-Revenge and Common Zens-

Zen sat in his dorm room on Academy and sulked.  There was a lot of 
material that he should have been studying for the exams the next 
day, but somehow, he just didn't feel like it.  Come to that, he didn't 
feel much like a "he" either.  But there was a *reason* for that...

Zen growled deep in her throat.  "Well, you always said that you 
wanted to lose a few pounds..." she snarled to herself.  "Now you've 
bloody well gone and done it."  She looked down at herself.  This 
body couldn't weigh as much as half of what her male form did.  
"Hmph.  Wonder what Richard Simmons would have to say about 
*this*."

Three weeks had passed since that fateful day when Kei and Yuri 
had blown the office door off its hinges...  three weeks since his [sic] 
life had been changed forever.  Three weeks of agony.

Training to be a Trouble Consultant with the 3WA was hard work!  
Zen imagined that it was a lot like the Navy might have been if she 
had joined... Lots to do, and little time to do it before rushing on to 
the next thing.  Zen doubted, however, that even the Navy had such a 
plethora of neat toys to play with.  It was never boring.  Well, 
*almost* never.

Sighing, Zen warmed up her datanet terminal, and logged into the 
net.  That was one nice thing about this mess... the bandwidth on the 
net connections was the stuff that wet dreams were made of.  More 
out of curiosity than anything else, Zen tried to tap into her old 
accounts with her Terran ISP.  Maybe she could get some news of the 
others...

After about a half an hour, Zen managed to get a link established to 
the Terran Net.  The system balked at being asked to interface with 
such a low order network, but Zen *wanted* her mail.  Finally, the 
screen cleared, and she was in.

Three weeks of messages stared back at her.  Gazing numbly at the 
screen, Zen was just glad that the SPAM levels on the list were at low 
ebb.  Even with the bandwidth at her disposal, her ISP could not do 
better than a T-1, and there was a LOT of material.

Scrolling through the newer messages first, she noticed that things 
were quiet - perhaps too quiet.  A large number of people were gone 
- Zen wondered what had happened to them.  Were they just lying 
low?  Were they off the net?  Were they even still alive?  Zen 
shivered, and it was not because of the outfit.

What had happened to her friends?  Hastily, she scrolled back to the 
beginning of the queue... and what she read was horrifying.  Poor 
Richard-san.  Zen had always tried to tell him that Politically Correct 
was a double edged sword... but this... Zen shook her head.  At least 
Richard was a sensitive sort... even if he did have the wrong Kasumi, 
he should be able to hold out for weeks.  Months, even.

Sandborn - Uncle Fester - had slipped noisily over the deep end.  
Still, he seemed safe enough, if a little paranoid.  Zen decided against 
making any attempts at contact at this point - Sandborn-san had his 
hands full of Foxes, and the way Zen was feeling, she doubted the 
supply of Foster's would have lasted the night.  Silently, Zen wished 
her fellow author luck.  As long as there was beer and ammunition 
though, she felt certain that the wily old SOB would survive.

Zen read on, appalled as the madness spread.  Author after author 
had fallen to the revenging horde.  Team Ranma seemed to be behind 
most of it, though the Knight Sabers were plenty active too.  The 
carnage had been unbelievable.  For the first time, Zen was grateful 
to the Lovely Angels.  After seeing what could have befallen her if 
Team Ranma hadn't been so busy; her present predicament was 
almost a reward by comparison.  Thank the Kami she had never 
written a Bubblegum fic!

There was, further on, a hell of a lot of encoded message traffic... Zen 
considered trying to decrypt some of it, but decided against it.  The 
origin codes on the message files made it likely that some of the 
authors were behind it - and Zen was not about to do anything that 
might jeopardize their security.  Whatever they were up to, Zen 
wished them luck.

Deeply disturbed, Zen shut down the terminal, and got ready for bed.  
Her dreams were not happy ones.

***** #### *****

The next morning came, as all mornings had for the past three 
weeks, early.  Very early.

Zen growled and rolled over as the alarm tried to wake her.  Burying 
her head under her pillow, she fought to ignore its strident tone.  It 
was actually starting to work, when her bed tilted up, and dumped 
her unceremoniously on the floor.  She sat up and rubbed the back of 
her head, glaring at the platform as it retracted once more.  "All right 
already!  Zen is UP now!"  Zen decided that she *hated* modern alarm 
clocks.

