Jack Frost
Another Story of Bubblegum Crisis

----
(c) Michael White, June 1996
Author's Note: Anything that isn't original in here belongs to someone else.
If you're that someone else, don't sue me please! This thing is intended for
FREE distribution! Oh, if you're looking for the usual author ramblings,
they're at the bottom.

btw, there are *NO* KS in this 'fic... yet ^_-
----

Episode 2: Stalking the Panther

----
(<June 28, 2031. 9:20 AM, Sable City Police Department, 12th Precinct>)
	"Settle, people, settle," the police captain said, gesturing for the room
to quiet down. "I know some of you are looking forward to your long weekend,
so let's just do this once, OK?"
	Lieutenant Maria Perez snorted in disdain. While some of the cops in the
room would be relaxing on what was supposed to be a beautiful weekend, she'd
be doing crowd control like some beat cop for the big Canada Day 164 concert
at the OceanDome. Only three weeks ago she had transferred in from
Edmunston, where she had spent the past five years, and already she hated
the place. At least in Edmunston the male cops knew her temper well enough
to keep from hitting on her too often. Here, she'd have to educate this
batch of would-be Romeos from scratch, and while that provided a certain
amount of entertainment, the passes and catcalls in the meantime simply
infuriated her.
	Take the last jerk who had tried to score with her, some 23 year old idiot
detective, for instance. Not only was she older, but she even outranked him!
Steve, that was his name. Or was it Shawn? Anyway, the exchange started with
him coming on to her in one of the most one of the boorish manners she had
ever seen, and ended with her leaving her bootprint on his forehead. She
didn't stick around for him to wake up.
	At 27 she had already been decorated for 'courage above and beyond the call
of duty' six times during her stint with the EPD, which she found to be a
complete pile of bull. She was just doing her job, she had told them. Which
was the exact same thing she told them during her five reprimands and two
suspensions for everything from utilizing improper procedures to beating the
living snot of a suspect in a rape case. Sometimes the brass just didn't
understand that solving a case meant breaking the rules on occasion.
	Maria managed to break out of her reviere as the morning briefing began.
The captain, one George Longobardi, started reading off progress reports on
various cases, none of which were particularily of interest to her right
now. She didn't even have a partner yet, and was afraid she'd be stuck with
one of those perverts, or worse yet, a rookie. But when Longobardi killed
the lights and turned on the vid screen, she knew that something big was up.
	"As you all know, during the night of the 26th the NovaRobotics
High-Security compound had several items stolen from one of its warehouses
by their former CEO and head scientist. Well, the RCMP special detatchment
has finally seen fit to tell us some of what they took. Pay attention
people, 'cause this is big." Longobardi pressed a button on the podium and
the image of a massive suit of powered armor appeared on the screen,
standing on what appeared to be the roof of some small building. "This is
the Advanced Endurium Hostile-Enviroment Powered Armor, AKA Ice Suit." he
said, gesturing to the suit in the video footage. Maria looked on,
impressed, as the seemingly bulky armor leaped off the roof, landed, did a
forward roll as it hit the ground, and came up with some sort of weapons pod
with a large central barrel pointed towards a parked Cougar Mark VII tank.
It fired, muzzle flashes appearing on no fewer than six points on the
outside of the module, not from the barrel as Maria had expected. The tank
blew apart under a hail of high-velocity projectiles, and the suit lifted
off on gouts of flame coming from two shoulder-mounted thrusters. 
	"What you're seeing is some sort of test run," Longobardi said. "This is
apparently a powered armor prototype NovaRobotics was developing for the
military, and the only functional unit was stolen Wednesday night, along
with all the materials and knowledge neccessary for NovaRobotics to
manufacture them."
	The Ice Suit landed on the roof of a taller building. Then hatches on the
chest snapped open, revealing 16 lethal-looking missiles. Maria's mouth
dropped as they streaked out towards the city, each choosing its own path,
collectively taking out 16 tanks parked in various locations on the
surrounding streets below. The powered armor leaped off the building,
falling to the street on jets of flame. A final tank was rolling towards the
Ice Suit, the bullets from its light arms ricocheting off of the Ice Suit's
reflective armor, its turrent turning to fire. The armor raised the weapons
module on the left arm, steadying it with the hand unit on the right, and
took aim on the tank. It fired, and this time some sort of electromagnetic
pulse leapt from the central barrel. It hit the tank, which was then
enveloped in a kind of St. Elmo's fire. Then it stopped it dead in its
tracks, inert but apparently unharmed. The video came to an end and the
words "Test Completed" appeared on the screen. As the lights came up Maria
could see that the footage had left everyone else just as dumbfounded as she
was.
	"There's something else," Longobardi said, cutting off a number of
conversations that had started in the crowd. "They also took some kind of
vehicle. The RCMP are staying mum on that, save for this photo." The screen
went black for a moment, then the image of a large, bulbous car appeared.
Maria leaned forward and stared at the image, and thought she could make
out... guns?... mounted on the top. More terrific news.
	"We're supposed to tackle *those*?!" exclaimed on of the cops, one who
Maria hadn't met yet. "When do our nuclear warheads arrive?"
	"Of course we're not, idiot," Longobardi shot back contemptously. "If we
spot either of those... machines, or either of the two suspects, we're to
call it in and a unit from CFB Sable will be dispatched." he said, referring
to the Army base on the eastern tip of the city. "I don't want any of you
even approaching that armor or that car. For that matter, I don't want you
to go near either of these two, even if you don't see so much as a cellular
phone on them. Got that?" he asked, pointing to the photos of Jonathan Meyer
and Sarah McInnely that had appeared on the screen. They had already been
briefed on them the morning after the theft had been reported, so there was
no need to go over their profiles again.
	Maria didn't like it. The cops, the mounties, and the *military* for cryin'
out loud, all trying to work together to snag some nutcase who had just
walked off with something capable of taking out eighteen C-4C2 Cougar VII
tanks like they were minivans. No, no matter which way you sliced it, this
situation was bad...

