From: wyvern@agora.rain.com (Scott Sanford)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.anime
Subject: Dirty Pair fanfic: Dangerous Alliances (1/5)
Date: 6 Dec 92 23:46:26 GMT
Article-I.D.: agora.Byv3DF.5zp
Organization: Worlds' Welfare Work Association


  Well, I posted this once, but neither of the first two intallments seem to
have gotten out past the local system.  The second part follows.  Everyone
should now have had the opportunity to read all five parts of this story; if
not, drop me some e-mail and let me know there's a problem.
****************************************************************************

  Nobody else seems to be the least bit reluctant to post their Dirty Pair 
stories, and I don't see why I should be the one to spoil the fun.  I haven't 
been nearly as verbose as some of the other posters, though, so nobody is 
likely to overflow their memory allocations over this.  Moreover, I have 
waited until I am done writing to being posting!
  Those of you who don't care may as well hit 'n' now!

  The events of this story take place in conjunction with and just after the 
events of the flashbacks in 'Dirty Pair II', and assumes that the reader is 
familiar with the story.  I prefer the animated Dirty Pair to their American 
comic book incarnation, but to tell this story it is necessary to follow the 
Studio Proteus version.  (Yes, the title is a reference to DP2#2, 'Dangerous 
Acquaintances'.)
  A friend of mine noticed while proofreading that the name of a character was 
the same as that of the author.  Yes.  Some months back I began thinking up a 
personna for science fiction conventions, and found that I had a story to tell 
about him--so I've written it.
  Several things are also drawn from Larry Mann's definitive Deirdre & Shasti 
story 'Experiment 101-E', but it is not a sequel.  The original Dirty Pair 
books and movies display an easy disregard for continuity in the pursuit of 
good entertainment; I have followed their example and put the story ahead of 
religiously following the precedent of earlier fiction.
  For those who haven't read the comic, a brief synopsis (which doesn't do 
justice to the story): When the Lovely Angels' very first mission ended badly 
they were teamed up with a pair of more experienced Trouble Consultants, 
Deirdre and Shasti, in the hope that they would learn to solve problems 
quickly, cleanly, and precisely.  Their assignment was to locate and 
neutralize a sociopathic criminal named LaCombe who had obtained an 
experimental piece of software that would allow starships to be taken over at 
will and operated against the crew's wishes.  Their chances were excellent--
not only were four Trouble Consultants on the case, but Shasti was a state of 
the art bioroid, made by the WWWA to be better than human at investigation and 
combat, the "perfect Trouble Consultant".  It almost worked.  In an 
experiment, Shasti had been given an internal computer simulation of LaCombe's 
personality to allow her to better predict his actions; nobody stopped to 
consider if Trouble Consultants SHOULD be thinking like psychopaths.  Shasti 
resigned from the WWWA by shooting her partner and the Lovely Angels, and 
escaping in the criminals' spacecraft.


