Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi, and the DARK.MATTER
setting was written by Wolfgang Baur and Monte Cook. I own neither of
these things, and expect that if either of those last two people
Google their own names they are going to be incredibly confused.



* * * * *



   The ambulance speeds down the streets of Tokyo, the blaring of its
alarm nearly hoarse with panic. The driver's eyes are locked on the
road, the cars she darts in and out of, letting nothing distract her.


   Two gurneys are in the back of the ambulance, holding the two most
wounded victims of the incident at the University of Tokyo. The eyes
of the EMT back with them nervously flicker between the patients and
the screens that show their vital data, wishing there was more he
could do for them. The eyes of the two girls on the gurneys, the
purple eyes of the short and frail one and the blue eyes of the blonde
with the odangos, are blank and stare at nothing.


   The woman sitting next to him, the one with the bandages hastily
wrapped around her head and arm, looks occasionally at the two girls,
but has more faith than the EMT that they will be all right. Her eyes
keep drifting back to her companion, boring into him with twin laser
beams of pure contempt.


   And the eyes of her companion, the red-headed American man in the
camouflage-pattern pants, scrunched up against the wall like Spider-
Man sitting on the side of a building, find the roof of the car to be
the most interesting thing to engage them.


* * * SAILOR.MOON: DOUBLE EXPOSURE


CHAPTER 2: DOUBLE INDEMNITY * * *


AMBULANCE 281 EN ROUTE TO JUUBAN GENERAL HOSPITAL TOKYO, JAPAN
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 18, 1995, 9:38 AM


   "You are a real Goddamned piece of work, Bill." Dr. Neary's voice
was still a bit loud and toneless, a ringing noise still making its
circuits through her ears.


   "Hey, it got rid of the Fader, didn't it? I didn't see any of you
coming up with any bright ideas." He stopped, thought, adding
something that clearly did not take part in his decision-making
process. "And besides, it's not like I knew it would turn him into a
bomb, or whatever the hell it did. All I knew was what you all told
me, that it sent it to a dimensional hoojamawhatever, maybe it just
needed to be closer!"


   Nadine put her hands to her temples; she wanted to do this in
response to the ringing and head pains for a while but waited until
she could make the action an insult to Bill as well. She winced when
she put pressure on the left hand but passed that off as all part of
the same disdainful response. "Yeah, Bill. Because that's what
complicated pieces of inter-dimensional machinery do: they work great
when you wing them at people's heads. Especially inter-dimensional
people who would have otherwise left us alone and let us wait another
five days to fix whatever was wrong with the machine."


   "Then it could have gone on and hurt other people, or found a new
power source and eluded us. Scoff all you want, I did what I had to."


   "Oh, and as if that wasn't enough, after you blow up the machine
and the Fader and the physics department and summon a little girl out
of outer space or something, you follow it up by trying to carjack an
ambulance -- and to get it to go where it was already going!"


   Wheeler threw out his arms in an 'oh, now what do you want from me'
gesture, then fumbled to keep the IV stand he'd accidentally smacked
from tipping. "I didn't try to carjack anything! I knew we didn't have
a name for space-girl here and we'd lose her if we got separated, so I
told the driver I was a federal agent and she was in my custody -- I
mean, it's a lame story, but I was in a hurry."


   "Oh, it's a real lame story Bill, and it gets even lamer when
you're screaming it in a completely different language. You have a
foot and a half and at least a hundred and thirty pounds on her,
you're shouting gibberish she doesn't understand and us English-
speakers find suspect, you're shoving a badge that actually says
'Federal Bikini Inspector' in her face, she thought you were a crazy
man! I bet she still thinks whatever happened to space-girl, you did
yourself."


   Bill couldn't think of a response to that, plus the EMT was
becoming noticeably agitated, so they were silent for a while, just
looking at the little girl, inexplicably serene even with a tube of
oxygen in her mouth and a tube of blood in her arm.


   "So... what do you think happened to her?" Bill finally said.
Nadine just scoffed and rolled her eyes.


   Then she paused and said, "I have absolutely no Goddamned idea."


* * *


   Kaiou Michiru was brought back to life by her lover's touch.


   Kaiou Michiru was brought back to life in a cold, dark parking
garage, the rough concrete digging into her back, by her lover
pounding her chest like she was trying to beat a railroad tie into
place with her bare fists.


   Michiru gasped, tried to speak, nothing came out. Haruka just held
her, whispering "thank you". They were wearing clothing that Michiru
almost didn't recognize, then it hit her that it was what they were
wearing before their most recent Sailor Transformations, what seemed
like ten lifetimes ago. They were far more tattered and bloody than
the last time she saw them.


   After a few ragged gulps of air, Michiru finally choked out
"What... what happened? Where are we?"


   Haruka looked around as if she hoped it would make her surroundings
make more sense. "I think we're in a garage somewhere else in Japan.
Hopefully we're still in Tokyo. We must have been teleported away
when..."


   "When what?"


   Haruka shook her head. "I don't know. Something happened, I don't
think it was supposed to. There were two ways this was going to end...
I doubt either of them was an explosion followed by us teleporting to
random safety."


   "The Pharaoh can't have won... we're still alive. I guess this
means Usagi was right." Michiru bowed her head slightly, ashamed of
herself.


