NOTES:: Um... fluff. This is our brains on screen paint fumes! And no, this is NOT part of the 'standard' Warped Mirrors storyline.
Most authors get asked "How do you come up with your ideas?" fairly frequently. This may be the answer to where we get some of ours.
ASSIUT BASE, TA-RESU-MEHT, FIRMA
"Don't tell me you chaps are still depressed!" Jay groaned theatrically, flopping into a chair next to Duo.
"Well, we are," he growled.
"I know. Psychic, remember? I did say 'don't tell me', wot. Still fussing over your lot back home?"
"Right," Christy drawled, feet up on the table and her chair tipped back on two legs. "I'm just about to zip right out into the workshop and whip up a gadget to zap 'em all home, in five minutes. Oh, and keep wandering around with long faces, guys, the pressure makes me work faster."
Since she wasn't moving, it was fairly obvious she was being sarcastic. Heero glared at her. Duo threw a donut.
"Please," Asuka growled. "Either they'll live or they won't. Getting pissy won't help."
"Look," Duo sighed, "we do realise we can't get back... at least, not yet. So we can't help them. But... they're not just 'the people we work with', they're friends! Howard must be going nuts!"
"Not to mention Rashid and the Manguanacs," Quatre said miserably.
"And Cathy," Trowa said quietly.
"Most importantly, as long as they don't know what happened to us, the most logical conclusion for them to come to is that OZ took us out somehow," Heero growled, crossing his arms over his chest. "As long as they're operating with false data, they're at a disadvantage."
Everybody stared at him for a moment, then snorted and looked away.
"Thank you for that pep talk, Mister Mission." Mel rolled her eyes, then looked sympathetic. "I wish we could get some sort of message to them, guys, but until we work out how Appearences get here, that's out."
"Oo-er."
Dan looked uncertainly at Jay, who had snapped upright in her seat and seemed to be vibrating gently, eyes wide. "Um, Jay... should we get to minimum safe distance, or do you have a safety valve in your brain?"
"Oo-ER."
"Perhaps we should start backing off?" Mel muttered, easing out of her seat. Asuka was already strolling casually away. Christy rearranged her feet and leaned back another inch.
"Oh I say, chaps, what a perfectly frabjous idea!" Jay squealed, bouncing up out of her chair. "I do believe this is going to work! Shall we get to work right away, wot?"
"On what?" Duo asked, trying to look as if he hadn't just been slowly inching under the table.
"On my idea!"
"What idea, woman?!" Wufei snapped. "We aren't all manic mind-readers!"
"Ah. Yes. Forgot. Well, you see, chaps..."
FIFTEEN MINUTES OF OCCASIONALLY CONFUSING EXPLANATIONS LATER...
"Are you sure this is going to work?" Quatre asked uncertainly, looking at the large sheet of circuit designs Jay had just scrawled out... in multicoloured crayons, with notes like 'Whacking great big power source goes HERE, don'tcherknow'.
"Oh, yes! Well, either it'll work or we'll all get folded through nine-dimensional space and spindled rather uncomfortably, but that's only a three-percent chance."
"I think it's a bit more than a three-percent chance if we use this design," Christy muttered, making notes in red crayon around the edges, "but I get the basic idea. I can fix this so it'll actually work, guys, don't worry."
"You mean you understand this... electronic spaghetti?" Heero asked disbelievingly.
"I know how she thinks."
"That is the scariest thing anyone's said today," Trowa said solemnly, and half the audience nodded vigorously.
"Tro. Think fast," Christy said flatly, tossing a small beeping device at him. Everybody else dove for cover, but Trowa just calmly fielded it.
"What's it supposed to be?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.
"Prototype thermal detonator."
*POP!*
Confetti showered down around him, and she smirked. "I start playing with active payloads tomorrow."
"DAMN IT CHRISTY, WARN US NEXT TIME!" Dan yelled from behind the nearest couch, clutching at his heart as he sagged to the floor. Underneath him, Asuka glared past the sofa leg. "Hn."
"Why? Think of it as practice," she snickered.
