College Life
Part 21: Spring Break


by Greenbeans <gbeans@tyrlen.org>
with Tim Nolan <nomad@cyberverse.com>


Mild cursing.

Comments, thoughts, complaints compliments, ramblings, and flames
are all accepted. But the latter two stand a serious chance of
being printed out and turned into paper hats.

All characters are property of their respective holders. I belong
to myself, thank you and have a nice day :)


**********

< two months ago >

     The man chuckled, tossed the folder that he had been looking
at onto the left side of his desk and leaned back to put his feet
up on the corner of the right side. The small, shabby office was
dimly lit, but it was enough for him to be able to clearly see the
photograph that just came out through a dusty and oft-used fax
machine. He'd sold the original to the person he was talking to for
a pretty penny around Thanksgiving. He and his kids had a good
Christmas off of it, too.
     "Yes," he told the person on the other end of the cordless
phone he had crammed between his ear and shoulder. "I know that the
picture isn't very good, but what do you expect from an instant
camera? I told you that it was a fluke that I got the picture in
the first place. They weren't even the ones that were supposed to
be photographed."
     He stopped talking to listen to the person on the other end,
and he nodded now and then in agreement to whatever was being said.
The last cigarette was taken out of a crumpled pack from his shirt
pocket, along with a lighter.
     "I know that," he agreed and waved the lighter to emphasize
his point. "I've checked up on your publication and I understand
your desire to get some information on them as soon as possible.
They are almost myths in Japan, but nobody over here has heard of
them. That's why I approached you when I saw that picture. I agreed
with you when you said that it was too much of a coincidence."
     He paused to listen to the person on the other side. What they
had to say didn't sit well with him. "Dammit, the hack wasn't my
fault!" he exploded. "I am not a computer specialist, buddy. I just
play one on the radio." He grinned at getting to use the joke he
heard on the radio, but then (much to his chagrin and displeasure)
had to stop and explain it before being able to go on.
     "This guy is dense," he muttered to himself. No wonder this
editor and the henchmen at his paper had never been able to track
down their quarry. "I already explained what had happened. I don't
know jack about computers. In my business, it's more who you know
than what you know. I know people, and I know this one particular
guy who thinks he is God's gift to hackers. He happens to also be
pathologically unable to resist a challenge.
     "When you were able to tell me that there were some unusual
stuff in the computer system at that school, my approach fell into
place. I tell him, he sends one of his cronies to look into it. If
they do get anything, I have the proof on some dirt in order to
make him give me the info, which then would have been turned over
to you."
     He made a brief pause to listen while he unsuccessfully tried
to get the lighter to produce a flame. After the fifth attempt, he
tossed both lighter and cigarette into the trash along with a
reminder that he was supposed to be stopping anyway. "It didn't
work, and you didn't have to pay," he reminded the caller. "If you
would pay me up front for my time, you will also probably get some
better results. Santa would have been much nicer to you just after
Christmas was over, as opposed to during it.
     "Look, I know you need something to run in your next issue,"
he began in an attempt to placate the caller. Right now he
was sorely resisting the temptation to just hang up. "This is a
business for me, too. I have my costs as well, and if you want to
give me the money up front, all I can do is to rely on a network of
favors.
     "I got a photographer who has done some work with some PI's I
know, and he owes me a few," he added. "I'll have him poke around
a little bit and see if he can find something out on that campus
since you can't crack the new protections any better than the old
ones."
     He paused to take a sip of cold coffee and grimaced at the
taste. A shot of Wild Turkey from the bottle on his bookshelf would
make it go down a lot smoother. The next comment gave him the best
belly laugh that he'd had in a month.
     "What do you think this is; some kind of movie or something?"
he chortled. "You can't do it better. You don't have my contacts
here, and it will take you years to develop them before you have a
chance of doing this quietly. The police will be on you like a ton
of bricks, and--unlike yours--ours carry guns and will not hesitate
to use them.
     "It will take a while to get him at a free moment and get him
to the school with a decent alibi. If he goes up there and starts
taking pictures of everyone without a reason he'll get
arrested--even if it is a college. Everyone is paranoid about sex
crimes these days."
     The caller made yet another objection.
     He suppressed a growl at his would-be employer. "Look," he
said in a sharper tone than he was using before. "If you don't want
me to do this, you can try working with someone else. In that time,
they will probably move on you again like you keep on complaining
about, and you're back to square one. Put the agreed-upon amount of
money into the same account we used earlier by next Friday, or the
deal is off and your best lead in years will dry up. Do we still
have a deal?"
     With much grumbling on the other side of the line, he got a
grudging acceptance of the terms. About bloody well time too.
     He nodded and turned off the phone before putting a shot of
bourbon into his cup and smiling broadly. They are such idiots, he
grinned, and got out his address book in order to make a call. You
just have to love the media.

