Chapter 187
It was a few minutes past midnight and Patterson sat staring at his computer still typing in commands furiously trying to make the connection. The computer had given him some cross references, but nothing that tied all the people together. But he was close he could feel it, furthermore that's what the computer was telling him. More and more pieces were falling into place. Or at least that's how it looked. He pressed a button eager for the results it would bring. The screen filled with a list. He looked it over and sighed.
"Not yet..." he muttered.
His door buzzed. He glanced at his surveillance camera. Amy stood there. He did his quick scan to make sure it was her and then opened the door.
"You shouldn't push yourself so hard like this," Amy said.
"I'm close," Patterson said.
"Perhaps, or perhaps not. Has it occurred to you that these attacks could be random?"
"Yes, there seemed to be no clear pattern linking all of the people together. However, there are smaller links here and there, and there is one factor that I can say conclusively."
"What is it?" Amy asked.
"This pattern is designed to throw me off."
Amy's eyes widened slightly.
"Whoever is doing this knows exactly who these people all are," Patterson said.
"Are you sure?" Amy asked.
"I had my computer run some probability tests, not that I have a clue how they work..... stupid math...ahem..anyway..there's just too many variables that match up from here to there that this isn't random. I spent a lot of time trying to match characteristics of the buildings, looking for similarities, they aren't there, or not in detail."
"So D.V. if this is you say it is, how are we going to crack the code?"
"That's what I'm working on," Patterson said.
"You should get some rest."
"I'm fine."
"I happen to know you're not, you were up at five thirty this morning eating, then you were in there until noon when you ate and then went back in there..until dinner, then back in there."
"How do you know I didn't rest during that time?"
"I could never prove it, but I've got a pretty good idea," Amy said. "But if you insist, fine..." Amy said and sat at the war room table.
"I'll just stay up and watch you work.." she said.
Patterson sighed and pressed a button on his computer it started a computation.
"No use drawing this out..you win," Patterson said.
Amy grinned slightly. Didn't take much. She thought.
Patterson moved towards the cot set up in the room.
"D.V. You have a room upstairs, use it," Amy said.
Patterson sighed.
"And don't try anything silly either," Amy said. She knew the threat would be enough.
Amy stood in the doorway. Patterson walked through. Amy followed.
"See..this is called relaxing," Amy said.
Patterson sighed.
"I don't relax."
"You have to," Amy said. "I can only guess that the reason you need such high tech security is so you can relax and not be bothered."
"It's high security so it can't be broken into, for security reasons. There is classified information on those computers."
"That's true, but it's not like there's anything wrong with relaxing once and a while..now get some rest D.V. you need it."
"I need a lot of things," Patterson muttered and headed into his room.
The next morning.
Mina found herself sitting on a park bench. Her head was tilted to one side and she was almost in a daze staring at the pond sitting in front of her. A hand moved in front of her face and snapped. She jerked up.
"AHH don't do that!" and she lunged at the originator of the snap. Which happened to be Lita. The larger girl grabbed Mina and held her out in front of her.
"Mina...it's just me," Lita said.
"Ehh...what's the idea," Mina said.
"You okay?"
"Do I look okay?"
"Not really."
"There's your answer, can you let go?" Mina asked.
"Of course.." Lita said and let go of Mina who sat back down. Lita sat down beside her.
"So what's the problem?" Lita asked.
"The romance is gone."
"What?"
"It's been like this way for months now."
"You mean you and Mike?"
Mina nodded.
"See the problem with Mike is that he's one of the weirdest people I ever encountered, and at first that made him interesting. But now..lately..I just found it annoying. But never mind that...he hasn't taken me anywhere romantic since before we had to go to Crystal Tokyo."
"Well at least you've gone somewhere romantic at some point," Lita said.
"That's right, you and Steve don't exactly have the romance thing going either do ya?"
"Never did...and the sad thing is he is romantic."
"How can you tell?" Mina asked.
"Steve's an artist Mina...he's great at drawing, but lately he hasn't done any drawing since we started dating. I don't know why. I know that because he can create such beautiful pictures that he's deeper then he thinks, but he doesn't seem to know that."
"Neither of our boyfriends seem to have the whole romance thing down do they?"
"We were really desperate back when we started dating them weren't we?" Lita asked.
"Yeah." Mina said.
"They're not bad," Lita said.
"They're good friends," Mina said.
"Right."
"But not good boyfriends," Mina said.
"Well at least not at the moment."
