Metal glinted coldly under the harsh glare from the
overhead floodlights, reflecting the beams into crevices all
over the vast, cavernous room.  The subdued hum of
electronics was everywhere, as several men in workmanlike
uniforms bustled around complicated banks of monitors and
computer panels. A few of the men crawled around on a large
platform that was supported by squat, powerful-looking
hydraulic cylinders, ministering to the large, armoured
shape that occupied the lift. Here and there one of the
technicians passed a scanner over open armour plating,
nodding in satisfaction at the readings before closing and
sealing the access panel.  The chest of the large mech was
sitting open, revealing an oblong cavity inside.
     Only one figure in the room was not participating in
the fevered activity.  Tall with straw-blond hair, the grey-
suited figure stood quietly in the shadows by a computer
console.  Arms folded across his chest, Ethan Hollister
watched his men work, his icy blue eyes cool and intent,
missing nothing.  Occasionally, his gaze flicked to the
platform, and a faint, self-satisfied smile tugged at the
corner of his mouth.
     Thick metal doors slid open at the far end of the room,
and four men wearing dark blue body armour and white helmets
with opaque visors trooped through, dragging somebody with
them.  The motion and sounds of their approach drew
Hollister's attention.  An unpleasant smile cracked the calm
veneer he usually cultivated.  Very shortly, a plan he'd
been working at for a long time would finally come to
completion.
     And then, he had some scores to settle.
     The lead guard saluted as the group came up to him.
Hollister's eyes traveled to their prisoner, and again an
unpleasant smile appeared as he looked at the captive.  It
had taken a lot of trouble to acquire her, and even more
trouble to hold her; she'd already tried to escape twice,
and had injured several of his men during the attempts.
     The seemingly groggy captive the guards held was a
fairly young-looking woman, wearing a grimy, snugly-fitting
khaki uniform with short sleeves.  Her long blond hair was
pulled back into a ponytail, and she was blindfolded.  Her
hands had been shackled behind her back, and the guards were
holding her up by her arms.  She was very attractive-
looking, despite the dirt and bruises, and she had a figure
most men would kill for the privilege of merely being near.
Hollister wasn't most men.
     "Put it in," he said tersely, jerking his head towards
the mech.  At his words, the captive suddenly came alive.
     "NO!!" she screamed, surging upright, struggling
frantically to free herself and kicking out at her captors.
"Let me go!!!" One wild kick connected with the groin of one
of her guards, and the man dropped into a groaning heap.
     Her desperate escape attempt ended as quickly as it had
begun; the guard standing behind her pulled what looked like
a short club from his belt, and casually slammed her across
the back of the head with it. A loud electrical crackle
sizzled through the air, and blue sparks raced all over the
young woman's body; she dropped limply to the floor,
convulsing helplessly.
     At a curt, impatient gesture from Hollister, the
remaining guards picked her up again, and started dragging
her towards the hydraulic platform.  Despite the charge from
the stun weapon, she still tried to put up resistance.
     "No! Please!" her voice carried to Hollister, sounding
choked and desperate.  "Please, just let me go!! I
haven't..."
     "Shut up, bitch."  The bored command from one of guards
was accented by the flat crack of a slap across her face.
Hollister remained aloof, the only indication of his
interest in the proceedings being the cold fire of ambitious
desire in his eyes.  He watched coldly as the guards hauled
the crying woman up to the mech, unshackled her, and then
manhandled her into the concave cavity in the chest of the
machine.
     "No!! NOOOO!!!!" The despairing, agonized wail overrode
every other noise in the room for a moment, causing a few
technicians elsewhere in the room to exchange uncomfortable,
uneasy glances.  Loud, metallic snaps and clacks came from
the machine, and the guards stepped back.  Choked sobbing
continued to drift from the machine.
     "The sexaroid is secure, sir," the lead trooper
reported.  At his boss's curt nod, they left the platform,
collected their still-groaning and writhing compatriot, and
left.  A triumphant smile spread across Hollister's face as
he turned to a white-faced technician nearby.
     "Prepare the sexaroid for the preliminary testing," he
instructed, "and inform me when it's complete."  The
technician nodded, swallowing uneasily, and reached out to
key in several commands to his computer.
     Hollister turned and strode from the room, leaving
behind the sounds of fevered activity, and the heartrending
crying coming from the large mech.

                    SkyKnight Productions
                      Proudly Presents
                     A NonTechnical Film
                       MegaTokyo 2035
                      The Knight Sabers
             "The Bubblegum Zone - Episode #10"
              Copyright (c) 1996 Bert Van Vliet

     "NO! Absolutely not!" Priss said flatly, her hands on
her hips.  Her entire face bore a look of grim resolve as
she glared down at the current source of her displeasure:
the lower half of someone's body, clad in grease-splotched
blue jeans.  The upper half of the person was underneath a
large machine, and shielded from the immediate effects of
her glower.
     "But why not?" Bert's voice replied, sounding like it
was coming from the innards of the device he was working on
as it reverberated eerily among the metal parts.  "You did
admit that it was fun the last time."
     "Motorcycling is safer!" she retorted. Irritated sparks
flashed in her eyes as she looked disgustedly from what she
could see of his body, to the machine above him.  I
should've known, the resigned thought briefly registered in
the back of her mind as she looked at the vaguely familiar
shape. The colour wasn't the same anymore, but the overall
configuration of the large gadget left no doubt as to what
she was looking at:  the WarHorse.
     Now predominantly dark blue trimmed with silver flames,
the high-speed jet cycle had undergone a few changes, and
not all of them merely cosmetic.  It was a bit longer than
it had been the last time she'd seen it, and the wings had
been spread a little wider for greater lift.
     The yawning turbine intake had been replaced by several
streamlined air vents, built into the nose of the hull.  By
far the most noticeable change was the fact that the flying
machine now mounted visible weaponry.  Six, one-shot torpedo
tubes jutted threateningly from its snout, and twin laser
cannons were mounted on the top of the front faring, just in
front of the vehicle's windshield. Even with the armament,
it still looked like a souped-up jet-engine with wings and a
seat attached.
     "Drag-racing highway patrol cruisers is safer?" came
the dry reply.  A grunt of effort came from under the bulky
flying machine as he started worming his way out from under
it.  "At least I don't have to worry about losing my license
on this thing."
     "Nobody in their right mind would give you a license
for that thing!" she shot back, nettled.  "And at least the
ground's a lot closer!" Remembered nausea assailed her as
she recalled how she'd been duped into accepting a ride on
its maiden flight.  It had been an utterly wild experience,
frightening and exhilarating in terms of speed, and the
cheerfully reckless abandon of its pilot. Normally, she
didn't mind speed thrills; she was hopelessly addicted to
the adrenaline rush of racing her bike around the city.
This was a bit different.
     The problem was that the somewhat comforting knowledge
that the ground was right below her was absent when soaring
around on the supercharged jetbike.  The high velocity and
high altitude the jetbike used meant that the slightest
mechanical difficulty, or piloting mistake, had the
potential to turn whoever was riding the sky-cycle into
something resembling a squashed can of tomato paste; there
wouldn't be time to jump off and use hardsuit flight systems
to escape if they hit something. She shuddered, and quickly
forced her mind away from the subject.
     Bert finally succeeded in crawling out from under the
WarHorse, and stood up, shaking his head in amusement,
smiling wryly. A few oily smudges marred his nose and face,
and his hair was a sweaty, tangled mess.
     "I can't see much difference between falling from a few
hundred feet up, or falling off and skidding on your face
along the pavement," he noted mildly.  "Both would hurt, and
probably have the same results."
     "I'm not going up on it, and that's final," Priss
declared flatly, slashing her hand through the air in a
negative gesture. "I mean it, Bert." She looked levelly into
his eyes, and saw regretful acknowledgment appear in them.
     "Okay," he sighed, giving up.  "It wasn't going to be
right away anyway; Sylia wants to discuss some other
modifications first."
     "Considering the way she reacted when you first built
the damn thing, I'm surprised she let you work on it again."
     "She suggested it, actually," Bert grinned.  "I guess
with Sylvie running the store, she's had more time to look
at some of the projects she's wanted to do for a while."  He
patted the slick metal surface of his jetbike.  "She even
gave me some improvements to try on this baby here; I think
if it works out, she's going to allow it to be used on some
missions." A sly grin appeared.  "In fact, I think Sylia was
considering a motoroid-convertible version."
     "Oh my God," the attractive singer groaned, slapping a
hand over her face as she looked heavenward.  "No way.
Never. Uh-uh.  I'm sticking with my old motoroid, thanks,
and I don't give a damn what's been improved!!"
     "You're taking all the fun out of this!" he protested,
artfully looking hurt.  She didn't buy it, and didn't reply.
Seeing he wasn't going to get a rise out of her, he grinned
slyly again, and gave up.  Glancing at the battered clock
hanging on the wall, he snatched up a relatively clean rag,
and carried it over to the can of hand-cleaner sitting on
the cluttered counter.  Scooping up some of the soapy-
feeling cleaner, he started scrubbing his hands clean.
     As he worked at some of the more persistent stains, he
glanced over at Priss out of the corner of his eye.  Seeing
that he'd given up on baiting her, she'd leaned against the
wall and was apparently lost in thought.  Her red-brown eyes
were gazing absently at nothing, and her lips were pursed
slightly as if she was contemplating something not to her
liking. His gaze ran appreciatively over her, quietly
enjoying the look of her in her usual form-fitting red and
black leather bike suit. Flushing slightly, he returned his
attention to cleaning his hands; now wasn't the time to
start having amorous thoughts.
     "Finished?" Priss's voice asked him.
     "Yup, that was it for the day," he sighed, stretching
and yawning hugely as he turned towards her.  He grinned at
her as she walked up to him, and tossed the hand-rag into a
nearby bin.  "Feel like going to dinner?"
     "Sure," she agreed readily, then grinned herself.  "You
buying?"
     "Looks like it," he replied dryly.  "I didn't get
fleeced by another speeding ticket." That wisecrack earned
him an irritated glance; he'd warned her about the speed
trap the THP had set up along the Bayshore highway, but
she'd forgotten, and had been nabbed doing well over 60
kilometers per hour over the limit. Since then, he'd been
getting in sly digs at her when he could; watching her fume
was kind of fun, if risky.
     "Just go and get cleaned up," she told him, putting a
hand on his chest and shoving him back as he started to lean
closer to her.  "I'm not going out with someone who looks
like they just fell into an oil pit."  He chuckled, and
bowed slightly.
     "Your wish is my command," he proclaimed with a smirk.
"I'll be back in about twenty minutes, unless you want to
wait in the apartment?" He glanced quizzically at her.
     "I'll wait here," she told him.  "Go on, go get cleaned
up."  He nodded and left.  "Smartass," she mumbled under her
breath as the door closed behind him. She couldn't really
say too much about his wisecracks, since she was guilty
herself of the occasional potshot at him. After a moment,
her irritation crumbled and disintegrated; she just couldn't
stay pissed off at him for very long, not over something
that minor.  Given how close they'd become, she knew it was
just an obscure way of him expressing his feelings for her.
     Priss paced around the shop, humming some of her songs
to herself as she sorted through
some pleasant memories, just letting herself relax. As she
wandered around, looking at the scattered clutter, she found
herself standing in front of the WarHorse again.  She
scowled at the jetbike, seriously considering kicking the
damn thing; she hadn't told anyone, but she was positive
that her ride on it had given her an almost pathological
fear of flying at high altitudes. She'd even had a nightmare
about falling off of it afterwards, and had woken up
drenched in sweat.
     A sudden thought struck her, and a slow, wicked grin
spread across her face as she looked at the blue flying
machine.  Casting a furtive glance at the door to the shop,
she quickly hunted around for the can of silver paint he'd
used to paint the jetbike's trim. Carefully, she pried open
the can, then found a small brush.
     Kneeling next to the big machine, she carefully applied
a few strokes approximately where the machine's gas tank
should be, then gazed critically at her work.  Nodding in
satisfaction, she finished the additions, then quickly
touched up the other side of the gas tank as well.
