"If you knew you were staring at the end of everything in the face, would you laugh?"

"Valentine is done
Here but now they're gone
Romeo and Juliet
Are together in eternity...Romeo and Juliet
40,000 men and women everyday...Like Romeo and Juliet
40,000 men and women everyday...Redefine happiness
Another 40,000 coming everyday...We can be like they are
Come on baby...don't fear the reaper
Baby take my hand...don't fear the reaper
We'll be able to fly...don't fear the reaper
Baby I'm your man..."

- Blue Oyster Cult

"Too many teardrops for one heart to be cryin'
Too many teardrops for one heart to carry on
You're way on top now
Since you left me
You're always laughin'
Way down at me
But watch out now
I'm gonna get there
We'll be together
For just a little while
And then I'm gonna put you
Way down here
And you'll start cryin'
Ninety-six tears
Cry
Cry"

- Question Mark and the Mysterians.

For my father.

Tenchi Muyo - Negative Genesis
Part 1, Chapter 1.

By JockoMegane, inspired by "The Stand" by Stephen King, and "Dawn of the Dead" written/directed by George A. Romero.

Send all comments and criticisms to: jockomegane@cs.com.

LOCATION: Lemon Section.

SYNOPSIS: A long tale of Dark Tsunamism.

DISCLAIMER: Tenchi and his gang of vigilante crime fighters are the property of Pioneer LDC, AIC, and Hiroki Hayashi, er...did I say Hayashi? I meant Masaki Kajishima, of course! "The Stand" is the property of Stephen King, and "Dawn of the Dead" is (should) be the property of George A. Romero. I'm not making any money from this venture, neither should anyone else. All the works which I make reference to herein are done in the greatest of humility and admiration. Please don't sue me.

MISSION STATEMENT: This story is intended as coming from the balls.

NOTE: The continuity in this story is OVA 2 plus Kiyone. For this tale, GXP and Kajishima's OVA 3 don't exist.

Very special thanks to Kai_Kerrigan for the reliable sounding board, suggestions, and support while this work was being undertaken.

Thank you to Zyraen for assisting in editing this chapter.

The format that this tale will be presented in is as follows:

Three parts with three chapters each, for a total of nine chapters.

This story will also have Lemon scenes in it periodically, as well as extreme violence. If any of these things don't meet your approval, please read something else.


***

Part 1, Chapter 1:

October 9-16 1995. "Don't Fear The Reaper." Charleston, West Virginia to Youngstown, Ohio. Parts in Okayama, Japan, and the Galactic Union.

***


The truck stop off of US 77 just short of fifty miles outside of Charleston, West Virginia, often affectionately called "Led's," by the regulars after its proprietor, Dennis Ledford, was playing host to the usual crowd in the early morning hours of October 9, 1995. The counter was completely full, and already about a third of the booths were filled with mostly locals, but some travelers as well.

The locals were busily devouring Gladys Ledford's famous omelet, while most of them seemed to be making due with either scrambled eggs, pancakes, french toast, or something else. One traveler was making due with "something else."

"Here ya go hon," one of the waitresses, a petite woman approaching fifty put a bowl of Corn Flakes on the booth counter in front of Warren Hudson.

"Thanks a lot," Warren smiled sincerely, sipping some of his orange juice before eagerly digging in. Hudson had been on the road all night, since he decided to not spend the night on the Kentucky border, and just find a nice, hopefully cheap, campground outside of Charleston to stay for a while.

As Warren was sitting in a booth, he had a nice window seat looking out on the parking lot. Outside he could see his '67 Dodge Challenger parked along with a Winnebago with Delaware tags and a Ryder truck. It was getting brighter outside, it now being just after 8:00AM. The sun wasn't showing, only a spreading sky of gray with a hint of chilly rain, and--hell, maybe even snow by nightfall. The low rumble of US 77 could be heard down the hill from where the truck stop sat. Slowly, night mists were beginning to burn off.

The usual chatter was going on at the counter amongst the coal miners. Union meetings, those assholes in Washington fucking up again, etc. The conversations ran together and Warren concentrated on properly digesting his cereal, orange juice, and the road maps he was studying. Therefore, he did not see the ambulance heading up the road.

George LaPierre, a 29 year old West Virginia state trooper was the first to notice the ambulance ambling up the road with its sirens turned off. LaPierre was also the first to notice the ambulance quite suddenly beginning to weave in and out of its lane. "What the hell..." he immediately put his coffee down and rose to his feet, making his way to the door.

LaPierre's comment was what got Warren's attention. And to Hudson's slight surprise, he was also gripping his spoon inordinately hard. He was now looking out the window as the ambulance began weaving from one side of the road to another before going into the ditch separating the parking lot from the road. The ambulance bounded back up onto the pavement, thankfully steering away from the gas pumps, and starting briefly for the general store before disappearing from the view of the breakfast crowd towards the dumpsters in back.

A crash was heard.

Warren dropped his spoon with a clang, and started for the front door along with LaPierre and three other men. However George had other ideas. "You four stay here!" he began speaking into his Citizen's Band (CB) radio very fast, calling for another ambulance, and a fire/rescue team.

Warren, visibly shaken, steadied himself. "You sure, officer?" he asked.

LaPierre didn't answer him, he was already out the door and going around to where the ambulance had gone.

They waited for about a minute or two before they were greeted by a scream. LaPierre's scream by the sound of it. Warren opened the door and ran around the corner. The sight that greeted him held the distinction until the day of his death as being the biggest shock of his long life.

The ambulance had crashed into the dumpster, obviously enough, and its rear double-doors hung open. The vehicle itself was in bad shape, front end completely smashed, radiator spewing steam, the works. This was secondary to what faced Hudson and the men who lined up in back of him, completely at a loss for what their eyes were seeing.

George LaPierre was there, all right. Along with the other Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT's) and a man wearing what looked like pajamas.

"...George?" Al Commager, a busboy in the truck stop, croaked as he noticed that about a third of LaPierre's neck was gone, blood coursing down his shirt. His skin seemed to be turning more pallid by the second. The EMTs and the pajama man were the same, except that the pajama man seemed uninjured. The pajama man seemed completely normal, save for his unnaturally pale skin and mouth being full of blood, bone fragments, and flesh.

The EMTs and the pajama man took a jerking step forward, towards the group.

Warren, as if pushed back, moved accordingly.

The other men, however, advanced forward.

Hudson looked left to right, "stay the fuck away from them, guys!" he shouted.

They paid no attention to Warren. And that made them even, because Warren was now rummaging around in his coat. Al Commager was the first to join the Undead All-stars when he tried to beckon George LaPierre to sit down on the curb.

"AHHH!" the busboy screamed as LaPierre sunk his teeth into the soft flesh of his neck.

For one terrifying instant, the only sound that could be heard was the rustle of the wind in the trees nearby.

One middle-aged fatman courageously stepped forward and attempted to drag the busboy away from the chomping teeth of LaPierre. He was rewarded for his heroism by the pajama dressed living corpse jerking forward quite suddenly and biting into the left side of the fatman's face, tearing away enough flesh so that the jaw could be seen working.

Almost on cue, the two EMT dressed corpses extended their arms in grasping motions and began advancing towards the rest of the group.

Despite his horror at this, Warren had managed to extract a small handgun, commonly called a Saturday Night Special in some parts of the country, cocked it, aimed for the pajama corpse, and to his near hysterical surprise heard a dull click. Hudson then remembered that the previous day he had target practiced with some of his empty pork and beans cans and forgotten to reload.

He turned around and started running the 100 yard distance to where his car was parked. Even though he ran at top speed, it still was too late for the group over by the ambulance. After the fatman was down the others soon followed, paralyzed by fear but still operated under the assumption that the EMTs, the pajama man, and now LaPierre, the busboy, and the fatman were all just sick and in need of help.

Warren had just turned the key in the trunk lock when he heard three screams in quick succession followed by a fourth. As the lock clicked Hudson resisted the urge to look over his shoulder. He didn't need to, anyway, it was plain to be heard that the other curious patrons in the restaurant had gone outside to see what was going on, as well as the workers in the back.

In one swift motion, Warren scooped up his sword, a perfect replica of the Roman gladius, and a sawed off Ithaca shotgun. He spun around at a sound he had been tracking, one of the walking-dead EMTs, since he ran over to his car. 'Heh,' Hudson thought frantically, 'these things sure run fast for being dead!' After all, what else could they be?

Judging the distance to be about four feet, three and a half when he would spin around, he opted for the gladius. Warren spun around on his heel and landed one looping slash across the right forearm of the EMT, completely severing it and coating the asphalt below it with blood. He spared a fraction of a second to look up at the vacant expression on the dead EMT.

Nothing. He just tried to claw at him with his left arm now, which Warren dodged and moved out around to the EMT's rear, stepping over the severed arm which continued to work longer than it should. It nearly got a hold of his left boot heel.

"All right, hotshot," Warren said to the unresponsive back as the EMT slowly jerked around to face him. "Let's see you deal with this!," he stabbed straight forward into the EMT's sternum, completely disconnecting the central nervous system. Hudson extracted the sword with a steady stream of blood and stomach contents (Warren recognized a piece of a Big Mac), he backed off another step.

The EMT took another slow step towards him. More labored, but the dead-walker was still coming for him. For a split second Warren just gaped at this. Quickly he recovered, in one fluid motion sheathed the short sword and brought the shotgun to bear on the head of the EMT. He aimed, and squeezed the trigger.

The head exploded in a flurry of red mush and bone fragments, leaving nothing behind. Warren looked like he had just fallen into a big Hawaiian punch bowl. Wearily he waited a few seconds. To his relief, the body just fell back onto the ground with nary a twitch.

Warren exhaled and immediately broke into a run back to the restaurant entrance. He couldn't see anyone inside. Not heeding this telling clue, he kicked open the door and was greeted with the sight of two zombies eating a meaty arm of a truck driver he had noticed eating oatmeal not too long before.

Hudson raised the shotgun, aimed, had his finger on the trigger, but didn't fire.

"Run now!" an ethereal female whisper echoed in his head.

Obeying without a second thought, but with regrets, Warren shrank back out the door and sprinted back to his car.

"Nothing you could have done, nothing you could have done," he repeated breathlessly to himself as he got into the driver's seat. He got his keys in easily enough, but he turned the ignition too fast and the engine didn't catch. Hudson didn't need to look in his rearview mirror to know that three of the suckers were approaching. On his second try the zombies were beginning to beat on the trunk.

Luckily, third time was the charm. Warren floored it, the old Dodge Challenger screeched its tires and barreled out onto the road.

Warren kept his eyes on the road ahead, reminding himself to get back on US 77. As he did that he picked up his CB radio receiver. Quickly clicking onto the emergency frequency, "Mayday mayday, this is Sneaky Snake. Anyone reading me on this frequency be advised that Led's Truck Stop off of US 77 outside of Charleston, West Virginia has--" has what? Dead people coming back to life?

"--been taken over by psycho killers or something." Lame, but not altogether inaccurate and not as misleading as a robbery. "Approach armed, shoot to kill. No one is left alive. Sneaky Snake over and out."

Hudson pulled the car unto the sparse early morning traffic of US 77, all the while talking to himself. "That was the worst, Warren...that was the worst. Just keep it together and find a safe place to pray, Warren."

