To reply, post publically or e-mail the author at tarne_of_eat@hotmail.com
Enjoy!

The FFML Refugee List


Generation Lost

A R.5 alt by Josh Temple
reading the new posting of ch2 is recomended as to the changes with 
templates

note: in terms of the manga this starts before volume 22 when Ranma has 
never seen his mother, but because it is and alt fic events past events
will 
not follow the cannon precisely.

You know the drill I don�t own Ranma or any of the other shows or movies 
used in reference.  I�m just having some fun.

"And so it begins."
	 Babylon 5, Season 5 Intro.

[ It starts after Genma�s death when an attorney tells Ranma about his 
mother.  Shortly after giving birth to Ranma Nodoka is forced to give up 
custody and eventually flees the country.  She arrives in Lock Ridge a
small 
town in Southwestern Wyoming.  She meets sheriff Jack O�Neill and
eventually 
falls in love with him. She remarries and has a daughter, Sarah.
	Then, Nodoka is killed in an accident with Jean, Jack�s sister, two years 
before Genma�s death.  When Ranma discovers this he disappears from public 
eye to make his decision and learns English under Cologne�s unique
tutelage. 
  After a month of soul searching Ranma decides to move to Lock Ridge, 
permanently.
	There he finds his sister Sarah, Sarah�s cousin Dan, Dan�s girlfriend 
Allison, and the Beast: a heavily modified Suburban that Dan put a 
refurbished helicopter engine in.  During Ranma�s second day in Lock Ridge 
he gets a template imprinted into him.
	A template is a very large magical construct, created in Calash a computer

based magical tongue. Sarah, Dan, and Allison are all capable programmers
in 
Calash and each have their own templates.  However the one Ranma got could 
be best described as Sailor Angel.  Unfortunately, they don�t have the 
passwords needed to edit Ranma�s template.
	Unfortunately (again) no one knows who imprinted the template onto Ranma, 
or who even wrote it. All they have is the alias of the creator: Spore.]
	Confusing? Well just ask for the previous chapters.

Chapter 3 -  Technical Support
"Nothing�s the same anymore." Babylon 5, Season 5 Intro.

	Ranma woke up in the upper bunk bed.  She looked down to see Sarah
sleeping 
in the lower bunk.  No one had told Ranma that she needed to sleep in
female 
form. Ranma and Sarah were brother and sister, technically half siblings, 
but that didn�t matter.
	Ranma had lost what had been his room, for a short time, so Allison could 
sleep there.  It was a symbolic gesture, designed to appease Allison�s 
parents.  If Allison and Dan wanted to get frisky nothing could really stop

them, especially given Allison�s ability to turn invisible.
	This bunk bed had a lower bunk running perpendicular to the upper bunk. 
Ranma jumped off the upper bunk, got dressed, and walked out of the room.  
She knocked on the bathroom door. "Just a minute," Allison shouted over the

shower.
	"Never mind," Ranma said, walking down the stairs.
	Jack was sitting in the living room reading a newspaper. "Hey Ranma," he 
said without looking up.
	At the foot of the stairs she asked, "How�d you know it was me?"
	"I have my ways," the sheriff said, turning the page.
	"I�m really sick of people saying that."
	"Sorry to hear about your template."
	"Have any suspects," Ranma asked, looking for the downstairs bathroom.
	"Not my jurisdiction."
	"Whoever did this tired to kill us,"
	"Read the town charter," Jack said still reading, "I�ll help when the 
time�s right," he said in the grim tone of a man caught between duty and 
honor.
	Ranma shrugged and went to find the bathroom.  It was adjacent to the den,

near the kitchen, and tucked away.  Ranma tired the faucets first.  She 
managed to change back with hot water.  Her curse seemed to have
stabilized, 
at least for now, and was back to the standard triggers.
	Ranma exited the bathroom and went into the kitchen.  Dan was sitting at 
the table.  He had a pot of coffee in front of him, with a straw sticking 
out.  The pot was half gone and he had a glazed look to his eyes.
	Actually Ranma wasn�t sure, considering he�d never seen Dan when he wasn�t