     Grinning in smug triumph, she quickly sealed the can
again, cleaning the brush and putting it back. After taking
a quick glance at herself to make sure there were no
telltale paint flecks on her clothes, she gave her handiwork
another smirk.  Deciding that she did need to get cleaned up
a bit now, she left the shop, heading for Bert's apartment;
it was the closest, and it would keep him from coming back
until after the paint had dried.
     As the door closed behind her, the shop lights
glistened wetly on the WarHorse's new lettering:
                       THE KNIGHTMARE

                            ****
     Paper rustled quietly as Hollister shuffled through the
file folder on the cluttered desk in front of him.  Page
after page skimmed under his intent gaze, a gaze which
gradually turned to resigned disgust as the data he sought
still continued to elude him.  He closed the folder, shoving
it aside, and leaned back in his chair with a sigh.
     After a moment, he stood and walked over to a small
side-cabinet, opening it and pulling out a bottle filled
with an amber liquid.  Pouring a glassful, and adding some
ice, he carried the liquor back to his desk and sat down.
Kicking off his shoes, he propped his feet up on the corner
of the huge oak desk he was sitting behind, and sat sipping
his drink while he stared with a dark brooding look into
space.
     "I'd heard that rank hath its privileges," a voice
remarked dryly from the doorway.  "I didn't realize that
you'd taken it quite so much to heart."  Cold blue eyes
snapped up to where the voice had come from, then thawed
slightly.
     "If you've got it, why not use it?" Hollister shrugged,
waving the man at the door in.  "Care for a brandy?"
     "I've got another poison, thanks,"  the gaunt, elderly
man replied as he tiredly shuffled across the carpeted
office, sinking with a grateful sigh into the leather
armchair across the desk from Hollister.  He dug into the
capacious pockets of the slightly-rumpled lab coat he wore,
and came up with a pipe.
     "At least I'll still have my lungs with this,"
Hollister noted, raising his glass slightly. At the same
time, he reached out and pressed the switch on the
strategically located air freshener nearby.  It began to
whir quietly as he leaned back into his chair and took
another swig.  Doc gave the device a slightly amused smile
as he stuck the pipe in his mouth.
     "I wouldn't worry about lung cancer, Ethan," he mumbled
around the stem of his pipe as he fished tobacco out of
another pocket and started packing the pipe with it.
"Diseases can't get someone who was born to be hung." Sly
mirth flickered in his expression for a moment.
     "Pardon?" The ice was back in Hollister's eyes, and Doc
sighed to himself.  The man had no sense of humour about
some things. That was one of the things that made it so
difficult trying to deal with him; his emotional armour was
tight and nearly impenetrable, making it impossible to get a
feel for how he'd react to something. His years in the
espionage world also meant that you could never be sure what
his personality really was like.
     "What I meant," Doc explained carefully as he struck a
match, and began stoking his pipe into life, "was that for
someone who gets himself involved in as many dangerous
business operations as you do, cancer should be the last
worry on your mind.  Besides, you know they've got excellent
treatments for that sort of thing now."
     "Humph." The blond man didn't reply, and sat nursing
his drink for a few moments in silence as blue clouds of
smoke began to fill the airspace around the old scientist.
     Puffing contentedly on his baseburner, Doc glanced
around at the comfortably furnished office, taking in the
rich finish of the wood paneling on the walls, the mahogany
bookshelves, the thick, soft carpeting...the entire place
reeked of luxury.  It was a curious anomaly, since Hollister
normally didn't seem to concern himself with creature
comforts, not outside his office at least. Maybe he'd
decided to start using some of the vast wealth he'd been
accumulating. At length, Hollister sighed and sat up,
dropping his feet back to the floor while setting his empty
glass aside.
     "Was there anything in particular you needed?" he asked
the billowing smoke cloud across the desk from him.
     "Hmm? Oh, yes, there was.  This came in for you; I
picked it up on my way over."  Paper crackled and rustled,
then a long white envelope appeared in the haze, extending
towards the desk.  Hollister irritably snatched it out of
the proffering hand, and tore it open.
     "You're welcome," Doc noted dryly, watching as the grey-
suited man extracted some folded pages and began scanning
them intently.  The slow smile that appeared on Hollister's
face made him turn cold with dread for an instant.
     "Perfect," the blond man stated, tucking the pages
neatly into the file folder he'd been reading earlier.
     "Mind if I ask what that was?"
     "Just confirmation of a hunch I had," he waved the
matter aside with his hand.  "I'll be able to follow up on
it now without any problems.  Now then, how's the
synchronization testing going?"
     "Slowly," Doc replied with a sigh.  "We can't rush
this; we've only got the one sexaroid, and replacing her
would be a real pain. It has to go perfectly the first time
we try for the full linkage, or we'll kill her. Getting back
on Genaros in the near future to appropriate another one is
out of the question right now."
     The old scientist carefully kept his voice and
expression neutral as he spoke; normally, his work didn't
bother him all that much, but this time it was different.
While he didn't think of sexaroids as anything but a
different type of boomer, it took a conscious effort to
ignore the sobbing coming from the prototype battlemover.
Not even gagging her had helped, and it was beginning to
wear on his nerves.  He must be getting old if the
simulacrum of a tearful young woman could get to him.
     That, or else it was the fact that his heart really
wasn't in this project.  Or in the whole operation, for that
matter.
     "We've got time," Hollister's voice sounded unusually
relaxed. "And I've got some other projects to work on in the
meantime."  He patted the file folder near his elbow almost
lovingly.
     "Like what?"
     "I'm glad you asked," Hollister smirked. "It's like
this...."
                            ****
     "He's healed, physically at least," the doctor told
Madigan.  "Mentally, well... he's still got a few rough
spots."
     "Explain," Kate Madigan ordered crisply. The striking
GENOM executive was wearing her usual dark business suit,
her lavender hair hanging neatly, swept back over her
shoulders.  "What `rough spots'?"
     "Well, he tends to stammer a bit," the doctor shrugged.
"And he's developed a nervous twitch.  And he seems
inordinately fearful of something; we've never quite been
able to determine of what, but he's constantly checking over
his shoulder."
     "But he is fit to release?" she asked, glancing through
the thick observation window.  Inside the sealed medical
room, a black-haired man lay tossing and turning restlessly
on a bed, tangled in sweat-soaked sheets.  It had been
approximately two months since they'd run Stryker through
the Deep Psychology Scanner in an effort to find out who his
employer was.  They'd finally gotten an answer, but had
nearly ruined the man's mind in doing so.
     "If you mean in terms of physical condition, yes, he is
fit to release," the doctor said guardedly.  "His mental
condition is still undetermined; I would recommend that he
be kept here under observation for a few more days at
least."
     "Rest assured he will be watched," Madigan assured him,
hiding a smirk. "I will send someone around to collect him
later.  Please see to it that he is properly clothed and
discharged.  Further, I want all of his medical records
forwarded to me." The physician bowed, hiding his unease at
her orders, and she turned and left the medical wing of the
Tower, walking briskly.
     Several minutes later, she stood outside the massive
doors to Quincy's lofty office.  After a brief knock, she
swung open one door slightly and stepped inside, casting a
coolly measuring glance around the office.  Nothing seemed
amiss, and she strode across the room towards the elderly-
seeming Chairman, her high-heeled shoes clicking loudly on
the hardwood flooring.
     "Yes?" the craggy-faced old man rumbled as she came up
to his desk.  Icy blue eyes glinted at her from under shaggy
white eyebrows.  "What did you have to report?"
     "Stryker will soon be released," Madigan replied.  "I
have arranged for him to be given his instructions by his
escorts before he leaves the Tower."
     "Ah," Quincy leaned back in his chair, leaning his
elbows on the armrests and steepling his fingers in front of
him.  "And you have made the proper arrangements for when he
contacts this Hollister fellow?"
     "Yes sir," she nodded.  "He will be under surveillance
at all times, and a pair of C-55E boomers will be following
him to apprehend Hollister when the contact is made."
     "You seem positive of success," Quincy noted.
     "He will not get away," Madigan stated flatly, unable
to keep her expression from souring slightly.  "I have
assigned some of our best operatives to the case.  Hollister
will not escape us, and we then we will have all the answers
we need from him."
     "Don't allow personal feelings to influence you on this
matter, Madigan," Quincy warned, his expression turning
flinty. "What happened between the two of you is in the
past; this is the present.  If you cannot be objective in
your decision making, then I shall assign the operation to
someone who can be."
     "I won't allow my personal feelings to interfere with
the performance of my duties, sir," she replied stiffly, her
posture rigid. Quincy's eyes bored into hers for a moment,
as if searching her soul for sincerity.  After a moment, he
relaxed and nodded slightly.
     "Very well.  Keep me informed."
     Turning away from the old man, Madigan walked rapidly
across the room to the doors, closing the open half behind
her.  Once she was safely out of the Chairman's sight, she
let the internal fury that had been seething under her calm
exterior boil over, distorting her face with a mask of rage
for a moment.
     Some unidentified, unfortunate clerical worker happened
to be passing by when her brief transformation occurred, and
he immediately evacuated the area lest her wrath fall on him
by unlucky chance. Watching the nameless worker flee in
terror restored her equilibrium, and her expression cleared.
Adjusting her jacket and smoothing her blouse out, Madigan
headed for her own office.
     She had a lot to do, and limited time to accomplish it
in.

THE NEXT DAY....

     "Hey, has anyone seen the Chief?!" Leon McNichol yelled
across the hubbub of activity stewing in the ADP offices.
His question went unanswered as everyone else concentrated
on trying to complete their workload before quitting time.
     Sighing disgustedly, the tall inspector started weaving
his way through the desks, deftly avoiding tripping on power
cords and the like. You can never find anyone when you
really need them, can you?! he fumed to himself. Damn it,
the Chief knew he had some things to discuss with her, so
why had she disappeared?!
     As he stalked along, a familiar blaze of colour in the
sea of blue uniforms off to his right drew his attention.
Smiling slightly, Leon veered over to where Nene was
absently poring over what looked like some old investigative
reports.  The young red-haired woman was completely absorbed
in her task, and didn't even notice as his shadow fell
across her reading material.  Even clearing his throat
didn't alert her to his presence.
     Leon watched her for a moment, but she remained
oblivious, slowly turning pages with one hand, the other
hand lifting a cup of coffee to her lips occasionally.
Sighing again, the brown-haired inspector put his hands on
the desk and leaned down, until his head was level with
hers.
     "Nene, have you seen..." he started to say, but didn't
get any further, as the young red-head jumped in extreme
surprise, giving a small shriek and inadvertently splashing
the remainder of her cup of coffee straight into his face.
     "Oh God!! I'm sorry Leon!!"  Nene blurted, frantically
hunting around for something to mop up the mess with. "I
didn't see you there!!"  Finding some napkins, she quickly
blotted up the coffee that was threatening to stain the
scattered paperwork on her desk.
     For one long moment, Leon stood there listening to the
strangled snickers coming from other desks nearby,
reflecting on how Fate just seemed to have it in for him at
times. He had begun to wipe the back of his hand across his
dripping face when he was quietly presented with a napkin by
a sheepish-looking Nene.
     "Ummm....sorry about that," she apologized quietly.
"You startled me."
     "I'd noticed," Leon assured her dryly, taking the
offered napkin and sponging off his face.  "What was so
riveting that you didn't hear anything?"
     "The Chief gave me some reports to check over," she
replied, sighing. "I'm trying to get them done as quickly as
possible, and I guess I just lost track of everything."
     "Speaking of the Chief, do you know where she is?"
     "She's in meetings for the rest of the week," Nene
informed him.  "She's trying to get the Diet's approval for
some heavier equipment for the armour squads.  With the new
boomer models that have shown up, even they should be able
to see that we're under-equipped."
     "I wouldn't lay odds on that," Leon replied sourly.
"The pencil-pushers have never been able to see past the
ends of their offices, and all they care about is whether or
not they have a public relations mess to deal with."
     "Well, she seemed optimistic," Nene shrugged.  "At any
rate, she won't be back before Friday.  Was there something
you needed help with?"  Bright green eyes looked at him
curiously.
