Dr. Moreau smiled as he read the novel in his hands. He’d grown up with a love for science fiction; as he saw it, these bored, nebbish scribes had a better vision of what was possible than the average soul. He wished he could have some of these scribes here now, just to see their appreciation of his work.
This would be his last, and greatest, creation. No doubt, one of his ‘children’ would take his work to the next level. Japan would become too strange for it not to be so; with the variation coming to Japan’s insular world, adaptation and innovation would become necessity rather than sheer luxury.
Smiling, he put the book down on his desk and turned on the television. Yes, his little wild card should be producing results any day now...
***
Akane was feeling a lot better now.
She felt... incredibly refreshed. No more sneezing, no more chills... in fact, she felt great! She felt like she could run a marathon! No doubt her sisters and Ranma (especially Ranma) would be happy to hear this news... Ranma had been locked in cursed form since getting sick, and really wanted to feel like himself again.
She blinked at the idea of running, then decided to get her shorts and running shoes. She leapt off the bed, shucked her pyjamas, reached for the closet door... and shuddered.
Where was her hand? She could feel it in the wind, flex her fingers... but where was it? She waved it around, hoping she could see it... then noticed a shifting of the light.
Her hand was there; it was just that it couldn't be seen amidst the background. It didn’t look like glass, so she doubted it was transparent; rather it looked like an incredible chameleon effect. The color of her arm naturally matched the background behind it. People could probably see her... just not easily. To make it more effective, her skin had an angling effect like she'd seen on the paint of some cars, so that a particular point had one color from one angle and another from a different angle. She twisted her arm around in front of her face, marveling at its adaptation. She grabbed her t-shirt and shorts like she’d planned, went to the dresser to get a sports bra, and dressed for the day, trying to forget the fear creeping up her throat.
There had to be a logical explanation for this. There just had to be. She slipped on her clothes, careful that she was doing it properly (it was rather difficult with her skin), and opened the door.
She frowned. Ranma was still sleeping, as were her sisters; she could hear their snores as they continued to rest. She thought that odd; shouldn't at least one of them be up? Being careful to be silent, she slid the door to Ranma's room open.
The shadows played oddly against the floor; she began to wonder if it was afternoon rather than morning. She watched the change in her skin as she moved into the sunlight.
Ranma looked perfectly normal, to her eyes. No odd changes to the skin, no freakish changes... nothing. Akane sighed; maybe the flu changing her was just her imagination. Out of a strange impulse, she touched Ranma's skin, to caress her cheek.
She jumped back. Touching Ranma's skin had produced a shock - not a great one, but a shock nonetheless. She noticed something poking out of Ranma's hair, and brushed a stray lock away.
Ranma the Oni. Why wasn't she all that surprised... she carefully backed away from Ranma's room, slid the door closed, and made her way downstairs.
"Daddy? Mr. Saotome?" She looked at the play of light in the living room; sure enough, it was late afternoon. A stray thought crossed her mind; how long had she slept?
Her father practically ran at her call; his eyes threatened with tears. "A... Akane? Are you all right?"
She shrugged. "I feel great, but... what's happening?"
Her father swallowed. "You've been asleep for three days, Akane. During that time, you've..."
"O... kay..." She looked at her shifting skin. "Should I go to Dr. Tofu?"
Soun nodded enthusiastically. "He's been by... but I think you should go anyway, just to update him."
She noticed something in their looks. "Daddy?"
He swallowed. "Yes, dear?"
"How many people are infected?"
***
Moreau looked at the strange transformations coming out of Nerima, and chuckled. The beautiful thing about Nerima being the source is that it provided this inspiration: the best counter to an organized society is chaos. And, in his science fiction readings, few ideas caused more chaos than the Wild Card virus. Thankfully, his less-lethal version would prove to be the perfect cure for Japan’s ills...
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Nightelf
(Posted Sat, 23 Nov 2002 21:45)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.