Final Contact Follows Third Contact

Final contact: when the sun completely emerges from behind the moon during a solar eclipse.

Sun/Le Soleil (Nikita)

Hovering. Man, how I hated it. Just add hovering to the list of things that really bugged me. In fact, it was right there at the top, especially when it was Mister Stony Mouth Samuelle doing the hovering. I could feel him, standing tall and quiet behind me. His long shadow spilled over my desk on to my console. He'd been watching every little thing I'd been doing for hours. Just hours. It made me feel stupid and uncertain like I was a trainee again. Like I was being tested. I hated all this watching and waiting. My God, the man must have an infinite bladder. Didn't he ever need to take a piss? Or go make some coffee or something? Jeez. He was making me nervous.

Go away, Michael. Just give me a break. This sucked. It really sucked. A week ago I'd taken the passcodes from Rabbit and dug up some juicy data. I'd backtracked and found out who was still hitting the non-vital satellites. And when I'd reported my preliminary data, Operations had seemed pleased with my initiative. But I hadn't been pleased by his next directive. I didn't care what he ordered. It was my goddamn idea. I was still stationed in Berkeley, and I was going to nail those techno-terrorists. And I sure as hell didn't need Michael moving in on my assignment. He was the last thing I needed just when everything was finally getting settled again. I didn't need this ... this complication. My face curled into a scowl. "I was doing fine by myself. I don't need your help."

"But you have it. My help. We will bring them in faster if we combine resources."

Resources? Dream on. It wasn't resources he was thinking about combining. He was thinking about something else. I could tell by the way he was staring at my mouth, then lower when he thought I wasn't looking. A flush crept up from my neck into my face. Maybe if I ignored Michael, he'd just go away. Give him a taste of his own silent treatment. Yeah, right. And if pigs could fly ... "I don't care if you're senior. Just don't get in my way," I grumbled.

"Transmitting," said Li-Huan's voice over the remote console.

I watched the long dark bar across my screen gradually shrink as the file downloaded, kilobyte by kilobyte. As we waited, I leaned back in my chair and propped my feet on top of the table. "So how's the evil Emperor Gork?"

"You mean Birkoff?" Li-Huan laughed. Today her hair was fuschia with turquoise streaks. Even though I leaned over and adjusted the brightness on my computer monitor, I knew that was really the color of her hair. She never disappointed me. "Birkoff's okay. Y'know, he's been eating my meteorite rubble. You should see it. Picked green this time around. His hair's faded to a nice chartreuse now. It'll be gone in a few days. Too bad. Really adds some zip to his personality. He acts a little punkier. I like it. But who knows? Got a rematch tonight. I'm gonna win Space Rangers again, and then I'll get to color his hair again. Hoo-boy! I can't wait. Are you sure you can't play with us? You're practically alpha level already. The Robo-Nik has Emperor Gork on the run."

"Nah. He hit my space cruiser and three satellites. Oh, and my space station. I only have one dinky satellite left. Birkoff's almost picked off my whole fleet ... Hey, do you ever play that game with anyone else?" So far I hadn't seen any other operatives around Section with colored hair like hers.

"Sorta. The serious play's between me and Birky. We're the only two on the alpha level. Just me and the lean, green Birky machine. Bo-o-o-oring." She made a show of yawning.

"Yeah, right. That must be tough. Real tough. I hear it's lonely at the top."

"We-e-e-ell, the game's better with more players. You're out now, and you know we're restricted. Can't play with outsiders. It's killing me."

"Clipping your Rrriotgirl wings. Aw, poor baby."

"I'm serious, Nik'. I'm losing my edge. Me! The inventor. It's not fair. I'm turning into an old fogey ... a ... a Space Ranger relic."

I looked at Li-Huan's hair. No relic I ever heard about looked like that. I laughed out loud.

"It's the pits," she continued. "The absolute pits. Not a lot of competition here. But outside ... whoa. Some major league players. Flash is the best, but nobody knows who she is. She's playing - they all are - in a big tournament this week."

"Don't even think about it," I said quickly. Even from behind me, I could feel Michael's disapproval radiate like heat from the sun. "You could get in real big trouble. But Michael won't say anything, will you?"

He was silent. Too silent. The wrong kind of silence.

"Michael," I prompted. I looked over my shoulder.

His lips were pressed tight into that thin grim line. After a few seconds, he finally murmured a reluctant-sounding "yes."

"C'mon. I've only been following the games. I haven't been playing. Not really ..."

"Li-Huan, forget it. You didn't even tell us. I can't believe you did that. That's dangerous."

"Aw, you're no fun any more. Not since they reshuffled your deck. I mean ... oh, sorry. Well, you know."

"Forget it," I said. Jeez. Shooting down space stations. I had to admit playing Space Rangers was a gas, but right now it seemed too much like work. Speaking of which ... I hit a button on the keyboard, and the file opened. Clusters of white dots decorated a map of the world. Excited, I pointed at the screen. "Shit! Will you look at that? All those satellite hits near San Francisco. Some near Paris. Rio de Janeiro. Increased activity in the last few days. See! I knew it! I just knew it wasn't over with. We closed that profile too soon. Ha!"

I folded my arms across my chest, and swiveled around in my chair. Then I gave Michael a pure I-told-you-so look. I didn't get to do it often (if at all) so I enjoyed every single second of it. Maybe that seemed small of me, but heck, I wasn't above it. How about that, Mister Secret Agent Man He only stared back at me, which meant that I had got him but good. Smiling secretly, I pivoted back to the console. "Li-Huan, now look at the remote sensing data. Cross-check those hits with any infrared blooms."

"Okay, you got it. Why infrared?"

Michael said, "Weapon of choice. Long range, low energy. High energy beam would make a big bang. Too easy to detect."

"Ooh. Ka-Boom. A flash in the sky. Cool. Love to see that."

"No, you wouldn't." I suddenly pushed away from the desk so that my chair rolled backwards. But Michael stepped sideways before I rolled over his toes. Damn. Would have served him right for butting in like that. This was my analysis, my assignment.