**********

< the present >

     As I had expected, she did take the short route to her car. Of
course, short for Haruka was shorter than for most of us mere
mortals. People always seemed to get out of her way when she walked
at them, and I was able to slip in behind her before the openings
closed off again.
     "Late final, huh?" I asked as I caught up to her.
     "Yeah," she scowled for a moment, but it wasn't directed at
me. A power outage on Wednesday had screwed up everyone's
schedules. No power means no lights and no air conditioning, and
the classrooms routinely lacked windows since the architects were
from an era that must have felt that the outside was a distraction
to be avoided at all costs. We had both been stuck with taking the
tests on Friday afternoon.
     "Haruka, did you happen to find out when your next flight is?"
I asked her.
     "Tomorrow night out of San Francisco," she replied and deftly
wove between some people congregating on the middle of the stairs.
I drafted along behind her like she might have done on the
racetrack. A few classes together had me used to how she walked
through the crowds. "It was the best we could do on short notice to
change our flight."
     "Damn," I muttered. "That is going to make it tough."
     "What's up?" she asked as we left the building. She paused a
moment since I was going one way to the dorms, and the parking lot
was another.
     "The Second and Hopefully Annual Dorm Getaway Party," I
announced while trying to make the words sound more important than
they were. The trick with any college function was to make it sound
important; the people who grew curious enough and checked the event
out usually wound up helping fulfill the hype.
     I also took the opportunity to press a flyer into her hand.
"Some of us in the dorm are going to the beach tomorrow, and we
wanted to invite you and Michiru along. The day and time was only
finalized last night."
     "Don't you guys have families?" she asked me with a flash of
her usual grin showing. "You were supposed to be going home
yesterday, too."
     "Can't," I countered. "Not 'til Monday. My parents are
fumigating the place for termites. A lot of us don't go home for
Spring Break for various reasons that usually have to do with
money. We're not rich like you are."
     She let that one slide by without any comment, but it did get
me a reproving look from her blue eyes. "I can't make any promises,
Beans. We still have to make arrangements for a flight down to San
Francisco in order to catch the international flight in the
evening.
     "Still, thank you for asking. It only looks to be about an
hour's drive. I'll check with Michiru. Maybe we can drop by in the
morning," she finished.
     "Have to check with Mommy?" I gently teased her and ducked
under the playful jab she threw at me. "I hope you can make it,
Haruka!" I called to her as I turned to run back to the dorms.

*****

     Murphy's Law essentially states: if anything can go wrong, it
will, and at the worst possible time.
     Later that evening, Haruka was ruing the workings of that
antagonistic force in the universe. She and Michiru's bags were
still packed for when they had originally planned to leave before
the exam rescheduling, lined up neatly in their bedroom. Now it
looked as if they might as well unpack.
     Haruka restrained herself from snapping at the hapless woman
on the other side of the phone call who was just trying to do her
job. What had started out as a phone call on their part to confirm
their flights before heading to the airport had resulted in one
enormous booking nightmare.
     From the sound of it, there was no record of them having
purchased their tickets thanks to some sort of computer glitch, so
their seats were listed as belonging to someone else. Added to that
was the problem of overcrowding at the airports regardless.
Everyone was traveling this week for Spring Break.
     "Fine, I understand," Haruka said. She left it at that, not
exactly in a mood that would have her thanking the person for their
assistance. The phone was hung up and Haruka returned to the dining
table, though she didn't feel like sitting back down.
     A scowl of frustration on her face, Haruka gazed at her lover.
"Even with our tickets, their computers say otherwise, and the
flight's already been overbooked. The chances are we won't be able
to get any seats no matter how early we are. She said we could try
and rebook another flight at a later time this week... but with the
volume of people, there's no guarantee we'd be able to get one
seat, let alone two."

     Michiru sighed, her arms crossed over her chest as she thought 
through their options. Currently that list of possibilities was 
dwindling to the point of extinction. "It's not exactly worthwhile 
if we catch a flight that has us in Tokyo for only two days at best. 
We'll be exhausted from jetlag and barely able to visit everyone."
     Sadly she shook her head in disapproval of the chain of
events. "Hardly a restful vacation."
     They'd have to call Setsuna and inform her of this distressing
change in plans, so Setsuna wouldn't be waiting for them at the
Tokyo International Airport in vain. Hotaru would be even more
disappointed than before; she'd already been disheartened to hear
that her 'mama' and 'papa' would have to come later than hoped.
     "I'd almost want to exclaim 'What could possibly go wrong
now'," Haruka remarked dryly.
     "But you're afraid you might tempt fate, ne?" Michiru
finished.
     The atmosphere for dinner was ruined. Both of them had lost 
their appetites.