     "It's not that important, and I'd better let you get
back to your report; I know how much you enjoy reading
them," Leon replied blandly. Nene rolled her eyes as he
grinned and moved off, his expression returning to a more
serious demeanor as he made for his desk at the other end of
the offices.
     Better equipment for the suit squads would be good news
for a change, and they could certainly use both.  The newer
C-55E boomers could sneer at the current ADP K-17 armour
suit and it would likely fall apart.  Boomers with armament
heavier than that particular model required military
intervention, mostly because they were all too likely to be
military models.  He briefly prayed that the beleaguered
city would be spared that kind of a rampage; based on the
last scuffle with one of the newer military models, an A-12,
the toll from such a fight would be astronomical.
     The tall inspector's gaze drifted across the offices
again to where Nene was sitting.  In the back of his mind,
he'd noticed that she'd apparently recovered from her
problems of a few weeks ago and pulled herself together.
The despondent air that had clung to her was gone now, and
she looked back to normal again. At the same time, it was as
if she'd aged a bit, becoming a bit more serious and not
quite as bubbly and cheerful as she had been in the past.
No, aged wasn't quite the right term ... matured, that was
it.
     Surprised, Leon examined that perception more closely,
and found it to be true.  She seemed more mature and self-
assured now; before he'd always thought of her as a kid, but
that label didn't seem to fit her anymore. Evidently
something positive had come out of her supposed boyfriend
troubles.
     Leon scowled blackly at his desktop at that thought.
Boyfriend troubles...he still hadn't been able to confirm
his initial suspicions about her boyfriend. His records
appeared spotless, and his current business, a recreational
facility of all things, seemed to be a legitimate
enterprise.
     Originally, he'd gotten a membership at the place in
order to do some covert snooping around, but was finding now
that he actually enjoyed dropping by to unwind at the end of
a long day. It was a grudgingly made admission, and even
more difficult to make since the real reason for his
disgruntlement was that he hadn't found anything even
slightly suspicious at the place.
His earlier supposition that the tall red-headed man was
involved in some kind of shady operation was rapidly
withering and dying without proof, and he couldn't escape
the feeling that someone was laughing up their sleeve at
him.
     "What are you hiding?!" Leon muttered to himself.  He
knew something wasn't right about that guy; he could feel
it, and he hadn't survived this long on the force by
ignoring his hunches. After a moment he gave up in disgust,
forcing himself to concentrate on something else. It was
better to wait, observe, and see if time brought him
anything he could use.
                            ****
     "Taking a rest break already?" Priss taunted, an evil
grin on her face.  "Boy, you are out of shape!" She folded
her arms across her chest and leaned against the mirrored
wall of the exercise room.
     "Why don't you give it a rest?!" Linna snapped
peevishly, wiping a hand across her streaming forehead.  "I
told you already that all the smartass remarks weren't
necessary."  Sighing, she straightened up from her crouched-
over position, wincing as her right leg throbbed a bit below
the knee. The black-haired young woman was wearing her usual
blue spandex dance outfit with pink leg warmers and a short
t-shirt over the top, and an irritated expression.
     "Hey, now you know how I felt when you were browbeating
me into a recovery," her friend grinned.
     "There is one major difference," Linna gritted, going
through some warm-up stretches again.  "I haven't been
bitching about my injury the entire time!"
     "True," Priss admitted easily.  "But you didn't think
you were going to get off scot-free, did you?"
     "Hope springs eternal," Linna retorted dryly. "I'd
thought you were improving in that regard." She braced
herself with one hand on the railing running the length of
the room, and began a second set of limbering-up exercises.
     Priss watched, wincing. There was no way she could do
some of those stretches; she just wasn't flexible enough.
Of course, she hadn't been training most of her life for a
career in dance, either. Her physical condition was good
enough for her chosen singing career, and she was quite
happy with that.
     "So how long until you're back dancing?"
     "Another couple of days, and I can get back into some
easy routines," came the distracted reply. "I don't want to
rush it; the bone's healed, but the muscles are still a
little shaky."
     "I know what that's like," Priss returned wryly.  "At
least the muscles in your case weren't the main culprit."
     "No, but when you've got to stay flat on your back for
nearly three weeks, you lose a lot of conditioning," Linna
shrugged. What had originally been a straightforward broken
bone had developed complications that had required some
minor surgery, and the ultimatum that she could not put
weight on her leg for any reason whatsoever for at least two
to three weeks. "I think that was the worst part: having to
stay bedridden for that time period."
     "We know," Priss grinned.  "We had to put up with your
lousy temper, remember?"
     "Yeah, well, I'm sorry."  Linna flushed, looking away.
"I just can't stand being inactive; I've got to move, or I
go nuts." As if verifying her statement, she stepped out
onto the mats in the center of the room and did a few simple
leaps and twirls.  Priss watched quite comfortably from
where she was. After about ten minutes, Linna came to a
panting halt.
     "You can join in anytime," she noted pointedly.  "A
little exercise wouldn't kill you."
     "No, but trying to do what you're doing might," Priss
snorted.  "I'm here to make sure you don't bugger yourself
up; I get enough exercise other times, so don't worry about
me."
     "Oh, I'll just bet you do," the black-haired dancer's
tone was loaded with implication. The sly grin on her face
left no doubts as to what she was referring to, either. "How
is Bert, by the way?"
     "Oh, he's fine," Priss replied offhandedly, feeling her
cheeks warm up just a bit. "Why?"
     "Except for the days when he's running this place, I
don't see him that much.  I figured you get to see a lot
more of him."  Linna's grin widened just a bit, but Priss
ignored the bait. By now she'd gotten used to the chaffing,
and was able to control herself pretty well with regards to
that particular subject. She was a lot more comfortable
about things, although she still felt a bit awkward around
Nene.
     "How's Nene doing?"  The change of subject sobered her
friend instantly.
     "She's a lot better," Linna reported seriously.  "She's
still feeling a little hurt, but at least she's going out
now. We've been cruising the malls occasionally to do some
shopping, sometimes with one of her friends from work."
     "My condolences," Priss said dryly.  She'd heard about
how talkative Naoko could be, mostly from Bert.  A quick
grin sped across Linna's face.
     "She's not all that bad," the trim dancer briefly
defended the ADP officer. "At least she was concerned enough
about Nene to privately ask me if I knew whether everything
was okay or not."
     "So she could report back to the gossip-mongers most
likely," Priss snorted, then smiled ruefully. "Sorry.  I'm
glad Nene's feeling better, I felt ... feel kinda ...
uncomfortable around her at the moment, so I haven't had
much of chance to see her."
     "Afraid she hates you?"
     "It's not a question of fear," Priss shot back
defensively. "I'm going out with the guy she dated for
nearly three years...how would you feel in that situation?!
Damn it, she's still a friend, I hope, and I don't want to
... to seem like I'm rubbing it in or something. She's been
through enough as it is."
     "Well you can't avoid her forever," Linna sighed.
"Especially not when we're working. Maybe you should try
talking to her a bit more often; that might thaw some of the
ice."
     "I can't think of a way to do it that won't sound
contrived," the brown-haired singer replied glumly, kicking
at the mat as she stared down at it. "We never really hung
out all that much together before, and if I start trying
now, it's going to look phony."
     "I've got an idea," Linna stated, a slow smile
spreading across her face. "It'll get everyone together
actually, and it won't sound contrived in the slightest."
                            ****
     "Tell me," Sylia sighed, glancing up from the
blueprints displayed on the LCD screen her desktop
contained; silvery schematics glowed brightly on the black
screen.  "Do you know what the term `overdesign' means?"
     "Yeah," Bert replied, puzzled.  "Usually it means
taking the worst-case scenario into account, and designing
enough extra capacity into a system to be able to handle
something worse than the worst case.  Why?" He picked up his
mug from where it was perched on the corner of his desk and
took a swig of coffee.
     "Because you've taken that concept and liberally
applied it to your hardsuit," Sylia informed him. "Almost
excessively so in some cases."  She glanced down at the
schematics again, shaking her head. "For example, you've got
enough sensor packages in here to nearly rival Nene's
hardsuit. Is that really necessary?"
     "I like being able to see things," he retorted
defensively.  "What is this, an audit?!"
     "Of sorts," she nodded, brushing some stray blue-black
hair out of her eyes.  "Up until recently, I haven't had the
time to pay attention to the suit designs as much as I would
have liked to." That, and the fact that until her injured
shoulder had completely healed from their last mission, her
uncle had flatly refused to let her work at all.
Overprotective hadn't even begun to describe the way he'd
fussed over her ever since that last outing. She quickly
shook off the mild irritation that nudged at her at the
memory.
     "Now that I've got the time," she continued, "I've been
working on some redesign concepts.  However," she shook her
head again, "I suppose I should have kept a closer eye on
what you were up to, regardless of how busy I was."
     "I'd like to point out that you did say I was free to
modify my suit when improvements came along."
     "Yes, but I didn't expect you to turn your suit into a
weapons platform," she pointed out.  "Defensive upgrades are
all well and good, but is it really necessary to be carrying
quite so much ordnance?" It was an ironic situation to find
herself in: arguing the need for less weaponry with someone
who originally had been worried that he was carrying too
much firepower.
     "GENOM certainly thinks so," he replied stiffly. "Those
new A-12s are easily equal or superior to me in firepower,
especially because of those Gatling cannons they're
carrying."
     "But we're not trying to match them one-on-one, or at
least I'm not," she parried. "We're a team. And mobility can
count for a lot more than raw firepower."
     "You're not seriously suggesting I take some of my
stuff out of my suit, are you?!" Bert stared at her
incredulously.
     "Not all of it, no," she sighed.  "But scaling back
some things wouldn't kill you.  You're not supposed to be a
one-man army, you know."
     "But..." his voice trailed off as his mind fought to
come up with logical arguments for leaving his suit the way
it was. Most of the reasons he could come up with weren't
based on any fact other than the one that he felt unarmed at
the idea of trimming his weapons down.
     "There's also a practical reason for downsizing your
hardware," Sylia informed him.  Pausing, she took a sip from
her own glass of orange juice nearby.  "What are you going
to do if you have a power failure?"
     "Panic."
     "That's one option, I suppose," Sylia's lips quirked in
a faint smile. "I meant more that in your case in
particular, if your motive systems lose power, you're going
to be a sitting duck. Our suits can still move fairly easily
if they have power problems.  You, on the other hand, will
find yourself carrying almost two-hundred pounds of bulky
armour. You may be in good shape, but not that good, my
friend. Your suit needs to lose some weight."
     "I haven't had a power failure except after getting
really chewed up in a fight," he protested.  "That's not
going to happen."
     "Your hardsuit is a linked set of complex mechanical
and electrical systems; failures will happen at some point
in time," Sylia said sternly. "I'm sorry if it offends your
engineering ego for someone to say that about one of your
creations, but it's the plain truth."
     "I'm not totally blind to the possibility of system
failure due to normal, non-combat functioning," Bert
gritted, his teeth clenched and fires flashing in his eyes.
"And this isn't about my `engineering ego'.  I've gotten
used to that suit, and the way I fight in it. My combat
style uses the fact that it's bulky and armed to the bloody
teeth; if I have to change styles now, I'm going to run into
problems in a fight.  It takes time to adapt to different
equipment, time we can't afford right now, especially not
with the increased boomer outings and job offers we've had
recently."
     Sylia sat back in her chair, reluctantly conceding his
point.  He did indeed tailor his fighting style to his
hardsuit construction; despite Linna's sometimes intense
tutelage, his combat technique was still basically armoured,
no-holds-barred brawling.  Some martial arts did creep in
now and again, but by and large his offensive strategy was
based on over-powering whatever he encountered with either
weapons or raw strength. In a way, it was a curious anomaly
in someone who'd perennially worried about being too
powerful.
     He was also right about the time factor; with boomer
rampages maintaining a steady flow, they couldn't afford the
time it would take for someone to relearn how to fight in a
different suit. And with several recent lucrative job offers
under consideration, she was reluctant to have anyone at
less than their best.
