"Captain." The enson greeted his Mistress.

Nyx threw a wicked grin at Susanne. "I'l be back later, maybe."

"Where are you going?" Susanne inquired. "You're leaving me alone up here?"

"Sheesh, chica. You're a fu-- I mean, damn it you're an Otaku. You can get your ass in and out of this place, easily."

"But I thought you said that no one could penetrate the barrier?"

Nyx shrugged. "Yeah. That, too. But I took the liberty of having your DNA and aura patterns downloaded into the system. So you won't get *burned* coming in and out."

"And where are you going?"

"I'm gonna do some unwiding. I'll be in touch." Nyx noded in motion to the enson. "Beam me down, Scottie."

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*Ah.* Victoria took a deep breath as she leaned back against the marble steps of California Plaza's outdoor ampitheatre. Nothing like California smog! How she missed home.

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He couldn't believe there was nothing in any of the reference material. Nothing. *That's it.* He sighed heavily. *I'm going crazy.*

He crossed 5th and went up flower to California Plaza.

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Victoria gathered her things and climbed up the steps to Angel's Flight.

Angel's Flight. Tommy caught sight of the landmark. *Cool.* He smiled and drew a quarter from his pant's pocket. Here no one to recognize him and he didn't need to roam the streets incognito. Most of these people where more interested in Mex-Tex music than Styx or Damn Yankees.

*Che, kuso!* Victoria dug into her trenchpockets for loose change. As she was doing so, her key ring and several other objects, including a psych text book, CD rack, six string guitar and grandfather clock poured out her HammerSpace.

Tommy wrinkled his brow and blinked his eyes. Was he really seeing this? Now his eyes were playing tricks on him. He watched as the woman in black drew a lap top from her coat pocket, then koala?!? which scampered away to a nearby Eucalyptus tree. There were no other people in the Plaza -- it was a Saturday. He decided to approach her.

Victoria froze from shoving the grandfather clock back into her pocket. *Kuso* Someone was standing right behind her. She could see his shadow clearly.

"Um...miss? Ya'll look sif you could use some help thur."

"Fuck--I mean. Hey there." Victoria turned 'round, plastering a superficial Los Angeles smile on her lips. But the smile faded when she saw the man standing behind her. Her jaw dropped.

"Is somethin' wrong, miss?"

The man was a spitting image of her Bishounen. That rat bastard! "Nakago..." was all she could manage to say.

"No. I'm not--wait. How did you know what--? Who are you?" Both Otaku and Bishounen felt the world around them twist about about.

Victoria snapped out of the whirlwind and drew her sword in one hand and a shotgun in another, shoving it it in his face.

Tommy fell backwards on his bum.

"I don't know who the hell you are, but stay he hell away from me! You rat-bastard! I can't deal with this right now!" The Mobius Continuum opened behind her and the girl jumped in and disappeared.

Tommy sat on the concrete utterly baffled and extremely disturbed. He pinched himself hard. "Ow!" If he was awake and it was not a dream... then what was it?

To be continued.........