*****

     Fate decided to act on the temptation in the early hours of
the morning.
     "Haruka," Michiru calmly said as she suddenly woke up. The 
clock on the bed table told her it was just after three. The blonde 
woke quickly and thoroughly at the tone of her voice. "Something's 
not right," Michiru admitted as her voice grew more concerned.
     "Here or home?" the blonde asked and took one of Michiru's
hands in hers. It took the woman with turquoise hair a few minutes
to decipher what she was feeling.
     "Home."
     "Shimatta," Haruka whispered and pulled her communicator out
of mid-air. She flipped it open, but didn't have the chance to
touch a button on it before the display activated.
     "Good morning," Setsuna's image greeted her.
     "Michiru--" she started to say.
     "Felt what just happened here in Tokyo," the voice over the
speaker gently but firmly cut her off. "We're staying by the harbor
right now. The police are, of course, having a difficult time right
now. It could just be a gang-related incident, and that's all."
     Michiru felt a 'but' coming on.
     "What does that have to do with us?" Haruka demanded,
beginning to get a little irritated. If it had woken up Michiru, it
affected them somehow.
     Setsuna glanced somewhere off-screen of the display. "Gangs
usually don't extract a crystallized form of someone's soul,"
Setsuna admitted as a pajama-clad Hotaru sat down on the couch next
to Setsuna and smiled at them without saying a word. She knew that
if they were using their communicators that it was an important
call.
     "The victim was a high school girl. She's like a broken
marionette now. Her eyes are glassed over and she doesn't respond
to any stimulus. She's being taken to the hospital as we speak.
There was an eye-witness: her boyfriend. Only right now he's
babbling incoherently and had to be sedated. He managed to blurt of
a few words before he went to sleep, and it sounds like whatever
did this was large, strong and evil.
     "Haruka, this is the only attack we're aware of. No one has
sensed anything else, not even Rei. It may be an isolated incident,
the work of a solitary youma. We've encountered rogue youma
before; it's nothing new."
     Haruka suddenly felt sick to her stomach, realizing the
implications that came with Setsuna's suspicions. "What if it's
not?" she pressed.
     "Figuring this out will take some time regardless," Setsuna
answered. "First off, we have to find the youma that did this
before it attacks again. Then we need to decipher if this is merely
a prelude to another invasion."
     "Let's just hope that we don't have to go to battle again,"
Michiru agreed.
     Hotaru leaned forward, her face appearing on the communicator.
"Is your flight still cancelled?"
     Michiru nodded. "We may be able to stake a claim on a few
seats, but there's no guarantees of anything. For all intents and
purposes, we're stranded here for the remainder of this week."
     "If this is a new enemy," Haruka stated solemnly. "Then we may
have to cut our semester here short and move back to Tokyo."
     "There's no need for you to be here, not just yet," Setsuna
cut in before the blonde could say anything else. "We'll look into
it from this side and see what is happening."
     "Yes, _we'll_ look into it," Haruka replied with a slight edge
to her voice. "Bring us over first, and we all will look into it."
     "Haruka," the woman replied with a sigh of exasperation. "All
we are doing is recon right now to find out what did this.
Currently there are no real indications that this might be the
catalyst for a new invasion. If we do need you, I'll come and get
you," she said, pressed a button on her end and her magenta eyes
narrowed. "I've got Ami-chan and Mamoru-san on other lines. Go back
to bed for now. We'll be careful, so if I do call you it means that
we need you."
     "Setsuna!" Haruka called out, but the display on the
communicator went dark anyway. "Shimatta!" she growled and flicked
her wrist to forcefully snap closed the communicator.
      "Shimatta, indeed," Michiru softly said as she took hold of
Haruka's hands.

[translation note: Shimatta can mean both 'damn' and 'closed.' You 
can probably figure out who is using it in which way.]

     "We should be there," the blonde growled. "They don't have our
training in dealing with covert threats as we do. We infiltrated
the Deathbusters years before the others even knew they existed."
     "Setsuna knows it as well, and she will not take any foolish
risks," Michiru explained in an attempt to calm her down. She knew
the real reasons behind Haruka's anger. "There is so little
conventional crime in Japan that we've never had to deal with
anything else but our duties as Sailor Senshi. That is why we both
care about our home so much. But right now, all we can do is wait.
If they need us, Setsuna will send for us."
     Haruka continued to scowl, staring down at the bed sheets.
     "You're worried about them, aren't you?" she asked. Michiru
pulled Haruka to her feet and led her to a small sofa by the
window.
     "Hai," the blonde admitted a few moments later and sighed. The
tension seemed to drain out of her as she leaned against Michiru.
"Usagi will probably freeze if another new youma pops up in front
of her. The only other one with any long-term experience at this--"
     "Baka," Michiru giggled, something she only did when they were
alone. "Minako is far too young for any of this. Are we just
supposed to push her stroller out into the middle of a firefight
and let her deal with it?
     "They'll be all right, Haruka," she went on. "Setsuna will not
let them get hurt by anything. I know that it's tough for you to
stay away when they might need you, but there is nothing we can do
until she calls."
     "That's twice in one day," Haruka grudgingly admitted after a
few minutes. "You know me better than I know myself, it seems."
     "You can lie to yourself, Haruka, but you can't lie to me,"
Michiru smiled understandingly. "You can't even do a good job of
lying to your friends," she said and leaned back before drawing the
blonde down next to her. "Go back to sleep."

