What? You've read Part 6 already? Sheesh, are you voracious! Okay, here's
Part 7! Enjoy!



                                             BubbleGum Cross

                                           Metal Heart - Part 7

                                         (c) 1995 by Andy Skuse
                                          askuse@execulink.com 

                 Based on characters copyrighted by Youmex, AIC, Artmic



Part 7 - Field Test

     Nene broke the tense silence that had fallen on the interior of the
Knight Saber's van, as they completed final preparations,"Sylia, I've
finished the remote scan of the base. There's something really strange about
these boomers, if that's what they are."
     Macky chimed in, "She's right Sis. I'm not seeing anything in Nene's
scans that indicate there are boomers inside that building."
     Sylia shifted slightly in her hard-suit, it's snugness feeling strangely
unfamiliar as she moved to the doorway, " Run another check on the data
and fill me in as we go. We've kept those hostages waiting long enough.
Knight Sabers- it's show time."


               ********************************************

     Blackie pocketed his keys and stared into the gloom of his
darkened kitchen. Upon closing the front door, his hand reached for the
light panel beside the doorframe and flicked it on. His heart fell as he
entered the front room and spotted the vacant couch. A quick scan of the
room revealed that his guest was gone. He stood silently in the middle of
the room for a moment, remembering the sound of her voice. His gaze fell
on the small wooden chair beside the couch and a scrap of white paper that
lay in the centre of it. Blackie snatched up the paper and flipped it over. The
words on the paper suddenly began to spin around in his mind, clashing
with the vivid images of her face, that would not fade. He sat down heavily
on the couch and held his head in his hands, trying to convince himself that
she wouldn't lie. Not her! Maybe she was a bit withdrawn sometimes, but
she was like him. She wouldn't lie! She was *just* like him.
Wasn't she?
     He looked up slowly, his ears suddenly picking up a faint noise. The
tiny TV at the foot of the couch had been left on and the images on the
screen slowly drew Blackie's attention from thoughts of his guest's
disappearance. A shaky, helicopter-mounted, video camera was
transmitting live pictures of a floodlit building, it's parking lot filled with
AD Police and military vehicles. Blackie reached for the volume and
listened intently as the on-scene reporter finished interviewing an important
looking police officer and began a recap of the crisis at the Matsumi
Military Base. As he continued listening to the reporter's account, his eyes
narrowed when he spotted the Knight Sabers armored forms, as they
embarked from a dark blue van and approached the building. Their figures
cut in front of the floodlights at the building's edge, casting four distended
shadows on the buildings front wall. The helicopter's camera suddenly
zoomed out as the Knight Sabers shot into the night sky, disappearing for a
moment, and then zoomed in again to show the four figures kneeling around
a skylight on the building's roof. The view then switched back to the
reporter and then to a slow pan of the jammed parking lot.
     Blackie turned off the TV and sat still for a few minutes, staring up
at the large, japanese tapestry  that almost completely covered the wall
facing him. Every so often, his face would contort and his eyes would
narrow to little more than slits, while his thoughts would suddenly voice
themselves. Barely rising above a whisper, the words that escaped his lips
were sharp, quick and forceful, rising and falling in pitch, as if engaging
their creator in some sort of silent debate. Looking once more at the ancient
setting depicted on the tapestry, he focused on the individual figures that
dotted the embroidered landscape. A group of colorfully armored samurai
warriors charged headlong into a phalanx of spear-wielding infantry while
samurai on the ground stood toe-to-toe with would-be opponents, their
katanas raised behind their heads in an awkward sideways manner. At each
end of the tapestry, a shogun sat upon an ornate, wooden throne, perched
high above the battle-field on a hill. The shogun's faces were stern and
focused, almost robotic in their concentration. Behind each throne, colorful
banners flew in the wind, upon them the symbols of each armies clan. At the
end of the wall-hanging closest to the window, the name Minamoto flew
proudly while at the other, the kanji symbols trumpeted the Taira clan's
lineage. Blackie stared hard at the figures, speaking softly to himself until
his whispers finally diminished to silence.
     Abruptly he rose, and crossed the room in a quick even stride. He
swung the tapestry back carefully, and heaved on the inset brass ring
attached to the battered closet door. After pausing to look into the pitch
black tunnel ahead of him, he disappeared into it's mirk.