   "No, I don't think so either. That fight didn't look like it was
over, and then who warped us out, and why haven't they talked to us?
Why here and not with the rest of the Inners? Why explode at all?"


   "So then what's the third option?"


   Haruka bit her lip. "I don't know yet."


* * *


   Donna Truitt chewed her lip nervously, waiting for news. All around
her doctors rushed back and forth, speaking with an urgency that
barely encroached on panic. The accident at the university hadn't been
too severe, the hardest hit had been the four of them, plus the Space
Girl, plus the blonde who must have been hit by a piece of debris
outside, and even then the four of them had some bruises and scrapes
but were mostly okay. Apparently, that hadn't been the main event --
there was another explosion, larger by orders of magnitude, at the
same time at some prep school on the other side of the district. Even
though it had been before classes even started, the school had been
for some reason packed with students, and now the hospital was packed
with students.


   Donna cared about them in the abstract, distant way one cares for
people one has never met but has no reason to wish ill on, but the
'Space Girl' was different. If she was just another strange phenomena
to be observed, reported on, and tucked into a file somewhere, Donna
could have at least sat down and pretended to read a magazine while
she waited. Instead she paced back and forth and chewed her lip.


   She didn't know why she was so worried. Well, no, that was a
complete lie. She knew exactly why she was so worried, she just kept
telling herself it was unusual and unexpected to keep her own self-
image as the jaded, disaffected ice queen. The other people they were
wheeling about were teenagers or older, easier to file their maladies
under the heading of "shit just happens". Space-girl was just a kid,
and a small, frail one at that. Shit happens to adults. Shit shouldn't
happen to kids, because kids need to have someone to protect them.
Plus, while the explosion crosstown was probably their fault --
simultaneous events like that are rarely coincidence -- a girl from
outer space or who-knows-where showing up in the rubble of the
explosion they caused was pretty explicitly their fault.


   By "their fault" she meant "Bill's fault", of course.


   She'd been holding onto a weapon like it was her life preserver, a
sharp and lethal life preserver. A polearm, maybe a halberd. But her
grip was weak and when they loaded her on the makeshift litter they
made to get her out of the rubble, it had fallen out of her grasp and
vanished before their eyes. They didn't know what the hell was up with
that, but they didn't have time to care. They'd sort it out later,
when the girl came to. If she came to.


   When she came to.


   Donna hadn't noticed Nadine coming in and jumped when she felt a
tap on her shoulder, but she quickly regained composure when she saw
who it was. "Well? Any news?"


   Nadine nodded in the direction of the ER, a paper cap still on her
head and surgical mask hanging down around her neck. Her left wrist
was bound up in a brace that she may well have applied to herself.
"They say her condition's stabilized, and she probably won't need more
surgery. They've patched up her wounds as best they can and replaced
the blood she lost, but she's breathing on her own now and the doctors
believe she'll regain consciousness soon. They're taking her down for
some more X-rays now, there may be some foreign objects that found
their way deep enough in the skin that they don't wanna poke around
for it, but for us all there is to do is wait."


   "Any idea who she is?"


   Nadine shook her head. "No ID on her. All they found in her pockets
was a hundred and fifty yen and this weird pen." Nadine held it up, it
was fat and bright and gaudy and atop it was a black sphere
intersected by a purple disc. "They gave it to me because, apparently,
we're FBI agents and she's in our custody."


   Donna paused. "I think I've seen that pen before..."


*


   Kaiou Michiru doesn't normally make a habit of jaywalking, and in
fact considers it an embarrassing, if minor, oversight. But what with
her trying and failing to prevent the arrival of the Messiah of
Silence, having a front-row seat to the end of all life on Earth, then
being whisked away without any explanation or resolution, almost dying
behind a Nissan Stanza, and trying to figure out why the
transformation pen in her hands had stopped working, she didn't have a
lot of mental energy left over to dedicate to crosswalks or traffic
safety. When she saw the headlights she stopped, not out of panic or
terror but because she was trying to remember what the hell this thing
was and why it was here.


   It was a van, dark in color, probably American-made. In the
passenger's seat was a black man holding his hands over his ears and
wincing, in the driver's seat a dark-haired white woman screaming
obscenities in English and beating on the car's horn like it had
murdered her family. Both of them were bloodied, bruised and beaten,
and Michiru swore she recognized the woman, but from what?


   Haruka grabbed Michiru by the shoulder and yanked her out of the
car's path, at which point the woman shouted "THANK you!" and the
tires squealed as she tore off. Michiru blinked, shook her head, and
wondered if she had a concussion.


   "Who was that? I know her from somewhere, I couldn't quite place
her face..."


   Haruka grimaced. "I've never seen her face before. But I think that
right before the explosion, she called Sailor Saturn an idiot."


   "So, what does that mean?"


   Haruka winced. "I'm not sure any of this means anything."


*


   "...but it's probably nothing, a couple people I saw on the way
over had them. Probably some kind of promotion or something."


   Nadine narrowed her eyes. "And by 'saw', I take it you mean 'almost
ran over'?"


   Donna didn't bother to ask how Nadine knew -- she drove so fast the
only way she'd see anyone is if they were directly in front of her,
blocking her path. "It's not my fault nobody here knows what a
crosswalk is."


