Part 2
Zellaura stopped pacing when Jadeite entered Landing Dock 3. "You came!"
"Of course I came. I haven’t seen your brother since graduation."
"Neither have I. He’s written once or twice, but that was always very risky," Zellaura replies tersely. "I really don’t like this. His shuttle was due in half an hour ago."
"I wouldn’t worry. It’s just like him to keep us waiting. Probably he wants a grand entrance. He always did like flourishes."
"I don’t care!" Zellaura exclaimed. "He should realize how many enemies are lurking out there and hurry his ass here! When he finally shows up, I’m gonna skin him!"
"Well, the first thing to do is stop biting your nails."
Jadeite strode over to the woman and gently moved her hand away from her mouth. She blushed, and stuck her hand behind her back. "I haven’t done that in years."
"I remember when the dormitory monitor put grease under your fingernails to get you t stop. We all teased you about having black fingers."
"Don’t remind me!" Zellaura groaned. "Trainer Laika thought I was screwing around with the gun grease. She gave me ten extra routines a week, for three months."
"Hah! That’s nothing! When your brother and I stole Trainer Murdoch’s undershorts, painted them pink, and ran them up the pole, he gave us ten extra routines a day, and weapons detail for two months. After that, if we never saw a crystal disruptor again, it was too soon. I still have nightmares about those things."
"Served you fools right! God, Murdoch was the worst, though, wasn’t he? I have a vivid recollection of that terrible day in the space battle simulator."
"At least it was just a simulation. If it had been real . . . " Jadeite’s voice trailed off, and the two shuddered in unison. "How come whenever we reminisce, it always turns morbid?" asked Jadeite plaintively.
"Maybe because we went to the toughest training school in the Kingdom? The one famed for its student deaths?"
"Oh yeah. That’s right."
"No one could believe how cowardly you turned, Jadeite."
"Cowardly?! What the hell do you mean?"
"Well," Zellaura grinned, "you have to admit that not many people would become strategists after graduating from the Black Hole. We figured you got scared."
"Just because I went there didn’t mean I had to be a fighter. We did have classes in strategy and warfare, Miss Bloody Soldier O’ Fortune."
"I vaguely remember those," Zellaura smiled. "I was usually too bruised up to care about what the teachers were lecturing about."
"You should have paid attention." Jadeite wagged a scolding finger. "I did, and look where it landed me."
"Yeah, the same place my fighting training landed me," Zellaura grinned.
"I had a talent, a calling, and it wasn’t to go off to die," Jadeite argued.
"No, it was to figure out how to send me off to die in the most efficient way possible."
"You know, that’s so true. That’s completely what I had in mind when I joined Beryl’s tacticians. Of course, I was hoping I could kill your brother off too, but no! He had to go be elected to the damn A.E.S. after graduation, and vanish off the face of the Negaverse."
"Speak of the devil . . . " muttered Zellaura as the dock doors began to slowly slide open. The friends watched as a sleek, black shuttle-craft glided smoothly into the dock and landed. While they waited for the dock doors to close and the shuttle’s hatch to open, Jadeite murmured to Zellaura.
"Where’s Kunzite?"
"He had a meeting with Beryl and Nephrite to discuss the situation in Magella right now. You know, Beryl, Kunzite, you and I are the only people in the Kingdom now who know about my brother?"
"What about Metallia?"
"She knows the A.E.S. exists, but doesn’t know the identities of the members. Plausible deniability and all that."
"I don’t get it," whispered Jadeite, puzzled. "If he’s going to be here until we’re ready for him to go on the operation, how are we going to keep people from finding out about him?"
"You’ll see."
"And how the hell do you know so much about the Kingdom’s most secret organization, Zell? You know more than I do!"
"Ssssh," Zellaura hissed, as the hatch popped open. First one gloved hand appeared, then the other, pushing against the body of the craft. Then a golden head, tilted down, hair obscuring the face, and the slim body of a man, clad in the grey uniform of high-ranking Dark Kingdom officers. The man pulled himself up out of the cockpit, vaulted gracefully from the top of the shuttle, and caught himself easily with his hands as he hit the floor. Standing, he dusted off the uniform, brushed the long hair out of his face, and secured it in a tail with a green ribbon seemingly produced out of thin air. Then he looked up at the expectant two, and his face broke in a wide smile.
