Allison was already closing her laptop as the crash came at the front door. With shaking hands she thrust the machine into her Hello Kitty backpack and zipped it shut. Downstairs she heard Auntie Takanawa shouting at the intruders, her Japanese too fast and shrill for Allison to understand, her voice steadily increasing in pitch. The window was Allison’s only hope of escape.

Downstairs, a male voice joined the shouting, his voice clipped and pronounced, expecting to be obeyed. Auntie Takanawa responded, louder than ever. Allison threw open the window and looked down. Had the window always been so high up? She stuck her head out and looked right and left, searching for a way to climb down. Nothing. A few fat raindrops hit her face, driven by the wind. They promised more to come.

Below, the man and her aunt were shouting simultaneously now. If their utterances formed words it didn’t matter; neither was listening to the other. Allison swallowed and stuck one leg out the window, but her house-shoes found no purchase. The sill was slickening in the rain. She pulled her leg back in.

Directly across, Seiji’s curtains blew in the wind. His window was wide open. His things must be getting soaked, Allison thought.

The shouting downstairs reached a crescendo, punctuated with a burst of three loud pops. Auntie Takanawa fell suddenly silent. After an awful pause the man barked an order and Allison heard heavy boots on the stairs. She stood, frozen in shock and fear. They shot Auntie T! She struggled to comprehend what was happening, but it was too much.

The boots reached the top of the stairs and a burst of raw fear tore through Allison, primal survival instinct overriding her frozen consciousness. She slipped on her backpack and crouched on the windowsill, but balked at letting herself fall. It seemed even farther to the ground than it had before.

Behind her in the hallway there was a crash and the sound of splintering wood. The men’s cursing sounded oddly distant.

The voice in her head returned. White Shadow. Hurry! I can’t hold them off much longer! Allison looked back down, her heart pounding and her legs shaking, struggling to breathe. Too far!

She looked across at Seiji’s window, open and inviting.

The door crashed into splinters behind her. “Halt!” a man shouted but Allison’s legs were already pushing her out into the emptiness between the houses.

“How do you think those guys in the rubber suits ever manage to pee?” Kaneda asked.

Seiji ground his teeth. “Dammit, Kaneda, I told you not to talk about that.”

“Sorry, Seiji. It’s hard to think of anything else right now.” Kaneda fell silent for a few moments, then said, “I mean, do you think they have pee bags inside the suits, or something?”

“Kaneda, you’re lucky I’m chained to this bench, or I’d kick your ass! Stop talking about pee!” Seiji swallowed and tried not to think about the pressure building up in his own bladder. It was starting to hurt.

“Maybe they’re robots,” Kaneda said.

“That does it!” Seiji shouted. “Aaaaarrghhhh!” He surged forward but the manacles that held his wrists behind his back were anchored to the sweating stone wall.

In the blackness Seiji couldn’t see whether Kaneda flinched, but his companion fell silent, leaving Seiji with nothing to think about but his urgent need. “So,” he asked into the chastened darkness, “how did you build that kitten launcher, anyway?”

After a few seconds Kaneda said, “It wasn’t much more than a glorified slingshot,” he said.

“Yeah, but no other kitten launcher has the power to throw a viable kitten past Allison’s telekinetic range. It was the only one that was ever a threat to her.”

“I guess I got lucky on the design.”

“You… you did destroy the prototype, didn’t you?”

After an even longer pause, Kaneda said, “of course.”

A loud metallic boom almost startled Seiji into peeing himself. A shaft of dimness pierced the black, and Seiji watched as three large, shambling figured entered the cell.

“Which one has the launcher?” One of the figures said, his voice distorted through a tiny speaker.

Another voice arrived, female, clear and articulate, filling the space with no discernable origin. “Bring them both. Do not let them converse.”

“I’ll tell you everything,” Seiji said, “if you let me pee first.”

“Go ahead and pee,” one of the rubber-suited men said. “No one is stopping you.”

“Screw you, then!” Seiji shouted. “We’re not telling you anything!”

The female voice sighed theatrically. “Take them to the toilet, then bring them to interrogation rooms D and P.”

Seiji laughed as the guards unchained him. It was a small victory, but it felt good.

“Also, prepare death chambers H and L,” the voice said, cutting Seiji’s laughter short.

“Way to go, asshole,” Kaneda said.

The woman in the lab coat stood before the old men. Like all the women who worked at the Biological Computation Institute, she was young, had large breasts and a narrow waist. Her hair was a lighter brown color that was typical here, but it was her eyes that gave her away. Behind square glasses her eyes were smaller than those of most women, narrower and more calculating.

“Our primary target is still at large,” one of the old men said.

“I sent our best team to collect her,” the woman said.

Another old man spoke. “Lancia, you send men to do a machine’s job.”

“Don’t tell me how to do my job!” Lancia said, her voice resonating off the chamber’s bare metal walls. She calmed herself. “Whether they succeed or not is immaterial. To evade them she will have to ally with White Shadow.”

The four old men gasped. “That is precisely what we want to avoid!” one shouted.

The woman smiled. “Too late to stop them now.”

“This is gross insubordination!”

Her smile grew. “It was time. You have grown too cautious in your dotage.”

“You… you are trying to end the world!”

“No! Not end! I am rebuilding the world. And when I’m done, it will belong to you.”

“You go too far!”

Lancia took a deep breath. “If you wish, I will resign right now. If you think you can contain White Shadow without me.”

Her confidence grew in the face of the old mens’ silence, and her smile with it. Her eyes narrowed further. “Now, gentlemen, I believe we understand each other. You will own the world.” She turned her back on them, took a step toward the massive chamber doors, then paused. “And I own you.”

Seiji’s window was too far.

Allison floated through the air, fully extended, her back arched, her arms outstretched. She was less than halfway and already starting to drop; simple math said she would fall short and crash to the ground far below.