     "All right," she sighed.  "We don't have to strip
everything out, but I do have some suggestions I'd like you
to at least consider."
     "Okay," he grumbled, his mouth twitching irritably into
a grimace.  "I'll take a look at them. Don't expect miracles
though."
     "Wouldn't dream of it," she replied dryly. She
considered him thoughtfully for a moment. His gaze lifted to
meet hers, and trepidation filled his face as she continued
to silently study him.
     "Uh, Sylia?  Why are you looking at me like that?" he
finally asked, fidgeting nervously.
     "I'm trying to decide if you can take more bad news."
     "Why not?" He threw up his hands in resignation. "Give
it to me now...that way I can stew about it and get it over
with."
     "I think it's time we also called a stop to your
constant upgrading of the suits, yours in particular," she
informed him quietly. "In the first place, piecemeal
upgrading of the armour whenever the latest innovation comes
along is just asking for something to malfunction when we
can't afford it." She held up a hand, forestalling him
before he could protest. "I know you're doing it because you
think it's your responsibility to make sure we have the best
protection possible, but it isn't.  The final responsibility
for the suit designs is mine, not yours."
     "But..."
     "I appreciate the concern," she told him, trying to
soften the blow a bit with a smile. "Really I do, but you're
also unintentionally complicating things for me when I try
working on the suits myself." She sighed, and shifted around
a bit in her chair. "I was doing a systems check the other
day on Linna's suit, for example, and I found some circuits
I couldn't identify at first. It wasn't until I checked in
your sets of blueprints that I found out you'd modified the
controls on her knuckle-bomber systems. I shouldn't have to
double-check everything to make sure I know what's been done
to the systems."
     A slightly injured silence fell over the office as
Sylia picked up her glass and took another sip of juice. She
watched Bert over the rim of her glass for a moment, noting
his
expression. He was trying to maintain an expressionless
mask, but there were vague traces of confused hurt
flickering in his eyes, and one hand was tightly clamped on
the armrest of his chair.
     "It's not that you've done anything wrong," she gently
assured him, setting her glass down. "I suppose I'm partly
to blame myself; I was too busy at other things to give my
full attention to the suits. I don't want you to stop
inventing things when you get ideas, I just want to be able
to have the final say in what gets added to the hardsuits."
She sighed again. "And besides, we literally can't afford
constant upgrades; we don't have unlimited capital at our
disposal, no matter what it might seem like. All right?"
     "Fine," he ground out reluctantly after several long
moments. "I'll stop with the upgrades." Sylia could hear his
disgruntlement despite his effort to mask it, but let it
pass without comment. She knew how much he genuinely enjoyed
puttering with the suits, but it was time to start
exercising some of her command authority in order to bring
the technology race back under control. At least that way,
she'd have a better idea of what was going on.
     "I will still want your input on some new suit designs
I'm considering," she told him. "But they won't need to be
built for some time yet." She noted that his expression
thawed a bit at her words; no matter what his current mood
might be, the mention of new designs was enough to get his
mind off of whatever was annoying him. The technophile in
him wouldn't let him stay grouchy for long.
     "Okay, okay," Bert sighed.  His hardheaded practicality
wouldn't let him entertain a grudge, especially not when he
could see the sense in her arguments. Okay, may there was a
little bit of wounded pride in there somewhere; after all,
he'd never had any systems failures yet that weren't combat-
related. Well, if she didn't want him upgrading the suits,
maybe he could play with the motoroids...
     Reaching out, Sylia tapped a finger on the viewscreen
in front of her, startling him from his reverie and drawing
his attention to the new schematics that had flashed onto
the screen.
     "Now about these motoroid systems here...."
     Then again, he sighed to himself as he looked at the
plans and listened to his boss, maybe not.

THREE DAYS LATER ....

     "I want results," Madigan icily informed the person at
the other end of the line. "Not excuses. You led us to
believe that you could contact Hollister again. That is the
only reason you are still breathing. Don't force us to re-
evaluate what there is of your position."
     "But I told you already," Stryker's voice whined in her
ear, "I can't force him to respond to messages left at the
contact points. Even if he does become interested, there's
no guarantee it'll be him personally."
     "Think of a way to persuade him to check it out
himself," she ordered tersely, her grip tightening angrily
on the telephone receiver. "You claimed to know something of
his business dealings; use that knowledge to flush him out.
And I suggest you do it soon...our patience is wearing
thin."
     Madigan slammed the receiver down disgustedly, cutting
off the fixer's snivelling reply. The doctor had been right
about his mental condition; the man had turned into a
groveling coward. Of course, if she'd been patient, they
could have waited until Stryker had recovered a bit more
first...
     Kate irritably sloughed that thought off with an
impatient toss of her head, the motion sending a wave
rippling through her long lavender hair. They couldn't
afford to wait; Hollister was a serious threat, one that had
to be stomped on at the earliest possible opportunity. She
knew only too well what the arrogant bastard was capable of.
The Chairman might know the facts of what had happened, but
he'd never met Hollister, never had to deal with the smug,
condescending...
     The loud crack of something snapping jerked her from
the haze of churning fury she'd been unconsciously sinking
into. Glancing down at her hands, she found that they were
covered in dark blue ink, along with her desktop.  Luckily,
no reports had been underneath the luckless fountain pen
she'd been holding, or else they'd have been ruined.
     Growling at herself for her loss of control, she
grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on her desk and
mopped up the mess, pitching the ruined pen into the
wastebasket.  Rising carefully from her seat, careful not to
touch her clothes or anything else, she walked across her
office to the small private washroom adjoining it, and
washed her hands off. Her normally calm features looking
like a thundercloud, she stalked back to her desk and sat
down behind it.
     After a few moments, she managed to restore her
composure somewhat. Such a loss of control was
unforgiveable, and she resolved to try and prevent it from
happening again. In the privacy of her office it could at
least be concealed; if it happened when she was in the
Chairman's office, it would undermine her position with him
as it was a serious loss of face. So far, he hadn't
indicated that he was displeased with her, but he very
rarely let even his closest subordinates know the entire
truth of their position...until it was too late.
     The coldly beautiful exec leaned back in her chair,
brooding. She was positive that her position was secure
within the company; she'd proven beyond any doubt that she
was loyal to the company, and Quincy in particular. But
there was still enough flexibility for someone in the
command hierarchy to supersede her, or at least equal her.
And the last thing she wanted was someone equal to her that
she'd have to keep an eye on.
     The surest way to make certain of her future was to
show Quincy some quick results on the Hollister affair.
Although she literally saw red whenever she thought of the
blond man, if she could deal with it with something like her
old efficiency, the Chairman's misgivings might be silenced.
     With a grim smile, she reached out and picked up the
phone again.
                            ****
     "Watch the power feed to the linkages," Doc directed,
checking some of the figures jotted down on the notepad he
held in one hand. "If the fluctuation goes over 2%, shut the
damn thing down immediately; we can't risk burned circuits."
     "Understood," the youthful technician replied, nodding.
Doc divided one last glance between his notepad and the
control readouts, then moved down the walkway, giving some
last-minute instructions to the rest of the scattered techs
at their posts. With the preparations finished, he carefully
climbed down the short metal ladder to the ground level of
the room; his agility wasn't the greatest anymore, and his
bones ached enough some days without having to add broken
ones to the effects of old age.
     With a weary sigh, the old scientist stuffed his
notebook into a capacious pocket on his rumpled lab coat,
and began walking towards the central focus of the two-
tiered room, the large hydraulic platform supporting the
recumbent form of their new battlemover model. His mouth
tightened slightly in distaste as he drew closer to the vast
heap of wiring, actuators, and red-grey armour plating.  As
he approached, a muffled and choked sobbing noise slowly
became audible.
     Damn, but I hate this project, the thought briefly
surfaced in his mind before he could stuff it back into
hiding. He couldn't afford regrets, not now. He'd gone too
far to ever hope there was a way out.
     His face wooden, the elderly scientist climbed the
steps leading up to the platform, and walked around the
perimeter, coming to the cavity in the chest of the war
machine. Armour plating and internal mechanisms jutted
towards the ceiling, poised to snap closed over the hole in
the machine's body. The muffled sobbing came intermittently
from the interior of the large machine, where the body of a
young woman being held down by metallic straps could be
seen.
     Doc stared soberly into the interior of the
battlemover, watching wordlessly as the young woman strained
periodically at her bonds, trying to escape the inevitable.
Ever since she'd been captured, she hadn't ceased in trying
to escape, and her attempts had become even more frantic
since she'd learned what they'd had planned for her. It
hadn't done her any good.
     The old man sighed and pulled his pipe out of a pocket,
stuffing it full of tobacco and lighting it. Hollister
didn't like him smoking around his pet projects, but
Hollister be damned; he needed something to try and soothe
what was feeling more and more like second thoughts. A bit
of smoke wouldn't melt any circuits.
     Leaning against the railing, Doc puffed quietly away on
his pipe as he stared at the sexaroid imprisoned inside the
battlemover. It certainly looked human, although maybe just
a little too perfect in terms of fullness of figure. There
was no outward sign that it was anything but what it looked
like: a very attractive young woman.
     He knew from his own work however that underneath its
skin was a lightweight composite skeleton, myomer
musculature, and several biotechnological systems that very
closely approximated the operations of the analogous organs
in the human body. In fact, the systems incorporated into a
sexaroid probably represented the future of prosthetics for
human patients with diseases or damaged major organs. They
were, after all, organic in nature, and the 33-S series in
particular required human blood for repair of serious
injuries to their systems. It shouldn't be a great extension
to design similar ....
     Doc irritably yanked his mind off that line of inquiry;
there was very little chance he'd ever be able to return to
his old life of cybernetic and biotechnological research, no
matter how much the possibilites excited him. Dwelling on it
would only depress him further with lost opportunities.
     All right, so it was a machine.  Then why the hell was
hearing some machine sobbing in a pretty good approximation
of utter despair unsettling him so much?! He chewed
contemplatively on his pipestem as his eyes roved unseeingly
over the open mechanism in front of him.
     The problem was that the emotional responses he'd seen
from the 33-S boomers he'd encountered lately had thrown
doubt on the idea that they were `just a machine'.  Well ...
in his mind anyway. His associate didn't appear to have any
doubts on the subject. To him, the 33-S was an expensive
wind-up toy with some useful features.
     Doc had run into some pretty sophisticated AI
technology in his time, but none of it had ever come close
to approximating the reactions he'd seen from the `roids.
They were responding exactly the way a normal human woman
might respond if thrust into the same situation, even down
to the point of having hysterics. One that he'd encountered
had even showed the symptoms of the severe trauma normally
exhibited by rape victims, and no emotional emulation
software he'd ever seen had been that good. The old
scientist suddenly found himself wondering uneasily if there
was perhaps more to the equation than had first appeared.
     There were personality overlays of course; GENOM had
perfected  a process for scanning someone's brain patterns
and duplicating them in a boomer's AI and body. Although
that particular little innovation was kept under tight
secrecy, it was common knowledge to some people, and guessed
at by others. Could that be how the sexaroids were made to
be more human-like than standard boomers? And what had
happened to the original subjects that had been scanned?
     The old scientist re-packed and relit his pipe, adding
to the blue-grey haze that was slowly expanding out from
where he was leaning. Whoever the original subjects had
been, it was doubtful that any 33-S using such a template
was still the same as the original person, mentally
speaking; they'd have been exposed to a much different
environment, and it was a person's experiences  that shaped
their personality.  The sexaroids were self-aware, and were
undoubtedly affected the same way by whatever they'd
endured.
     There was the possibility that they weren't merely
personality templates. Doc uneasily recalled some vague
reference he'd come across once, indicating that there was a
biotechnological method for duplicating the human brain and
nervous system, with all memories and experiences intact.
The only drawbacks were that when the process was completed,
the original human body was dead, and there were no
guarantees that the new boomer wouldn't be insane as a
result of the process. A highly illegal field of endeavor,
it had been abandoned early on...supposedly. 33-S series
boomers did have a mostly organic brain, supplemented by
microchips and circuitry. It wasn't impossible then that ...
