Mitsuko nodded sadly. "Okay, Daddy," she whispered, her slippered feet padding against the wooden floor toward her room.

After checking on a soundly sleeping Masaru, Komyoji tapped on the door to the master bedroom. "Suki, are you awake?" He called softly, remembering his wife's habit during her pregnancy of resting in the afternoons. Masaru was an energetic and happy baby, and Komyoji was sure that Suki would welcome the chance to rest.

From the sight that greeted him on the other side of the door, Komyoji realized he needn't have bothered trying to be quiet. Suki was nowhere to be found, but an open suitcase lay on the bed, articles of clothing and odds and ends stacked neatly beside.  Frowning, Komyoji turned toward the bathroom, and came face to face with his wife, who had an armful of toiletries.

"Suki, what's going on? Where are you going?"

"What does it look like? I'm leaving," Suki said, pushing past Komyoji.

"You mean you're going on a trip?" Relief flooded Komyoji's chest; there was an explanation to his wife's behavior. "I've heard of this happening. It's called post-partum depression."  He stood behind her and patted her shoulders, but she flinched and he dropped his hands. "It's common enough. If you need to get away for a few days, I can manage the children."

"No, Komyoji, I mean I'm leaving."  She continued to pack her suitcase, her movements smooth and methodical. "My work is done. I won't be coming back."

In horror, Komyoji grabbed Suki by the shoulders and turned her to face him. "What do you mean, 'your work is done'?"  When she remained silent and stony-faced, Komyoji shook her a little. "Answer me, woman!"

Suki's deep black eyes blazed in anger. "Take your hands off of me," she spat, her voice low and dangerous.

Obliging her mainly out of shock—he had never thought his sweet-faced wife capable of such a tone—Komyoji let go, and Suki returned her attention to her suitcase.  "I meant what I said. My work is done. Gill has recalled me, and I'm going."

"Gill?" His friend's name—or was it former friend, now?—again hung in the air like an ominous storm cloud. "You've been…working…for Gill?"

"Yes. I report to him twice a month."  Suki smirked, folding a skirt in half, then in quarters. "It's made for a very convenient arrangement, since you're mucking around in that hole you call a laboratory twenty hours out of every twenty-four."

A sudden jolt of anger shot through Komyoji's body, and he ripped the skirt out of Suki's hands. "Which one of us is Masaru's father?" he raged. "Whose son is he?" He clenched his fists. "Damnit, woman, I've already had one son taken from me. I'll be damned if I let Gill have Masaru!"

Suki's laugh was mocking. "Don't worry, Komyoji. He's all yours. You'll know for sure when he grows up to be just like you, with an IQ so high it scares off any girl who dares get close, and a personality as thick as stone." She snatched up the skirt and found a place where Komyoji had torn the fabric in his anger. "Look, you've ruined it. It's worthless, now." She wadded up the skirt and put it in the trash.

The world was spinning faster and faster, but Komyoji couldn't find the brakes. "If my IQ was so high that it scares women off," he heard himself ask tartly, "Why is it that you married me, Suki?"

"Why?" Suki laughed again. "Simple. It was part of my orders. Remember when Gill introduced us?" She fixed Komyoji with a narrowed obsidian gaze. "Oh, you were so pitiful that day, the grieving father, the lonely widower."  She stepped up very close to him, her smile saccharine-sweet. "All I had to do was just smile and tell you how sorry I was about your loss, and maybe put my hand on yours…" She brought his hand between them, clasping it between her own. "There, you see?" Suki's voice was soft. "You were blind and stupid and so trusting. You gave me every piece of information I ever wanted about the Gemini Project, and I handed it over to Gill."

Komyoji looked into Suki's eyes, spellbound, lost in the memory of that day. It was true; Gill brought Suki to lunch that afternoon, and it was as if an angel had descended from heaven to brighten a dark world. Looking at her now, Komyoji realized that the face and the eyes were the same, except where there had been compassion, there now gleamed hatred and malice.  "Suki," he whispered, pulling her into him and pressing his lips hard against hers.

With a banshee scream, Suki ripped her hands from Komyoji's and bit down hard on his lip. When she could taste blood, she let go, and whirled away from him to stand with her back against the armoire.  "You bastard!  Don't you ever come near me again!"