Back in the truck stop's restaurant, Warren had left a scene that had unfolded very fast from the first new zombies getting into the restaurant from the back door. First, the cooks were bitten in the necks and immediately turned, while the poor dishwasher only sustained a bite to the leg and was wolfed down on by the cooks and the pajama man. The petite aged waitress who gave Warren his cereal that morning tried to call 911, but was so shocked at the horrors unleashing before her she just went into shock. As she was eaten from the feet up all she could think of was: "The Devil come to Earth, oh Lord please..." that was the last words to fill her consciousness as she became a meal instead of serving one.

The Ledfords made a good effort to fight their dead patrons off by a fire extinguisher and a stool. They lasted about five minutes before Dennis slipped on some blood and hit his face on a hot oven, completely messing up some perfectly good hash browns. Gladys was bitten and became a member of the fastest growing racial group in America. The known universe, for that matter. This is the moment Warren was able to get to the front door of the restaurant.

After everyone at the truck stop was either a zombie or sustenance for zombies, the only sounds that filled that quiet mountain corner of West Virginia was the sounds of the wind, the highway where Warren Hudson had escaped, and the seemingly aimless jerk-step-jerk-step as the zombies slowly spread out.

***

Sasami Jurai was enjoying one of her favorite pastimes: chasing butterflies in an idyllic field filled with bright yellow flowers. The sky was blue, with only a few puffy white clouds; just like her favorite field on Jurai. The sun was high, signifying that noon was approaching and that a picnic lunch would soon be happening on her favorite hill nearby. Despite it being a bit too late in the day, several moons of varying colors to Sasami's liking draped across the sky like a rainbow.

Sasami turned to face the hill, and could clearly see all of her family and friends gathered there, waving...beckoning to her to come and eat. Sasami began trotting up the hill when from nowhere and everywhere, it seemed, the coldest wind that chilled her to her very being shook her. Surprised, she closed her eyes. When she opened them, Sasami found herself still in her favorite field, but it was night, and the stars were shining above. However, no matter how bright the stars were, she found there was a suffocating gloom all around her.

She called out for mother, father, auntie, sister, Tenchi and all her other friends. They didn't come to her to hold her hand, or even call back. Not even Ryo-ohki's familiar "myaa!" was in this gloomy place. Save for one. One that was so shrouded in the gloom she had missed him the first time she looked, but now that she realized she was alone, Sasami could see *him.* But only barely could he be seen in the gloom. Sasami didn't move an inch towards him. He was standing right in front of her.

His face was indistinct in the gloom, as was the rest of his body, but his palms were spread out in front of him. They were clear, clean, and attractive. Sasami, however, could not say the same for her hands. They had just started to hurt. Hurt like nothing she had ever felt since her accident on Jurai. She looked at her palms, noticing a wound in each of them. Her hands were soon filled with blood. Sasami gazed up at the man in front of her. Questioning....why? Why? Slowly, white hot anger began to course through her soul like she had never experienced before.

WHY?!?!

The barest impression of a smile in the gloom was the only response she got, and a slight cock of his head up.

"All of the stars in the sky," he whispered, "all of the stars in the sky..."

Just before Sasami was able to shake herself out of the nightmare, she could now see that she and the man were not alone in the field after all. Some tall figure was standing behind him. The last image remembered before she awoke was the sterling image of a beautiful woman's painted face with a cold pitiless smile.


***

The "problem" as it would come to be called in the days and weeks to come is mainly credited as having originated in West Virginia. This, however, is not true. As police transcripts and other public records would later show, Warren Hudson's experience is predated by one 17 minutes earlier in the plains of Indiana.

What began as a passing patrol car catching sight of what appeared to be a drunk staggering through a wheat field, soon ended in a day long mystery that saw an entire rural county lose two-thirds of its law-enforcement officers. Deputy Sheriff Bill Van Dyke was doing his early morning rounds driving down State Road 50 when he noticed a figure staggering across a field in the early morning gloom. He stopped, got out of the patrol car and approached the figure. To his relief, Van Dyke didn't have to trudge all the way out into the middle of the field, as the figure was now staggering towards him. Van Dyke smiled as the figure came closer into view as the sun was beginning to rise, nothing like escorting a friendly wino to a little time in the county drunk tank to start off the day.

In a widely criticized lapse of Standard Operating Procedure, it was over an hour before another patrol car was sent out to find out why the hell Van Dyke wasn't reporting in. All they found was an empty patrol car and no one to be seen for miles in either direction, except for a farm house.

At the same time Warren Hudson was having his little nightmarish breakfast, the zombie Van Dyke and the supposed drunk zombie made fairly short work of a family farm. From there, the average "infection" rate was three to six zombies depending on what area and terrain the problem first appeared in. Contrary to later popular belief, rural areas with a flat expanse of land actually yielded *more* zombies than the problem did in more densely populated areas.


***

Tenchi Masaki sat outside on the pier that made up his family's back yard enjoying the late night air. It had been a tough day in the fields, and an equally tough practice with grandfather, and the boy's muscles had a slight ache that the dip in the onsen had failed to completely banish. Dinner had been good, everyone actually got along well. However, Sasami had seemed tired and after eating her dinner asked to be excused so she could go to bed early.

Tenchi could feel himself getting drowsier as he gazed up at the stars. He smiled, already Sasami was probably in dream land. Ryoko and Ayeka were watching a late night soap opera marathon on TV, his father, grandfather, Mihoshi, and Kiyone were having their weekly mahjong game up at the temple, Washu was...well, trying Kami knew what in her lab. Tenchi himself had a Biology exam tomorrow. Normally, he would be in bed already, but something was making him uneasy as he sat gazing up at the stars. He had thought that spending ten or twenty minutes outside listening to the crickets and looking at the stars would put him in a more restive mood, but as ten or twenty minutes turned into thirty, and then forty the only feeling growing in Tenchi was dread.

The Earth boy glanced around him for the fifth time, making sure that no one was trying to sneak up on him. Some would say this was a reaction to him living in the same house with two alien women both vying for his love, but truth be told Tenchi never felt actually *scared* of them. His first meeting Ryoko notwithstanding. Pretty fucked up circumstances there.

No, Tenchi realized as he watched the gently twinkling stars, this was something else. He shivered despite it still being warm for October.

"Hey Tenchi," Ryoko called gently, peeking her head out of the kitchen wall.

Normally, he would start just a little, but tonight he welcomed Ryoko's voice bringing him back from progressively worse thoughts.

"Hi Ryoko," Tenchi smiled back at her.

Ryoko phased through the rest of the wall, getting a good look at the stars. She stood, arms folded across her chest, her eyes brightly reflecting the moonlight. Tenchi watched her in silence, his earlier fear momentarily forgotten.

"Nice night," she commented.

Tenchi returned his attention to the sky. Yes, it was nice after all. Then why was he feeling like he had one of those childhood nightmares that made you shaky for a week afterwards? "Yes," he agreed, "it is nice, Ryoko."

Ryouko smiled down at him, "aren't you supposed to be in bed, schoolboy?"

Tenchi blinked, yes it was probably past midnight by now. "Yeah, you're right Ryoko," he stood, stretched his aching muscles some.

Ryoko's golden eyes glinted almost imperceptibly, "I can give you a nice massage to help put you to sleep, Tenchi..."

"That'll be quite enough, Ms. Ryoko," Ayeka called out from the sliding glass door, a dainty grin on her face.

"Awh, come on, Princess," Ryoko gave her a 'little ole me' look, "can't blame me for trying, can you?"

Ayeka shook her head in mock indignation, "Of course I can, when you try to keep Lord Tenchi from his rest for school!"

"Oh he doesn't need school," Ryoko laughed, "he's got me to teach him everything, don't you Tenchi darling?"

Tenchi smiled, waving them down. "Girls, I really need to get to bed." He sincerely wished he could have stayed. In the months since the visit of the Jurain Royal family the relationship between the Space Pirate and Princess had taken on a tone of a respectful, but no less competitive, rivalry. Thankfully, the days of explosive arguments and fights over little things were over.

"Lord Tenchi," Ayeka said brightly, stepping out onto the pier. "I would be happy to wake up early tomorrow to help you do extra studying for your Biology exam."

"...by sleeping in his bed tonight?" Ryoko hummed.

Ayeka flashed her a smirk, her eye twitched slightly, "and what would you do, Ms. Ryoko?"

"Mmm. Biology is a very simple subject with the right tutor," Ryoko traipsed over to Tenchi, gently setting her hands on his shoulders. Tenchi blushed. Ryoko did no more.

Ayeka laughed, "you would, wouldn't you?"

"No more, no less than you would, Princess."

"Then I believe we have something to settle over tennis tomorrow, Ms. Ryoko," Ayeka smiled.

Ryoko threw her hands up in the air, removing them from Tenchi's shoulders. "That's called dodging the issue, Ayeka!"

It was Tenchi's turn to laugh this time. "Thank you for the offer, Ms. Ayeka, but I'm pretty confident I'll be all right."

"See?" Ryoko stuck out her tongue for Ayeka's benefit.

"And you two," Tenchi raised his voice, "better get back to your soap operas," he pointed back to the living room window where the TV could be seen. The commercial break the girl's had used to get snacks, use the powder room, and check up on Tenchi was long past over.

Both girls immediately made a beeline back into the house, stopping only to wish Tenchi goodnight. Ryoko spared a second to blow him a kiss and wink. Tenchi laughed, yawned, and made his way back into the house by the door next to the kitchen. Before he went indoors he casted a wary glance back at the ominously twinkling stars, feeling the dread beginning to collect at the pit of his stomach.


***

Very soon as the morning of October 9 wore on, and the whole of the Eastern United States was beginning to wake up, more and more incidents started to pop up. The most significant, or rather the one most widely reported later, was an audio recording of an autopsy being done in the Livingston County, Michigan morgue. Here follows a 100% verbatim transcript:

Coroner James Reese and his assistant Alan Peterson are conducting an autopsy on a woman killed by a drunk driver at around 3:34AM that morning

the recording begins, sounds of a large metallic room can be heard

Reese: "Autopsy of Ms. Veronica Dickerson, October 9, 1995, this is James Reese, Livingston County coroner presiding and Alan Peterson assisting. Time is 8:14AM. "

Peterson: "All right, what's her story?"

Reese: "Pedestrian, crossing the street at the stop light when she was supposed to."

yawning is heard, presumably from Peterson

Peterson: "At least they could have waited until 9:00 or 10:00 to get us up..."

Reese: "The Sheriff wants the arraign this son of a bitch fast, Alan, just suck it up."

tinkering is heard, some scrapes, other use of flesh-tearing utensils on a dead body

Peterson: "This seems to be an interesting contusion at the base of the neck..." picking is heard

Reese: "Now this is damned peculiar, rigor hasn't set in yet."

a snapping is heard, later revealed to be the corpse's hands shooting up and grabbing both men by the necks. Screaming is heard as instruments fall to the floor as well as chomping teeth. After that, there is a slithering sound then dead air for over two hours before the tape runs out

***

Sasami lay awake gazing up at the unchanging wood of the Masaki family's ceiling. The youngest Jurain Princess was trying to lull herself back into drowsiness after her nightmare. So far no success. She tried everything she could just lying there in the dark, the moonbeams casted across the floor, just touching her futon. Right now she was trying to understand the Earth western custom of counting sheep. Why count sheep? They never jumped over fences. They only grazed.

