As before, all praise/blame goes to Marco de la Cruz
<marco@chinook.physics.utoronto.ca>
        Don't worry, X-Change Students is alive and well.
 
HTG
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----

    "If you exercised your body half as much as you do your
brain you wouldn't get clobbered all the time!"

    "Well, that's because, unlike you, my brain is not a
muscle!"

    "Why you little..."

    "Now, now, girls, behave yourselves," said Sylia, as she
entered the room, "and you Linna, really, instead of laughing
you should help me controlling with these two"

Sylia sat at the table beside the small living room. She
slowly sipped her tea and took a deep breath. Finally, some
peace and quiet. Nene had given them quite a scare, but
fortunately it wouldn't go beyond a few bruises and a bump in
the head. Even her hardsuit had resulted largely unscathed,
and she had been able to fix it in less than two days.

    "So how's the new rocket gun coming along?"

    "You, Priss, of all people, should be the last to ask that
question," responded Sylia.

    "Well, what did you want me to do? That's why we took on
the boomer in the first place, wasn't it?"

Priss, of course, knew that this wasn't the reason she had
fired at the boomer. She also suspected that the others knew
it also. But Nene had had everybody worried sick, and, in her
case, very angry too.

    Sylia sighed.

    "That boomer's armour was already weakened to the point of
fracture, firing at it in that state is hardly a test of the
missile's performance"

    "But at least we verified your suspicions about the new
reflective coating," said Linna.

    "Yeah, good thing about the automatic shut off mechanism
you designed into the lasers," added Nene.

    "Well, it was only a matter of time before Genom's
engineers found a way to neutralize the laser beams in an
effective manner," responded Sylia, "so as soon as we get a
chance to really test the rocket gun I'll begin adapting it to
our suits. In the meanwhile, avoid using the lasers against
boomers."

A beeper interrupted their conversation. Nene quickly turned
on the small radio on the table beside the sofa. It was
permanently tuned to the A.D. police band, and Nene had wrote
a little program to monitor the transmissions for a series of
keywords.

    "... age facility, I repeat, we have a code 233 at the
Koto storage facility. All available units respond..."

"Code 233" was one of them. It meant a confirmed boomer attack
was in progress.

    "McNichol here. What do we have?"

    "Unknown boomer type inside the Koto storage facility"

    "Koto? Isn't that were Genom's main chemical deposit is
located?"

    "Affirmative. The building is Genom's chemical storage
site"

    "Let me get this straight. A boomer has attacked Genom
property? And they're asking for OUR help?"

    "Affirmative"

    "Talk about poetic justice," sneered Priss.

    "O.K., so what are we talking about here?"

    "Boomer's model I.D. is unavailable"

    "What? Look, if those assholes don't want to cooperate
they can just ..."

    "Leon, get your ass over there NOW," another voice cut in.

    "What the...? Is that you Chief? What the hell is going
on?"

    "Genom thinks a boomer has broken into the facility. Their
surveillance system seems to be out, and since they don't know
what they're up against they don't want to send in their
stuff. They think it's too dangerous"

    "Strange," thought Sylia.

    "O.K. I'll need at least eight AV's and air supp..."

    "Leon, you don't understand. This must be a *surgical*
procedure. No heavy weaponry. Powersuits and portable weapons
are all you'll have."

    "WHAT THE...? No way, Chief. We can't even take on those
suckers WITH the heavy artillery. We don't have a snowball's
chance in hell fighting the thing in some lousy..."

    "Leon," the Chief interrupted, wearily, "the plant is a
tritoxen deposit"

There was a long silence. Nene, Priss and Linna looked at each
other, and then turned to Sylia. She was intently staring at
the radio.

    "How much?," asked Leon, in a low voice.

