Nadaraka na oka no ue yuruyakani yuki ga furu
todokanai to wakattemo kimi no heya ni hitotsu
daisuki datta hana wo ima...
The snow falls gently on a hill
Even though I can't reach you, I understand
The flower in your room that you loved is now...
Well, she wasn’t completely comfortable having him around, not yet. But they would survive it, wouldn’t they? They had made it work before in their own dysfunctional way. They would do so again.
“I’m going to throw the both of you out on your asses, you damn children!” Jet roared furiously.
Faye calmly removed her hand from Spike’s face as he inched back his foot from her belly. With a purely innocent expression she tapped the ash of her cigarette out into his lukewarm coffee and plopped down on the opposite side of the ugly yellow couch. “He started it.”
Spike glanced at his coffee distastefully. “Yeah, that’s very mature,” he mumbled. “I started it the way I always seem to start things.”
“He even admits it.” Faye took a drag of her cigarette. With a sigh she leaned back. “Can I have my share of the bounty now?” she asked, feigning it as an unimportant matter.
“What share?” Jet replied. “Most of it went into repairing the ship and stocking up on medical supplies.” And he glanced at Spike, halfway through snipping a branch of bonsai.
Faye growled deep in her throat as she turned to Spike. “Exactly the way you start everything else!”
He sent her a malicious smile, tapping out his own cigarette in their new makeshift ashtray.
“So I don’t get anything?” Faye looked back at Jet, coming close to whining. “All my hard work and nothing to show for it?”
Cigarette clenched between his lips, Spike grunted and pointed to his bandaged bicep.
“And nothing to show for it!” she shouted at him. “It’s your own fault for not listening to a word I say!”
Spike looked at Jet and the older man shook his head at him warningly, returning to his bonsai. “Wait, how the hell did this become my fault?”
“When is anything not your fault?” Faye countered.
With a disgruntled expression Spike rose, taking his mug of ashes with him and tapping out his cigarette in it once more. “I’m getting out of here,” he snapped. “The PMS is starting to rage-“ and eyeing Faye’s legs as they barred his escape route, he wound around the yellow couch.
“You never could handle a real woman,” Faye threw at him, bringing him to a stop behind her.
“A real woman?” he drawled with an impish smile and he loomed over her from behind, looking down her yellow vinyl from his position. “There’s nothing real there, Faye.”
With a snarl Faye clapped a hand over the tops of her breasts, sitting up. “You asshole-“
Whistling, Spike took another step and paused as Faye plopped against the back of the couch comfortably once more, arms crossing over her chest haughtily. And then, quietly, he overturned the mug of coffee, pouring it on the female bounty hunter.
Faye shrieked and then sputtered furiously, snapping straight once more in her seat, and instantly Spike was up the back staircase and out of the room. His footsteps echoed down the metallic corridor as Faye rose, shaking herself and splattering coffee and wet cigarette ash over everything in the near vicinity.
Jet barely acknowledged the ash clump that landed on his bonsai.
“Jet!” she screamed, motioning after Spike.
“Just clean the mess and I’ll give you your share of the bounty,” he said absentmindedly, and he snipped a small branch.
Faye came to a stop, blinking at him with wide-eyes. “Really?” she asked. And at his nod she squealed happily, flinging more coffee on the walls and ceiling and she skipped out almost as cheerfully as Ed on a good day.
Throughout her entire shower, even through the sudden jets of scalding hot water whenever Spike flushed the toilets on her, all Faye thought was that she was going to gamble like there was no tomorrow. She smiled through the first flush and the smile had hardly wavered after the fifth.
“Mine, mine, mine. All mine,” she sang gleefully, barely noticing when Spike cut all the water on her, leaving her hair half lathered. Cheerfully, she wrapped herself up in a towel and combed out the soapy shampoo, seeing stars. “Money for meeeee…”
She dressed in her shorts and white shirt, her hair tied back and, filing her nice long nails, she entered the living room. Spike was in Jet’s seat, the couch still splattered with coffee, which explained why he hadn’t draped his lanky frame there. He shushed her though as she opened her mouth to berate him and with a lit cigarette he motioned wordlessly to the tv.
