It seemed like half the morning had passed when a man in a blue uniform that was slightly more elaborate than that of the guards came in. He spoke quietly to the supervisor, who nodded and then looked at Naru. "Osaka-san, you are to go with this man," he said.

Two of the guards who were stationed in the office came to the cell and opened the door. "We'll go with you, just in case," one of them said to the man who had come in.

"Thank you. Follow me." He left the office, Naru following him, the two guards walking closely beside her but not holding her. They went outside, and for a second she wondered if they had really come to take her back to the Institute. Then he led the way through a great door of whitish metal that slid soundlessly open and into the Palace itself. Inside, the light was muted and cool, but the view through the crystalline walls was clear. They went down hallways and up in elevators that moved smoothly and silently up and up until the view through the walls made Naru dizzy. Her legs shook and her heart pounded, not just from exhaustion and the dizzying view to the ground far below. She was going to see Nephrite again. He had died so many years ago, but now, somehow, he was back, and she was going to see him. She just hoped she didn't start crying when she saw him. Her self-control right now felt very thin. She tried to imagine what would happen after she delivered her message, but couldn't think past that. The very idea of seeing him again was too much to imagine.

Finally, near what must have been the top of one of the tallest towers, they came to a door made of the same as the door downstairs. The walls around the door were clouded so that she couldn't see in. A uniformed guard leaned against the wall next to the door, looking bored. He straightened up as soon as he saw Naru and her escort. "This her?"

"Yes," the man who had led Naru there answered.

"Okay, you can go on in." The guard stepped aside as the door slid smoothly open. The official who had brought her walked into the room. "The woman who wanted to see you is here, my lord."

Naru and the two guards from the station entered the room. A man sat at a huge polished wood desk which was covered with charts and books and papers. It was him. The same hair, long and thick and auburn. The same handsome face, not aged at all in the nine--nearly ten--years she had seen him. The same deep blue eyes. She swallowed, afraid that she was going to burst into tears after all.

He looked at her. "Osaka Naru, is that correct?" His voice was even and neutral.

That wasn't right. He shouldn't have to ask her name. "Yes, of course it's me. Don't you remember? Don't you recognize me?"

"I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't. If we've met before, I don't recall it."

It felt like the whole world ended at that moment. Not just her heart, but everything inside of Naru stopped and then broke. "You let them--" she started to say, then stopped herself. Trying to argue with him or convince him that his memories of her had been taken from him would do no good.

He ignored her misspoken words. "I was told you have a message that could only be delivered to me or to the Queen."

"Yes." But what was the point? He wouldn't believe her, and anyway, without him or her friends or anyone in the world, what did she care what happened? The only reason she had left to warn them was so that innocent people wouldn't be hurt. "There's going to be an uprising against the purification law."

He leaned forward, a more intense expression replacing the neutral, slightly bored look he had worn before. "An uprising? How do you know?"

"I know the person who is leading it."

"And who is that? Tell me."

His voice allowed for no disobedience. But he had willingly given up his memories of her, for the sake of a position at the Palace. Serenity had banished her to life in a mental institution. She owed them no more than she had already given them. "Mumeishi." No one.

She turned to leave. The guards, who had stood a bit behind her during the interview, moved to stop her. "It's all right," Nephrite said. "See her from the Palace grounds, and then let her go."

"But, Lord Nephrite--" one of the guards protested.

"She's done nothing wrong. Let her go free."

Numbly, she allowed them to lead her down the hallways and elevators and through the front door of the Palace. The guards there were not the ones who had been there earlier. They stepped aside so that Naru could go down the steps. Everyone was very polite, but she could sense that they were anxious for her to be on her way.

Once at the bottom of the steps, she stood still, at a loss for what to do next. She hadn't thought about what would happen after she saw Nephrite, but now she realized she had hoped he would take her in, give her refuge, protect her and love her. But he didn't know her. He had let Serenity take the memories of her from him. And with that her only hope for a future of freedom was gone.