   Nadine rolled her eyes. "And it's not their fault that you think
the slightest traffic obstruction is an insult to your worth as a
human being. Anyway, you seen Bill and Phil around?"


   "Phil was bitching about a concussion and using way too many big
words for me to believe he had one, Bill took him downstairs to get
checked out so he'd stop complaining."


   "Well, if you see those two, tell them I'm going to have them page
'Dr. Hoffmann' to where ever they end up putting the space-girl when
she's out of X-ray." She pulled the surgical mask back over her mouth.
"It might take a while, there's a bit of a line. Anyway, I'm going
down to triage to lend a hand, Hippocratic Oath and all that."


   "They let you operate with your hand all messed up?"


   She pulled her mask back down. "They wouldn't let me operate
period, I'm probably going to end up treating the non-critically
injured just enough so they don't riot, and another doc will probably
take over everything halfway through so I don't screw it up. Still,
it's good to help out, even if the downtown explosion wasn't actually
our fault."


   Donna tilted her head and paused a moment. "It wasn't?"


   "You didn't hear? Apparently that whole place collapsed like three
minutes before our little fiasco. You can take that off your
conscience. Now if you will excuse me, the people are in need..." She
pulled the mask back on and sauntered on down to the hospital's
cafeteria where the patients were being held.


* * *


   Kino Makoto had a great deal of problems. In fact she had more now
than when she thought all life on Earth was in imminent danger of
being Silenced, and the bare fact she even thought that was another
problem for her list.


   She ran over the sequence of events in her head again. They'd made
it to the Mugen academy before the ritual was completed. They'd been
attacked by what looked like a mob of uncooked daimons, which they had
managed to hold at bay long enough for Sailor Moon to make it inside,
because Sailor Moon was always the only one who could do anything. The
other four of them were trying to contain the power field emanating
from the building from expanding any further, hoping to buy Sailor
Moon enough time to stop the arrival of the dread Pharaoh 90. And
then, of course,the field has broken and they were drawn up in the air
to witness the arrival of the Silence firsthand. Mistress Nine's hold
on her body weakened because she had underestimated the power of human
love, and it looked like it wasn't going to matter. The building
collapsed, the second time in 24 hours, and the hellish energy of the
Pharaoh was taking the whole block with it. Sailor Uranus was berating
Sailor Moon for being too trusting, and at the precise second when it
appeared all hope was lost, a glowing, translucent Sailor Saturn had
appeared to sacrifice her life to save all of theirs.


   Makoto had participated in this kind of activity at least three
times in the past, two of which she could remember, and so far this
was all pretty standard stuff.


   Then the portal through which the Pharaoh was entering exploded --
it didn't suddenly expand, didn't turn its evil black light white as
Sailor Moon's love purified it, didn't even "explode with magic" -- it
blew up, an Earth-shattering CHA-THOOM that left her ears ringing and
her lungs gasping for air. Mugen had already collapsed twice before,
but each time it was like it was condensing itself, casting off all
unnecessary pieces to prepare for the final showdown. And now, the
building had decided that its components no longer amused it and flung
them away. Sailor Saturn was talking when it went up, so it didn't
seem like she had expected this, or that this was the ultimate fatal
power she was going to have to use. And there wasn't a Pharaoh running
around, so it obviously wasn't the explosion created when he arrived
in our world.


   Maybe whatever kind of alien being the Pharaoh 90 is exploded when
it came into contact with Earth's atmosphere, but Makoto thought that
was unlikely. That seemed like the kind of thing you'd do some
research on before you started your summoning cult.


   But, okay, the great evil exploded before the fight was over.
That's unusual. Then Makoto recalled the feeling of being yanked
toward the dead center of the explosion and caught a glimpse of Sailor
Uranus being thrown toward the same point, and when she hit the center
through which the Pharaoh had been arriving less than a second ago,
she blacked out. And that wouldn't have been that unusual if she had
woke up in the Tau cluster or wherever the Pharaoh had been from,
because then it would have just been that he was drawing them into his
world for whatever reason entities like him do things. Instead she
awakened in midair with the same forward momentum she'd entered the
"space" with, and judging by the number of things flying around and
what direction, she'd traveled at most twenty-five meters and done so
in half a second -- her loss of consciousness no longer than an
eyeblink. She hit the asphalt and heard a snap like a stick of celery,
it was her left leg. She skipped like a stone looking above her for
just enough time to see Minako trace a graceful arc through the air,
her blonde hair splayed about behind her like a sweat-soaked and dust-
caked comet's tail.


   Then she hit the street again, lucky enough to lead with her
shoulder rather than her legs this time. She skidded a couple meters,
the uneven street surface shredding the back of her shirt and abrading
her skin, then came to a stop when the friction of her flesh on the
street overcame the momentum of the explosion. It hurt, and it hurt a
great deal, but by this point she had the same kind of detached
awareness of her pain that she might have for the fact that it was
raining in Osaka; something that was true but she didn't really care
about. She noted that she was now wearing her civilian clothes, she
guessed she might have reverted when she blacked out. She tried
transforming back, if for no other reason than to see if the magic of
the Moon Kingdom would heal her leg, but she knew it wouldn't work
before she'd even finished the word "Jupiter". It was like whatever
small intangible point she was reaching toward to call her powers, the
one that was a part of her but could only be reached if you approached
it from exactly the right angle, was gone.


