Chapter One

Rai felt terribly self-conscious as she walked along the streets to her home. Well, not so much embarrassed as acutely aware, aware of where she was and what she had just done. Her job usually creeped her out when she thought about it, especially on this familiar walk home down a street that protested at the name.

The word ‘street’ was only a generalization as to what it was she walked on; the concept of the actual thing she followed wasn’t quite so simply put in any human language, although it was the literal translation of the word for it in her tongue into English.

It was always a strange experience coming back from Earth… everything was simply so much more complicated at home. Of course, the entire essence of theirs was different.

What made Earth – and any planets in that plane, actually – suitable for being prisons the way they were was the fact that the beings there were divided into three, independent yet allied, parts – chi, body, and mind. Rai’s people – they had no name for their race – was one. It was more simplistic, yet more complicated too, to survive and function as a physical body of mental and spiritual energy, to put it in terms that were familiar to humans.

Which went back to why she felt slightly embarrassed walking home. She hadn’t been able to shake off the mental impression of Nabiki Tendo’s form, and was walking home with her physical shape unchanged from her extraplanar trip, even though she’d left behind the girl’s actual body in the other world, of course. Hence why she was walking, rather than floating or flying, and also why what she was walking on vaguely resembled a street. But no one said a word to her, and she kept silent.

Finally she reached her home, and entered, sliding open the door – although it hadn’t slid like that before – to walk in, still physically identical to Nabiki Tendo, although entirely different as well.

It wasn’t until she was almost done with the preparation of her dinner that she noticed a few anomalies around her house.

A table wasn’t so strange – a shougi table a little so, but innocent enough. The fact that it was floating in the center of a koi pond was a bit odd.

But what really got her was the 3-D photographic replica of the entire contents of Nabiki Tendo’s room sitting, arranged correctly, on the grass (?) next to the pond. It even had windows and a door, floating innocently in midair in the correct places. Rai started to worry – she could almost feel the wallpaper starting to form. Through the far window she could see the tree that was outside it in the real house, although it looked rather strange since there still was no wall and the rest of the tree did not exist.

Then her attention was distracted as the door suddenly opened and who else but Nabiki Tendo exited her nearly complete room. She closed the door carefully behind her as the walls became visible and then turned to look at Rai with a rather annoyed expression.

“Oh, crap,” were the first words out of Rai’s mouth.

“You’re telling me,” replied Nabiki, crossing her arms over her chest. It wasn’t for a second or two that Rai realized that she had done the exact same thing a split second earlier.

Then Rai suddenly realized, and of course, at the same time, so did the figure of Nabiki.

“Ah,” she commented, “suddenly it all becomes clear.”

Rai wasn’t surprised at that. Aw, shit… she thought, and the words floated away as little bubbles in the shapes of the correct letters.

The house wasn’t quite done transforming into a weirdly arranged (to say the least) replica of the Tendo Dojo before she/they left. The shougi table still floated mysteriously in the center of the koi pond. Luckily no other people were created, at least.

Nabiki came with Rai as she ran back to her workplace, jogging easily alongside her. This time they did attract a bit of attention as the path turned into the streets of Nerima.

The other girl babbled as she ran, acting as an output as she spoke for Rai’s thoughts. It was better than bubbling the words, at least.

“So you took me with you, huh? I was too strong – imprinted on you like a key into soft wax, and started wrecking havoc when you got home, where there’s no difference between thought and action. I’m the ultimate hacker now, aren’t I? Essentially a virus, although with no staying power of my own if I leave because everything’s so malleable. Good thing you’re leaving… they really don’t want you – me - here, I can tell. Can’t say as I blame them, it seems you’ve got your own little thing going, and this would sure mess it up, wouldn’t it…”

She kept talking but grew quieter as Rai put some effort towards ignoring her and ran wildly though the building. At least it didn’t have time to change, and by the time she entered the transceiver all that was left of the change was a note she had hurriedly plopped onto it’s door, explaining her departure in vague enough terms to that hopefully they’d let her back in when she managed to get rid of Nabiki Tendo. Hopefully. If she managed to get rid of her. If she survived the transfer.

Ah, there was they key, wasn’t it?

As she twisted into another dimension she could feel the stress of it pulling at her body. It was trying to reshape her into a form not of her choosing but she kept firm, not letting it have its way. It wasn’t so easy, since she hadn’t programmed a target body – it was rather unheard of to actually move the entirety of a person into the other world rather than just a small part – but she latched on to the Nabiki virus and that was sufficient. With an almost audible snap the stretching pain of the transfer faded and she started to fall…

And landed with a rather large splash in the middle of a familiar koi pond. What god of irony made her land there, she had no idea, and she didn’t much care as she bobbed in the water, face down, trying to get her bearings. It took her a moment to realize that the uncomfortable feeling was coming from the fact that she was unable to breathe, and by the time she flailed to her feet, gasping for air, Kasumi had been looking curiously at her for a good minute or so.

“Nabiki? Are you alright?”

Rai realized with a sinking feeling that this really wasn’t going to be miraculously easier than she had feared it would be.

“Not… quite,” she answered, coughing up a little water as she spoke.

***

~Mordain

Next

Back to What Lies Beneath Ch. 12  

Back to The Nest