Daniel Ohara lifted the handset to his ear and punched in a four-
digit sequence. Obediently, a ring tone began to sound.

He resisted the urge to mimic the 20th-Century comedienne who had
occasionally portrayed an obnoxious telephone operator. His
dignity had already suffered enough, and there was no need to
wound it further.

The ringing suddenly cut off and a tired-sounding voice blurted
"Yo?" into his ear.

"'Craig'," Ohara said with elaborate patience. "We had another
demonstration of your power scheduled for, oh... right *now*."

"Huh? We did?" Through the phone line came the mixed sounds of
a keyboard clicking and papers shuffling. "Oh, damn, we did.
'Kay, I'll be right there. Sorry."

The other end hung up before Ohara could add anything of his own.
He returned the handset to its cradle and looked up at Hiroe and
Illya. "He'll be here any..."

The outer door to the testing chamber flew open with a slam. "I'm
here, I'm here. Let the bells ring out and the banners fly," a
lackluster voice announced with a notable dearth of enthusiasm.

"...minute," Ohara concluded. Hiroe snickered and Illya
chuckled, to both Daniel and Tony's annoyance. He raised his
voice. "We're in here, 'Craig'."

Douglas Sangnoir stumbled into the control booth facing the
isolation chamber, leaned against the doorjamb, and ran a hand
through his short blond hair. "Sorry I'm late. I've been a
little out of it today."

"We know," Illya replied. "Are most interesting articles on
today's newspages."

"Joy," Sangnoir muttered as Ohara studied him. Not much had
changed since their encounter earlier in the day. For the first
time in their acquaintance, the extradimensional was not crisply
alert and preternaturally graceful. Instead, he resembled a man
who had just come out the back end of a weeklong bender and
wasn't yet sure whether or not he had survived the experience.

"You look *horrible*," Hiroe blurted out. She leapt from her
seat to seize Sangnoir by the arm. "You come here and sit down.
Last night must have been simply *awful* for you." She forced
the younger man down into the chair she had occupied as he tried
to mumble thanks.

"Ah. I see Hiroe's maternal streak has resurfaced." Tony,
impeccable in his Italian suit, had arrived, sarcasm in hand.

"No need to be quite so snide," Hiroe growled.

"All right, people," Daniel jumped in before the level of
interpersonal friction could rise any further, "let's get
started."

As agreement circled the room, Sangnoir focused slightly bleary
eyes on him and asked, "Okay, what do you want me to do?"

Ohara glanced at his people. In the wake of the morning's news,
a flurry of email memos had quickly determined the general nature
of today's tests.

"Well," Hiroe coughed and began. "We..."

"We've seen you do a state transform on your own body's matter,"
Tony interrupted. "We want to see something like the papers said
you did last night -- creating matter out of nothing."

"But we'd rather you didn't produce any... people," Hiroe hurried
to add, shooting a glare at Tony. "Something *inanimate* would
probably be better for all concerned."

"Hm." He pretended to ponder this. "So I suppose large,
dangerous animals are also out?"

Tony glared at him. "Yes," he barked.

"Pity, that." Sangnoir smiled sweetly.

"Well, you're in a hostile mood today," Ohara dryly noted.

"I think I have the right to be," Sangnoir snapped. "In the past
twenty-four hours I've played bait for a dozen combat boomers,
almost got into a screaming match with the white Knight Saber,
berserked and nearly killed the *pink* Saber, had my emotions
royally yanked around, gotten the shit kicked out of me, and been
shot three times -- <on the ceiling if you want me, twice on the
pipe if the answer is no>..." he suddenly warbled in English.
Then he winced and rubbed his temples. "Owitch. Not to mention
that I have the reaction hangover from Hell because I overdid it
with my magegift, *plus* I got thoroughly dressed down by an
avatar of my C.O. from back home." He stared with bleary eyes at
Ohara as everyone around the table blinked at the summary. "If
you can at all avoid it, *never* go to work for a god."