Sasami breathed an exasperated sigh, folding her hands behind her head on the pillow. "Tsunami," she called, listening.

From downstairs she could hear the TV, nothing else.

"I'm here, Sasami."

Sasami turned her head to find Tsunami sitting under the window sill, the moon light passing right through the apparition of her body, eventhough her body appeared completely solid. The Goddess smiled, knowing this: "I know how much you love the moon, Sasami."

"Same to you," the young Princess smiled.

Tsunami gazed around the room. "I know what is troubling you, troubling us," the Goddess sighed.

"It's her...isn't it, Tsunami?" Sasami gazed at her assimilation partner, the future her, her mirror image in many ways, her Tree. The First Space Tree.

Tsunami craned her head back to get a better look at the outside. "Yes."

"And him," Sasami sat up in her futon. "This is the first time I've ever seen him."

Tsunami turned her attention back to Sasami. "For a long time has he been hidden from my eyes, too."

Sasami hugged her knees through the blanket. "There was another man you've shown me lately," she closed her eyes, trying to summon up an image from memory. "He's tall, black hair...not quite as black as Tenchi's or big brother's, but he's got a real short haircut," she smiled, remembering, "he's nice."

Tsunami nodded, a slight grin crossing her delicate features. "What is he doing right now, Sasami?"

Sasami breathed deeply, concentrating. For a full minute she was silent, then: "He's running, er...um, driving that is."

***

Previously on October 8, American peace keepers in Bosnia had been attacked by Muslim extremists. No Americans were killed in action, but fifteen unfortunate service men and three equally unfortunate service women died in a fire in their barracks, seemingly an accident. The bodies, whose causes of death were all suffocation, were flown to the Dover, Delaware Air Force base.

Thus on the morning of October 9, the bodies of the fallen service men and women were laid out in a hanger, awaiting final determinations by the doctors. Two Privates were charged with the task of keeping a watch over things. They thought it was light duty, just prevent anyone who didn't have clearance from getting into the hanger.

Billy St. Croix, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Richard Nicks, of Portland, Oregon were the two privates. All was going well, just less than an hour before they were to be relieved...

Billy was doing his third or fourth body count of his shift when, having arrived at the middle of the three rows of six corpses he glanced down at his clipboard, and back up. The bodies, which were in black body bags, were stirring and beginning to role around on the floor.

Pvt. St. Croix simply couldn't handle it. "AHHHHH!" he cried and cowered to the floor.

Richard was at his side in a moment. He handled things better. For the moment it just looked like the doctors in Bosnia had only made a big damned mistake to him. "Billy!" he grabbed his friend's shoulder, "pull yourself together!"

"I swear to Gawd!" Billy wailed on the floor, "I never EVER did LSD in my LIFE!"

Richard smacked Billy opened-handed across the face. "It's okay, man! I see 'em too!"

Billy looked up at Richard with fear-bleary eyes, "Then it's YOU who's been a doin' LSD, then!" This exchange went on too long, however. For soon a zombie had found their way out of the body bag and made them foot soldiers in another army.

***

Yosho, to some the crown prince of the planet Jurai, and to others a stern old Shrine keeper named Katsuhito, was doing the same activity that his grandson was doing: stargazing. However, his accompanying uneasiness was able to take on a more coherent form thanks to pure life experience. Yosho had been sitting quietly out on the front porch of the Shrine office, sipping tea after saying his nightly prayers for all of his late wives and all of his now dead children, especially Achika.

There was also another prayer that Yosho made that night, a prayer for an old friend. More than friend, actually. The Jurain word that Yosho sometimes called him would be loosely translated in Japanese as "adopted brother." In a trunk in the corner of his office, hidden just enough so that Tenchi's curiosity wouldn't find it without a deliberate search, there was a modest framed black and white photograph of Yosho looking much the same as he always did as Katsuhito, and a young man dressed in the robes of a Shinto acolyte. The most obvious feature of the young man is his Anglo-Saxon ethnicity. He is also rather young looking, probably no more than twenty years old, with short, cropped black hair.

On the picture frame there's a simple inscription: "June 26th, 1952."

As Yosho sat outside in the moments before he felt the fabric of the universe change slightly on his adoptive homeplanet, he meditated on the five years Warren Hudson spent at the Shrine under the pretense of being his apprentice, when actually he was his servant/protector under the ancient Jurain tradition roughly equivalent to being a squire in Europe's middle ages.

The steps where Yosho now sat and which Tenchi had swept this morning had from 1947 to 1952 been part of Warren's chores, which were almost exactly Tenchi's shrine chores now. Yosho had grinned, Hudson never griped as much as Tenchi did on some days. But he supposed it was all relative, when Warren was here he didn't have any life outside of his duties, and even then there was no way the average person going to the Shrine would accept a *YANKEE* silently sweeping the stone walk wearing the robes of a Shrine apprentice. Thus it was that Warren Hudson spent a good portion of his time being out of sight out of mind in the office, or in a small clearing nearby honing his swordsmanship skills.

Yosho missed him, to tell the truth. He missed having someone he could sit and talk about what life on this little backwater planet meant to him. He missed how the young American faced each day of his new Tsunami-given life with wide-eyed wonder, and a head full of questions. He was very much like Tenchi, Yosho would recall years later, only that Warren was more obedient. Ever since that night in 1947 when Tsunami informed him that her latest charge was ready to be released from the Ship of Jurai, and Yosho opened the Shrine office door to find a young naked Anglo-American male kneeling in the proper position of a Jurain servant.

As Yosho reminisced about the young man's initial shyness at being in the presence of the rightful, though Yosho would vehemently deny this, crown Prince of Jurai, the Shrine keeper felt his insides go cold. As if winter decided to creep up and hang over his back. There were three incidents in his life which felt like that. First was when he climbed a tree much too high for a boy of five, and he waited up in the branches for an hour before his father found him and helped him down. The second time was when he fought Ryoko on the fields of central Japan, oh so long ago... The third time was when he felt Tenchi nearly die.

Now, this coldness he was feeling, that many others were feeling on planets that stretched like a daisy chain all around the universe, caused Yosho's hands to tremor slightly; the cup of tea falling and shattering in silence on the well-swept stone. After this, the Jurain Prince regained his composure and stood, only hundreds of years of discipline prevented his knees from buckling.

Yosho left the tea cup's remnants on the ground, his sandal breaking another piece as he retreated back inside the Shrine office. There was work to be done. Great and terrible work.

***

"You ready, John?" Sheriff Lane Parker of Wilkinson County, North Carolina said to his deputy, John Udall.

John nodded tensely, beads of sweat pouring down his face.

"On three," Parker nodded. Udall nodded in response.

Parker counted, "one...two...three. NOW!"

The duo burst through the door with their revolvers drawn and as soon as they got a positive lock on a target, began unloading. The room they were in was small, the living room in a rural house. They had been called out here because of a 911 call with no one on the line, just dead air. The sight that greeted them as they beat down the front door was of a entire family of four zombies aimlessly wandering around the living room; one had just stumbled into a console TV and other looked like it had taken a nasty spill down the stairs, but they all turned towards Lane and John once they were in the door. The Sheriff and Deputy barely had time to barricade themselves in the kitchen before getting bitten.

After plugging each family member three time each (one in each eye and one in the forehead) Lane and John stopped for a long minute to catch their breath. "How many does this house make it?" Lane asked.

"Fifteen," John replied, neatly stepping over the spreading blood under the father zombie's head. He sat down in a chair and ran his hands through his hair.

Lane gently laid a hand on his friend's shoulder. In the past hour they had been from one side of the backwoods of the county to the other, investigating first a report of vandals in a mortuary, some pale psycho taking hostages in the Braintree hospital (although, the hostage taker just seemed intent on eating his "hostages" or making more hostage takers), and John had faced the death of his childhood friend, Ray Collum, the coroner. It was just after the hospital situation had been resolved, and Ray had been called in to do a post-mortem on an unfortunate young doctor. Ray didn't arrive, minutes later a Braintree police officer frantically radioed in that the entire deceased clientele at the county morgue was now...alive, but NOT like you or me, the officer had screamed.

"BBK-59, this is base, respond," Lane's radio hissed.

"Base this is BBK-59, gimme some good news Rachel," Lane's voice, normally thick with his southern drawl, sounded uncharacteristically nervous and thin.

"I called the Governor, like you asked..." she hesitated over the air. Lane frowned, "what did they say?"

"They didn't believe us, Lane!" she practically shouted, "the dickhead Assistant Chief of Staff also said he was going to see personally that he had my badge over this!"

Lane and John exchanged horrified, but understanding looks. John shook his head, running his hands through his hair again.

"Rachel...you get them on the phone again, and patch that shit-poke into the radio in the cruiser, "got it?"

"Got it, BBK-59," Rachel said, "base out."

John stood, "looks like a long day ahead of us," he sighed, feeling one hell of a migraine beginning.

"Looks like this is going to be an uphill battle, John," Lane patted his shoulder, "let's just try to keep it together as long as we can, right?"

John nodded. They left the room and the bloody corpses behind. As they went through the front door, their fatal error of not reloading and drawing their weapons became all too apparent as they were taken down by a group of six zombies emerging from the morning fog.

***

Warren drove for three hours north on US 77, crossing into Ohio. Feeling totally strung out, he pulled into a dingy motel, spent his last $20 out of $65 in his wallet, and sat himself down on the lumpy bed and tuned the TV to CNN. He would have to move quickly, his current assumption was that what had happened at the late Led's truckstop was possibly airborne and definitely transmitted through biting. He had heard nothing on the radio, and all the local chatter on the CB wrote his warning off as the ravings of some dope smoking hippie too far removed from the Ozarks. Hudson had tried to listen in to the law enforcement frequencies but couldn't hear anything. Either they were using a channel his CB didn't get, they were maintaining radio silence...or they weren't transmitting.

If it wasn't for the voice he had heard, Hudson would have been barreling north to Detroit, get out of the East to West winds that were blowing across the Appalachians and then find a fast way to get to Okayama...but it was time for him to pray. Warren closed the curtains, turned out the lights, found a place on the floor with just enough room, and prostrated himself.

"By the royal seal of those that I serve, Heaven to Earth, Earth to Ocean, Ocean back to Heaven. Tsunami, show me the path engraved by the Light!"

Warren Hudson found himself kneeling on a cool green patch of grass. Trees illuminated by their inner light were all around. It was warm, and he could hear a small waterfall nearby. He waited. "Arise, Warren," Tsunami spoke.

Hudson stood. "What are Your orders, Goddess?"

Tsunami raised her eyes to his. Her face was usually not much for expression whenever she communicated with him, but if he had any doubts about the severity of the zombie problem, or its source, they were dispelled now.

"She's coming," Warren stated.

"Yes." Tsunami nodded, a slight sympathetic smile playing across her features. "Your long wait is over, Knight of Jurai, return to serve the royal family."

Hudson bowed, "please inform Prince Yosho of my impending arrival."