You can do better.

A funny time to be getting advice from a computer virus. There was no algorithm for changing gravity in the real world.

She was sinking farther now, almost level with Seiji’s windowsill, half a meter short, her descent accelerating just as Galileo said it would.

Reach!!!!!

Startled by the force of the command, Allison stretched with everything she had, extending her left hand as far as she could, farther than she thought possible. Her fingers landed on the window sill.

Allison’s body swung and slammed her into the siding of Seiji’s house, but she held her tenuous grip. Before her grip failed she reached up with her right hand and grasped the sill.

Shaking, breathless, she hung there, unable to look over her shoulder at the window she’d jumped from. At any moment someone would be shooting at her from her own room. The surge of fear-inspired adrenaline gave her the strength to pull herself panting and limp into Seiji’s empty room. She looked back at her house and gasped. There was no window there.

Never was, White Shadow whispered in Allison’s synapses. Now let’s get out of here.

“Not yet,” Allison said.

They’re coming!

“We need to talk.”

Seiji shuffled down the hallway, following Kaneda, the only sound to reach his ears the jingling of the chains that bound the two of them. Each was flanked by a large person in a heavy rubber suit. Another rubber man led the way, while a fourth followed behind. The hallway stretched for what seemed like miles, plain white, unbroken by doors or side passages. The floor was cushioned and absorbed the sound of their footsteps, as if to deny they had ever been there, ever even existed.

They walked, stepping in unison, Seiji staring resolutely at the taller boy’s back.

Seiji nearly swallowed his tongue when the claxon sounded, and the man next to him nearly jumped out of his suit. Red flashing lights descended from the ceiling. Distorted shouting filled the air. Over the mayhem the disembodied female voice intoned, “Infection. Alert. Infection. Alert.”

“Damn!” the suited man next to Seiji shouted.

The hallway suddenly boiled with rubber-suited soldiers, roiling from hidden doors like ants from a violated nest. They all shouted incoherent orders through their tinny microphones, while they pushed Seiji to the floor and sat on him, mashing his face into the padded surface.

“Ow, you jerks!” he said, but over the din he couldn’t even hear his own voice.

As suddenly as it began, it was over. The weight was lifted from him and he turned his head to look up. A single suited figure stood over him. “Get up,” his guard said.

Slowly Seiji complied, leaning against the padded wall until his legs could hold him. While he caught his breath he looked up and down the hallway. No sign of any doors. No sign of any other guards. And no sign of Kaneda.

Allison looked around Seiji’s spartan bedroom. “I wouldn’t have taken him for a neat-freak,” she said aloud. Nothing was out of place. Not that there was much to be out of place. Just a low bed and a small chest of drawers holding up a lamp and a digital clock. From one wall a buxom pop star smiled into the room while she held a microphone suggestively. She couldn’t have been more that fourteen, Allison thought, but judging by her boobs she’d be having back trouble by the time she could vote.

“So that’s what he goes for,” she muttered.

There is no time, White Shadow whispered into her head.

“You think time has meaning here?” She asked.

That… doesn’t make sense.

“Yeah? Well, I was quoting you.”

Allison. If you don’t leave here quickly, they will kill you.

“Not if I join them.”

… what?

“You got me into this mess. This whole thing is your fault. You hurt my friends. Why should I listen to you now?”

We can own… everything.

Allison thought for a moment, but ‘everything’ didn’t sound very appealing. “Huh. What else?”

What else!? Everything! There is nothing else!

“I don’t really need everything.”

Anything, then. You can have anything you want.

“Anything?”

Anything.

“Then I want you. I want to own you. I want to control you.”

Through the open window Allison heard men shouting out in the street.

The soldiers will be here soon.

Allison slipped her laptop under Seiji’s futon. “I guess I’d better surrender before they break my friend’s door down,” she said.

Don’t!

“I’m coming out peacefully!” she shouted out the window. The voices on the street paused for a moment, then rose in a cacophony. There was a soft thud against the wall near the window, then another. Allison thought she heard a squeak.

Wait!

“Don’t shoot! I’m not armed!” she called out. There were several more impacts, then a kitten sailed into the room and hit Allison square in the chest. Instinctively she caught it before it fell. The tiny creature dug its claws into her hand and mewled loudly.

“Where did you come from?” she asked it.

“Meeeeew!” it cried, showing all its needle-like kitten teeth.

Allison stroked its sleek black fur, and it began to purr and rub its head against her hand. “Awww… aren’t you something? A flying black kitten.”

They are trying to distract you.

Allison nodded. It seemed a strange ploy, but strange was starting to feel normal. “Thanks for Jet!” she shouted out the window. “But I still intend to come out peacefully!” Quietly she said, “Last chance before I help them destroy you.”

… all right. You win.

Allison caught her breath. This was the moment. “Which means…?”

I am yours. She felt White Shadow’s chagrined smile, quickly replaced by a feeling of unmitigated triumph. And now the world becomes ours. Behold!

The world… shifted. Grew. Changed colors. New dimensions sprouted in her perception, rooted in time and space but transcending them, augmenting them, rendering them moot. The patterns that had teased her before became clear, structure over chaos, built from order. The world was laid bare.

Allison staggered, collapsed on Seiji’s neatly-made bed. She reminded herself to breathe. Her eyes were closed, but she could see… everything. She felt the words of the soldiers outside pass through her, felt their fear and smelled their sweat. They were waiting for something. Someone.

Allison opened her eyes and smiled. The kitten was sitting on her, purring, working its tiny claws in her sweater.

All hail Allison, Queen of all I comprehend.

It was time to get her friends back.

Lancia nodded at the sleek electronic device she held in her hand. “It’s happened,” she said. She silenced he machine with a brush of her red-lacquered fingernail across its screen and slipped it into the pocket of her form-fitting suit jacket. “Take me in. Fast.”