    "2000 tons"

    "Christ"

-----

 tritoxen, a compound formed by a combination of tritium and
 oxatane, an oxygen isotope. Although its general properties
 are widely know, there is little available information
 regarding the chemical and physical characteristics of
 tritoxen. Discovered by Genom industries (q.v.) in 2029, this
 remarkable substance is capable of spontaneously fusing its
 tritium and oxatane atoms to generate 4He, water, and vast
 quantities of energy. Hailed upon its discovery as the
 solution to the world's energy problems, its disadvantages
 soon posed major technical difficulties. Tritoxen is
 extremely unstable, and can only be stored in liquid state at
 temperatures under 0.03 K and very high
 pressures. Superconducting magnetic bottles are normally used
 for this purpose. Unlike thermonuclear devices, where plasma
 leaks lead to an interruption of the fusion process, failure
 to contain the tritoxen will immediately cause it to begin
 fusing uncontrollably. So far, Genom's secretiveness
 regarding tritoxen and their research has made it difficult
 to assess the current level of development. It is hoped,
 however, that the above problems will be overcome in a few
 years, and tritoxen energy plants will soon be a
 reality. Major ref. 13:307b.

-Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2033

    The KnightWing landed in the parking lot just beside the
police barrier. At least 40 A.D. patrol vehicles where
scattered around the area.

    "Hello ladies, welcome to the party"

Although trying to disguise his feelings by acting as the jerk
he really was, Priss could notice a definite tone of worry in
his voice.

    "Hello officer," responded Sylia, in her usual cool
manner, "we know about the tritoxen. What's your plan?"

    "We're waiting for the specs of the plant's layout from
Genom's people. Once we get them we jump in our new ACE suits
and mop the place up. It'll be a good opportunity to test them
out," he grinned.

    "It'll be a good opportunity to get you and your men
killed". This time it was Priss' voice which sounded worried,
although the electronic distortion didn't let it show.

    "What about the boomer? How did it get in?" asked Linna.

    "We... don't know," said Leon, uneasily.

Sylia's mind was racing. Nothing made sense. Why did Genom
call the police? Their own equipment, including powersuits,
was far superior to whatever the A.D. police had to offer. And
the tritoxen. It was inconceivable that Genom would actually
admit to something as dangerous and illegal as storing
tritoxen, let alone tell the police. And finally this
mysterious boomer. Boomers weren't particularly subtle, and
this one seemed to have teleported itself into the plant,
conveniently knocking out all detection systems. It was a
trap, thought Sylia, it had to be. Genom's people knew that
such a threat would bring out the Knight Sabers, mercenaries
or not. There was no tritoxen, but a small army of boomers
ready to leap upon them once they got inside.

But that didn't make sense either. It simply wasn't the way
Genom operated. Genom was above all a business corporation,
and it was exposing itself way too much. This wasn't just some
rogue boomer that "accidentally" got out of control. It was a
danger which threatened the entire city.

There was something missing, but what?

    "Sir! We've just received the plant's layout and defense
system specifications," an officer came running up to Leon,
holding a small data chip in one hand and a printout in the
other. Leon turned to face him.

    "What do we have?"

    "It's confirmed. Two thousand tons of tritoxen are stored
in twenty cryogenic tanks thirty meters below the
surface. They've managed to seal off all the lower levels and
cut the flow into the plant's piping system. We can fire our
weapons without worrying about hitting a pipeline, but rockets
and such are too dangerous, since the vibration may affect the
tanks below"

    "What about the plant's defence systems?"

The man hesitated for a second.

    "Sir. We think we know the type of boomer that attacked
the plant"

    "Well?"

He took a deep breath, and then quickly replied.

    "The plant's guarded by three boomers, sir. BU-27SP"

Leon looked at the man. He then slowly turned to the Knight
Sabers.

    "Dobermans"

-----

The way a boomer "thinks" is, by and large, a quantum
mechanical process. The connections within its neurochips are
essentially a series of nano-junctions which electronically
attempt to simulate the vastly more complicated
electro-chemical synapses within the human brain. As such,
their behaviour can be modeled and, to a certain point, fixed,
by simply choosing the appropriate eigenfunctions which will
determine how it will react to a given situation. The keywords
here are, of course, "to a certain point". Quantum mechanics
is not a deterministic theory, and indeed, multiplying the
eigenfunctions by their conjugate will lead to a probability
distribution. The great triumph of cybernetics had been in
manipulating the shape of these functions in such a way so as
to mimic the human *mechanical* thought process. But there
always remains a trace of uncertainty, which, some people
argued, was the key to producing machines capable of
*creative* thought. Others, however, claimed it was *because*
of this unpredictability that no machine could ever hope to
reproduce the precise and subtle series of steps that lead to
cognitive reasoning.

