Author's Note:
	This was a simple story that seemed to turn overly complex. Those
who are familiar with the Battle Angel universe will probably be able to
follow it pretty easily, though others may have some difficulty. This
particular story takes place just after Lou became Alita's controller, but
just before Alita met up with Koyomi the teenager. It is a slow story,
dealing more or less with some of my own musings about the Gunnm world,
though fitting. I hope. 
	Special thanks to Nytefyre, Gene Woodfill, Lawson Featherstone and
Jason Sandvick who all read this through before its final version. 
	Battle Angel is, of course, the property of Yukito Kishiro. But, I
must take credit for this particular piece of work. 
	Lastly, as a periodic fanfic writer, I do crave feedback
concerning my work. This is a small attempt on my part to break through
the sea of Ranma and Sailor Moon that seems to have manifested in the
middle of an otherwise fruitful well of creativity. Please let me know
what you think of this work. 
		-Greg Smith viggen@holly.colostate.edu
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

		Battle Angel Alita:  A Layer of Dust
			By Greg Smith

	So what was it like soaring through the heavens....
	There was an old tale told often to youngsters in the Scrapyard
about a time when people flew along side the bird on wings of steel and
plastic. Alita had heard the story often during the times that Ido served
as her father. Way back then when he was still alive. If Desty Nova could
be trusted to bring him back from the dead. 
	Alita sat on the rock overlooking a patch of green in the middle
of nowhere. She had never seen a patch of natural green so large. All over
the patch, which extended no wider than an alley way and no longer than a
good sized auto, were blossoms of color that sprang from the ground with a
fierceness that should have been dampened by the press of centuries. For
the life of her, she couldn't begin to liken the tiny phenomenon to
anything she'd ever seen before. 
	In Las Hambra, when she'd taken Figure there, she'd seen tons of
green overgrowing the broken skeletons of yesteryear's humankind. 
Gigantic buildings inundated with, what had Figure called them.... Vines? 
And yet somehow, there had been no real color. Though Alita had been
impressed, Figure had told her of an island he'd visited where the green
was even more rampant. In the corner of his voice, there had been a sadd
quiver when he'd said that the island had been swallowed by the sea. Even
greater was his sorrow when he had told that the green of Las Hambra was
slowly withering, dying away as a result of bad air blown in from the
Scrapyard several hundred miles to the east. 
	During several of her sorties away from the Scrapyard, Alita had
seen another sort of green. In the factory farms, there were mile upon
mile of neat rows of living golden green. Spaced neatly, the rows, which
had all been of uniform color, were maintained by doleful workers who
often tripped and stumbled carrying the dull tools with which they tilled
the ground. Alita remembered how the workers would shamble onto the field
with the sounding of one bell, then back off again at the tone of another. 
They would shuffle along between those dreary rows of uniform gold green,
their footsteps churning up fine dust from the force-fed ground.  Despite
the continued claim to life by the sorrowful species of man, there was no
color of green. 
	Yet here in a forgotten nook, not a stone's throw from the
Scrapyard itself, was a miniscule miracle that defied all that any could
come to believe. In its carefully recessed bit of shade, the slender
garden plot over grew itself in a manner Alita had never seen. Boisterous
wildflowers of inconceivable variety packed together with grasses and
shrubs in among the wind smoothed rocks of the shallow ravine. In the
center of the ancient, millennia old wasteland, a scratch on the very face
of death had come into being as though spontaneously. 
	As Alita sat there, still as she could, she began to wonder if the
thing would make its appearance again. It was an impossible thing, born
from an impossible place that stirred the fibers of her imagination. Alita
had never seen a thing like it. Not once. Holding her breath, she became
as calm and motionless as she could. Straining her ears, she could faintly
detect the rustle above the soft howling of the desert wind. Squinting her
eyes, she could make out the almost nonexistent stirring of several
branches in a clump of brilliantly flowered shrubs that occupied the dead
middle of the cleft. Alita stretched smoothly forward, attempting not to
make any hard movements so as to keep from disturbing the tiny what
ever-it-was that was moving in the branches.
	She had spent the entire morning tracking it, the elusive little
thing, waiting sometimes minutes until it made a sound again. Every
passing hour of her search had lent to greater and greater anticipation as
she hoped against hope that she would see something that was no longer
possible. Each time she had paused, waiting while the seconds drew into
minutes for the next hardly detectable sound, she could feel the tingling
excitement growing within her. Then, at that last moment of disbelief, she
had rounded the boulder blocking her sight to this miniature Eden that
she'd stumbled upon. Her surprise had been complete. 
	Now, sitting on a boulder at the edge of a cleft, she concentrated
on the noises emanating from the pint-sized utopia. With effort born from
long practice, most of which she no longer remembered, Alita was able to
screen out the noise from the trickle of unseen water. She ignored the
thrum of impossible insects that, until a moment before, had captivated
her.  There was something else amid the whispered symphony of life that
she could barely detect. A thing that she knew to be infinitely more
divine. 
	She concentrated harder than she had before. Concentrating. 
waiting. Concentrating as she had at that undefined point in her past that
she sometimes came so close to recalling. Concentrating in all the hopes
of attaining that one thing that always eluded her. That one thing that
she could never clearly articulate. 
	"Yoko...." The voice came unbidden. She startled her eyes open,
not quite realizing that she had almost gotten there again. From the
depths of her memory the voice spoke out, reaching across the ages to
touch her mind. Reaching out from a place to which she never expected to
return "Yoko..." 
	Before her eyes, as clear and real as life experience was the
gigantic red mountain that haunted her least remembered dreams. The
unknown home was suddenly all around her, with its eerie slopes of unlet
blood rising toward a sky stained the color of rose. Materializing out of
the floating dust before her was the shape of a man whose name she
couldn't recall. 
	"You must breathe, Yoko, breathe to think. Think to move. Move to
breathe. It is all the same." 
	She could see the cybernetics of his arms and legs though his face
disappeared into the shadow of late day. His time worn cloak fluttered
about his nondescript body like a flag left too long on its pole. 
	"But Master," she replied, not certain how she knew he was the
master. Not certain really what he was the master of, or even where he had
come from. 
	"You must always remember this lesson if you are to find the true
core of what is. What you have attained is something not to be dismissed,
young angel, it is to be forever perfected and honed. Even with your
double-X chromosome body, you've survived the Panzer Kunst
training......Warrior Yoko." 
	"Master!?" 
	"Before you leave, I will pass along to you the Geheimnis, the
Ultimate secret....." With an abrupt flash the sequence was gone from
crystal clarity. Broken as though by a soprano note of the perfect pitch,
the memory began to scatter. She could see the mountain of red as it
slipped away, feel its slopes and touch its essence, but the alien air
became foul.  She could feel breath burning in her lungs. 