“And in other news, Jack Spade has fled the Mars Interplanetary Criminal Asylum. Jack Spade, also known as Black Jack, had only recently been detained on Mars. The breakout, which was conducted in the early morning hours, was efficiently executed and we do believe that this was the work of a hacker. As of the last hour there has been no news on Black Jack’s whereabouts but the ISSP is on hand and investigating all possible leads. Black Jack is wanted for insurance fraud, embezzlement and conspiracy to commit murder. More on that on the evening news at 1800.”
Faye blinked at the television, perplexed, and beside her, taking a drag of his cigarette, Spike glanced at her quietly. The reporter went on to the weather, motioning to a screen of bright colors and planets, and there was going to be another desert storm on Titan.
“What do you think?” Spike asked her quietly.
Faye hesitated only for a moment. “I think,” she said breezily, “that I better spend my share of the bounty before the ISSP asks for it back.” And she turned on her heel to walk away.
“This guy knew all about you,” he called after her. “About us. Aren’t you even a bit worried that-“ and he came to a dead stop. “You got a cut of the bounty?!”
“Have you seen Ed?” she cut him off briskly. “Or Ein for that matter? He’s usually trying to steal my food around this time-“
“Is that right?” Spike asked in a monotone. “Isn’t it the other way around? I recall catching you eating one of his cans of dog food-“
“Hey!” she snapped at him. “I don’t have to defend myself to you.” She crossed her arms over her chest and flicked her short hair. “Besides, I want Ed to look up a bit on Black Jack. Maybe she can track him and we can bring him in again-“
“We?!” Spike echoed. “Weren’t you just saying-“
The lights and the television suddenly turned off, silencing them both, and a moment later eerie soft blue-green lights flickered on, glowing mutely and shadowing them in darkness.
“What the hell is this?” Spike mumbled slowly, rising from his chair.
“The security system,” Faye answered numbly, looking about. A small shiver raced down her spine and she shoved it away as she took an absentminded step toward one of the long bulbs of light running across the ceiling. “Is Ed testing it again?” she murmured and she turned to Spike to find him barely a foot away. “Ed had it installed while you were gone.”
Spike backed up into her, also looking around suspiciously. He strained to hear in the silence. “It’s a crappy system if I was able to get in when I got back.”
“They only got it online yesterday,” she responded and suddenly, from the corridor at the back of the room came a small noise. They both whirled toward the staircase, looking up into the darkened hallway but the sound did not come again, which only made them all the more suspicious.
“How about we find Jet and Ed?” Spike stated after a moment, already moving toward the opposite side of the room and toward another corridor.
Faye fell into step behind him and in the hallway they were leaving behind came a small puff of sound and the whimpered cry of a dog.
“Ein-“ Faye uttered, eyes widening as she spun back around.
Spike came to a stop and began to pat himself down, cursing under his breath. “I don’t have my-“ and he whirled on her quickly. “Do you-“
“No,” she answered in a loud whisper, motioning to her nail file. “It’s in my room-“
There came another sound, a sudden racket of it, then a muffled high-pitched shriek and shouting voices, unfamiliar. Faye and Spike stared back into the cold hallway once more, stiff, and from it came the sound of footsteps running across metal. More metal clashed and, through the air vents running across the ceiling, came the sound of scurrying. Faye flinched as the vents carried the noises and Ed’s voice suddenly echoed in the room, from the vents.
“Bebop - Bebop! They’re here!”
Faye’s jaw dropped open, Spike taking a step toward the corridor. “What are you doing?” she demanded in a harsh whisper, grabbing his arm and causing him to grimace. She released him, realizing she had clutched his wounded arm and he turned to her, his face the same shade of blue as the lights.
“Get Jet!” he ordered. “I don’t know where he is, just find him-“
“Hey!” she snapped in a stage whisper. “You are not the boss of me!”
Spike looked ready to whack her off the head. “Faye,” he said calmly and carefully, “I’m going to go get Ed. Make yourself useful and make sure Jet is ok!” He whirled without another word and lifted his head toward the air vents, following them momentarily in silent thought.
“You’re going alone?” she asked him from behind, reluctant to separate.
He lifted a hand and with his height he easily touched the underbelly of an air vent. “I’m going to go work off some tension,” he answered quietly, running his fingers over the metal sheet.
“Tension?!” she demanded. “Are you crazy-“
“Nah, just really bored,” he said and he sent her a wink, smiling wryly as he looked up at the air vents once more. “Months of recovering, lying around doing nothing, help you build up some tension.” And reaching up with both hands he lifted a sheet of metal and slid it aside to reveal the dark inside of the air vent.
