"Passing Zentence - The Dark Side of the Farce"


"Wish fulfillment," he calls it.  Wish fulfillment...

A year ago, he might have been right.  A year ago.  Before the truth.  
Before the coming of understanding.

If given an opportunity to trade your comparatively mundane 
existence for a more exciting and interesting life, would you do it?  
You'd jump at such a chance, right?  Who wouldn't?

The chance to get off this godforsaken planet...  to get away from 
everything that reminded you of what you had already survived.  
Everything that reminded you of the fact that you HAD survived;  
that you were still alive while those that you had loved had died.

The chance to meet and work with your favourite anime characters 
of all time;  the chance to help people - to make a difference.  The 
chance to play with toys that, even given the rapid pace of 
technological development, would never have existed in your reality 
- not within ten times your life span.

Even better, you'd have the chance to learn at an astonishing rate;  to 
soak up knowledge and skills like a sponge absorbs water.

Now imagine being granted near immortality to enjoy it...  Nanites 
that repair any injury, that keep you free of disease, keep you young 
and strong.  Nanites that make you virtually indestructible.  Ponce de 
Leon's fountain of youth in a micro-robotic package.

And the 'curse'?... The infamous Nyanniichuan?  Better to be a pretty 
girl than an ugly guy, surely.  A pretty girl can still get a date with a 
girl, if she cares to try hard enough.  Even the 'nanite complication' 
could be helpful... imagine being doused with hot tea and shifting 
back into male form in THAT outfit.  The nanites would spare you 
that particular humiliation at least.  That could certainly be thought 
of as a paradise.

Wish fulfillment indeed.

Be careful what you wish for.  You may get it.  An age old axiom.

Faced with the choice, would you toss away a wish?  Or would you 
presume to have the arrogance to make your wish so well, so wisely 
that you could avoid the unpleasant consequences... at least you'd get 
more of the good than the bad.

No, better you should throw that wish away - given the choice.  The 
most promising of visions, the most carefully thought out of plans 
can go horribly wrong at a moment's notice.  Light drives away the 
darkness, but eventually, the light will burn out, and the darkness 
consume all.

But what, you ask, could spoil this picture of paradise?

Well, you have friends, right?  At least one or two.

Would you still think that it was paradise if you could never see any 
of them again?  If, for all practical purposes, everyone that you had 
known... everyone that you cared about... (everyone that was still 
alive that is) became no more than characters in some story?  That 
they would come to have no more reality for you now than your 
current companions had before the revenges took place?

Mayhaps you might.  You could make new friends in this reality, 
couldn't you?  It's a big galaxy, after all.  You have your own ship.  
You can go anywhere - visit all the planets that you've only read 
about - only been able to visit in your dreams.  Until now.  With your 
nanite enhanced life span, you could visit a LOT of them.  Where 
would you go?

Maybe you would go to Zarathustra and mine sunstones with old 
Pappy Jack Holloway.  Visit Downbelow or Pell.  Take a vacation on 
Risa with Counselor Troi and the rest of the Enterprise crew.  Maybe 
drop in on Gallifrey to say "hi", or hang out in the Cantina in Mos 
Eisley.  You could see what the summers were like on Pern, or share 
a drink with Wendel Urth, or Lazarus Long.  Trade for spices on 
Nickeldepain.  So many possibilities.  So many people to meet, so 
many places to go.

Except... that no one is ever glad to see you.  More to the point, the 
very mention of your name sends them scurrying off screaming in 
terror.

All the jokes aside, for they were funny before this became your 
reality, the Lovely Angels were given their dreaded nickname for a 
reason.

The Dirty Pair.  Certainly, they always solve the case;  they always 
get their man.  The Mounties would be proud.

But they have a curse.  A cloud that follows them around.  Where 
ever they go, whatever they touch, destruction follows.  Ships, cities, 
sometimes entire worlds are destroyed.  And it is never their fault.

Do you think that helps?  Do you think that it would make you feel 
better if you knew that all the lives that were lost, all the damage, all 
the horror was just a fluke - a freak accident?  That knowledge 
might keep you sane - it might even allow you to accept the risk.

But what if it happened *every* *single* *time*... If everywhere you 
went, the four horsemen of the apocalypse were riding in your 
shadow - letting you take the credit, or the blame, for their work?

That's fine, you say.  That is the Pair.

But you forget.  They are the ones that trained you.  You are the only 
one to survive that training - the only one.  Just as they are often the 
only ones to survive their missions.  Does that suggest something to 
your sleep fuzzed mind?

Whatever curse followed them now follows you as well.  Your name 
and your image are inextricably bound up with theirs.  The Dirty Pair 
just became the Terrible Trio, whether the three of you are together 
or not.

Do you begin to understand?  Do you SEE now why they HATE that 
name with such passion?  Can you feel their rage, their frustration?  
Can you understand how completely alone in the multi-verse Yuri 
and Kei have been?