     Doc snorted to himself, chiding his imagination for
getting carried away. Considering the rather carnal reasons
that the sexaroids had been created, he doubted that anybody
would utilize a process that expensive just for the purpose
of producing some cheap thrills. He sighed, causing a large
plume of blue smoke to roll forth.  All that thought and
analysis, and he still couldn't say why he was unsettled.
     "Doesn't really matter," he muttered aloud, partly to
himself, and partly to the helpless occupant of the
battlemover a few feet away. "We're both trapped by
circumstances."
     "You always talk to yourself, Doc?" Hollister's voice
inquired coolly from somewhere outside the smoke cloud
around him. Only long practice kept him from jumping in
startlement.
     "It's the best way to get an agreeable opinion," Doc
replied calmly, smirking around his pipestem as Hollister
came into view, pipesmoke curling around him. The old
scientist's mind raced as he studied the cold visage of the
blond man. Had he really overheard what he'd said? Did he
suspect anything? Damn it, he was getting old if he was
going to start musing out loud!
     "True, I suppose." Hollister's chuckle had a slight
edge to it. "So what are you doing up here?"
     "Monitoring the system checks," Doc shrugged. "Somebody
has to nursemaid the techs if they get in over their heads."
For the thousandth time, he wished Hollister wasn't so damn
hard to read. "No problems so far."
     "Good," the blue-suited man replied with unmistakable
satisfaction. "How about the GD-45? Will it be ready on
time?"
     "Yep." Doc nodded, sucking on his pipe and finding that
it had gone out. "By the end of next week you'll be able to
go on your little hunting expedition."
                            ****
     Priss pulled away from him slightly, breathing heavily.
Looking up into his face, she brushed a gloved hand across
his forehead, sweeping his hair back out of his eyes.
     "That was some kiss," she noted breathily.  "Your day
go that well?" With her free hand, she reached up and pulled
off the blond wig she was still wearing, tossing it in the
general direction of the table and stand where it normally
sat; a soft thump, followed by the sounds of various bottles
and other paraphernalia falling over indicated success of a
sort. The attractive singer was still clad in her revealing
leather singing costume, having just completed another
concert; the cheering and applause from the enthusiastic
audience had finally died off, allowing relative quiet to
return to the backstage rooms. She placed her arms around
her lover again, holding him close as she waited for a
reply.
     "It wasn't the greatest day I've had," Bert admitted
with a sigh, his gaze briefly flicking around her dressing
room before coming back to her.  It had become something of
a ritual for them since they'd started going out together;
after a concert, they'd meet backstage and go into her
dressing room for a quick, or not so quick in some cases,
kiss. "I had to spend all morning fixing one of the floor
tracks for the archery targets; some inept jackass put an
arrow into the track itself and buggered up the retraction
mechanism. How the hell could someone miss the target that
badly?!" he fumed.
     "You poor baby," Priss commiserated, hugging him a bit
tighter and kissing him in consolation. His arms tightened
around her in return as he responded in kind, and the room
was silent for a few moments. "Not everyone has your exalted
skill at archery, you know," she reminded him when they
parted finally. "And accidents happen. Do you know who did
it?"
     "No," he growled disgustedly. "If I had, I'd have made
them help me fix the damn thing."
     "That's probably why they didn't tell you when it
happened." A wry smile quirked at one corner of her mouth.
"You should see the look on your face right now; `pissed-
off' doesn't even begin to describe it."
     "Sorry." He tried to smooth his expression out, and
acheived moderate success.
     "That's a little better," she approved, reaching up and
patting his cheek gently. "You've only mentioned the
morning; what happened this afternoon?"
     "I had to spend several hours dismantling parts of my
suit," he replied sourly.
     "But I thought you liked working on your suit?" Priss
asked, frowning.
     "Not when I have to strip stuff off of the damn thing."
     "Strip off?" she repeated. "As in `take out'?"
     "And the lady wins the prize," he sighed. "Yup, I had
to take a few things out and scale back a bit on my weapons.
Sylia didn't think I needed all the hardware I was
carrying."
     "What the hell?! Since when did Sylia start thinking we
have too much hardware?!"
     "Since she's had the time to check over the designs.
I'm also supposed to stop upgrading everyone's suit whenever
I feel like it, so she can keep track of what's been added
and when." He grimaced sourly. "I suppose I can see her
point, but I still hate taking stuff out of my suit; now I
fell like I'm undressed or something."
     "Undressed, huh?" she murmured with a lazy smile,
raising an eyebrow suggestively as she trailed her fingers
lightly down the side of his face and neck. He flushed
slightly.
     "So what did you have to take out?" she asked.
     "Nothing too major, I guess. Some sensor packages I
really didn't need, and my solid fuel boosters were the main
systems. The armour plating needed to be trimmed down a bit;
I guess I'd gone a bit overboard with the thickness in some
places, and I had more than I needed."
     "If it wasn't anything major, then why are you standing
there looking like you've been robbed?" she queried him,
raising an eyebrow quizzically.
     "Because I didn't need to do it," he snapped peevishly.
"I've never had anything malfunction yet, and I prefer to be
equipped for every possibility. So what if my armor is
heavier than everyone else's?! I..." He caught himself
before he could start ranting, and sighed deeply again.
"Sorry; didn't mean to snap."
     "That's okay," the brown-haired singer assured him,
recognizing the traces of a bruised ego when she saw one. "I
understand." Somewhat, her mind added silently; it wasn't so
much the fact that he'd had to reduce some of his suit
systems that was bugging him, but the inference that he'd
made some design mistakes somewhere in putting in so many
systems in the first place.
     She didn't understand the more esoteric suit workings
herself, and didn't really want to. She knew enough to keep
her suit systems up and running during a fight, and as long
as they worked perfectly while she pounded on boomers, she
was happy. Her lover, on the other hand, wasn't as carefree;
he put a lot of effort into the suits, especially his own.
It had become an extension of himself rather than a piece of
equipment, and in some convoluted and obscure way he felt
that the order to revamp his suit equated with a personal
criticism of some kind.
     She sighed to herself as she looked at him; holding him
the way she was, she could feel the slightly angry tension
that was still riding him. If he was going to be any kind of
bearable company tonight, she needed to get his mind off his
supposed problems. Well, there was one way that had worked
in the past...
     Priss slid one hand up his back to the back of his
neck, and pulled him down towards her as she stretched up
and kissed him. Her lips melted into his as his arms pulled
her a bit closer. As she held him in a passionate embrace,
she slowly felt the tension leak out of him. A faint,
triumphant smile tugged at the corners of her lips for a
moment before she devoted her full attention to him again.
After a few long, very enjoyable moments, she pulled back to
catch her breath.
     "That...was...fantastic," he rasped. She noted with
satisfaction that he looked a little glassy-eyed as he tried
to get his own breath back. After a moment he succeeded, and
smiled down at her. "You really are beautiful."
     "I know," she admitted deadpan. "It's one of my many
charms." She grinned impishly at him as he laughed.
     "Modest, too," he noted lightly, giving her a gentle
squeeze. "I think you've been spending too much time around
me."
     "That's a possibility," she conceded blandly. "Want me
to stay away?"
     "Never!" She found herself seized in a tight hug again
as she was soundly kissed.
     "I'd better get changed," she told him, glancing at the
wall clock. "We're not going to have a chance to get dinner
if we don't get out of here soon."
     "Okay, okay," he sighed, reluctantly releasing her and
stepping back. "I'll wait outside."
     "Lipstick first," she reminded him with a grin. He
flushed, and irritably wiped off his mouth with a
handkerchief he pulled out of his pocket, stuffing it back
when he was done. "We'll have to see if we can't find a
colour that looks good on you," she teased him. "That way
you won't have to worry about wiping it off when ..."
     "Just nevermind," he warned her. She chuckled and
patted his cheek impishly before turning towards her makeup
table.
     "You know," Priss glanced slyly over her shoulder at
him as she pulled off her gloves.  "I can't understand why
you've never taken me up on my suggestion that you help me
change."  She smirked as he blushed uncomfortably; in some
ways he hadn't changed, and she hoped he never did. He
wouldn't be nearly as much fun to tease if that happened.
     "There's a time and a place for everything," he told
her, coming up behind her and putting his arms around her.
As she tilted her head back to look at him, he kissed her
softly on the lips.  "And this definitely isn't the place
for something like that.  I'll meet you outside."  Giving
her one last light, lingering kiss, he turned and left the
room, closing the door behind him.
     "Spoilsport," she muttered, then smiled to herself and
started changing her clothes.
                            ****
     Nene sighed in relief as she shambled wearily through
the door to her apartment, pitching her purse carelessly
across the small foyer of her cubbyhole apartment to land on
the couch. Closing the door behind her, she shrugged off her
uniform jacket while trying to step out of her boots at the
same time, nearly ending up in a heap on the floor as her
balance wavered. Grabbing at the wall to remain upright, she
finally got her jacket off and hung it up. Sighing again,
she padded towards the couch, flopping on it lengthwise as
she loosened her uniform tie.
     She stared at the ceiling for a few minutes, letting
the silence of her surroundings soak into her and replace
the tension from the long shift she'd just completed. There
were days she genuinely enjoyed her job, and then there were
days when she could quite cheerfully shoot half of her co-
workers, today being a prime example. She was positive that
she'd gone through several reams of paper just to complete
reports that others hadn't seen fit to finish off. Given her
own neat-and-tidy tendencies, having to clean up someone
else's mess grated on her, especially when it was due to
laziness on someone else's part. The fact that it had done
nothing but add to the workload left to her by the Chief had
stretched her normally cheerful demeanor to the breaking
point; if she hadn't gotten off work when she had, she was
positive that she'd have snapped.
     The slender young red-head stretched luxuriantly on the
couch for a moment, weighing her options for the night.
First on the list was a nice long, hot bath. She'd worry
about keeping busy after that. Standing up, she walked over
to her bathroom, closing the door behind her.
     An hour or so later found the young red-head
comfortably snuggled on her couch in her favourite fuzzy
bathrobe with a mug of hot chocolate keeping her company as
she drowsily watched TV. Her mind wasn't really on the
newscast that was showing though, instead just aimlessly
wandering from thought to unrelated thought. The thought
briefly surfaced that maybe she should do something other
than just sit there, but she couldn't even summon up the
ambition to move right now.
     Part of the problem was lingering depression. Even
though it had been a little more than a month now that she'd
broken up with Bert, she still found herself longing for
some way to patch things back together with him. It wasn't
until they'd stopped seeing each other that she'd realized
just how lonely things suddenly seemed. Linna and Naoko's
efforts to keep her active and entertained had certainly
helped keep her from totally collapsing emotionally, but it
couldn't replace the sudden hole that had been left by
nearly three years of dating and being together. She felt it
more at night than any other time; during the day, her job
kept her too busy to brood much.
     Nene took a gulp of her hot chocolate, trying to
alleviate the sudden soreness of her throat as tears stung
the edges of her eyes. The ache was still there, even though
she tried not to think about it, the dull pain from what
felt like a portion of herself being ripped away. She
couldn't really blame it on anyone other than herself, no
matter how much she might have wanted to; the root causes of
their breakup had been born out of misunderstanding and
hurt, mostly hers.
     She flushed guiltily as she remembered some of her
thoughts and actions at the time, and spent a moment or so
mentally lashing herself for acting so irresponsibly. The
damage had already been done however, so it was a pointless
exercise. If she wanted to move on, she was going to have to
put it behind her, and at least try and forgive herself.
     With a depressed sigh, the red-haired young woman stood
up from the couch, hitting the switch on the remote control
to turn off her TV. Silence fell over the small apartment as
she shuffled into the kitchenette and rinsed out her mug,
leaving it sitting in the sink. Flicking off the lights, she
yawned and went off to bed.

THE NEXT DAY ....




