"I say, chaps," came from under the table, "can we get back on track here? How long before we can wire me up and let 'er rip?"
"If we use Hades for the linkage, pull power from Dyscalculia and requisition some parts from stores... fifteen minutes."
Mel looked aghast. "Christy... what have you been DOING to your Gundam?!"
"Active neural-net linkage."
"Oh, shit..."
Duo looked fascinated. "Christy... we have to talk."
It was Heero and Wufei's turn to look aghast. "Oh, SHIT..."
FIFTEEN MINUTES OF HIGH-SPEED WIRING AND ADJUSTMENTS LATER...
"Of course, we have no idea how to tune this thing to broadcast to the right parallel universe."
"Now she tells us."
Christy shrugged. "It'll get somewhere. We're putting in enough power to cover... hmm... Jay? How many universes?"
"Oh, at least the closest fifteen, if current theories on reality separation are anything close to accurate," Jay chirped from inside a spaghetti tangle of wiring. "The percentage chance of your universe being further away than that is absolutely microscopic. Trust me. I know what I'm doing, wot!"
Christy snickered, covering it up with a cough. "Says the woman who came up with this idea out of thin air and caffeine fumes..."
"This from the woman who's alpha-testing a neural net in her own Gundam," Mel muttered back at her.
"I'm not testing it!" There was a pause. "Jay is."
Heero slowly tilted over, coming to a stop leaning against the Gundam's side. "You mean this is the first time it's been used?"
"It's all correct and works... in theory!" Christy smiled brightly at him. "Trust me, I'm an engineer."
"Why does that statement frighten me?" Trowa muttered quietly.
"Because it sounds like Duo about to push the button on five kilos of high-test explosive?" Wufei suggested.
"Ah. That sounds about right."
"All right, turn it on!" Jay called.
Christy flipped a switch, then sidled seductively up to Hades's leg and almost purred, stroking it. "Come on, baby. Show 'em what you've got..."
"Christy, if a rocket launcher pops out of that thing's groin, I am going to disinfect everything you've touched in the last six months," Mel informed her seriously.
In the background, Duo was rolling around laughing helplessly. "Is this a variant on -- *snicker* -- auto-eroticism?"
"Mecha-eroticism? Gundam-eroticism?" Dan said quietly, trying the words out. "Maybe it's just a chrome fetish?"
As the needle on the main power dial (scavenged from somewhere -- Mel had just grinned and shrugged when Quatre asked her why she had the output gauge from a large nuclear reactor under her bed) approached the red zone, Christy stopped fooling around and got serious. "Okay, Jay, you've got about a minute before we hit optimum levels, and then about five minutes before shutdown. Get it all lined up in your head and ready to go!"
"Roger that, chiefy!"
"...'Chiefy'?" Christy mouthed, shaking her head. Somewhat recovered from his giggle fit, Duo tapped at her elbow.
"Er... Is Jay actually going to be aiming at specific people, or blanketing all those universes?" he asked quietly, not wanting to distract the Vaterean girl now. "We don't exactly want OZ knowing that we're all gone bye-byes if they don't already. And if she is aiming, how's she gonna do it? She doesn't know anybody there, after all..."
"She said she was going to be aiming her broadcast at anyone who was thinking about you five 'in a friendly sort of way'," Christy shrugged, eyes on the dial. "That should leave OZ personnel right out of it. ...Okay, Jay, get set! Five... four... three... two... one..."
"Uh-oh," Dan muttered, eyes fixed on Jay. "I've seen that look before. She's planning something silly..."
"What did you expect?" Asuka snorted. "It's Jay."
"ZERO!"
Grinning like a maniac, Jay wound up and yelled at the top of her mental 'lungs'.
***GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORNING MULTIVERRRRRRRRRRRRRSE!!!!!***
* * * * *
CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA, EARTH
Yawning blearily, Christy May staggered out of her bedroom and headed for the kitchen for the first coffee of the day. "Whoa," she muttered, rubbing at her head. "Weird dream. Gotta tell Mel about that one... Oi! Mel! Get UP! We're writing today!"
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The End. Or... the
Beginning.
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