   She didn't have too long to wonder why that might be before she
heard sirens, and that was the surest indicator she had that something
had gone wrong. A day ago, this building had collapsed and no rescue
teams were dispatched, no police arrived to cordon off the area. Half
an hour ago, they had been holding back a wave of liquid malevolence
in a glowing energy shield, and traffic was still flowing behind
Makoto and nobody'd seen anything the slightest bit unusual. Now the
damn place blows up and paramedics are on the scene inside of two
minutes, loading people in Mugen uniforms onto gurneys. She wondered
if the same effect that prevented people from recognizing her face as
Sailor Jupiter also prevented them from recognizing a force-bubble
full of daimons as something they should be concerned about, and if it
went away with the rest of her powers.


   They loaded her into an ambulance because she couldn't walk, she
saw Ami and Minako getting onto a school bus they'd brought over to
carry the wounded. None of them put up too much of a fight -- what the
hell were they going to do? Not like they could run anywhere or fight
them off, and it didn't seem like there were any more daimons climbing
out of that hole. So they'd been taken to the hospital, run through
triage -- Rei apparently needed immediate treatment, but the rest of
them were sent off to wait in the hospital cafeteria with the rest of
the non- critically injured victims until the doctors had taken care
of those most in need of medical care. There were a couple of doctors
here, the ones who can't work in the ER she guessed, changing bandages
and setting bones and doing all that non-critical stuff. One of them
was Ami's mother but luckily she seemed to be staying on the other end
of the cafeteria, the doctor who bandaged up the abrasions on Makoto's
back was some random doctor, someone in a surgical mask and what
looked like a hastily-applied wrist brace on her own arm. It took
longer to apply the dressings with only one good hand, but that's
still better than having Dr. Mizuno over and possibly putting two and
two together now that their magic identity protection was gone.


   Minako, Makoto and Ami had all found each other but Rei was in
surgery and Usagi nowhere to be found, not to mention Hotaru and
Michiru and Haruka. Ami tried to track them with the Mercury Computer,
but found that it had gone from a pocket space-age hypercomputer to an
ordinary "Wizard" day-planner. Now would be the time when they huddled
together to form a plan or hash out just what had happened, but none
of them had anything to go on.


* * *


   Dr. Nadine Neary was grinning and bouncing slightly from one heel
to the other, a manila envelope in her good hand, at the foot of the
hospital bed that now held the one they referred to as "space-girl".
Donna and Bill were in there, seated, waiting for Philip to show up
because Nadine, quote, "wanted to tell everyone at once". Phil finally
opened the door, grumbling under his breath, the top of his head
covered in cotton bandages. They were four or five layers thick,
almost as if someone had decided to mummify him from the head down,
then got bored and stopped once he got to the forehead. More likely
this was some unfortunate Japanese doctor or nurse or resident's way
of appearing to treat Phil's imaginary ailment just so he'd go away
and stop complaining.


   "So what's with the private room, Nadine? I thought they didn't
have the space to give them to non-critical patients"


   "Well, apparently the explosion -- the one we didn't cause --
wasn't as bad as they first thought, not as many people in the area as
they feared. And the one we did cause affected fifteen people, eight
of which could be treated on scene, four of which are us," At this
point Bill raised his right hand, his pinky and ring fingers held in
metal sheaths and wrapped with tape, and Donna held out her arm to
show off the bandages on it, both of them waved like they were in a
crowd shot on "The Today Show".


   "So as you can see we're pretty much fine. Then there was a
custodian in the basement, he broke his foot and his coccyx. There was
the blonde girl outside the building, Jane Doe Number 2, she took a
hit from some glass that had her bleeding pretty bad but now she's all
sutured up and in stable condition. And then," she gestured to the bed
behind her with a dramatic flourish, "There is Space-Girl, Jane Doe
Number 1, who has been placed into a private room so that the FBI can
better monitor her." Bill bowed -- as much as you can when already
seated, anyway -- and made a "hold your applause" gesture, which the
rest of them were already adhering to before he even made it. "So,
would anyone like to guess why she's in FBI custody?"


   Donna blinked a few times. "Because... we told them she was, and
she warped in out of nowhere with a magical disappearing halberd?"


   Nadine waved her hands, then winced when she twisted her wrist the
wrong way. "No, no, no. Something that the doctors here know about
that'd have them put her in our custody without a lot of fussing.
Something that I have in this envelope. Anyone else?" Her gaze flitted
from Bill to Donna to Phil and back again, who all stared at her
impassively.


   "All right, fine, can't even indulge me a little... Well, there's
no broken bones and only very minor internal bleeding, so she's lucky
there. She's bruised several of her ribs, but nothing too serious,
keep an ice pack on it for a few hours a day and she'll be fine. And
her respiratory system doesn't appear to be working very well, but
that's not something caused by the accident. No, the real main event
is, that Space-Girl, Jane Doe Number 1, is..." She stretched out the
last "is" like it was the most satisfying taffy ever made.


   "Just say it already!" the other three said in unison.


   "...A cyborg!" she triumphantly revealed, and let three black
plastic X-Ray prints fall out of the manila envelope onto the table at
the foot of the bed. Bill, Donna, and Phil each grabbed one, held it
above their heads right below a light, and squinted.