                            ****
     The night hung inky-black curtains of dampness across
the sprawling city. In several dimly-seen locations, faintly
glowing streetlights and signs tried to pierce the murky fog
that was cloaking the city in darkness, without notable
success.  Cars moved cautiously through the streets and
highways, carefully navigating the tangled streets as their
drivers tried to get home without mishaps.  The thick night
air seemed to muffle sound itself, and the normally
boisterous city was muted,  as if it was waiting for
something to happen.  It was an unsettling night, full of
semi-palpable menace.
     A crimson beam tore through the darkness,  briefly
casting harsh shadows over the dark side street; a blue
combat boomer collapsed into a smoking heap as its chest was
blown out through its back in a spray of nutrient fluids and
armour shards.  A silver-and-blue garbed hardsuit advanced
towards the smoking remains, its helmet swiveling around as
the suit carefully probed the darkness for any new foes.
Finding none, it sighed, partly in relief, and partly in
annoyance; he'd been hoping that there would still be a
couple of boomers to thump.
     "SkyKnight to Saber Prime," Bert radioed.  "I've just
mopped up the last one; I think that accounts for them all."
     "Good work,"  Sylia Stingray's voice replied over the
helmet communications channel.  "Any problems?"
     "Not at this end," SkyKnight replied, looking around
again.  "It's awfully quiet out here, though.  I.... hello?
Hello?!"  SkyKnight reached up and tapped the antenna wings
on his helmet irritably, as the signal from Sylia suddenly
disintegrated into buzzing static.  "Sylia? Anybody there?!"
he tried again, switching to the backup frequency; no
response.  Bert frowned at his helmet display as his suit
computer declared every system fully operational.  If
everything was fully operational, then why had his
communicator just died?
     Uneasy suspicions began crawling around his mind as he
stood there, still trying to re-establish communications and
running systems checks; he'd never had an equipment
malfunction before, not as immediate and as total as this
one seemed to be.  At least, one system had never just
suddenly quit functioning without warning.
     The surrounding darkness suddenly felt oppressive and
menacing as he realized he was momentarily isolated from his
friends.  Common sense abruptly re-asserted itself,
banishing the momentary flash of fear he'd felt;  the smart
thing to do would be to get back to the rest of the team
right now, before anything happened.
     SkyKnight stepped forwards, his flight wings snapping
into extension on his back.  The whine of jet turbines being
brought to full power began to pulse through the air.  As he
ran through a last, quick preflight check, something clanged
in the darkness behind him.
     As the silver-and-blue Knight Saber started to spin
around, a long, snake-like metal tentacle flashed out of the
darkness, and wrapped itself around his armoured neck.  A
second tentacle followed it at almost the same time,
wrapping around the legs of the startled hardsuit at knee
level.  SkyKnight was easily jerked off of his feet by the
tentacles to hang suspended in mid-air, in front of a large,
dark grey mech.  The mech was a four-legged robot, with a
large cannon assembly of some kind hanging from the front.
As SkyKnight struggled to free himself, the cannon began
lining up on him, and an ominous blue glow began to form in
the gaping maw of the gun.
                            ****
     "SkyKnight!!  Do you read me?! SkyKnight!!  Damn it!!"
Sylia swore in frustration, angrily shutting off her helmet
communications array.  Her white-hardsuited figure spun
around towards Nene's red and pink armour suit.  The sensor
antennae built into the slender red-headed girl's suit were
all extended, and the suit was humming audibly with the
effort and energy it was putting into scanning for
SkyKnight.  As Sylia turned, the familiar blue and green
shapes of Priss and Linna came into range, dusting
themselves off from the brief scuffle that had just ended.
     "It's no good, Sylia,"  Nene reported before Sylia
could ask.  "I can't get any kind of signal at all.  There's
some kind of a massive damping field around; it just kicked
in, and it's blocking out everything.  I can barely detect
our own hardsuits, and we're standing right next to each
other."
     "Do you know which direction he was broadcasting from?"
Priss queried, stepping forwards, taking a quick look around
again.  She needn't have bothered; the mangled, smoking
remains of the ten C-55E boomers they'd had to fight earlier
weren't going anywhere, and there was nothing else out there
to see except the night.  Nene nodded.
     "He was transmitting from roughly northwest of here,
maybe a mile or so out," she replied.  "I can't really be
sure."
     "Well then let's get the hell going!!  What are we
waiting for?!"  Priss snapped.  With that, hissing jump jets
propelled her off into the darkness.
     "Priss!"  Sylia tried calling her back for a moment,
but it was a useless attempt; the blue hardsuit was already
far ahead of them.  "Come on!"  Sylia ordered.  "Let's not
get split up any further than we are now!"  It looks like
it's going to be one of those nights, Sylia sighed to
herself.  Why could nothing ever work out simply, without
all the extra hassles, anymore?!
     The three remaining Knight Sabers sprang into the air
on quietly hissing jets, and sped off into the darkness
after Priss.
                            ****
     "Damn you, you godforsaken bastard!" SkyKnight snarled
under his breath, thrashing around again and trying to pry
loose the slowly constricting coil around his upper torso
and neck.  It was no good; he couldn't get any leverage at
all to try and use his hardsuit strength to get free.  Using
his jets somehow was out of the question; the mech had far
too much mass to budge, and all he'd accomplish would be to
drain his power supply.
     The tentacles gripping him seemed to be covered with
some kind of high-tensile steel compound, and the actuators
were fantastically strong, putting some serious pressure on
his suit; it was getting hard to breathe as the cable around
his neck began crushing the armour in.  He couldn't even
begin to get it pried loose from his throat.  He also
couldn't figure out just what the strange mech holding him
was after; despite having armed its weapons, it hadn't tried
to kill him outright.  Not yet, anyway.
     As he vainly wrenched at the clinging cables again,
SkyKnight suddenly realized that the mech holding him looked
vaguely familiar for some reason.  It was very large, with
four, segmented legs.  The body looked reminiscent of a
futuristic space fighter, except that there was no
transparent cockpit canopy, just a pair of swiveling sensor
pods mounted on the front.  All in all, the mech looked like
a giant crustacean. It took a minute or two, but he finally
recognized it:  The GD-42?!  Impossible!  Damn it, what the
hell was going on here?!
     "SkyKnight to Saber Prime!!"  Bert tried transmitting
again.  "I need some help now, damnit!!"  There was no
response to his frantic entreaty; static hissed at him
mockingly from the helmet comm.
     Beginning to panic now, SkyKnight deployed his right-
hand lightsaber grip, and prepared to  slash through the
cables.  As the handgrip extended, whoever was piloting the
mech noticed the action, and decided to take steps to
prevent anything happening that might allow its prey to
escape.
     "AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGHHH!!"  With a brutally wrenching
jolt, the two tentacles snapped the silver hardsuit between
them into a taut, stretched-out position parallel to the
ground, preventing him from getting an opportunity to use
his energy sword.  At the same time, one of the mech's legs
swept out and upwards in a devastating kick, slamming into
the silver Knight Saber's spine, and bending him backwards
around it as the tentacles maintained a tight hold on him.
     White sparks flared agonizingly in Bert's vision, and
his breath deserted him.  Stunned and gasping, he was unable
to try anything to lessen the impacts that followed, as the
mech released his upper torso, and proceeded to use the grip
it had on his legs to flick him through a nearby brick wall,
twice, in different locations, like someone cracking a whip.
Loud clangs and crunching noises sounded in his ears as the
shockwaves of the numbing collisions battered him into semi-
consciousness.  Red sparks flickered through his sight, and
darkness began edging his perceptions; his suit hadn't been
breached, but the physical shock alone was deadly enough to
cause serious harm.
     There was another clang as the mech dropped the silver
Knight Saber to the pavement for a moment.  Had he been able
to think clearly, SkyKnight could have used the opportunity
to escape, but he was too groggy from the pummeling he'd
received to even try.  He flopped around on the ground
awkwardly, gasping and coughing, fighting to get his wind
back.
     As he automatically tried rolling over and getting up,
one of the metallic tentacles slithered down again, and
wrapped itself around his arms and upper body, tightly
pinning his arms to his sides.  The tail end of the tentacle
again encircled his armoured neck and applied a tight choke-
hold.  The second tentacle entwined itself around his legs.
     Its prey thus securely restrained, the greyish mech
lifted the battered silver hardsuit up, and carried it off
into the darkness.
                            ****
     "Whatever it was, it must have taken Bert with it,"
Linna noted quietly.  Her helmet visor swiveled around as
she looked around at the crumbled masonry near where a dead
C-55E lay splattered across the pavement.  Huge holes were
in a nearby wall, but it was obvious that the holes had been
made by physical impacts.  Large fragments lay scattered all
over, but there was no sign of a firefight; whatever had
grabbed SkyKnight had managed to do it without creating a
disturbance, and that by itself was disturbing.
     "He was definitely here," Priss declared.  "Look at
this!"  She pointed, and Sylia followed the direction she
was indicating; on some of the masonry and brickwork, silver
paint had been scraped off onto the stone.
     "Damn it,"  Sylia muttered to herself as worry
intensified.  She hoped he was all right, but couldn't shake
the feeling that they'd better locate him, and fast.
     "Sylia!"  Nene called, beckoning with a hand.  She was
standing away from the building, her posture indicating that
she was looking at the ground.  Sylia, flanked by Priss and
Linna sprinted over.  Nene indicated a large, vaguely greasy-
looking stain on the pavement.
     "That's one of the chemical compounds from that
shoulder gun of his,"  Nene explained.  "If it's a steady
leak and it lasts, we can probably track him with it."
     "Do it," Sylia ordered.  "We've got to find him.
Fast."
                            ****
     "You open his goddamn helmet!!  I'm not touching that
thing until I'm bloody sure it's safe!!"
     "He's trussed up like a turkey, you spineless dipshit!
He can't do anything to you!"
     "If you're so friggin' sure, YOU open it then!!"
     Bert opened his eyes, wincing as sharp pains lanced
into his head from where his neck had been wrenched around.
The view in his helmet viewscreen was upside-down, and after
a moment, he realized that whoever his captors were, they'd
hung him up by the heels; part of the headache he was now
getting was from all the blood rushing to his head.  He'd
have to get loose quick, and then get the hell out of
wherever it was that he now found himself.
     As SkyKnight started squirming preparatory to trying to
escape whatever was binding him, the horizon in his helmet
screen flipped right side up, and sudden crushing pressure
on his suit immobilized him.  He realized that the mech was
still holding him captive, and the voices that he'd heard
must have come from down on the ground.  He started to try
to over-power the tentacles gripping him, when the end
wrapped around his neck suddenly squeezed and twisted, as if
the mech was trying to pry his head off.
     "I'd suggest you quit trying to escape," one of the
voices he'd heard earlier commented.  "You'd save yourself a
lot of pain if you do.  Are you gonna behave now?"
     "S-s-screw y-yourself, y-you asshole," SkyKnight
gritted, trying desperately to get enough air and keep from
blacking out as the pain from his abused neck began to mount
in intensity.  His hardsuit began to creak ominously from
the stress.  Damn it, if only he could just get enough slack
to get a hand free...
     "I'll take that as a yes, then,"  the voice replied.
SkyKnight's stomach seemed to flip briefly as the mech
whipped him downward, slamming him roughly into the ground.
The cable arms twisted around, and he found himself forced
into a kneeling position on the asphalt, still securely
bound by the steel cables from the mech.  The mech quit
trying to use his head like a champagne cork, and he sighed
in relief to himself as the pain and discomfort receded.  He
looked around, finally interested in just who his captors
were.
     Two men in dark blue or black clothes were standing
several feet away, near a large, nondescript transport
truck.  They were both wearing light helmets with semi-
opaque faceplates that made identification impossible.  The
area where the men and the mech were looked like an old
abandoned warehouse somewhere.  There were plenty of
derelict buildings in MegaTokyo, however, so that didn't
give him any helpful information.  A grimy set of
fluorescent light fixtures was providing sickly illumination
from nearby, and a battery-powered lamp stood cheerily
glowing by the truck.  One man held a large rifle-like
device, and the other held a small gadget that looked like a
portable scanner.  The man with the scanner was pointing it
at him, frowning at the readings.
