I was half expecting to see the medical bay at the Unified Hospital in LA, filled with rack after rack of similarly decomissioned soldiers who had, like myself, chosen to stay on Earth.  There would be Lunar medtechs, still wearing their own cyborg bodies in Earth Gravity, attending to the process.  Maybe some Terran interns as well, learning the new tech as part of the Treaty.  And maybe, just maybe, a Proxy of of the Empyrean would be there silently watching the whole process, making sure we all kept our promises.  All this together would mean I was back on Earth, my Earth, and everything so far had just been a dream in the tank.

Strange...before I would have found the thought that this was all a dream comforting.  Now I found it horrifying.

As it was, when I opened my eyes it became clear that I was not on Earth.  I was, according to my internal map, on Sansara, the erroneously named "Northern Continent" of SL.  I was indeed in a regen tank, though.  The burnt hot dog and turpentine taste of the fluid I was suspended in was proof of that.  Looking over I saw that Natsumi was sitting, rather primly considering she was asleep, in the tank next to me.



"Natsumi!  Wake up!" I shouted...or rather tried to shout.  People's vocal cords and lungs don't work very well when they're flooded with tank fluid.  I floated up to the top of my little cell and fumbled around until I found the failsafe release switch under a safety cover, put there just in case some freak accident happened and no one was there to decant you when you woke up.  The tank disgorged me with the usual nasty outpouring of fluids, followed my me coughing up the contents of my lungs and stomach for about 5 minutes.  After that I hit the release on Natsumi's tank too and let her experience the fun too. After all, misery loves company.



"Blech...what was that stuff?  Tasted like bad barbecue dipped in paint thinner," Natsumi said as she coughed up the last of the tank fluid.

"Regen tanks, we probably broke every bone in our bodies in that fall.  Nice of someone to show enough kindness to scoop us up and put us in there."

"Yeah, but who?"

"That's what I'd like to know.  Not to mention where someone got LCF technology from...this tank looks like it came right out of the Unified Hospital. I thought my eyes were the only thing that made it to this world."

Natsumi shrugged. "Well, we're alive anyway.  Maybe the guy who owns this house helped us out.  We should probably head up the path and see if he's up there."

I nodded.  "Even if he's not, maybe he's got a place to crash.  Even after our little nap I'm still exhausted."

We climbed up a steep trail, circling up to the top of the hill.  When we got there we were greeted with a familiar sight.



It was the plane we had seen earlier, from the vantage of our now wrecked airship.  Closer examination showed it had been converted into a sort of party house, with a hot tub...and a Wurlitzer.  We headed towards the door to take a closer look inside.  That's when we saw the nipples...



OK...I think someone watched a bit too much Tale Spin in their formative years.



The place was like a kind of furry/merman Hugh Hefner bachelor pad.  Quite well appointed, but no sign of the owner and no further traces of Lunar technology.  Exhausted from our search and from the events of the day we settled in to a couple of heavily padded easy chairs and watched old Sci-Fi movies on TV and discussed our plans for the next leg of our trip.



"OK, we're here, in Powder Mill," I said, marking an X on the map where we had made landfall.  "The way I see it, there are three routes we can take to Natoma.  The Southern route is the shortest, but it will take us through the Snowland Region.  I say it's short, but we may run into mountains and we're obviously going to have to face some inclement weather.  Rather than that, we may want to consider the Northern route which will take us close to Linden Village, or the Central route which weaves through the lakes in the center of the continent."



Natsumi thought for a long moment.  "I'd like to see the Linden Village, but that's a long way around the lakes to get to Natoma.  I don't want to go the Southern Route either, too cold.  Provided we can find bridges along the Central route I say we go that way.  As long as we don't have to swim anymore, mind you."

I nodded enthusiastically at that last comment.  "Central Route it is!  We'll set out in the morning."

After that we both drifted off to sleep in the easy chairs, "Teenager from Outer Space" still playing on the tube.  My sleep was troubled, though.  Our whole trip so far was like a bad episode of Lost, all questions and no answers.  Hopefully Sansara would be more forthcoming than Islandia had been.

(To Be Continued)