   "So, what," Donna inquired as she still scoured the image looking
for something that looked like a cybernetic implant... or a bone, she
was Godawful at reading X-Rays, "are you saying we've got a baby
Sandman on our hands?"


   "She is NOT a Sandman!" Nadine crowed with satisfaction. "Because
first off, she's unconscious and her body hasn't dissolved into a pile
of sand, which is why we call them 'Sand'men. And second, Sandmen are
damn near made of cybernetics from what we can tell, and Space-Girl is
not. She's only got a couple implants -- left arm, both legs, and the
left side of her abdomen -- and they're not very big, either. You see
that?" She tapped on a part of the X-ray Donna was holding that looked
like any other part, a mush of black and white and grey. "See that
metal hunk inside the bone? That's not debris, there's no entry wound.
No, that piece of metal was there so long that the bone grew around
it. But that's not what makes it a cybernetic implant -- you see
this?"


   Her finger moved up and down the X-Ray along some path of grey
lines Donna couldn't distinguish from any other path of grey lines.
"Yes, I do," she said in a way she hoped could be later written off as
sarcasm.


   "These are muscle wires, they're wires used for robotics that
contract when you run a current through them, emulating the
contractions of a human muscle. Now these ones are actually mixed in
with her muscle tissue, underneath it! They don't go up the whole
length of the arm, but they do go for the length of that piece of
metal in her bone, and a couple of them are still connected to it!"
Donna looked around to see if this discovery excited anyone as much as
it did her, and it did not.


   Bill raised his hand, a habit he couldn't shake off when he felt
like he was being lectured to "Okay, so, if they're so small, and they
do so little, what's the point of even having them there?"


   "Don't you get it? They aren't useful NOW," Bill opened his mouth
to interrupt and say something witty but Nadine gave him The Look,
"but they're not supposed to be! Judging by the size of these things,
I would say that they were implanted when she was maybe three, four
years old, and they were sized to her then. Something must have
happened to her to cause a lot of tissue damage, and SOMEHOW, someone
puts these implants in the most damaged areas so that not only can she
continue to use those parts of her body without a significant loss in
function or severe atrophy, but as she grows up her normal biological
systems can take over again for the replacements! It's a medical
science breakthrough, AND as far as I can tell all of these pieces are
of contemporary human manufacture -- it could be reproduced and
expanded upon!"


   "So, wait, how does this explain her warping in with a magic
scythe?"


   Nadine's smile narrowed. "It... doesn't."


* * *


   For a second, Sailor Pluto thought she was dead. She was on her
back in a grey, flat expanse with no landmarks, no sky, nothing.
Purgatory if she ever saw such a place. Then she rolled her head and
saw behind her the Gates of Time. Her first thought was that she'd
been standing watch in purgatory this whole time and never known it.


   She tried to sit up, and yelped at the horrible pain she felt in
her abdomen when she tried to do so. She spat up a little blood too,
and it tasted harsh and acidic. Oh, some stuff was definitely ruptured
down there. Her stomach was probably full of blood, maybe her
intestines were ripped too. She'd probably die without immediate
medical attention, which there was no way to get in the no-space
around the Gates of Time. And if she was about to die, that probably
meant she was not already dead.


   So she was still alive. Lucky her.


   She wondered how long she was out, and by the caked-in bloodstains
on her fuku, she figured it had to be a few hours at least. She didn't
know why she was still Sailor Pluto if she was unconscious that long,
she should have reverted back to Meioh Setsuna by now. Maybe the magic
of the Moon Kingdom was the only thing keeping her alive at this
point, and it can't turn off if it would kill her. If that was true,
she had to have at least some kind of life support.


   She tried to reach out to the normal world, return to Tokyo, get a
doctor, but she couldn't. Not because she couldn't get up, she didn't
need to. But the normally porous wall that separated the Gates of Time
and the rest of the world had become rock-solid and she was unable to
pass. Maybe this was the punishment the Guardians of Time laid on her
for breaking their forbidden rule, trapping her here at the Gates and
removing her ability to leave at all. It figures that the only time
they would ever do anything would be while Pluto was unconscious.
Pluto had never actually seen the Guardians of Time, nor any direct
evidence of their existence, but she knew they were there all the same
and she knew they did not abide breaking their rules; much the same
way a child knows that if he exposes an inch of skin out from under
his blanket the boogeymen waiting in his room will devour him.


   She looked at the Gates of Time again. She couldn't leave through
there, and not just because it was forbidden; the stress of time
travel could rip her in half in this state. But... her part in the
battle was over. For good or ill, things were beyond her ability to
change. She had to know if it was worth it, she had to know who was
right. She had to look into the Gate.


   She couldn't get up, but her Key was within arm's reach of her and
she was within a Key's reach of the door. She pried the end of the Key
into the space between the double doors and pushed one of them open,
just a crack. Inside it, she saw Sailor Moon, standing on the wreckage
of the Mugen Academy, a clear sky behind her, mournful sorrow on her
face, and an infant child in her arms, a child that Pluto immediately
recognized as Tomoe Hotaru, given a new chance at a new life. Good had
triumphed. Usagi had refused to let her friend fall to evil, within
her or without. The Pharaoh 90 was gone forever. All was right in the
world.