**********

     One of the advantages to being one of the first people at the
beach, I decided proudly as I looked over my work crew, was not
having to get my feet too wet. I got to give the orders since I was
in charge. My car, my mission, and my orders.
     I felt like surveying all the sand that I ruled over, and then
breaking out into maniacal laughter. Of course, I might have looked
a little stupid cackling like that while wearing my swimsuit.
     John, by the virtue of liking them so much, was in charge of
digging up clams since I had made sure to be here before low tide
at eight. He was from a town that was along the coast, but a bit 
further north, so he knew what he was doing. After we set up some 
chairs and finished lugging in our cooler of sodas and food, Andy 
dug a pit for a fire and another for a genuine clam bake later on.
     I made a sand castle. I knew a bit about the subject from
being a tomboy while growing up and building forts for toy soldiers.
Also, Michiru had once made me sit down and scrape away at a block
of clay for a while to show me some things about sculpture for a
humanities class I got stuck with (I had to take it as part of the
conspiracy to make us more well-rounded students. Bah!), so I had
a good idea of what I was doing. Nothing too extravagant, but it
was fun to waste time once in a while.
     Some of the others showed up shortly after ten, and it didn't
take too long for them to find us. The entrance to the beach area
of this cove was about a hundred yards from our spot by the far
end. There were a few families down by the entrance since it was a
Saturday, and a group of students from a frat at the big state
university took up their position by the other end.
     They'd done the same thing last year and didn't even hassle us
much. There was a natural progression in evolution on campus, and
like homo sapiens supplanted the Neanderthals, we geeks were taking
over from the jocks. Some of them were problems, but most of them
weren't. It looked like we had some of the more docile ones today.
     Much rejoicing.
     One of the older students, another friend of several of my
dorm crowd, had brought his wife and young daughter, so I grinned
and turned over the job of destroying the castle to the three-year
old. As the kid gleefully played Godzilla to its Tokyo and stomped
on all the sand towers, I walked towards the entrance to rinse off
the sand in one of the fresh-water showers set up by the entrance.


