The Amazing Adventures of Recruit Brenner
Part 1: And I Feel Fine

3:46 PM, December 14, 1998.  Room 3-B, TRES HQ.

"And so we see that Lord Owsen's point of needing an army is directly the cause
of you all being here today..."

The door to classroom 3-B opened, causing Professor Carmichael to look up from
his lecture notes.  Standing in the doorway, dressed in a grey TRES duty
uniform, stood a visitor.  She was tall, and wore glasses, and the squadron
patch on the shoulder visible to him was the colours of Alpha.  He smiled. "Good
afternoon, Captain Brenner.  You're early."

The new arrival smiled sheepishly.  "Sorry, Prof, I've always liked your
lectures, and I figured I could catch the tail end of one.  Sorry to bother your
class."

The class stared in visible awe.  It wasn't often that an officer stopped by
their classroom, let alone one so highly ranked as a captain.

"The lecture was just about finished anyway.  I apologize for disappointing
you."  Professor Carmichael turned back towards his class.  "Recruits, the Corps
likes to spend some time talking to you about what you'd like to pursue after
you graduate from the Academy.  Today, it appears that we have the honour of
speaking with Captain Katze Brenner, who, if I recall correctly, graduated from
this Academy some three-odd years ago?"

"That's...about right.  Give or take a half year."

"Right.  Anyway, if you would give the Captain your full attention, it will
probably serve you well."

Katze smiled again.  "Actually, Prof, I can give them a good reason to listen to
me.  What do you call the person who graduates last in their class from the
Academy?"

One of the smart-alec recruits in the back of the room spoke up.  "Dumb as
Ritter over there."

"HEY!" yelled Recruit Ritter.

Katze shook her head.  "No, Recruit Benson, that's not the answer.  By the way,
if it's Ritter who's so dumb, why haven't you passed your hand to hand exam
yet?"

Benson gaped.  The rest of the class snickered as Katze smiled quietly. "Anyway,
the answer is pretty simple.  You'd call him Ensign.  Same as everybody else who
graduates."

Ritter started to smile.  Katze always liked it when the quiet ones did that,
and she could see that he was starting to imagine himself as Ensign Ritter.  It
was always a nice feeling.  She continued.  "And to prove to point even more
strikingly, I'd like to point out, that from that class of 1996, the person who
graduated second-to-last is referred to as 'Captain.'"

A quiet recruit in the front row put his hand up.  Katze nodded at him.  "Ma'am,
I'm Recruit McCullagh, and I can only assume you mean yourself when you refer to
that person who graduated second-to-last in your class.  If you don't want to,
Captain, you don't have to tell us the story, but we'd like to hear it if you
don't mind."

Katze smiled again.  "Well, it's not as awfully horrible as I make it sound, but
it's a funny story nonetheless.  There's one thing you have to remember, though,
and that is that at that point in time, for some pretty crazy metaphysical
reasons, I wasn't allowed to hurt anybody.  So, like Recruit Benson over there,
I didn't pass my hand to hand, for example."

Benson blushed a bit more.  Katze smiled.  "Alright, I'll stop picking on Benson
since I think he's got the point.  But my recruit days were an interesting time.
So let me begin at the beginning..."

***

Lieutenant JG Miranda Delgado was one of the many people who worked in the
intelligence offices of TRES Corps.  She also had one passion that never made
sense to her fellow Intelligence officers -- she adored woman's college
basketball.  She had played in college a few years back, and never missed a
chance to watch her team -- the California Golden Bears -- take on whatever team
they were playing this week, if she could pick up a feed.

Luckily on her part, there was not only a feed, but the game was against the
Stanford Cardinal, Cal's bitterest rival and one of the best teams in the
woman's game.  Cal, on the other hand, wasn't always the greatest of teams, but
they had surprisingly gone 8-1 in the non-conference schedule, their only loss
coming at the hands of Connecticut, one of the best programs in the country.
They might just pull off second or third in the Pac-10 behind the Cardinal, and
this excited Lt. Delgado to no end.

Unfortunately, the game was on a Saturday afternoon where she had to be
monitoring the feeds for Bharnate activity.  So she compromised, and set up the
game on one of the screens at her desk.

The game feed started, showing the familiar confines of hated Maples Pavilion.
Delgado smiled, hoping that this might finally be the year that Cal had the
talent to finally beat the Cardinal.  Helen Wu was a talented point guard who
she remembered playing with, and Marika Sjnyder was good at blocking shots, and
she'd been hearing rumours about this freshman walk-on who'd single handedly
kept the game with Connecticut close.

