"Motherfucker...!"
Ataru automatically winced as his brain registered the curse that just escaped his lips, then he quietly thanked whatever Fates had decided to be merciful with him -- All of which could most likely be counted on one hand, he mused darkly -- that his sisters weren't around to hear it. Karen would've scolded him to no end for uttering such profanities in front of Hinako, Aria and Kaho. And Heaven help him if Aria's governess/maid, Guenevere de Rochelles, ever heard him do that. The looks the woman gave him whenever he did anything wrong concerning his French-raised sister alone would be enough to make a hard-drinking Korean forever foreswear his soju. And when she finally spoke to him...!
And he once thought hearing the never-ending litany of "I wish I never had you!" from his late mother was painful?
Remembering his parents, who had been killed in a terrorist bombing of Tomobiki High School three months ago in the wake of Lum's death thanks to yet another terrorist bombing on her home planet, Ataru reminded himself to find a way of sending a letter of thanks to whatever group had done the wonderful deed.
Wrapped in a letterbomb, of course.
One simply must keep one's priorities straight, after all.
Letting your damned brain wander too much, Moroboshi! he scolded himself. Get with the program, you idiot! Your sisters need you! With that, he drew out a pair of macro-binoculars to scan his other self's current home base.
And what a base it was!
The damned thing -- it was shaped roughly like a modern-day sports stadium topped off with a step-like pyramid at its apex, that in turn topped by an obelisk tower -- could probably contain every building on Promised Island within its walls and it still would have room for at least half the buildings on the Mendou estate in Tomobiki! If all that space was being set aside for his other self's would-be harem, the perverted loon was thinking way bigger than Ataru himself ever thought of in the days before the Second Tag Race.
Fighting down the surge of embarrassment and shame that remembering that time always provoked in him, Ataru quickly focused his attention on the base's foundations. Okay, loads of entrances there, all pretty much clear of any physical guards. He'd still have to be careful when he moved to sneak inside. The chances were there that there'd be some sort of sensor system in place to cover those entrances.
Slipping his binoculars back into his tunic, Ataru then drew out a portable bio-scanner to do a general sweep of the premises. The reading that came back brought good news and bad news. Good news was that his other-self was just getting started in collecting his "harem." At maximum, there were approximately two thousand captives contained within, roughly triple the total student population of Stargazer West College. Okay, that was a managable figure, Ataru concluded. The bad news was that his scanner couldn't differentiate which captives had already been brainwashed and which were still free.
Worst of all, he couldn't lock onto his sisters' specific bio-signatures.
Time to go in, Ataru sighed as he stowed the scanner, then picked up his Range Hunter...
An hour later, Ataru was slowly advancing down a corridor in one of the lower levels of the base, his rifle poised to fire from his hip, his scanner in the other hand. Getting inside had been surprisingly easy; there hadn't been any passive scan nets, much less anything in the way of booby-traps, set up by any of the ground-level entrances. Dumb and overconfidant. Like the idiot wants someone to come along to kick his ass into the next galaxy!, Ataru had mused on realizing how ill-prepared his other-self was in case someone had taken notice of what he had been up to. Most likely, the other Ataru probably believed he had stumbled onto the perfect, full-proof plan to obtain his harem.
Well, Ataru had to learn a lot of things the hard way, too...
Footfalls. Ataru stopped, slipping himself against the wall as he drew the cloaking cape tightly around him. Glancing down the hallway towards a T-junction some metres away, he spotted two hominoid shapes march purposefully past him. Androids. Almost look like those Cylons from that American sci-fi series I heard about. Most likely some sort of security force, he quickly realized, inwardly grateful that he had brought the cloaking cape with him. While it didn't screen him from direct vision from an organic observer, it was quite effective against almost all forms of electronic sensory. He hadn't seen anything resembling a visual camera since he came into this place. No doubt, his other-self was using a mobile patrol force to ensure none of his captives could get away. Fair enough.
Ataru scooted down the hall to the junction, then glancing right to ensure the guards were out of sight, turned left to continue his search. Reaching another T-junction soon enough, he glanced both ways, then whipped out his scanner to do a quick pass. One of the machine's lights flashed rapidly, making him glance right. "First up on deck," he whispered.
A minute later, he reached a section of corridor lined with dozens of clear-glass coffins, each holding someone inside. Stowing his scanner away, Ataru stared at the simple control units beside the coffin on his right. Quickly noting that the controls were marked in kana and kanji, Ataru tapped the UNIT STATUS toggle. On the screen above, a message flashed a brief message. "Twenty-five percent converted already?! Damn!" he hissed, then scanned the rest of the buttons to see if there was some way to reverse the process. Noting that the only hopeful button was marked ABORT, he thought about it for a moment, then sighed. "May fortune favour the foolish," he whispered, tapping that button.
The screen flashed a new message: RESTORE TO NON-CONVERTED STATUS? IF YES, PRESS 'ABORT.' IF NO, PRESS 'RESUME.'
Ataru pressed ABORT again. The screen flashed a message confirming that the subject was being restored to her normal mental state. "Maybe luck's flying my way," he muttered, then winced. Luck and Moroboshi Ataru never went together unless it was bad. "Sorry," he whispered to the poor girl within the coffin, then he blinked as recognition dawned.
Why, this was...!
(Posted Mon, 09 Feb 2004 15:10)
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