Naru stood in her supervisor's office, trying to make sense of what he had just said.

"Miss Osaka?" Mr. Matsuda sounded worried. "Are you all right?"

She nodded. "Yes. Yes, I'm sorry."

"The company just can't afford to keep assembly workers who aren't meeting their quotas."

"Yes, of course. I understand."

"Your final paycheck will be mailed to you next week."

Naru already knew the check would be for less than usual; her pay was being docked for her decreased productivity. "Thank you," she said.

"I hope your luck turns better soon," Mr. Matsuda said earnestly. "I'm sorry for you. But I have to do what my supervisors tell me."

"Of course. I understand. Goodbye, Matsuda-san. Thank you for your patience." Naru bowed and left the small office, pulling the door quietly closed behind her. She collected her purse and coat from the employees' locker room, avoiding the pitying glances of her fellow shift-workers. As she left the plant, she counted the cash she had in her wallet. Just enough for Akeno's ice cream cone. She used to take the bus, but now that was a luxury she couldn't afford. Oh well, the five-kilometer walk wasn't so bad. What she couldn't bring herself to do was tell her two-year-old son that he couldn't have his Friday ice cream cone any more.

Funny, she thought as she walked through the windy late-autumn day, you'd think that having your appendix burst would be a low point in your life. But now, less than three months after her medical crisis, things had managed to get even worse.

Her troubles had started innocently enough, with a broken refrigerator. Besides the loss of a whole week's worth of groceries, the landlady had only been willing to pay for a new refrigerator that was barely big enough for one person's needs. Paying the difference in cost for a bigger refrigerator had used up all of Naru's small savings.

Two weeks later her purse was stolen, right after she had deposited her paycheck and taken out most of it in cash to buy groceries and pay the rent and Akeno's babysitter. Her purse was found the next day, shoved under a bench in a park, emptied of money.

Then, a week after that, she had awakened in the middle of the night, feverish and vomiting, with a searing pain in her middle. She had barely made it to the phone to call for an ambulance. Fortunately, Akeno's babysitter had been able to keep him for the duration of Naru's two-week hospitalization, but the bill for two weeks' babysitting had been tremendous. Most of Naru's doctor and hospital bills had been covered, but not the babysitting charges or the weeks of lost wages or rent and groceries.

Though she scrimped and saved and begged everyone for patience, Naru had started to think that she would never be able to climb out of the financial hole she had fallen into. Then, two weeks ago, after an early-season ice storm, she had slipped on some ice and broken her right wrist. More missed work, more lost wages, and when she did return to work the heavy cast and the pain when she tried to move her fingers kept her from meeting her production quotas at the video-game factory.

And now she was out of a job. There were plenty of other jobs to be had, but prospective employers might not look kindly on her recent absentee record and the fact that she had been fired for poor productivity. If they could get past the fact that she was an unmarried mother. Some companies were very old-fashioned about that sort of thing. She was weeks behind on the rent, and the landlady was getting impatient. The babysitter was dangerously near the limits of her tolerance. Akeno needed new shoes and a coat, and Naru's shoes and underwear were about to fall apart. She tried to calculate how much she owed, and how much the necessary clothing would cost, and gave up. She didn't even want to think about numbers like that right now. She was cold and tired and hungry and her wrist hurt after the day's work. After she and Akeno got home and had some supper, then she could figure out what to do.

At the babysitter's apartment, Mrs. Miyamoto met her at the door with a grim expression on her face. "You can't bring him back until you've paid me in full. I've got bills to pay too, you know."

Naru's little auburn-haired, blue-eyed son ran to her, pushing past Mrs. Miyamoto, and Naru scooped him up in a big hug. "I don't know how much I can pay you. I've lost my job."

Mrs. Miyamoto was unmoved. "You can't bring him back until you've paid what you owe me."

"But--"

The babysitter folded her arms across her chest and gave Naru a stern look. "I want my money."

"All right. I'm sorry. I'll pay you as soon as I can. Goodbye." Naru hurried down the stairs with Akeno in her arms. This was really going to complicate matters. She couldn't bring Akeno back until she had a job and could pay Mrs. Miyamoto, but she couldn't look for a job or start working if she didn't have a babysitter.

Her life on her own had started out so well. She had found a job and an apartment her first day out. Her pregnancy and delivery had been easy, and Akeno had been a healthy baby from the beginning. Of course money was tight, and raising a child alone was exhausting, but she had managed, and had even been able to start saving a little bit before disaster struck in the form of a broken refrigerator, a mugging, and a ruptured appendix. She should have known her earlier good luck wouldn't last, Naru thought.

Skinny though Akeno was, he was too heavy for Naru to carry for very long, especially with her broken wrist. She set him down on the sidewalk. "You have to walk now, Akeno-kun. Mama's tired."

The little boy held her hand and they started for home. It was another three kilometers to their apartment. Naru kept her son's mind off the long walk by pointing out to him all the different cars and trucks and the other sights along the way. Akeno was fascinated with cars; more than anything, he wanted to ride in one sometime. All the while, her own mind was in a jumble. What was she going to do? She couldn't go on job interviews with Akeno, and she couldn't get a babysitter until she found a job, and she was so far behind in her rent she didn't know how she would ever get caught up. The final paycheck from her job would barely cover one week's rent, and she and Akeno had to eat, and his shoes and old jacket were far too small, and while he was potty-trained during the day he still needed diapers at night...

Naru seldom allowed herself to think of Nephrite. Sometimes, before she fell asleep, she would lie in bed looking at the picture of her and Nephrite at the swimming party at the park, and she would carefully go over every memory, both good and painful, that she had of him. But she never thought about how different her life might be if he had been able to stay. There was no point in dwelling on what could never happen.