"I don't intend to," Ohara responded wryly.

"Good. Because they show up in the damnedest places to make your
life miserable, whether you're on duty or not." Sangnoir sighed,
rubbed his temples for a moment longer, then looked up and around
the table. "Okay, you want a solid energy projection, something
inanimate. I suppose you need me stripped to my skivvies again
for the sensors and whatnot."

"I'm sorry, but, well, yes," Hiroe stammered. *Hiroe actually
looks embarrassed,* Ohara noted with some small, private
amusement.

Sangnoir stood and strode to the entrance of the isolation room,
unbuttoning his shirt as he did. "It's a good thing I remembered
what my mom always used to say: 'Always put on clean underwear
in case you unexpectedly have to demonstrate your metagift to a
bunch of voyeuristic physicists.'"

"Like hell his mother said that," Tony muttered as Illya
chuckled.

"Did you leave your sense of humor in your other suit today,
Tony?" Hiroe hissed at him.

"The guy gets on my nerves, what can I say?" he growled back.

"I love you, too, Tonykins," Sangnoir called from the chamber as
he peeled off his jeans. Hiroe tittered behind her hand and
Illya simply smirked as Tony fumed.

"Can we please try to approximate a professional atmosphere
here?" Ohara felt like rubbing his own temples. Already.

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

There used to be a greying tower alone on the sea.
You became the light on the dark side of me.
Love remained a drug that's the high and not the pill.
But did you know,
That when it snows,
My eyes become large and,
The light that you shine can be seen.
Baby, I compare you to a kiss from a rose on the grey.
Ooh, The more I get of you, Ooh
Stranger it feels, yeah.
And now that your rose is is in bloom.
A light hits the gloom on the grey.
There is so much a man can tell you,
So much he can say.
You remain,
My power, my pleasure, my pain, baby
To me you're like a growing addiction that I can't deny.. yeah.
Won't you tell me is that healthy, baby?
But did you know,
That when it snows,
My eyes become large and the light that you shine can be seen.
Baby, I compare you to a kiss from a rose on the grey.
Ooh, the more I get of you
Stranger it feels, yeah
Now that your rose is in bloom.
A light hits the gloom on the grey,
I've been kissed by a rose on the grey,
I've been kissed by a rose on the grey,
And if I should fall, at all
I've been kissed by a rose on the grey.
There is so much a man can tell you,
So much he can say.
You remain
My power, my pleasure, my pain.
To me you're like a growing addiction that I can't deny, yeah
Won't you tell me is that healthy, baby.
But did you know,
That when it snows,
My eyes become large and the light that you shine can be seen.
And now that your rose is in bloom
A light hits the gloom on the grey.
-- Seal, Kiss From a Rose
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Dough lands in the world of Dai-Guard... and his interdimensional arrival registers as a Heterodyne... and in fact gathers an elemental charge, attracting a whole damn lot of whatever he has the most affinity for - probably water, given how he tends to adapt his responses to whatever situation he finds himself in - and wakes from his post-transit blackout to find a super robot pulling an arm back to run him through with a drill arm... I dunno what really could o from there, my fundage for buying DVDS ran out after I got the third one in that series, which really pisses me off, since it was shaping up to be all the things I thought I would like about Evangelion before I actually saw Evangelion... insert Standard Rant #38 (Why Evangelion is an abomination that defiled my DVD drive just by being inserted) here.
- CD
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

Since I'm giving running totals up top, I figured I might as well tell you all what the titles for chapter 13 and 14 will be. I don't think this will give anything terrible away...
Chapter 13: I Wonder What The *Poor* Robots Are Doing This Season...
Chapter 14: Pronoun Trouble

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

I had such a cool idea for the climactic battle between Utena and Akio while driving in to work this morning. I wish I could share it with you all, but it'd be such a spoiler if I did. I'll have to write it up for the prereaders soon, though.
Sorry if that's annoying, but I had to say something to somebody, and Peggy doesn't like getting phone calls at work just so I can say, "I had such a great idea!".