And it wasn't long before Delgado was watching the game instead of monitoring
the feeds.  On the other hand, she wasn't the only one watching it.  Over her
shoulder, her commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Stephen Nodrick, was
watching with her.  She called him over in the first few minutes, because she
hadn't trusted her eyes as to what she'd just seen.

"She's a very fluid ballplayer," Nodrick said.  "Only a freshman, you say?"

"Yes, but that's not why I called you over here," Delgado said, turning the
sound down a bit.  "There's something else..."

On the screen, the ball left the hands of somebody wearing white and clanked off
the hoop.  A player in blue came down with the ball and passed it off to Wu (who
Delgado recognized).  "Okay.  I think they'll try the play again.  Watch her."

Wu passed the ball off to a player wearing a really odd sort of goggles, who cut
around behind the block Wu set.  Nodrick said, "There's no way she's taking
that...HOLY COW."

"I wanted to make sure I wasn't seeing things.  Did she just go through the
center?"

"Yeah.  It's very close, I'm not sure anybody not expecting to see that would
have just seen a nice cut around the defender."

"Right.  But we're trained Jihaddi, we've seen stranger things."

"You mean, like Admiral Foxglov?  You're not kidding."  Nodrick smiled. "Anyway,
my best recommendation is to file this sighting, and keep an eye on the kid.  If
the Jihad can recruit her, she might be useful, with skills like that."

Delgado glanced back at the screen.  "I'll file it.  In fact, give me two
months, and I'll be requesting time off to go to the NCAA tourney.  The way my
Bears are killing Stanford right now, it looks like this might just be their
year to go deep."

"Of course.  As long as you make sure you file a report.  If you're going to
watch basketball on the payroll, you'd better make sure you can justify it as a
Jihad-related matter."  Delgado laughed.  Nodrick smiled again and added, "If
you do well with this scouting report, I'll see what I can do to get you a
promotion."

Delgado looked at him.  "No, sir, this isn't worth a promotion."

Nodrick looked at the screen again. "Wraith, eh?  What a nickname.  And this
would just be the latest in a long string of things as to why you deserve a
promotion."

***

NCAA Woman's Regional Basketball Finals
Southeastern Regional
Memphis, TN

The three California basketball players walked through the streets of Downtown
Memphis, dressed in street clothes and looking for a restaurant to celebrate
their latest win.  The three of them made for an interesting cast of characters
-- Helen Wu, the shortest of the three, but also the loudest; Marika Sjnider,
tall but quiet, somewhat embarrassed by her Swedish accent and troubles with
English; and Katze Brenner, better known as Wraith to her friends, who traded
barbs with Wu, but left Wu to interact with the crowds.

"First we beat ol' Boise State/ Then Northwestern we hexxed/ Last we took out U-
T-X/ and now Tennessee's up next!" Wu sung randomly, making Sjnider grin.

"Another orange team.  We up for this?" Katze added in.

"Tennessee.  I ain't scared." said Wu.

"You're never scared." Sjnider said.

"Well, it's either be confident or be scared, and being confident's served me
well.  We're gonna beat them."

"They're the best team in the country," Sjnider pressed.

Wu looked up at Sjnider and smiled a big huge grin.  "And we're betterer! Right,
Wraith?"

"Right, Helen, whatever you say," Katze just shook her head and agreed with the
point guard.  It made Wu happy, and Katze was all for harmony.

"Betterer isn't a word," Sjnider added.

Wu laughed, and started teasing Sjnider lightly.  Katze was happy to see her
friend in such a good, lighthearted mood.  The win against Texas had made Wu
very bouncy and somewhat overconfident of their chances against Tennessee, Katze
thought, but Wu was always like that after a big win.  She'd calm down by
Saturday, and the game would be all business.

Sjnider, on the other hand, was brooding about match ups for Saturday, and was
not totally happy with Wu's antics.  Maybe it was time to reel Wu off the edge
of the overconfidence to keep Sjnider from totally panicking about the game
before it happened.  Yes.  That was probably a wise idea.

But before she could say something, Katze blinked.  That was odd, the connection
she had with both of them seemed to be somewhat...diminished?  It wasn't
possible, she had been working with Wu and Sjnider for months now, she knew them
forwards and backwards, and she wasn't purposely shielding them out.  It
bothered her, but she decided to somewhat ignore it, and said, "Hey, let's
celebrate our win over Texas tonight, and we'll spend tomorrow looking to our
next opponent.  How's that?"