The clock display read oh-four thirty.  Zen stood, stretched, and 
headed to the bathroom to shower and change.  Boy, had *that* 
expression taken on a new meaning!  Still, after last night, Zen was 
beginning to feel that she was a LOT better off than some of her 
compatriots.  She shuddered again at the memory of what had 
befallen poor Richard-san.  Zen didn't think that she'd ever be able to 
eat a cookie again.

Zen stepped into the shower and cranked up the hot water.  At least 
she could be normal for a few minutes.  As the hot water cascaded 
over her, she felt a now familiar tingle - but it was the wrong one.  
All she - Gods, she was still a "she" - could feel was the sonics.  
Frantically, she stabbed at the temperature controls, boosting it as 
far as it would go.  The scale topped out at sixty centigrade.  Still, Zen 
was not... himself.

"Bugger!"  Overriding the safety on the hot water, she managed to get 
the temperature up to sixty five, but still no joy.  She thought it 
might work for a second, but the sensation was just past her reach.  
This was NOT good.  Zen was going to have to talk to someone about 
this - as soon as she had some free time.

Toweling herself off, she dressed and headed to the mess hall for 
breakfast.  At least the food was edible - even good, really.  Zen had 
been afraid that Akane or Shiiko would have been doing the cooking, 
but her punishers did not seem to be quite that sadistic.  At least 
they hadn't before this morning.

Zen just made it to calisthenics by oh five thirty.  Zen really hated 
this part of the day - at least it didn't last too long.  By oh six 
hundred, she was at the practice range for weapons training.

The weapons range wasn't so bad. Truth be told, it was kind of fun.  
Blasters, sabers, energy weapons, projectile weapons, missiles, hell, 
even sticks and stones were covered.  This morning, there were 
plasma grenades to play with.  Zen admired the design - light, 
powerful, and you could set one as a shaped charge, if you had access 
to a computer, or a prog-unit.  Zen wished she'd had a few of these 
the night that she'd been drafted.  At the end of the hour, Zen could 
have programmed one of the little grenades in her sleep.  And 
rumour had it, that some time the next week, would be their first 
chance to play with the infamous "Bloody Card."

Half an hour later, at oh nine thirty, Zen started her martial arts class 
for the day.  For an hour and a half, she got the stuffing pounded out 
of her with more styles of martial arts than she had known existed.  
One thing was certain - Ranma would have fit right in.  While the 
instructors may have specialized in one or two specific styles, all of 
them were well trained in a wide variety of combat styles - both 
armed, and unarmed.  The Musubetsu Kakuto Ryuu was alive and 
well in the United Galactica.

After martial arts class, Zen had half an hour to hobble painfully to 
the buildings that housed the 3WA's most advanced educational tools 
- the massive simulator tanks.  By the time that she got there, her 
bruises and contusions, which had been numerous, were all but 
healed.  Zen still hadn't gotten used to the sensation - or used to 
watching as a bruise or cut healed before her very eyes.  Nanotech 
really was incredible.

For a moment, Zen began to wonder.  There was something... creepy... 
something unnatural about it all too.  It reminded Zen of far too 
many horror stories that she had read - where the protagonist is 
tortured, but confident that it will be over when they are dead - only 
to find that they will not be allowed to die.  Zen shuddered and 
pushed that idea out of her head.  There were very practical reasons 
to use this sort of technology with Trouble Consultants.  There was 
little to be gained in paranoia over something about which she could 
now do nothing.

When oh nine thirty came around, Zen was seated at a desk in the 
lecture hall, waiting for the briefing on the days simulation.

The simulators were incredible machines - the ultimate in virtual 
reality.  Any environment could be created in one of the tanks - from 
the depths of the most hostile seas to the vast emptiness of the voids 
between stars.  Gravity... atmosphere... every aspect of the 
environment could be bent and shaped by the designer of the test.

Objects could be created and moved, with a combination of hologram 
and synthesizer based technologies - the objects were as real as any 
outside the tank.  Anything, from a small pebble to the largest space 
vessel could be faithfully constructed in an instant from patterns 
stored within the 3WA's sophisticated central computer system.

Simulator programs were designed as mock field exercises and tried 
to cover all the bases, from the basics to really advanced and more 
improbable scenarios.  Flight simulators, combat on tactical and 
strategic levels, training on new equipment and hardware, using or 
disarming bombs; just about any scenario that one could imagine 
could be simulated in the tank.  It was the ultimate in safe and 
effective hands-on training.