"Of course isn't that true of all men?" Mina said.
"You have a point...they've always got that other stuff to do. Even Darrien's been busy,"Lita said.
"Yeah..I noticed that," Mina said. "But we girls have needs."
"Right, needs these two don't seem to know what to do with," Lita said.
"I just had a thought..no..it's too risky..." Mina said.
"What are you thinking.." Lita said.
"No...it's much too dangerous.." Mina said.
"Just tell me what it is."
"Lita, I don't think I should. It's a measure which has not been proven effective enough to be used even in this situation. It would take a major crisis for me to even consider it."
"Mina....you don't mean.."
"Do not speak of it!" Mina said.
"But it could work.." Lita said.
"No..no..it's insane to take the risk...you can't," Mina said with all seriousness.
"You thought of it first," Lita said.
"I was wrong to do so, I will make penance later," Mina said.
"Mina, we really can only go up," Lita said.
Mina glanced at her.
"Maybe..." Mina said. "But..I'm not sure."
"It may be our only chance," Lita said.
"All right...we'll do it," Mina said.
"Then it's decided, we will go on a double date," Lita said. There was a crack of thunder and rain began to fall.
"That's odd..it was sunny a minute ago," Lita said.
"This worries me," Mina said.
"It's just a coincidence," Lita said.
"No..no it isn't," Mina said. "We're doomed."
At Tokyo University, Darrien was sitting in a dinning hall skimming through a text book.
"Now that's no good," came the familiar voice of Furuhata Sagara.
"Oh...uh..hi.." Darrien said putting the book down. Sagara sat across from him.
"Studying is good, but not while you're eating," Sagara said.
"Why not?" Darrien said.
"Darrien there's a reason the mind and the stomach are separated," Sagara said.
"And that is?" Darrien asked.
"I don't know what the reason is, I'm not into biology, but meals shouldn't be used for that.." she said motioning at the book with her fork. "Instead they're useful for thinking, relaxing, and most of all talking to me."
"Is that a law?" Darrien asked.
"It should be...so how's Serena?"
"Serena? Why?" Darrien stammered.
"Why? Why what?" Sagara asked.
"Well..it's just an odd thing to start a conversation with that's all?" Darrien asked.
"Darrien, I was just curious," Sagara said.
"She's fine," Darrien said.
"That's good, I've noticed that every time she isn't you fall into a stupor."
"Oh, so you've been keeping an eye on me then?" Darrien asked.
"Of course, you've got a future you know," Sagara said.
"A future?" Darrien asked.
"Well think about it, we're about to have a manned space program, and you're going to be in the midst of it," Sagara said. "Isn't that exciting?"
"Well..yeah..but that doesn't tell me why you had to be keeping tabs on me," Darrien said.
"Doesn't it?" Sagara asked.
Darrien looked at her.
"I'll let you figure it out," she said and began to eat.
Darrien just looked at her unsure of what this all meant.
"GOTCHA!" Patterson shouted within the confines of the war room. He cautiously glanced around of course realizing that since he was alone no one would have heard him. He returned to his stoic expression and then staring at the computer screen. He now had a lead.
He hurriedly gathered up anything he would need and headed out the door. Greg and Amy were sitting in the living room playing chess.
"Checkmate," Amy said.
"Should have seen that coming," Greg said.
The two noticed Patterson.
"Have you found something?" Amy asked.
"Yes...I'll take care of it," Patterson said hurriedly.
"Oh no you don't, we're a team remember?" Amy said. "Right Greg?"
"Oh..yeah..uh..ahem.." Greg stammered.
Amy grinned slightly.
"We'll check this out together," Amy said.
"If you want to," Patterson said.
"I insist," Amy said.
Patterson shrugged and the three headed out.
"See isn't this a nice dress.." Serena said modeling one of her birthday presents. "I knew they'd find it."
"Serena...you got lucky," Luna said.
"Why?"
"Because normally, you don't ask for something like that with such a vague description," Luna said.
"You kinda have a point, but see it worked out," Serena said.
"And what if it didn't?"
"I'm not a time traveler Luna," Serena said.
Luna glanced at her.
"And..." Luna said.
"And what?" Serena asked.
"Usually when you make a statement like, 'I'm not a time traveler', you go on to explain what you mean," Luna said.
"Oh..." Serena said. "Why?"
Luna sighed.
"Anyway..I'm happy," Serena said.
"I've noticed."