                          ******************************************

     In a mountain laboratory, high above the unfolding scenario at the
Matsumi military base, Dr. Leomund Sholtan finished his last set of
preliminary tests. Staring up at the glowing multi-vision TV screens in the
dim confines of the main operations room, Leomund blinked a few times,
and then closed his eyes tightly. Slowly, the pain surged in his strained eyes
and then ebbed away, a few drops of salty moisture forming at the corners
of his eyelids. He wiped them away with the edge of his hand and then
looked back up at the screens. The image of four, tall, human figures
standing stoically in a large hall, surrounded on all four sides by military
personnel crouched against the four walls, flickered erratically. Static and
snowy interference distorted the image, combining with the silence in the
room to create a haunting view. 'Well at least the alias modifiers are
functioning stabily,' he thought to himself. If those ever failed, the whole
project would be a disaster. Leomund quietly urged a frustrated looking
technician to boost the amplitude of the video signal coming from the
military bases's digital link. The technician threw up his hands and then
returned to his work on a wiring panel at the end of a large console.
     Leomund cursed at the man's back and turned sharply on his heels.
     Leaving the control room he crossed the corridor and shoved hard on his
office door. The vidphone's console was blinking for attention as he sat
down in his chair to rest. He grabbed the handset and stabbed at the
illuminated button.
     "Leomund, the video signal from the base is not what I had hoped
for. You know that the signal is going to have to improve if I am to make my
demands clearly."
     Leomund listened to the anonymous investor's confident tones and
fumbled for a reply, "Sir, we're doing all we can at this end. I assure you
that nothing will interfere with your connection to the base. We await your
signal for the video lockout."
     The voice on the other end of the phone suddenly grew very cold,
"Leo, I haven't asked for much, have I? Human error is not acceptable at this
stage. Please inspire your people to improve the image clarity or I may be
forced to come up there myself. And that's not something that you want to
happen, is it?"
     Leomund hesitated, as he digested the implications of the investor's
threat.
     "No Sir. We'll repair it right away sir."
     "That's better. Lockout will begin in ten minutes."
     "Very well sir."
     "<click>"
     Leomund set the handset back down and settled back into his chair
for a moment, listening to his heart pound in his ears. It was becoming
apparent that the project had a few bugs. He only hoped that they didn't
show up during the field test or he suspected that he might actually, meet his
unseen benefactor. And that meeting, he felt sure, would not be onethat he
would ever get to talk about with any of his colleagues. Ever.

               ************************************************

     Priss' eyes strained to cut through the blackness for a moment, as she
stared down into the dusty skylight to the main hall below her. Suddenly her
IF display cut in, transforming the view below to a shimmering green arena.
She immediately spotted the four boomers, standing stock-still in the centre
of the room, unmoving, and unaware of their presence. Until someone could prove to her different, she would continue to think of them as boomers. It
would make it a lot easier to do her job.
     Sylia's whispering voice came through everyone's intercom
abruptly, causing the other members to start, "Macky, have you confirmed
Nene's earlier opp status check?"
     Macky's distorted voice replied, "Sis, it's still coming back the
same. Everything we send at them bounces back as flesh and blood. I've
already run a wide diagnostic of the system and it's telling me everything's
fine. The good news is, I've got a videolink to the base's security channel.
Nothing much to report though. It's not a very strong signal."
     Sylia gently sighed, the sound being carried to her companions ears
through the intercom.
     "What are we waiting for?", Priss hissed, "We just drop in and take
'em out!  They won't know what hit 'em!"
     

     In the mountain laboratory's control room, a stony voice emanated
from the loud-speaker system, interrupting the silence, "Video lockout in
three minutes."


     Leon shifted uneasily inside the cramped interior of the miltary's
video truck, jockeying for a better view of the monitor bank. He didn't think
he would feel this helpless. His gut gnawed at him, telling him he was right
about his theory. Linna's questioning tones flashed through his mind,
attacking his instinct and boosting his self-doubt. 'Damn! If only he had some proof,' he thought.
      Glancing at the monitor in the bottom left hand corner of the grid, he
spotted a shadow he hadn't noticed before. Inching forward through the
hushed group of a dozen or so soldiers, he strained his eyes to pick out
details of the shadow. Small, circular in shape with an oblong shadow
stemming from it's edge. His eyes suddenly widened, as the shadow's
source became recognizable. At the edge of the camera's field of view,
lying face up for the hostages to see, was the severed, human head of the
single dead hostage.


     Sylia's helmet swung up sharply to face Priss, "It's not that simple!
This is a trap if I've ever seen one, and we don't need any crazy stunts right
now!"
     Nene interjected, "Then what are we going to do? Who know's if
they'll get impatient and decide to kill another hostage!"
     "Relax Nene. That won't happen. Look- both the military and the
police have tried negotiating with them, and from what the general told me,
that term isn't even in their vocabulary. They've killed one hostage, but that
was some time ago. It's our job to see if we can first get them to release the
rest of the hostages, and then we take them out. Does everyone understand?"
     Priss' let an exasperated sigh escape, "Oh, right! So we drop down
in there and ask them to politely let the hostages go! They'll cut us to
pieces!"
     "No they won't. They've been waiting for us to show up here. It's the
Knight Sabers they really want."
     Two helmets suddenly swung over to stare at Sylia. Linna kept
staring down through the skylight.
     Priss spoke first, "How the hell- ?"
     Sylia's hand gesture cut her off, "It doesn't matter now. But it would
be wise to keep your head up this time Priss. We all know by now that this
is not a routine boomer retirement." As the word 'retirement' rolled off her
tongue, the whispers she thought she'd heard earlier suddenly came to mind.
Whatever *was* going on here, she prayed that Leon was wrong.
     "Enough discussion. Remember to use your pitch jets so we don't
land on top of them. Ready? We go in on my mark."
     The four figures on the rooftop rose to their feet and readied
themselves to descend. Sylia took one last look at the positions of the four
*boomers*, some fifteen feet below.
     "Now!"