Sjnider spoke before Wu could shoot down the idea.  "That sounds very good, yes?
We should find a restaurant."

Wu scowled at the both of them and then grinned.  "Yeah.  Food is good.  How
about up there?" She pointed up the street to what appeared to be a very nice
restaurant.  Katze wasn't all that sure about three people standing on the
sidewalk that they'd have to pass to get there, though.

They were dressed in the oddest shade of purple Katze had ever seen.  One of
them had printed material he was trying to hand out, the second one had a plate
of what appeared to be carrot sticks, and the third was holding onto a plush
Barney doll for dear life.

Wu was already nearly running up the sidewalk when the person with the carrot
sticks stepped out in front of her.  The two collided, sending carrot sticks
flying all over the sidewalk and enough time for Sjnider and Katze to catch up.

Katze grinned as she looked at Wu entangled with the odd character, who was
screeching something about all the healthy snacks being dirty.  Wu looked up at
Katze and scowled.  "Get me up, dammit.  Stupid people ought to watch where
they're going!"

At this moment, the person with the papers tried to hand Sjnider one, along with
a purple crayon. "Want to help us color?" he asked her.  "We're having a
coloring contest!  Everybody wins!  'Cause Barney wants us to share!"

Sjnider looked utterly baffled at this, and Snack Girl started to cry.  "All the
prizes are on the sidewalk!"

Katze offered her hand to Wu, puzzling over everything.  Snack Girl and
Colouring Boy seemed to be adults, but they were carrying on in a manner that
befitted a five year old.  There was something horribly wrong here, and it
wasn't just that odd distant feeling from both Wu and Sjnider.  Wu was starting
to get pretty angry, Sjnider was confused...and the figures in the odd group,
well, she wasn't even getting any feelings off of them at all.

About that time, the man cradling the Barney doll looked up.  "Is one of you
Katze?"

Katze nearly let go of Wu in surprise.  She considered not acknowledging the
question, but this suddenly became an option that was impossible as Sjnider
pointed at her and said, "She is."

Wu stood up and brushed her hands off.  The man with the Barney doll suddenly
had an ear-to-ear grin split his face.  He stood up and handed the doll he was
carrying to Katze.  "I was told to give this to you!"

"I don't want it," Katze said, trying desperately to back away.

The face of the man handing her the doll crumpled and he started to cry.  "I was
told I had to give it to you, and I have to give it to you and I'll get in
trouble if I don't..." he whimpered.

"Oh, for good grief, Wraith, take the man's toy and let's get dinner," Wu said.

"It's cute," Sjnider chimed in.

"Then you take it," Katze told Sjnider.

The man with the doll looked up at the argument.  "No, no, no!  It has to go to
Katze!  It belongs to her!  I was told to only give it to her!"

Katze looked at Wu.  Wu shrugged, and said peevishly, "Take the damn toy if
we're going to get dinner sometime tonight."

The man smiled broadly and dropped the toy in Katze's arms.  "You're welcome!"
he chirped happily.

"Thank you," Katze muttered, and then beat a hasty retreat after Wu up the
sidewalk.  Sjnider looked at the three a bit longer, and then followed.

As they walked in the restaurant, Sjnider pointed.  "Isn't that Coach in the
corner?  Who's she eating with?"

Wu looked and smiled.  "An old teammate of mine."

Katze glanced too, taking in Coach and some Latina lady.  "Teammate of yours,
Wu?  When?"

"A few years ago, for the Bears.  Her name's Miranda Delgado, and she was really
good.  Played your position, Wraith.  She was around my first couple years but
those teams weren't like us -- the juniors and seniors didn't tend to hang
around the freshman and sophomores, so I didn't get to know her that well."

At this point the waiter took them to be seated.  As they walked past the table,
Katze noticed that the person who was eating with Coach watched her. Was it the
stupid doll?  Doubtful, that was just paranoia speaking.  Who'd be upset over a
stuffed children's television character?

***
Room 425, Marriott Downtown, Memphis
A few hours later

Sjnider snored peacefully.  Her roommate, however, was still wide awake, staring
at the plush television character placed carefully on the television in the
room.

The toy was bothering Katze, but she couldn't place why.  Something about it
screamed danger, but Katze wasn't sure if it was real or the meanderings of her
paranoid mind.  Since she couldn't decide for sure, maybe it was best to get rid
of it. She'd never wanted it in the first place, and had only taken it to get
Sjnider and Wu off her back.