A second later, the results showed up on the screen. Together we watched red circles bloom on the map, overlapping with the white dots. There. Northern California. I leaned forward and pressed a button. A square of light formed around a red blur, then expanded into a square that almost filled my entire screen. The view was enhanced. Even more interesting. Michael and I exchanged a look. He nodded. For the next step, I needed help from the mainframe computer. "Li-Huan, find the high-density areas and triangulate back. Let's figure out where they've been shooting from. Like right here. In the San Francisco Bay Area."

I placed another square around the region, and increased the magnification a thousandfold until it was easier to see the details. Some hits were in Berkeley, but most were centered in Silicon Valley. And of those, most clustered around Lockheed Martin, the aerospace company that Stumpy and I had infiltrated a lifetime ago. I waited for the other information I'd requested, but nothing happened on the screen. "Li-Huan?"

Her end was quiet, so quiet that I thought the com link was down again. The visuals were there, but no sound. I checked my volume, the signal input. We were still uplinked. Everything was working. What was going on? "He-e-e-ello there."

She shook her head. "Yeah ... yeah, I'm here." Li-Huan pursed her lips, then frowned. She looked a little worried and very reluctant. "Nikita, what are you going to do about this?"

"What do you mean? This isn't for fun. I'm not doing this to earn a Girl Scout badge in astronomy, you know. This is a mission. I've got to carry this through. We have to. Operations knows. It's official now. Now send me the data. Come on, girl. What's the problem?"

"You're making a goof. A mega-goof," muttered Li-Huan. "There's no way. No way in hell."

"You know who they are," said Michael softly.

"Nah. I mean ..." She broke off suddenly, her face turning almost as purple as her hair. For a moment, her lips were moving but no sound came out. Then Li-Huan heaved a huge sigh. She slumped against her chair, her head dropping forward. "But ... but I'm sure it's not them ... Can't be. Why are we bugging them? They haven't hit anything important."

I said, "But next time they might. Next time they could knock out one of our own major satellites. Our whole system could go down. You can't let it get personal. We're going to finish the job."

"Yeah, by the rules," said Li-Huan bitterly. Her black brows knit together into a single line. She looked disappointed, even angry. "The rules of the game. That's all you care about now."

"That's all I know. That's all any of us know," I said. But by the time I spoke, it was too late. The screen turned blank because Li-Huan had already logged off.

##

Later that night, it looked like a full moon: shiny, white, whole. I watched it grow larger. I held my breath, wondering if the damn thing was going to explode. Even though I was down on the ground and at least twenty feet away, I still instinctively stepped back because the ball grew larger ... and even larger ... until finally it popped, and a face re-emerged from behind its wet messy pieces. She sucked them up, and started chewing again.

I was impressed. That had to be four or five pieces of gum. At least. The bubble-blower was a short person with binoculars around her neck. She paced around the roof deck of the house we'd been watching. From time to time, she lifted the binoculars, and then silver flashed across the glass. A signal? No. Must be moonlight glinting off the lenses. Next to her, another person sat in front of a computer. I watched them for awhile before I finished climbing up a drainpipe to the deck. Quickly I swung my legs over the railing and stayed back in the shadows. Damn, these people were short. Maybe they were midgets. Or maybe they were ...

"Children. Playing Li-Huan's game. That Space Rangers tournament. Abort," said Michael through my com link.

"Wait," I breathed. I stepped out on to the deck. Cupping my hands around my mouth, I called over to the two girls.

The bubblegum blower leaned over the railings of the roof-deck. She blew another bubble, then popped it. I called again and waved. She turned towards my voice. "Hey, lady. Who are you?"

"I'm Robo-Nik, the Cyber Queen. Friend of the Rrriotgirl. Defender of the Galaxy. Death to the evil Emperor Gork."

"Ohmigod, I don't believe it." The girl expertly snapped her bubblegum again. "Wow. This is so cool. A grownup. A freakin' grownup plays our game. And she knows Rrriotgirl. Hypatia, do you believe it? Ohmigod."

"The evidence certainly seems to support the hypothesis." Hypatia may be a shrimp but when she finally looked up from her computer, she examined me in an uncomfortably adult way. "Hey, Mir-maid. Don't get gum on my dad's binoculars. He'll kill us if we get his Nioka's sticky again." "I bet you have cool stuff. Do you have cool stuff? Is it like ours?" Mir-maid pointed to a short wide telescope that looked familiar. Theirs was dark orange instead of the deep blue color I remembered. Celestron. Where had I seen that before? Maybe Walter. He was the kind of guy that might have a gizmo like that. And Walter would definitely appreciate their set up. Something like a metal coffin rolled on toy railroad tracks that ran along a heavy steel table. "Yeah, it's like ours." I thought of our advanced tracking system, but this home-made device impressed me. My God. It was basically a giant laser pointer like the kind teachers used in lectures. A small red beam glowed from one end. "Where did you get this?"

"Get it? Oh, I made it," said Hypatia. "For the school science fair. Second prize. What a rip." When she scowled, her glasses slipped down her nose and seemed to hover at the tip. "Donald McFadden always wins. Because he's a boy. It's not fair."

"It's crappy. We should-a won it. The only black hole dopey old Donald knows about is the one in his ..."

"Mir!"

"... head. I was going to say 'head'. What did you think I was going to say?" Mir-maid giggled as she lifted the binoculars to her eyes.

There was a clicking-whirring sound, but this time I knew what it was. It was outside my head, made by a goofy machine. A real machine that I could see with my own two eyes, touch with my hands. The coffin pivoted and slanted upwards like a slipping gravestone.

I watched it slowly turn west as I stood out here on the roof deck with Hypatia and Mir-maid. Two nice girls. Tee-shirts, blue jeans, and tennis shoes. They both looked too young to be up this late. And way too normal to be Space Ranger techno-terrorists working for Red Cell. My so-called great lead. My great conclusions. Michael was right. I'd been wrong. Dead wrong. They were just kids. I asked, "Do your parents know where you are?"