     "--Tokyo officials say they are baffled by her condition, but
the medical authorities have assured everyone that it is not
contagious. And that's our brief world news update for now.
We'll have more for you at halftime," I heard a portable TV blare
out on the way back, but the station cut back to a basketball game
before I could see anything about it. What was going on, I
wondered, and my thoughts flashed to my friends from there. I
trotted back to the others and grabbed a radio.
     "Just a sec," I told the owner and tuned it to a news station.
It took about ten minutes for them to get to the story after a
couple of teasers saying something was going on there. Andy must
have noticed the concern on my face, because he came over from his
discussion with a few of his friends to see what was bothering me.
     "Sounds like a weird," he commented after we listened to an 
update on the situation. "Some sort of medical mystery, maybe even 
a new virus. Got a lot of people baffled, even more worried. I'm 
sure Haruka and Michiru will be all right, though."
     "They haven't left yet," I told him and explained that Haruka
had gotten her tests bumped back as well. "I know that they wanted
to go home, but this might make them think twice."
     "Hey, even if they stay, they got us, Beans," the owner of the
radio told me. He took back his radio and pointed towards the path
leading to the clearing everyone parked at. Two familiar figures
were walking around a bend and up towards the beach. "They're
almost like one of us by now."
     Another guy nodded approvingly before launching into a mock
Darth Vader voice. "Soon their journey to the Dark Side shall be
complete."
     I grinned at the acceptance of the unusual duo and put a hand
over my eyes to shade them from the mild sunlight in order to get
a better look at the pair.
     Michiru was as elegantly dressed as she always was in a demure
white one-piece and a matching, translucent sarong wrapped around
her waist. I think I heard John's heart skip a beat somewhere 
behind me. He still harbored a soft spot for Michiru in his heart, 
even though he was smart enough to have listened to everyone else's 
advice to give up on her.
     Haruka was the surprise. Usually she'd be wearing a suit under
a shirt and shorts like I did; and she was, but I hadn't expected
her to be looking so... feminine. She was in a black, string bikini
top, her unbuttoned shirt was more sheer than Michiru's sarong, and 
she probably made the hearts of the rest of the men on the beach 
stutter as well. She had a small, canvas sack slung over one 
shoulder.
     "Shouldn't they have left by now?" Andy asked.
     I shrugged. "No idea."
     I started to wave when five prime examples of what I believed
to be the defensive lineman subspecies of homo neanderthalis came
around the bend right behind them. Both Michiru and Haruka were
relatively tall, and Haruka had a presence and bearing that made
her seem bigger than she really was, but the men topped her by at
least half a foot and God only knew how much weight. One of them
took a few quick steps forward and started to reach out towards
Michiru.
     "Beans," John cautioned, seeing what was about to happen.
     "Aw, shit!" I muttered under my breath and started running
forward. I knew a fight starting when I saw one, and Haruka's body
language had suddenly changed to something I had only glimpsed on
Halloween night. Michiru turned and grabbed the arm that almost had
touched her. She ducked under it, spun, and savagely yanked it
downward, sending him into an awkward, twisting somersault. He
didn't get up.
     That was the gauntlet being thrown down. The others rushed
forward, probably by instinct. Haruka seemed to float into the air
as she lightly jumped up and through an outstretched set of hands.
Her knee struck his chin and flung his head back, and as he began
to reel backwards, she landed next to another. He swung wildly at
her and she leaned back to let it pass before landing three short,
sharp punches into his lower back.
     Michiru stepped between the two coming at her and twirled,
hitting one of them with an elbow in the side of the head. She
finished by kneeling and tripping the last one so he stumbled
towards Haruka. The blonde grinned and landed a right cross that
dropped the last man in his tracks.
     It had taken about a total of ten seconds. Loose sand isn't
easy to run on, so it took me a little to get there. Several frat
boys came running over to see what had happened but backed off at
the challenging glare Haruka was giving them. I think she wanted
them to try something. Michiru wasn't trying to get Haruka to back
down, ironically enough. She merely watched the young men in a
cool, detached manner.
     "Haruka!" I hissed at her and grabbed one of her arms after
angling my approach so that I didn't come in from behind her. Five
casualties were enough for one day and I didn't want to become the
sixth.
     I could smell the alcohol on the guys on the ground. Probably
cheap beer, I realized, as several of my dorm mates came up behind
us.
     "Bet you're glad you followed our advice about not pursuing
Michiru," one of the guys from our crew remarked to John.
     Somewhat bewildered, John could only nod in agreement.
     One of the guys from the frat put up his hands slightly and
warily kept his eye on the two women. "Peace," he said. "They
deserved what they got. Not to mention I didn't come out here today
just to get turned into a sand angel," he added, stepped back a
pace and extended his arms to keep the others from trying anything.
     Their attitudes changed like someone had thrown a switch. One
moment I was holding onto a stranger who looked like Haruka and the
next she was back to being the person I knew. She looked at the men
on the ground, disdainfully sniffed and walked away with Michiru.
     "That's your spot down there, Beans?" Haruka lightly asked as
I broke into a quick walk to keep up with them.
     "Yes it is, and just what the hell is going on here?" I
demanded hotly. I was angry and worried about how they had reacted.
I also knew that anyone who could have gone toe to toe with a lake
god could have badly hurt if not killed a couple of stupid idiots
who probably just wanted to tease them a bit or make a pass at
them. "I'm sure that you must be worried about your friends, but
that doesn't give you the right--"
     "Stop it!" Michiru's voice softly called out. It wasn't loud,
but it cut through our respective angers. A moment later, Michiru
led us away from the others and I waved them off so we could have
a little bit of privacy. It was only when we sat down that I
realized Haruka's right fist was still clenched.
     "I'm sorry, Beans," the tall blonde admitted even before we
spread out their blankets to sit on or Michiru could tell her to.
I was surprised that she was so quick in apologizing. "I didn't
have a good night."
     "What happened?" I asked.
     Haruka relayed the story about their booking problems, and how
they'd probably be unable to get to Tokyo at all. Even if they did,
it would more than likely be a stressed and exhausting time rather
than a relaxing one.
     "I'm not there like I should be," Haruka admitted, looking up
at the sky.
     "We both feel that way," Michiru gently explained.
     I cut her off with a wave of my hand. "They are your friends,
and I think I can understand how you feel. I'm sorry for getting
angry with you."
     "Mame-chan," Michiru lightly chuckled. Actually, she almost
giggled and hid her smile behind her hand for a moment. "You don't