Today's sim was going to take the whole period.  Zen was issued an 
EVA suit and told that she was to board a drifting spacecraft - the 
goal was to prevent the ship's reactors from going critical - to keep 
the "passengers" on the vessel alive, and to determine whether the 
reactor failure had been accidental, or deliberate.  She had to be able 
to prove her assertions.

Zen managed to pass the test - though it was a damned hard one.  
The malfunction in Zen's sim turned out to be an accident - object of 
the lesson - be prepared for malicious intent, but not all disasters are 
planned, or sinister.  By the time lunch rolled around, she was 
exhausted.

The commissary was a blur to Zen as she rushed in, grabbed a quick 
bite, and headed out again.  She just had time to choke down her 
food and arrange to see one of the academy physicians before she 
had to be in class again.

The next five and a half hours were grueling - even more than the 
morning's physical activities, the classes took their toll.  Zen had 
thought that her college career had been frenetic - the sixty hour 
course loads that she had wheedled out of the university computers 
back on Terra for a couple of quarters were walks in the park by 
comparison.  When she had been at Uni on Earth, Zen had never been 
able to really decide what to major in - and had finally settled on 
Industrial Design.  Here, that decision didn't have to be made - they 
were going to see to it that she majored in *everything*.

Astronomy and celestial navigation - physics, chemistry, electronics, 
engineering, computers, mathematics, sociology, economics, history, 
law, criminology, agronomy, medicine, life sciences - all of it was 
stuffed into her on a daily basis until she was sure that her head 
would explode.  She was mildly amused to note that 'Sun Tzu was 
still required reading at Academy...' - for her strategy and tactics 
courses.  Zen could only thank the Kami for RNA assisted learning.  
Without it, she'd have been lost.

Even with the massive doses of RNA complexes that she was given, it 
was a struggle.  RNA learning made it possible, but it certainly did 
nothing to take the work out of it.  As the RNA based memories wove 
their way into her consciousness, they opened up whole new worlds 
of knowledge - but it was all theoretical.

All of a sudden, she *knew* things - how to do things that she had 
never seen before - that she had often never even *heard* of before.  
It was a rush like she had never known.  The trouble was that while 
her mind remembered the things as if she had known them forever, 
her body did not.

Even the language courses that she was given required some basic 
practical application before they were useful.  Zen could now imagine 
what it must be like to be deaf - learning a language that you would 
never hear - never speak - and then waking up one morning to birds 
chirping.  It was a lot like that - she had to learn sounds and moves 
and techniques that she remembered as being instinctive, but that 
she had never before experienced.

A task or technique that she felt she should be able to do without 
even thinking about it required intense concentration the first few 
times it was tried.  It took the body some time to catch up with what 
the mind had learnt in its sleep.

It was a very peculiar feeling - exciting and intimidating at the same 
time.  It was also very draining.  Classes left her spent, but too keyed 
up to rest easily.  As thrilled as she was to be learning so much, she 
was always glad when the bells rang at seventeen thirty and she was 
free for the day.

At eighteen hundred on the dot, Zen was back in the commissary, 
grabbing dinner.  Some days, there were things going on after dinner 
- surprise drills or exercises, tests, examinations, medical stuff and 
the like, but for the most part Zen's after dinner time was her own.  
This evening in particular, though, she had matters to attend to.

Her body's refusal to assume its proper shape in the shower had 
alarmed her.  In retrospect, it was a problem that she should have 
seen coming.  When she was first cursed, it had taken water just a bit 
over body temperature - say about forty degrees centigrade - to 
trigger the shift back to normal.  But after her arrival on Academy, 
that had changed.

It was taking progressively hotter and hotter water to make the 
change - with every passing day.  Since Zen had always liked hot 
showers, it had never been that obvious until the critical 
temperature had risen above the safe limits set for her shower unit.

If this trend were to continue, then it might reach the point that she 
would *never* be able to switch back.  That could be just the least 
little bit awkward.  It would sure make it hell trying to renew the ol' 
driver's license!

***** #### *****

Zen got to the medical building, and was told to hurry up and wait.  
For once, though, she did not have to wait long.  Because of the curse, 
Zen was a favourite research subject in Medical.  Everyone in the 
department scoffed at the idea of magic, but no one was able to 
explain the mechanics of the curse, or even come up with a viable 
theory.

In short, no one understood it.  To Zen's mind, that made it magic, but 
she appeared to be the only one on Academy that had read Clarke.

After another battery of tests, Zen was finally led into a room with a 
shower head - she stripped, and stood under the water stream while 
the temperature was elevated progressively.  When the indicator hit 
seventy one centigrade, Zen felt the familiar shift wash through her, 
and she was a he again.