----

(<June 28, 2031. 11:20 AM, 12th SCPD>)
	Maria was getting impatient as she sat outside the captain's office. She
was supposed to meet up with her new partner today. Insisting that she
didn't need a partner the day before hadn't done her any good, so she
supposed she was just going to have to muddle through it.
	At that moment the door to Longobardi's office swung open some
arrogant-looking cop stepped out. "He said to send you in." the man said,
jerking his thumb over his shoulder.
	"Thanks." Maria replied tersely. She stood up and walked into the office,
fully aware that the pig behind her was staring at her backside. 'Men!' she
thought in disgust.
	"You wanted to see me, captain?" Maria asked.
	"Yes, lieutenant. Meet your new partner," Longobardi replied, gesturing to
the tall redheaded man standing beside the desk. "Lieutenant Maria Perez,
meet lieutenant Bill Davis. Davis, meet Perez."
	"Hi," Davis said, smiling. "Pleasure's all mine."
	Maria spent a moment trying to figure out whether that counted as a
come-on. She decided it fell into neutral territory, so she returned the
greeting in a somewhat friendly manner. Well, at least he wasn't a rookie,
but it was unusual to find two lieutenants paired together outside of an
office. Maria wondered what was up.
	"I'm pulling you two of CD164 duty," Longobardi said abruptly. "I want you
to work on the NovaRobotics case, effective immediately."
	Maria was more than a little surprised. That was a high-profile case, and
she'd hardly been in the city long enough to know her way around. And
besides, hadn't Longobardi just ordered them to leave the matter to the RCMP
and the military? She voiced her concerns to the captain, who simply waved
them off.
	"I don't care," he said. "I want you two on this case. Do you have a
problem with that?"
	Well, yes, she did. Namely that chasing after two loonies who'd acquired
more firepower than many third-world countries wasn't beneficial to one's
life span. But saying that out loud most likely wouldn't do her any good, so
she simply shook her head.
	"Good," the captain said approvingly. "Take whatever resources you need,
within reason of course. Any questions?"
	"Yeah," Maria retorted. "What exactly aren't the mounties telling us? I
know there's something more to this than that briefing let o..."
	"If I knew that, lieutenant, I'd be running my own psychic hotline,"
Longobardi countered, a bit of hostility creeping into his voice.
"Everything I know you know. I don't like this secrecy any more than you,
but there's nothing we can do about it, got that?"
	"Yes, sir." Maria replied automatically.
	"Dismissed." he said, waving them off.
	Davis moved around to the door before Maria could get up and held it open
for her. "I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship." he
said, grinning.
	Maria had to strongly resist the urge to shove him through the wall.