     Throughout the main hall, a single, short, high-pitched whistle
pierced the silence, followed immediately  by the ear-splitting din of
descending shards of glass. Sylia hit the ground hard, but her suit absorbed
the majority of the impact and she found herself standing on her feet. With a
lightning fast movement, her right arm swung upwards as she locked her
visor's sights on one of the four figures in the centre of the room. Tiny
crystals of glass continued to descend from the shattered skylight, glittering
like feather-light emeralds in her visor's green, night-vision display. Amid the
shower of glass, the four figures remained utterly motionless.
     "Target's locked!", came a trio of voices over the intercom. Sylia
took a quick breath, visually checked her target's still motionless form, and
then switched her intercom over to speaker mode.
     "We know what you want. Let these people go first and then we'll
talk."
     

     "Video lockout in two minutes."


     The figure in Sylia's sights suddenly raised it's arm, the motion itself
a sharp, almost imperceptible jerk. Her suit systems cried out in alarm,
sending commands to it's power-core for a build-up. Amazingly, none of her
companions fired, but the reason quickly became clear. The figure was
pointing at the nearest hallway that connected to the building's front exit.
Sylia felt her own heartbeat pound, the strangeness of these cybernetic
creations rekindling an almost forgotten hatred inside her. Her opponents
were living up to her fears.
     Linna watched in surprise from her vantage point across the room as
the hostages hesitated to rise, not knowing of their fear of their captor's
horrible reprisal, demonstrated earlier that night.
      Slowly though, they stood, testing even the patience of the Knight
Saber's leader. "Let's go! Move it!", Sylia commanded through her suit's
speaker. The hostages stared at her with widened eyes and then began to
accelerate their flight. Some dared to look back for a glance at their
liberators, while most just shuffled out, exhilirating that they would not
share the fate of their beheaded co-worker.
     Nene cried out suddenly, "Sylia! I'm detecting some kind of power
surge. It's definitely coming from the boomers!"
     Priss flexed her knees and tensed her right arm ,"Let's rock!"
     Sylia turned back to face her opponent, just as it finished tapping
a few delicate commands into a keypad attached to it's arm, "Wait Priss!
The hostages aren't all out yet and we're in a cross-fire!"
     No sooner had her words left her lips, then the dark room erupted
into a wash of blue light. Each Knight Saber reached up to cover their eyes
as their visor's IF displays suddenly flared into a blinding mask of bright
green.


     "Video lockout commencing."


     Leon suddenly pushed forward through the stunned group of soldiers
to reach the control desk,"Whaddya mean you've lost the video!!? Get it
back pronto, or you'll be back in boot camp!!"
     The soldier wrestled with the video truck's controls while he
wondered how the AD Police detective could make good on his threat. The
monitor bank continued to defy his frantic efforts, the display still a grid of
static-filled squares.
     Leon slammed his fist on the edge of the console and then quickly
turned to shove his way back to the truck's exit.
     As soon as he emerged, his eyes locked on the dark, blue utility van
on the edge of the parking lot. To his left, a line of soldier's and police
officers were helping the emerging hostages to a waiting bus at the back of
the lot. To his right the general stood with his arms folded across his chest
and a slight smile on his face as he watched the hostages board the bus.
'You won't be smiling for too long,' Leon thought to himself, 'When you
remember how much you owe somebody for pulling this off.'
     Leon began to walk towards the blue van, picking up his pace as he
neared the edge of the parking lot.
     Macky jumped in his seat as several loud thumps woke him from his
intense struggle with the lost video feed. The back door slid open to reveal
Leon's smiling face, "Got room for one more?"
     Macky sighed and motioned Leon to enter.
     Leon climbed the metal steps and stole a quick glance back at where
the smiling general still stood, "This ain't over yet you son-of-a-bitch."
     The blue metal door slid shut firmly, followed by a metallic 'click'.

End of Part 7

Author's notes:
Well, things are sure to heat up big time in Part 8 (entitled "Avatar"). At the
present rate of production it should be ready sometime next weekend (not
promising!). Hope you like it so far! C + C welcome, privately or to the list.

Andy Skuse

********************
BG Cross
The Dark Traveller
askuse@execulink.com
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