Okay, so that implied that she didn't need to keep it.  She grabbed the pad with
the hotel logo on it, and scrawled a note:  "Marika, gone for coffee.  be back
in a bit. -Katze."

That done, Katze grabbed the plush toy by the neck and stalked out in the
hallway to find somewhere to dispose of the goddamn thing.

As she was waiting for the elevator down to the lobby, somebody quietly said,
"Wraith?" from the stairwell.  Katze looked over to see the Latina lady who had
been eating with Coach that evening, only now, instead of in nice dress clothes,
she appeared to be dressed in something resembling military fatigues.  "Come
here," she said, to a stunned Katze.

Katze dropped into the stairwell.  "We need to talk," the other lady said.
"First, before we dispense with the pleasantries, where'd you get that?"

The tone of utter disgust in Katze's voice was unmistakable.  "A few weird
people in the street.  They demanded that they had to give it to me."

The woman nodded, and pulled a knife from her right front pocket on her
fatigues.  "Give it here."

Katze gulped, and nodded, handing over the plush doll.  The woman slit its
stomach open, and extracted a couple electronic devices.  "Figures," she spat.
"They wanted you for some reason."

"Who are you, what do you want, and what do you mean 'they wanted me'?" Katze
asked in bafflement.

"That's a lot of questions, and not much time..." began the woman, and then
hesitated.  "Come with me.  You're going to have to trust me, but I'm not going
to hurt you, 'cause I want the Bears to beat Tennessee."

Katze remembered Wu pointing out the teammate aspect and took a deep breath.
"Okay.  Lead on."

They dropped down the staircase and into the basement car park.  They climbed
into a van with tinted windows being driven by a man in similar fatigues to the
woman.  "Where to, Lieutenant?"  asked the man.

"Know a good cafe?" the Lieutenant said.

"I do.  The Outerlands Cafe, on South Cooper," the driver said, frowning.  "But
why a cafe?"

"That is not your concern, Sergeant," the Lieutenant said. "I want you to drop
myself and Ms. Brenner there and then drive to the field office, bringing some
stuff I'm going to hand you to the Intelligence liaison there.  Do we have any
of the radio- blocking envelopes around?"

"Try the glove box."

Katze tried to recall what Wu had said the Latina's name was.  Some common
Spanish surname, but she wasn't quite remembering.  In the meantime, the
Lieutenant (that seemed the easiest way to think of her) had found what she was
looking for in the glove box.  "Tell me if this does anything," the Lieutenant
said over her shoulder to Katze, as she put the devices into an envelope.

The buzzing static that had been slightly bothering Katze since Wu and Sjnider
had gotten diminished suddenly cut out.  Katze blinked a few times, trying to
get used to the utter quiet.  The Lieutenant smiled.  "Don't ever try to play
poker," she said.

"Anyway, our driver here is Sergeant Butler..." The man put up one hand in a
wave, but kept driving.  "...and I'm Lieutenant Delgado.  And we're not going to
hurt you."

"You keep saying that," Katze said, finding her voice, "but you'll have to
pardon me if I say that I'm not quite buying this yet.  And I've got other
things on my mind, like beating Tennessee, so I'd really like it if you'd
explain what the hell is going on in some way that makes coherent sense,
starting with why you guys are so concerned about a children's television
character."

Butler laughed.  Katze scowled, and continued, "Funny or not, I'd really like to
know.  Because there's something going on here that I don't like, and I'm not
sure if it's the circumstances in which that stuffed character ended up in my
hands, or the situation I'm in right now.  So if you want to keep me on your
side, it might be worth it to come clean now."

Delgado smiled. "Okay, okay, fair's fair.  Actually, the reason I'm here was to
watch you and your teammates make the Final Four.  But then events happened to
overtake me, starting with the Wyrm plushie you had when you walked into the
restaurant tonight."

"I was given it.  I didn't want it, Helen and Marika were getting tired of the
weirdness involved in it, and they sorta made me take the toy.  It was odd,
though, he specifically wanted to give it to me."

Butler frowned.  "Lieutenant, it's not my place, but might we just want to bring
her into the field office?"

"I don't know if that's necessary yet, Sergeant," Delgado said.  "Besides, I'm
pretty sure she's on our side, or will be, but we need to be sure of it."  She
frowned.  "Wraith, what's your take on the children's television character you
were handed the stuffed variant of tonight?"