sleeping, pulling an all-nighter, or looked half baked.
	"Hey it�s the Ran-Man," Dan said before falling face first on the table. 
"Ouch," he said in a little too mellow voice.
	Sarah wearing slacks, a blouse, and her vest walked into the room took a 
swig of coffee, put the pot back down. "You are an idiot," she said slowly 
to her cousin, then to Ranma. "We�re going to have some problems unless we 
can get wonder boy here to wake up," she said pointing to Dan�s now
sleeping 
form.
	"What did he do?" Ranma asked.
	"He just stayed up all night getting a project essay done, but that�s not 
the worst of it, if he can�t drive us to school. . ." Sarah trailed off
when 
Allison entered the room.
	Allison done with bathing and dressed in her normal clothes that is to say

revealing yet not cheap, well not that cheap. "You know Dan you shouldn�t
do 
this every night it�s bad for you-" Allison�s stern lecture fell short when

she realized what Dan�s present state meant. She stopped looked at her 
sleeping boyfriend then a the coffee pot, then ran out of the room.
	Ranma heard the garage door slam shut. "Is she really that bad?" he asked,

not wanting to know the answer.
	"Worse. It�s not that she can�t drive, actually yes it is. I mean she�s 
almost a good as Dan is when it comes to mechanics, but put her in the 
driver�s seat, and well," Sarah rambled off.
	"So what do we do?"
	"You can�t stop her.  Unless you want to try."
	Ranma remembered the maniacal glint Allison possessed, "Um not 
particularly."  He then looked at Dan�s comatose body, "So what do we do 
with him?"
	"Help me drag him to the Beast."

	Dan woke up.  He felt nauseous and had a splitting headache.  It almost 
felt as if his brains were being ground up. Wait that wasn�t his brains. It

was his truck. OH NO.
	Dan bolted up, or tried to, he was secured in the front passenger seat by 
his belt. "Allison," he said grinding his teeth. "Why are you driving my 
truck? You know I love you but, YOU DO NOT DRIVE MY TRUCK."
	Dan unclipped his belt and lunged over about to pull the keys out when it 
hit him.  The truck sounded normal, a bit strained but normal, and
otherwise 
fine. "Um sorry, but when did you start to drive competently?"
	"Oh that," Allison said shifting into a higher gear, "I�ve been practicing

at my parents house."
	Dan nodded.   Allison was driving a bit slow, only twenty over the speed 
limit, but she had shifted into the right gear, and was handing  the beast 
reasonably well. Considering the engine under the hood of the black tuck 
that was an accomplishment for even a normal driver, let alone Allison. 
"Why�d they let you drive I mean you�re a great mechanic, but you backed 
into a tree." Dan paused, "repeatedly."
	Meanwhile Raman was relaxing in the back.  Allison was still going way too

fast but at least they had yet to go airborne.
	Sarah was sitting next to Ranma working on a laptop. She was humming.
	"What are you doing?" Ranma asked.
	"Researching on Spore," she replied.
	"Oh the German guy who wrote my template."
	"That�s the one," she said then resumed humming. "Except he�s not German."
	"Huh?"
	"I traced back those files that Sean was storing.  The German account was 
just that, another account, another storage site." Sarah then hummed a few 
more bars, "So I searched the billing list as to who paid for the drive 
space."
	"Who?" Ranma inquired, pondering the song it was vary familiar.
	"A Japanese software company."
	"Oh crap."
	"Yup seems like one of your old �pals� has a sick sense of humor."
	"The software company may be just another shell," Dan said, watching 
Allison drive.
	"To much of a coincidence," Sarah said, then started humming again.
	Ranma  nodded. That song was really getting annoying. It almost sounds
like 
the opening to. . .
	"Hey!" Ranma said indignant.
	"Took you long enough," Sarah said grinning.
	"Isn�t that the theme song to Sailor Moon?" Allison asked.
	"Eyes on the road," Dan warned.
	Ranma fumed.
	"Lighten up. I mean you can hum the  theme to Mech. Warrior."
	"or The Matrix."
	"or Invisible Man."
	"or The Terminator."
	"or Stargate."
	"Yeah but you guys chose your templates and you can still edit yours," 
Ranma said.
	"True that does suck." Sarah said.
	"But a least you�ve go some serious power," Dan said.
	"You can fly too," Allison added.
	Ranma grumbled.