"Sure. They don't care. They think it's educational," said Mir. "Right, Hypatia?"

"That's right. They let us do anything if they think we're gonna learn something. Well, almost anything. No aluminum oxide stuff. No cool explosions," said the other girl regretfully. Sighing, she turned back to her computer. Her glasses gleamed with the light from the monitor screen. Over her shoulder, I watched the computer redraw the ephemera in clean white lines that curved over the map of the sky. "Hey, coming into view. Good old Green Flash. Never steers us wrong."

"Is that the program you use to track satellites?" I said. "Pretty advanced."

Mir smiled from behind her binoculars. "Nah. Flash sends us the info. We track it. See who tags the satellite first. We're way ahead of everyone. Even Paris. Ha. We're gonna win this tournament. Flash is just a kid like us but she's way, way better than any dopey old program. By the time you use them, they're always out of date. The ellipses, you know. What do you use?"

"Something from U.S. SpaceCommand," I answered truthfully.

Mir giggled. "Wow, that's cool. You are so lucky. We couldn't get our hands on that. Classified or something stupid like that. As if we'd try to tag Keyhole. One of those spooky spy satellites that no one's supposed to know about. Hello-o-o. It's flashing in the sky. Anyone can spot it. As if! Hey, we're not brain-dead. Zap Keyhole, and the spooks will come after us. No thanks. Leave that to someone like dopey old Donald."

"Get ready," called out Hypatia. Even though she sounded calm, she was wiggling in her seat. "Ooh. Check that out. Bright. Mag zero."

I looked over me. Even without binoculars, I could see the light flashing across the sky. Too slow to be a shooting star but just as bright. "Yeah, that's a beaut'."

Hypatia said, "Let's do it. Counting down. Five, four, three ..."

"Two, one. Blast off." Mir whooped as the coffin shot a thin sparkling light beam skyward. And a split second later, something red flashed on the computer screen. "We got it. We got it," sang Mir. She danced around Hypatia, who leaned back in her chair and grinned like a little girl version of Birkoff.

Michael said, "Confirmed hit. Sprint satellite. Some infrared heat damage, minimal. Ask them about the Apollo."

All right already. I know. Get out of my head. "Congratulations," I said out loud. "Hey, I heard about the Apollo. Did you guys do that?"

"The Apollo? The new one? Oh, no. I wish. That was a premium hit. But it wasn't us," said Hypatia, shaking her head. She shoved her glasses back up her nose again. "Golly, are you kidding? My Dad works for Lockheed Martin. He'd kill us if we tagged one of their satellites. I don't know who got that one. But maybe Flash knows. Yeah. She knows everything."

I stuffed my hands into my pockets. Scuffed my heel against the wood deck, and tried to look casual. Like I was asking how to get to the near gas station. Like I couldn't care less. "Oh, wow. She sounds cool. D'you know how can I reach her?"

"What? Nobody can. Nobody knows who she is or where she goes to school. We don't reach her. She reaches us," Hypatia said. Something was blipping on her computer. She leaned over and tapped a button. "Oooh. Like now. See?"

A window opened on the screen. Good hit. High Five.

We rock! typed Hypatia.

"Tagged computer line. Sending packet tracer," Michael said through the com-link. "Close."

Paris eats dust. Rio's wimpy. Hey, girrrls, ready to rock more?

Mir spun and whooped. "You bet. Let's kick it. What do we gotta do?"

"... Closer ..." said Michael.

My heart raced faster with each second. Beat by beat, picking up, ricocheting against my ribs. I rubbed my sweaty palms against my pants, the fabric hitching up, then letting go. Could we catch her? Come on, come on. Just a few seconds more.

Sending coordinates. On the mark ...

"Got her," Michael said. "Location locked."

Locked. Target sighted. The phrase was automatic now and I expected to feel that wild rush, the triumph when you know you're about to hit the mark. But instead, I only felt sad, more than a little sorry. After all, this wasn't a bad guy who'd murdered thousands or kidnapped a country. This wasn't someone like Operations. This was just a kid. Some punk. Now I wished I'd never started this whole thing. It was like opening one of those trick magic boxes when all snakes and confetti sproing out. Out, all over the goddam place. Very hard to cram everything back in again. Impossible to shove the lid back on. I couldn't go back and change things. What had I done? Maybe I should have left things alone. Maybe they'd been better that way. Those poor kids.

I watched Hypatia and Mir doing their happy dance around the deck. Singing, popping their bubble gum. They were just kids. Suburban kids. Shopping malls and mini-vans. Nothing rougher than a hangnail. Jeez. Maybe Section would leave them alone. I could only hope.

##

Ever try finding a needle in a haystack? Sounds like it's hard to do. I mean, you can sort through the straw or sit down here and there, hoping it will stick into your butt, but that's not the most efficient way. All you need is a good sensor and then you got it ... fast. Finding anything metal's a cinch, but finding a person isn't always as easy. At least this time we had a name. Sort of.

Flash. What kind of name was that? That's all the Space Rangers had been able to give us. So we'd been trying to find that kid for almost a week. It was easier to say than do. I mean, who the hell was she? We still didn't know. Flash was just a handle, some name, a shell. And maybe she wasn't a kid after all. Maybe she was a Red Cell agent pretending to be someone else, just using the kids for her own purposes. We didn't know. It was almost as if she didn't really exist except in the goddam ether. We were catching a ghost that haunted the internet. The trick was to catch her before she vanished again. Time was running out. Another launch was due and Operations wanted his satellite protected at all costs. He was turning up the heat, and we had to move.

So far we'd traced her to San Francisco. Pinned her to a likely location. It was our best shot so we were going to take it. The whole team was assembled, geared up. Some of my team mates were silent, some joking among themselves. Everyone had a different way of killing the time before they were set into motion. Every way was fine as long as they didn't interfere with Michael. And no one did. Except me.

