The view from the balcony was spectacular. The spires of Crystal Tokyo glinted in the summer sun like prisms creating a thousand rainbows. Though the balcony was open a minor spell created a curtain of cool air. Victoria had to admit that all the overblown descriptions of this city's beauty paled before the reality.
“Do you ever get tired of this view?”
The green haired man to her right shrugged. “Yes, but it takes a very very long time. And if you do the occasional bit of travelling you truly come value Crystal Tokyo's stability.”
It was almost terrifying to consider what he must consider a long time. And equally so to think that she would have to learn to think on the same scale.
“More coffee Victoria?” Her thoughts turned from the unimaginable to the more mundane.
“I prefer Vicky. Thanks.” As he poured she asked, “You didn't seem very surprised at an American claiming to be family.”
Calcite chuckled, “I've got or had descendants of every nationality. You get a lot of mix in a thousand years.”
“I wasn't sure. I was told we were related very distantly but I couldn't find proof of it.”
“I checked after you called.” He placed a card sized device on the table between them. A holographic image appeared over it of two small figures standing side by side. One was obviously Calcite, the other … Calcite frowned slightly and said, “Switch to name mode, English.” The figures disappeared replaced by orange tags bearing their names. “Scroll.” 41 names appeared under the first two connected by black threads. Dozens of other names began appearing under the 41 and dozens more under the third layer. The image kept spreading and spreading, expanding outward and downward. “Freeze.” The expansion stopped. “Now trace Victoria Love.” One of the tags shifted from orange with black lettering to Black with white lettering. A red glow surrounded it and the threads tracing upward to the two at the top shifted to red.
“According to this through your mother you're my great-great- great-great grandaughter via Kenji, the second son of our third marriage. That traces from his fifth family … Kenji and Yumi … if memory serves she was an artist of some type. Painter perhaps … no that was Noriko his third wife. Ah yes, she was a violinist.”
“Violinist? Well anything's better than bagpipes.”
“Excuse me?”
“Personal problem, please don't ask.”
“Certainly. So what brought you to Crystal Tokyo anyway?”
“You could call it a school project.” Everyone else is immortal so I have to join them. Which makes me wonder just how long we have to wait until the Golden Millenia gets going. Good grief, Sparky's been gathering moondust for a century! Which is kind of amusing except I'm maybe looking at the same thing. “After I got here I decided to take a detour and see if there was anything to the old family story.” Plus it should drive Haruka-sensei wild. She'll be going out of her mind wondering if I'm blowing her precious Golden Millenium secret out of the water by telling you I'm the new Venus, 'Granddad'. “So I called you and you must have checked that family tree then told me to drop by if I was free..”
He nodded at the hologram. “That thing's the only way to keep track of a family as widespread as mine. If I'd taken the trouble to indoctrinate my children with fanatical loyalty to the clan and they'd passed that on to their own children I'd have quite an army by now. Ah well.”
“How do you keep tabs of everyone?”
“Well the ones here in Crystal Tokyo are easy. Outside the city is a little harder but generally birth, marriage and death records are publicably available. So I have several agencies outside CT that collect all the records. They funnel them back here, my genealogy AI checks the incoming data for linkups and adds the appropriate names to the family tree.”
“Not everywhere has open records. Crystal Tokyo's are inaccessible through the global net.”
“To outsiders and that's mainly to protect descendents of all the senshi. Just in case anyone tried to use them as tools against the senshi or their partners. Besides there's a lot of very old records that exist only as hardcopy. Either for historical value or just so we can keep the Archives open.”
“Is that really necessary? Do you, all of you, feel you can't protect your own children?” For some reason the answer seemed very important to her.
“Rei feels, and I agree, that it's best to prevent problems from occurring than try to fix them later when it comes to security. Also when it comes to Ainos there's too many people spread too widely for me … for us to keep close enough track of to protect them all. It's just a consequence of a long life combined with having children. Not to mention the tree has holes in it. Not all countries' citizen records are publicably accessible. Sometimes hackers can acquire them but then you get places like Freezone where they don't keep any records.”
“That explains the question marks I saw. So that isn't static is it?”
“Not in the slightest. It's constantly being updated and always changing. If you watched it for a few hours you'd see additions, endings, new unions form, old ones break. It's constantly evolving.”
“Sounds almost alive.”
“Perhaps. Of course there's a lot of people who don't know they're related to me. Or, as in your case, it's a vague family story that's impossible for you to verify. Not that you'd bother as a distant connection is more or less irrelevant.” Unless, he added silently, you inherit powers through the bloodline. But the girl gave no sign of being a mana battery. He continued, “I'm not in any sort of direct contact with my more removed descendants unless they wish it and seek me out. After the third generation I don't send cards. I've found people didn't like getting birthday wishes from great grandparents who look younger than them. Besides there's too many for me to remember them all and automating card delivery seemed like a cheat.”
