"Kiyomi." She was damned if she would tell him her

last name. She was
going

Koyomi

---

The woman stood in the door of her own apartment,
quivering in fear.  Actually, it was several emotions,
of which fear was not the most dominant, but fear was
what she would remember.

Kaorin looked up at the stranger, trying to place
where she had seen her before.  "Excuse me, but did
you see something land here last night?"

"U-u-uhhh..."

"I'm pretty sure this was the spot.  I was stargazing
with my friends in the Astronomy Club, when I saw
something - I don't know, it looked like it was fading
into existance.  But it definitely landed near here."

Cloak.  Yes, the cloak had registered a fault just
before landing.  She had been repairing the mechanism
just then.  That was why she was scared.  No it
wasn't.  This was...one of THEM.  They were GONE.  All
of them, except...

"Are you alright?  You don't look very good."

The woman still did not know quite what happened that
night in the lab, but when they awoke, her and her
friend were no longer on Earth...nor, they would later
find out, in the same time.  10 years back, 10 light
years away, and against all odds materializing just as
a GP ship was passing through.  The GP had been kind
enough to take them in, even fix a few of what the GP
saw as unsupportable flaws.  She had not worn glasses
since, and her friend's "antisocial tendencies" were
forcibly corrected.

But their pasts were lost.  They were cautioned
against trying to find their way home: apparently,
Earth was under some kind of interstellar quarantine.
So, the two of them buried themselves in the GP, even
changing their hair and eyes to help themselves
forget.  Even their names...

"Miss?  Miss!"

The woman was only vaguely aware of plastering herself
against the far wall.  No!  This past was DEAD to her!
She had NOT deliberately taken case after case near
this system hoping to get an excuse to slip through
quarantine!  And once she was assigned to this planet,
out of all the places on Earth, she did NOT set up
headquarters in the very same town, with a view out
the window of...that school...

"I'm sorry if I'm bothering you, but I really have to
know."

Don't step in.  Don't come any closer.  Please.  Don't
see the...

Kaorin would never be seen on Earth again.
Regulations: any human "corrupted" by proof of
extraterrestrial life had to be taken off-planet
permanently for humanity's good, although certain
exceptions existed for high-ranking Juraians.  Tomo
believed Kaorin when she said she was going alien
hunting, enough to learn about and experiment with
quantum teleportation to see if that might turn up any
traces of their lost friend.  While that goal seemed a
bit far-fetched, the experiment itself was interesting
enough to gain the aid of Yomi...Koyomi...Kiyomi...

Kiyone would later wonder if there was some diety
specifically responsible for making time travel
traumatic.

---

Yeah, I know, old cliche.  ^_^;

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