"Do not worry, just come to us. We need you," there was a hint of desperation in her voice.

"Is there someone else at the Shrine now, too?"

This time, Tsunami smiled. A full, radiant smile that complemented her face, hair, and eyes wonderfully. "Yes, Warren. You'll have new responsibilities to them, and I'm sure they'll feel the same way towards you."

Almost immediately, tears began coursing down his face. "I'm...not going to be alone anymore?" Hudson had known this day would come eventually, but to be *there* was completely overpowering.

Tsunami approached him. Warren once again kneeled on the ground, eyes averted. Tsunami kneeled down and gave him a cradling type of hug. "Yes, faithful Knight of Jurai. Your sorrowful waiting is over," she said with all the sympathy the Goddess could feel.

After what seemed like an hour, Warren found himself back in the motel room. He dressed in clean clothes, used the bathroom, turned off everything, and left the room. He was going to catch a plane at the nearest airport. Fuck this avoiding the wind and shit. As he checked out, the clerk also had CNN on. There was a Breaking News alert about a hostage situation at a hospital in Connecticut.


***

The next day, in another part of the galaxy, in a vehicle very much unlike Warren Hudson's Challenger, Detective First Class Mitsuki of the Galaxy Police was doing her favorite activity: interrogation. The subject was Honataru Ortega, a gunrunner for the Shanarl crime family. The biggest source of criminal mischief in Sector G-56, Mitsuki's beat with her partner, Detective Third Class Rus Lamiz.

Ortega was just forcefully pulled out of one of Darlintus III's premier high-class brothels by Mitsuki and Lamiz, on an arrest warrant for assault with a deadly weapon on Anidarus, some two months earlier. Before taking Ortega into sector base for further questioning, Mitsuki had decided to see if some preliminary information could be extracted. So far, three hours and twelve different offers for Ortega to cop a plea and rat on the Shanarl later, Mitsuki's efforts were coming up fruitless.

"I say again," Ortega sneered from behind a humming force field, "I ain't talkin' until I see my lawyer." He was sitting defiantly in his small holding cell in the brig on Mitsuki's GP patrol ship, the Exeter.

"You aren't going to see your lawyer for a while, Honataru!" Mitsuki slammed her fist against the corridor. "So you might as well tell me everything I want to know, and I'll make sure you only do a ten year stretch on Lanaris instead of twenty." Mitsuki then remembered that Ortega was also wanted in Jurain space. "Or how would twenty to thirty years in a Jurain Tree prison sound to you?"

Ortega winced.

Lamiz had gotten bored with exchanges like this pretty quickly, and requested permission to go transmit the proper paper work regarding the arrest. Mitsuki had given permission. Truth be told, in Mitsuki's judgment, the young male Galaxy Police officer from Meltronia didn't seem to be cut out for interrogation or the type of competitive atmospheres and situations that Mitsuki had always thrived in going back to her Academy days. This is perhaps just as well, as Lamiz really despised Mitsuki's grandstanding, and repeatedly requested transfers.

"Detective," Ortega flashed his toothy smile at her for what seemed like the one hundredth time that hour, "I'm a small cloud in a big nebula, if you catch my meaning. You might as well just let me go."

"Oh that's rich, Ortega, real rich," Mitsuki howled in mocking catty laughter. Both at the offer and Orgeta's campy choice of words. She really was, depending on the listener, amazingly bad or deviously good.

"I can make it worth your while..." he smirked.

"Make it worth my while?" Mitsuki laughed more. Still as mocking and catty as ever.

Ortega simply smiled. Soundlessly, he mouthed the words: Garm Ric.

Mitsuki stopped dead. Garm Ric was the leader of the Puolas cartel; mainly high-fashion criminals associated with assassination, kidnapping plots, and other vicious activities. Just last week, a typical Puolas cartel activity had taken place on the edge of the sector on planet Wusten, where the planetary governor's family was held for a ransom totaling half of Wusten's GDP for that year. They paid it rather than watch the governor's family face a horrible end that would doubtless make it into the galactic snuff film market by the next day.

Last year's estimate by the Jurain Intelligence Bureau placed the Puolas cartel's net worth at 10% of the Jurain Kingdom's Gross Domestic Product from its economic heyday back some ten millennia ago. It was also widely suspected that cartel money was propping up several hostile planetary governments outside the Galactic Union and Jurain Kingdom.

If...if Mitsuki could nab Garm Ric, then the possibilities for advancement would be limitless. The rush of images invaded her imagination. First sector chief, then quadrant commander, a seat in the Marshall's cabinet, Vice-Marshall, and then Marshall. Abruptly, Mitsuki realized her breathing had quickened, she controlled herself, but Ortega noticed.

"You just have to let me go," Ortega said quietly, completely serious.

"...how will you deliver Garm?" Mitsuki found herself asking. Visions of her advancement still dancing enticingly in front of her mind's eye.

"I did some contract work for him," Ortega said, inadvertently confirming what Mitsuki had read in Ortega's Intelligence file just that morning. What's more, Mitsuki could tell that he honestly did not think she knew that. This only made the images of promotion, accolades, rank, and success more real to Mitsuki.

"It's a job that I got stiffed on payment," Ortega continued, confirming something else Intelligence had learned about him. "The Sharnal," he whispered with cold pride, "does not take well to someone breaking a contract." Which was also true, as Mitsuki knew a bit about Sharnal crime family honor. Thus, it was completely plausible that Ortega was telling the truth about delivering Garm Ric to her in exchange for only letting him go.

***

In Mineral Point, Wisconsin the problem got bad real fast with the help of a coroner and several doctors making bad guesses after a zombie was found wandering a cemetery. The zombie was captured long enough to be examined, however half-assed the examination was. This precipitated a disturbing and rapidly spreading rumor that the dead....ALL the dead were coming back to life. By the time Warren Hudson was calling his fifth airline in his ongoing search for plane tickets to Tokyo back in Ohio, the cemeteries of the tri-county area around Mineral Point were full of people digging up caskets and looking inside. To the horror of some, and the relief of others, every corpse was still dead. Even the recently buried ones.

The Mineral Point incident did prove, however, that the only dead bodies effected by what was happening were those that had been dead within the past three to six hours starting on October 9th.

***

"--look," Hudson said as calmly as possible into the phone, "I don't have a reservation, I want to buy a plane ticket to Tokyo...now I don't care how many connections I have to make I just want to leave from Columbus International as soon as possible," he stopped to listen to the American Airlines sales rep's reply.

"Try Cincinatti?" Warren asked, not quite believing it. The sales rep continued talking. "Hmmhmm, thanks a lot, bye!" Hudson hung up the pay phone, made a few notations on a piece of paper, and walked back to his car.

He was at a gas station, taking care of food and bathroom visits. Being as nervous as a rat on speed was starting to have an effect on him. That, and his constant looking back to make sure nothing was sneaking up on him. After having to sneak into a gas stations rest room to clean the blood from his clothes; Warren was deathly afraid of being pulled over for something he just couldn't explain away very well.

Morning had turned into afternoon on the day after the incident at Led's as he tried to find a fast way out of the country. If no one was heeding his warning, heh, then he wasn't about to stick around any longer than he had too. Warren Hudson, Knight of Jurai, would be of more use fighting at the side of Prince Yosho of Jurai and serving the First Tree-Ship of Jurai.

So far his efforts to find an available flight in the next twelve to twenty-four hours to the west coast were not going well. Five airlines he had called, and only the last one had offered him any hope. If he hurried, that is. It was just past noon, and he had to drive across the entire length of the state in four hours to claim a possible extra ticket on a 6:00PM flight to San Francisco.

'You've made longer drives on shorter timetables than this,' he told himself as he pulled out of the gas station.

Warren was one minute out of sensing range of three zombies that were ambling out of the woods behind the gas station. Score: 1 zombie dead from the twelve gauge shotgun the clerk kept under the counter, 1 eaten convenience store clerk, and 2 new zombies.

***

Here follows an Associated Press story released to wire services at 2:39PM EST on October 10th, 1995:

Fire at Dover Air Force Base
By Alex Kerrigan.

AP-DOVER. Officials at the Dover Air Force base are reporting a minor fire has broken out in an abandoned hanger. Base Commander Lewis Drake released a statement that the situation is in hand and that outside help is not needed but appreciated. Drake also went on to explain that for the time being the base would be closed to anyone entering or leaving. Base operations are expected to be nominal at around 7:00PM EST.


***

As the day marched on around the world, the first cases of zombism showed up across Canada and southern Mexico. By the late night the United Kingdom and Spain were getting into the act and just before midnight in Kenya and Brazil.

And so on.

***

Washu Hakubi, the Greatest Scientific Genius In the Universe, was sitting on her red plush, suspended cushions intent on five different holo displays in front of her. Each display had up to six different experiments being run on it. Washu was adjusting, monitoring, and recording all. She had been at this for the past three days straight, on one of her usual winning streaks. Weeks when she felt like she could usher in a new age of scientific discovery with just an afternoon's work. Days when the only things she needed to sustain herself were some snacks and the feel of the holo-top under her fingers. This, oh my friends, was one of those days. One of those glorious days in what was shaping up to be a very productive week for Washu Hakubi.

Washu grinned; a small content grin as she worked. Times like this everything seemed to melt away from her. Like she was floating throughout the multiverse making things happen. The red-haired scientist was about to start another thirty or so experiments when she heard the door to her laboratory slam open.

Washu jumped. No one had ever entered without knocking, with the exception of Mihoshi.

Fortunately, Yosho yelled as he stalked into the lab. "Washu, I must speak with you!"

"Ah," Washu tried to collect her thoughts for a millisecond, "ah yes, yes! Why are you barging in here, Yosho? Why if I was your Momma I'd--"

Washu feel silent as the taller man's glasses glinted down at Washu. "What...Is something wrong, Yosho?"

Yosho let out his first breath since entering the lab. No one had seen him silently run into the house and into the door under the stairs. "Washu..." he breathed, "I need you to run an orbital scan."

Washu blinked, "for what?"

Yosho took a deep breath, thinking, "I believe if we find something on one of the lower EM radiation bands, either much higher or lower than usual, we'll know where to begin."

"You're frightened, Yosho," Washu said, "I can see that. What's going on?"

Yosho frowned, trying to regain some of his stern composure. "I...pray to Tsunami nothing is going on. But we *must* be sure."

Washu nodded, not pressing the issue further. "All righty, let's get this show on the road," she began clacking away on her holo-top, she casted a side-long glance at Yosho, "the lower EM radiation bands, old man? All of them?"

Yosho nodded.

Washu sighed, "it might take a while, that's all."

"I have faith in you, Little Washu," Yosho said looking into her eyes.

Washu smiled at him as she began entering new parameters. "Yeah, I just hope you feel the same way a week from now when the scan is done."

Yosho face-faulted.

Washu shrugged, "what? The lower EM radiation bands aren't just a million or so. We're dealing with literally trillions, old man! And since I'm checking for simply *everything*, it's going to take a bit of time, mmkay?"

"Yes, I suppose you're right," Yosho cursed himself for not being more exact.

"Mind telling now me *why* I'm doing this?" Washu asked.