Hastily, he turned off the water, and reached for a towel.  He caught 
his breath as the towel rubbed across skin made sensitive by near 
scalding.  Red as a lobster, but considerably relieved, he headed back 
into the changing room to dress.

After another battery of tests on his male form, Zen was asked to 
wait.  He grumbled a bit, but there really wasn't any choice.  He 
found an empty workstation and signed into the network to check 
his terrestrial mail again.  Might as well make *some* use of the 
time.

Checking all the later messages, Zen was again struck by the relative 
quiet.  Fics were starting to appear again - though their number was 
down.  Most of them fell into two categories - happy or bittersweet 
pieces that would be little cause for retribution, and those that 
tended to the other extreme - overly violent or grotesque pieces that 
were sure to create another wave of terror once they came to the 
attention of the animates...

Scanning through the list, Zen caught a file header that made him 
smile.  So.  Richard-san *had* survived.  So far, anyway.  This time he 
had posted a Nuku Nuku fic - and there was another...  Zen read them 
quickly.  Both fit into the first category - warm fuzzies that could 
offer no one any cause to take offence - even though Richard-san had 
billed the second one as an angst fic.  That one might have miffed 
Kyusaku a bit - but Zen really didn't see him as the vindictive type.

Zen started to feel a lot better about the possibilities of his friend's 
chances for survival - until he saw the Ranma fic.   thought 
Zen to himself.    The story was a 
good one - possibly the best Ranma fic Zen had seen him write - but 
if Ranma had taken offence at "Appearances", he was going to go 
apeshit when he saw this one.

Zen shook his head in despair.  Ranma stuck as a girl - forever.  
Akane abandoning him to pursue a life with another boyfriend - 
identity unknown.  No traces of Ukyou or Shampoo at all - and in the 
end... in the end, Ranma had kissed a guy.  Willingly, if not eagerly.  
The story was beautiful in its poignancy - but it was, Zen feared, also 
tantamount to Richard-san's death warrant.

Zen hoped that Richard-san would survive through AWA...  He had 
gone to considerable effort to get leave on Terra so that he could 
attend.  It would be a pity if, after all that had happened, Zen were 
unable to meet him face to face.

At least Bridget Engman was safe - her last stories had been 
beautiful pieces - heartwarming and kind.  Zen was glad for her.  
Heck, Team Ranma might even decide to do something *nice* for her 
- they were trying with Scott Jamison, in their own... unique ways.

Fester, on the other hand - was getting cocky.  Zen shook his head 
again, this time in amused admiration.  Sandborn-san had written a 
Halloween fic that was guaranteed to piss off the entire cast.  Zen had 
to give the man credit - he had guts.  Zen just hoped he wouldn't 
come to see them on the blade of a chainsaw.

After a moment of thought, Zen keyed in a special command code 
sequence.  Back in his office on Terra, his own computer system 
responded to the ping with an ident query.  A number of pass 
phrases were exchanged, and Zen had access to his own material still 
stored on optical disk.

Appropriating a blank isolinear chip from the desk drawer where he 
was working, Zen dumped his own machine's core memory to the 
local workstation.  After storing it on the chip, he instructed his own 
machine to go back to standby - and in secure mode.

After scanning through the material he'd downlinked, he finally 
found what he was looking for.  Zen scanned through his Ukyou fic.  
The first episode was all but finished.  He made some changes that 
had been recommended by his pre-readers, and reached a decision.

Re-opening his link, Zen posted the story to the ML.  Zen suspected 
that the quiet on the list was the calm before a storm... the war was 
not over yet.  But Zen was serving sentence already.  He had been 
tried, convicted and sentenced on the basis of fics that were as yet 
incomplete - this had been one of them.  If he was to do the time, 
then he was bloody well going to do the crime.

Zen imagined that there might be some anger when his story came to 
the attention of Team Ranma - though he suspected that he would 
have at least one ally, even there.  No matter.  They could not punish 
him twice for the same offence and maintain their honour.  For the 
next few stories anyway, Zen was safe.  After that?  Who knew?

Zen could not see himself taking revenge - he was still alive, and his 
sentence was hard - but he was adaptable.  Besides that, to seek 
revenge, Zen would have to go up against the Dir... the Lovely Angels.  
A quick check of the records confirmed it - no one had EVER taken 
on Kei and Yuri and survived.  Never.  Zen didn't much care for those 
odds.