"Zell! Jadeite! My God, it’s been ages!"
Zellaura stared in shock at her brother. They had always been frighteningly identical for brother and sister, even twins, but time had only heightened the similarity. The man in front of her was like a terribly gaunt reflection in a hazy mirror. She drew in a shaky breath.
"Oh, Zoisite. What have you done to yourself?"
"This is incredible!" exclaimed Jadeite. "And altogether too weird. Our scientists are nowhere near this kind of technology."
"The A.E.S. scientists must be a bit more advanced," Zellaura mused.
To someone passing by in the corridor, nothing would have seemed out of place. Two officers, engaged in a discussion about scientific advancement. Neither was it peculiar that the two walked with a space of three feet between them. Perhaps they disliked each other, or liked each other, but didn’t want to appear too friendly. There were many reasonably explanations, and had anyone been around, they wouldn’t have commented. But no one was around.
"Do you get to use it often?" Jadeite inquired of the empty space to his right.
"Yeah, but it’s kind of a pain," came the disembodied reply.
"You wouldn’t believe the amount of energy it takes to operate the implant. And the power conduits do the strangest thing. Whenever I appear or disappear, the conduits superimpose a image of themselves outside my body, only the energy flowing through them is seen as pink. Scared the crap out of me the first few times."
"Can . . . uh, could you . . . ?"
"Sure." The voice sounded mildly amused, and suddenly Zoisite appeared between his sister and Jadeite. The pale pink swirls took a few seconds to vanish. Jadeite gaped.
"And the energy that turns you invisible flows through channels implanted in your bones?" Didn’t it hurt?"
"Not really. I was out for the operation, of course, and the conduits really are very small. And, it enables me to do this." Zoisite appeared to concentrate very hard, and he began to rise off the floor. This time, even Zellaura stared in awe. From five feet up, Zoisite laughed at the dumbfounded pair, and crossed one leg over the other, sitting on thin air. Zellaura was the first to recover.
"Okay, showoff, get down and get invisible, before someone comes along and moondusts us all."
"You can’t tell me what to do," Zoisite fake-pouted. "I’m older than you."
"By four minutes!"
"Ah, but those four minutes were the most important four minutes ever."
"You are SO full of it!" Zellaura tugged sharply on one of the black boots by her head, and watched her brother sink to the ground with a satisfied smirk on her face. Jadeite shook his head.
"By god, it’s just like old times."
"Hey Jadeite! Remember when we snitched Ironface Murdoch’s shorts?"
"Oh, no you don’t!" the other man groaned. "Zell and I were just there, and I don’t care to return, thanks."
Zoisite shrugged good-naturedly and vanished in a flurry of pink just in time, for a large group of army-trained youma came around the corner at that second. Their excited, mindless chatter ceased when they saw the tactician and the major. As the youma passed, they all nodded respectfully to their superiors, who nodded curtly back.
When they were alone again, Jadeite shuddered. "I hate youma."
"Do you?" the eerily suspended voice of Zoisite asked. "Or do you hate meeting them casually, knowing that tomorrow, you’ll send them out to be slaughtered, never realizing their full potential or having really lived?"
Jadeite blanched. "How did you know?" he whispered. There was a moment of silence, and Zellaura could almost feel her twin shrug.
"I’m pretty good at picking up things. I guess you could call it a ‘talent for discerning human nature’." Zoisite’s voice took on a mimicking quality as it said this last phrase.
"Since when do you do that?"
Again, a silence. When the answer came, it was tinged with bitterness. "A.E.S. training is more intense than you could ever imagine. Every aspect, every talent, is honed so that it can utilized to its fullest extent."
"Enough of this," Zellaura said lightly. "Besides, if you remember, you’re not supposed to tell us anything about your experiences in the A.E.S."
"I’ll tell you one thing. This is my last mission."
Zellaura gasped, and shrieked in joy. Then she clapped a hand over her mouth and looked abashed. Jadeite frowned.
"I thought it was a lifetime commitment."
"Superiors decided that I’d had too much stress, with Magella and all. I get paid retirement for the rest of my life," Zoisite said glibly.
"That’s terrific!" Jadeite cocked his head, "Isn’t it?"
"Yes and no. I’ll be able to settle down and have a real life. I won’t be forever in hiding. I could even come out here and join the army and hang out with you two all day."
"Oh, Zoisite, do!" begged Zellaura.