We drove towards the city. Its lights glittered in the night like stars fallen to the ground, skirted on one side by the wide smooth darkness of the bay. Above us, the moon seemed like the one white eye of a cat peeking between fingers of fog. It was Halloween weekend, and we weren't the only ones driving into town. Our timing sucked. Really sucked. Bumper to goddamn bumper. We were stuck in traffic with all the partygoers. Slowly we inched across the freeway behind a splotchy truck that belched a suspicious cloud of white exhaust. Impatient, I upped the ventilation.

Come on, come on. Scoot. But the truck just sat there rattling like an old man. There was nothing else to do, nowhere else to look so I stared at its broad chrome bumper that seemed more like a billboard. Every inch of it was plastered with big type slogans. My karma ran over your dogma. MacVegan. Guns don't shoot people/People do. Jeez. Probably a friend of Margo Beasley. I finished reading all the bumperstickers for a second time. Then, a third. All of a sudden, an engine came whining up behind us. A second later, a blue sports car zipped between the lanes and into the nonexistent space between us and the truck, abruptly cutting us off. Herbie stomped on his brake just in time. We all rocked forward, then snapped back. The sports car driver stuck his hand out the window and gave us the finger.

Herbie the Mouth pounded the wheel. "What is this? I'm asking ya, what the hell is this? Are they all nuts here or what? Driving like that. Someone could get hurt. Seriously hurt. Aw, this is killing me. Hey, Michael. Look at that. There's a carpool lane. It says three or more people. We gots more than three people in this van."

"Don't even think about it," I said.

"No," said Michael at the same time. "Stay focussed on the mission. It's the weekend, Mouth. You can't use that carpool lane on the weekend. Just wait and pay the toll."

"Awww. By the time we reach there, I'll die of old age and you guys will be burying me."

I said, "We'll be burying you all right if you get a ticket here."

"If you get a ticket, then you will pay for it. All of it," said Michael in that cold quiet voice which made everyone listen. "Not me. Not Section. You. Do you understand?"

"Okay, sure, Yeah. I got it. We're not talking fines. My life, you're saying. But don't blame me if we don't hit the first mark on time. This traffic jam's a killer," said Herbie.

Molasses moved faster than we did, but eventually we creeped along the bridge, through a tunnel, and across an island. Inch by painful inch. When we neared the end of the suspension bridge, the traffic mysteriously unsnarled and we could once again speed down the highway into the city, the moon trailing behind us. We drove west towards the ocean. Followed a road, which zigged up and zagged around a sea cliff. Herbie pulled the black van over to the side of the street. The engine quietly purred to a quick stop. "Well, Chri-i-i-i-ist. Look at that. Look at that, willya?" His finger jabbed towards the side window. "There's Seal Rock. Where's the damn seals? I'm telling ya. False advertising. Finally I'm back in San Francisco, and on Halloween too. I hear this place is Baghdad by the Bay. Sin City. Real wild time. But no-o-o-o, we have to work. And it's another wham-bammer. Adios, bye-bye. Never any time to play. Hey, hey. Can't you arrange something longer? A layover or something? I wanna check out the parties. I'm begging ya."

Michael didn't reply.

I took out a small foil bag of cheese-y poufs from the driver's console. "Here, Mouth. Stuff it. Just be a good boy. Sit tight and eat something."

Herbie took the bag, ripped it open with his mouth. Spit the top piece on to the floor. "Well, be that way. Now I'm not going to share with you. You can't have a pouf. Not even if you beg me."

"Forget it. Eat some of that? Do you know what's inside those things? Ever read the label? Look at that. Right here. Sodium triglycerides. Poly-whozits. And these. These natural flavors. Whatever they are. You should pay more attention. If you bothered reading the damn labels, you wouldn't eat half of what you eat."

"Excuse me. Not all of us can be Miss Julia Child. Whipping up a souffle just any old time." Mouth crunched louder on his snack as if he were trying to prove a point.

The sound made my mouth water, but I wasn't going to admit it. "Fine. I brought my own." It was going to be a long night. I pulled out a small plastic bag from the pocket of my vest. Stuck a red candy into my mouth.

"Yech. You and your sweet crap. Kid stuff. Real men like salt." Herbie waggled his eyebrows and his hand dug into the bag.

I rolled my eyes. "Spare me."

"Picking up kappa pulses. Remote interference," said Michael. "Need to survey. Prelim, on foot. Radio silence unless necessary. Report back every ten minutes. Team Two to the south. I take the north. Nikita, with me."

Herbie grinned. The orange crumbs made his mouth looked like an evil clown. All he needed was a red honking nose. And a frizzy wig. "Ooh, Nikita. I hear Cleo's back in town. Better not let her hear about your special assignments with Michael."

The van door silently slid open along its oiled track. Before I exited, I threw Herbie a warning look, but he only grinned wider.

##

Moon/La Lune (Michael)

We crossed the street, and walked towards an old glitzy restaurant perched high on the hill. A leprechaun and a shepherdess with her crook walked past us. There were men in ballroom gowns, women in top hats and tuxedoes.

"Beep Beep." Six people dressed up as a yellow school bus cruised by. "Hey, no passing. Flashing lights." Beneath the cardboard cutout of the bus, their naked legs jogged in unison as they chased after someone dressed up like a stoplight. All the costumes, the gay giddiness reminded me of Mardi Gras.

"Look," said Nikita. "I can't believe this. Here we are in mission gear, and now we're underdressed. But this time ... This time, we look normal. Boring." She pointed to the man with a giant crab hat, its legs bobbing and swaying with his every step. "Where are the kids? There's more adults than kids dressed up."

"Nikita," I said. We cut across the sidewalk, and down the steps along the cliff. As we passed the curve of the hill, the wind suddenly buffeted us. It was cold, sharp. Bit right through my clothes. "About Cleo ..."

"What about Cleo?" The look Nikita gave me was calm, even disinterested. As if she were listening to a damnable debriefing about some remote situation God knows where. Her detachment sliced into me, deeper than the wind, straight into my bones.