   Pluto gently eased the door closed with her Time Key and
immediately passed out.


* * *


   Seventy-seven hours after arrival the girl regained consciousness.
They knew it was seventy-seven at the most, it could have been shorter
-- Nadine remembered that reading to someone in a coma sometimes
helped them recover and even though she wasn't in a coma, they figured
it couldn't hurt. So when the girl woke up Nadine was very much into
the book she was reading to her and she thought it would be impolite
to interrupt. "The girl", by the way, was Tomoe Hotaru, the very same
who was daughter of Tomoe Suoichi, the man who their current working
theory of events said had been killed by a Fader he had summoned to
him in order to fulfill some kind of prophecy. They didn't mention
this to Hotaru so she had no reason to correct them.


   The four agents knew that it wouldn't be helpful to them or Hotaru
to immediately start bombarding her with questions about the strange
things she seemed to be tangentially involved in, but they really
didn't have a whole lot else to talk about. When she asked who they
were, they'd claimed to be FBI agents, and she'd accepted that with a
level of eagerness that clearly indicated she didn't believe them for
a second but wouldn't be fighting them in either case, and her queries
ended there. After a couple hours of uncomfortable silence and awkward
small talk, she began to speak about the events at the Mugen Academy.


   "I don't know very much of what happened," she said, and that was
the truth even if she knew more than she planned to tell them. "There
were some... people, who were working at the Mugen school where my
father taught sometimes. Witches. They said they were summoning a
demon and that they had to use me to do it." She paused, wondering if
she should make up a totally different story with no supernatural
involvement, or just try to keep her father's culpability out and not
let on that she was Sailor Saturn. She knew she couldn't let her own
identity out, that was a secret that was important to keep, and she
didn't want to tell them it was her own father who was responsible for
all this, but if she told them something totally made up she might
contradict something they already know and they'd know she was lying.


   "They told me I was the Mistress Nine and that I had to summon the
Pharaoh 90. I didn't want to do it but..." But what? But the alien
thing who'd been alive in your body since you were four years old
wasn't listening to your opinion? But you'd been destined to destroy
Earth since before you even born? "...but it had power over me and it
made me do what it wanted. We had set up a bunch of machines in the
basement and we were sucking away the purity of people's hearts to
find the talismans we needed to power them. And when we had
everything, I called in all the students at the academy to protect me
while I summoned the Silence."


   The black man, Dr. Akens, paused in his note-taking. "The Silence?
What happened to the Pharaoh 90?"


   Hotaru was a bit embarrassed that it looked like she'd been caught
in a lie at one of the points she was telling the unvarnished truth.
"It said it had many names. It was Pharaoh 90, or the Silent One, or
just the Silence, or Isci ba Fan, or Death."


   Akens nodded as if that answer was completely satisfactory. "Okay,
go on. You were in the basement of the school and you were about to
summon this demon?" There was no hint of derision in his voice.


   "Some people broke in and tried to stop me. Well, they weren't just
people -- they were warriors. Soldiers. They had been trying to stop
us before while we were preparing things, to prevent us from gathering
the talismans. One said she was the herald of a new age and the other
was a warrior of elegance. They struck at me with magic. They couldn't
stop me so I... so the demon struck them down and it made them watch."
Did it make you enjoy it? "They were there to try and kill me so I
couldn't destroy the world, and I wanted to let them, but I couldn't.
Then there was another person who had come to stop me--"


   "These three people come at the same time? Were they part of a
group?" Nadine slapped Phil on the back of the hand. "Okay, okay,
questions later, you just say what it is you need to say."


   "But she wasn't like the first two. She was a warrior of love and
justice. She was a Queen. And she said that I didn't have to die and
there was some good in me. I tricked her into giving me the last thing
I needed to finish the summoning and then I laughed at her. And when I
was finally able to take control of myself again, it was too late to
stop him. The only chance I had would be if I died." She looked down
and to her side. "And then I woke up here."


   "I'm sure that was very hard for you to say and I'm glad you could
tell us all of it." Phil clicked his pen and stood up. "Now we have to
go make a call to Quantico to see what we can do to best help you out.
Guys, a word?" He walked to the door and held it open for the other
three, then closed it behind him once all of them were out.


*


   Phil waited until he heard the door click shut behind him before he
spoke. "Okay, I know I'm usually the one saying to take the witness at
their word, but I'm having a hard time swallowing all this."


   Donna crossed her arms just so she could uncross them again and
look frank. "I know. Witches, summoning demons, in downtown Tokyo, and
nobody notices? Mind-control demons, no less, pulling magic talismans
out of people's hearts and fought off by quote 'a warrior of love and
justice'?" She put out her hands as if to say 'give me something else,
here'. "I want to call bullshit..."


   Phil interrupted. "But the last time we did that it was about
Bigfoot and by the end of the day I'd hit him with a folding chair."


   Donna raised a finger to correct him. "You did not hit Bigfoot with
a folding chair, Phil. You threw a folding chair AT Bigfoot, you
missed, and then you ran away screaming." She shook her head and
rolled her eyes.