Yosho gazed at the fabricated stars above Washu's main lab/living room. "Ice and darkness..." he shuddered. "I've been trying Funaho's sensors, but I believe her slow deterioration is finally effecting that system."

Washu saw Yosho shuddering, marked it for future reference. "All right, Yosho. Just leave me alone and tell Sasami to place my meals inside the door. No interruptions, got it? When I have something you'll be the first to know."

Yosho nodded for a moment, before remembering a dream he had last night. "There will be someone else arriving here in the very near future."

"Eh?" Washu asked. "'Someone else,' you say?"

The old man allowed himself a thin smile of nostalgia. "Yes. An old friend."

Washu only shrugged. "All right, always room for one more in the house, I guess. Now go," Washu pointed vaguely back to the door.

Yosho bowed in deep respect and gratitude, which elicited a tiny smirk from Washu. The older Jurain Prince left the lab and Washu set about her work. It wasn't long before she began to wonder if her lab's temperature regulators weren't working properly. It seemed there was a slight chill in the air. But Washu ignored this and just kept on working.

***

"Detective," Lamiz glanced over his shoulder as his superior entered the cockpit as he sat in the co-pilot's seat.

"Report," Mitsuki sat down in the pilot's seat.

"I've sent the proper files to HQ, and have received instructions to drop his ass off at Usarian Four," he disinterestedly began perusing the flit-ball scores.

"Good," Mitsuki said, beginning procedures to break out of orbit. "We're getting out of here as soon as we get clearance from Darlintus station."

"Roger," Lamiz answered, he started to check systems and warm up the engine core on mental autopilot.

The Exeter got all the proper clearances, and just as it left orbit, a loud explosion shook the entire GP patrol ship. Klaxons and various alarms sounded that were only heard in testing inspections. "What was that?!" Mitsuki shouted over her ship's wail.

Lamiz hands flew over his console, his face contorted in amazement, then anger, and then finally frustration. "An explosion in a DF-49P conduit near the brig," he looked at Mitsuki, "we have a hull breach on deck two, and no power in the cargo hold. From what's left of the brig sensors, it appears that Ortega has beamed out and left us a parting gift."

Mitsuki did a quick multi-phasic scan of the surrounding area. An expression of cold anger and grim admiration filled the features of the redhead with the cropped hair. "That cunning son of a bitch..."

Lamiz looked down as he worked to bring auxiliary systems online. "I've heard of a new type of transponder that can be fashioned into a false tooth--"

Mitsuki smacked her console hard. "Goddamnit!"

"--which we didn't scan anyway," he checked out the transporter logs with an expression of even more amazement. "It looks like he sent a signal to our transporter which initiated a site-to-site transport--" Lamiz grinned wolfishly, "let's see..." he frowned, "no, the computer archive has been damaged pretty bad. No doubt intentional, I doubt we'll ever find out where he beamed too. Not that it matters, anyway."

Mitsuki worked her console some more, looking at displays of the brig region. "Probably a pressure bomb he beamed in right after he beamed out."

Lamiz sulked in his seat, saying nothing.

Mitsuki sighed, closed her eyes. She wagged her finger at Lamiz, "at least we know now to check out a prisoner's teeth and raise the shields while transporting them."

"Can't wait to see Gyhenkall's face when he reads the report," Lamiz shook his head.

Mitsuki opened her eyes. "I only hope he doesn't call an Internal Affairs inquiry on us," she stood, "inform Darlintus station we'll be returning for repairs. I'll be checking things out, and then try and write the report."

"Aye, Detective," Lamiz said, as Mitsuki left the cockpit.

***

"Tenchi," Nobuyuki Masaki said after he swallowed another bite of his dinner, "is Washu not coming to dinner?"

Tenchi shared a look with Ryoko sitting next to him, "she says she's working on a very important experiment at the moment, Dad."

"Still," Nobuyuki frowned, "it's not too often I get home early enough to have dinner with the whole family."

Ayeka finished a sip of tea, "if you would like, Lord Nobuyuki," she offered, "I would be happy to retrieve Ms. Washu from the lab."

Ryoko looked up from her dinner, caught Ayeka's attention and gave a slow negative shake of her head. "She'll come out when she's ready, Princess, you'd only be annoying her."

Ayeka nodded quietly. If anyone would know, it would be Ryoko.

"Come to think of it," Nobuyuki hummed, "how often *does* Dad come down from the Shrine office to eat, anyway?"

Sasami piped up in a small voice, "Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, mostly."

Nobuyuki frowned again. That day was Friday, October 15th. "I'd hate to think that he wasn't eating right, does he seem to have any health problems lately?"

"Come on, Dad." Tenchi gave him a look.

Nobuyuki quickly realized the foolishness of his question, nodded, and returned to his meal. For a moment, the chatter around the dinner table resumed its normal pattern. Or rather, everyone was attempting their normal dinner time conversations.

"Dad?" Tenchi ventured.

"What is it, son?" Nobuyuki smiled.

"Any possibility you'll be home more next week?" Tenchi asked, not even remotely sure why.

Nobuyuki sighed, remembering the past week. One of his "hell weeks," as they were called at the office. "I don't know, Tenchi. We have so many deadlines and almost a quarter of my team is AWOL and another quarter are sick from everything ranging from simple accidents to bizarre diseases I've never heard of."

Kiyone, sitting next to Mihoshi and Nobuyuki; concerned at Nobuyuki's completely drained tone, asked: "You mean you're *still* doing the same work as a full team?"

Mihoshi, just having eaten an entire bowel of rice, was also concerned. "You shouldn't wear yourself out like that, honorable father," she smiled, "I got an idea! Me and Kiyone can go in with you next week and help out!"

Kiyone's eye twitched a bit. "Um, Mihoshi...wouldn't it just be easier, and more efficient to just track down the AWOL team members?" The teal-haired GP detective's expression brightened, "or for a certain father here to tell his clients they're just going to have to wait a little while longer?" she gave Nobuyuki a slight nudge with her elbow.

"I know, girls, I know," Nobuyuki nodded, his hands raised slightly, his familiar smile on his face.

Everyone at the table laughed a little at this, all except for Sasami. "What else is troubling you, father?" she asked in small voice.

Nobuyuki stopped cold, as did everyone else at the table. For a moment, silence reigned in the Masaki house. The sounds of crickets were faintly audible from outside. Finally, after Kiyone put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, the Masaki father spoke in a voice not much bigger than Sasami's. "I...was watching the clock all day until I could go home," he sighed, trying to calm himself, "this morning I had considered doing overtime, an hour or two, but I was afraid that if I didn't get out of town, onto the train, that I would never leave Tokyo." He stopped, seemingly unwilling to go further.

Ryoko, leveling a golden eyed stare at him, prompted: "What happened, Nobuyuki?"

Nobuyuki looked around the room at his family, feeling their strength, but missing Washu and his father-in-law's presence and guidance. "Ugly rumors, mostly," he remembered over the past week or so. "It wasn't just the workload, my team either getting sick, playing hokey, or falling off the face of the Earth, it was what I would hear from my employees *at* work, or things I overheard while getting a beef-bowl."

"When Ms. Ryoko and I went shopping in town three days ago," Ayeka remembered, "there were no police officers anywhere in Okayama."

"Yes," Nobuyuki nodded, "that's one of the things," he clenched his fists, "I have an employee at work named Shimazaki, and she had a friend whose father passed away four days ago. Shimazaki told me that her friend's family are Christians, and they wanted their father to be buried."

Nobuyuki shook his head, as if trying to shake out of a bad dream. "One day after work Shimazaki gets a call from her friend saying that the hospital officials, along with some men who seemed to be from some civil service branch, tried every which way to persuade her family to have their father cremated."

Silence hung over the once happy dinner table. "Why?" Ryoko asked, "why would that be so important over the family's wishes?"

The middle-aged father exhaled sharply, shaking his head. "I have no idea, Ryoko. But as things turned out, the family insisted on burial and the officials pointblank refused."

"So the body was burned," Ayeka mused with a slight shudder. It was so different from the Jurain burial rite of internment under a sapling in one of the many orchards of Tsunami.

"Yes," Nobuyuki seemed to be trying hard not to throw his half-eaten dinner back up, "but Shimazaki's friend had a minute alone with the body, which was in a body bag...the doctors had told her NOT to look inside at her father..."

Tenchi closed his eyes and held his head in his hands.

"Sasami," Ayeka started, "I think--"

"No, Ayeka," Sasami looked up at her older sister sitting beside her. Ayeka did not challenge this.

"This poor young woman opened the body bag to find her father with a bullet hole in his head," Nobuyuki shook slightly. "When the officials and doctors came back in, they simply ushered her out of the room," he looked around the table, "what was she to do? It's not like he was *killed* by the gunshot, he died that night in his sleep at home. She was there!"

Everyone at the table just sat there stunned at this story.

Nobuyuki continued, "since I heard that story from Shimazaki I've been piecing together other rumors I've heard. There's one about the Self Defense Force boys digging a hug ditch on one of the reclaimed lots out in Tokyo Bay, there's the one where all the kids with computers connected to that Internet thing talk to their friends in Europe or the United States; where they have a weird new disease called 'Slack Neck.'" He sighed, just barely holding back tears, "and I heard from a friend who is designing some buildings for the department of Waste Management," a tear slipped down his cheek, "he was out there yesterday and some SDF men were adjusting the large furnaces where garbage is usually burned."

At the point Tenchi remembered an Oingo Boingo BBS posting he had read just that afternoon from a poster in Toronto, asking if anyone had heard anything about a phenomenon out in the rural areas with, what some American Midwestern wit termed, "Hood-smashers."

Nobuyuki continued after taking a long sip of beer. "There seems to be a lot of people missing lately, if you ask me. It's not just my office, it's almost *every* business establishment I went into, or ate in this week. And all these news reports and announcements from the government to stay away from suspicious looking drunks and sick people..." he shook his head, and was silent for a moment. "I didn't really think much about it until I saw someone walking like they were drunk just outside of town. I didn't stop the car, and a police car was going in the opposite direction towards them with sirens blaring."

Ayeka stood up, "well, I think it is high time we gather Ms. Washu and big brother together."

"I agree," Tenchi also stood up, "until we know more we should all be careful."

Ryouko floated herself to a standing position. "I guess this is what we get for not checking up on Earth news."

"It wouldn't matter if you did," Nobuyuki sighed, "not now, anyway. No mention on any of the big news channels, or on the radio. Newspapers hardly had anything in them either, besides larger obituary sections."

"No matter," Ayeka walked around the corner into the living room where Washu's door was. Ayeka's light knock was heard, "Ms. Washu? We need--AH!" the door was heard opening really fast.

Both Tenchi and Ryoko went around the corner to find Ayeka smushed against the wall behind the door while Washu and Yosho stood in the doorway trying to catch their breath. Yosho recovered first, "Ayeka?" he let the door swing back and the Crown Princess of Jurai gently swept herself off, "I'm all right, I'm all right," she answered to everyone.

"Washu, Old man," Ryoko nodded to each, "I suspect you know what Ayeka was coming to get you for."

"I believe we may have an idea," Yosho adjusted his glasses.

Washu gazed up at her daughter, "is everyone here?"

Ryoko nodded.

"Good."