This afternoon, though, she couldn't help it. She let herself imagine, just for a moment, that she wasn't unemployed and broke and behind on the rent on a tiny one-room apartment and fired by the babysitter. She imagined that she had a nice home of her own to go to, that Nephrite was there to rub her aching back (which wouldn't really ache, because she hadn't spent all day hunched over, screwing together video games) and take care of the money and the bills, and that she had something to cook for dinner besides wilted, half-price vegetables and maybe a bit of about-to-expire chicken that had been clearance-priced at the market.

Dammit, Nephrite, she found herself thinking for the first time in the three years since they had had that month together, I need you. I miss you. I love you. Why aren't you here?

No. She'd go crazy if she kept thinking that. It wasn't his fault he had to leave; he hadn't wanted to die, he hadn't wanted to go back to his own time, he hadn't meant to leave her pregnant and alone in the world.

* * * * * * * *

In a dark place, four souls caught in a web of evil halfway between life and death stirred. One of them felt something pulling at him, trying to break him free of the web. He was needed somewhere, desperately. The other three, so closely bound to him in life and half-death, felt it too. Where he went, they would go too. They would have no choice.

* * * * * * * *

Naru and her son finally reached the ice cream cart, which was doing a fairly good business despite the sudden chill in the late-afternoon air that presaged a coming storm. Naru turned her thoughts to the business of buying her son's weekly treat. When her turn came, she ordered the usual, a small scoop of chocolate in a small cone, then pulled out her wallet.

"Two hundred fifty yen," the ice cream man said.

Naru stared at him while Akeno said, "Mama, I want my ice cream. Give me my ice cream."

"It was only two hundred last week," Naru protested.

"I raised the price. It's two hundred fifty now."

Naru emptied the contents of her wallet into her hand. "But all I've got is two hundred."

Akeno kept up his chant. "Ice cream, Mama. I want my ice cream."

The vendor shrugged, and dropped the ice cream cone into the trash can.

"You'd rather throw it away than sell it to me for the old price?" Naru asked in disbelief.

Akeno started crying, "Don't put my ice cream in the garbage. I want my ice cream!"

"I'd rather not sell to you at all. I don't need your kind hanging around my cart."

Naru was too stunned to say anything. Akeno's crying picked up in volume.

"Girls like you are going to ruin our society," the ice cream vendor went on, his voice getting louder. "Sleeping around with any boy you want, no respect for your families, having babies out of wedlock and then expecting everyone else to solve your problems for you...."

Naru's face was flaming. Everyone else in line was staring at her. She backed away from the cart, saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Akeno yanked his hand from her grasp and threw himself to the ground, his crying turning into a full-fledged tantrum.

"Such bad behavior," one of the onlookers said loudly.

"What do you expect?" someone else replied.

Naru stooped down to pick up her screaming, writhing child. He flung his head back against her face, hard. Naru's vision darkened for a second, and she felt briefly dizzy. Then she felt a hot trickle of blood from her nose. "Stop it!" she yelled at Akeno, which only made him cry harder. Finally, she hauled him up over her shoulder and fled down the sidewalk, leaving the ice cream vendor and his patrons to stare and make comments behind her back.

The child was too heavy, and his struggles made it even more difficult for Naru to hold him, but she couldn't put him down. He was incapable of walking on his own while he was in the middle of a tantrum, and she didn't think she'd be able to pick him up again if she did put him down. She could feel the blood from her nose running down her mouth and chin, dripping onto her white blouse.

Naru had never been so glad to see the front door of the run-down apartment building. She maneuvered the door open with her cast-enclosed right hand while hanging onto her sobbing, squirming child, then forced her tired feet up the stairs. Finally, in front of the door to her apartment, she was able to set him down. She took the key out of her purse and put it in the lock.

It didn't work. She wiggled the key, turned it again. The door still didn't unlock. She took the key out, reinserted it, and tried again.

"I had the lock changed." It was the voice of the landlady, standing behind Naru.

Naru turned to look at her. "What?"

"You're still six weeks behind in the rent. I've been patient long enough. You're out of here."

"But--" I mustn't get upset, Naru told herself. I have to stay calm. I have to deal with this. "What about my stuff?"

"You get current on the rent, I'll let you in for your things."

"But where are we going to stay? I lost my job and the babysitter wants paid--what am I supposed to do?" Naru's voice started to rise.

"You should have thought of that before you got pregnant without a husband, honey. Now, you're trespassing, so you'd better get out of here. Don't come back until you've got the rent. If it's next Friday, I'll want seven weeks' worth. The week after that, you'll owe for eight weeks. After that, I'll sell everything and rent the room out to someone else. Got it?"

"But--" There was no arguing with the landlady, though. Naru looked behind her to the stairwell, where the landlady's elderly aunt was looking up at the scene with small, glittering eyes. Naru scooped Akeno up off the floor, wrenching something in her lower back, and ran down the stairs, pushing past the old woman standing there. Akeno sobbed loudly, "I want ice cream! I want Bear!" His beloved teddy bear had had to stay home because Mrs. Miyamoto didn't allow the children to bring soft toys. She believed they were unsanitary. And now it was locked in the apartment, with everything else Naru owned in the world.

Outside, Naru leaned against the wall. Her breaths were coming hard and fast, and she knew she was on the edge of hysteria. Must think, she told herself. Can't lose it. Have to think. Figure out what to do. But she couldn't think; she could barely even get enough breath. The weight of everything was too much. She was too scared. She started crying, and slowly sank down along the wall to the sidewalk, still holding her wailing son. Oh, Nephrite, what am I going to do?

* * * * * * * *

The bonds strained, then snapped. The four souls entrapped in Metallia's web of darkness and evil were free to fall, bewildered, to Earth.