“Ooohoh.”
“You know, I didn’t know we could get airsick.”
“oOOuh.”
“Have you ever travelled with another – ah, someone else from the clan?”
“Only once by air,” admitted the academic. “Yourself?”
“Irregularly. Mostly Jetta.”
“Iueeghug.”
“I did have the chance to fly with Brittany’s friend Ace once,” remarked Sander. “Only in one of his transport ‘planes, but you really need a cast-iron stomach to ride with him.”
“Ah.”
“uuuw.”
“Well it’s about time,” snapped Talon. “I was beginning to think they were going to prohibit my using the computer until we arrived in Japan.”
“We are still low enough to see the ground…” murmured the mage behind him. Normally, Ionis would have wanted to sit near the middle of the craft, rather than by the window, but since the metal practically defused his entire offensive and defensive capability the three martial artists had the aisle seats to better protect their charge.
click “Gra!”
With a creak, the cage door opened and a triumphant panda slipped out into the passageway. Leaving the cage open, it tip-toed to the corner, and peered around the end of the wall.
‘Success!’ thought Genma jubilantly. ‘They even left the kettle out – only that baseball cap for clothes, though, unless I can get into one of those lockers.’ He paused. ‘What am I thinking – of course I can open those lockers! After all, only a master of martial arts locksmithing could open that cage from inside with no tools while a panda. I can open any lock!’
He lumbered rapidly across to the little rest area, not even glancing the other way at the door to the outside. Seizing the kettle from its perch on top of the nearest locker, he shook it. ‘Nothing in there,’ he thought. ‘No problem, there’s a sink over there…’
It took a little work to fill the kettle. His experience as a panda was all fairly recent, and they aren’t the most dextrous of beasts anyway. Nonetheless, in a few minutes, he had the kettle full, returned to its apparent home on top of the locker, and connected to the cable there. He also had several kettlefuls of water on the floor and a sink tap jammed fully open, but he could cover up the evidence of his departure as soon as the water was hot enough. Right now, he would prepare for that departure by obtaining some clothes to replace his gi.
He turned to the lockers. Curiously, each had a small knob but no keyhole. Puzzled by this lack of security – after all, anyone might get in and walk off with the keepers’ clothes without locks on the doors, and some of them had been women – he turned the knob on the nearest locker and pulled. Nothing happened.
“growf?”
He tugged the knob again, and shook it, but the locker remained securely closed. After a particularly vigorous tug shook the locker, he paused. Perhaps there was a lock on the thing after all. Cursing whoever had taken away his glasses, he bent closer to peer myopically at the knob.
There was no hole in the knob, or near it on the door. However, there were several numbers on the side of the knob, and he wondered just where that was familiar from.
He thought. He scratched his head. He twiddled the knob back and forth.
That actually triggered the appropriate memory. The thing looked exactly like a very small version of the combination lock on the safes in that gaijin movie he saw – when was it, now? While he was training under the master, anyway – he and Soun had hidden in the movie theatre to avoid the horde of outraged women pursuing the trio. Too bad the Master had spotted where they went and led the women in through the emergency exit before the film ended.
Still, he could remember the relevant part of the film. What was more, his hearing was significantly better as a panda than when he was human! He pressed the side of his head against the locker door and started turning the knob delicately.
Normally, at that hour, Kodachi would have been lying in her bed, trying to get to sleep; only trying, since between her nightmares and the noises commonly emanating from her brother’s suite she often didn’t sleep well. Tonight, instead, after meeting the Tendo sisters and their houseguest, she was sitting in her private laboratory, her mind drifting idly between disconnected thoughts as she idly swirled a test tube half-full of a viscous brownish fluid.
She had intended to meet Tendo Akane, her fiancé Saotome Ranma, and hopefully the mysterious ‘Flame-Haired Maiden’ her brother had become enamoured of. Learning that Saotome Ranma was the Flame-Haired Maiden she could discount simply as her brother mishearing some comment and then deludedly refusing to release whatever conclusion he had made. Discovering that Ranma and Akane really were engaged to marry, by their fathers both of whom insisted that Ranma was male, was… oddly comforting. It indicated that her family was not the only one populated by the deranged, nor was she the only person markedly more sane than their parents.