“I see. I was wondering about meeting Sailor Venus …”
“If you call the palace social secretary I'm sure she can arrange an appointment with your multi great-grandmother.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Nothing to do with you but we're currently separated … actively avoiding one another to be precise.” He sighed. “If her majesty hadn't insisted I remain I'd be spending this decade out of Crystal Tokyo.”
“Queen Serenity ordered you to stay?”
“Serenity rarely gives orders. It was more of a strongly worded request.”
“But you stayed anyway?”
“I swore fealty to her a long time ago. If that was what she wanted then so be it.”
“That's something I was wondering about. Don't you feel odd living under a monarchy in this day and age?”
Calcite laughed. “What you have to remember is I grew up under as absolute a monarchy as you could get. After I got out of the Dark Kingdom I spent two years under the Japanese government. Late twentieth century japanese politics didn't inspire much faith in the democratic process. Though to be fair there was a cynicism about the whole process throughout the world's democracies. 'What does it matter which party gets in? They're all bastards.' Excuse me.”
“Things haven't changed much. Please go on.”
“That was followed by years living and running things along military lines. On our return and the ending of the Darkness there was total anarchy everywhere except Crystal Tokyo. Besides this was the only state in the world that would accept known nonhumans and Serenity the only ruler who wouldn't try to turn us into weapons. So, to me, a monarchy seemed perfectly natural. After all these centuries it's hard to imagine living any other way.”
“I guess it helps you've had one ruler everyone likes all this time instead of a dynasty to worry about. But is there ever going to be an heir to the throne?”
Calcite looked a little ill at ease. “Serenity and Endymion don't seem to feel the need to hurry the issue. After all they've got forever to worry about it.”
Victoria didn't seem to like the answer. “That's easy to say when you're both immortal. What about where only one partner is?”
“I couldn't tell you. My children aren't immortal but they have to face outliving their partners. Generally more than once. There's a wide variety of ways of dealing with it. As it's very personal I don't know if they'd answer you. Ruby might, she's fairly outspoken and the youngest of my kids.”
“Ruby?”
“Yes. Funny a long time ago Min… my wife told me mineral based names for our kids were out. But we couldn't come up with one we liked before her birth and afterwards we both agreed Ruby was perfect.”
“When you say young …?”
“She's got her centenial coming up in two months.”
“You and Venus have been separated almost a century?”
Calcite's good humour slipped a little. “No we just haven't had any kids in a while. We are currently in the midst of our third breakup of the 30th century.”
“I see.” Well Haruka should be properly steaming by now. I should let her find me. Odds are she's traced me here but doesn't dare show her face and risk being recognised. “I should be going. I'm due to meet up with my classmates. Thanks for the coffee.”
“You're quite welcome. I'd like to say one thing more if I may.”
“Go ahead.”
“I don't know why but you remind me a lot of someone I met a very long time ago. A woman known as Sailor Hermes.”
“I've never heard of her.”
“Hardly surprising as she didn't originate in our dimension.”
“Excuse me?”
“Let's just say if you ever see those Sailor Polaris Dark World films they're actually based on fact. Highly fictionalized but the basic premise is for real. Hermes was the counterpart of our Sailor Mercury. Like Mercury she'd had her whole life planned out from childhood. But things went very wrong in her world and human civilization crumbled. Hermes was left fighting a battle she couldn't win. She hated the people who'd destroyed her dreams but she also hated destiny for making her be born a senshi. Because that meant she was forced to try and put things right. What she really wanted was to be able to throw away her powers and have a normal life again. The life she'd been planning all along. But she couldn't abandon the fight and she knew she would never be able to return to her old life. She was a very bitter and frustrated girl. She never learned to let go of her resentment and grew up to become a very unhappy woman. I don't know why but when I look at you I remember her.”
Victoria just looked at him. Then gave a curt goodbye and stalked out. Calcite signed and shook his head, he'd bungled that. It was now obvious the girl harboured a deep resentment though to what he had no idea. A little more tact would have been in order. Now he'd probably never know why his descendent was so bitter. He turned back to the view and wondered whatever had happened to Sailor Hermes. Of all the self loathing people he'd met why suddenly think of her now after all these centuries?
Just one of life's little mysteries.
End
Vicky Love/Young Venus created by Frank Barr. Watch for her in “My So Called Life As A Senshi” whenever Frank gets around to it. But don't hold your breath. Like most, if not all, SME writer's he's got a dozen projects to write and limited time.
Calcite created by yours truly.
Lest we forget, everything in SME is based on the creations of Naoko Takeuchi.