Katze frowned.  "Insipid, stupid, dumb, too sickly sweet for my tastes, and
definitely not as good as the shows I grew up with."

Delgado nodded.  "Good, good."  She sat there in silence for a moment, and then
asked another question.  "What would you do if I told you that the children's
television character we're referring to is just using that as a guise to hide
his true nature?"

Katze blinked.  "Ummm...probably that you're nuts."

Butler burst out laughing.  "That's what they all say when we tell 'em!"

Delgado glared at Butler and then turned back to Katze.  "Unfortunately, I
assure you I am completely sane, and so is Sergeant Butler.  The children's
television character you know as Barney is actually some sort of entity that is
out to enslave the world."

Silence came from the back of the car.  Finally, a quiet voice said, "I don't
know if I can believe that."

"Believe!" Butler said.  "Because if I don't miss my guess by what Delgado
pulled out of your doll, you're on his hit list for some reason or another!"

Delgado glared at Butler again.  "Yeah.  I was trying not to push it, but the
sergeant is right.  Wraith, he wants you for some reason, the Wyrm, I mean, and
it's pure accident I happened to be a Cal fan and was around to bail you out!"

Katze sighed.  "Okay, okay, if it makes it easier, I'll believe, contingent on
being able to change my mind.  But why do you guys care?  I mean, besides
Delgado's interest in the Bears.  I mean, I'm not anything really special. Sure,
I play basketball good, but I'm just me."

Delgado nodded.  "Well, you *are* something special, or at least you've got
talents that most people don't have.  Wraith, you given any thought as to why
you're so good at basketball?"

"I'm tall, I shoot well, and I'm good at getting through defenses," Katze
answered.

"You probably, if I don't miss my guess, have a good feeling as to where your
teammates and the opponents are on the floor.  In fact, if I was to make the
guess, I'd even go all out and say you know your teammates inside and out,
enough to be able to defuse tensions.  Would I be right?"

There was a moment of silence as Katze pondered what Delgado just said.
"What...how did you know?"

Butler smiled.  Delgado grinned and said, "It's not really that weird in my line
of work.  There are much weirder things.  Anyway, Sergeant Butler and I work for
an organization called 'The Jihad to Destroy Barney', and rather more
specifically, an organization within that org known as TRES Corps.  That should
answer your 'Who are you?' question.

"I don't know exactly why they'd want you, except that I've got my guesses. I
suspect you're a pretty strong natural psi, but that it's a fairly latent
talent.  I'm not sure you know everything you can do -- or are necessarily aware
that you're using a talent when you do.  But the org I work with has some
facilities for training that sort of thing.  And if there's some reason the Wyrm
wants you, then there's probably some reason for us to want you too.  Butler,
you can go ahead and bring us all the way in, I don't think Wraith is on the
Wyrm's side."

Katze sat back in her seat and pondered all that she had been told.  If the Wyrm
was who she suspected it was -- there were some odd similarities between the
plush toy and her own dreams.  And maybe there was some danger.  She wasn't sure
she believed it, but they had found her, far from her own home city, and managed
to lay a bug on her. But that was all dreams, wasn't it?  However, there didn't
seem to be something about this that was all that good.  And help, whether the
dreams were real or not, was probably good.

***
TRES Field Office
Memphis, Tennessee


The field office wasn't all that impressive.  It was just a small building on
the outskirts of town, near the Mississippi River.  If Katze hadn't been told
where she was going, she would have easily assumed it was somebody's house.  She
mentioned this, which caused Butler to start laughing again.

Delgado hadn't laughed; she just led Katze to a bare desk in what would have
been the living room, if it had been a house.  "I don't normally work out of
this office," she said, setting the envelope and the toy down on the desk.  "So
you'll have to deal with me trying to figure out where things are around here."
She dug a battered notebook and a pen out of a drawer.  "Okay.  Now I'm going to
ask you a few questions.  It's in your best interest to answer them honestly."

"Alright," Katze said.

"Have you, before tonight had any contact with any Sponge Minion before?"

Katze looked baffled.  "What's a Sponge Minion?"

"Those guys who gave you the doll.  They're Sponge Minions.  Any before that?"

"No.  Why do you call them Sponge Minions?"

Delgado frowned.  "We'll get there.  In the meantime, please let me ask the
questions."

"Okay."

