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[This episode marks the end of this story arc.  Radian & Shadebeam, much like
 CalForce, will be going on hiatus until September.  In the meantime, watch for
 'Blood Season,' a miniseries that will reveal Chalandra Harkness' origins.
 Thank you for reading Radian & Shadebeam, and thank you for reading Superguy!
 -- That Author Guy.]


                              RADIAN & SHADEBEAM
                                  Episode 34
                            (Timeline, Part Eight)
                                  "The Line"
                                      by
                                 Gary W. Olson


                         "Wrap me up high in the sky
                          circle me with stallions
                          She flew from peak to peak
                          on the freedom of an eagle"

                                - Drivin 'n Cryin',
                                  "Fly Me Courageous"


                                    -<=*=>-

     Radian felt a hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently, but insistantly.
Her back and neck ached, feeling bruised, though not broken.  Perhaps the
hand was just another vision, she thought, although her eyes were closed.
It certainly didn't feel as real as the visions she had been having, visions
about Planet California, about the TransDemesne, about The Rad, about
herself.  It was as though what she had seen was more real than anything
else.
     The hand kept shaking her, and Akane slowly opened her eyes, to see the
Sun Priest, Ranmikoto, looking down at her.
     "Please rise, Ms. Moroboshi," he was saying.  "The magicalypse comes in
seventeen minutes, and you must leave this world and this time."
     "Nrrrr," Akane said, forcing herself to sit up.  "Where am I?"
     "You're in the Temple of the Sun God," Ranmikoto told her, helping her to
stand.  "Your friends have devised a means of escape.  They are waiting for you
outside."
     "But...I was in the Hall of the Gods, on a different continent, just a few
minutes ago..." Akane started to protest.
     "I know," Ranmikoto said.  He lifted her up, and they began to walk.
Akane looked back at the stone wall where, only moments before, a door had
been.  Her vision was still tinged blue, part of the aftereffects of the
Tofu, but she could not see where the door she had been thrown through had
been.
     "Why...why do you serve The Rad, and The Dar?" she asked.
     "I was selected," Ranmikoto told her.  "I have known no greater
pleasure than while in their service."
     "You know they're mad, don't you?" Akane inquired.
     "Perhaps," Ranmikoto answered.  "You're more able to judge than I."
     Akane winced.
     "They killed the old gods," she said, as she found her strengh starting to
return.  "The old gods...The Dean, The Marilyn, all of them.  They never had
any divine powers.  Not like The Rad and The Dar.  I know what the people on
this world are like, and I can't believe they'd worship anyone like...them."
     "The people only know what I tell them," Ranmikoto said.  They were
approaching the enterance of the Temple.  "I tell them that The Rad is a just
God.  He is their Ideal, the pinnacle of the Hedonistic Principle that is
the foundation of our existance.  They see his Tan, and know that I speak
Truth.  They must love him - it is that that will awaken him five millenia
from now, and bring him back to rediscover Planet California."
     "What do you tell them about The Dar?"
     "I tell them nothing," Ranmikoto said.  "Yet, to worship The Rad is to
worship The Dar."
     Akane stood at the doorway, and looked down the steps.  A pitched battle
was raging, with mages working for the Magestrix on one side defending a small
circle that was casting an eerie looking green light at a point in the sand,
and the most Well-Tanned Regiment in the Galaxy on the other side, giving them
a hard time with heavy artillery and explosive-laden beach balls (and Jarts,
the fun game with litigation written all over it).
     "Your friends are at the side of the Temple," Ranmikoto told her.  She
realized he was pressing a thermos-sized container of something into her
hand.  "I believe this will be very useful to them."
     "What is it?" Akane asked, looking at the thermos.
     "It's a thermos," Ranmikoto explained.
     "No, what's inside it?"
     "Tofu."  He was turning, heading back inside the Temple.  "I must get
aboard the last colony ship.  I regret I will not survive the centuries it
will take for us to journey to Earth, but I'm only mortal, I suppose."
     She watched him walk back into the depths of the building.