Meeting Tendo Nabiki was, she suspected, of more import than meeting the two younger girls. The middle Tendo sister was obviously intelligent, determined, ambitious, and not above a little manipulation in the quest for her advancement. She could be a very good person for the scion of a wealthy, well-connected family with no particular affection for that family to associate with, not least because she seemed to have a sense of humour not unlike Kodachi’s own. She might become a good friend – and Kodachi recognised she had few, if any, real friends – and she might be helpful when it came to disassociating herself from her parents and brother.
On the other hand, she might instead become a thorn in the Black Rose’s side, in which case the old adage about keeping friends close came to mind.
They had exchanged their respective tales – of Ranma’s coming to the Tendo home and of Tatewaki’s incarceration – and she had taken the measure of the household; she was sure they had equally taken the measure of her. In fact, Ranma (after they reconvened in Nabiki’s bedroom, the two younger girls having quickly washed from their sparring session) examined her with almost unnerving intentness, peering closely in her eyes and sidling around her silently as they manoeuvred for seating space before retreating with a slightly thoughtful expression.
It was no surprise to her that both Akane and Ranma were martial artists; her brother had mentioned that aspect of his beloveds repeatedly. It was likewise little surprise that he had gotten almost every other facet of their characters wrong. The ‘Flame-Haired Maiden’ was no demure lady; Ranma was sometimes unnervingly direct in her approach, and quite immodest in an innocent way. In particular, neither she nor Akane were too shy to express their affection for any person, much less her brother. Indeed, their outspoken relief and pleasure at hearing of his present situation was quite amusing.
Particularly when they started dancing in small circles after she informed them that he would likely remain incarcerated at least until the family retainer managed to contact her father.
Now, though, she considered she had discharged her duties with respect to he brother’s condition. His victims had been informed of their freedom from harassment. She had made her dutiful attempt to free him from the institution (and a somewhat perfunctory attempt it had been, too; unfortunately, had he been in the similar institution in the Furinkan area that would have been all that was required to get him back on the loose, as she knew from previous experience). She had informed the most senior of the servants, who would continue to make his attempts; she had, however, strictly prohibited Sasuke from ‘extra-legal’ methods, citing concern that the institution ‘didn’t recognise the pre-eminent rights of the Samurai’, a statement that a member of the family would agree with and any sane person would understand as sarcasm. She wasn’t sure how Sasuke regarded it.
The last matter she had to consider was the contents of the vial in her hand, and the contents of several other – carefully stoppered – vials and flasks around the laboratory, not to mention a few secreted in other places about the estate. No small part of her fascination with chemistry and biology was fuelled by the need to brew these compounds, and a part of her was loath to discard the work they represented. Another part of her couldn’t wait to throw them out, destroy them, and destroy every trace that they had ever so much as crossed her mind – for what girl wants to be reminded that she had to drug her own family into a semblance of normalcy? The last, practical part of her knew both responses were wrong. At the very least, some of the compounds had to be used within a limited time of their completion, and a fair proportion of her stock was nearing that ‘use-by date’. Should her brother be subjected to blood tests – as he surely would be – some of her compounds might show up, and therefore it made sense to clear her laboratory and rooms of any evidence. Unfortunately, when he was released – and he would be released, she was fatalistically sure of it – it was certain that he would disregard the doctors’ prescriptions, so sooner or later she would be forced to recommence treating him surreptitiously with what she could produce herself.
Her thoughts drifted again, soft cotton wool walls slipping between her and her intent. Memory mobbed her, of her mother sitting primly upright as she played with the clown at – a party? But she never was permitted a birthday party, nor did the family celebrate any festival in a way that might delight a child such as she was remembering herself as. A shaven-headed figure she recognised as her brother slashed viciously at a dog formed of balloons, and was splattered in day-glo paint as it exploded. The clown blew a party favour, making a raucous noise. A horde of trained poodles appeared from under the tables and set upon the preteen Tatewaki, burying him under a pile of yapping fur. The clown turned to her, a manic smile upon her father’s face.
She jerked upright in the chair. Her father, kami she had forgotten about the other members of her deranged family. And Sasuke’s dutiful attempts to have her brother released from the institution would inevitably require that he contacted her surviving parent.
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(Posted Sat, 10 Nov 2007 17:30)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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