"See I'm top of the world. I've got all these nice presents, my friends are all happy too, and I haven't had to fight a battle in weeks."
"Serena...there is the fact that the negaverse seems to be blasting people for some reason.." Luna said.
"Not my problem.." Serena said.
"What?" Luna asked.
"Well? The intellectual members of our team are handling it, there isn't much for me to do."
"I'm sure they'd appreciate it if you showed some interest in what was going on though," Luna said.
"Ya think?" Serena asked. "I swung by once already."
"Serena...you're seventeen. Grow up a little," Luna said.
"I have..." Serena said. "Just not the way you mean. But that's okay."
"Why is it okay?"
"Because everything's fine..see...no problems here. Sure, I'm not looking around for trouble, but they're just a bunch of lowlifes anyway..and everyone's happy so I'm happy....why are you trying to get me upset anyway?" Serena asked.
"It's not a matter of that," Luna said. "But I'm not going to try to reason with you anymore."
"I knew you'd see it my way," Serena said.
Luna glanced at her again.
Maverick, Sailor Mercury, and Guardian Saturn stood amidst a cluster of SDF and police vehicles.
"Too late.." Maverick muttered looking at the victim.
"Looks like you picked the next victim though.." Mercury said.
"Doesn't matter...he was the link..now I don't know where to go...if I had gotten to him first I could have watched him...but the camera's didn't get there in time..." Maverick said.
"Well you were close," Mercury said.
"Yeah...I mean you had some success," Saturn said.
"You figured this guy was the target before hand?" General Patterson asked.
"Not before hand enough," Maverick said.
"I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually," Patterson said.
"Yeah," Maverick muttered said and leapt away.
"So who is he anyway?" Mercury asked.
"Oh...this guy...name's Cletus Redding," Patterson said. "We don't know exactly what he was up to yet."
"Hmm...well..looks like the search continues," Greg said.
"I don't want to put any pressure on you guys, but we're not getting very good press about this," Patterson said.
"Well..General...I guess maybe all of you should work harder then ey.." Mercury said stoically.
"Guess so huh.." Patterson said.
The two scouts headed off. They didn't notice that watching them from nearby were two figures.
"He came close this time didn't he Haruka?" the first asked.
"Very close Michiru," Haruka replied.
"So let's go over this again..." Mina said as she and Lita headed down the street as the sun set.
"Right..we're entering into this double date in order that we can analyze the other's date and provide constructive criticism."
"But is it worth the risk."
"Yes...we agreed to that right?"
"Yes we did," Mina said. "And if two good friends cannot agree, then let the world fall apart around us!"
"Mina...the way our lives work..you may have just doomed the world you know," Lita said.
"Oh sure blame me.." Mina said. "So what's the plan?"
"The plan is that we first go with the guys to the restaurant of their choice. We do that in order so that if things go wrong we can blame them for messing the date up and not us.." Lita said.
"Sounds good so far," Mina said. "Then what?"
"We encourage them to take us to a romantic movie and then see how things go," Lita said.
"Right..good plan," Mina said. "But what if this doesn't work? They don't like romantic movies. I took Mike to see Titanic and he couldn't stop laughing."
"That's morbid..."
"He was keeping count of how many people fell into the water!" Mina said.
"Ehh..." Lita said. "Actually I didn't like that movie..."
"It was the greatest movie ever made," Mina said.
"Was not..Mina..were you one of those people who went to see it ten times?"
"Nope...fifteen...I set a record uh...in my neighborhood at least," Mina said.
"Fif...teen.." Lita said. "That's..not healthy Mina."
"You'd think so, but here I am," Mina said.
"Touche...." Lita muttered.
"Come on Chad...I dare ya..." Rick said taking a fighting stance. Chad stood opposite him. "My skill has increased Fujimori, you are facing a new enemy," Chad said.
"You say that every time we meet," Rick said.
"And I'm always right.." Chad said. "The only problem is of course your skill has increased equally as high."
"So what makes you think that's going to change now?" Rick asked.
"That.." Chad said and pointed to Rick's left. Rick looked. Chad lunged forward.
"Hah!" He shouted. Rick whirled and slid under him. Chad flipped forward and spun.
"Cheap..." Rick said.
"Effective.." Chad said.
"Not really," Rick said and spun forward and kicked. Chad stepped back. Rick landed and kicked with his other leg, Chad hurriedly leapt back several feet.
"Okay!" Chad shouted and pulled off his traditional outfit revealing a much tighter fitting ninja style outfit.