Delgado scribbled something down in her notebook and looked back at Katze. Katze
frowned herself, wondering what exactly Delgado wanted.  Something was up, but
what?  "Anything weird at all that you can recall?"

The dreams came instantly to mind for Katze, but she had never mentioned to
those closest to her, let alone to this near-stranger across the desk.  "Other
than what you mentioned in the car, no."

Delgado looked at her with skepticism.  "You absolutely sure?"

Katze responded the only way that was coming to mind.  "Absolutely.  I've had a
pretty normal life."  Well...that wasn't quite true either, Katze mused. Anybody
paying close enough attention would note that there'd been something in Katze's
childhood, most people didn't need help with their hearing.  But it could be
dismissed as a childhood accident.

Delgado frowned and scribbled something else into her notebook.  "So, pretty
ordinary life, no clue as to why spongies would be coming after you, and a few
odd talents.  Does that sum it up pretty well?"

"Yeah, I'd guess that's a fair assessment," Katze said.

Delgado looked up and said, "I want to see something."  She looked around the
room, and not spying Sergeant Butler, she yelled for him, "Hey, Butler!  You
still around?"

Butler poked his head out a door.  "Yeah, I'm still here."

"We have a basketball lying around here somewhere?"

"Yeah, we've got a hoop out back too."

"Perfect," Delgado said.  "Come with me."

Butler lead the two of them out to the hoop, lit by a flood lamp.  Delgado took
a position with her back to the hoop, and threw the ball at Katze.  Butler stood
in the doorway, watching the two of them.

Katze fielded the ball cleanly and frowned at Delgado.  "You want me to shoot
this?  I thought you knew I played basketball."

"I want you to come in for a layup," Delgado said.

Katze nodded, backed up to where the top of the key would be if there was one on
this dirt court, and then took a deep breath and started moving towards the
basket.  Delgado moved quickly to block the layup, and for a second it looked as
if Katze was going to crash into Delgado.  The next thing Katze could recall,
the ball was up in the air and rattling off a rim.  "Basket's a bit messed up,"
Katze said.

Delgado turned around.  Katze looked up at the basket, trying to see if there
was some way to return the hoop to a more round shape like it was supposed to
be, but there didn't seem to be an easy way to accomplish this.  She turned
towards the Jihaddi officer, and caught Butler out of the corner of her eye,
shaking his head.  "Wraith," Delgado asked.  "How do you do that?"

"I make good cuts.  I know where they're going to be, and I just cut around
them."

"Sheeeeeee-yit," Butler said, and Delgado looked at him.  Butler quieted down.

Delgado motioned her back into the office, and Katze picked up the basketball,
handing it to Butler as she came through the door.  Delgado wrote a few more
things in her notebook.  "Well...," she said.  "I don't think I have anything
more I want to ask you, except to see if you might want to join the Corps.  As I
said, we're used to folks with psi potential, and you've definitely got that."

Katze nodded.  "And you spend your time trying to stop whatever did that to
those people tonight?"

Delgado looked down at her notebook and then back up at Katze.  "Yes.  There's a
bit more to the story, but a simplistic description like that works just fine
for the stage we're at.  So what do you say?"

Katze sat for a moment, wondering what the right answer would be.  The Old Man
tended to offer advice, but that was only in the dreamscape, never in reality.
But then again, the other night, hadn't he been cryptic and said something along
the lines of "Seek the truth and the light, seek the ones who would fight?"  She
vaguely remembered that.  And the Beast who tormented the Land in her dreams
seemed similar to the plush toy now disemboweled on Delgado's desk.

If she only had somebody to discuss the dreams with!  But she couldn't trust
anybody with them.  She just had to act on the best hunches she had, and the
best hunch at the moment seemed to be to trust this person across the desk from
her.  "Okay.  I think I'm in."

Delgado hesitated.  "Are you absolutely sure?  There's no turning back once
you've signed the paperwork.  At that point, it's through the looking glass."

Katze let out a deep breath.  "I'm sure."

Delgado passed a photocopied piece of paper across the table.  "Fill in the
blanks."

Katze started to do so, as Delgado watched from across the table.  Name, date of
birth, address, place of birth...very routine for somebody who had been filling
out college applications the year prior.  But just as she was about to continue
down the form, Delgado stopped her.  "November 3rd, 1978?" Delgado said,
pointing to the birthdate line.

"Yeah," Katze said.  "That's right."

"You're seventeen?"

"Is this a problem?"

Delgado shook her head.  "You're seventeen and you're in college?"