Nikita shrugged. "You and Cleo. That's between you two. No need to explain. That's personal," she said with an awful patience. "But this, this is work. Let's keep it that way, okay? Everything clean. Above board. We can still work together. Let's not ruin that. Everyone's watching us all the time. We need to be careful."

But. The word hovered on my lips, threatened to fall, but I kept it in. Swallowed it all back in like I did everything else all the time. I watched the wind whip her hair around. The cold made her lips seem rosier. At that moment, I wanted to kiss her. Wanted to kill her. But neither were appropriate. I only said, "Their monitors are sensitive. Any communications will alert them. We'll have to go in black. Radio dead for ten minutes. A gap. You should go in by yourself."

"Is that an order? Are you changing the profile?"

"Yes. Anything could happen. Better sneak in. Show of force, and we could scare them. They could run off before we're ready." Listen, Nikita.

"I disagree. You need to be there. The profile should stand."

Nom de Dieu! Listen. Listen to me for a change. Just do what I say without arguing. You won't like what you will find there. You won't like it at all. I kept my hands loose but ready. It took every ounce of control I possessed. I wanted to shake her. Really shake some sense into her. I was that close ... so close to doing it.

"Forget it, pal. You know better than that. Don't change the profile at the last minute. Bad idea. Then you'll have to explain why. Operation doesn't like it. Come on. It's a good plan. You know it is." She only smiled and offered me her bag of candy. "Here. Have one. It will make you feel better. Read the label. No natural flavors. Nothing changed. I promise. It's good for you."

She stuffed the bag into my hand, and then walked on ahead. The moonlight made her hair seem lighter, almost silver. I watched her jog down the steps until she was almost out of view. Then I glanced back down at the bag. It smelled of strawberry. Fraises Haribo. Something was circled on the bag. I looked closer. The golden bear. Little cursive letters. Words I'd known since childhood. Trop doux pour être oublié.

Too Sweet To Forget. I hadn't forgotten. I never had. And maybe, just maybe Nikita hadn't either.

##

Sun/Le Soleil(Nikita)

The abandoned warehouse looked familiar. Too familiar. There were hundreds of these all over the world, and I had probably seen most of them. Terrorists lurked like rats in them. And fear - like mildew - clung to their damp, dark walls. My heart beat a little faster as I scanned over its shadows. Chunks of plaster were falling from the ceiling, and steel rods jutted down like stalactites. Someone had pulled wires out of the walls and spliced them together for power, which fed two high grade laptop computers. Water dripped somewhere, echoing. Except for the computers, it was like a hundred places I'd squatted during my time on the streets. It was like coming home. Quickly I walked forward.

I hadn't gone more than ten feet when out of nowhere, a thin blonde girl suddenly appeared, stepping in front of me. Her fists jammed on to her hips. Her knobby knees poked through the holes in her oily jeans, which was cinched high at the waist with a knotted nylon cord. Blue eyes looked me over, then slanted like an alley cat's. "Hey! You didn't knock first."

"Sorry. Flunked manners. Never could get it right. How do you do?" I stepped around her and over the carton stained with pizza grease. A short brown-haired boy chewed on a crust. He smiled shyly, offered me some. I shook my head.

"How do I do what?" said the girl. She blocked the computer screen with her body before I could read it.

The boy swallowed, then stood up. He carefully brushed every crumb off his black sweater and jeans. Even his running shoes were clean, the shoelaces tied in perfectly even loops. Symmetric as hell. Not your usual street rat. At least, not the ones I knew. The boy said, "That's all right, Flash. Let her be. We've been expecting her."

Expecting me? What was going on? It didn't seem like a trap. We'd already scanned this location. The building was empty except for these two. Jeez. They were kids. Just kids. Both of them under ten. I turned to the girl. "Flash? Are you Green Flash?"

"Yeah, that's right. That's me. You know. You gotta look real hard to see me. Now you see me. Now you don't. Poof. I'm gone again." She waved her hand in the air like a magician, distracting me for a moment. Then suddenly, there was something silver in her other hand. A Glock. The same make as my own, which was uselessly holstered under my shoulder. Shit. Her gun pointed straight at me. Steady barrel, held with absolute goddam confidence. The girl frowned. "I don't know about this one, Mikko."

The boy looked at me, then at the girl. He quietly said, "Put the gun away. We don't need it. She won't hurt us. She can't. Remember. The stories."

The girl's answering sneer belonged to someone much older, someone who had seen a lot, too much. It didn't belong in such a young face. "They're just stories. We don't know ..."

"It's all that we do know," he interrupted. "She won't kill us."

"She could do worse. She could turn us in," said Flash.

"Flash is right," I said. The girl's eyes widened with surprise, then quickly narrowed. Her chin tilted. The gun never wavered.

I held my arms wide, palms out. "You shouldn't trust me. You don't even know who I am."

Then the girl laughed: a sound that warmed the inside of the rundown building, a sound that didn't match the coldness in her eyes. "What? Are you kidding? Of course we do. We're no dopes. We know exactly who you are, Nikita. We know who you were, and who they want you to be. We know more about you than you even know about yourself."

##

My head felt like half the building just landed on me - bricks, plaster, wiring and all. I felt stunned, confused. And very very stupid. "How do you know that? How could you possibly know? ... Oh. I see. Hypatia probably told you."

"Wr-o-o-ong. No one told us. Guess again." Flash gestured for me to sit down on the concrete floor.

I was glad to follow her instructions. A minute longer, and my legs would have given way. I sat on the ground next to crumpled candy wrappers and empty Coke cans. Jeez. What a diet. Nutritional suicide. Well, what the hell. They were too young to worry about zits anyway. Lucky them. My knee brushed against a beaten up copy of Einstein's Dreams. The book was open. A set of greasy fingerprints marked one of the pages. Small smudges, like the kind a kid would make on a comic book. Who were these kids? The cold seeped through my mission pants, and bit into my skin. "Red Cell? Did they tell you about me?"