need to apologize. We were the ones who lost control back there."
     "You lost control, Michiru?" I asked her and almost smiled.
     "Yes, we did," she openly admitted. "If we were more in
control of ourselves, that fight would never have happened. We both
don't like being helpless spectators."
     I nodded and decided to take a chance. They had never told me
much about their friends, but knew that they did value them very
much. "There will be other chances to visit them," I offered, "You
two will be going back to Japan in a few months anyways."
     Haruka looked me in the eye, nodded and glanced around to make
sure nobody else could hear us. I had expected her to be more angry
with me when I broached the subject.
     "There's something else," she murmured quietly.
     "I gathered that," I noted, "You don't seem to be the types to
get so agitated over not being able to catch a flight home for a
week."
     "There's something happening where we live," Michiru said
quietly. My head snapped up when I realized she was deliberately
speaking Japanese. "It's potentially dangerous, and could easily
put those we care about at great risk. But now we can't be there
with them to see this through. It's a first for us, being rendered
as distant spectators when we're usually in the thick of
everything."
     The way Michiru spoke about this mysterious subject, I knew
that she wasn't giving me all the details. But she was so serious,
a part of me didn't want to know more than I had to.
     "I can't just snap my fingers and make it all go away," I
said, placing a hand on Haruka's shoulder. "But what I can say is
that right now, the best thing you can do is to trust them. Trust
that they know what they're doing, and that they'll come out all
right. Hey, at the very least you can annoy them with daily phone
calls."
     "How do you know about them, Beans? We know that you didn't
look at the files you set up the new firewalls for," Haruka asked.
     "Bah," I lightly snorted. "I'm not going to get caught by an
access counter. I never looked at any of those files. I know that
there are more of you than just Setsuna, Hotaru, yourselves and
your computer specialist from the sheer number of records."
     "And is that it?" she added a moment later.
     "No," I shrugged and decided to come clean. "You're awfully
popular with a few newspapers in Japan, you know." Haruka slapped
her hand to her forehead as I laughed and Michiru said volumes with
a single soft, exasperated sigh.
     "That damn tabloid!" the blonde growled. "You looked us up in
their back issue library, didn't you?"
     "I just hope she didn't turn us in for the reward," Michiru
teased.
     "Yes and no," I said and held up my hand to stop any questions
before I could explain something. "In part it was because I needed
to know something of how well known you were in Japan, to give me
a better idea of how you were perceived and how popular you are.
     "I recognized you here, and if I did it means that somebody
else may be able to do it as well. That would mean that you might
have a lot of people asking questions about you, and that would
have made me set things up differently," I explained.
     "Nobody has in Japan," Haruka volunteered. Michiru lightly
nudged her in the ribs, making Haruka blush. "Okay, one person may
have."
     "There was one other thing, though," I went on and blushed a
little bit as well. I was never any good at this stuff. "We've
known each other for what, seven months now or so? I consider you
my friends, and part of having friends is wanting to know more
about them.
     "Maybe I shouldn't have done it, but I figured that there was
going to be so little truth in that paper--if it was like one of
our tabloids--that it wouldn't be a problem. It hurt a little bit
to know about that part of you, and to be shut off from it because
you didn't want to talk about it."
     "I never knew, Beans," Haruka sighed and put one of her hands
over mine while Michiru moved to my side and placed an arm around
my shoulders. To my surprise, she noticed and brushed away a hint
of a tear that was threatening to roll down my face. The tear
itself didn't surprise me, however. Being honest like this with
another person had never been easy for me to do.
     "We're sorry, Mame-chan," Michiru added and paused a moment to
carefully choose her words. "There are some things about us that we
can't talk about, like the others, because we can't rightly make
that decision for them. There are other things that we just cannot
let you know, and we can't even tell you why."
     "And we don't like having to do it this way," Haruka added
with a reassuring squeeze of my hand.  "But we don't have a choice
about some of it, Beans. I guess we thought that if you didn't
know, you couldn't be hurt by it."
     "Thanks," I mumbled. "Thanks for not being mad at me."
     "Why should we be mad at you?" Haruka asked and smiled. She
stood and pulled me to my feet, and before I could do anything
about it, she had picked me up and slung me over one of her
shoulders. "This is supposed to be a day for fun, Beans. You like
swimming from what I remember. Why don't we go swimming?"
     "Haruka!" I shrieked while I knew she was trading grins with
Michiru. They both knew that I couldn't swim and absolutely did not
like the water, but that didn't keep her from carrying me towards
the waterline.
     I stopped yelling at Haruka when I realized it wasn't doing me
any good.  Neither was the squirming.  My eyes went wide as she
took the first few steps into the surf.  She waded out to her waist
level with my feet trailing in the pleasantly cool waters.  I would
have sat on her shoulders like a cat if I could have gotten myself
in the position to do so.
     "What's there to fear?"  Michiru asked, following us out into
the water.  A few cold drops were dripped onto my neck.  The shock
of the water caused me to bolt.  I fell into the water with a loud
splash.
     Quickly, I brought myself to the surface.  "Kuso!" I yelled in
startled anger.
     "She looks like a drowned cat," Haruka noted to Michiru.
     "Neko-chan," Michiru chuckled and gracefully glided out into
the waters.  She swam several yards out before turning to wave us
out to her.
     "C'mon, Beans, Michiru is the best swimming instructor you
will ever find," Haruka cajoled.
     "I don't think so," I replied hesitantly.  "It's pretty deep
that far out.  I don't need to swim -- ACK!"  I spun around before
falling face first into the water again.
     I came up sputtering, "Who tickled me!"
     Both Haruka and Michiru were standing there laughing.  Michiru
had snuck up on me while Haruka kept me distracted.
     "That's it," I waded my way back to the shore.
     "Mame-chan, wait!"  Michiru caught my arm.  "Gomen, that was
cruel of me.  We really do want to teach you how to swim.  We won't
play anymore pranks on you until you are comfortable in the water,
okay?"
     I looked out over the ocean.  There was so *much* of it.  How
did one not become lost or overwhelmed by its enormity?  My fear
reasserted itself.  I gulped down the growing lump in my throat.
     "I dunno Michiru," I said slowly.
     She pulled me close to her.  In my ear she whispered.  "I am
one with the seas.  As long as I am here, nothing will happen to
you."
     Her words dissolved my fear even though they were irrational.
No one was 'one with the seas'.  But I did trust her.  I felt it,
on a gut level, that she must be speaking the truth.
     I swallowed again.  "Okay, where do we start?"