***

But she couldn't do this, her conscience had screamed at her. She was a Galaxy Police officer, to let one criminal go in order to get a bigger, worst criminal was not right. As if in a torrent, examples flooded Mitsuki's memory of plea-bargains or immunity deals that, in essence, weren't a lot different than what Ortega was proposing. It's all just a question of either going through proper channels or going it alone and reaping the rewards of glory. Mitsuki knew that many GP's, of the Detective Kiyone Makibi vintage, would find fault with what she was doing.

Thoughts that like this assailed Mitsuki as she went through the rest of her day. And yet, as she stood in front of the mirror in her quarter's that night, all she could remember is her telling Ortega that she would do it. She then used her secret password to shut down sensors, and substitute completely fabricated logs so that if Lamiz checked on her, he wouldn't see anything out of the ordinary, and planted a small untraceable explosive in the conduit. From there, all she had to do was go back to the cockpit and act surprised.

Mitsuki loved computers, even though she never let anyone know about it. In fact, she purposefully did lackluster in her Programming classes at the Academy and hid all of the books she had read on the subject. Then there was her purposefully bad tests in her Explosives courses to cover up her fondness for small, almost undetectable, and ultimately untraceable hand grenades and thermal detonators. These things sustained her, and as she laid in her bunk at night she would tell herself that nothing brought about promotions quicker than unexpected skills.

But as she soon discovered in the Academy, some people got opportunities by proving themselves "by the book" while others didn't. Some cadets, like a certain teal haired one in Mitsuki's past, proved the old axiom that hard work and diligence paid off, but not for Mitsuki. For Mitsuki, it wasn't enough to simply do your best for something you dearly wanted and only *hoped* would happen, you had to do everything in your power to *make* it happen.

It so happened that Mitsuki enjoyed casual sex a lot. Despite her starting sexual activity later than normal for females from her planet, she got along quite well and found it easy, especially, to give head. Mitsuki was also bisexual, a point which helped her out later.

In her freshmen year, she found out that her efforts to get an A in Galactic Pre-Law were hampered by a 85 she got on a test. It simply did not fit in Mitsuki's plan to get a B+ in Galactic Pre-Law, no sir it did not. To her surprise, she found that it wasn't too hard to approach her instructor about it, her to get his assurance that she would have an A if she treated him right. And she did, right there in his office one afternoon. Mitsuki sucked for all she was worth, and obediently swallowed every drop of his semen without one twinge of shame because she had what it took to succeed by any means necessary.

Where hard work and playing by the rules fell short for Mitsuki there was always a hardened cock, or engorged clit of a professor or a superior to make her dreams advance one step further. "Anyone talking to you about dignity is obviously trying to make their pathetic lives seem better by comparison," she once wrote in her diary. In that respect, it is certain that no one in the Galaxy Police Academy class of Galactic Standard Year 4695 could ever compete with Mitsuki when it came to commitment or drive to achieve.

While it was work a lot of the times, Mitsuki sometimes had partners that actually cared a bit about her pleasure, or wanted more than a mere academic/career business transaction. These instructors and superiors often times filled a void in her life as a type of boyfriend/girlfriend. Often times...but there were still necessary times when Mitsuki didn't go out with her friends, or pulled extra duty and study time to cover up her extra activities. She was the best teacher's pet in the quadrant, you could say. Always trying her best, always chipper, always ingratiating, and always overachieving according to her plan.

Around her senior year, Mitsuki quite correctly suspected that her friends and enemies through the process of deduction had figured out her willingness to help out instructors. Not that she scared, in fact she felt a sort of relief of not having to worry about hiding it so. The only casualty caused by this was the friendship of Kiyone Makibi.

Mitsuki sighed, getting ready for bed. Kiyone had taken Mitsuki's admission of fucking her way on to the Commandant's Honor List so much worse than she had expected. Could Kiyone not see that Mitsuki only wanted to be the best Galaxy Police officer there was? That she cared about that so much that she would do anything?

"To hell with them," Mitsuki grumbled as she went to bed, "to hell with them all." She'll look back at all this when she's the Marshall with a wonderful husband and family and laugh at everything Kiyone had said in those days about integrity. Letting Honataru Ortega beam off the Exeter and planting that bomb to cover it up was just another step in the plan. She slept that night, dreams of sector command and higher stations merrily colliding together with two other dreams. One of a beautiful women with a painted face and cold eyes reaching her hand out to her; a man was walking towards her. The other dream was of a little girl with green hair giving her the same look that Kiyone gave her that day years ago; behind the little girl stood a young woman of similar features. Those eyes were full of pity, and eventhough there was no speaking Mitsuki knew that they wanted her to confess her wrongdoing.

That night, Lamiz checking out the cell that Ortega had inhabited found Honataru's fingerprints against the walls of the cell next to the force field, and Mitsuki's on the opposite side of the force field wall. This was contrary to Mitsuki's habit of standing back at full posture during interrogation. Lamiz opened a new file that night, a grin on his face just as a subspace message was received ordering the Exeter to Orphalis II to assist in a "situation." Orphalis was a planet known primarily for its people's teal hair and devout religion with elaborate burial practices.

***

Ezekiel Hayes, the champion of the Dark Lady, Lady Tokimi, was standing above the planet Earth. Despite his human features and lack of pressure suit, he was not bothered in the least by the fact that he was standing in what could be called, in scientific terms, a geosyncronist orbit above the Northern Hemisphere. Europe had just passed by below him, with the vast expanse of Asia now making progress under his boot heels. Ezekiel, often called in his former life Zeke, or oftentimes just Z, thought with a smile that if he so desired he could just drop down from the sky onto Kazakhstan like some sort of obscene messiah.

But he did not so desire, not now anyway. Now and again since his mission from his Dark Lady begin, he would oftentimes return to his planet of birth to look in on things. Just on October 8th he was in Bosnia, making sure a vital part of the early plan was followed through to the letter. The vital part, as his Lady explained to him, was for enough people to die in a certain way, arrive at a certain place, in a certain condition and at a certain time.

It had been very easy to set the barracks afire, all he had to do was close his eyes, call upon his Lady, and just like a gas grill roasting wieners at Yankee Stadium did the building kindle and burn. As per Tokimi's instructions, the people did not die of burns, but violent smoke inhalation and suffocation. A burned body did not move particularly well, nor have all its faculties ready when the time came. Ezekiel did his job well, remembering the reward of his Lady's cold kiss.

That is not to say that Ezekiel had his attentions and cold smile faced down on Earth alone. Since the days leading up to the zombie epidemic, he had visited at least one thousand different planets in five different galaxies. In particular the Milkey Way galaxy, he visited just over one hundred planets in the Jurain Kingdom, Galactic Union, Norforst Confederacy, Hus Empire, and numerous other unaffiliated planets, all the while spreading the grim joy of the greatest religious conversion tool ever devised since the days of the early Catholic Church on Earth, or the Order of Falfalis on a little known planet classified as FD-#5369 in the Galaxy Police database. Little known because the planet's population destroyed itself in the resultant conflict.

Ezekiel chuckled at these little examples. Some people didn't know when to quit.

Back on Earth since he left (the date was now October 15th) there was now a confirmed worldwide death toll of 98,459. So far the problem had not exploded and the general populous was dismissing anything they did not see with their own eyes, or heard from their goddess-damned silly news sources as being (Ezekiel's favorite expression from his childhood), "bullshit and B-flat."

But things were becoming harder and harder for the higher-ups in the industrialized nations of the world to ignore. It was one thing to dismiss a few isolated reports and incidents as simple mass hysteria in highly localized rural populations, but when a governor of a state or province had to face the reality that over half of his police forces and medical rescue forces were either dead or unaccounted for, something had to give.

And give it would, Ezekiel smiled thinly in the vacuum, the cranes and buzzards were all coming home to roost very soon on Earth and oh so many other planets, moons, asteroids, and space colonies across the universe. When they did, Ezekiel would be there to rally together those that were already on the side of the Dark Lady. Often times he would look inward and forward, trying to see what the future held for himself, Tokimi, and all that followed her. Ezekiel saw not only Earth faces amongst their ranks, but people from all the species and races on all the planets in the galaxy.

Ezekiel smirked, so happy he felt like singing. Seeing no reason not to, he did:

"When you hear the music you make a dip
Into someone else's pocket then make a slip
Steal a car and go to Las Vegas oh,
the gigolo pool.
Hanging out by the state line
Turning Holy Water into wine
Drinking it down oh,
I'm on a bus on a psychedelic trip
Reading murder books tryin' to stay hip.
I'm thinkin' of you you're out there so
Say your prayers.
Say your prayers.
Say your prayers."

Tokimi always smiled when he did things like this, smiles were so rare on her face that he tried to bring one to it whenever he could. A smile that would make everyone afraid except for him and those in the Dark Lady's confidence. Ezekiel smiled broadly at the slowly passing Asian continent, today's work and his singing a little Billy Idol ought to have pleased his Dark Lady.

***

In his life, Warren Hudson had had his share of bad weeks, but as he sat in front of an intersection in Youngstown, Ohio waiting for the light to change, he felt this week took the prize. Every time he thought that after damn near a week he was STILL in Ohio he wanted to scream or cry. From one major and nearly major airport he went from one side of the state to another chasing flights out to the west coast. He had blown his best chance in Cincinatti by a traffic jam which caused him to lose 45 minutes. It had been downhill from there with him being drawn all the way around the state like a goat by a carrot being dangling in front of him.

No...wait, goat and carrot don't quite go together, do they? Warren couldn't tell why. In fact, he couldn't tell much of anything anymore. Here he was, fifth car in an intersection traffic jam some one hundred cars deep on all sides and growing. The light was red, but for the past fifteen minutes it hadn't changed. For the first ten minutes all the drivers had remained calm until the first car's horn was hit in frustration, now the entire jam was full of beeping and people cursing to no one in particular.

Just then on Warren's right he noticed some cars leaving the road and driving through the ditches to their destinations if they were turning right. The same thing was happening on his left. In Hudson's judgment it was only a matter of time before a crash occurred.

For probably the thousandth time, he looked up at the red light. He was just in time to see it change. To a blinking yellow. "Great," he said to himself, "now we can attempt civilized four-way stop sign turns until we all crash into one another."

Which did happened, on the first set of cars going across or making a left or right, much sooner than Warren expected. And there he was, with a minor traffic accident in front of him. He got out and asked if they needed any help, as he had a CB communicator.

The two drivers thanked him and soon they were on the side of the road, watching the busy intersection function in a really craptacular fashion. The two drivers were a middle-aged office worker, Marge Kimble, and a young pizza delivery named Jack Dammers. Warren felt pretty at ease with them, sitting on the side of the road, considering they were all pretty damned stressed out.

Hudson sat in his car with the driver's side door open as he tried to make contact with someone on the police band. Finally after a few minutes of static and garbled communications, he got something:

"--get back and stay down, Unit 11."

"Base, they're still comin'!"

"Vic, can you get out of there?"

"Fuck no, Base, there must be thirty in front of me, and fifty coming up the hill in back of me! I'm down to my last magazine!"

Dammers and Kimble traded horrified looks at each other. Hudson looked down, and shook his head slowly.