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

I went home. I did a post-mortem on the fight, and then I crashed. By the end of my analysis -- which, by the way, I flunked myself on -- I was running solely on fumes and caffeine from a cup of mint tea I'd made myself, and the latter was about to run dry. I had almost no energy reserves to speak of, so I could barely heal myself before crashing; I managed to knit my broken ribs and scab over the worst of the wounds and that was it. I did manage to undress myself before falling into the chirping metallic hammock that pretended to be my bed.Of course, I had to get up a mere five and a half hours later. Most other days, five hours' sleep would've let me pop right up, fresh and energetic, but that morning I felt like an extra in a George Romero movie. My energy reserves were there -- I finished healing myself before getting into the shower -- but I simply hadn't gotten enough sleep to shake a general feeling of headachy exhaustion. "Gods help me if I have to fight anyone or anything today," I muttered to myself as I got dressed. I made it to work without crashing my bike, and stumbled into the lobby, carrying my helmet in via the bowling ball bag again. I managed to be polite and friendly to Kendra as I tottered through to the cube farm beyond -- she was still a little twitchy, poor thing -- but I only grunted when Chizue threw me my morning bagel.I had already taken a couple bites from it when I pounded on Ohara's door."Come," was the muffled reply."Good morning, and aren't we the picture of health," he said as Istaggered in and put down the bag.I didn't feel like clever repartee that morning. "I thought youwere going to quit it with the fucking boomers."Ohara put down his pencil and looked up at me with honest surprise in his eyes. "We did.""The bunch that I fought last night all locked on to me just like the little army you deployed against me at Bunko's. You're telling me they weren't yours?""They certainly weren't," Ohara declared. "Why the hell would we do that? We *have* you already. The only reason we sent boomers after you was to capture or test you, and to study what you could do. We can do that a lot more safely -- and *cheaply* -- here in the Tower."If I hadn't been so fried from the aftereffects of the battle, Iprobably would have thought of that myself. I hadn't, though, soI made the universal gesture of "oh what a schmuck I am" by wipingmy hand down my face and groaning as the obvious implication finally made itself known to me. "Oh, great. Just great," Igrowled. "A third player's joined the game."Ohara thought about that for a moment, then nodded soberly. "Ithink you may be right.""I *know* I'm right." I rubbed my eyes and wished for some aspirin."Gods, I hate this world."Ohara smiled his little not-smile smile. "I don't blame you. I'mnot too fond of it myself sometimes."
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Being just close to you won't make love happen
Even if I make it a puzzle you couldn't figure it out
Because you're slow
We came to the beach wearing summer clothes
Please cover me gently with your shirt
My Heart won't let me say
Please kiss me
Day dream, my dreams get bigger and disappears
High in the sky
Any girl can be happy
If she's full of love she can be invincible
Even if tears start flow or my heart aches,
It's because of you, and it won't be sad
I want to have a secret,want to feel guilty
Even if I know what's happening with you
I pretend that I don't
Even if my heart pounds in fall or I feel blue in winter,
It will be ok, if my precious love bears fruit
I want to be certain about your heart,
I believe in your fingers touching me.
It's my first true love,
Which is why my cheeks are burning up
When a girl falls in love she can be beautiful
And she doesn't even need red lipstick
Even if she can't sleep at night all she does is dream
She's overflowing with feelings of love
Any girl can be happy.
They all start shining once they fall in love.
Even if tears start to flow and my heart aches,
It's because of you and she'll become gentler.
-- My Heart, Your Heart (Theme from Oh My Goddess! OVAs),
Goddess Family Club (Kikuko Inoue, Yumi Fuyama, Aya Hisakawa)
(Rough English translation)
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Classical Gas,
Mason Williams
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

... located here.
But they say it's not available yet.

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.