**********

     "So?" John asked.
     One of the dorm mates, who was busy acting nonchalant as he
made sweeping views of the beach with his binoculars, gave a shrug.
"She's got the aquatic grace of a beached whale at the moment," he
replied, accepting the swat across the back of the head he knew
would come with such a joke.
     Busy tending to the fire pit, Andy jutted out his chin in
another direction. "What's with the shutterbug?"
     The guys turned and appraised a man who was busy wandering the
beach and taking what looked to be volumes of pictures of anything
and everything. He'd do some scenery shots, then change to clicking
some photos of the various people playing on the beach. In
particular he seemed to be focused on getting the right photo of
the waves.
     "Tourist, maybe?" John ventured.
     "Say, I've been meaning to ask," Dan remarked, scanning the
group. "Where'd Frank disappear to? I thought he'd be here."
     One of the girls shook her head as she reclined on a towel and
soaking up the sunshine. "He's getting some extra hours in at the
photo place he works at. Trying to recover the cost of this
semester's textbooks."
     Dan groaned upon hearing that. "Aw, man! C'mon, the essence of
Spring Break is to *not* work! That's what today's all about!"

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

     An hour later I was slowly making my way back to the shore. I
was worn out by the exercise of keeping myself from drowning or
swallowing too much sea water.  I wonder if all the salt in it
would meet my daily dietary requirements...
     Michiru was such a graceful swimmer.  I could almost believe
that she *was* one with the sea.  The waters parted before her as
she swam, they encased her, then seemingly yielded to her will...
     "I would have never expected the waters to be calmer the
further out you went," I commented as I walked to a fresh water
shower.
     "Funny how that happens," Haruka noted from the next shower
over.
     "It was almost as though someone had created a wave break
around us so that I could learn in calm waters," I continued to
rinse.
     Haruka gawked, but recovered nicely. "It's just a calm day,"
she said quickly and as coolly as she could. "Nothing like that is
possible."
     "You're probably right," I agreed.

**********

     "So, did you have fun today?" I asked Haruka as I plopped down
next to her on Michiru's towel. She was still swimming and had been
out there for what seemed like hours.
     "Yes," she admitted and gave me an easy smile. "I would have
preferred to be on my way home right now, of course," she shrugged.
"Thanks for inviting us today."
     I almost said that she was welcome, but the cellular phone in
her bag rang and I stopped to let her answer it. She listened for
a few moments and nodded once.
     "Sorry," she said as she turned it off. "That was our travel
agent. It looks like they've managed to call in a few favors and
procure us two seats on a flight for Tokyo that leaves late
tonight, so we had better get to the airport if we actually want to
go."
     "What, that's it? No clam bake?" one of the guys asked,
feigning hurt.
     "That's okay," I told her. Haruka turned and waved to Michiru,
who responded, and for a moment I thought I saw a flash of gold
around her wrist.
     "You mind telling me something, Beans?" Haruka suddenly asked
in a more tentative, hesitant voice.
     "I guess," I shrugged.
     "When we were looking for our mystery hacker, you were one of
the people who we suspected of doing it, but we were never able to
find anything other than your handle no matter what we did."
     "And you want to know my name?"
     "Well, like you said," she smiled. "It is natural, after all."
     "I don't want it getting around," I said.
     "Won't tell a soul," she promised and drew her fingers over
her heart in a cross pattern. That made us both chuckle together
for a moment. With a smile on my face, I leaned towards her.
Friendship was about more than just common interests, I knew. There
was a level of trust that it implied, and I knew that the words I
whispered into her ear wouldn't be repeated... well, repeated only
once more.
     "Thank you," she simply said and began to collect their
things. I helped her stuff them into the bag and she stood up to go
meet Michiru with a towel. Haruka turned back to me after a few
steps, though, and her eyes had a mischievous twinkle in them.
     "Yes, you can tell her!" I called out and grinned. "I already
knew that 'everyone else' doesn't include her where you are
concerned."
     She just smiled and turned back towards the ocean.
     "So now what?" Andy asked, sitting down next to me on the
beach towel.
     I turned to him and then glanced up at the sun. "All that
swimming's made me hungry. What's there to eat?"