The police exchange went on:

"Vic, Mitch and Harry will be there any second, just hold--"

"Base, I'm not going to let them get me like they got Marcus."

"Vic! What the fuck do you mean by that?! VIC?!"

"Tell Elizabeth good-bye, Sam."

"Unit 11, respond! RESPOND!!!"

Ten seconds of static.

"Ah, Base this is Unit 5 now approaching Rochshire Downs. We can see Vic's patrol car, but all we see is at least a hundred of the fuckers congregating around it....oh Jesus. Oh Jesus! There's Vic walking around just like one of them!"

"Unit 5, get out of there now!"

"Roger base, over and out."

Hudson felt a slow, dull headache begin. He looked up at Marge and Jack, "you still want to try and get a policeman out here?"

Jack shook his head. "Naw, man. I better just get home."

"Me too," Marge seemed about to be sick, "thank you, sir." With that, the two immediately ran back to their cars, which still could drive, and sped off for points unknown leaving Hudson alone. He didn't even get a chance to shout be careful at them.

Warren looked up at the sky, dark gray as late afternoon started to turn into evening. It was getting cold, Warren made a mental note to get a jacket out of his duffel bag later. But another more pressing problem began to weigh more heavily on his mind. He had not slept since the night before his first encounter with the zombie problem. Things like this happened to him a lot when he became preoccupied with something, his body would burn every last ounce of energy keeping him going like a rat on smack. In this situation, it really wasn't his fault as he was lured from one place to another frantically trying to leave the country.

Hudson gazed around him at the amount of cars. It was too late. Too late. If he was going to get back to Okayama, he would have to do it by some other means than air travel. The question was... "The question is," Warren closed his eyes, needing rest but forcing himself not to fall asleep, "what is the best route?"

"Warren."

Hudson looked around, afraid his mind was finally fucked because of exhaustion. Then he glanced around real quick for zombies. Finding none his eyes wandered over to his driver's side mirror. Tsunami's lovely face was there.

"I'm trying, Tsunami. But I seem to be having a really bad week over in the good old USA, same as with all your other children here," Warren's head lolled forward, he snapped it back up again.

"Warren, I've told you about wearing yourself out," her mirror reflection frowned, "you need rest."

Almost as if on cue, Warren burst into tears of exhaustion and frustration. "Why can't I get out of here, Goddess?" he asked, desperate.

Tsunami shook her head, "something tells me you need to be there when the time comes."

Warren gazed at the reflection of the Supreme Being in the small mirror. "All right, Goddess...please tell me what to do, because I really have no idea where to begin."

Tsunami's face became stern. "That's somewhat due to your working yourself to exhaustion, Warren."

"I'm sorry," Warren's slumped forward again, dragged himself back to an upright position.

"First thing's first, Knight of Jurai, you *must* rest," Tsunami commanded.

Hudson's eyes looked around the intersection, about a quarter of a mile up the road he could see a motel sign. Two story brick construction, cheap but not too shitty, along with steep stairs that he hoped would prevent zombies from coming up them. "Yeah, that place over there looks okay."

"Then go," Tsunami smiled, "you have enough strength to get you there...but only just barely," her reflection closed her eyes briefly, "I so wish I could just pluck you up and set you down somewhere, Warren..."

"No need for apologies, Goddess," Warren smiled, yawned. Site to site divine transportations were out of the question for the Ship of Jurai. Hell, the only way up to Tsunami was by way of Funaho or the Master Key. Suddenly, a wry thought entered Warren's mind. "I guess I chose a hell of a time to try and do some fall mining work in the great coal mines of West Virginia, didn't I?"

"We all make mistakes, Warren. Even I," Tsunami sighed. "I'll talk to you when you get your room, be sure to fortify it as much as you can!" she warned.

"I will, Tsunami." With that, the reflection of the Goddess faded from his driver's side mirror.

***

"All right," Washu said, motioning to a type of interactive holographic projection of the planet Earth. Various points and flags of reference blinked on and off in the Masaki living room. Typically for a presentation like this all the lights would be out but no one felt any urge to do so tonight. "This is obviously Earth," Washu indicated the blue sphere with a small laser pointer with a crab emblem on it. "Starting one week ago, the entire surface of this planet has been bombarded with class VIII Solanic radiation bursts in an amount that I have never observed before here, or anywhere else in the universe."

"Okay," Ryoko said a little impatiently, "how does this tie in with what Nobuyuki just finished telling us before you two ran back up here?"

"It's simple, Ryoko," Yosho pushed up his glasses, "after some experimentation myself and Professor Washu have determined exactly what effect these radiation bursts are having."

Tenchi raised his hand.

"Yes, Tenchi?" Washu asked, she seemed tired.

"Washu, just tell us what's going on," Tenchi seemed even more tired.

"Yes..." Washu nodded, "time is of the essence," she tapped the planet Earth hologram right on the eastern seaboard of the United States. The hologram zoomed into a detailed topographical map of the area between Maine and Florida. "I am about to show you one of my scans of this area."

A holographic display popped into existence above the state of Pennsylvania. It was filled with static and strange popping noises.

"...um, Ms. Washu?" Mihoshi asked.

"Yes, Mihoshi," Washu nodded her head sadly, "those are my scans."

"So the radiation disrupts scanning?" Ayeka ventured cautiously.

"Not just that, sister," Yosho pointed to the screen. "When I first came to Professor Washu a week ago I had just operated some of Funaho's scanning capabilities, I got less of the same with Funaho's faltering sensors--"

"--but that means the radiation disrupts Jurai power as well?" Ayeka finished, almost whispering.

Yosho nodded sadly.

Sasami shifted somewhat uncomfortably on the couch. "Funaho couldn't tell you anything, big brother?"

"Her scanners and systems could yield no more information than Washu's, as it turned out," Yosho took a seat beside his youngest sister, giving her a reassuring hug.

Kiyone stood, "then that leaves Yagami's sensors--"

"Kiyone," Washu said firmly, "sit down and wait until I finish."

The teal-haired GP detective reluctantly sat down.

Washu took a deep breath, her child form was tired. After this she would probably collapse right on the couch and sleep for a day or so. "Yagami's sensors would do no better," Washu sighed, "beyond basic life-form readings and communications, because the radiation bursts have somehow totally disrupted *all* dimensional activity on this planet. And I strongly suspect other planets have the same problem as well."

Stunned silence filled the room except for Mihoshi munching on a cookie.

"You mean to tell us," Tenchi said slowly, "that if you wanted to open a portal from one side of Japan to the other--"

"The tunnel across dimensional space would not form," Washu finished.

"Uh," Nobuyuki raised his hand, "how does this relate to all the weird things that have been going on, exactly?"

"I've been trying to find out by such inefficient and primitive means as eavesdropping on radio and other transmissions," Washu chuckled without humor, "so far it looks like half the galaxy is trying to keep a big secret from the other half, and even itself."

Yosho silently nodded at this. Sasami gazed at the hologram for a minute. She stood, clasped her hands in front of her:

"Of all the things that hell hath wrought,
of all the souls that it has bought,
It seems that hell cannot hold anymore,
so the dead haunt the living once more."

Silence, black silence. As if the secret fear that everyone sitting there, a fear so secret they themselves had convinced themselves it could not be, was laid out on the coffee table where Ayeka usually did her knitting.

Washu sighed, "I don't have absolute proof yet, but my simulations suggest that these radiations particles could collect in the part of the human and Jurain brain that controls instinct...perhaps adversely effected by the type of neuro-electric bursts that fire in the hours immediately following death. If this is the case, then it is safe to assume it would affect other humanoids as well."

"Oh...my," Mihoshi dropped her half-eaten cookie, her hands on her face.

"Kami-sama..." Tenchi breathed, putting all the scraps of information together into something that fit all the available facts.

Nobuyuki wept into his hands.

"I think," Ayeka said hesitantly, "that until Ms. Washu figures out what is wrong, that no one go anywhere without someone with them. This includes sleeping arrangements."

Ryoko laughed drly, "that suits us just fine, doesn't it, Tenchi?" from her tone it was clear she was just trying to introduce a little levity into a rapidly worsening situation. The gesture was appreciated but no one laughed, except for Tenchi in his usual nervous manner. With that it was agreed to with the caveat, proposed by Ayeka, that Tenchi and Ryoko would sleep in Ayeka and Sasami's room. Kiyone and Mihoshi immediately left to the Yagami to see if they could find out anything by calling Galaxy Police HQ.

***

As October 15th melted into the 16th, the middle echelon brass of the US military was trying its best to convince the top brass that the zombie problem could be easily contained with simple, logical, and common sense measures that had been effectively implemented on the base in Dover where the problem showed up early on October 9th, and in several bases scattered across the South, Midwest, and Pacific Northwest. The middle echelon effectively argued that the situation was only getting more and more out of hand with each passing hour the boys at the top (on up to the Joint Chiefs and the President himself) continually listened to the ignorant happy horse shit the media was pumping out.

When it came to the media's ignorant happy horse shit, while most local radio stations where pretty good with acknowledging the situation as it became apparent, as you went up the ladder of importance mentions of the zombie problem diminished. On national news and cable news nary a word was uttered because of several decisions being made in areas that ranged from local program directors, copy editors, executives and finally the newscasters themselves. These decisions ranged from honest belief that it was a hoax, inconclusive reports, no reports at all, and a general feeling that whoever reported such a thing first will damage their careers instead of furthering them.

As one news anchor at CBS said, "I'll be goddamned if I'm going to be the one to say the dead are coming back to life and then get laughed at."

This attitude was alarmingly present in state governors and attorney generals, as well. But by 8:10 PM EST one governor had decided that he had had enough. Governor David Glendale, R-NH was a three term holdover from the Barry Goldwater generation of GOP politics. His no-nonsense style had carried him from being a Nashua State Representative through the primary and finally into the Governor's mansion, and it would serve him well once again as he called a press conference for 8:30 PM. Here follows a 100% verbatim transcript of the relevant portions of the press conference.

Gov. Glendale: "My fellow citizens of the state of New Hampshire, a great calamity has befallen not only us as a state, but as a nation, and I suspect maybe the entire world. I am ashamed to admit that this situation was only brought to my attention just this morning at around 7:00AM when I discovered that the Manchester chief of police, George Desmond, was killed in action against a mob of flesh-eating reanimated corpses."

the entire press seemed completely agast at this, no pictures were taken until Glendale started speaking again

Gov. Glendale: "You heard me. Zombies are now wandering all over the state, and I have good, reliable reports of them in Vermont, upstate New York, and Massachusetts. The reason I have called this press conference tonight is to say that the state of New Hampshire acknowledges this epidemic of zombism and is doing everything it can to control it within its borders. It is my hope that my actions here tonight and in the days to come will force the news media, the military, my fellow Governors, and the President himself to take action."

questions are shouted at Glendale

Gov. Glendale: "Please...PLEASE! Wait until I'm finished! Then you shitheads can pick this apart and make me sound and look like I'm crazy. But...you know what? I'll take that chance. I am hereby under the powers granted to me by the Constitution of the state of New Hampshire and the United States ordering out the National Guard statewide. Same with all police officers and state troopers. Every able-bodied man...hell, woman too, anyone above the age of 18 who can use a firearm is requested...no, I PLEAD for you to report to your county Sheriff for organization into squads to combat this problem."

one of the questions is a derisive question asked by a fat reporter from the Manchester ABC affiliate: "And how do we do that? With garlic and holy water?" he laughs as well as other reporters

Gov. Glendale: "That's very simple, Timmy. As of this moment and until further notice I hereby order that all the bodies of the recently deceased are to be put out in the middle of city streets and burned by the squads to be formed under the command of the county Sheriffs."