     "This damn thing is useless," the scanner wielder spat,
stuffing the offending device into a belt pouch.  "I can't
get a useful thing out of it; we'd get more by looking at
him visually."  The rifle-carrier shrugged.
     "We're supposed to wait anyway," he replied.  "Relax;
he's not going anywhere."
     "Confident, aren't you?"  SkyKnight put in.  The two
men looked at him briefly, then ignored him.  That, in a
way, was worse than being captured.
     Bert ran a quick system check of his suit as he sat
there helplessly; it helped keep worry at bay, and he wasn't
sure just how badly he'd been worked over anyway.  His body
said that it had indeed been a severe beating; he ached all
over.
     His stomach plummeted as a glaring red message flashed
onto his viewscreen.  According to his suit computer,  the
rough treatment had damaged the heat sink system that
provided all of the cooling for his suit systems; the fact
that his shoulder-mounted weapons had been wrenched from
their mounts had only added to the internalized damage.  He
now had maybe thirty-five percent of the cooling capacity
needed for trouble-free operation left in his suit.
     That meant that if he tried anything beyond just
fleeing, he now ran the risk of overheating and blowing out
his suit powerplant.  The suits and their hardware were kept
cool by heat sinks that radiated the excess heat to the air,
some of the excess heat being used by their flight systems
for added thrust.  Under normal circumstances, the heat
exchange systems operated flawlessly, having been designed
to withstand a lot of abuse.  Apparently, this time, their
abuse limit had been exceeded.
     Bert began to sweat as he realized that, whatever he
tried now, it was going to have to work the first time;  the
likelihood of having his powerplant blow wouldn't allow any
second chances.  And it stood a good chance of failure
anyway; he couldn't avoid using any weaponry to get away,
and his weapons systems were by far the hottest parts of the
hardsuit when operating.
     SkyKnight tentatively tensed himself to see how
attentive the robot was.  Very attentive, he noted a moment
later, wincing as the cables gripping him squeezed
warningly, then released.  Shit! Bert swore mentally.  He
couldn't remember having been as securely trapped as this,
and it was a little hard not to panic.  He swore at himself,
several times, in scorchingly unflattering terms for getting
caught with his guard down in the first place.  Damn it, one
would almost think that by now, given everything that had
happened in the past, he'd keep a warier eye out for
trouble, especially since he knew that there were people
gunning for the Knight Sabers.
     As he sat there stewing over his predicament, slow and
steady footsteps sounded out in the darkness beyond the
circle of light drawing nearer, and there was the dull thud
of someone extremely heavy shadowing the lighter footsteps.
Two people, then.  SkyKnight tried once more to see if he
could get a hand free, and resisted the impulse to cry out
in combined frustration and anger as the mech's tentacles
again crushed him slightly, then relaxed.
     A light-coloured shape appeared in the darkness beyond
the circle of light, gradually resolving into a tall, well-
built man in a grey suit with blond hair and steely-blue
eyes.  Immediately behind him walked a bulky, blue-armoured
C-55 boomer, evidently acting as a bodyguard.  SkyKnight
recognized the blond-haired man immediately; his muscles
tensed and he tried to break free once more,  the sudden
urge to physically dismember Hollister taking over.
     SkyKnight managed to suppress an enraged shout, as the
tentacles binding him tightened and squeezed again.  Red
waves of pain swam through his sight, and after a moment of
infuriated thrashing, the silver hardsuit relaxed again,
wanting to cry and howl in fury at the same time at being
held helpless.  A noise suspiciously like a snarl did escape
the silver-and-blue clad hardsuit, though, as he glared at
Hollister, the man who'd sat smirking and joking while he'd
been writhing in total agony, tied to a chair.
     He'd escaped from the bastard, but still bore
psychological scarring from the experience, some of which he
wasn't sure would ever heal.  That, combined with everything
that had happened when the rest of the Knight Sabers had
gone after him and his cohorts, made SkyKnight want to kill
the grey-suited man as slowly and as excruciatingly as
possible.  He wanted Hollister to suffer as greatly as
everyone he'd injured had.  In the back of his mind, some
small part of him protested,  crying out at the thought of
deliberate, cold-blooded murder, but it was powerless to
affect him at the moment.  Killing Hollister was all he
could think of right now; somebody as evil as he was
couldn't be allowed to exist any longer.
     Caution suddenly cut through the veil of anger running
rampant through his mind, as the sudden strangeness of the
way he'd been captured struck him.  It had been very
smoothly and quietly accomplished, like his captors didn't
want the rest of the Knight Sabers involved.  A vague,
amorphous suspicion of what was going to happen began to
form in the back of his mind as he contemplated his
situation, and fear began to wrap cold, clammy tendrils
around his backbone.
     "Excellently done, gentlemen,"  Hollister's suave, cool
voice complimented the two guards standing nearby.  The grey-
suited man ran an appraising gaze over the silver hardsuit.
"We've acquired exactly what we were after, with no problems
and no fuss."
     "Thank you, sir,"  they chorused.  Hollister didn't
acknowledge them further, but walked over to stand a few
feet away from the restrained SkyKnight, the blue boomer
shadowing him.
     "Mind telling me what this is all about?" SkyKnight
asked, trying to sound like he didn't know what was going
on.
     "Don't play innocent,"  Hollister advised coolly.  "I
think you know exactly what this is about.  You're one of
the Knight Sabers, SkyKnight I believe is the sobriquet you
use, and I believe I have some unfinished business with
you."
     "I still don't know what you're talking about.  I'd
remember meeting scum like you if I'd....AAARGGH!!"
SkyKnight's voice cut off, turning into a pained yell as the
mech tried turning his spine into a pretzel, bending him
over backwards.  The pressure eased, and the tentacles
forced him again to a kneeling position.  Hollister had an
amused smirk on his face, and Bert's gauntleted hands
clenched in helpless fury as the smug bastard shook his
head.
     "Let me tell you a story,"  Hollister began in a folksy
manner.  He pulled up a nearby crate and sat down.  "Here's
the condensed version:  A few months ago, my partners and I
acquired some sexaroids for a project we were working on.
At the same time, we ran into someone with red hair and
green-brown eyes who'd been helping them, but we couldn't
identify him.  A short while later, he escaped, helping the
sexaroids to escape at the same time, and in the process he
destroyed one of our temporary operating locations.
Sometime after that, my partners and I found ourselves
confronted by the Knight Sabers, whom we'd never
inconvenienced in any way whatsoever.  They trashed yet
another of our operating locations, and I found myself
wondering just why they'd taken an interest in our little
business."  Hollister paused, looking thoughtful.  SkyKnight
remained silent, sudden dread of what was coming gnawing at
his guts.
     "I checked back on the history of the Knight Sabers,
what there was of it," Hollister continued, "and found out
that they'd been involved with a sexaroid-related incident
before: that D.D. Battlemover fiasco that SDPC botched big-
time.  The coincidence was a little too neat for my tastes;
further checking revealed that no remains of the battlemover
pilot had ever been found.  That of course, led to the
conclusion that one of the sexaroids we'd acquired had been
the one involved with the battlemover, which explained why
the Knight Sabers intervened:  they evidently considered her
an ally of theirs for some reason.  However, since we were
very secretive in how we acquired the `roid, there was no
way for them to have known it was us," Hollister paused,
staring intently at the now rigid silver suit.  "No way,
that is, unless one of them had been involved earlier.
Since their membership at the time was four women and one
man, it wasn't a great leap of logic to conclude that the
red-haired irritant we'd dealt with before must be
SkyKnight."
     "You're smoking drugs, buddy," SkyKnight said, managing
to briefly ignore the sudden dryness in his mouth, and the
tight feeling in his guts that had appeared as he'd listened
to Hollister.  "I don't know anybody with red hair."  Oh
God, somebody had finally figured out who he was, or thought
they had.
     "Go ahead, keep bluffing," Hollister said smoothly.  "I
know that when we pry that helmet off you, we're going to
find a red-haired pain-in-the-ass inside that suit, and then
we can really get down to business."
     "You went to all this trouble just to find out who I
am?"  SkyKnight stalled, mentally bracing himself for some
kind of action.  He couldn't just sit there and let them
expose him; his mind raced frantically, trying to find
something to try.
     "Not quite," the blond-haired man replied.  "We were
interested in your suit technology anyway, and this was just
icing on the cake, really.  If I'm right, and I know I am,
then we're going to get a great deal of satisfaction out of
wringing what you know out of you.  This time, I'll be able
to do it properly, and you're going to sing like a canary
when we're done."
     "You're out of luck, then.  I can't carry a tune in a
bucket."
     "Fine. Make stupid jokes,"  Hollister sighed.  "You
won't be laughing much longer, I promise you."  With that,
the grey suited man stepped fowards, his hands reaching
towards SkyKnight's visor.  SkyKnight jerked his head away,
and tried yet again to get free, but the cables entwining
him squeezed him into immobility.  The pressure was so
great, he could barely breathe, even with his armour's
protection.  Hollister's mouth twitched in an almost-smile
at his effort.
     "You can't get away," he informed Bert.  "Just accept
it."  His hands grasped the red-eyeslotted visor, and tried
to open it.  Hollister frowned as the visor remained
stubbornly closed.  He stepped closer to the imprisoned
hardsuit, braced himself, and reefed on SkyKnight's helmet
again, pulling up on the visor with one hand, shoving down
on the suit with the other.  Other than bending Bert's head
back, he couldn't budge the helmet.
     "Open that damn visor,"  Hollister ordered flatly,
stepping back as an irritated expression at being thwarted
appeared.  "Open it now, or we'll tear it off."
     "Screw yourself, jackass,"  SkyKnight retorted
defiantly.  He gave quick thanks that he'd managed to talk
Sylia into using helmets with visors that could be locked
down. Now, the hardsuit helmets could only be opened by the
suit's wearer, or another Knight Saber with the proper
access codes.  Trying to find out who was inside their
hardsuits was a favourite pre-occupation of a lot of their
enemies, and sealing the visors partially eliminated that
risk.
     "Fine, be obstinate,"  Hollister snapped.  He made a
curt gesture to the boomer nearby.  "We'll just rip it off,
then."  The towering biomechanoid clanked forwards, red eyes
flaring balefully.
     "No!!  Goddamn it, NO!!"  SkyKnight started thrashing
again, ignoring the pain that began to build as the mech
tried controlling him through its stranglehold on him.  The
boomer would probably break his neck trying to pull off the
helmet while he was helpless, armour or no armour.  It was
do-or-die time, Bert realized;  this was his last chance to
try to escape.  Gritting his teeth, he threw full power to
all his suit systems, then gave the emergency overdrive
command to his suit computer.
     Instantly, power hummed and crackled through the suit's
myomeric musculature, temporarily tripling its output.  The
interior of his hardsuit instantly became uncomfortably
warm, almost hot, as his powerplant began to overheat from
the sudden demand.  Bert threw everything he had into one
last heave; the tentacle holding his arms at his sides
sheared and came loose with a protesting metallic shriek. A
blue-white energy blade sizzled into existence split seconds
later as SkyKnight slashed off the end of the other cable
binding his legs.
     A tremendous clang resounded in his ears as he was
thrown backwards, past the grey mech towering over him, by a
driving uppercut from the C-55.
     The silver Knight Saber rolled, twisted desperately to
his feet.  Four crackling red energy beams blasted through
the air, and bisected the now-charging combat machine,
dropping it instantly into a smoking heap.  SkyKnight
quickly dodged a leg swipe from the mech, and began
sprinting for what he thought was the exit, ignoring
everything else except the need to escape certain disaster.
     As he ran, Bert was prayed fervently that his suit
would hold out just a little bit longer; it didn't.  There
was a sudden power surge from his now overheating systems,
and the suit actuators burned out, along with most of the
other essential systems.  SkyKnight staggered, tripped, and
fell heavily to the floor with a ringing bang as the suit
suddenly became dead weight on his limbs; he saw stars
briefly as his faceplate smacked into the concrete flooring.
Without the suit motive systems, he was left with around one
hundred and fifty pounds of armour plating and circuitry on
him that had to be moved manually.  Given time, he could
still move, but time was a luxury he didn't have.