Cyberneticians, nonetheless, had been capable of duplicating
some of the basic human instincts. Foremost among these was
the most primal aggressive behaviour. A normal boomer could of
course be programmed to cause havoc, and indeed, it happened
almost every day in the city. But some boomers had been
designed so that their aggressive behaviour could emerge
spontaneously. This series of boomers were the BU-27SP, or
"Dobermans". They were the ultimate combat machines, capable
of what one Genom executive had described as "creative
bloodshed".

The first two Dobermans ever made had been designated to guard
Genom's ultra-secret space station. A large percentage of the
most advance military hardware Genom made was developed on the
station. Cutting edge boomers and sophisticated powersuits
were constantly being designed and tested in space. The new
boomers would be the ideal "guard dogs" (and hence the
name). But one thing that the cyberneticians had
underestimated was the Doberman's aggression. Theoretically,
it could only be triggered during a fight, and would only stop
as soon as either them or their target was destroyed. But
quantum mechanics does not allow for such definitive
projections, as the station's maintenance crew soon found
out. The Dobermans suddenly started savagely ripping them
apart during a routine check. Much as with the tritoxen plant,
the station's crew was unable to use the heavy weaponry they
had available against the Dobermans for fear of seriously
damaging the station itself. But they did have Genom's most
sophisticated boomers and powersuits at their disposal, and
proceeded to use them.

In less than two hours all the 73 crew members, technical
staff, scientists and guards were dead.

By the time the Genom shuttle arrived with backups, the
Dobermans had already destroyed each other. Despite Genom's
efforts, the news leaked, and Dobermans were strictly
prohibited on earth. In a surprising demonstration of
self-restraint, Genom complied. They, of course, could
continue to develop the Dobermans in outer space, and they
did. They revised the theory and made an exhaustive series of
tests. Soon they had the problem under control. They had so
much confidence in the new design that they thought it would
be perfect to guard their most secret and dangerous project to
date: the "chemical" plant where they planned on making the
first tritoxen fusion reactor. For two years everything had
worked without a glitch, the Dobermans performed just as
expected.

Until now.

-----

It was the ultimate irony. The Knight Sabers were actually
going to help Genom stop the Dobermans. They had no choice. No
powersuit was powerful enough to tackle these boomers, and
even though Leon had insisted on coming with them they soon
dissuaded him by locking him in a car and welding the doors
shut. Only their hardsuits had a chance to defeat them, and
everybody knew it, including Genom. Sylia wondered who
despised the current situation more: them or Genom's
executives. It didn't really matter. The Dobermans had to be
stopped.

As they walked along the plant's corridors they kept track of
their positions by the map that appeared on their
viewscreens. Genom had supplied them with the plant's interior
layout. There were three Dobermans, and each was activated as
soon as an intruder was detected within its proximity. The
problem was, if one of them had gone berserk and started
roaming around the plant, it would soon activate the other
two. With the surveillance shut down, they had no way of
knowing how many were operative. Furthermore, no one was
really sure how they would behave. Under normal circumstances
they were programmed to team up against an intruder, but now
it was impossible to tell that they would do.

All four walked as a tight unit. It was far too dangerous to
split. Sylia and Priss walked in front, Linna and Nene
followed closely. The corridors were large and well
illuminated. Their first objective was the main control room
were the surveillance system was located. If they could get it
up again they would be in a far better position to plan their
next step. The room, however, was located at the heart of one
of the Doberman's "zones".

Soon they reached the entrance which led into the CR.

    "Linna, Nene, cover us." Sylia ordered through their
suit's radios, "Priss, we go in on my signal"

Three okays were the reply. Priss prepared her densematter
gun, Sylia activated the explosive insertor in her hand.

    "Now!"

Both women entered the room in one swift move, and immediately
started to scan their surroundings, with their weapons ready
to fire. The room was triangular in shape, with a door at each
of its vertices. On one wall lay the control panel. In the
middle of the room, on the floor, lay one of the Dobermans,
facedown.

Or at least, half of it was.