"Did you hear that, Mikko? She thinks we work for Red Cell. What's Red Cell anyway? Just a competing team in the same game. Maybe some of our cousins started Red Cell. Maybe some of them still work there, but not us. We have bigger ideas. Come on, Nikita. Try again. But this time, don't be so binary. Red Cell. Section One. Black. White. You can do better than that. Come on, come on." Frowning, she tapped her toe against the ground. As the seconds passed, her frown deepened.

I watched the girl stamp her foot. Once, twice. Impatient. More than a little irritated. I began to wonder. "Why are you so angry with me?"

"Me? I'm not. You wanna see me real pissed off? This is pissed. I'll show you. The genuine thing. You ..." Flash aimed her gun at me, but Mikko grabbed her hand, pushed it aside. He shook his head.

"But see?" demanded Flash. "Nikita doesn't remember a thing. I told you so. I told you she wouldn't."

"She doesn't remember the stories," the boy murmured to himself. Mikko's face turned thoughtful, almost disappointed for a moment. Then a second later, it turned blank again. He shrugged. "Well, Nikita can't help it. She's been processed again."

"Sure, yeah. Use that as an excuse. Convenient for her. Inconvenient for us." Flash looked at me distastefully as if I were defective. A lemon. Like I had just failed a test that I didn't even know about.

I tried to think, but my mind was still a blank slate. Wiped clean. Empty. Damn it. Frustration made my chest cramp. My breath twisted inside until finally it blasted out. I had to admit defeat. They knew more than I did. I had to find out. "Do I know you? Have I ever seen you before?"

Flash snorted. "Try looking in your mirror. Say ... maybe fifteen years ago."

"Don't. You'll just confuse her," said Mikko. His quiet command made the girl flush, look away. He turned slowly towards me as if he were dancing through water. I'd seen that same move somewhere before, that same graceful economy. "Yes, Nikita. You've seen us before. Flash is just mad because you don't remember us. No one likes to be forgotten. But we remember you, Nikita. You came to us in the nursery. You used to slip in and tell us stories. A story about a sleeping prince named Michael and brave Nikita who break the magic spell. You said they were just a boy and girl, but they fought the mean green giant that ate kids. They were smart and brave and ..."

As Mikko continued the story, my guts slammed up against my ribs like I'd fallen off a ledge. Falling at zero G, my head all dizzy and light. Jeez. His story sounded so familiar. I had heard it all before. All his words rushed towards me like a wave, pounding at some sea wall, some goddam barrier inside my head. Over and over. Pushing, pushing harder. I listened to Mikko for awhile. As I did, I felt a little drowsy, and his pure high voice gradually lowered, turned raspy from gin and cigarettes. And now a woman was talking, becoming my mom who was hugging me and telling the same story. And then Bobby's voice became mine and I was speaking aloud like I was part of the same dream. My voice was saying "... and Michael and brave Nikita followed the trail of crumbs until they found the way out of the giant's cave and reached the world outside. They saw the sun and the stars for the first time in months. The air smelled clean and sweet, and the sweetness was freedom. Freedom together. And Michael and brave Nikita lived happily ever after forever more. And that is all, ëÿëÿ. There it ends, and there it begins. From my mouth to the wind, the wind to your ear. We tell the stories and we listen. Listen and remember, remember and continue," I finished. I fell silent at last. My head slumped forward.

I closed my eyes, the words still washing over me, breaking through and busting past the last wall into the wider sea that was me. Even though the warehouse was totally quiet, I could still hear Bobby telling me the story. And I could hear myself telling the same story to some kids in a dream. I reached out and touched Flash's hair before she scowled and ducked her head away. It felt soft, very soft like a cloud.

My fingers rubbed together as if I could still feel her hair. Yes. Now I remembered. I'd dreamed about telling bedtime stories to my boy and girl. Those children, mine and Michael's. Maybe it hadn't been a dream after all. Maybe it had always been real. All along, this one thing had been real. "And then I said ..."

"... don't be afraid. And so we weren't," Flash said. "We weren't afraid. We waited, got ready. And one day, they moved us all out of the nursery. They rushed around. All blustery. Banging things. Talked loud like grownups do when they're flustered. Loud and careless. So we knew that was our chance. We ran away. We followed the electronic crumbs just like you said."

"And we made it to the world outside the world. A bunch of us did," finished Mikko. His wide-set green eyes quietly shone with something, something like pride. "You do remember."

"Some. Not all of it," I admitted. "And you've been on the run since then. And shooting satellites. Why? You'll draw attention. You should be hiding."

"We are, sort of," said Mikko quietly, his eyes shining with excitement. "It's a good deal. We provide the tracking information for the game. The other Space Rangers shoot randomly and provide our cover. We can't do it ourselves. The laser equipment's too big. Can't carry it."

"So you're hiding inside the pack. But why? Why play that game at all?"

"It's not a game. It's as real as it gets," said Flash fiercely. Her fists clenched. Then she stabbed a finger at me. "You know that better than anyone else. Look what they did to you. Well, forget it. We're not gonna let them do that to us. We're hitting those spook satellites. We're gonna wipe out those remote control programs. One by one. We'll take them all down. Every last one. They're not gonna screw with our heads."

Those kids could do it. They were smart enough. They had the goddam technology. Hell, they were already doing it. Only they hadn't learned the system yet. Didn't know the ropes. They didn't know how to stay in the shadows, to stay tricky. And the kids needed to learn if they were going to survive. My God, what they were taking on ... it was like fighting a giant. A crusade. And all I had ever cared about was me and Michael, how we could be together. I felt small. Stupid. Selfish. I cleared my throat. "They'll find you."

"No. No way. They won't," said Flash. Her feet were wide apart, her head thrust forward like a pitbull puppy. Ready, even eager to take anyone on.

I turned over the book, and closed it. Eventually I stood up. Felt every creak in my joint, every stiff muscle. I felt goddam old. Too old. Experience only meant that I could say the words with a straight face, without puking. But experience never made it any easier to say the hard things, never wiped away the guilt. I quietly said, "Well, I did. I found you."

Mikko and Flash exchanged a look. "You can help us," they said.

"No, I can't. This can't go on. It's too late."