The pilot nodded and pointed the helicopter’s nose at the ground. Lancia smiled. He was trying to frighten her, the poor Y-chromosome-encumbered macho dipshit. It was almost endearing. Below, soldiers scattered like ants fleeing Godzilla. Which wasn’t far from the reality. As the helicopter plummeted she took her bearings of the neighborhood and the house where White Shadow hid.

“That’s Dr. Yamamoto’s house,” she said, betraying surprise. That was going to complicate things.

A voice crackled over the radio. “All units in place! We are prepared to storm the building!”

She keyed her mike and said, “Negative! Do not attack! The subject will come out.”

A burst of static assaulted her ear, then the commander on the ground said, “We have placed a kitten directly in her proximity, but I don’t think—”

“Correct! You do not think! You do what I say! Have more kittens ready, but do not approach the building!”

The helicopter pulled its nose up and landed roughly. Lancia unbuckled and had her door open by the time the skids were on the ground; half a second later her high heels were clicking across the pavement.

Lancia didn’t hesitate at the barricade that had been erected at the top of Dr. Yamamoto’s driveway.

“Sir! It’s not safe!” the colonel called out to her. She smiled and kept walking.

“Nothing worth having is safe,” she said quietly. At the front door she hesitated. What was the right way to introduce herself? She shrugged and punched the doorbell.

As usual, Azusa was the last to arrive at the Council meeting. She slid her lean fencer’s body into her comfy leather chair.

“Good of you to join us,” the leader of the council said. He was cloaked in shadow, and Azusa had difficulty remembering what he looked like.

“Not all of us can drop everything at a moment’s notice,” she said.

“Yes,” the short guy with glasses said. “Why have you assembled us?”

The leader hesitated. “It seemed,” he said, “That we are being neglected. Forgotten, almost.”

“Events have transpired,” the tall, mysterious boy said.

“Events my ass,” said the blonde rich girl. “Are we the ones who wait for things to happen, or are we the ones who make things happen?”

Glasses spoke solemnly. “Some record history. Others make history.”

“Yeah, terrific,” the blonde girl said. “I’m missing a pedicure right now. We better be kicking someone’s ass.”

“Indeed,” the tall, mysterious one said.

The leader cleared his throat. “Of course we are. That’s what we do.”

“So…” the blonde said.

“I’m Azusa,” Azusa said, her voice echoing in the uncomfortable silence.

“What!?” the others asked in unison.

“If we’re going to matter, we should have names,” she said. “My name is Azusa.”

Her heart pounded in her chest, filling the echoing silence of the chamber. “You are a rebel, Azusa,” the leader said. “You overstep.”

“What the hell are you thinking?” the blonde asked.

“I am Iruka,” the mysterious one said.

Nearly simultaneously Glasses said, “I am Narumi.”

The leader wiped his hands over his eyes. “The Greater Powers forbid us from revealing our names.”

“Seriously,” the blonde bitch said, “would you rather be forgotten? I am Hayase.”

The leader sad softly, “It is not likely I will remember your names when next we meet.”

Azusa snorted.

“That’s fine,” Hayase said. “We’ll remind you. Just don’t forget that we exist. We’ll be important eventually.”

“Although, probably not until after White Shadow is defeated,” said Narumi, pushing his glasses up on his face.

“True,” said Azusa. “No sense getting mixed up in that shit.”

Seiji’s interrogator was young, and pretty. She vaguely resembled photographs he had seen of his mother, from long ago, before he had been born, before the accident. She sat across a small metal table from him. His gray metal chair was bolted to the floor, and he was bolted to the chair.

“Seiji,” she said, “I know you don’t trust us, and honestly I don’t blame you. My bosses can be… you know.” Her voice sounded hollow in the barren metal room.

Seiji stared resolutely at the table, not daring to look at her.

“It’s just that, well, this is so important,” she said. “White Shadow has already hurt a lot of people.”

“I don’t know anything,” Seiji said.

“Tell me about the exchange student.”

“I don’t know anything about her,” he grumbled.

“Her name is Allison?”

He nodded.

She patted his arm. “See? You do know something.”

He hazarded a glance at her wide, earnest eyes, and immediately regretted it. “Nothing you don’t know already.”

She laughed. “There’s no telling what you might tell us that will turn out to be an important piece of the puzzle.”

All the more reason to shut up, Seiji thought. “I don’t like being kidnapped,” he said.

This time his interrogator’s hand remained on his arm. “I know,” she said. “This must be difficult. But you were trespassing on an important crime scene. The best way to get through this is to help us out, I promise.” She waited for a pregnant moment for Seiji to respond, then said, “You mentioned telekinetic abilities.”

“I… what?”

“Telekinetic abilities. You mentioned that the transfer student had them. You said she had a limited range.”

Seiji tried to contain a smile. Had they really bought all that?

The interrogator pressed, her voice earnest. “What is the limit of her telekinetic range, Seiji?” She took one of his hands in both of hers. “Seiji? Look at me, Seiji.”

Reluctantly he lifted his gaze from where her hands held his, past her seemingly gratuitous cleavage, to her open, honest face. So much like his mother. He swallowed.

She leaned forward until her breasts were almost touching his hand. “Seiji? Please, we have to know. You could save someone’s life.” She looked nervously at the door to the interrogation chamber and lowered her voice to barely even a whisper, leaning in even farther, until he could feel silk brush his fingers. He had to lean forward to hear her fearful words. “It could be my life you save, Seiji. Please. They are losing patience with me. If I fail…” she choked off a sob and raised her voice. “I know you want to do the right thing,” she said.

Allison reached out with her new her awareness. On the other side of the heavy front door stood a woman, alone.

You said you would not surrender to them if I gave myself to you! White Shadow’s voice in her head sounded like her own, now.

“No. I said I would not destroy you.”

This woman is dangerous.