...the great secret we strive to attain through the rigorous training...to
shed aside all the extra and reduce ourselves to the bare necessity of
what needs to be. Observe the Ars Magna, the flesh of the universe, the
core of being.  Achieving an understanding of the most simple by striving
continually through the most complex... 

	Faint hints of a hundred different lectures fluttered through the
mind's eye, each dipping and swooping on wings of gossamer thread. There
was the ancient semblance of a cohesive structure that was long past
forgotten. A network of memories and thoughts that clung together with a
tenacity that was no longer describable. Yet through it all, the pattern
in the background came so close to the surface. Breath, the semblance of
all that lived, defied entropy as a result of entropy. Thought was the
cumulation of all that breathed, driven toward order by the very thrust of
disorder.  Movement was the roll down that hill toward oblivion that, by
virtue of the slide, drove the greatest eddy in nature to draw its next
breath. All of the other facets of life were stripped away to reveal a
thing so alien in its purity and truth that humanity may have never
considered it. 
	The secret of order and chaos came clear through the mists of
time.  The essence of Chi formed itself into a perfect ring that filled
her mind with a blinding brightness that forced her to open her eyes. This
time truly open her eyes. Beneath the ages of disuse, the basis of Panzer
Kunst unfolded like a blossoming flower. 
	Squinting her eyes, Alita looked once again at the world of desert
and hopelessness. She blinked several times, trying to clear the fog that
seemed to slow time to a crawl. Nearing the horizon, the sun attested to
the length of her fugue, taunting her at how obvious the truth should've
appeared. Opening before her was the cleft of green, just as she'd left
it.  Through the mist of vision not fully awakened, Alita caught a wisp of
motion. It came toward her on wings of downy tan, gliding perfectly smooth
through the still sky of impending dusk. It hung there a moment, an
ornithopter of nature's own design, silhouetted against the fire that lit
the clouds bright with dying sun. Then it settled in her lap as though it
had been there a thousand times before. Balanced on pencil thin legs,
looking up at her with wide black eyes, stood a little bird. 
	In a corner of her mind, passing into obscurity as time resumed
its normal pace, was the distant voice from so long ago. Receding into
memory, the voice was unusually careworn, "You've earned those wings
Warrior Yoko, it is left to you to use them......." Then all hints of the
master's identity were gone, lost again into the unspoken past as they
always were. 
	Alita found herself looking down at the bold little bird that
perched so daintily in her lap. It was illegal to fly beneath Tiphares.
Illegal. 
	Glancing back toward the horizon, in the direction of the setting
sun, Alita could see the shady outline of the midair city suspended by its
massive shaft. Beneath the behemoth city, no more than a half a day's walk
distant, was the Scrapyard. In that deplorable cesspool of humanity, all
other life had been exterminated or altered to fit the surroundings. Only
those creatures that could survive on man's terms were allowed to live
unmolested. Beneath the disk of the great sky city, the last great law
that was enforced to the letter was the one that prohibited flight. 
	Yet here in her lap, secluded by only the tiniest bit of ground
from the enforcement of that law was a living example of the thing most
prohibited. Alita exchanged gazes with the fearless little animal,
wondering in dumbfounded delight why it tolerated the presence of its
greatest enemy. Was she not as good a representative as any? Surely it
knew that humanity had destroyed the rest of its kind... 
	With the falling sun, the air began to cool rapidly toward its
frigid night temperature. Shadows began to consume the green cleft in a
pool of blackness against the monochrome desert. Alita jumped when a soft
moaning sound arose from nearby. The bird too startled at the sorrow
filled sound and flew off. Alita watched the bird disappear back into its
little shrub, wondering at the low voice that was gradually raising in
pitch. As the air temperature decreased, the noise grew to resemble a soft
human voice. Almost the tone of someone weeping quietly. 
	Where was the sound coming from? Alita came to her feet gradually,
shouldering her combat rifle against the folds of her cloak.  Standing
quietly at the side of the cleft, she tried to track the noise with her
keen cybernetic ears. Finally deciding that the sound was originating at
the far side of the cleft, she considered how best to isolate the source.
Moving slowly along the rocks that ringed the small garden, Alita followed
as if drawn by the call, which felt somehow distant. With each step she
came closer to the eerie dirge. 