Katze nodded.  "I skipped fourth grade."

"But...how do you manage that?  I mean, dealing with the legalities.  You're not
legal."

Katze smiled.  "My dad and I agreed that emancipated minor status was probably a
wise thing to do with him being far away from school.  Josh's mom -- Josh is a
friend of mine who skipped fourth grade with me -- did the same thing with him."

Delgado nodded, and Katze wondered what the big deal was about being seventeen.
It hadn't ever really been a problem, she carried a photocopy of the court
decree that declared her status, and never once had anybody refused to let her
sign legal paperwork.  In that sense, she was no different from the rest of the
college population.  She decided to let Delgado figure out on her own that she
must have been sixteen when she entered college.

"Your paperwork seems to be in order," Delgado said, when Katze finished. "We're
probably going to have to return you, it'd look a little suspicious if you
disappeared just before the big game, wouldn't it?"

Katze nodded.  "I'd like, if it's possible, to finish out the term at school
before I start."

"The term still end in May?" Delgado asked, and Katze blinked before remembering
that Delgado had been a Cal student not all that long ago.

"Yeah."

"We'll be in touch."

***

TO  : LCDR Nodwick, Delta
FROM: LTJG Delgado, Delta
SUBJ: Report on Memphis/Basketball Tournament
DATE: Mon, 25 March 1996 23:45:21 -0500

Memphis is a town looking for an identity.  The TRES office in the town is doing
the same.  The office itself is a converted house, the facilities available for
visiting officers are nonexistent, and the personnel tend to be security risks.
However, I believe that, despite his indiscretion, Sgt. Butler in the office
here in Memphis deserves some sort of commendation for his help in confronting
the subject.

The subject, identified in previous reports as 'Wraith', has the given name of
Katze Brenner.	She is currently a freshman at the University of California at
Berkeley and she plays for the basketball team there.  Brenner also appears to
have relatively prodigious psi talent, despite having little to no clue as to
how to use it.  What abilities she's picked up seem to be instinctual at best,
although with some training she might be able to bring them under control.

Brenner has become aware of the Jihad due to actions by myself.  When Brenner
was first seen at a restaurant I was dining in, Brenner was observed carrying a
plush toy of the children's television character guise of the Wyrm. However, it
should be noted that Brenner appeared to have no characteristics typical of that
of the spongified individual.

Based on this observational evidence, I believed that Brenner was in dire
consequence of falling under the thrall of the Wyrm.  It remains puzzling,
however, as to why the Wyrm would want Brenner, as Brenner can recall no
previous encounters with sponge minions before the encounter in which she was
given the plush toy.

Upon inspection of the interior of the doll by myself, two devices were found,
which will be returning to Colorado with me tomorrow.  It is believed that these
two devices are some sort of tracking signal and a psi-dampener, which means
that the Purple Forces must be aware of Brenner's talents as well.  Again, no
evidence was found as to why, but sometimes even the Wyrm can be devious and
subtle.

I have had the chance to view Brenner's talents firsthand, as well as definite
evidence that such talents are latent.  TRES Memphis has a basketball hoop in
the backyard, and I challenged Brenner to make a layup.  I believed that Brenner
was heading full speed at me and was about to collide, before Brenner suddenly
teleported beyond me and attempted the layup.  Sgt. Butler was a witness to this
action.

It is believed this is what Brenner has been demonstrating in basketball games
over the course of the season.  Brenner, however, is completely unaware that she
is teleporting, telling Sgt. Butler and myself that she simply made good cuts.
I believe it is currently in Brenner's best interests to not disclose that she
was actually teleporting.

In the end, I decided that, due to the nature of Brenner's talents and the
immediate danger of being placed under the thrall of the Wyrm, it would be in
the best interests of the Jihad, TRES Corps, and Brenner herself to offer
Brenner a conditional membership into TRES Corps, to be confirmed by a higher
officer than myself.  Brenner has also asked me if she may wait to join until
the end of the term.

My recommendations are as follows:
1. Brenner's conditional membership in TRES Corps should be made official; and
2. Brenner should be asked to enroll in TRES Academy as of May 20th, 1996; and
3. TRES offices in the Bay Area should be informed of Brenner's existence, for
I have given her the emergency number in case of future possible attempts of
contact by the Wyrm.

It should also be noted that Brenner has finished with basketball season as the
California Golden Bears lost to the Tennessee Volunteers 63-60 in a close
overtime loss.

