Ranma, having dried off and exchanged her outfit for the A.D. police uniform, rolled her Chinese clothes into the duffle bag. She looked at the badge, untied the binding of her pigtail, and fluffed out her hair. Ranma nodded approvingly as she compared the badge with her reflection in the bathroom mirror before she clipped it to the uniform. She gave it one last look and said, “Sorry Romanova-san, but I need this to get out of where ever here is.”
As far as Ranma could figure out, she was in some high tech base of the A.D. police. This uniform was her ticket out of there as long as she didn’t run into the real Nene, or anybody who really knew Nene. Heck, it was better if she didn’t meet anyone.
*A few minutes later*
‘OK, Now I’m confused.’ Ranma had gone up in an elevator and was prepared to sneak \ trick her way past the guards, but had ended up in a woman’s fashion store. ‘The A.D. police must have a small budget to have to open a store at their base. Maybe that explains the closet ‘jail’. Either that or all the police are well dressed. I wonder where the male police officer store is.’ She had an odd daydream of heroes fighting crime in tuxes and dresses, but quickly pushed that out of her mind as she had more important things to worry about.
Ranma crawled on the ceiling to avoid the security cameras and was able to navigate to the front door, which was surprisingly unlocked and unalarmed. (Priss had forgotten to relock and alarm the door when she had been sneaking in). She quickly slipped into the shadows. Ranma hoped she could get some hot water at late night eatery and ditch the uniform in one of their bathrooms.
The disguised girl was certain that hot water could be found near the brighter part of city. She stopped as she noticed a boomer street cleaner busily fulfilling its purpose. “Cool, this place is really high tech. I wonder if I could get Mr. Tendo to get one for Kasumi.” She turned a corner and discovered that the bright lights led to a constructions site that was full of activity. ‘Oh well they should be able to point me to a late night diner or at the very least have a coffee or tea machine there.’
She saw that several robots were working on the new building. Large humanoid-clawed robots brought steel girders to smaller robots with welding torches arms, and human sized muti-tooled armed ones worked on fine details like windows and doorways. ‘Amazing! I didn’t realize that Japan had advanced so far with robots. I wonder why we don’t have more of these in Nerima? I hope there are some HUMAN workers around here.’ Ranma was about to give up when she spotted a medium sized man. . . a foreman she guessed as he was giving instructions to one of the robots. He turned his head as Ranma walked up to him and said,
“Hello Officer-san. Is there something I can help you with?”
“Yea. Can you tell where I can get some hot water? Oh yeah I’ve … gotten a little lost, can you tell me which way to the Nerima district?”
“Well, there’s a ramen cart that is usually about two blocks that way. Nerima district is pretty far about that way. It still hasn’t been fixed since the big earthquake. I hope there isn’t a problem over there officer-san?”
“Earthquake? What earthquake?!” Asked an alarmed Ranma. ‘Man…I hope everyone is OK. Maybe that’s how I got thrown here and only imagined a portal?’ The foreman was quick to reassure the frantic officer.
“No there weren’t any new earthquakes Officer-san. You know… the Second Great Kanto Earthquake of 2025.”
“Oh that earthquake.” Ranma had relaxed at the unconcerned tone of the foreman, but tensed as the date hit her. “Wait, what year is it now?”
“Its 2032…so it’s been…about 7 years. I know it doesn’t look like we’ve gotten too far in rebuilding, but trust me this place was a lot worse before we’ve started. You know, the more we build the more hope is out there. I get a real kick when strangers stop me and thank us for our hard work.” The foreman said as he gestured toward the buildings surrounding the construction site. Ranma gazed at the buildings and thought, ‘Does that mean that the twisty thing was real and threw me 50 somewhat years into the future? I don’t think I slept through all those years. I don’t feel any older.’ (The possibility of traveling to an alternate universe has not yet occurred to Ranma yet. Time travel was no stretch for Ranma though. )
The foreman had grown concerned by Ranma’s silence and said, “Officer-san?” He quickly read the A.D. badge he tried again. “Romanova-san? Is everything all right?” This brought Ranma out of her contemplations who replied,
“Yeah. Everything is fine…sorry ‘bout worrying you. I’ll go get that hot water. Thanks for your help.”
(Posted Fri, 11 Jul 2008 04:50)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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