**********

     "Hey, Frank," I greeted easily as a came up to the counter of
the 1 hour film developer.
     From his place behind the counter, Frank glibly replied with
a straight face, "Hay is for horses--"
     "--and cows like you," I finished the jibe. He always teased
me when I greeted people like that. "How's your break going?"
     Frank shrugged. "As good as it gets, I suppose. Dan was
already by to lament about how I was 'not in the spirit of Spring
Break.'"
     That made me laugh, since that was the way Dan tended to work.
He enjoyed playing as hard as he worked. "The pictures from the
beach been developed yet?" I asked.
     Frank sniffed indignantly. "This is a 1 hour developer you
know. You do wrong to our name by asking me that."
     "Then why weren't they ready yesterday?"
     "'Cause I wanted to look at them," he chuckled and went to the
back to look for the right envelope.  "I had them right back here
somewhere," he called out to me.
     A man came into the small shop, casually dressed in jeans and
a T-shirt, but certainly anxious about something. He tapped on the
bell for service repeatedly, even though you could clearly see
Frank in the back.  His lack of manners annoyed me.
     Frank stuck his head out.  His expression changed slightly.
"I'll be right with you, sir," he said, and returned to the back.
     The man glared around the shop as he combed his fingers
through his spiked brown hair.  We were the only two in the store
currently.  His gaze fell on me, but was quickly averted when I met
his stare with a cold one of my own.  Haruka had been useful in
teaching me how to do that.
     "Ah, here you are," Frank came back out front.  He handed me
two envelopes of pictures.  I looked at him confused.
     "I only dropped off one roll," I began to open the envelope to
see which picture were mine.
     Frank put his hand on mine and squeezed to briefly.  "I know,"
he said lightly.  A dark, almost unnoticeable glance was shot over
to the guy next to me. He was putting on a face for that other
customer.
     I glanced over at the man again.
     "Remember that you dropped off that roll of your grandmother's
birthday a few weeks ago.  You never came by and picked it up."
     "Oh!" I exclaimed.  All my grandparents had passed away years
ago.  "You're right.  How much do I owe you?"
     "Don't worry about it now, I'll put it on your account." He
smiled charmingly and waved me away.  He wanted me out of the store
now.
     I picked up the two envelopes off the counter.  "Thank you
kindly."  I waved as a walked out the door.
     I drove to the college.  Not until I was in my room alone did
I open up the envelopes to see what Frank had given me.  The first
was as I expected.  The second was far more interesting.
     The first half were all of Haruka and Michiru, neither of them
seemingly aware that they were being photographed. Some of the
photos were of Haruka and Michiru individually walking around their
respective campuses, while others had them at some social
gatherings or just out on the town. The second half were of Haruka
and Michiru--and the rest of us--at the beach.
     In fact, most of the beach pictures were of them teaching me
how to swim. An impressive zoom lens had to have been used, given
how I could see all our expressions perfectly. I don't think I
could have hidden my extreme surprise from anyone had I not been
alone.
     A note abruptly slipped out from between two pictures.
'Thought you would find this interesting.  Aren't reprints a
wonderful thing?'  I looked at the negatives.  They were the right
ones and matched with these pictures.
     Then what did Frank give to that man?

***********

     With eager and trembling fingers, the photographer opened up
the envelope from that quickie 1 hour shop.  "Yes yes yes," he
chanted to himself, reveling in the fact that he no longer owed a
favor to the guy who'd hired him to take the pictures. Not to
mention he could collect the last half of his cash for doing the
job.
     He hadn't the slightest idea who those girls he'd been
photographing were, but evidently someone was really interested in
them. As always he'd been cautious and not opening up the photos in
broad daylight, where someone might get a little more than curious
if they caught a glimpse of his pictures. He'd retired to his hotel
room before opening the package up.
     Out came pictures of some old lady with a party hat on and a
party favor hanging out of her mouth.  He quickly scanned the rest
of the pictures, his jaw dropping in horror and disbelief.  *All*
of them were of the same ugly old lady.
     "Dammit!" he snapped, tossing the photos onto the bed.
      The pictures had gotten switched, and in his fear of being
discovered he hadn't bothered checking them first thing!  He called
up the shop, but it was too late.  They had already handed them out
to the wrong person. The store employee, who identified himself as
Frank, cheerfully offered the man a full refund for the film and
development.
     With no other avenue, he took the refund.
     That at least was a silver lining in an otherwise very dark
and ugly cloud. If he raised a big stink about losing the photos,
he'd wind up being questioned about the pictures he'd been taking.
Some of those students at the beach would no doubt recognize him if
this went public, and they'd put two and two together. That would
nail him into a proverbial coffin for sure.
     What was he going to tell his boss? Suppressing a groan, he
tried to procrastinate for a few hours before calling his
superior. The boss would not like this in the slightest.
     Neither did he, since this meant he wouldn't get the other
half of his money. How could anyone call this a completion of one's
contract?

***********

     Cold coffee and Wild Turkey was the drink of the day in that
small and cramped office, but right now the occupant was wanting
something a little stronger.
     "What do you mean the pictures *aren't* there?" he snapped
over the phone to his designated photographer. "I hired you to take
pictures."
     He paused momentarily before resuming to chew the hapless
photographer a new ass. "Oh, you saw them? Well, that makes it all
better! Another unsubstantiated sighting. Maybe we could add that
they were swimming with the Loch Ness monster too, while we're at
it. I don't deal with eyewitnesses, I deal in cold hard proof. You
took pictures, didn't you? Then unless the film magically got up
and walked away, it should be there!"
     The young man on the other end stammered an explanation that
caused him to scowl. "A mistake with the developers? You're a
photographer; I thought you developed your own!"
     Their conversation went on for a few more minutes before he
hung up the phone out of sheer aggravation. The best lead he'd had
was so close, and now the ground had fallen out from underneath his
feet.
     He fished out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Now
was not the time to remind himself he'd been trying to quit for
months. As he flicked the lighter and let the open flame burn the
tip of his cigarette, he cursed his bad luck.  So much for getting
all that cash from the Japanese tabloid magazine.
     "It's a blasted conspiracy," he hissed, letting out a deep
puff of smoke.
     It had to be for those two women to have slipped through their
fingers as many times as they had.  That or they were two luckiest
people walking this planet.
     In many ways, it was both.


********** End part 21 **********


Shout outs go to Tim Nolan for his help with this part.  It's been 
on the back burner for years now.  Thanks for being patient with 
it's release (it's never too late to resurrect a long lost fanfic, 
eh?)