"Yes." Michael stepped out from the shadows with the rest of the team. "It's too late."

Flash pivoted, aimed, but Michael easily knocked the Glock out of her hands. He grabbed her before she could run away. Clutched her tight as she twisted, kicked. Didn't even blink when her elbow connected with his jaw.

"No. No, I won't go back. I won't. If you're gonna do it, just kill me. Kill me now." Her blue eyes pleaded with me. Mercy. I'd seen that look before on a hundred faces but never facing me, never asking it of me. My God. Was this how my mom had felt? Every time they'd taken me to Doctor Grün? Every time they pulled me screaming from her arms?

Take me. Goddam it, take me instead. But that trade didn't make any sense. I already belonged to Section One. I was already going back. I couldn't do what Flash wanted. I wanted to, but I couldn't let her go. I just couldn't. I couldn't kill her either. Everyone was there watching me. Michael. My team mates. Operations and Madeline on live feed. By now the comm gap had closed and they could see us, could hear every word.

Flash must have seen the answer on my face because her expression twisted, the cockiness turning into despair. "Mikko!"

"It's over, Flash. It's ... all ... over." His quiet words fell like raindrops into the stillness. One by one, right before the downpour. Then the boy looked up at Michael, his stoic expression mirroring Michael's own, green eyes into green. An exact match, shade for shade, feeling for feeling. "The Space Rangers. They knew nothing about this. Nothing. They shouldn't be punished."

"All right," said Michael.

"And Flash. She was just following my orders. It wasn't her fault. I planned the escape. The satellites. It was my idea.

"Like hell," spat the girl. "Don't believe him. He's lying. It was me. Only me. Mikko couldn't find his way out of a paper bag."

Michael handed the girl to Herbie. She stomped hard on his arch, then turned and connected with his groin. He bent over, his breath whistling between his teeth.

"Jesus," groaned Herbie, but he still managed to hold her. It took another man to help restrain her. Even still, she twisted like a kid tornado, her head butting, elbows flying.

Michael said, "Take her to Transport. Both of them."

Without asking, Mikko took their backpacks and laptops. Then he followed the men, who were holding the struggling girl. "Don't fight, Flash. You're only hurting yourself."

"Shit. Red double-dick eating shit," she swore.

"Language," muttered Herbie as he limped off with her.

I listened to their footsteps, the curses grow dim. Eventually I stirred. Walked to the middle of the room and picked up the Glock that lay on the floor. The weight of the piece felt familiar but strange. Like someone else was holding the gun. As I straightened up, I could hear Bobby's voice calling me, joined by others. My God. How they roared inside my head. Roared like the ocean outside the window. Remember, they all said. Remember, ëÿëÿ.

Remember what? What did I remember? Just bits and pieces. I wasn't sure any more. All I knew was this: I wasn't any different than my mom. I'd ended up acting the same way, turning over the kids instead of protecting them. And everything, all my anger, all my big talk collapsed on itself so that I stood there, uncertain and alone. I felt lost again, a little girl in a cave. The giant was dead, but I had to find my way out. If I didn't, I'd be lost forever. Forever. Mommy, where are you? Don't leave me. Find the three apples, ëÿëÿ. The three magic apples ... Program Three-Alpha Deleted. Terminate.

I lifted the gun.

##

Moon/La Lune (Michael)

Nikita pointed the barrel towards her mouth. I was ten meters away. Too far to reach her in time. I couldn't shoot her to stop her. Her finger might tighten, could still pull the trigger. A reflex. A deadly reflex. I watched her. Helpless. I had never felt so gutlessly helpless in all my life. Sacredieu. Don't. Soleil. Please.

"What?" she said as if I'd spoken out loud. Slowly she turned, frowned at me. But she didn't lower the gun. "What is it now? Hey, check this out. Flash took good care of this one. It's clean, well oiled. Yeah, and loaded too. Full clip. Kid's a professional all right."

"Safety catch," I reminded tersely.

"Oh, yeah." She clipped it on, then started walking out of the room.

"Nikita. Are you all right?"

Her foot hesitated for a second. "I'm fine." She continued walking for another ten feet or so before she stopped all of a sudden. She turned back to me, and for the first time, the light slanted across her face and I could see all of her. Her eyes were suspiciously moist. Nikita lifted the gun, then let it drop again as if it were too heavy to hold up. Her wrist thumped against her thigh. Her head hung forward. "It's never that simple, is it? Life. Death. Bang. It's over. Once you told me that it's harder, much harder to live. Maybe you're right. Maybe it's harder than being a dead hero. Oh, Michael. I couldn't do what Flash wanted. It would be like shooting my own child. Like killing myself." She fell silent again, her shoulders drooping.

I swallowed hard. Nikita was standing there so quietly. All her usual exuberance was missing so that she seemed like just the husk of who she really was. She looked more fragile than ever. A puff of breeze could break her. My arms ached to hold her, to kiss away the tears that threatened to spill. But if I did, if she broke down now, she would never forgive herself. She would never forgive me. So instead, I stayed away from her and offered her what little comfort I could. "That day on the beach. You looked like that. Like Flash. Exactly."

"Really? Oh yuck. Kinda scruffy. All arms and legs. Bony." Sniffing, Nikita scrunched her face. She swiped a quick hand across her eyes.

"Not bony. Beautiful. You were beautiful then," I corrected. "But you're even more beautiful now."

##

Some things are real invitations. Other things seem like invitations but they're really tests or lures. Like the way a shark smiles before it bites into its victim. Or when Operations invites me to a meeting in his eyrie. I look calm, but it raises my hackles every time. And this last mission had been particularly dicey so I wasn't eager to deconstruct it. The outcome had been ... unexpected. I was understandably cautious when Operations said, "Michael, what do you think of this?"

Over the monitor, I watched the debriefing. Herbie sat on the edge of his chair. "I'm telling ya. That was it."

Madeline looked down at the floor, then back up again. She smiled. "Tell us ... again."