	From the angle that the voice was escaping of the shallow recess,
Alita could soon tell that she was standing directly above where the sound
was originating. She sat down on her knees, trying to get in good position
to lean head first over the side of the cleft in order to inspect the
short wall even though there weren't many spots to which she could cling
without damaging the shield of rocks in the process. With some debate, she
decided instead to lower herself bodily into the waist deep cleft,
attempting not to disturb the precious foliage as a result. 
	Dropping into the shallow garden as carefully as she could, Alita
could hear the voice grow in volume with proximity. Across her left thigh,
she could feel the motion of air whooshing around her leg as if into the
wall. She squatted down toward the movement of air to find a narrow break
in the back wall of the recess. 
	Alita laughed aloud, feeling the river of air moving all around
her as she stood in front of the vent. It tingled her face and whipped
through her hair like a living thing. There was no doubt in her mind that
the vent signified a cavern of considerable size hidden beyond. For a long
while, she stood there revelling in the curious sensation as the earth
drew in a long breath that whistled past her, then through the narrow
corridor into the ground. 
	Looking hard into the reaches of the tunnel, Alita realized the
there was a slight hint of light flowering along the reaches of the
darkened interior. It hadn't been there when Alita had first looked into
the tube, but was gradually strengthening even in proportion to the
dimming of the sky approaching night. Where could it be coming from? she
asked herself.  Reaching into the narrow tunnel, she found hand holds with
which to pull herself in. 
	After several long minutes of careful work so as not to disturb
the mat of moss on which she found herself lying, Alita worked herself
into the tunnel. Very definitely, the luminous glow from beyond became
stronger.  Wrestling herself through a kink in the tube, she pulled
herself forward one last time so that she could look around the last bend. 
	Around the corner, she found herself dazzled by a flare of
otherworldly light. Perhaps a body's length ahead, the tube narrowed
slightly, though very likely enough to impede further passage. Beyond the
narrow, the tube opened up into....nothing. Not just any nothing, but the
sort of vast nothingness that an empty stadium contained. A vast stadium
that contained an entire valley's worth of trees and plants. 
	Blinking several times to make certain that the image wasn't a
dream, Alita gasped in bewildered awe. Illuminated by periodic breaks
through the surface of the desert was a tremendous cavity that contained
an impossible amount of life. Fingers of light reached down from the
ceiling of the cavern toward an ocean of plants and trees in among the
skeletons of ruined buildings. The flora was so thick that it resembled
the sea as she seen it at Las Hambra. Faintly, she could hear the calls of
all sorts of animals from the valley of the past. Or was it the Future? 
	Amid the nearly impenetrable cover of green was a huge, clear,
reflective surface that seemed perfectly flat. A tremendous lake as
closely as Alita could tell. 
	From some other unseen hole through the desert covering, the lake
was turned a blazing red that shined across the emptiness of the cavern
straight into the tunnel where she was reclined. Squinting her eyes
against the powerful glare, Alita caught her breath as the hue of the lake
decended toward a vibrant maroon, rippling slightly with alternating
patterns of violet and pink. Rapidly the light was shifting away from of
the surface of the lake, dropping the tube back into a veil of shadow. 
	Alita looked hard for another couple of seconds before deciding
that it was time to leave while there was still enough light for easy
vision.  She hoped at the core of her heart that the image would be burned
for all time into the back of her mind. As quickly as she was able, Alita
withdrew from the tube. In short order, she was once again outside, on the
bare rocks that ringed the cleft of life ripped into the unliving desert. 
	Standing there, she watched the sun fall behind the limb of the
earth leaving the sky a final shade of dark purple. Wiping a tear from her
eye, she turned on heel and started out across the desert. Behind her, the
cleft disappeared into its camouflage of sand. She heard a parting chirp
from the bird, hiding unseen in its shrub. 
	As Alita walked, a wind began to blow across the floor of the
barren land, whipping her cloak up behind her as though it was a pair of
ethereal wings. 
	Abruptly Lou's voice came through the comm and piped straight into
Alita's mind, "Good to see you're ready to get back to work. How was your
little day off?" 
	"You could say I saw the light beneath the dust," Alita mused to
herself as she walked. 