Lt. JG Miranda Delgado

***
Mailboxes
Foothill Residence Hall, UC Berkeley
April 26th, 1996

The semester was coming to a close, Katze noted.  Her classes were going well,
and were easier now that she didn't have to worry about basketball season, and
the odd incident in Memphis was fading in her memory.  Nothing odd had happened
since she had returned to Berkeley, other than the occasional person who seemed
to be watching her closer than usual.  However, she chalked that up to an overly
paranoid mind.

So after dinner on a cooler than usual April night, Katze was walking to the
mailboxes with her long time best friend Josh Schnider.  She had known Josh
since she was in first grade and he'd moved out to Chico from Minnesota.  His
dad still lived there, supposedly.

The thing Katze couldn't figure out, having went to Minnesota at one point in
the season, was that it was nothing like Josh claimed. It had been very white,
and not green like Josh had claimed when they were kids.  And the other thing
that had puzzled Katze is that they seemed to speak English -- okay, so the
accent was different than what she was used to, but that was typical in
travelling to other parts of the country.

It was doubly odd, she thought, she'd never heard anything that sounded like
that song Josh had sung for her when she was little.  And then he'd managed to
get grounded for some transgression after he'd gone home, and Katze hadn't been
able to play with him for a week.  Every once in a while, it would find its way
out of her memory, and now, for some reason, it was doing it again.

"Josh?" she asked, as he opened his mailbox, and she hunted for her key.  "Do
you remember singing a song to me when we were little?  Something along the
lines of..." and she sang the odd snippit haunting her memory.  "n'kan sykal
tarre/ n'kanyu takal?"

Josh frowned at her.  Then he turned back to the mailbox and said, "Kats,
nobody's ever accused you of not having an imagination."

"I take it you didn't, then?" she said.

"No.  And that doesn't sound Spanish or German to me, and those are the
languages I know.  Sounds Russian.  Maybe you picked it up from Russian class?"

"No, it's not Russian."  Katze frowned herself, but didn't let Josh see it.  She
could remember him singing it.  Why would he deny it now?  Must not remember,
she guessed.  She found her key and inserted it into her own mailbox, sorting
out her roommate's mail from her own.  About halfway through the stack, there
was a letter addressed to her with no return address.

She opened the letter in front of Josh, not thinking that what was contained
inside would be something that she might want to keep a secret from him.  Of
course, when she read the letter, she realized her mistake.  She quickly shoved
it back in the envelope, but Josh was curious now.  "Who sent you mail?" he
asked.

"Colorado State," she said quickly.  "They've invited me to participate in some
basketball camp this summer.  Coach must have let them know about me."

He looked at her and then shook his head.  "First odd made-up languages and now
letters from colleges.  It's a good night for your imagination, Katze. If you'd
just said it was junk mail instead of trying to make up a story..."

"Alright, alright.  I was trying to impress you.  Failed miserably, didn't I?"

Josh laughed and closed his mailbox.  Katze finished sorting out her roommate's
mail from hers, put her roommate's mail back in the box, and walked back to the
suite with Josh.  But something hinted to her that she needed to be a little
more careful around him.  She wasn't sure why, though, just that it might be a
good idea.

Now she had a report date, and she'd find out just what mess she'd gotten
herself into when she agreed to join Delgado's secret organization.

***

"So what ended up happening to Josh?" Recruit McCullagh asked.

"He's still my roommate," Katze answered.  "Well, when I have time to spend in
Berkeley, which is less time than I'd like."

"Did the language turn out to be made-up?" Ritter asked.

"No, Josh had actually sung the song to me.  As he later told me, he got told in
very explicit terms that I was not to hear that language being spoken ever."

The recruits all looked very baffled at this.  Katze looked at Professor
Carmichael.  "I see you didn't cover my embarrassing moment this time?"

"Oh, I covered it," Carmichael said.  "How many of them were paying attention on
that first day, though, I couldn't tell you.  Just like a certain other recruit
class..."

Katze laughed.  "Ah, right.  You had your hands full with that class, didn't
you?"

Benson spoke up.  "Alright, let's hear the story."

Katze smiled as she remembered and started to speak.  "Alright.  The TRES
Recruit class of 1996, my class, included folks such as Admiral Keith and
Commander Nolan and Commander Mahtash.  And we weren't exactly the easiest group
of people to train..."

***

To be continued in The Amazing Adventures of Recruit Brenner, part 2: Down and
Out in Recruit Training