"All right. It was like this. The kids were restrained. Sitting in the back. Flash is still swearing a blue streak, and I'm thinking about stunning the girl. Just to keep her quiet, y'know. But I don't because I'm by myself, and once the hostiles are loaded, I get in and drive out. Just like protocol, see? No deviation. So anyways, I get in, start the car, and then someone sticks a gun to my ear. A voice says, 'Sorry, mate. Listen up. Sharp-like. Time for a little detour'. Then POW. Next thing I know I wake up with a headache, dumped on the side of the road."

"Stripped."

"Yeah, well." Herbie stared down at his feet. "Taking our clothes. That just ain't professional."

Operations reached forward. His finger stabbed a button on the console, and the picture winked out. Once again, the monitor screen was blank, as blank I hoped my face was. "Impression?"

"He's telling the truth," I said.

"Yes. I agree. Theories?"

I folded my hands in front of me. "Red Cell. Hijacked the kids. Acquired them for their own. Forced recruits."

"Possible." Operations nodded, then almost smiled. "Yes. Very possible. Well, we almost obtained our full objectives. The children damaged enough satellites. Now Oversight will have to approve budget to replace them with newer higher tech ones. Ones I need. Ones that will work better, faster. That's satisfactory. But I wanted those children back. Flash and Mikko. They're ... fascinating. Trying to protect each other. So young too. Madeline says they're unusually bonded. We don't encourage that."

"Yes," I said. Ah. Here it comes. I braced my feet against the floor. Prepared. Waited.

"Natural urges aren't ... forbidden. Especially men. Men need their release. But relationships are different. They get in the way. Impair performance. Can't have that."

"No."

"I understand you're seeing Cleo these days."

I looked impassively at him. It was better not to answer. There were rumors about Cleo and Operations. The kind that produced knowing smiles and sniggers behind hands. Besides, I wasn't in a hurry to correct his false impression. It could be a useful one.

"Cleo is ... quite a woman. She understands these things," continued Operations. "I hope that you do to. I hope you've learned your lesson. You already know what happens if you don't."

##

A month later, I was still wondering about that lesson. Maybe Nikita had learned it better than me. She seemed to have it down pat. It was killing me. I watched her smile at Walter as she left the armory, then turn down the hall towards me. I walked to meet her, my heart thrumming a little faster. Today her hair was swept up into a chignon so that her long neck was a bare, elegant temptation. I wanted to kiss her there where she pulsed under her sweet soft skin. I wanted to hear her sigh when I did.

Nikita, look at me. She did finally, but I did not see the delight I wanted. Just polite remoteness.

"Hello, Michael," she said in her throaty voice, the one that made me feel as if velvet was being rubbed up and down my back.

I controlled my impulse. Barely. "Walter and I ... are going out. For sushi."

"Really? He didn't mention it."

Damn. The part about Walter had been a lie. But still ... "Join us?"

"No!" Nikita stepped away from me, her nostrils flaring, eyes widening with distress. She looked as if I'd asked her for sex instead of sushi. "No," she said more calmly this time. "Sushi is too ... intimate."

"Coffee then."

She shook her head. "Maybe later," she said like all the other times during the last few months. "Why don't you ask Cleo? She's back in town." Then shaking her head again, Nikita walked away.

As I watched her slim back retreat down the hall, I slipped my hand into my jacket pocket. I still had the Fraises Haribo she'd given me. Trop doux pour être oublié. But as the weeks passed, I was less and less sure what it was supposed to mean. Maybe it was a remembrance of things past instead of a hint of something to come. What else could I do? Flowers, candy, the trappings of standard courtship were impossible. Dangerous even. And there had been no chance so far to arrange a secret rendezvous. Rendezvous? Merde. She would not even meet me for coffee. At times, I felt like giving up. Sometimes I found myself wanting something easy, soulless. Something to fill a need, nothing more. Pleasure, no complications. Someone like Cleo.

##

"Well, this is my apartment. Just make yourself at home." Cleo waved to the wet bar with one perfectly groomed hand. The gesture made her gold bangles jingle-jangle against each other. "Could you be a dear and open the wine? It has to ... breathe. As do I. Excuse me. I'm going to slip into something more comfortable."

She smiled one more time at me before she left the room in a trail of silk scarves and heavy expensive scent. Muguet. French muguet. Mon Dieu. What was I doing here? What was wrong with me? A clear invitation, a careless acceptance, and I had left Section for her home.

Cleo was attractive, knowledgeable, reasonable. She understood the rules. She did not try to break them. Didn't try to break them over my head. But I did not want conscupience and compliance. I did not want muguet. I wanted peach soap. A tall blonde woman who was all arms and legs. Spitting blue eyes instead of knowing brown ones. I wanted Nikita. I had to be mad.

I mechanically followed Cleo's instructions. Picked up the bottle, pulled the cork, sniffed it without really smelling it. Then I set the wine aside. I could still hear Cleo humming to herself in the bedroom. Damnation. I would wait until she was done, offer my apologies, and then go home again. This was not going to work.

I felt miserably awkward here. A male intruder in an obviously female retreat. The whole apartment seemed like a boudoir: fat pillows, overstuffed furniture in sumptuous velvets, and the perfume of flowers everywhere: potted orchids, lilies, bearded irises. On the walls hung giant flower paintings by O'Keefe and Judy Chicago. More velvet and chiffon draped the walls on one side of the room, beaded curtains hung from the other.

After I had prowled around the room, I sank into one of the armchairs that felt soft and plump like a madam's bosom. I heard beads clack, then quick footsteps that somehow sounded different. Longer stride, no heels tap-tapping. My hand automatically slipped towards my gun.

"Well, don't shoot me," said a voice that aroused me more than Cleo's sexy purr, the one that tormented me in my dreams every night.

Nikita. She stood there in a midnight blue dress, her broad shoulders polished beneath the spaghetti straps and her long legs peeking out from under the tight sheath skirt. She could have been wearing a paper bag, and I would not have cared. Not at all. She was everything I wanted. I looked at her, and my heart squeezed.

##