The worst the rest of the lot from the FFML had to face was Team 
Ranma, and maybe the Knight Sabers or the Sailor Senshi.  Rumour 
had it that the Magic Knights of Cephiro were after one writer... but 
they were ALL harmless in comparison.  Zen shook his head.  Maybe 
he hadn't gotten off so lightly after all.

It didn't really matter - even if he had been inclined to fight, Zen was 
an old fashioned sort - and would not fight girls.  Whatever else one 
might say about the Lovely Angels, they were *definitely* girls.  Just 
not always ladies.

In fact, Kei and Yuri were tolerable company, as long as they were 
sober...  It had gotten embarrassing one night at a party when Kei 
had gotten a bug up her butt and tried to fix Zen up with some guy.  
It had been a rough night, and Zen had been forced to use some of 
the martial arts that she had been learning, but in the end, there had 
been no hard feelings.

Zen's musings were interrupted as he was approached by a man 
wearing a lab coat and a pair of old fashioned spectacles.  His hair 
was mussed, and he looked like he hadn't had much sleep in recent 
weeks, but there was a fire in his eyes that made Zen wonder.  Was it 
the spark of enthusiasm, or rabid fanaticism?  Zen shrugged 
inwardly.  Did it matter?  The two weren't so far apart - nor was 
there really any conflict between the two.

Zen turned his attention to the man, and waited.  The man took off 
his glasses, polished the lenses for a moment, as if trying to choose 
his words with care.  After a moment, Zen began to get impatient.  
Perhaps sensing this, the man cleared his throat.

"Well?" asked Zen.

"Ah," said the man.  "There is good news, and there is bad news..."

Zen rolled his eyes in exasperation.  "Great.  A joker.  Just what do 
you mean by that, ne?"

"Well, part of it is that we think we know why you are having this 
little... ah... difficulty."

"You mean aside from a bucket of magic water?" asked Zen 
sarcastically.

"Ahm... well..."  Zen's fists started to clench, and the man blanched. 
"Youseeit'sthenanotech..." he said.

Zen twitched and pulled a fist back ever so slightly.  The man gulped 
nervously and tried to calm his trembling.  "The nanotech.  It's... for 
some reason it seems to be interfering with the 'curse' as you call it."

Zen nodded for the man to continue.  "The nanites that we inject into 
a TC candidate, to accelerate healing and to make you more resistant 
to injury, are increasing the critical temperature, above or below 
which your shift takes place.  We think that the curve will flatten 
out, and the threshold will stabilize soon."

Zen nodded again.  It could be worse.  "So.  What is the good news?"

The man twitched.  "That, ah... *was* the good news.  The bad news is 
that the stable temperature will be somewhere between ninety and 
one hundred twenty degrees centigrade."

For an instant, rage flared in Zen.  It must have shown for the man 
took an instinctive step back.  But as quickly as it had come, it 
passed.  Zen let his shoulders sag, as the implications of the man's 
proclamation sank in.

He was doomed.  In a few weeks, water would have to be boiling to 
change him back.  After that, it might even take steam.  The change 
would still be possible, but it would be very painful.  There would be 
no more casual shifts.  And in male form, Zen was going to have to be 
*very* careful about water.

Zen thanked the man, who seemed relieved that Zen was showing no 
inclination to punish the bearer of bad news.  Zen smiled sadly to 
himself as he watched the man go.   he thought to himself.  He turned as the terminal beeped 
for attention.

The Ukyou fic had been successfully posted to the net.  Zen smiled to 
himself again, logged out and shut down the workstation.  Pocketing 
the chip, he ambled back towards his dormitory room.

Halfway there, he paused.  Changing direction, he headed for a 
nearby bar - the Draco Tavern would be a good place to unwind for a 
bit.  Not as much fun as the White Hart, or Callahan's, but it was the 
best that Academy had to offer.  If his days as a guy were going to 
be numbered, he was going to enjoy them.  Besides, there was always 
the chance of a cure.

Revenge was a funny thing, Zen decided.  Sometimes it worked out 
for the revenger, and sometimes for the revengee.  Zen was not sure 
yet which category he fell into - only time would tell that.  But there 
was still hope.  Feeling a little better as his natural optimism 
reasserted itself, Zen strode into the bar.

The bartender smiled at Zen as he took a stool toward one end of the 
long counter.  "What'll it be tonight, Zen?" he asked.

"Scotch and wa...  no... on second thought, just a Scotch, please."

Owari-?


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