"I might, at that. We could nab Beryl’s panties this time."
"Or Nephrite’s, the freak," Jadeite added. Zellaura nodded.
"Who’s Nephrite?"
"He’s Beryl’s main adviser, and her astrologer," Jadeite sniggered. "He consults the stars for everything Beryl does, and thinks he can see the future. Truth is, his head is so far up his arse, he can’t see anything."
"Oh, he’s just unbearable!" Zellaura rolled her eyes. "He comes on to everything with breasts, and thinks his rank will get him into our beds."
"He’s propositioned you?"
"Hell yes! Countless times!"
"And the worst thing?" Jadeite lowered his voice confidentially. "He’s got a predilection for young girls. Say, fourteen or so. He especially likes the red-heads. Nothing’s been proved, not beyond a kiss, but everyone knows."
"Hmm. Sounds like he could use a lesson or two."
"Come on, Zoi," said Jadeite. "He’s Beryl’s man. She’d rip you up."
The silence that followed was a thoughtful one.
"Why wouldn’t you want to leave the A.E.S.?" asked Jadeite, trying to move on.
"I’m the last surviving member of the team, for one."
"I’m so horribly sorry about that," sympathized Zellaura.
"Don’t be. They did their jobs. I didn’t know but one or two of them anyway. For safety reasons. But I’d like to oversee the new recruits and their training. And . . . " his voice trailed off.
"And you’d miss the excitement, the intrigue," Zellaura filled in.
"Very good, sister mine, When you’re molded for a particular job, it’s difficult to imagine ever doing anything else."
"So why quit?" Jadeite wondered.
"Ah, I’m tired. It’s a hard thing, to be tired at twenty-three."
"That’s funny. That’s exactly what Kunzite said to me when we met in Magella before I shipped out. Only he said twenty-seven," Zellaura hastened to add.
"Who is this Kunzite, and what are you doing meeting him in the captial of a conquered empire?" Zoisite’s voice asked disapprovingly.
"Come off the older brother kick," Zellaura smiled. "Kunzite is . . . he’s my . . ."
"Boyfriend?" Zoisite supplied helpfully.
"No, not my ‘boyfriend’."
"Could have fooled me," Jadeite said. "Why are you two sleeping together then? Compatible sex drives?"
"You’re WHAT?!"
"STOP IT!" Zellaura scowled at Jadeite and the air next to her. "First of all, like you, I’m twenty-three and perfectly capable of having physical involvements. I’m sure you’ve slept with your share of girls."
"Well, uh, actually-"
"And second," Zellaura continued, "the word ‘boyfriend’ trivializes what Kunzite and I share." Her voice dropped in pitch, becoming more subdued. "It’s amazing, Zoisite. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. I think . . . I think I’m in love with him."
"He’s mad for you, Zell," Jadeite said. "It’s in the way he looks at you, and how he acts when you’re around. He lets his guard down. He relaxes."
"Can’t wait to meet him," Zoisite’s bright, brittle voice said.
Zellaura cast a confused eye to her left, and halted outside a door. "You will, in a second or two. Here we are. Better materialize now. Kunzite can learn the fabulous details of your implant later."
The pink swirled around Zoisite’s body, and he reached up to brush the "Z" on the door with his fingertips. At his light touch, the door swung open.
Kunzite had been trying to concentrate on the frequency of spatial wind storms ever since he had finished with his meeting, but his mind was preoccupied with the arrival of Zellaura’s twin brother, and he had long since discarded the handwritten pamphlet. He had sprawled out on Zellaura’s bed and tried to speculate, as he had been doing all week long, what this Zoisite would look like, or more importantly, act like.
-If he’s anything like Zell, I’ll get along with him fine- he reasoned. He would be spending a lot of time with the man, as so few people would know of his arrival or existence. -Here for awhile, off to the Moon Kingdom, then back to the A.E.S., I suppose. An intergalactic man of mystery won’t want to shed the image. God, I hope he’s not too full of himself.- Kunzite heard the door creak open, and he swung off the bed, hurriedly running a hand through his tangled hair. He turned to face the doorway, and gasped.
"Zell! What in hell happened to you? Were you in a fight? Sweet-" He trailed off, staring in horror at the red scar slashing down Zellaura’s right cheek. And then he realized that it wasn’t Zellaura he was looking at.