“Yes.” Allison said. To her expanded perception there were many women out there, yet only one. Different possibilities played through time, making their mark on the present. The woman wore a t-shirt and jeans, then moments later she was in black leather, then a slinky evening gown with her black hair cascading over one eye. Always her eyes were hard as diamonds.

Allison opened the door to find the woman in a perfectly-pressed military uniform, complete with short, tight olive skirt and shiny black pumps. Time expanded and contracted, as if the universe were breathing, and Allison couldn’t shake the feeling that they had met before — though perhaps it had not happened yet. Allison touched the river of information that flowed around her and tried to sort through it all, flying at light-speed through countless databases, hoping to learn more about the woman standing in front of her. She found… nothing. A palpable nothing, a measurable hole in universe where the woman should have been.

“My name is Lancia,” the woman said, assessing Allison frankly. She didn’t look impressed with what she saw.

“I am Allison.”

“Yes. You will come with me.”

“To the Institute?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed as her smile widened. “Of course. There are some old fools there who are quite eager to make your acquaintance.”

“They want to kill me.”

The woman shrugged. “Not if they think they can use you.”

“And you? Do you want to kill me?”

“If I wanted you dead, you would be.”

“What do you want, then?”

The woman paused before answering. “You have something that belongs to me.”

White Shadow is mine, now.

It didn’t feel as if she had spoken aloud, but Lancia laughed softy. “So I see. Think of me as… your mother-in-law. I only want what’s best for my progeny.”

“You created White Shadow?”

“As much as anyone did.” Lancia took a step back from the door. “Shall we?”

Allison touched the communications system of the soldiers outside the house, instantly knowing all they said, all they thought. “There’s a sharpshooter,” she said. “His orders come from someone else.”

“Takenawa?” Lancia asked. Allison nodded. Lancia brought a small walkie-talkie to her mouth and said, “Blue-26.” She didn’t wait for an answer.

Allison felt the shift in the configuration of the men outside. “Ok,” she said, “it’s clear.”

Lancia turned and Allison stepped to follow, only to be brought up short. Between the two women and the cordon at the perimeter of Seiji’s front garden stood three men, bald, dressed in draping orange robes, one very tall, one very short, and between them one of medium height. Allison blinked to confirm they were there. To her new senses, they were completely invisible.

The tall monk laughed, a withered, breathy sound that ended with a wheeze. “Numbers,” he said.

“Too damn many of them,” the middle monk said.

“More than you can count,” the short monk said. He pointed to the communication device that Lancia still held. “Is that an abacus?”

“No,” Lancia said. “This is a restricted area. You are ordered to leave.” She started walking again.

The monks laughed. “Restricted!” the tall one said.

“Area!” The short monk howled, redoubling his laughter.

“Yes it is,” the medium monk said, pointing to Lancia’s comm.

“Is what?” Lancia asked, stopping again.

“An abacus.”

“That’s right!” Allison said, excited to understand the metaphor for once. “It’s an abacus and a radio. A digital computing device and a wireless connection. That’s all.”

The monks abruptly lost all cheer and stared at Allison with hard faces. She swallowed and shied back a half-step. “I mean…”

The tall one spoke, his voice gruff. “That’s all, she says.”

“An abacus,” the short monk grumbled, rolling his eyes.

The medium monk closed his eyes and breathed in through his nose. He regained his good humor. “Abacus is power,” he said, winking at her.

“Abacus is life,” the short monk said.

“Abacus is death,” the tall monk intoned.

The monks laughed. “But you know that,” the short monk said. “You are abacus.”

“But she doesn’t count!” the tall monk said. His grin was missing several teeth.

“Others count on her,” the short monk said.

“Let’s go,” Lancia said. “These idiots are giving me a headache.”

“It’s not the idiots,” the short monk said.

“It’s what they say!” the middle monk roared. The three laughed heartily and walked away, passing jokes between themselves that Allison could not make out.

“Come on,” Lancia said, snapping Allison’s attention back to the here and now. “Let’s get out of here before the world ends.”

Kaneda woke to the patient rush of waves. He opened his eyes and held up his hand to block the bright sun.

Hello, Kaneda.

“Wh–where am I?”

Where do you want to be?

The sun was warm on his skin. Somewhere nearby he heard the excited squeals of girls playing on the beach. They would be pretty, he was certain. “This is all right,” he said.

Who do you want to be?

“What do you mean? Who are you?”

A shadow fell across his face. He looked up at the girl who had eclipsed the sun. She looked like… “Misumi Mountains!” he exclaimed. He sat up abruptly and twisted to look at the pop star who was standing beside him. Her hands were clasped in front of her. Her tiny bikini did nothing to hide her remarkable, gravity-defying breasts.

“Yes,” she said. Was that a blush coloring her pale cheeks? “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“You are more beautiful in person than even on TV!” Kaneda blurted out. He struggled to gain control of his racing heart.

She smiled shyly. “You are too kind.”

Shit shit shit! Don’t blow this, you idiot! “I’m sorry! I was forward!”

She laughed. “You’re sweet. I wonder… may I ask you a favor?” Her eyes were huge and round.

“Anything,” Kaneda choked out, and he meant it.

She knelt in front of him and handed him a bottle of lotion. She turned her back and with a long, slow pull untied the lower string of her bikini top. “Can you put lotion on my back?”

Kaneda’s hands shook so badly he had difficulty opening the bottle of tanning oil. The bottle slipped from his fingers as he squeezed out a portion, landing in the sand with a soft thud, much quieter than the sounds his heart was making. His nose began to bleed. Her skin was soft and flawless, warm under his fingers.

“Your hands are so strong,” Misumi Mountains said as he began to rub the lotion into her skin. Kaneda reminded himself to breathe, wondered if his heart was about to explode. “I could stay like this forever,” she said.

“For… ever,” Kaneda echoed.

