Mary walked into the cryogenetics lab to meet with Brandon. With her she carried a company file labeled: Ariana Laurea Tarcil. It was a rather small file, the girl had only worked for them a short period of time and even then they had known very little of her. It seemed not a lot of people had information about who she was or where she came from.

When she located Brandon she greeted him and said, ?My dear Brandon, I need your expertise and assistance with a rather delicate matter.? She handed him the file saying, ?Inside you will find everything we have on a former employee by the name of Ariana.?

The file included such info as the date she was hired ? May, 27th 2007, a letter to Anne stating her leaving the company for ?personal reasons.? Also included was a newspaper clipping from the Septembers edition of the Rhydin Vindicator detailing her death at the hand of the Zodiac killer, and a small computer chip.

?Despite her sudden departure from our organization I still feel we have some responsibility to her. I would like you to create a clone body from the samples and data that Anne had taken of everyone back when Rhydin was being threatened by terrorists. All the stuff you should need is in the cloning program and there is a chip with her DNA mapping in her file as well.?

?The Madame shall be joining us for this operation. Once we have located her soul, which I believe has yet to move on, I want the body ready. The soul should fit well inside a perfect duplicate of its former shell. Once we have restored her to life we will decide where to go from there.?

?Get to know this file; I shall need your help also in dealing with her. Though I am hoping to convince her to work for us again, we will have to cross that bridge when we come to it. We have no idea of the effects the shock will have on her.?

Madame Kiki smoked her cigar, the picture of relaxation. It did no good to hurry her friend "Bones". "Are you sure she's passed on?" she asked.

"Ja, she has gone to another world." Bones had a cigar of his own. "But not the underworld, or de afterworld."

"No?" Kiki was surprised. But that would explain why she hadn't been able to find her, and her contacts on the Other Side hadn't spotted her either. "Where has she gone?"

"How should I know?" Bones asked cheerfully. "I'm not de god of all universes, ja?" He puffed out a series of perfect smoke rings. "All I know, she's neither here nor d'ere."

"Could a soul-eater have gotten her?" hazarded the Madame. "Perhaps she does not exist at all, any more."

Bones snorted. "You'd easier be able to eat the legs off a snake than de soul out of a vampire. You're my queen, and you don't know d'at?"

The Madame sighed. Bones loved being cryptic. He could keep her here all night, trying to guess this riddle.... "All right," she said to herself. "We don't know where she is. But we know where her body is." She glanced at Bones, but his expression betrayed nothing. "So," she continued with more confidence than she felt, "if her body called her back, the message might reach her, and she would come to us."

Bones smoked his cigar elusively. She was sure she'd got it. She crossed her legs and concentrated, and managed to astrally project her essence into the empty body. She wasn't good at it, but she managed to maintain her hold on the form long enough to send a summons from Ariana's own mind. 'Come back to me,' said the message. 'This is your body, you are missed. Come back.'

And there she was, the shade of Ariana hovering uncertainly over her late face, not sure how to get back in. Kiki showed her the way, in through the eyes, mouth, nose, ears. Under her breath, the witch woman muttered syllables which would hold the body to the soul, as if stitching up a mortal wound. Ariana's eyes opened, and they were able to focus on Kiki. She opened her mouth, but only a weak croak came out.

"She cannot speak," observed Bones.

"She will," Kiki said. "She needs to heal from being dead, that's all. Her spirit is weakened from being disincorporated for so long." She grinned, realizing that she had succeeded. "So what do you have to say now about my prowess as a voodoo queen, Boss?"

"It is impossible to call the soul of a vampire," said Bones. "Not much of a vampire survives after death. Her knowledge of necromancy must have kept her intact, but still. Her essence should be so much pure energy by now."

"You didn't bother telling me that, though," Kiki said resignedly.

"And miss you trying to make it work?" He laughed. "It's a good thing I didn't tell you it wouldn't work. It might not have." They both looked down at Ariana, wondering in their own ways where she had been, and how Kiki had managed to bring her back. Bones was right; magic alone should not have been able to do it. Perhaps there was more to these bodies of Brandon's than their cloned genetic sequences. Kiki had met half of heaven and Earth, and had never see anything quite like Brandon Morgan.

