food, just like always. There was the sound of Hotaru's cell being unlocked first, and of 
her tray being set on the floor along with her metal cup of water. The was door closed and 
locked. His turn was next.

Now was his time to strike.

The door was unlocked and the door opened. He held his hand up to guard his eyes against the 
bright fluorescent light that flooded into the room as the man entered the room. He could 
almost make out the snarl that the man had on his face as he all but slammed his food tray 
on the floor along with his cup, almost splashing the water out of it.

"Here's your food, punk," Zed growled irritably. "Take it before I decide you don't want it."

Ryoku almost blinked in surprise. This was different. He never said anything to him before; 
he usually just put his stuff on the floor and left. Sure, he gave him an angry glare every 
now and then, but that was it. He wouldn't put it past the man to actually take back his 
food and let him starve. He quickly reached out for the food.

That was when Zed kicked him in the chin.

"Damn, that felt good," he crowed as he watched Ryoku hit the ground beside his tray. He 
hoped that broke his jaw, or at least loosened a few teeth. If he was lucky, that little 
bastard might've bit off a small piece of his tongue.

Yeah, right. He could only wish.

He turned back around and started for the door. "I should've done that days ago," he said 
smugly. "It's not like you can complain about it to anyone. After all, I'm the only one who 
brings you your food." He began to laugh as he started to close the door.

Before the door could close all the way, Ryoku launched himself forward and tackled Zed into 
the wall outside of his cell. The attack surprised him enough that Ryoku was able to follow 
up his attack with a couple of disabling strikes, one to the throat and one to the groin in 
quick succession, which dropped the blonde man to his knees. A quick roundhouse kick to the 
base of his neck was enough to knock him to the floor, unconscious. However, to be safe, he 
kicked him in the side a couple of times, just to make sure that he was out cold.

A quick search of Zed's body revealed that he kept the cell keys in his right trouser 
pocket. With a smug grin, he grabbed the keys and rushed over to Hotaru's cell. 
"Hotaru-chan, we're getting out of here!" he called out as he unlocked the door and swung it 
wide open.

As soon as he opened the door, he paused at the sight of her. She was indeed dressed only in 
her underwear as he had last seen her, but she looked pale as if a good deal of her life had 
drained away from her.

"Hello, beautiful," he said gently as he stepped into the cell and helped her to her feet.

"Ryo-chan!" she said as she threw her arms around him in a warm embrace. "How-?"

He cut off her question with a quick kiss. "It doesn't matter," he told her as he started to 
lead her out of her cell. "Let's just get out of here." He paused outside the cell as he 
thought of something. "Wait." He went back into his cell and came back out with his bread, 
then did the same with her bread. "Here," he said as he handed her both loaves. "I think you 
need them more than I do." She nodded and started to eat one as he quickly closed the two 
cell doors. No sense in leaving an obvious sign of their escape. "Now, let's go. The sooner 
we get out of here, the sooner we can find some help."

            **********************************************

"Sir, the two prisoners have-"

"Yes, I know," Mel interrupted dismissively. "I have security monitors up here, too." He 
spun his chair around toward his desk and opened one of the drawers on his left.

"We can have a couple of guards dispatched and have them in hand within minutes," the voice 
reported from the phone. It was set on speaker phone at the moment.

"Don't bother," he replied as he sat back up, bringing out a semi-automatic gun and placing 
it on his desk with a cold grin. "In fact, let them think that we haven't noticed. I'll be 
on my radio, so keep me informed as to where they're headed.

"I'll be going to bring them in personally."

"Yes, sir."

He stood up, sticking his gun into a holster around his left shoulder, and grabbed the 
two-way radio sitting in its battery charger. He turned it on and clipped it to his belt.

"One more thing."

"Yes, sir?"

"Send someone to go wake up Blondie."

"Yes, sir."