That's the trouble with archetypes.  They are always alone.  And the 
archetypes of chaos are even moreso.  Always been a loner, you say?  
There is a nobility in loneliness.  But you've never REALLY been 
alone, have you?  You may think of yourself as always on the outside 
looking in, but when it comes down to it, you have always had people 
that you could talk to.  People that would listen.

When they were just anime characters, Kei and Yuri's problems with 
romance seemed funny.  They were gags.  But as the reality sinks in, 
they aren't so amusing anymore.  What makes it even worse are the 
memories that they unlock.

You get close to a person.  Really close.  The person dies.  You heal.  
Eventually.  Partially.  Such wounds never disappear altogether.  
After some period of time, you get close to someone new.  And that 
person dies.  Horribly.  Violently.  Just like before.  Friend or lover, 
none are immune.  And despite what the Central Computer may say - 
despite all the empirical knowledge to the contrary, you know.  That 
it *IS* your fault.  That YOU killed them, just as surely as if you had 
put your plasma gun to their temple and pulled the trigger.

Everyone you care about - everyone you love - and worse, everyone 
that dares to care about or love you.  Doomed.  No exceptions.  No 
reprieves.  Only your partners and you manage to survive.  And you 
*always* survive.  You're a near immortal, remember?

So now you've built a reputation.  You are a part of the legend, the 
mythos of the Dirty Pair.  Wherever you go, your name and your 
reputation have gone before you.

Your co-workers revile you.  They want nothing to do with you.  You, 
after all, are the reason that people tremble in fear at the mention of 
the 3WA.  You are the stain on THEIR records that can never be 
washed out.  YOU are the expression of relief on the faces of their 
clients when those clients learn that they have won their game of 
Russian Roulette; that they have been spared YOUR 'assistance'.

The people that you've been sent to help hate you.  They'd rather 
face their problems alone than accept your aid.  But so great is their 
terror of you that they do not tell you that.  Sometimes they bend 
over backwards to help.  To get you away from them as fast as is 
humanly possible.  To see you GONE.  So that maybe, just maybe, 
whatever Gods they have offended will have mercy, and recall their 
Angels, allowing them to live.

It might even work for a select few of them.

Some of them take the other route.  They'll defy you - attack you - 
try to hinder your investigations at every turn, hoping that you'll 
give up and go away.  But you can't do that.  You're 3WA.  You never 
quit - never give up until the case is solved.  Maybe they go a step 
further, and try to kill you, before whatever curse you carry can kill 
them.

Could you blame them for trying?  It's not a matter of chance 
anymore.  You're with the Dirty Pair, remember?  It *will* happen - 
it is only a matter of time.  Perhaps after a thousand missions, if you 
still have a soul, you might even pray for them to succeed.  For it all 
to end.  But all their efforts will win them is a more violent death - a 
more total destruction - and so your own legend grows.

You are no longer human.  The stench of death clings to you like an 
oily second skin, and no amount of scrubbing, no manner of cleanser 
can expunge that blood from your soul.  Lady Mac Beth had it easy.  
Your very presence is a sign from God that the end of the world is at 
hand.  Like comets were in ancient times, you are the harbingers of 
the apocalypse.

Still think you can get a date?  Still think you can find a friend?  
Maybe so.  Travel incognito.  It can be done.  No one has to know.  
But your curse knows.  And it doesn't care if you're on a mission or 
not.  To get close to you is the kiss of death.  How many lovers - how 
many friends would you have to lose to bloody, violent death before 
you learned?  Before you finally gave up?  Before you knew that no 
one could ever be close to you again?

Pop quiz, sport.  What'cha gonna do?  Do you decide that you don't 
care anymore?  Love 'em and when they receive their punishment 
for your presence, move on to the next?  Cutting a swath through the 
galaxy, the ultimate expression of a fatal attraction?

Or perhaps you DO care.  You become afraid.  Afraid to let anyone get 
close again.  Afraid to face the inevitable loss.  Because if you do find 
a person to love, or one that loves you, you condemn them to death.  
Every single time you let down your defences, every single time your 
heart opens, Fate comes along and tears out more of your soul... more 
of your spirit.

Perhaps you would even consider suicide.  But that option is denied 
you as well.  The 3WA has far too much invested in you to allow it.  
Every bit of your training, every bit of your conditioning, every last 
fibre of your being has been saturated with the drive to continue.  
The NEED to see the mission completed.  And because of the nature of 
your unique 'curse', the more dangerous the mission, the more likely 
you are to survive it.  You are Teela Brown and Typhoid Mary rolled 
into one bikini clad package.

Writers are supposed to create.  To build new worlds for people to 
enjoy - not bring them to premature ends.  You have become the 
unintentional antithesis of everything you stood for and everything 
you believed in.  Once you were Clotho - now you are Atropos.  Indra 
become Shiva.

In a Galaxy of countless billions, you will still know what it means to 
be truly alone.

Think about that, when you make that wish.

Zen no Itan-sha
Apprentice to the Angels of the Apocalypse


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