As Linna and Nene entered the room Sylia ran a quick scan on
the body. Priss was still pointing at it with her gun, but it
was clear the mecha was "dead". It was practically cut in
half. It had been split in two and left twisted on the floor
in a pool of green hydraulic fluid. Its right arm was severed
at the elbow, and was nowhere to be found.


Nene knelt beside it and turned the torso faceup. She
gasped. Its head had almost been destroyed. It looked as if
someone had forced its mouth open, ripping it apart. The laser
in its mouth had been smashed inwards all the way into the
"brain".

    "Somebody out there is *very* pissed." Priss kept staring
at the body. "I think our friends have started bumping into
each other, and they're not getting along very well"

    "The control panel isn't in much better shape," said
Sylia, "it's been completely smashed"

That was rather odd, she thought. Destroying it couldn't bring
the surveillance down, as it was controlled through the
computer. But it sure made it impossible to get it working
again. Very strange.

    "Linna, look at this cut," Nene pointed at the place where
the Doberman had been split in two, "what do you think about
the edges?"

    "They're very smooth, like... my whips!"

    "Yeah, just as I thought." Nene peeked more closely, and
almost fell back.

    "What happened?" asked Priss.

    "It's his arm... I've found it"

Whatever had attacked the Doberman had shoved its arm deep
inside its torso.

    "Like I said, *very*, *very*, pissed"

Suddenly, they heard footsteps coming towards the room, very
fast, as if running. Almost in unison, the four Knight Sabers
assumed battle positions, and pointed their weapons towards
the doorway. As the footsteps grew stronger, their fingers
started to increase the pressure on the triggers within their
suits.

Something dashed across the entrance, so quick it was almost a
blur. The Knight Sabers kept their positions, motionless. Nene
was the first to speak

    "Did you guys see what I saw?"

    "How the hell could she have gotten into this place!?"
Priss turned to Sylia

    "I don't know," responded Sylia, "but we have to get her
out of here before one of those Dobermans eats her alive"

    "Do you think she triggered the boomers?" asked Linna

    "She'd already be dead," answered Sylia.

A shower of bullets ripped through the air. The Knight Sabers
violently spun around to see a Doberman flying towards the
room, firing at them. It had almost reached the entrance when
Priss started firing back.

    "Linna! Nene! Go get the girl! NOW!" Sylia ordered, as she
turned towards the incoming boomer.

Nene hesitated a second, then saw Linna heading for the exit
after the girl. She looked back once more as Sylia began
firing, and hurriedly followed after Linna.

Linna and Nene moved quickly along the maze of corridors.

"How could such a small girl move so fast?" thought Linna.

They could hear the bursts of machine guns reverberate along
the corridors. They suddenly saw the girl dart across an
intersection ahead of them.

    "Stop!" yelled Linna. Both of them ran towards her.

A fist exploded through the wall just behind them. The second
Doberman was smashing its way through the corridor's wall.

    "Go after her!" yelled Linna, as she turned to face the
boomer.

    "But Linna, I can't..."

    "Shut up and do as I say!"

Nene had never heard such anger in Linna's voice. The Doberman
was almost inside the corridor.

    "I said GO, DAMMIT!"

Nene turned around and ran.

-----

The two Knight Saber were furiously trying to keep the
Doberman back, but neither Sylia's laser nor Priss'
densematter gun were capable of penetrating the Doberman's
armour. The mechanical monster advanced relentlessly into the
control room, firing both its machine-gun and the laser in its
mouth. The room became an inferno of bullets, laser blasts and
explosions.

Both women were desperately trying to avoid the boomer's
onslaught, but evading its fire was becoming harder by the
moment. Soon the Doberman would be upon them.

-----

Linna managed to evade the first wave of slugs and immediately
retaliated by firing her machine-gun. The bullets weren't even
slowing it down. The Doberman opened its mouth to fire the
laser as Linna lashed her mono-streamers. These penetrated the
mecha's armour but weren't capable of slicing through it. The
ray hit her on the shoulder, but the reflecting coating of her
suit managed to protect her. This time. As the boomer advanced
towards her, Linna could swear the monster was snarling at
her, a bloodthirsty growl of undiluted hatred.

-----