            **********************************************

Ryoku wasn't the type of person to look a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak, but for some 
reason, the ease of his escape was putting him on edge. He kept expecting an ambush around 
every turn, or for a pack of guards to suddenly come running after them. So far, nothing. 
No indication that they even knew that they were gone. Hopefully, that blonde man was still 
out cold. However, he wouldn't remain unconscious forever. The moment he woke up, they would 
sic the hounds on them. They had no time to waste.

Hotaru had run out of breath quickly. She wasn't in any condition to run for such a 
prolonged length of time, so for the most part, he carried her in his arms as he ran. 
However, he wasn't in very good shape himself after living for over a week on nothing but 
bread and water, so they were currently resting.

He chose this place to hide in particular since this was near a changing room. Even though 
the only articles of clothing there were over-sized - Hotaru identified them as clean room 
outfits, she said that she had worn them on the occasions when she went to visit her father 
while he was working in the clean room - it was better than wearing almost nothing.

"Do you think you can run again?" he asked as he turned toward his girlfriend.

"As long as we don't use these shoes," she replied as she held a pair of clean room shoes 
in front of her. "I'd certainly trip and fall if I had to run in these."

"For now, we'll remain barefoot," he confirmed. "The shoes are for outside. Ready?"

She nodded as she reached out to take his hand. "I'm ready."

"Let's go," he said as they began to run again.

Just as before, there were no signs of pursuit. No alarms. Nothing at all. Ryoku was almost 
certain that the blonde man had woken up by now, but the alarms remained silent. He was 
growing more and more apprehensive with each passing moment, but there was nothing for them 
to do but press forward.

When they had stopped in that changing room, Ryoku had studied a map displaying the primary 
and secondary fire escape routes. They were following the primary route toward what he hoped 
to be the fastest way out of the building. Right now, they were heading toward the final 
stretch of hallway which would lead right to the exit. He was fully expecting an ambush just 
as they reached the door and was mentally preparing himself for it.

They were halfway there. No signs of ambush.

One quarter of the way there. No ambush.

Fifty meters. No ambush.

His hand was reaching out for the bar. Once he pushed down on it and push forward on the 
door, they were free.

There was no signs of ambush or pursuit.

Could it be? Did they really make it?

His mind was screaming that there was something wrong, but he didn't care. They were free.

He shoved down on the bar and pushed the door open.

There was still some daylight left, even though the sun had finally set over the horizon. 
The Moon was visible in the sky above them, although the sky wasn't dark enough yet for any 
stars to be visible. A dry, arid breeze blew across the desolate landscape as Ryoku and 
Hotaru stared in overwhelming defeat.

They were in the middle of nowhere.

"Over a hundred miles of desert in every direction," a voice said from behind them. The two 
spun around to see the silver-haired man leaning against the building with a gun pointed at 
them. "The Mojave Desert, to be exact," he continued as he straightened and started to walk 
toward them.

"The Mojave...," Ryoku whispered in disbelief.

Mel smirked as lowered his gun. "I'll tell you what. You want to escape? Go right ahead." 
He placed his gun back in his holster and spread his arms out to his sides. "I won't even 
stop you. In fact, I'll even help you by telling you exactly where the closest city is." He 
raised an eyebrow expectantly. "Do you want me to tell you where that is?"

"Where is it?" Hotaru asked hopefully.

"In that direction," Mel said, jerking a thumb in a direction behind him. "One hundred and 
twelve miles due south-southwest is the city of Blythe."

"One hundred and twelve miles?!?" Hotaru gasped.

"Yes, and in desert country, too," Mel added as an afterthought. "It's quite a long walk, 
you know. It'd take days. I don't think you'd last for too long without any food or water. 
If you're still that determined to escape, you're more than welcome to try, but I don't 
expect either of you would survive the attempt."

"So, it's either the desert, or back to our cells, is it?" he spat angrily. "After the way 
you treated us, I'm not so sure why I should even contemplate going back."

"What, negotiating for better living environments, are we?" Mel asked, amused. "Very well. 
I'm not totally heartless. I think I have an idea of what you want. However, it's going to 
cost you. Nothing's free, you know." He paused long enough to smile maliciously. "No pun 
intended. Will you accept it?"