   Nadine cleared her throat. "I'm no psychologist," she looked
pointedly at Phil, "but it's obvious she's got some serious guilt and
self-esteem issues. You notice how she claimed someone else was
controlling her and then she takes responsibility for all the evil it
committed, even things she couldn't have done? And then someone
virtuous comes in to try and kill her, and she wants them to succeed,
but she betrays that person because she's evil? And then again at the
end she thinks the only way for her to be worthwhile is to kill
herself?" She sighed, a bit mournfully. "I think she needs extensive
psychological treatment before we try and pry anything out of her."


   Phil nodded. "She's obviously been affected by the supernatural
somehow even beyond the weapon or the cybernetics -- some of the notes
on Dr. Tomoe's computer make reference to a 'living locus' to use as a
beacon to summon an extradimensional entity. He could have used her as
an experiment, and I don't think that's beyond a man who has no
pictures of his own daughter in his lab or his office, and she thought
he was summoning a demon and that if she was involved she has to be
evil. When the resonance disruptor overloaded when Bill broke it, if
she was out-of-phase to serve as a beacon or whatever, it very well
could have pulled her toward ground zero as it pulled her all the way
into our reality." He shrugged. "Maybe. Anyway, it's pretty clear
she's externalized the part of her that participated but used it as
proof of her own malevolence instead of a means to avoid blame. And it
doesn't seem unlikely to me that if someone tried to stop the
experiment she'd interpret it as some holy champion swooping in to
save her and show her mercy she doesn't think she deserves."


   Bill sighed. "I know you're going to laugh at this, but I don't
think she made any of it up. She's obviously leaving parts out, like
where these magic soldiers come from or what they are or why she's got
to be the one doing the summoning, but look at her! She knows she
isn't a very good liar and she wouldn't be able to make anything up
that would even be as believable as this. And she's got a look in her
eyes that kids in First World countries don't have -- kids in
Afghanistan who have been through wars and own AK-47s have it. That
doesn't come out of your own subconscious, it comes from the world
forcing you to grow up or get killed. And you all saw her Dad's
basement, it was full of freaky shit we don't know the function of.
How do we know he was trying to summon a Fader at all? How do we know
the Fader came out as a side effect, or that it was even related at
all? And, I can't believe I have to be the one to mention this, why
did the Mugen academy blow up right before our little incident, and
how would she know about it if she wasn't there? She hasn't been
hearing the news."


   Donna snorted. "Yeah, Bill, you're right. I am going to laugh at
that. Just because you think you see some kind of kindred spirit in a
twelve- year-old Japanese girl doesn't mean her ludicrous Saturday-
morning cartoon explanation of events automatically becomes truthful.
I think you need to hear about a--" She would have said more but she
was interrupted by one of the orderlies.


   "You are American... secret FBI agents, yes?" he said in stilted,
uneasy English. They nodded. "There is telephone call for you, mister
Itohiro Nakami. Phone is this way, please."


   The orderly started walking off, and three of them followed. Phil
stayed behind in the room to keep an eye on Hotaru, not sure if she'd
really try to commit suicide but not wanting to risk it.


*


   Donna picked up the phone and thanked the man, then stretched the
cord out as long as she could to stand as far away from the nurse's
desk as she could get in case there were some people there who really
had no business listening in on her conversation. Nadine and Bill
stood next to her, in case the Director of the Hoffmann Institute
wanted to talk to them, but mostly so they could talk loudly about
football and drown out the conversation to any eavesdroppers. As it
turned out, Director Itohiro did not ask to talk to either of them, so
they heard only one- half of the conversation that occurred, which
sounded as follows:


   "Nakami! How ya doing, you crazy kid you... To answer that question
you just asked, I am fine, and thank you for caring so deeply about my
well-being... Well there's been nothing to call you about until just
now,Sir... Oh, no, the party didn't come together the way we wanted it
to... Well, you know, a few crossed wires in the sound system and the
subwoofer goes out and sends seven people to the hospital, plus there
was this other party downtown that started a little before ours that
everyone wanted to go to instead... No, I do not believe the two
parties had anything to do with each other... Yes, we did see the
guest of honor and we gave him a sendoff before everything blew up...
Well it wasn't that important and we were busy with other things...


   "The reason we are still here is, we found a, let's say a
'hitchhiker', 13 year old kid, whoooooo, 'got in to the party without
buying a ticket', and we wanted to make sure she was all right... She
just woke up, apparently the oh I'm gonna say 'guy she hitched a ride
with' was a real rough trick who goes by the handle of 'The Silent
One', and he was forcing her to do all kinds of crazy things before
she told him to take a hike... That may be an alias, he also goes by
'The Silence', 'Pharaoh 90', 'Isci ba Fan'... Yes, that's what I
said... She said that he was keeping her in the truck for a while
before she jumped out, and she feels real bad about... Oh, so now code
phrases are annoying? Not when I'm trying to figure out a way to say
'Lizard-men have stolen our Jeep with the Tesla Coil still inside it'
in nonchalant-ese?...


   "Okay, yes, that is what I am saying, she says it was controlling
her and she shook it off... Well I don't know how, she didn't quite
say, it was part of a much longer and less plausible story, we don't
really... No... No, no, I didn't say that... Yeah, we'll continue to
keep an eye on her... What?... Okay, sir, I think I need to mention
the fact that she's 13 again in case you... Well yes I do in fact
think it's relevant to the situation... You can come here if you want
but that isn't... Well, because it's a bad idea, that's why!... No, I
didn't, but... Yes, okay, that turned out to be a good call, but...
Hello? Hello?"