...somebody drops their camera

Gov. Glendale: "Only by pulling together, can we survive this terrible situation."

***

The press conference of Governor Glendale of New Hampshire caused a ripple effect felt not only across the country, but across the world. Now the news media was more or less forced to report on such a bizarre press conference. Some people didn't believe, in fact many didn't. In New Hampshire the day after Glendale's press conference, it seemed obvious that two-thirds did not believe it, but the one third who *did* believe organized into the squads the Governor had ordered. These squads (it should be noted, however, that all the Sheriffs and police chiefs in New Hampshire followed Glendale's orders) began the first organized effort to contain the zombie problem on Earth. Civilian resistance to this, however, was often times extreme.

***

Ryoko and Sasami had taken upon themselves a mission. They were busy tracking down Ryo-ohki who had not come to dinner. This had not alarmed them at the time, owing to Ryo-ohki swiping so many carrots between breakfast and lunch, they simply assumed the little cabbit was taking a break for once. This notion was dispelled as soon as the new state of emergency swept the Masaki residence. Night had fallen on the valley of the Masaki Shrine, in more ways than one.

"Ryo-ohki!" Sasami shouted through her cupped hands as she and Ryoko walked slowly down a path through the woods.

Ryoko was searching telepathically for her cabbit, "she's right around here, Sasami. Just within the next ten or so meters."

They found her exactly 10.04 meters from there, sitting up against a tree, looking more than a little queasy. "Myaa..." the cabbit tried to meow as Sasami and Ryoko ran to her side. Sasami scooped up the cabbit in her arms.

"Ryo-ohki? What's wrong?" the young princess asked worriedly.

"You eat too much *again*?" Ryoko shook her head in disappointment.

"Myaa, myaa..." the cabbit shook her head weakly in the negative.

Ryoko sighed, "you tossed your carrots yet?"

The cabbit indicated a point on the ground with her floppy ear. Both Ryoko and Sasami tried not to look at the pile of cabbit vomit.

"Oh, my poor little Ryo-ohki," Sasami cuddled the furry cabbit again.

"Come on," Ryoko glanced around suspiciously, "let's get back to the house, Washu will give her some medicine."

***

They arrived back at the house to find Tenchi and Yosho speaking with Azaka and Kamidake.

"Do your scanners report anything out of the ordinary?" Tenchi asked Azaka.

The guardian log's red light blinked for a half-second. "As near as I can tell, Lord Tenchi, within the vicinity of some ten square kilometers nothing is amiss."

Both Yosho and Tenchi frowned.

"However," Kamidake intoned ponderously, his blue light blinking, "if Professor Washu is right in her assumptions, it is very possible our limited scanning capabilities might be hampered and we would not even know it."

Yosho groaned, "Azaka...Kamidake, what *can* you do to help us, then?"

"Even if we are not able to detect a reanimated corpse," Azaka said cautiously, "however such a non-lifeform would read, we'll still be able to maintain round-the-clock visual and motion surveillance of the entire valley."

"In that case," Tenchi said, "you see anyone who doesn't look, well, *alive*... inform us, go out, and capture it."

Yosho gave his grandson a look.

"Grandpa," Tenchi said with conviction, "we need to see this threat up close so that we know what we're up against. If it is...what we think it is."

"Yes, yes," Yosho nodded, "you're right, Tenchi." He smiled inwardly in pride at his grandson's foresight.

"Hey Tenchi!" Ryoko shouted as she and Sasami approached, receiving a wave in response. Tenchi ran over to join them, his expression darkening at the obviously ill cabbit.

"The poor girl," Tenchi shook his head, his brow furrowing in concentration for a moment. "Ryoko..?"

The Space Pirate shook her head, "I thought about that, too, Tenchi. If this radiation is somehow disrupting dimensional forms of energy, which seems to be making Ryo-ohki sick, why do I feel okay?"

Sasami bit her lower lip in thought, remembering that Ryoko spent an unusual amount of time in the bathroom this morning. "Ryoko?" the little princess asked.

"Yeah?" Ryoko looked down at Sasami.

"You were in the bathroom for over a half-hour this morning..." Sasami said quietly.

Ryoko frowned. Yes, there was that.

"Ryoko?" Tenchi asked.

"I had a stomach ache this morning, Tenchi," Ryoko admitted, with just a twinge of shame.

Yosho walked up to the group. "A stomach ache, Ryoko?" the old prince said, scratching his gray mustache. "Have you told Washu?"

"Well," Ryoko shrugged, "no."

Tenchi looked at Ryoko with obvious concern. The idea that Ryoko could actually get stomach aches was certainly news to him. "How often do you have stomach aches, Ryoko?"

The cyan-haired Space Pirate stood in silent contemplation for a moment with her eyes closed. "Three times before," she ticked the points off on her fingers. "First time was right after Kagato had me attack Jurai," she winced, "the second....when you, Yosho," she forced iron determination into her voice, "defeated me...third, a day or so after Kagato was defeated."

"Each time after a massive disruption of dimensional energy," Yosho mused.

Washu opened the front door. "There you guys are!" Washu shouted , "the shit's really hitting the fan," she nodded back in the house. "It's everywhere. China, France, Africa, Russia, United States...*everywhere*!" Washu's eyes darted back and forth. "I just got off the comm with Yagami, Kiyone says it's on several Galactic Union and Jurain planets too!"

Sasami gasped, "Ayeka--"

"She's already sent a message to Jurai, Sasami," Washu said, trying to alleviate Sasami's obvious fears as much as possible.

Yosho looked up at the sky above. A slight night breeze was rustling across the valley, the moon was illuminating some clouds moving in from the north. Stars blinked silently in their heavens above. To Yosho's trained senses the smells brought to him by the breeze told of a storm coming later in the night. 'But,' Yosho found himself thinking as he and the family filed back into the house, 'will the coming storm purify us, or destroy us?"


***

On the Jurain backwater planet of Alonia, the zombie threat was heeded right away and while not eradicated, was effectively dealt with. A message was sent to King Azusa on Jurai, informing him. Azusa, knowing that a blanket declaration to the public would go over like a lead balloon, decided to send a secret message to all royal planetary governors to be on the watch for zombies and secure important facilities. Burial officials were also warned early, and the Jurain custom of no one being allowed to view the corpse before internment really saved the day here; no one ever found out about the blaster holes. But often enough this was not even necessary, as Tsunamism places a high emphasis on organ donation. Corpses missing enough body parts will not reanimate.

However, the good news ends here. Almost immediately through problems ranging from planetary mismanagement, bureaucratic SNAFUs, to inefficiency and incompetence in several sector commanders of the Galaxy Police, the Galactic Union had twelve planets going red, with another twenty-six on the way and sixty-three showing signs of "Dead sickness" as it was being termed.

The initial GP response was the erroneous assumption that the zombie problem was a bacterium contagion. Strict, immediate, and ruthless medical quarantines of red areas and planets were ordered. This highlighted a slowly simmering tension between the GP, the Galactic Union's Congress, member planets themselves, and the Galactic Union's Constitution, which many court interpretations over the millennia maintained that what the GP was doing was unconstitutional.

As can be expected, it was only a matter of time before the first planetary governor called bullshit on this. That planet was Sima Ssuma. Two out of three continents on the planet of 5 million went red within the first three days of the beginning of the radiation bombardments; and the government was handling it fairly well. Fairly well that is until the planet's contingent of Galaxy Police, acting under orders of sector commander Wilek Otohime, ordered a complete clampdown of Sima Ssuma and a quarantine of the red areas *without* so much as informing the governor or the planetary assembly.

Compounding the situation was the GP's refusal to discuss the quarantine and simply refer to an obscure Article in Galactic Law regarding emergency situations. Many believed the law was a fabrication and that the GP had no constitutional authority to do what it was doing. As a matter of fact, they were right. As a *further* matter of fact, it didn't matter. There never was an investigation and no one to hold an inquiry.

***

Hudson barely was able to get himself and his bags up to his room, then make preparations before feeling his legs give out. Turning the TV on, Warren crawled into bed before falling asleep for a day or so. That is not to say that the room wasn't fortified by Hudson before hand as well as it could be. Warren had drawn the blinds, locked, barricaded the door, and created a place for his weapons with another chair and a type of writing desk; from where he could shoot with some level of cover.

If anyone had been observing Hudson as he set up his safe room, they would have only seen a determined six foot tall, muscular white man between thirty and forty years of age, driving himself to the point of emotional and physical breakdown. But from Hudson's point of view, his brain was practically on autopilot as he conversed with Tsunami.

"What if I wake up and I can't get out of here?" he asked.

"You're certainly not coming to the Shrine in that condition, Knight," a touch of wry humor could be heard in the Goddess' voice.

"Once again I'm sorry, Goddess, I seem to be lost again in all of your mysteries," he chuckled darkly as he had set up his shooting barricade.

Tsunami laughed. "You need someone to tell you when you're ignoring your needs."

"Consider me reminded, Goddess," Warren smiled as he drew back the covers on the bed. "Please Tsunami, your other children need your guidance, please don't let me take up all your time with my unworthy problems...as you said, I brought them upon myself."

"Warren," he felt a hand on his shoulder, Tsunami's voice was her gentle persuasive tone she used with one of her trusted ones, "I can do many things at once, and my concerns right now are a multitude. Don't think I'm straining myself."

"Yeah...I just hope I feel good enough in a day to hack through a mountain of the Dark Lady's gift to us," Warren was about to sleep in his clothes, which stank yes, but Tsunami had other concerns. "Is sleeping clothed any way for a Knight of Jurai to meet his biological needs?"

Warren looked down at his clothes. "Yes...I probably should get out of these. But is...masturbating at a time like this really an optimum use of my time?"

"It *is* an optimum use of your other sword and your seed, Knight of Jurai," Tsunami told him quite firmly. "You are too tired right now, but you need to relieve the tension I can feel in you."

"All right. As you command," Warren stripped naked and slid underneath the covers, first putting the gladius in a place where his hands could easily find it. Soon he was asleep. Tsunami watched him during all of his slumber, always ready to awaken him if things became too dangerous. Hudson was so on edge for the past week that he was nearly unable to reach proper REM sleep, more than once he nearly awoke, but Tsunami was there to whisper reassuringly: "Be at rest, Son of Jurai."

If anyone had been privileged enough to have seen the face of the Goddess, they would have seen silent tears.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Yes, Lemony goodness begins next chapter with a masturbation scene. You have been warned. As this chapter is on fanfiction.net, I ask that if you want to read what happens next, you read the upcoming chapters on TMFFA.

Next Chapter...Warren heads north to Detroit, while Mitsuki's designs fall apart, Ayeka notices something changing in both Tenchi and Ryoko, and Ezekiel spends some quality time with Dr. Clay and Tokimi.