"I don't have much choice, do I?" Ryoku muttered as he glanced toward Hotaru. There were 
tears in her eyes, but she nodded her agreement. "Very well. As long as you don't hurt 
Hotaru-chan, I accept. We'll surrender."

"I knew you would," the silver-haired man said smugly. "Now then, let's get going." He 
raised his right hand and snapped his fingers. Instantly, several guards hurried forward and 
grabbed both teenagers by their arms. Behind the group of guards, the blonde man followed, 
glaring heatedly at Ryoku as he approached him.

"You...," he snarled as he drew back and prepared to punch him in the face as hard as he 
could.

"Zed," Mel called out sharply. The blonde man hesitated, but finally dropped his fist. "Not 
now. We have to bring our prisoners back into the compound first."

Zed blinked, then grinned. "You mean...?"

Mel turned to address the head guard. "Take them to the equipment room. I'll be joining you 
shortly." As the guard nodded his acknowledgement, Mel turned toward Ryoku and grinned 
maliciously again. "Remember when I said that it would cost you? Your first installment 
begins now. Consider it... punishment for attempting to escape. And don't worry; as 
promised, I won't hurt her."

As the guards took the two teenagers away, Mel's parting words chilled Ryoku to the bone.

"Of course, I can't make the same guarantee for Blondie. He never promised anything."

            **********************************************

"All right, that'll do it for today," Amy announced. "Good job everyone. We'll pick it up 
same time tomorrow."

"Ah, and so ends another day," G.Q. said as he walked up behind Amy. "We're getting that 
much closer to the end." He paused as he gave her a considering glance. "Tell me, will you 
be glad when this movie is over?"

Amy sighed and slumped back in her chair. "G.Q., I think any director would tell you that 
they would be more than happy if their projects finish early."

He chuckled. "Yes, that's true. But I wasn't talking about that." He glanced over to where 
Serena and Darien were talking as they left the building.

"Oh, those two," she said as she understood what her friend was getting at. "In a way, I'll 
be sorry to see this movie completed. It's fun in its own way, watching those two act 
together. I can hardly wait to see those two on screen together. I have such a good feeling 
about those two, that I wouldn't be surprised if people started clamoring for a sequel."

G.Q. nodded quietly and turned to leave. "Oh, before I forget, I need to warn you about 
something."

"What is it?" Amy asked curiously.

"Make sure no one tells Serena about this, but I heard that HE's back in the States," he 
said as he left. "He's in California, the L.A. area, to be specific. It almost seems like 
he's come back to see her...."

"He? Who's...." She trailed off as she suddenly realized whom he was referring to. But, she 
thought that he had gone to Europe with that other woman. Why was he back here all of a 
sudden? Did he come back for Serena? Maybe she should let Darien know, at least. She looked 
over to where Serena and Darien were talking earlier and saw that they had both left 
already. Too late.

"Well, if he is back for Serena, he's in for a surprise," she said with a hint of 
satisfaction in her voice.

            **********************************************

Darien had some things to take care of at home, so Serena had the night to herself. She 
would've invited Tanya over, but she was on a date. One of the grips had caught her eye, so 
she decided to see if he was as interesting as she hoped he was.

Not wanting to spend the entire night home alone, and not particularly caring to cook 
anything for herself since she had given her cook the night off yesterday, she decided on 
going out to one of her favorite night clubs for a while, just for some atmosphere. And a 
few drinks, of course.

There were two reasons she loved this night club. One of the main reasons was because she 
loved the way the club was set up. It seemed like the kind of club you'd see in old black 
and white gangster or film noir movies. Soft red velvet carpet was everywhere except the 
polished dance floor up at the front. Farther back, there was the platform stairs where the 
club's singers would perform. The band - a respectable 30-piece jazz ensemble - had their 
section near the dance floor. The place was classy, so classy that you had to be in formal 
or semi-formal dress in order to get in. If you were wearing tennis shoes or jeans, you 
couldn't get in. Period.