                                    -<=*=>-

     "Eight minutes," Shadebeam growled.  "Where the hell is she?"
     "Um...are you sure we shouldn't get into the ship?" Andro' asked.  "Just
in case, I mean."  Everyone glared at him.  "Guess not."
     "Look out!" Karina yelled.  The Rad and The Dar materialized, not ten
feet from them, in humanoid form, locked in a battle that was taking place on
so many different levels that it was impossible for the senses to fathom.
All they could remember, afterwards, was that The Rad was poking his Divine
Fingers into The Dar's eyes, and The Dar was tightening what appeared to be
a clamp on The Rad's Divine Noggin.
     The two Dueling Deities vanished again, as quickly as they had appeared.
     "Ouch," Andro purred.  "That looked painful."
     *They're tearing up the fabric of the planet,* Symon opined.  *Whether
the Magicalypse will arrive in time is an open question.*
     "Seven minutes," Shadebeam growled.  "Where--"
     "Here," a tiny voice said.  Shadebeam turned to see Radian descending to
the ground, carrying a thermos.  Her 'Sisters of Mercy - Vision Thing' shirt
was ripped and dirty, and the Eye of Horus design on it appeared to be tinged
red.
     Shadebeam hugged Radian quickly.  "Where the hell...oh, never mind.  We've
got to get out of here.  This place is going to blow in seven..."
     *Six,* China corrected.
     "Six minutes.  Zen's gotta setup rigged where his minibus will collect
energy from the magicalpyse, pump it through a Transmat Machine that he's
altered to become a time machine into Carmine and Andro''s freighter.  It'll
either send us to 1994 or blow us up, and it'll definitely blow up Zen.  But
he's blown up before, so it's okay."  She paused.  "How was that?"
     Kyoko, Symon, Andro, and China held up scorecards, with scores ranging
from 7.8 to 9.2.
     "It takes practice to become an Olympic Quality Plot Synopsizer," Akane
told her.  She turned to Zen.  "You're going to just...blow up?  Poof?"
     "Well, more like kerpchrrrrwwwwwwrrrrr!" Zen told her.  "But yes, that
is essentially correct.  Say...what is that in your thermos?"
     "Some Tofu," Akane said.  "Want some?"
     "Big T or small t?" Zen asked.
     "Big T," Akane replied.  "Why?"
     "I may survive this yet," Zen said.  "If I replace the spam in my minibus'
power drive with Tofu, the resulting Psychadaelic Experience may be enough to
alter the molecular configuration of the minibus to prevent explosion."
     "What will happen instead?" Carmine asked.
     "I and the minibus will be cast from the planet quite violently," Zen
said.  "At a random direction through space and time, a phenomenon that could
prove to be just as deadly as if I stay here and explode."
     "Not necessarily," Akane said.
     -Five minutes,- Kyoko announced.
     "What?" Karina exclaimed.  "Akane, we don't have time to argue temporal
stupidities with Zen Numbskull..."
     "You told me your minibus collects energy by riding the lines of time
and space, and that you sometimes rode these lines," Akane told Zen.
     "Yes," Zen said.  "But even my Amazing Zen Awareness will be too taxed by
the complexity of adjusting the energy flow to Carmine's ship to deal with
directing the flight of my minibus."
     "Well, as it just so happens, you're not going to be alone," Akane said.
"I'm going with you."
     "What?!?" everyone, except Zen and Akane, exclaimed.
     "This...is...crazy," Shadebeam snarled at her.
     "You don't have to come along," Akane replied.
     "Like hell I'm not coming along," Shadebeam told her.  "I just wanted to
make sure you knew it was crazy, and I completely approve."
     "Four minutes," Andro' called.  On the battlefield, the mages were
disappearing, and the Californian Army was retreating into the Temple, dropping
their field equipment on the beach as they scrambled to get to their DeepSleep
capsules.  Violent energies were whipping the winds into a frenzy, which
strangely failed to touch those at the side of the Temple.
     "I'm going with you as well," Karina told them.
     "No you're not," Akane told her.  "You're going back with Carmine and
Andro'."  Karina started to draw her gun, but Carmine kicked it out of her
grasp.  Andro' caught the gun with his tail, and locked Karina's arms behind
her back.  "I just wish I'd gotten an answer earlier."
     "On what?" Karina asked, as she struggled, futilely, while Andro' dragged
her towards the ship, keeping the barrel of her gun pressed against her chin.
     "On why this is so personal for you," Akane said.
     "Don't you *know*?!" Karina yelled, as she was pulled up the ramp.
     -I know,- Kyoko said.  -And I'm not telling.  So nyah.-
     "Three minutes," Carmine said.  "Akane, are you sure...?"
     "Yes," Akane said.  "It's been good to see you, fuzzyface.  I've got to
get going."  She kissed him on the cheek, and ran towards Zen Navigator's
minibus.  Carmine blinked...there had been something on her lips.  Something...
tofu-ish.  Strange images flashed before his eyes, images of a life he had
never led, of time flowing into itself...
     He shook his head, turned, and dashed up the ramp, into his ship.

                                    -<=*=>-

     Zen emptied the thermos into the fuel valve of the minibus, and closed
it up, before running around to the driver's side and getting in.  Shadebeam
had taken the passenger side seat, and Akane was in the first rear seat,
trying to focus on energy patterns, on energy lines.
     "The power is building," Zen told them.  "When it reaches critical point,
I will open the lines, and shunt it through the Transmat Machine.  Power will
continue to build, until the feedback overwhelms this vessel.  You must be
ready by then."
     "We will," Shadebeam said, turning to look back at Akane.  "Ready, sis?"
     "Yeah," Akane replied.
     -I'll be in the glove compartment, if anyone needs me,- Andro announced,
before shutting the glove compartment door tightly.
     "Thirty seconds!" Zen announced, his gloved hands flashing over the
console.  Shadebeam closed her eyes, opening herself to the psi-bond she shared
with her altiversal twin.  A wave of disorientation spread through her.
     *Akane...what's going on?* Shadebeam asked.
     *Tofu,* Akane told her.  *It'll take a while to burn out of my system.*
     *You took a dangerous, potentially mind-damaging hallucinogenic drug,*
Shadebeam seethed, *and you didn't save any for me?*
     *Next time, I promise.*
     "Twenty!"
     *Anything we can do?* China asked.
     -Besides contemplate being blown up,- Kyoko said.  -Which I'm not quite
ready for, just yet.-
     *Concentrate on keeping their minds free from distractions,* Symon told
them.  *HAL is not here to perform that function, nor to keep the balance.*
He looked at Kyoko, pointedly.
     -I've learned my lesson, thank you,- Kyoko told him.  -But just in case
we don't make it, did I ever tell you I find you to be utterly sexy?-
     Shadebeam wasn't sure, but she could have sworn that Symon was blushing.
     "Ten!"
     She relaxed, and felt that Akane was doing likewise.  The minibus began
to shake, as the influence of the Temple waned.
     "Zero!"

(continued in part two, immediately following...)

+-------- Gary W. Olson --------+        "All roads lead *away* from Ankh-
| swede@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu  |         Morpork, but sometimes people just
+----- swede@drycas.bitnet -----+         walk along them the wrong way."
                                          - Terry Pratchett, _Moving_Pictures_