Shane: I suppose so.

I hate myself.

Shane was currently forcing himself to catch up on his daily exercise. He was walking around and around a park whose main virtue was that fact that not many people visited it during weekdays.

I wish I could die right now, in some accident or other.

Five girls dead because of me. Those bastards lied their heads off. Why the hell did they have to? I would have still been willing to go to Tau Ceti without that particular push.

"To make sure!"

Yeah, sure. Well, they have really made sure I can't stay here. I don't have the right to be with anybody, now.

So I gotta go to Tau Ceti.

Or, maybe, die here.

He looked at his wristband. Still another two kilometres to go.

Sigh.

And, if that Angel of Death thing is for real, then I can't just kill myself.

What the hell. Isn't that Angel stuff even less likely than insta-clones?

But how did they deprogram those girls without any help, then?

I murdered five innocent girls. And I have to keep on studying.

It's bloody hard. But, if I don't, I won't get to be captain. So I'll be stuck here... Maybe do something in the asteroid belt? But if those in charge, whoever they may be, don't let me, then what chance have I?

Pity my shield held when that asteroid almost hit the dome - no, no, can't think that, if I had failed then everyone could have died - oh, this is so depressing.

Damn, there's two teenage girls standing on the track. Always teenage girls...

Wait a minute, are they...

Shit.

He came to a halt in front of Sarsaparilla and Adalace. Who, for once, were not smiling.

Those looks - they're trying hard to hide their revulsion, aren't they?

"Ah, yes? I mean, I haven't hurt anybody more, you know. Ah, I have no intention to do so..."

A moment's awkward silence, then Sarsaparilla spoke.

"Well, that's good. The thing is, we would like your help for a little task we are doing."

"My help?"

What the fuck hell is this?

"Ah, yes. You see, we are going to remove the evil from the heart of our society, and having the protection of your shields could be very useful."

What?

Shane stood there, a blank look on his face.

"Ah, really! We're not making fun of you. I mean, you must agree that what happened to those so called clone girls was evil, right? And for that matter, what those so called scientists in charge of the star ship project did to you."

"Well, yes, all of that was certainly evil..."

And, by implication, what I did was evil. Is that what you mean, Girl who talks to an Angel? Or pretends to do so.

"And, you see, we believe we have the means to meet with the people who are controlling all of this, and the means of stopping them."

She's mad. That bunch of teenagers, even if they do have an old man with them, going up against the people running Mars? Anybody doing that will just get swatted away like an annoying insect - not that we have annoying insects on Mars, of course.

"So, exactly how will you be doing this?"

"Oh, we work out where they are, which is probably underground and accessible by a maglev line, then we go there, bust our way in, find them, and while you contain them in a shield, Adalace will access their computer systems and broadcast all of their data to everyone on Mars."

You mean, you'll just get killed. Wait, isn't that exactly what I want?

Say, that means I get what I want, and that Angel of Death, if there actually is one, can't blame me!

Sarsaparilla must have taken his silence to mean he was doubting her words.

"Hmm, I suppose all of that does sound just a tiny bit - simplistic - Ah, never mind, our plans are actually much more sophisticated than that... Err, aren't they, Adalace?"

"I, ah, yes, of course they are!" said Adalace.

Sheesh, this is almost embarrassing. They're going to get themselves all killed with a completely stupid plan like that? But...

"Sure, I'll volunteer." said Shane.

Both Sarsaparilla and Adalace looked surprised.

"Oh, thanks." said Sarsaparilla.

There was a awkward pause.

"So, what do I do next?" said Shane.

"Ah, well, I suppose, wait until we call you?" said Sarsaparilla.

"Fine. Then, see you."

I now getting out of here, I can do my exercise somewhere else.

As he turned around to go back the way he came, he was startled to realise that there were three more ladies watching him from about ten metres away.

Isn't that lady with the disfigured face the one that was throwing pink fireballs at me... Shit, it is. And her two friends.