Faye managed to control the throbbing vein. “Recovering is supposed to ease the tension,” she growled.
“Is that right?” he sounded absentminded. “Well, I never did follow the rules,” and he took hold of the sides of the air vent and hoisted himself up easily, fitting his lanky frame into the vent and quickly squirming out of sight.
Faye sighed inwardly. “Stupid lunkhead,” she murmured and with a shake of her head she turned and went down the opposite corridor in search of Jet.
Spike paused, peeking through a small netting of metal in a sheet of the air vent. He lay on the floor of the vent, breathing shallowly, his senses alert. All the noises had come to a stop and he didn’t know which way the air vents led, only that they circulated all the air throughout the ship. But he was sure Ed was still hiding herself in the vents somewhere. The corridors below him were empty and he rose up on hands and knees once more, crawling along silently.
Faintly from ahead he heard small tapping sounds and he hesitated as the sound reverberated throughout the vent. It was the sound of keys on a keyboard and he wondered if it was Ed. Continuing on, he turned a corner in the vent and several feet down that turn was an intersecting vent. A glow came from that intersecting vent, along with the sounds of the phantom hacker, and he gingerly crawled on, preparing himself.
Ed’s head suddenly poked out of the side vent, her goggles over her eyes. “Spike-person,” she said in a hushed tone.
Spike exhaled with a relieved sigh. “Shit, Ed, you had us worried. What are you doing?” he asked as he crawled close to the hacker and paused at the opening of her intersecting vent.
“Protecting the Bebop!” she replied with a giggle and she pulled her head back into her vent. Tomato was open before her thin, cross-legged frame and she hunched forward once more, staring intently at the picture flashing across the goggles. The laptop had been expertly hooked up to a wall of circuits in the side of the vent and Spike stared, lips parting. He wondered how long that circuitry had been there, hidden away in a vent and he couldn’t say he was very surprised that Ed had stumbled across it in her time aboard the Bebop. The hacker never seemed to let anything stop her from discovering new things.
Before him, Ed suddenly saddened and he looked at her as she paused in her typing to turn to her side and lift something heavy into her arms. “They hurt Ein,” she said, holding a limp mass of fur and her tone was enough to make even him feel bad.
The welsh corgi was unconscious, a small mark reddening the furry area of his neck.
Spike took Ein, setting him aside and studying Ed as the hacker returned to her Tomato. “What’s going on, Ed?” he asked her, a hand absentmindedly petting Ein’s soft head.
Her hands flying over the keyboard, Ed stared at the pictures shooting across the goggles, her lips parting thoughtfully. “Intruder-persons,” she piped up almost cheerfully. And she hit a few more keys competently.
“Now isn’t the time to play a game,” Spike advised her.
“Not a game,” Ed replied although to Spike it sure as hell seemed like one. “Edward is shutting down levels of security. The intruder-persons have a hacker-person like Ed but not as good as Ed. The hacker-person is using Ed’s security system against Ed.” And the girl glanced at Spike quickly though her goggles. “Edward is not happy.”
Spike arched a brow.
Ed turned Tomato a bit in Spike’s direction for him to see. “This is Faye-Faye and Jet-person,” she explained and on Tomato’s screen was a grid layout of the Bebop. She motioned to two glowing red dots separated by a few grid lines. She pointed to a row of grid lines inches away onscreen but what on the Bebop were probably hundreds of feet. “Here is Ed, Ein and Spike-person.”
Spike frowned at the screen. “Why aren’t we little red dots?”
“Because Ed shut down heat signatures in this area. It was how Ed knew Spike-person was coming,” the hacker answered. A few more typed keys brought up a small box asking for password confirmation and then, as Ed typed in a few keys, the dots for Faye and Jet also vanished. “Level Three security offline,” she announced. And she looked at Spike once more. “But that means Spike-person won’t know where the intruder-persons are either.”
Spike nodded, impressed. “All this while I was gone,” he mumbled. “How big a pain is this hacker going to be?”
“Pain, sane, scatterbrain,” Ed sang as if that answered everything. She squinted at the image in her goggles as Spike looked at Tomato’s screen. “Hacker-person is using Tomato’s system but hacker-person can’t crack Ed’s codes,” she said quietly. And then, clicking a few keys, “Hacker-person is aboard Bebop.”