	The Beast pulled into the school parking lot.	 "Very good," Dan said as 
Allison put the truck into park and pulled out the keys.  Getting out of
the 
truck,  "Okay Allison and I  have all of our classes together, and you two 
have all of yours together," Dan told Ranma and Sarah also out of the
truck.
	"So did you get put ahead a year?" Ranma asked. After all he was a year 
older.
	"Not exactly," Sarah said grabbing her pack and starting to walk to
school.
	Ranma thought about this, "I got sent back a year."
	"Number one our school year ends in summer, number two education is 
different over here, and number three you�re not a scholarly person," Dan 
listed.
	"So your saying I�m dumb."
	"No you just don�t care about school that�s all."
	Ranma approached the door to the school, "Wait, the hacker that did this
to 
me is most likely a student here right?"
	"That�s why I�m suggesting we stay in teams of two," Dan said approaching 
the door.


	The lady in shadows sat in the student lounge working.  This time she was 
not alone, about two dozen other students were in the lounge.  Most of them

were working on laptops similar to hers.  A few even had I/O spheres out.  
She had hers set on long range scan.
	It started when she replayed what the golem sent out before being 
destroyed. She found that Sarah�s twin was named Ranma, and when she 
correlated it with school records. She found a Ranma, but this person was 
male.
	Further examinations of the broadcast, revealed two things, first in the 
hands of a skilled user that template was very powerful, and her toy had 
some other programs.  The conversation in the standing circle refereed to a

sex changing curse.  She then researched the name they had used: Jusenkyou.
 
Apparently it was a water triggered curse.
	This made the repercussions of the imprint were even more amusing.  The 
intentions of the Lady in Shadows were not that malicious, if Ranma ever
got 
the decryption key he�d have a good chance of removing a good part of the 
code.
	Wizards and such are generally a laid back bunch, but they suffer from the

same malady of immortals and other beings of power, boredom.  So they spend

their time finding activities that they find interesting or entertaining.
	Granted the lady does have sick sense of humor and that she�ll play puppet

master just for a few laughs doesn�t mean she�s evil. Oh wait yes it does, 
but at least she�s no megalomaniac from an alternate dimension bent on 
global domination.
	Given her intentions what she did to the school�s computer system was no 
surprise, even though it was a simple trick.

	Ranma was following Sarah, walking towards the doors when he heard 
something.  A familiar noise, the sound of sprinklers about to go off.
Ranma 
tried to dodge but for some reason he could never dodge water very well 
whether it was from a ladle, puddle, or sprinkler.
	Jets of water came out covering the lawn and a certain martial artist.  
>From inside the foyer Dan and Allison watched Ranma get soaked. "Ranma 
wasn�t kidding when he said he was a water magnet," She commented
	Dan nodded.
	Sarah was standing by the door, "Come on in," she told Ranma.
	Ranma walked in completely soaked. Her shirt was quite clingy. She was 
grumbling something.
	"That was odd," Sarah said.
	"Nah it�s just my curse. This kind of crap always happenings to me."

	From the guardrail of the student lounge, Ned Winston  saw Sarah O�Neill 
enter the school followed by a soaking wet girl that looked just like her. 
He then walked up to the lady in shadows, "Hey Rebecca, you know Sarah had
a 
twin?"
	Rebecca looked up from her laptop, "Heard she�s her long lost sister from 
Japan,"
	Ned nodded, "Makes sense, I mean Sarah is half Japanese. Although the 
sprinklers must have hit her, odd."
	Rebecca raised an eyebrow at Ned.
	"Yes fine, that wasn�t that odd at all.  It was probably just a prank,"
Ned 
  sensing awkwardness, then grabbed his bag and left the lounge.
	Rebecca sighed, the only reason she put up with Winston at all was his 
ability to create golems; magically enhanced robots.  Ned had that right
mix 
of programming talent and engineering  aptitude to excel in the field. They

had worked out a little agreement, he gave her the occasional bot and she 
kept him supplied with raw materials.