Completely out of sorts, he made a detour to avoid the Girls in Pink. Francesca casually waved at him as he circled them, while the other two sent him death glares.

Oh my God, I have to meet up with them again...

----------------------------------------

 Devina: another meeting

That evening Sarsaparilla described the meeting to the whole group.

"He says yes, but he certainly didn't look all that enthusiastic." she ended with.

"Ha! I think he looked more like he was suicidally depressed." said Francesca.

"What about Juniper? And Kaydence? How are they supposed to put up with that monster being with them?" said Devina.

He fists were clenched and there were sparks in her eyes.

"Ah, Devina, you just admit this whole procedure is fraught with peril, and having Shane's shield between us and any offensive weapons they might have is a very good thing. Wouldn't you say so? After all, the people protected will include you and Juniper." said Teylon, with words that were calm and soothing.

Devina actually didn't think all that much of this statement.

Just more smooth words, Mr Teflon Rat... Wait, Ain't I supposed to be more supportive of him?

Sigh. I suppose what he said is true enough... If it's to protect Juniper, well...

"Ok, Ok. Juniper, are you Ok with this?"

"I guess so? I mean, he's no longer trying to kill us, is he?" said Juniper.

"Of a course not! Once he found out that you weren't clones, he totally gave up that idea!" said Teylon.

Kaydence added her bit. "In that case I'm also Ok with it. Although I'm going to hide behind Sarsaparilla or Leroy whenever he comes anywhere near me."

Looking a bit sour, Devina decided that she had no further objections.

----------------------------------------

Sarawatch: Are we actually going to be doing this?

Three days later, late in the afternoon, at the Watch Centre, Adalace was sharing another cream crepe with Sarsaparilla. They had one plate and two forks, and were currently having a gentile argument about who was going to have the last piece.

"Oh, for Angel's sake!" said Sarawatch.

She smartly stepped into Adalace's office, shovelled up the last piece with her fingers, and ate it herself. She then licked her fingers.

"Sorry, you were too slow! Also, not bad, although a bit sweet for my taste." she said.

Oh my, Sarsaparilla looks absolutely shocked at the theft of her piece. Must come from living in that perpetually scrimping environment of a poor orphanage.

"Don't worry, Sarsaparilla, I'm sure your old man Teylon will be happy to buy you some more!"

"He is not my old man!" said Sarsaparilla.

"I am not old!" said Teylon, who had been languishing at the front counter, eavesdropping on all of this while doing not much of anything else.

Sarawatch began laughing.

It's a long time since I felt like this... Say, what's with that annoying beeping sound?

She noticed that Adalace was totally ignoring this interchange and instead seemed to be really intent on what was appearing on one of her monitors...

A few hours later, at Teylon's place:

"Come on! Hurry up and tell us what you have found!" said Sarsaparilla.

"I was only waiting for everyone to be here, you know." said Adalace.

She then turned to address everyone.

"There's a lot of junk on that USB stick, but it appears that this copy of an email is the only thing of any importance."

She held up a printout, and began to read from it.

"Hi Lenny!

We've found another gravitational anomaly, and this one could actually be what we are looking for. A whopping big cavity in the ground, a kilometre or so down. Needless to say, if we can claim ownership on this, then we can make a killing! But first, we have to verify it. And this is where you could be of great help to us. You are the only expert we know for the Mark 8 Small Bore Deep Well Drilling machine, which is the only one we can obtain at this short notice.

So, hint, hint, if you can spare a few days and do a bit of deep well drilling, you could be in on it!

All of the equipment, and we have got our hands on quite a bit, is from the Sanitation Department. We have 'fixed' the books so that it all appears to be standby. If we find something, our computer whizz kid Terrence will make it look like we legitimately hired it all with our own money and in our own time, so we can claim any discoveries for our very own selves. Course paying the hire fee will hurt our wallets, but it will be worth it! Naturally, the receipts will be backdated.