Spike blinked. “The hacker is…” he echoed slowly. “How do you know? They could be screwing us from Callisto for all we –“
“Ed’s security system is a separate entity from online security systems,” Ed explained. “Hacker-person can’t affect Bebop’s systems unless hacker-person is linked inside Bebop.”
Spike blinked once more. “Which means the hacker can’t try to break down the system or your codes unless he’s physically on board and has a computer physically plugged in aboard the Bebop,” he stated, hoping he had gotten it right.
Tomato flashed momentarily and onscreen was a picture of a thumbs-up sign along with Ed’s signature little multi-colored faces. Below the thumbs-up sign in big brilliant letters was written, “You are great!”
“Spike-person understands Edward!”
Spike’s eyes drooped, his eyebrow twitching. “Ed, no one understands you. It’s what’s so special about you.”
“Special?” Ed asked thoughtfully, a finger raised to her chin.
Spike shifted a bit, looking back to the laptop screen once more. “Would it be a bad idea to shut down all systems aboard the ship?” he asked. “All lights, all power?”
Ed hesitated, glancing at Ein’s unconscious form. “The milk in the fridge would go baaaaaaad…”
“We have milk in the fridge?” Spike’s interest was piqued. And in a low, plotting tone, eyes shifting sideways mischievously, “No one alerted me to that fact…”
“It’s for Ein,” Ed informed him suspiciously, her eyes narrowed.
“Sure it is. Look, Ed, yes or no? Would it be a bad idea to shut down all power? Or will that leave us even more defenseless?” he asked her again.
The hacker hesitated once more, eyes shifting back toward Tomato’s screen. “Edward thinks it will be ok but none of the doors will open or shut unless manually overridden. Jet-person can override but Faye-Faye isn’t smart enough to know how to-“
“Tell me about it,” Spike mumbled in an undertone. “But, you know what? That’s ok. We get to play a few games on Faye-Faye.” And he leaned toward Tomato once more. “Here’s what we’re going to do…”
Faye looked about the corridor, straining to hear. There was nothing but the soft buzzing of the emergency lights but in this silence, even they seemed unbearably loud. She pressed herself against the cold metal wall and slid further down the hallway, lifting her eyes to the second level above. She passed by a few miniature ladders that led up to that smaller corridor, looking ahead toward the kitchen. There was silence everywhere, she couldn’t know where Jet was and undoubtedly Jet was making it harder for her to find him by hiding himself from the other people that seemed to be trying to take over the Bebop. She growled inwardly, pausing beside her bedroom door. “Men are idiots.”
Above her was a small sound suddenly and she nearly snapped her neck to look up, her eyes widening intently. There was a hard metal floor up above and small sheets of netting that allowed her to look up into that second floor. But all she saw were the blue-green lights, flickering faintly.
And then a shadow moved and she instantly slammed her hand on the console beside her door, hearing her door swish open. She flung herself inside and a moment later a second figure entered with her, shoving her further into her room. She fell to the icy cold floor with a muffled cry and slid, and the door closed with barely a sound.
“Geez, what the hell is going on around here?” came Jet’s voice and she whirled onto her rear, looking up at the older man as he leaned against her door and exhaled wearily.
“What the fuck, Jet?” she demanded furiously. “Next time warn me!”
He opened his eyes to glare at her. “Sure, sure. Next time, in between the running and the bullets.”
Faye stared at him. “Bullets?” she echoed and she rose to her feet, rubbing her knees, which were going to bruise, she already felt it. What a fine day this was turning out to be. “So there are people aboard the ship?” she asked him.
“Quite a few, I’d say,” he answered her and he slid down the door to sit on her floor.
She didn’t know how he did it. The floor was damn cold. But then, in shorts and a flimsy shirt she should have been used to the cold. Already weary she drew close to him and leaned against her wall, sighing. "I think they got Ed," she said to him. "Spike went after them to see what was going on and he sent me to look for you."
Jet rubbed his shiny, baldhead. "How many are there?"
Faye threw him a look he didn't catch due to his bowed head. "I thought you told me we had intruders."