"I see..." Rick said. "You believe clothes shall defeat me..you are mistaken."
"We'll see," Chad said and shot forward. Rick flipped over him and landed. Chad flipped backward at Rick who ducked and jumped forward landed and turned just as Chad landed and threw a kick. Rick ducked it and came up under Chad trying to push his leg up and tip him over. Chad off balance threw out his other leg and hit Rick's knee both of them hit the ground.
"Ow..." they both muttered and got up.
"You know maybe we shouldn't fight on the stone.." Rick said.
"That makes sense..." Chad said.
The two looked at each other.
"Why didn't we figure that out before?" they asked each other in unison.
"You finally figured that out?" Raye muttered appearing at the top of the temple steps. "And what were you two trying to do to each other, get killed? Those moves were heavy duty."
"Weren't they though?" Rick and Chad said slickly.
Raye sighed and walked inside the temple.
"Is she upset?" Chad asked.
"I think so...but why?" Rick asked.
"I bet you we're involved," Chad said.
Rick just looked at him.
That evening, Lita and Mina were thirty minutes into their double date.
"So anyway Steve and I are watching as Rick discovers that he actually set up dates with two girls for the same night..." Mike said. "Awfully sloppy of him..if you ask me."
"Yeah...I mean there was that one time when he dated one girl in the morning, one in the afternoon, and then one that night, but at the same time forget it," Steve said.
"Rick isn't that slick," Mike said.
"So Rick used to be a two timer?" Lita asked.
"Well...not as such," Mike said. "See all the girls knew he was quite promiscuous, the trick was to get him to ask you on another date, see that was the deal. You had to make the cut."
"That's typical," Lita said. "How arrogant of him."
"Well...Lita, there were girls lining up to date him anyway," Steve said. "Not that it's right or anything...but Rick grew out of it."
"Yeah, Raye snapped him out of that problem.." Mike said.
"Ahem..so when he had to date these two girls...how'd he handle it?" Mina asked.
"He didn't..." Mike and Steve said and started laughing. "Those two girls slapped him and headed off."
"Oh that wasn't nice of them," Mina said carelessly.
"Mina, he was two timing.." Lita said.
"I meant..uh..that wasn't nice of him..I think....in an amoral sense..." Mina said. "I think. Two timing? No..that's not for me...at all."
The other three looked at her.
"I've had better coleslaw," she muttered and stuck some of her food in her mouth.
Several minutes later they were standing in line waiting to get into the movie theater.
"So are you two okay with going to a romantic movie?" Lita asked.
"Hey...sure...I haven't seen a good chick flick in months," Mike said.
"I noticed," Mina growled.
"Whatever you want Lita," Steve said.
Wrong answer. Lita and Mina thought with concern.
Mike nudged him.
"Oh..uh...it will uh..be..uh..enlightening," Steve said.
"Nice save benedick.." Mike muttered.
"Who's benedick?" Steve asked.
"You know..Shakespeare?" Mike asked.
"You read Shakespeare!" Mina said in surprise.
"Uh..here and there.." Mike said.
"Tell me about it," Mina said.
"Now?" Mike asked.
"Sure.."
"Oh..all right.." Mike said.
Looks like Mina's having some luck. Lita thought.
Later the four were sitting in the movie theater. Steve suppressed a yawn and shifted in his seat. Mina now intently involved in the drama of the movie didn't notice Lita looking at her boyfriend with annoyance. Mike meanwhile was merely staring at the bottom of an empty popcorn bucket.
She doesn't need me to do anything when she gets into it. He thought. But the bucket is empty..what do I do?
"Isn't this doing anything for you?" Lita asked.
"Uh...well the girl is ravishing and nice, just like you are," Steve said. Lita blushed. "But that guy...is..so fake...and I think I could take him."
"Love isn't a war Steve," Lita whispered.
"Love can be a war sometimes," one of the characters on the screen said.
"HEY! DON'T DO THAT!" Lita shouted at the screen. She received a massive amount of hissing from the crowd trying to get her to be quiet. She sat down embarrassed and sighed.
This isn't going well. She thought.
CHAPTER 181 CHAPTER 182 CHAPTER 183 CHAPTER 184
CHAPTER 185 CHAPTER 186 CHAPTER 187 CHAPTER 188
CHAPTER 189 CHAPTER 190 CHAPTER 191 CHAPTER 192
CHAPTER 193 CHAPTER 194 CHAPTER 195 CHAPTER 196