And if we don't find anything, we just return the machinery and continue with our normal jobs and nobody will be the wiser, and we save the money.

So it's a no loss, win win situation!

As for the location, it's eighteen kilometres from the centre of the proposed final Verdant dome area, right next to what could be a small volcano. We're aiming to drive out there in surface vehicles and drill in a small conveniently located crater. The evacuated dirt can be used to fill the crater, and afterwards if need be we can just smooth the surface of the fill, put in a few imitation micro craters, and presto! No one will notice.

Prakash says that, with a few precautions, we can ensure that no one from the North Tower can look out and see us.

So, how about it? Are you game for a chance to be a part owner of a cubic kilometre of empty space, ideal for real estate development, one kilometre down and thus totally protected from cosmic radiation?

If so, contact me now!

Lotta hugs from Laura."

Everybody thought about this. The first one to break the silence was Sarawatch.

"Sooooo, it appears they were slightly crooked right from the very start."

"They sure were," said Francesca, "And, I suppose, they did find a cavity. And it's location dovetails exactly with what we were assuming."

"I guess this means that now know where to concentrate all of our effort." said Maggie.

"But, while it must be accessible via the maglev system, we still don't know how to get to there." said Teylon.

A small silence, until someone spoke up.

"Well, there, actually, I have been thinking about the maglev system, or, more accurately, the maglev computer system." said Adalace.

There was a twitter of amusement from various others.

"Let me guess, you have gotten your digital fingers onto some passwords for it?" said Maggie, trying hard not to giggle.

"Actually, no. That is, not quite yet. And, unless Esmeralda gives me some..."

Sarsaparilla looked apologetic. "Sorry, but my Angel hot line is dead silent at the moment."

"No worry. Because I've worked out a possible way of attacking this problem..."

They made their plans and retired for the night. As Sarawatch made her way home any casual passer by might have noticed some unseemly frown lines on her face.

So, we are really going to do this, are we?

Am I the only one who thinks this is all totally crazy?

But, nonetheless, I'm going to be following along.

Does that make me crazy?

...

Yes.

She had a very private thought.

For Mirabella’s sake.

But I'm never telling anyone.

----------------------------------------

Adalace: Riding the trains.

Adalace, with Sarsaparilla in tow, went to the nearest maglev station, and requested a trip across the dome. It was early morning, so the peak hour rush had not began yet, but there were still people all around, boarding or alighting from maglev cabins. The two girls were currently standing in front of a door in a long corridor. It gave a ping and opened. They stepped over the sill, where the platform door matched up to the door on the cabin itself, and entered the cabin. The door closed, and there was a faint hissing sound as the vacuum seal between the doors was released. The cabin smoothly accelerated away with only the slightest sensation of movement.

"So, how does this go again? Maybe this time the explanation will stick in my head." said Sarsaparilla, somewhat plaintively.

"You're hopeless. My dear."

As Adalace spoke, she took out from her school bag a laptop, and connected it to the cabin's public Wi-Fi port. Various incomprehensible displays (to Sarsaparilla) appeared on its screen.

"The Maglev computer system for each cabin is mostly autonomous from the main maglev system. The main system tells the cabin at the start of each trip where to go and how to get there, and then everything from that point is left to the cabin's computer. It's done that way so as to allow for maximum safety, if the computer link to the main system goes down for any reason, each cabin can still get to where it’s going and will do so without crashing into any other cabin. And, as I have discovered, each cabin's computer has a log of the last few thousand trips it has made. And every cabin is the same as every other cabin, and they are all part of the same pool of cabins that the main system uses. Which means, we could be sitting in a cabin that has recently made the trip to the secret base and back!"

Adalace fiddled with the laptop for a moment.

"So, all I've got to do, is to hack into the local computer, access its log, and see if there have been any trips which go out eighteen kilometres on that maglev track to the volcano, and back again. And if I find one, then that must be what we are looking for!"