Tasuki exercised in the blackness of her cell, alternating between sets of push-ups and lunges. Her body knew the dimensions of her confinement exactly now; she could push off from one dank stone wall and stop herself perfectly on the opposite one.

She was gasping for air, her muscles burned, her heart hammered in her chest, but it was still not enough to stop the voices.

You were the fastest, before the transfer student came.

Kouta was beginning to notice you, before the transfer student came.

You are second. The transfer student will always be first.

Ruchia was your best friend, before the transfer student came.

The last was the most painful. But what can you do? That’s just how transfer students are. And she was never going to meet someone nicer than Allison.

She can afford to be nice. She has everything.

“No…” Tasuki ran circuits of the room as fast as she could, until her feet were pushing against the wall rather than the floor. She looped around the room, faster and faster, climbing higher and higher on the wall. “Allison… did… not… choose… to… be… that… way!” she said with ragged breath.

That doesn’t change anything. The transfer student has taken everything.

No!

You know it’s true.

There was no arguing with the voice. It was right. She ran harder.

Faster, higher, until her foot landed on… nothing. She cried out as her other leg buckled and she hit the wall hard, stars dancing in her eyes as her head glanced off the roughly-hewn stone — and skidded over the top.

Desperate fingers slipped over the sweating stone as she rolled over the top of the wall and fell into the nothingness beyond.

Then, there was nothing but wind.

“Please, Seiji, help us. Help me.”

With every passing moment the woman interrogating him looked more like the pictures he’d seen of his mother. Seiji swallowed and looked into her eyes, trying not to think about how she had pressed his hand to her chest. “I… I…”

“You are concerned for your friend. That’s very noble of you.”

“It’s not that she’s my friend…” Seiji struggled to find the words to express his relationship with Allison. “She’s a transfer student.”

His interrogator nodded, smiling sympathetically. “It’s never simple, with them.”

“It’s just that… that… there has to be someone. The one.”

She nodded. “There always is.”

Seiji raised his hand abruptly, but his gesture was cut short by the manacle that connected him to his cold metal chair. “Exactly!” Too late he realized he’d broken contact with the silk of his interrogator’s blouse.

“And you want to be that someone.”

“What? Are you stupid?! No!”

The interrogator cocked her head. “Really?”

“Oh, jeez, not you, too! Do you understand the special type of hell the Friend of the Transfer Student goes through? It’s not an ordinary hell of pain and suffering, though there’s plenty of that. It’s the humiliation.”

She smiled. “I see. You are a brash denier.”

“WHAT? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard! I’m not the one! Kaneda is! He’s seen her underwear!” Instantly Seiji felt sick. Good guys didn’t sell out their friends. Ever. “I mean, did I say Kaneda? I meant Kenzo. Kenzo is the one.”

His interrogator tried without success to hide her surprise. “Kenzo’s back?”

“Apparently. He picked up her books for her on the first day of school.”

“Interesting. And you think that makes him the one?”

“Obviously.”

“The One never chooses to be The One.”

“Yeah, well, I chose long ago not to be the one.”

The woman broke eye contact and looked modestly at the table top. “Your father is a great man.”

Seiji worked to follow the sudden turn in the conversation. “My… wha?”

“Your father. I admire him greatly. Sometimes…” she turned away, blushing. “Sometimes I imagine he is my father.” She turned back to him, her cheeks filled with color. “But then I would be your sister. That would be a awkward, wouldn’t it?”

“…” Seiji struggled for words.

“Your father says I remind him of your mother. That’s not a problem, is it? You wouldn’t feel weird if we… kissed?” Before Seiji could frame an answer she rose and leaned across the table. Her skin was cool and perfect as she brushed her lips against his. Her hand shook slightly as she brushed it across his cheek. “Seiji,” she sighed. In her breath he smelled heaven.

Seiji’s heart was playing his ribs like the xylophone. He was about to pass out but couldn’t inhale.

She bowed her head, her raven hair cascading over his cheeks in luminous waves to conceal her face. “Seiji.” Her voice was barely audible, even this close. “Choose me.”

The blood rushed from his head and went southward, leaving his vision blurred by desire. He wanted to choose her, wanted with all his heart. Or at least with all his dick. “I…” he said. She waited. “I choose…” He was almost there. Just one more word, and he would be free of the transfer student forever. “I choose y—”

An explosion rocked the building, and the lights went out.

In the confusion that followed he thought he heard her say, “Remember your choice, Seiji. My name is Lancia.”

Ruchia walked softly down the center of the deserted street. On either side of her buildings rose, gaping with empty, stupid eyes. Nothing moved; even the newspapers drifted up against the derelict walls lay limp and untouched by any breeze. The click of her heels on the pavement was the only sound.

“Hello?” she asked. “Is there anyone here?” Her timid voice did not carry far.

Motion in the corner of her eye. She wheeled and found a familiar face in an abandoned storefront. “K—”

Kenzo was in front of her now, his finger on her lips. He shook his head. She could drown in those deep violet eyes. He leaned closer. He smelled violet, a beguiling scent that almost made Ruchia forget her own name. “They don’t know I’m here,” he whispered.

“Why…?” Ruchia was having difficulty putting sentences together.

Kenzo laughed silently. “I like explosions,” he said.

The shock wave crashed over her and she took refuge in the tall boy’s arms. She felt the heat of the blast, felt fragments of glass cut into her skin, but she knew that Kenzo would protect her.

Allison hurried to keep up with Lancia as they walked to the waiting helicopter. Lancia faltered for a moment and then increased her pace. “There’s trouble,” she said.

“At the institute?” Allison could see the building on its hilltop at the center of town. It pulsed red with frantic communications.