	"Well this sucks," Ranma said still in female form.
	"What?" Sarah asked leading him to the next class.
	"Let�s see a good portion of the school saw me transform."
	"I don�t think so. I was standing right at the doors and I didn�t see 
anyone out there,  and no one from the lounge could see where you were 
standing."
	"True," Ranma said pondering. "So now what?"
	"You should just go on in ."
	Ranma looked at the knob. Inhaled, grabbed and turned. She stepped into a 
classroom. At lest she though it was one.  Her experience with classrooms
it 
the rigid grid of desks that dated back to the 50�s.  this room had  a
white 
board that ran alone one wall, a cluttered teachers desk in a corner, a 
bunch of chairs and tables in the center of the room, and running the other

three walls  were  numerous computer stations.
	The teacher, a well rested looking middle aged man, walked up to the near 
twins. "I�m Mr. Jones and you must be the new girl Ranma," he said, then 
wandered back to his desk.
	"Um, yeah." Ranma said unsure.  "What�s going on here?" she whispered to 
her sister.
	"Most of the teacher are pretty laid back.  I mean they have to be,
they�re 
teaching a bunch of people that have some pretty heavy powers.  The only
way 
you can stay sane around here is to go with the flow.  But Jones is the
most 
apathetic, then again he�s been here the longest out of the entire staff."
	"No not that.  Why did he call me a girl?"
	"There is the family resemblance," Sarah suggested.
	"No that�s not it we have different last names, and he used mine" Ranma
had 
a bad feeling about this.
	"Um, the records could be wonky.  Come on let�s sit down," Sarah said 
leading Ranma to a computer station in the back.
	Ranma saw about a eighteen other students most of whom were asleep. He
then 
sat down in  a seat next to Sarah, who had just turned on one of the 
computers.
	Mr. Jones shuffled to the front of the room.  "Alright class. Come on you 
lazy bastards, I only require you to listen to me once a day, so Wake Up," 
he said clenching his teeth.
	About a third of the class woke up blinked at the Mr. Jones and fell back 
asleep, the rest maintained consciousness but were apathetic and slothful.
	"Close enough," Mr. Jones muttered. Then in a dry monotone "Anyway your 
projects are due Friday, not that any of you care. We have a new student.  
The damp one next to Sarah. That�s it. I�ll be sleeping." He then shuffled 
to his chair, put his feet on his desk and went to sleep.
	Ranma found this surprising.  She never had a teacher that didn�t seem to 
care at all.  She looked at the rest of the class. Some were still
sleeping, 
while the others had shifted to computers.  "What�s with this place?"
	"Nearly all the classes here are self paced," Sarah said. "It would be a 
futile to try and force any of us to do daily work. Even the people with 
limited potential and skill are too independent to be �normalized� by
public 
school. This must be really weird considering the uniform wearing, teacher 
respecting, hard work grinding, and pointless task completing regimenting
of 
Japanese schools."
	"That�s an extreme interpretation."
	"But an accurate one."
	Ranma shrugged, he turned to see a girl standing behind her. She was
rather 
average with long brown hair, pulled back in a lose braid.
	"Hey  Sarah?" she asked. "I didn�t know you had a twin," she said pointing

to Ranma.
	"Ranma�s not my twin Julie," Sarah said typing, "Technically she�s my half

brother."
	"Huh?" Julie said, confused by the conflicting pronouns.
	"We share a mother.  You see when his father died, he moved over here. Now

the reason he looks like, well, me is that he�s got this weird curse."
	"Oh is it a virus or corrupt coding?"
	"I think it�s a little of both, although it wasn�t written in Calash."
	"Have you tired removing it?"
	"Oh the uninstall is easy, but it won�t be taken out right now."
	"Alright then," Julie said then walked off.
	"It�s not that I don�t mind it.  But no one�s freaked out by the curse," 
Ranma said slightly confused.
	"Granted there aren�t too many sex altering applets floating around, but a

couple of people have them."
	"So what class is this?"
	"Um English?"
	"Wait you don�t know," Ranma asked, god the teachers were lax here, which 
is a good thing.
	"Well all he does is give us long range writing projects, and then grades 
them ruthlessly."
	Ranma shook her head.
	 "So why don�t you get some hot water?"
	"My clothes are still wet.  I�ll just change right back."
	"Yes I see," Sarah said looking at Ranma�s shirt. "You really should wear
a 
bra when you�re in that form."
	Ranma glared at her sister.
	"Sorry, but I�ve got �em too."