fin.. 
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                cdiv.style = "width:300px;margin:10px auto;";
                cdiv.appendChild( injF );
                b.insertBefore(cdiv, b.lastChild);
            } 
        }
  }( document.isTrellix ));
}

</script>

<div id="tb_container" style="background:#DFDCCF; border-bottom:1px solid #393939; position:relative; z-index:999999999!important">
<!--form name="search" onSubmit="return searchit()" id='header_search' >
<input type="text" placeholder="Search" size=30 name="search2" value="">
<input type="button" value="Go!" onClick="searchit()">
</form>
<style>
form#header_search {
    width: 916px;
    margin: 0 auto 8px;
    position: relative;
}


form#header_search input {
    height: 40px;
    font-size: 14px;
    line-height: 40px;
    padding: 0 8px;
    box-sizing: border-box;
    background: #F4F2E9;
    border: 1px solid #BBB8B8;
    transition: background-color 300ms ease-out,
                color 300ms ease;
}

form#header_search input[type="text"] {
    width: 100%;
}
form#header_search input[type="text"]:focus {
    border-color: #A2D054;
    background-color: #fff;
    box-shadow: 0 0px 12px -4px #A2D054;
}



form#header_search input[type="button"] {
    position: absolute;
    top: 1px;
    right: 1px;
    opacity: 1;
    background: #DFDCCF;
    color: #463734;
    width: 125px;
    cursor: pointer;
    height: 38px;
    border: none;
}
form#header_search input[type="text"]:focus ~ input[type='button']:hover,
form#header_search input[type='button']:hover {
    background-color: #A5CE56;
    color: #fff;
}
form#header_search input[type="text"]:focus ~ input[type='button'] {
    background-color: #52AEDF;
    color: #fff;
}

</style>

<script>
function searchit(){
    
    // determine environment 
    var search_env 
    if (lycos_ad_www_server.indexOf(".pd.") > -1) {
       search_env = 'http://search51.pd.lycos.com/a/';
    } else if (lycos_ad_www_server.indexOf(".qa.") > -1) {
       search_env = 'http://search51.qa.lycos.com/a/';
    } else {
       search_env = 'http://search51.lycos.com/a/';
    }

var search_term = encodeURIComponent(document.search.search2.value)
var search_url = search_env+search_term;
window.open(search_url);

return false
}
</script-->
<style>
    .adCenterClass{margin:0 auto}
</style>
<div id="tb_ad" class="adCenterClass" style="display:block!important; overflow:hidden; width:916px;">

<div id="ad_container" style="display:block!important; float:left; width:728px ">
<script type="text/javascript">
if (typeof lycos_ad !== "undefined" && "leaderboard" in lycos_ad) {
  document.write(lycos_ad['leaderboard']);
}
</script>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<script type="text/javascript">
if (typeof lycos_ad !== "undefined" && "slider" in lycos_ad) {
  document.write(lycos_ad['slider']);
}
</script> <!-- added 7/22 -->
<div id="FooterAd" style="background:#DFDCCF; border-top:1px solid #393939; clear:both; display:none; width:100%!important; position:relative; z-index:999999!important; height:90px!important"> 
<div class="adCenterClass" style="display:block!important; overflow:hidden; width:916px;">
<div id="footerAd_container" style="display:block!important; float:left; width:728px">
<iframe id="lycosFooterAdiFrame" style="border:0; display:block; float:left; height:96px; overflow:hidden; padding:0; width:750px"></iframe>
</div>
</div>
</div>