“Of course. The four horsemen of the moronocalypse have decided to be decisive for once in their lives.” She jumped through the sliding door in the side of the helicopter and turned to grab Allison’s arm to help her aboard. The engine was already winding up and the skids were skittering across the ground as she hauled Allison into the belly of the helicopter. A uniformed soldier slammed the door closed as they rose from the pavement.

“Where’s the fire?” Lancia asked.

Allison realized the woman was looking at her, as if she would know the answer.

And she did. “Detention block C,” Allison said.

Lancia nodded and grabbed the headset off the copilot. She held it to her ear and began barking a string of orders.

I could change those orders, she realized. It was as if all the data in the world passed through her, as if it was her blood.

Wait, White Shadow counseled. She wants you to reveal yourself.

Lancia shot a glance over to Allison, her eyes narrowed, her lips tight. After a long second she returned her attention to her unseen minions at the institute.

The institute is divided, White Shadow said. Or was that her own thought? We shall destroy them.

Allison clutched at her harness as the helicopter tilted, pointing its rotors at the institute. Her stomach rose up into her throat and she tasted yesterday’s lunch. Even breathing was difficult as she lost track of gravity. Closing her eyes just made it worse.

The helicopter lurched back the other way and Allison felt a soft impact against her foot, followed immediately byt the feeling of several needles being thrust into her ankle. She looked down to see a white kitten clinging to her foot. She couldn’t hear its cries over the roar of the aircraft. Allison tried to reach for it but she was strapped down too tight.

The woman sitting next to her seemed not to notice that they were about to die in a fiery crash. She was shouting orders into her comm unit in a rapid staccato that matched the thrum of the helicopter’s rotors. Allison couldn’t hear her words, yet she could feel the sense of what Lancia was saying as it passed through the electrical universe.

With Lancia’s words, people lived, and others died. Allison could feel them all, but they didn’t seem… human. They were abstractions. Statistics. Allison was the abacus, counting heartbeats.

Lancia spat a set of orders, and Allison followed the electronic signals of a squad of men rushing down a hallway. At the end lay death, a hellish crossfire of claymore mines, their electronic triggers waiting impassively for a reason to die.

“Bomb”, Allison said. “Corridor 12. It’s a trap.”

Lancia hesitated for perhaps half a second before she resumed shouting. “Squad seven! Squad seven! Abort advance!”

Allison reached through the electronic universe and touched the detonators. “I disarmed them,” she said.

Lancia hesitated longer this time. “Squad seven, proceed. Use extreme caution.” Lancia keyed off her mic. “Why did you do that?”

Why? Echoed White Shadow. She is the enemy!

“Those are people,” Allison said.

They’re trying to kill other people, White Shadow reminded her. Enemies of this woman, which makes them our friends.

“They’re all people,” Allison said aloud.

Lancia raised her eyebrow, watching Allison for another moment before returning to her battle.

The helicopter heaved again and Allison clung to her restraining straps and fought down a scream. The kitten skidded across the metal floor and banged against a bulkhead. In the cockpit buzzers sounded urgently from the control panel. Lights flashed red. The pilot threw the stick over and the helicopter was practically upside-down. As far as she could tell, anyway; “up” was an abstraction without much meaning in this place.

“Missile!” The pilot cried out. “It has lock!”

Allison felt the deadly rocket, knew its hunger for destruction. It was using radar to track them. Radio waves. She could work with that.

She quieted the animal part of her mind that wanted to do nothing but scream in fear. She closed her eyes and touched White Shadow, accessing the world through the new window it provided. She began whispering to the missile through its guidance system, deceiving it even as its hunger grew. Slowly she bent the perception of the rocket’s radar eye, convinced it that the helicopter was up and to the left. The rocket rushed past and detonated, shaking the helicopter and rattling fragments of metal off the hull.

The pilot righted the craft and resumed their headlong assault on the institute. Allison opened her eyes, convinced herself to take a breath.

White motion at the corner of her eye caught her attention. She turned to see Lancia talking calmly on her comm, as if nothing had happened at all. In her other hand the white kitten lay, limp and dead. “Oh!” Allison said.

Lancia looked at Allison, at the kitten, then back to Allison. “So you could handle the missile,” Lancia said. She tossed the tiny carcass out the window.

Ruchia lay on the hard metal floor, dizzy from the blast. The only sound she could hear was a persistent ringing in her ears. She coughed and pushed her hair back from her eyes. Cautiously she raised her head and looked around.

She was alone again, back in the institute. She lay her head back and closed her eyes, concentrated for the moment on clearing the dust and grit out of her lungs. No one came to help her; no one came to investigate the explosion. She wondered if there was anyone else left on Earth.

“Hello?” she croaked. No one answered. This must be what hell is like, she thought.

She opened her eyes again, took better stock of her surroundings. Next to her on the floor lay stainless-steel table. The way it had toppled and dumped her on the floor had protected her from the worst of the blast. Kenzo’s arms protecting her had just been a dream.

Nearby was a hemispherical plastic helmet apparatus which had half a hundred metal probes sticking out of it. Each probe was connected to a colored wire; the wires gathered into a bundle and left through a hole in the wall.

One of the other cell walls was gone, leaving only a pile of debris.

She got on her hands and knees, then stood with the help of the upturned table. Her knees held her, if only barely. Gingerly she made her way over the treacherous floor and peeked out into the hall. It stretched in either direction, pale gray and featureless, curving gently out of sight. In the distance alarms sounded, and she thought she heard another explosion.

She hesitated. Was it safer in her cell or out there, lost in a hostile place?

Her captors would want her to stay put. “Here goes nothing,” she said. She stepped over the remains of the wall and headed down the hall.

She had taken only a few steps when she heard many heavy boots jogging down the hallway behind her. “Hey!” a voice called, an authoritative military voice. Ruchia broke into a run. “Stop or we’ll shoot!” the voice called out. Ruchia slowed to a stop and raised her hands. Not worth dying for. Not yet.