	Rebecca checked the remote connection to her O/I sphere.  She linked  the 
device to what used to be a cell phone and made a wireless connection 
between it and her laptop.  She didn�t want to leave the sphere alone, but 
she had to distance herself from her toy, and the work she planned was far 
too precise for a the sphere�s long range broadcast settings.
	When she found out about her toy�s curse she began making a little upgrade

for Ranma�s template.  It was a program she had used before and required 
only minimal editing to suit her needs.  Rebecca even found a way to 
compensate for the fact that the template could not function at all when 
Ranma was male.
	Now all she had to do was wait.

	Ranma grumbled, she was once again female.  Just before lunch her clothes 
had dried enough to allow her to switch back, and then when they walked
back 
from a restaurant near the school the sprinklers hit him again.
	At least students were allowed to eat of school grounds. Ranma sighed 
pulling at her damp again clothes, tomorrow she would bring another set to 
change into. "So this is the physics room."
	"Yup," Sarah replied working on a miniature Tesla coil.
	Ranma looked around the room.  Half the class was helping the teacher a
Mr. 
Smith build some sort of contraption, while the rest of the class built 
other smaller machines. Down to the white boards covered with descriptions 
of Gaussian surfaces, Ampereian loops, and other things that Ranma didn�t 
understand the room looked very much like a mad scientist�s layer or a
least 
a research scientist�s lab.
	During lunch Sarah checked the school records and found out that someone 
had changed Ranma�s sex to female.  Sarah remarked that this was another 
prank done by the same person that imprinted Ranma. Sarah fixed the 
settings, but considering how easy is was to get in the records could be 
switched back rather easily.
	Ranma was bored and tired, all she wanted to do was take a little nap, and

for once in her scholarly career no one would stop her. Ranma put her head 
down on the workbench and fell asleep.
	"Ranma give me some more copper wire," Sarah said.  When she failed to get

a response she looked over to see her sister fast asleep.
	"Fine be that way." Sarah went back to work.
	A few minutes later she stopped, and walked out  to go to the bathroom.

	Rebecca observed all this from the security camera she compromised.  Her 
patience had paid off Ranma was asleep and would be unaware of the edit,
and 
Sarah who might have been able to tell something was amiss, was out of the 
room.
	Being in study hall, she had no concerns of being interrupted, but she had

to act fast.  She linked the sphere to Ranma�s template, and got the 
standard: "Program locked. Please enter edit code or software will be read 
only."
	Rebecca typed in "NOOPS_WRAITH_ALPHA_COMSYS_THREVE_56," and gained full 
access to the template.  She then loaded her upgrade package which self 
extracted into the template.  After checking to see that the installation 
was successful, she went into the template�s history and deleted any record

of the installation.  She wanted it to look like the new code had always 
been there.
	Rebecca satisfied with her work disconnected  with the template.  She
would 
pick up her sphere after school.  She continued to watch  through the 
secure-cam to see how much extra time she had, before Sarah returned or 
Ranma awoke.  It was about two minutes.

	Sarah came back into the class room to see Ranma still asleep. "Lazy
fool," 
she said, sitting back down and going back to work on her Tesla coil.

	Sean Reno was at his computer, trying to contact Spore.  He had some
rather 
bad news.  Sean knew that this was the forum that Spore normally hung 
around, all he had to do was wait.

Spore: hello forge
Germ forge: y34h \/\/e h4v3 t0 t4[k
Spore: dont go into that l33t crap your language is hard enough as it is
Germ forge: sorry can we talk in private
[45 users have been removed from discussion group]
Spore: Remember this is my forum
F: true
S: what do you have to say
F: remember the hacker that stole those file i was storing for you
S: yes
F: that bitch imprinted this new girl
S: so
F: she and her friends are pissed
S: so
F: they are looking for you and the hacker
S: so they do not know where i am
F: neither do I but you should be prepared
S: true okay give me a description
F: japanese girl about 16 short well endowed with bright red hair and she�s

got a twin sister
[30 seconds pass without a response]
F: spore what�s wrong
S: describe the template
F: short skirt  ribbons and bows  angel wings
S: not good
F: what
S: I have to go now but we will talk later