   Donna turned back towards Bill and Nadine, who'd stopped pretending
to be talking about other things so they could try and figure out what
the hell they were just talking about. "That was the Director," she
sighed. "He says he's going to hop a plane to Tokyo as soon as he can
and that we are to, quote, 'Make sure nothing happens to the girl --
in fact, I want you to recruit her by the time I arrive!'"


   "Recruit her?" Nadine blinked.


   "Oh yes, he was adamant. Tomoe Hotaru must be the Indigo Child, and
the Golden Child, and a whole bunch of other colors of child, for all
the fuss he was making. He would not take no for an answer."


   They walked back to Hotaru's room, wondering how the hell they were
supposed to convince a Japanese teenager who may or may not be
suicidally-depressed, who may or may not be a living focus of evil,
and may or may not be the target of a band of righteous magic
warriors, to join up with the world's most destitute secret
conspiracy, and more importantly why they were doing so.





---




* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* B O N U S   C O N T E N T *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


HOFFMANN INSTITUTE AGENT NUMBER S-0014406
NAME: AKENS, DR. PHILIP JAMES.


AGE: 43
PREV. ASSOCIATION: Marquette University, Minnesota (Civilian,
Education)
ASSIGNMENT: Investigation & Response Team Rho


HISTORY: Dr. Akens had studied paranormal phenomena for over twenty
years prior to joining the Institute, most of his adult life. He
taught linguistics and anthropology at Marquette University in
Milwaukee in order to maintain respectability and fund his journeys,
but his true calling was that of parapsychology. Though his main field
of expertise was ghosts and hauntings, he has made a name for himself
in many fringe-science communities, including contributing to several
almost-legitimate research papers, and was the subject of a short-
lived documentary program for the Science Fiction Channel called
"American Spookhouse".


Dr. Akens joined the Institute after being involved in an October 1992
incident that concerned the summoning of an ice-demon at a rural Idaho
truck stop, where he had stopped on the way to investigate reports of
a haunting in Portland (The reports turned out to be false).


PSYCHOLOGY: Dr. Akens has spent so much time advancing and arguing for
unconventional theories of physics, biology, and history, that he has
conflated these causes with his own self-worth. The validation of said
theories is validation of his worth as a human being, to disprove them
is to prove him a failure. Craves the respect and approval of the
"scientific community" . A talented researcher, but all work must be
checked for an extreme confirmation bias.


SPECIES: Human
PROFESSION: Diplomat (Free Agent)
ACHIEVEMENT LEVEL : 5


STR 09 [+0] INT 14 [+2]
DEX 06 [-1] WIL 12 [+1]
CON 08      PER 11


Observant    [3]: Dr. Akens is good at picking out small details. He
receives a -1 step bonus to Awareness -- Perception checks.
Second Sight [4]: After an aggravating fiasco in Spokane, Washington
involving a warlock making heavy use of 'glamours', Dr. Akens has been
trained in the ability to see through illusions. He receives a -1 step
bonus on any skill roll to pierce an illusion, and is always entitled
to a WIL feat check to pierce illusion even if the skill normally
allows none.
Obsessed    [+4]: Dr. Akens is driven to prove the existence of
supernatural phenomena to nonbelievers. When presented with someone
who is actively denying his interpretation and theories of Fortean
phenomena, he is at a +2 step penalty on all actions that do not
involve proving that person wrong.
Slow        [+6]: Dr. Akens isn't as young as he once was, and he
wasn't really that fit when he was young. He suffers a +1 step penalty
on all action checks.


Combat Information:
Weapon:         Score:    Range:   Damage (O/G/A): Type:
Unarmed       4/2/1 +1  Personal   d4s/d4+1s/d4+2s LI/O
Gun           3/1/- +1 As Weapon         As Weapon   HI
Folding Chair 4/2/1 +1   9/18/36 d4+1s/d4+3s/d6+3s LI/O


Action Check: 12+/11/5/2, +1
Durability: 08 / 08 / 04 / 04
Actions Per Round: 2
Last Resort Points: 2


Athletics               [09/4/2]
Vehicle Operation       [06/3/1]
Stamina                 [08/4/2]
Knowledge               [14/7/3]
> Ancient Lore 1        [15/7/3]
> Computer Operation 1  [15/7/3]
> First Aid 1           [15/7/3]
> Language (Greek) 2    [16/8/4]
> Language (Latin) 2    [16/8/4]
> Language (Hindi) 3
> Language (Japanese) 3
> Parapsychology 3      [17/8/4]
Social Science          [14/7/3]
> Anthropology 2        [16/8/4]
> History 3             [17/8/4]
> Linguistics 2         [16/8/4]
Awareness               [12/6/3]
> Intuition 1           [13/6/3]
> Perception 2          [14/7/3]
Investigate             [12/6/3]
> Research 2            [14/7/3]
> Search 2              [14/7/3]
Lore                    [12/6/3]
> Fringe Science 1      [13/6/3]
> Occult Lore 2         [14/7/3]
> Psychic Lore 2        [14/7/3]
Interaction             [11/5/2]
> Interview 2           [13/6/3]