Jet grunted and he got to his feet achingly, shifting his fake limb. "Well, we can't stay here forever," he advised her. He stooped a bit as he entered into her room a bit further, tripping across something on the floor, and he stared silently for a moment before kicking the object toward her. Faye glanced down to see her nail file slide to a stop before her and she frowned, wondering when she had dropped it. He turned to her as she bent to pick it up. "Do you have an extra gun I can use?"
"Only my Glock," she replied and she went toward her dresser, opening the top drawer and slipping it out. "Want my nail file?"
"Nope."
She shut the drawer and checked the weapon. Full clip. She opened the drawer once more and pulled out an extra clip. "If we stop by Spike’s room we can pick up his gun-"
"He went after them without a gun?" Jet demanded in disbelief.
"Yep."
The older man sighed, the exhalation ending in a growl. "Wonderful. Ok, so here's the plan. We get out of here, skip to Spike's room, get his gun because the idiot probably needs it while we're sitting here, stop by the kitchen and get the weapon out of the icebox-"
Faye's eyes widened.
"You didn't know I had a weapon there, did ya?" Jet asked smugly.
"We have an icebox?!"
Jet stared at her. "Maybe I should be doing this alone."
"Ok, ok, ok. Icebox, got it," Faye rambled. "And then?"
"And then we go back the way you came, only by the second level," he motioned upward. "It'll be risky since the emergency lights are on, but we have no other choice, really."
Faye nodded, biting her lip. "Ok. Well, I don't want to have to work this out later so…the Hammerhead is bigger than the Swordfish and the Redtail. Do you want to take Ed and Ein?"
Jet blinked at her. "Take them where?"
Faye lifted a hand to her hip, waving her gun impatiently. "On a fucking picnic. Where the fuck do you think? Off the damn ship!"
"Off the ship?!" Jet looked at her as if she had birthed an alien child. "Are you kidding me? I'm not leaving the ship!"
"What?!" Faye demanded.
"I'm not leaving the ship!" Jet shouted. He lifted a hand to emphasize his point. "This damn ship's my life! I'm not leaving it behind for them to mess up, no way!"
"Tell me you're fucking kidding me," Faye stated flatly.
"I am not kidding! This ain't no fucking game, Faye! If you want to go, then go! But I'm staying!" he said firmly and he seemed quite serious.
Faye stared at him for a long, silent moment, sure that her head was about to explode. And then, furiously, she threw her hands in the air, wanting to suddenly shoot off a round. "I don't fucking believe this!" she cried. She growled at him as he crossed his arms over his wide chest, his stance one of grim determination. "Fine. Fine!" she shouted. And in an undertone, "I'm leaving your dumbass here..." With a motion of her hand she waltzed back to her bedroom door. "C'mon, let's get this done-"
"I'm being serious, Faye," he said to her roughly, bringing her to a stop. "You can go if you want but I'm staying-"
"I'm not fucking-" she began to screech and she cut herself off, composing herself. In a lower tone, controlled, even though all she wanted to do was scream and keep screaming until she couldn't anymore, she said, "I'm not leaving you, Jet. This is my life too as much as it fucking pains me to say it. So, let's get the hell out of this damn room and find Ed, that damn lunkhead, and that stupid dog!" And she began to head back toward her door before suddenly coming to a dead stop.
Whirling, she swept passed Jet, who watched her with a small, "Wha..?" and she dug under her pillow frantically, pulling out a small item and shoving it into a pocket. Then, lifting her weapon wearily, she went to the door and slammed her hand on the console to open it.
It swished open and outside, the hallway was silent.
Slipping the extra clip snugly inside her shirt, in between her breasts, she shoved her nail file into her back pocket and threw herself out, already aiming the gun wildly. Behind her, Jet came to the doorway slowly.
"There's no one-" she began.
And at that moment a small mechanical voice murmured from the console beside her door, "Goodbye!" and Faye watched as the lights began to shut off in the hallway, racing toward her position. She lifted her head in confusion and beside her the door suddenly closed with another swish, separating her from Jet.
"Jet!" she cried as all the lights went out, leaving her in darkness.
But only for a moment. As she pounded on the door, red beams of light swept up her body and she flinched, dodging away automatically. A powerful beam of white light came on, blinding her, and she could faintly make out the small group of people in uniform passed the flashlight, their guns drawn and pointing the red beams at her.
"Well, well. Lookie here..." said the officer in charge, smiling coldly.
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