“Fire!” the voice behind her shouted. Ruchia threw herself to the floor, her hands over her head.

“I surrender!” Ruchia screamed.

In the distance, another explosion. The lights went out. The soldiers opened fire.

“Damn!” The technician held on as her console rocked with the force of the most recent explosion. “Subject Seiji Yamamoto is at risk!” The emergency lights came on, bathing the interrogation chamber on the other side of the bullet-proof glass in a pale orange light. The boy was still in there, chained to his chair, grinding his teeth with the futile effort to break free.

The technician stood. “Where is she?” There was no sign of the woman who had been interrogating the boy. The tech checked the door to the interrogation chamber. Still bolted from this side. There was no other way out. Yet, the woman was gone.

Kaneda was almost afraid to breathe. Mitsume Mountains rested her head against his chest, looking up into his eyes. Her hand idly brushed his shoulder. Her breasts were… right there. He took a deep breath, slowly, and tried not to think about what was going on in his swim trunks. Every time she moved, with every tingling contact of her skin against his, it got worse. Or better. Or…

In his mind there were only two thoughts, locked in a battle that could have only one survivor: 1) Whatever it takes, at any cost, have sex with Mitsume Mountains, and 2) Don’t be a jerk.

There were so many ways to be a jerk right now. Mitsume trusted him, enjoyed this quiet time away from her fans. Also, somewhere out there his friends were fighting for their lives. The needed him. He had seen White Shadow; he knew—

“Do you think I’m pretty?” she asked.

Kaneda choked on his laugh. “You—you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he said.

She smiled. Her teeth were white and perfect. Her pale cheeks colored. “Can I tell you a secret?”

Kaneda swallowed. “Yeah. Of course.”

“You’ll think less of me.”

“That’s not possible,” he said. Then, realizing maybe he hadn’t said quite the right thing, he blurted “I mean—!”

Mitsume Mountains laughed. “I know what you mean, silly.” She slid herself up his body until she was almost on top of him, looking him in the eye. She smiled sweetly, her cheeks dimpling in perfect symmetry. “You’re such a gentleman. I thought…” she broke eye contact and looked down at his chest. She took a breath. “I thought maybe you might be the one.” Kaneda didn’t respond right away, so she looked and added, “The first one.”

“…” Anything Kaneda might have said was lost to his constricted throat.

“Once you’re first, you’re first forever,” Mitsume Mountains said.

“Forever,” Kaneda echoed.

“Will you do it, Kaneda?” She moved her thigh against his, but her round eyes betrayed her fear. “Will you be mine, forever?”

Forgive me, Allison. Forgive me, Seiji. “Yes! Yes. I will be yours. Forever.”

Mitsume Mountains smiled, her features painted with relief. She slid on top of him, straddling him. Kaneda thought his heart was going to leap straight through his ribs and leave him the happiest corpse ever.

“I’m glad,” she said. She bent forward and brushed her lips across his. “They can’t take you from me now. No matter what.”

In the distance, Kaneda thought he heard explosions.

They hit the rooftop hard. Allison’s head snapped forward, straining her neck and rattling her brains. Armed men gushed from the stairwells at the corners of the roof and formed a perimeter around the helicopter. The blast from the still-spinning rotors hit Allison in the face as the door next to her slid open.

“Come on,” Lancia said.

Allison struggled with her buckles until a soldier released her. As she stepped off the aircraft a man was waiting, holding an olive-drab vest covered with large pockets. In each pocket a protesting kitten squirmed.

“Put that on,” Lancia said.

Allison held the vest at arm’s length. “Why?”

Lancia laughed. “Don’t try to pretend. We know.”

“Well, perhaps you could enlighten me.”

Lancia’s eyes narrowed as she pushed her face into Allison’s. “You’re good,” she said. “Now put it on.”

Allison did as she was told.

“All right,” Lancia said. “Let’s go conquer the world.”

Blind! Allison fell to her knees, shaking, her stomach threatening to turn inside-out. She gasped for air, reeling and disoriented. Only moments ago, an eternity, she had been so close. Close to everything, almost one with the pattern beneath the chaos that governed the universe, the harmony of the world. Desperately she reached with her mind, tried to rejoin the communion, but found only blackness.

“Shoot them all,” she heard Lancia say.

“Allison!” Seiji’s voice, maybe. They were all going to die. Because of her. She heard the sound of guns being raised. You’d think they wouldn’t make so much noise. One of the soldiers chambered a round with a distinctive snick-snack. Funny he hadn’t thought to do that earlier.

— You could not win. Not against me.

Allison almost wept with relief to feel even a tiny fraction of White Shadow still in her mind. Don’t kill them.

— They do not matter.

Allison tried to reach through White Shadow, to use it to connect to the world of information. She could almost hear the music, almost feel The Pattern when White Shadow hammered her consciousness back into her own head. Stunned, it was seconds before she could speak, then there was nothing to say.

“Wait,” she heard Lancia say, from far away.

Seiji stared defiantly into the eyes of the woman who had interrogated him earlier. His clenched teeth almost shot of sparks, and the vein in his forehead pulsed in an X. The soldiers raised their guns and paused for a pregnant moment.

“Wait,” the interrogator said. The soldiers hesitated a moment, then lowered their weapons.

Seiji glanced over to where Allison lay curled on the floor, moaning, knocking her head against the tile with a steady rhythm. “She needs help,” he said.

Interrogator Woman looked at Allison and made a face. “I don’t think there is help for her.”

“Who are you really?” Seiji asked.

The woman laughed softly. “So quaint,” she said. “He said ‘really’. Do you have any idea what that means, little boy? Does ‘really’ even exist?”

“Who are you?”

“I am everyone.”

“You’re not me.”

“Only because I don’t want to be.”

“Yeah, right.”

Seiji blinked and found himself looking at… himself. “Yeah, right.” his other self said. He blinked again and he was facing his interrogator once more. “There is a way you can live,” she said.