And the other reason was because of the club's name. The Silver Moon. Call her narcissistic, 
but how could she not love a night club with the same name as her? And because of her 
current role, it now made even more sense.

Diane Silver. Serena Moon. The Silver Moon.

Poetic.

...sorta.

No matter what the reason, she loved this place. She would have to bring Darien here one of 
these days. She had a feeling that he'd love it here, too. Besides, there was that nice 
dance floor out there and she was just dying to use it with him.

That's it. He was coming with her tomorrow, no buts about it.

"Miss Moon, how nice to see you again!" a waiter said as he came up to her table. "It has 
been way too long since you last graced us with your beautiful presence."

"And it's been way too long since I've been subjected to your incredible sucking-up skills, 
Vince," she replied with a laugh. "So, how's Meredith?"

"She's fine," he replied with a smile. "She's expecting now."

Serena's eyes widened in delighted surprise. "She is? You lucky bastard. How far along is 
she?"

"Three months," he replied proudly. "And I still have you to thank for introducing me to 
Meri. Why, if it wasn't for you-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she cut him off, waving her hand dismissively. "Like I haven't heard it 
from you before. Come on, quit with the melodramatics, all right?"

Vince grinned. "As you wish, Miss Moon," he replied with a snooty air. "Would the lady care 
for a list of wines, or would you care for the usual?"

"The usual, Vince," she replied with a grin. "Oh, and if you don't stop calling me 'Miss 
Moon', I'm gonna start calling you 'Vincent'. And I know how you dislike that name."

"Aw, you're no fun at all, Serena," Vince lamented as he turned to leave. "I'll be back with 
your drink shortly."

"Thanks, Vince," she called back to him as she leaned back in her seat. Tanya wasn't the 
only one who could play matchmaker.

After Vince came back with her drink, she sat back and listened to the singer perform. It 
had been a long time since she had been here last. Almost a year, at least. It was probably 
because she used to come here so often with him before he left her. After that, she couldn't 
really enjoy herself here without thinking about him. Even now, she was thinking about him. 
Well, she had someone else now. Someone who truly loved her. Besides, it wasn't like she 
was going to see him again.

"You're looking even more beautiful than I last saw you, Serena," a familiar voice said 
behind her. "I never realized such a thing was possible."

Serena almost choked on her drink. 'That voice....' She turned in her seat and saw the face 
of someone who she never expected to see again.

"Do you mind if I join you?" he asked as he moved toward an empty seat at her table and sat 
down with a smile.

"Seiya???"

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                              To Chapter 35

            **********************************************

Author's Note: He's BAAAAaaaaack! ^_^ Yes, it's the return of Seiya(well, not really a 
return, since this is his first appearance, but... oh, you know what I mean). And guess 
what? I've broken my old record and made THIS my longest chapter to date! Well, only by a 
few bytes, but still.... Anyway, I've brought Jack and Diane(yes, I have noticed the 
similarity to the John Mellancamp song) to Sydney earlier than I planned, but for good 
reason. Also, things are starting to come together in the movie storyline. For those of you 
who were clamoring for it, the next chapter focuses on Serena and Darien... and Seiya, too, 
I suppose. Ah, well. Next chapter: Seiya reunites with Serena; Darien learns that Serena's 
ex is back in the States; Diane warns Michiru about her the threat to her Nijizuishou 
crystal; and Christy and Shingo learn of Project: Ginzuishou.

Disclaimer: All original materials belong to their respective 
owners. Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi and a bunch 
of big companies. No copyright infringement is intended. This 
story belongs to Moonsong and myself, and I would appreciate 
you emailing her or myself for permission before posting it 
anywhere else. Thank you.

Prologue Copyright © January 24, 2000 Moonsong.
Other Chapters Copyright © August 12, 2000 Jason Ulloa. 
All Rights Reserved.