     DANGEROUS ALLIANCES
========== Part One ==========

Nogurosu, 22 Aug 2139: Shikokuyama Hospital

  "You can't go in there, sir!"
  "Watch me."
  "Visiting hours are noon to twenty-one hundred for family, eighteen hundred 
for others.  You'll have to come back later!"
  "No."
  "Look, you--"  *Thump!*  The door shook.
  "What are visiting hours for people who carry grenades?"
  "Go right in, sir."
  The door opened and a man entered, to be framed in the sights of Kei's 
blaster.  He stopped.
  "Relax.  I'm on your side."  He actually smiled.
  "Who the hell are you?", demanded Kei.
  "My name is Scott.  Trouble Consultant 184S."  He unclipped a badge from his 
suit and tossed it onto the bed; Kei looked down at the WWWA ID card in her 
lap.
  "I see I've found the Lovely Angels.  Only a rookie would have looked down," 
he explained.  Kei growled.
  "Are you here to debrief us?", asked Yuri.
  "No.  Director Ayoob is coming to do that, but I've read your report.  I'm 
here because I want your help."
  "Us?  With what?"
  "Finding Shasti."
  "That bitch!", exclaimed Kei. "I'll kill her!"
  "If necessary."
  "Uh...  We didn't exactly do so well last time," Yuri pointed out.
  "Yes, but you survived," he said, cutting off further objection.  "She also 
had the advantage of total strategic surprise.  We don't need to fight her.  
We only need to find her, and stop her."
  "How do we bring her in without a fight?", asked Kei.  "She's sure not going 
to come along if we ask."
  "With luck, a tranquilizer dart or sleep gas grenade will do it.  If not, 
well, that's what a bazooka is for."
  Kei's face lit up.  Yuri moaned; in training Kei had liked the bazooka way 
too much...
  "Yeah, that'll do it!  Let's see her laugh that off, the crazy little..."
  "Aren't we getting ahead of ourselves?  I mean, we don't even know where 
Shasti is, right?"
  "More or less.  LaCombe's shuttle was a Triton 4403 Nimbus, which doesn't 
have a warp drive.  There's nothing in space which she can't get planetside, 
and spacecraft are easy to find."  Apparently Scott liked to lecture.  
"Remember your Escape and Evasion lessons; you can hide best on an inhabited 
planet.  Shasti probably came in ballistically over one of the poles, flew 
nap-of-the-earth to an inhabited area, and abandoned the shuttle before 
reaching controlled airspace."
  Yuri remembered dozing through this in E&E class; Kei had already tuned out, 
laying on the bed fondling her blaster and probably dreaming psychotic 
fantasies.  This could go on a while, so...
  "What if she isn't going by the book?", she asked.  "She was pretty crazy 
when she shot us, you know; she could be doing anything right now."
  "Your right."  He sighed.  "I worry that while I'm telling half the planet 
to look out for her, she's flying around in circles somewhere making 
fingerpaints out of her food.  If she is, we'll soon catch her; that's all the 
comfort we can get from that."
  "'Fingerpaints'?", asked Kei, sure she had missed something.
  "Or whatever.  The personality implant may have unbalanced her completely, 
but I'm assuming the worst--that she has all of her old skills and is running 
LaCombe's thought patterns."
  "That's pretty bad, all right.  We can't quit now, right, Kei?  We're still 
going to be in the hospital a few days, though."
  "I know."  Scott had carried two flat objects under his left arm; he brought 
these out and handed a black plastic unit to Yuri.  Offhandedly he have Kei 
the other, a box of chocolate candies.  "I've brought you a mini terminal to 
keep you busy.  All the information I've gathered to date is there, along with 
comm numbers that you will need.  Your personnel file said you did well with 
computers, Yuri, so that's your job.  I will be busy doing legwork."
  "Just a keyboard?  That's odd," Yuri commented, examining the terminal.
  "Not really.  You two had interface sockets when you joined, but I'm covered 
by Directive 108.  Eh?"  He paused, and cocked his head at the door.  "That 
noise will be hospital security coming to throw me out.  It took them long 
enough.  I'll be in touch."
  "Hey, what about me?  Don't I get anything to do?"
  "At the moment, get well.  Help your partner as much as you can.  And give 
me a call immediately if either of you gets an ESP flash."  He left.
  "Uh, er, right," Kei told the door.  "Gee.  I hadn't thought of that old 
trick in ages.  I guess he really did read our files.  Hey, Yuri, what was 
that bit about Directive One-oh-eight, anyway?"
  "Part of the rules for TCs, I guess.  You could look it up."
  "Okay.  Give me the manual."  Yuri threw the book at her.  "Geez, watch it."
  Yuri grunted, poking at the terminal.  "He wasn't kidding about giving us 
*all* the data; there's gigs of stuff here..."
  Kei grunted back.  "Here it--ack!"
  "What?"
  "Listen to this: 'Due to the possible adverse effects from neurological 
modification, many kinds of cybernetic implants are forbidden to psionic 
personnel...'"
  "'Psionic'?!  HE's a psi?"
  "You want to read it yourself?"
  "I wonder what powers he has."
  "I wonder if he could get a personality instead," Kei grumped.

  *breep*  *breep*  *breep*  *bree--!*
  "Smith Ward, Boardman here.  What can I do for you?"
  "I'm calling to check on Deirdre."
  "'Deirdre', sir?"
  "The 3WA Trouble Consultant in room K-12."
  "Oh, yes.  There's no change; she's still on full support and regen, minimal 
responsiveness."
  On the screen, the human half of Director Ayoob's face twitched, but he said 
nothing.
  "I wouldn't get too hopeful, sir," the nurse said to fill the silence.  "She 
was dead a long time before the medics got to her, and CNS degradation--"
  "I know!", he snapped.  "Thank you."
  The screen blanked.  Nurse Boardman shrugged, hung up, and went back to 
reading the newspaper.

  "Damn."  In the comm booth 'Director Ayoob' reached for his collarbone and 
his image flared rainbows as the hologram generators shut down.  Scott drew 
the hood back from the now black bodysuit, wishing there was more he could do.
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