Ariana sighed heavily as she examined the survey Mary had asked her ever so nicely to fill out. It was probably the closest she had come to expressing any emotion what so ever since she had come to find herself among the living once more. After having died, keeping her silly secrets seemed not as important anymore... Life will always be dangerous, she was tired of hiding things. She did feel some amount of obligation to Mary. She hadn?t just brought her back from death, she had been with her constantly and seemed to really care how she was. It was time to be honest. Mary wanted to know more about her. She would just lay it all out there then and take a chance it wouldn?t turn out bad.

When Ariana sensed the spirit that was trying in vain to reach her through the shield around the building - she pleaded with Mary to take her out so she could see what it wanted.

When she got Nicholai?s letter she read through it just once. So many people now, dead or gone. How many had she lost in her short life? But she would not shed a tear. She couldn?t remember the last time she cried and she wouldn?t now either. She felt a cold numbness inside her growing with each passing day. It hurt to have parts of yourself die but once it has happened you didn?t feel much of anything. No fear, no pain, but no real joy in life any longer. Just a vague sense of emptiness is all that is left.

She handed the letter to Mary without even looking at her. What need did she have of it anymore? She used to carry around with her a few meaningful items but they were gone now. Everything was gone, and she had no idea what she was even doing here anymore.

Turning to finally face Mary she said steadily, ?I must go. I need some air and I need to be alone?? Without hardly waiting for a reply she would walk towards the street alone, slipping away into the night.

Mary put the note from Nicholai in with the other papers in the Ariana file, which now also included her survey - everything she had on her. Sitting down at this late hour at her desk (where you would find her most nights and some days) she picked out Anne?s violet. She normally would have stuck with plain black, especially in this case, but the ink brought to mind fond memories. When they were together (as they almost always were) and Anne would go about her tasks with such a proficient ease. Anne never had to rewrite a thing, it always came out perfect. With memories of her lady love keeping her in their constant grip, she took a few moment to add the following notes to the file:

At this point I would consider the experiment to be a success. The only problem lay inside Ariana?s mind. From what I can tell, she is still herself, she has her memories, and is capable of functioning as well as ever. But as she isn?t communicating beyond a bear minimum, I can?t be entirely sure of her mental status. An ongoing evaluation will be needed to determine the full effects of the trauma resulting from death, as well as the shock from being brought back to life, has had on her. This element would likely be varied with the individual.

All in all I am pleased with the results. This was a good opportunity to test BC's resources to see if it could be done - I was not disappointed. Now it is certain that we posses the power to bring the dead back to the world of the living. None of this would have been possible without Anne. It was her foresight to create the program and to take genetic samples of all employees, just in case of such unforeseen events.

We will continue to monitor Ariana?s progress. We didn?t bring her back to life to just leave her to face this world alone now. I will personally see efforts made in the days ahead to provide her with our support.

Finishing her notes with a heavy sigh she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes for an extended moment. Mary rarely rested or slept these days. Things just hadn?t been the same with Anne gone. Mary worked constantly to make her fianc??s business a success in her absence. This stuff didn?t come as naturally to her as it did to Anne, but she would make up for it with her unremitting effort.

Mary did excel at delegating tasks; whatever needed doing, she could figure out the optimum way to accomplish it. She worked with some of the best people in all of Rhydin. All the same, there had been a lot of decisions to be made and there were deadlines she had to meet. The timing would be perfect for launching what would make The Bonny Corporation into a legitimate business - something Mary had been working hard for.

Despite all this, she had needed to set aside time for this ?experiment? as it were. Though Mary had rational reasons (such as needing to determine the fruit of the labors put into the cloning program) in truth she felt responsibility for what had happened to Ariana. She should have made the effort to offer her friendship to the girl before it ever came to this. All she could do was try and make the most of the fact she had been given a second chance. She had no spare moments to spend looking back, she had to move forward. There was work to be done.