----

(<July 1, 2031. 12th SCPD>)
	Maria had hoped that being yanked from CD164 duty would mean she would get
the day off to relax, maybe work out in the gym, or whatever. But to quote
the captain, "Fat chance", so there she was, stuck in one of the
multimedia/research rooms of the precinct, watching and reading every
pointless detail about the case. Total boredom. She'd rather be out doing
*real* police work. Long-term cases didn't satisfy her. She was the type who
liked to see immediate results, and this case didn't look like it was going
to offer those.
	But there was some good news; Maria had decided that her partner was not
the complete and total ass she had him made out to be. Apparently he had
heard about her little run-in with Steve or Shawn or Shane or whoever, and
was now respecting her space and need to operate on her own a lot of the
time. He wasn't the ideal partner, but she could've gotten far worse.
	Right now they were going over the suspect's profiles, trying to establish
a motive and the fugitives' next possible course of action. One sticking
point was whether or not this Dr. McInnely was a participant in the theft or
a hostage. The videos from the compound, while heavily edited, seemed to
indicate that she was cooperating fully in the heist, seemingly with no
reservations, which sort of shot down the hostage idea.
	"OK," she said, breaking the silence that had stretched over the past two
and a half hours and causing her partner to look up from the file he was
reading. "Now what would cause a multi-billionaire, even one who just got
canned, and some scientist to simply up and walk off with a piece of
hardware, completely abandoning their former lives?"
	"I think I mighta found something," Davis said, gesturing to the terminal.
"This first one here, Meyer, was engaged to be married to a NovaRobotics
test pilot named Iris McInnely." He watched as Maria's eyebrows went up.
"Yep, she was Sarah McInnely's sister. And get this, Iris McInnely was
killed during a test run of some small NovaRobotics spaceship, and *both of
those two were on board*! There was apparently some kind of control glitch,
and Iris McInnely sacrificed herself to keep the ship from slamming into
Sable City and blowing it to hell, but not before forcing these two into
some sort of escape pod."
	"Wow, that is something," Maria said, moving to look over his shoulder.
"Too much to be a coincedence. But how does it fit in?"
	"Apparently, Meyer was infuriated when both an internal and DTC
investigation concluded the crash was caused by a design flaw. He kept
insisting it was sabotage. To top it off, this Sarah McInnely was the one
who designed the thing!" Davis shook his head. "A few weeks later, he had to
take the company public to avoid defaulting on a lotta loans left over from
the purchase of the city in '24 and the construction of that ship. And by
the rough timeline we have here, he started the Ice Suit project shortly
after that."
	"Revenge," Maria said in realization. "He set up the entire Ice Suit
project to get revenge against whoever he believes sabotaged that ship. And
most likely she's in on it too. It makes sense. But revenge against who? Who
does he believe blew up that ship?"
	"NovaRobotics?" Davis offered. "It was a poorly-kept secret that a lotta
big-wigs weren't too happy with his leadership abilities. Maybe he believes
they set him up to get him to take the company public so they could boot him
out like they did."
	"It's as good a theory as any," Maria replied. "And it means they're most
likely still in the city." Them leaving the city had been a big concern,
primarily because after the robbery they would have had plenty of time to do
it. The discovery of the abandoned truck, however, had minimized that
possibilty.
	"Establishing a possible motive on our first day on the case, not bad if I
do say so myself." Davis said smugly, leaning back on his chair.
	"Don't get too cosy, we still have to figure out their next move." Maria
tried to sound  disapproving, but it was hard for her not to be impressed
with their progress as well. She felt her tolerence of her partner edging
towards respect, but she reminded herself that she had only spent a few
hours with him. He still could be a complete jerk. On the other hand....
	"He might demand a further investigation into the accident," Davis said,
interrupting her train of thought. "Try and expose this sabotage he believes
occured."
	Maria frowned. "More likely he'll go vigilante on us. The question is what
will he do when he finds these so-called saboteurs? Try and bring them to
justice, or dish it out himself?"
	"Aren't we forgetting the good doctor here?" Davis asked. "Female
masterminds aren't entirely unheard of, y'know."
	Maria grinned wryly. "Maybe, but something tells me he's behind this. He
had more power, more of an opportunity to set this up. More than likely she
just tagged along, although she may have been in on the planning."
	"So what can we do?" he asked.
	"Extra patrols around NovaRobotics institutions, the homes of their more
prominent employees. That's about all for now." Maria shrugged. "The next
move's his. In the meantime, let's dig up every bit of info we can on that
ship, the internal problems of NovaRobotics both before the ship blew up and
just before this incident, and everything there is to know about this Iris
McInnely. We've got a lotta stuff to read, and I'm not the patient type."
	"So I gathered..." Davis grumbled, turning back to his terminal. He didn't
see it, but upon hearing that, Maria smiled genuinely for the first time
since she arrived in Sable City.