A distant siren shook her out of her daze. The Institute authorities would be searching for her by now. Word of her escape must not have reached the Palace yet, otherwise they wouldn't be letting her go, but that wouldn't last long.

She started walking in the opposite direction from the Institute. If she remembered correctly, there was a large area of abandoned warehouses and old factories several kilometers away. She could find a place to hide there, maybe even a colony of other indigent people that she could blend into. If the old warehouses and factories were still there; if they hadn't been torn down because there was no place in Crystal Tokyo for anything that was useless, ugly, or unpleasant. It would be a hard life there, but her family was dead, her best friend had abandoned her, and Nephrite had forgotten her. The only thing that mattered was to not go back to the Institute. No matter what, she wasn't going to let them put her back in that place.

By now, the streets had filled with traffic and people. A few people glanced at her, probably curious about her disheveled condition. Everyone looked so neat and happy. She must stand out like an swollen thumb. She tried to act like everything was perfectly fine and there was no reason for anyone to be suspicious of her.

Every once in a while she saw what must have been a peace officer, wearing a more casual version of the Palace guards' uniform, blue button-up shirts with long black neckties instead of the military-style jackets. When she saw one, she hid herself in a knot of people or drifted farther out of the officer's vision until he had passed.

Her stockinged feet were burning and her delicious breakfast was a distant memory when she finally came to the warehouse district. The huge city block was fenced off with chain link festooned with signs that said, "UNSAFE AREA! PLEASE KEEP OUT!" Guessing that signs and chain link wouldn't keep out people who had nowhere else to go, Naru circled the block, looking for a way in. Once she glimpsed a peace officer in the distance. She stood straighter and walked more purposefully, at an angle slightly away from the fence, until he was out of sight. Then she resumed her search.

Finally she found a place where the chain link had been pulled up, leaving a gap between the fence and the ground just wide enough for a person to scoot through. Judging by the hollow worn into the ground there, it had been used by a number of people. Naru lay down on her back, sliding her feet under the fence, and then wriggled her way out of Crystal Tokyo and into a world where she belonged.

Most of the warehouses were too ramshackle for anyone to enter. Walls and roofs had collapsed, probably because of the deep freeze and rapid thaw. A few doors were padlocked shut, or just rusted into place. Bits of broken glass littered the ground; she had to tread carefully to avoid cutting her feet. One warehouse was open and relatively intact. She paused by the door, listening to the rumbling of three or four drunken male voices inside. Then she turned to avoid passing in front of the open doorway and went another way.

A smell of smoke and cooking food drew her towards a smaller building. At one time it might have been an office. Cautiously, she poked her head around the doorframe. Three people, at least one of them a woman, sat huddled around a small brazier, cooking something on sticks over the flames. Most likely fish. Hopefully, and not the rats that she heard scurrying in the abandoned buildings and piles of rubble. The woman looked up, saw Naru, and began screeching unintelligibly at her. Her two companions turned and looked at Naru, unthinking hostility on their faces.

"Sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude, I'll leave you alone now." Naru turned away from that refuge. It looked like she wasn't going to find a welcome among the denizens of this area. Were these people who still hadn't been rounded up for purification? Or had they refused the Queen's healing and somehow managed to avoid being locked up in the Institute? She wandered through the alleys and yards of the warehouses, looking for a place of her own, where no one else had settled first.

Finally she found an empty tool shed with windows that were mostly intact and a door that would close. No one was in there, except for a few spiders and a rat that she chased out by throwing a chunk of fallen concrete at it. Naru closed the door and sank to the floor. Here she was, cold, filthy, exhausted, her feet aching in socks that were nearly worn through, her stomach hollow with hunger. She had no one in the world to turn to for help. Everyone she had ever loved was either dead or had betrayed her. Finally the numbness that had filled her at Nephrite's denial of her dropped away. Pain and despair rushed over her, and she buried her head against her knees and cried.