	Gosunkugi Hikaru disconnected from the forum, and looked at his monitor 
blankly.
	"Well you�re screwed," a girl�s voice said.
	Gosunkugi turned to his other computer monitor. On the screen was a girl 
that looked about his age.  She had dark blue medium length hair and was 
wearing black tights, black blouse, and a  short chainmail skirt.  She was 
an extremely lifelike 3d rendering.
	"Thanks for pointing out the obvious Erika,"
	"Why did you make all those templates in the first place?  I mean Shampoo,

Akane, Ukyou, Ranma�s girl side. Oh wait I see," the computer generated
girl 
glared at the pale teen.
	"It�s not like I have any magical skills. I mean look at how pathetic I
was 
with voodoo."
	"But you�re actually good with Calash, those were fully functional 
templates."
	"With Calash anyone can write the programs, but only a select few can 
actually execute them.  I have no latent potential, so I thought they�d 
never be used.  They were just practice."
	"But you made me," Erika offered.
	"No I didn�t.  All I did was hack into and link, the best experimental 
AI�s. You were just a fluke."
	"But here I am," Erika said pointing to herself.
	"No, the only thing �here� is you input/output feed and your graphical 
interface.  The rest of �you� is still on over a dozen campuses and 
corporate labs.  The only reason you haven�t been taken apart yet is that 
you�ve hidden your existence to your true creators."
	"But I can pass any turning test and am the culmination of the top minds
in 
artificial intelligence."
	"But all I did was highjack their work."
	"So you�re a really good hacker that made a simulated girlfriend," Erika 
said.
	"That�s too creepy is it?"
	"Well not creepy.  Is pathetasad a word?" Erika offered.
	"I don�t know.  Is sarcastabitch a word?"
	Erika laughed "Okay fine so what do we do about Ranma?"
	"Well you try to find out why he left, and where he is now."
	"Why don�t you ask his friends?"
	"Um, at school I�m considered the quite background person.  They�d get
real 
suspicious if I started asking where Ranma was; considering they have yet
to 
find him."
	"And what will you do?"
	"I�ll get as much as I can about that hacker."
	"Why do you trust that drunk?"
	"What?"
	"When I found out about Germ Forge I traced back to his real name then did

a government search on him."
	"And what did you find out?"
	"Drunken disorderly."
	"So?"
	"He�s a bad person."
	"Erika look, he�s my friend. He was the one how gave me an I/O sphere and 
the Calash compiler."
	"And why did he do this," she asked skeptically.
	"Well, I cleared up some tax problems he had."
	"I told you he was bad news."
	"Why don�t you like him?"
	"He let someone get in to his system,  and take files he was watching for
a 
friend."
	"That wasn�t his fault."
	"Yes it was."
	Gosunkugi sighed, "Look I think I�ve got a plan but we need more 
information."
	"Alright I�ll do it."
	"That�s my girl."
	"I thought you said I wasn�t real."
	"That�s part of my plan too."
	Erika looked quizzically  at Gosunkugi.

	"So what do you think of school?" Sarah asked while she was getting ready 
for bed.
	"It�s good, but weird.  I mean everything is a long term project," Ranma 
said, striping down to her boxers and a t-shirt.
	"Yeah but don�t think it�s not hard.  It�s real easy not to do your 
project, until the last moment, like Dan does," Sarah said getting into
bed. 
"And you still don�t have to sleep as a girl."
	"I know, but it seems weird to sleep in a girl�s room as a guy."
	"Man, Nerima sure did a mind job on you?"
	"Hum," Ranma said, not listening.
	"What?"
	"Ever think that Spore and that hacker are in cahoots or even the same 
person.  I mean it�s way to convent that someone from Japan makes a
template 
of  my girl side then stores that template with someone who just happens to

live in Lock Ridge."
	"You may have a point, well check it out tomorrow," Sarah said turning off

the lights, "Goodnight Ranma"
	"Yeah night," Ranma said, quickly falling asleep. Rebecca�s supplemental 
programming activated, and the dreams began.

Author�s Notes: This is a short chapter, it�s mostly setup for the next
one.


If you missed a previous chapter and want a copy just e-mail me for it.

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