----

(<July 1, 2031. SIODMP, Level 11>)
	"Whaddya mean cheese counts as a topping?" Sarah asked irately. Jon peeked
around the corner and saw her talking on the phone in front of the
multimedia center, the vid-screen off. He got up and walked towards her,
curious.
	"What are you doing?" he asked.
	Sarah cupped her hand over the phone. "Ordering a pizza. No offense, but
that hunk of junk in the kitchen couldn't make a decent pie to save its
digital life." She turned back to the phone. "Oh, all right. Yeah. Just have
it delivered to the bench next to the Peace Fountain in Lookoff Park. You
heard me! Yeah, you'll be paid. No, this isn't a prank call. And make it
snappy." She hung up the phone and shook her head.
	"How do you intend to pick it up?" Jon inquired, his curiousity mounting.
	"Watch." she said, pointing to one of the monitors. On it was what appeared
to be a live video shot of the bench in Lookoff Park. He could make out a
small pile of money on the bench and wondered where the shot was coming
from. Then it hit him.
	"You're using a droid to pick up a pizza?" he asked bemusedly.
	"You said they couldn't be followed." Sarah countered. "And it's not like
we can't afford it."
	Jon smirked. That was true. Although all his Canadian accounts had been
frozen, a few keypresses down here could drain millions from them or, more
interestingly, NovaRobotics bank accounts and transfer them to his
untouchable Swiss bank account in such a manner that it would be completely
untraceable. And what with debit payments accepted almost anywhere, and the
ability to send a droid to one of the isolated ATM machines on the lower
levels, money wouldn't be a problem for either of them.
	A few minutes later they watched some kid creep cautiously up to the bench
with their pizza, eye the money, and look around nervously. Eventually he
set the pizza on the bench, snatched the money, and walk swiftly back the
way he came. When she was sure he had gone and the area was empty, she
prompted the sturdy little droid to roll out of the bushes, pick up the
pizza with its mechanical arm, and return home as quickly as was possible.
Once that was done, she looked over her shoulder at Jon, who was chuckling
and shaking his head.
	"What?" she asked, trying to resist the urge to laugh herself.
	"Cute," he answered. "Real cute. You gonna share?"
	"Well I don't know." she replied, grinning. "Maybe if you behave yourself
until it gets here."
	"Yes ma'am." Jon snapped, giving her a mock salute. After which they both
started laughing. Hardships aside, it was good to be alive...
----

Author's Ramblings: Another one down. Some of you might be wondering when
the action starts. To that I say, why do we need action? But yes, it'd sorta
be unfair introducing all this 'cool weaponary' without at some point
blowin' stuff up reel guud! But if this degenrates into a shoot'em-up fanfic
where the action takes precedence over the story, flame some sense into me,
'k? :)
	Inspiration came from the same place as last time, thanks go to the same
people, booes and hisses to the same things. If you don't have the prolouge
and episode 1, Don't Delay, Order Now! Oh, add in some thanks to those of
you who took the time to read the last one. Double that thanks to those who
actually took the time to comment on it!
	Tune in next time for another exciting ( hopefully! ) episode! Same
bat-time, same bat-ML! Send all comments, criticisms, movie deals, etc. to
mikew@atcon.com before Sept. 96, aj331@ccn.cs.dal.ca after Sept. 96. Be
brutally honest, I can take it! ^_^