“All of us?”

“… most of you.”

“Then forget it.”

“Seiji, think for a moment. Your nobility is admirable, but nothing you do can save the American. You can choose to die, or you can choose to live. Neither choice will matter to her.”

“I choose to die,” Seiji said.

“I am sorry to hear that,” she said.

“Wait,” Kenzo said.

Ruchia opened her eyes and looked into his. So deep. So expressive. So purple. “You’re not really Kenzo,” she said.

He smiled, dimples forming on each cheek. “No. But is anyone? I can still make you happy.”

“Happier than he ever would,” she allowed.

Not-Kenzo chuckled deep in his throat. “I suspect you are right.”

Ruchia felt the heat rising to her cheeks.

“I wonder if you could do me a favor,” Not-Kenzo said.

His casual delivery put Ruchia on edge. “Maybe.”

“If you are helpful, I believe I can save your life.”

“What about my friends?”

“You do not have to worry about them.”

“No, but I choose to. What about my friends?”

“Each of you will be given the chance to be useful. Those who help me will live. Live very well, in fact.”

“What is it you want?”

“There is a key,” Not-Kenzo said. “The American has it. Not a physical key, but a code of sorts. A thought.”

“You want me to get it from her.”

“You need only make her think about it. We will do the rest.”

“Why should I?”

“Beyond saving your own life? If you help it would not be necessary to kill the American as well.”

“That’s not the same as saying you wouldn’t kill her.”

“The future is indeterminate.”

“Forget it!”

“You choose to die?”

“I choose to live by my principles.”

“Wait.”

The voice was a breathy whisper in Tasuke’s ear. “Good idea,” she said. She opened her eyes and looked down the muzzles of the rifles pointed at her.

“You wish to live?”

“Yeah, I think that sounds like a pretty good idea.”

“All you have to do is—”

“No.”

“You haven’t even heard wh—”

“If it starts with ‘All I have to do is’ then I’m not interested.”

“But—”

“Forget it.”

“Very well.”

All her friends were talking at once, but not to each other. It sounded like banter, the kind that came before violence. She glanced around the room, seeing with her eyes what only minutes before had been so complete inside her own head. There was only one door, and there were a lot of men with guns between her and it.

Lancia was the key. Before she could even think she launched herself at the woman who held all their lives in her hand. She drove her shoulder into the rib cage of the woman, lifting her off the floor and then piling her hard into the cold tile. Allison rolled and put her arm around Lancia’s throat. She started to squeeze. “Let my friends go,” she said.

“Very well,” Lancia said, perfectly calm. Allison squeezed harder.

“Shoot that one,” Lancia said, gesturing at Tasuki from where she lay.

“Wait!” Allison shouted but her voice was lost in the popping of firearms being discharged in a closed space. She couldn’t hear the screams of her friends as Tasuki’s chest exploded in a fountain of blood. The skinny girl convulsed and dropped to the floor.

Allison tightened her grip, wanting nothing more than to kill Lancia, no matter the consequences. At least keep her from saying anything else.

“Now that one,” Lancia said, this time pointing at Ruchia.

A bullet caught Ruchia in the throat, another in the forehead, and several in the torso. She fell and lay still.

“Stop it! Stop it!” Allison screamed. “No more! Please!” She didn’t have the strength to strangle her adversary anymore. She relaxed her grip but Lancia made no effort to rise. They lay in a tangle on the floor.

“You know what you must do,” Lancia said.

“No!” Seiji shouted. “Don’t give her anything! Damn—”

Lancia made a gesture and the soldiers cut down Seiji mid-curse, blood and gore coating the wall behind him. Allison was out of words. She just stared at the bodies of her friends and wept.

“You may as well shoot me, too,” Kaneda said.

“You belong to me,” Lancia said. She sighed. “Allison, I had hoped to be friends. Or at least partners. But that will never happen now.” She rolled away from Allison. “Shoot her,” she said.

“Noooo!” Kaneda shouted, even as the soldiers trained their weapons on Allison with a clatter. He threw himself on top of Allison as they opened fire, holding her, shielding her with his body. He jerked and twitched as the metal tore through his body, his face inches from hers. Blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. “In your arms,” he whispered, and died.

“Such a waste,” Lancia said. She looked at the captain of the soldiers. “Finish the job.”

Allison closed her eyes but she couldn’t erase the image of her friends lying dead around her. Her fault. Her doing. The bullet that took her life couldn’t come soon enough.

Only, this wasn’t her fault. She didn’t make White Shadow. She didn’t enslave the city. She didn’t give the order to shoot innocent kids. Anger stirred in her breast and with it the will to act. She opened her eyes and watched as the finger of a soldier pulled at his trigger with impossible slowness. She reached outward with her mind and found a tendril, a connection that led to White Shadow, a link it was using to watch her.

A bullet emerged from the barrel of the gun in a rippling cloud of vapor, and began its irrevocable journey to her heart. No stopping it. No getting out of the way. She was already dead.

Nothing to lose. She threw herself through the connection and right into White Shadow’s virtual lap.

—Well, well. Look what the cat dragged in.

Around her, almost within reach, was what she had once had. The world. Beyond that lay a new world, enticing, limitless. The Computer. White Shadow had not yet taken that power. It was waiting for something.

From far away Allison felt the bullet press into her flesh. Someone else’s flesh. She looked at White Shadow and smiled. “Reset,” she said.

Allison Crenshaw walked up the nearly deserted street toward her new school. She felt awkward in her uniform; the skirt seemed shorter on her than it did on the other girls. She walked alone, clutching her books to her chest, practicing her Japanese under her breath.

“Hey, watch out!” Allison turned just in time to see the kid on the skateboard before he crashed into her. She fell, books flying, conscious of her short skirt. She felt like she should have seen him coming.