She examined the pretty displays on the screen.

"Sigh, unfortunately, this cabin hasn't done anything exciting like that. Oh well, can hardly expect success on our first go."

Adalace tapped Sarsaparilla's noggin.

"Are your brain cells finally making the connections?"

Sarsaparilla rolled her eyes.

"Just because your super power is to be a super programmer, doesn't mean I'm stupid, you know!"

"Now, now, I'm only making fun of you. It's such fun!"

"Humph. Well, answer this, sweet heart! Instead of riding trains all day in the off chance of finding one that was used by one of the master villains, why not just hack into the main computer system and be done with it?"

"Ah ha! You are paying attention! Unfortunately, it's because the main system is too highly protected. I can't get any physical access, and without any supernatural powers giving me passwords, there is no access point for me to even make an attempt. Whereas, sitting in this cabin, I have a direct link to the local system. Of course, it is also protected with firewalls and passwords, but by its very nature it is a lot less so than the main system.

You see, the public access programs in the local system run in an isolated virtual machine inside the cabin's computer. But, I've discovered a few little flaws in their security, in particular I've worked out how to utilise quantum ghosting across the memory cache lines of the instruction speculative look ahead execution units, and by doing a cross correlation of a sufficient number of loops I can extract information which then allows me to insert code into the virtual machine manager, and once I do that I can..."

Sarsaparilla looked Adalace in the eyes and made a growling sound.

"Ah, right, sorry." Giggle. "Let's forget I just said all of that that, OK? And, we're now at our destination. So, let's do all of this again!"

Naturally, the cost of each trip came from Teylon's account.

After a couple of hours, they took a break. Maggie showed up and went riding with Adalace, while Sarsaparilla stayed behind. By the end of the day, Adalace had ridden back and forward with half a dozen of the others as companions, and she was totally frazzled.

"I've had enough, Sarsaparilla!" she said at the final stop as they met up with each other. "Let's go for a walk!"

----------------------------------------

Deep Underground

Midday the following day.

"Ah, that email. How all of this started for me..." said Lenny.

He gazed into empty space, his memory reviewing scenes from three decades ago.

"It led to all of this. And, of course, to Laura's death, thirteen years later..."

"Ah, sorry about that." said Arnold, in an almost whisper.

Big sigh from Lenny. "Never mind, it's all just blood under the bridge by now."

He was silent as he gathered his wits back together again.

"Tell me, technical advisor, does Adalace's techno babble actually mean anything?" he said, giving a pointed look to Terrence.

"Ah, well, as far as I know, it could. I mean, speculative execution has been a source of security breaches in the past, and as for the quantum ghosting phenomena..."

"Ok, Ok, you don't really know. But, on the other hand, Adalace could really know what she's talking about."

"Well, presumably it does work. After all, she claims that she can see the trip log." said Terrence.

"Claims to. But, we've haven't as yet got a good look at her screen when it is showing a log."

Terrence shrugged his shoulders.

"Never mind. Are you sure we can't take out Adalace?" said Lenny, now looking at Arnold.

"How? I mean, we have repeatedly tried such things before, but nothing has worked."

"What say we try again, by taking control of the cabin she is currently in, and directing it to go half way round Mars?"

Terrence looked exasperated. "Sure, we can try that... In fact I can do it right now.

He typed onto his computer keyboard, accessing the appropriate menus. After a short while, he looked up.

"It says 'Not Allowed'. I think that answers your question."

"Perhaps we could send in Special Asset #2?"

"Oh, goody, we get rid of the last of those horrible Special Assets!" said Teresa.

Lenny made of show of not taking any notice of her. Instead he asked Arnold to look into it.

Late that afternoon, Arnold reported the sudden and mysterious death of Special Asset #2. No contributing circumstances could be discerned.

"Looks like I had better make sure I have on hand all of the ingredients for baking some scones." said Prakash.