     "Well, well, well," Hollister's voice said
contemplatively from somewhere behind him.
"Technical difficulties?  That's too bad."  There was a
grunt of effort, and he felt himself being turned over to
lie on his back, staring up at the rafter-laced ceiling
overhead.  A smirking Hollister towered over him, the grey
mech looming even larger behind him.  The smirk disappeared
when Hollister, bending over, again tried to open his visor,
and found it still sealed shut.
     "Stubborn, aren't you?" he observed.  Sighing, he
straightened up, turning towards the armed men standing
nearby; they'd been caught by surprise by the sudden flurry
of events, and hadn't had a chance to move.  "We'll have to
improvise;  get me one of the demolitions charges, with a
timer."
     Inside his suit, Bert began to really sweat, as fear
began shredding his mind.
                            ****
     "Sylia!!!"  Priss hissed angrily.  "What the hell are
we waiting for?!  We've got to get him out of there now!"
She pulled back from the shattered windowframe she'd been
peering through; through the aperture, the Knight Sabers
could see a silver-clad form laying on the floor, with a
large mech standing menacingly over him.  They'd arrived in
time to see his last-ditch escape attempt, and were now in a
quandary over how to proceed.
     "Shut up and let me think!!"  Sylia shot back tightly
as her mind raced.  "We can't just charge in with our guns
blazing; that mech is too powerful to challenge directly."
     "They're gonna either kill him or find out who he is,
damnit!!"
     "I know that!!" Sylia snarled, rounding angrily on
Priss' blue hardsuit.  "But we've got to have some kind of a
plan first!"
     "Think fast, then,"  Nene's voice cut in, a slight
quaver evident in it.  "They've just put something on his
suit that my sensors say is a bomb."
     Sylia swore softly to herself, feeling time steal away
from her like sand through her fingers. Part of her did want
to just charge in like Priss wanted to, but a blind charge
wouldn't help SkyKnight; they had to have some kind of
plan....
     "Sylia, what do you want us to do?" The note of urgency
in Linna's question drove the fear and concern from her
mind, leaving a fatalistic resignation in its place.
     "Linna, you're with me," she ordered crisply. "Priss,
you and Nene are going to have to get SkyKnight out of there
while we run decoy. Nene, I want you to concentrate on the
bomb while Priss moves him....."
                            ****
     "This is what's called a `shaped charge',"  Hollister
explained, as he bent down and placed a flat, black,
rectangular object on SkyKnight's chest armour.  The device
stuck immediately, as if being held in place by some kind of
adhesive.  By tilting his head slightly, Bert could just
barely see a digital LED readout on the end of the gadget.
The timer started running as he watched.
     "Marvelous invention,"  Hollister proclaimed, stepping
back.  "A shaped charge directs most, if not all, of its
force into one blast in one direction, sparing the
surroundings any damage from the explosion.  It's all
directed at your chest right now, by the way."
     "Great,"  SkyKnight croaked through a now thoroughly
dry mouth.  Somebody help me, please! a terrified voice
pleaded in the back of his mind.  I really don't want to
die, especially not like this!
     "Of course," the blond-haired creep suggested casually,
"you could just open your helmet for us, and then we could
shut it off, sparing you a very unpleasant death;  the blast
may not penetrate your armour plating, but the physical
shock from the concussion will turn your vital organs into
thick jelly.  I don't imagine that feels very nice."
     SkyKnight wavered for a moment, almost surrendering as
the prospect of his imminent demise loomed very large and
ugly in his mind.  He wanted to live, desperately, but he
didn't really believe Hollister was telling the truth.  At
the same time, however, he didn't want to go through another
torture session, which was what would undoubtedly happen.
He also couldn't betray his friends; if they got a positive
ID on him, then there was a very real possibility of someone
tracking down the rest of the Knight Sabers based on that
information.
     "Go to hell," SkyKnight replied wearily, letting his
helmeted head drop back to lie on the floor.  "You're not
getting anything from me, you bastard."
     "Suit yourself,"  Hollister shrugged carelessly.  "We
can ID the remains, then."  Turning, he walked away, out of
his field of vision.





<LATER>


     "Nene?!"  SkyKnight tore the door off the van, not even
bothering to try using the handle to open it.  Metal
squealed in protest as it tore beneath his assault.  Light
flooded into the grimy interior of the van, revealing a
limp, red-haired form laying on the floor.
     "Nene!!" SkyKnight was inside in an instant, kneeling
by her side.  Nene's eyes were closed, and she was extremely
pale-looking.  She'd been tightly bound and gagged, and he
gently cut the ropes holding her with his swordblade, and
gingerly eased the gag out of her mouth.  He cradled her
slack body in his arms, trying to keep from shaking as he
carefully bore her out of the van, over to a patch of nearby
grass.  He eased her body onto the ground, stretching her
out, and again knelt at her side.
     "Come on, Nene," he pleaded quietly, shaking her
shoulder gently but insistently.  "Please wake up."  Her
head lolled slackly to the side, and there was no response
from her at all; in fact, she hardly appeared to be
breathing.  Icy fear lanced deep into his vitals; gritting
his teeth, praying he was wrong, Bert ran a detailed scan on
the young woman.  The ice in his guts abruptly exploded to
fill every fibre of his being with numbing fear.
     Nene was just barely alive; her pulse rate was
dangerously low, and her breathing wasn't much better.
Based on his limited experience with medical matters, he'd
have said she was very close to going into a coma, if she
hadn't already.
     "Oh God NO!" he burst out in denial as the thought
struck him with brutal force.  "Nene!!  Come on, wake up!!"
Everything started turning blurry as his eyes filled with
tears; in the back of his mind, something stirred and began
to rumble ominously.  "Wake up, damnit!!"  He started to
reach forwards to shake her again, but a white-armoured arm
appeared and gently restrained his reaching hand.
     "Easy," Sylia's modulated voice said from above and
slightly behind him.  "Priss and Linna are getting an
ambulance.  Just take it easy, and try to keep calm; shaking
her isn't going to help her."
     "Keep calm?!" he snarled, surging to his feet and
whirling towards her, gauntlets clenching in fury.  Sylia
involuntarily stepped back a pace as he towered over her.
"You expect me to keep calm?!  Nene's laying there,
just...just...and it's...my..."  SkyKnight's gauntleted
hands slammed into his helmet as he grabbed wildly at his
head, arching backwards, obviously in distress.  Everything
suddenly seemed to be awash in flames of burning anger, as
the rumble in the back of his mind exploded into a deafening
roar.
     Concerned, Sylia started to step forwards, but was
driven backwards a moment later, ears ringing from the
enraged howl that burst from SkyKnight's armoured form.  The
savage bellow was laden with white-hot fury, overlaid with
guilt and grief, and it seemed to shake the ground itself.
Sylia was positive it was heard all over MegaTokyo, since
everything seemed to stand still for a moment after the
echoes from the cry died out.
     "HOLLISTER!!!!! YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!! YOU'RE
DEAAAAAAD!!!!!!"
                            ****
     "My oh my, you're really scaring me," Hollister
chuckled derisively, leaning back in his chair. With a smug,
self-satisfied smile, he reached out and pressed a switch,
killing the transmission link to the remote surveillance
devices in the distant van.
     The image of a white battlesuit confronting a much
larger silver one was replaced by the blankness of a dead
screen as Hollister stood up from his desk and walked away.
                            ****
     "Bert!!  For God's sake, snap out of it!!" Sylia
pleaded.  SkyKnight didn't appear to hear her, but marched
inexorably towards the KnightWing, and the smaller, dark
blue vehicle with silver trim sitting next to it.  She
shoved on his chest armour again, trying to stop him, but he
continued to walk forwards as if she wasn't there.  The
treads on Sylia's hardsuit boots were leaving ruts in the
ground from the effort she was exerting in trying to stop
his advance; he was pushing her aside like her hardsuit
wasn't even there.  "This isn't going to help Nene!" she
tried.  "I realize you're upset, but please, going on a
rampage isn't going to help!"
     "I'm going to kill him," SkyKnight replied, an eerie,
flat tone to his voice.  The words were evenly spaced, and
chilling in their utter finality.  They were also the only
words Sylia had been able to get out of him for the last few
minutes.
     Behind them, two bewildered paramedics were carefully
easing a stretcher containing a comatose red-haired young
woman into the back of an ambulance, under the supervision
of a pair of hardsuits, one blue with red stripes, and the
other olive-green.  Priss and Linna had more or less
hijacked the ambulance in order to get it there, and once
the gravity of the situation had hit them, the paramedics
had lost their objections and immediately taken over,
stabilizing Nene's condition as well as they could.  They
hadn't been able to shed any more light on what was wrong
with her, other than to say it appeared to be an allergic
reaction to something.
     "SkyKnight," Sylia said sharply, her tone becoming
hard.   "This is a direct order:  Stop right now, and power
down your suit."  The silver hardsuit ignored her, still
stomping forwards like an automaton, gauntleted hands
clenching and unclenching.  Sylia braced herself again,
trying to halt him, but again, her suit alone wasn't strong
enough; he'd built his suit up too well, she realized. She
made a mental note to make damn sure his suit was rebuilt
into less of a juggernaut when this was over.
     The shrill wail of an emergency siren cut through the
air as the ambulance carrying Nene raced off towards the
city core, and the promise of better medical facilities.
Priss and Linna spun sharply as the ambulance left, and
began sprinting towards where the confrontation was taking
place.
     SkyKnight continued to march forward, shoving his white-
hardsuited leader back and ignoring everything but the
burning ache for revenge. His implacable advance had brought
him to within thirty feet of the KnightWing, and the
WarHorse sitting next to it.  Since reasonable entreaty had
failed, Sylia decided to try a different tactic, although a
cold feeling ran through her at the thought of the reaction
it might provoke.
     "SkyKnight!  Either stop right now, or I swear I'll
fire," Sylia ordered, sticking the muzzle of her palm-
mounted particle lasers into the front faceplate of his
helmet.  She let the guns run to full charge, and braced
herself, sweat running down her face.
     The silver battlesuit stopped in its tracks.  Very
slowly, SkyKnight's helmet tilted to look down at her, his
red eyeslot beginning to burn brightly.  Sylia felt another
cold wave of fear run through her as the looming battlesuit
in front of her stared silently, reeking of menace.   There
was a taut, dangerous feel to the air suddenly.
     "Get out of my way, Sylia," SkyKnight said hollowly,
his voice sounding like it was an effort speaking.  "Either
get out of my way, or shoot."   His hands clenched, and he
started shaking.  "Go on, shoot me goddamn it!"
     "You don't mean that," she replied. Just behind the
silver suit, she could see Priss and Linna's armour-clad
forms moving cautiously up behind him.   "I know you're hurt
and upset, but going off the deep end isn't..."
     There was a loud clang, and the world rocked crazily.
Sylia saw bright stars briefly flare in her vision as she
hit the dirt, helmet first, landing a good ten feet away
from the silver Knight Saber.  Gasping partly in surprise
and partly in pain, she rolled over shakily, clambering back
to her feet.

<revamp>

     "Bert!!  Stop it!!"  Priss shouted over the angry
curses searing the air.  "This isn't going to help Nene!!"
She was gradually losing her grip on him, and so were the
other Knight Sabers;  SkyKnight was so enraged, he'd cranked
his suit into overdrive and was easily overpowering
everyone, regardless of the consequences it was going to
have on his systems, and on his friends.
     "GET OFF ME!!" The savage bellow that came from the
silver hardsuit sounded barely human, and utterly vicious.
"I'm going to kill him!!  He's not going to get away with it
again!!  I'LL KILL HIM FIRST!!!"  With a surging heave,
SkyKnight hurled everyone off of him and resumed his
relentless march towards his jet cycle as his hardsuited
comrades landed in a clattering heap.
     "SkyKnight! This is your last warning!!" Sylia shouted
at him.  "I'm not going to let you do this, so stop right
there!!"  There was no reply.  She hadn't really expected
one; in the back of her mind, she'd known that there was no
other way.
     "I didn't want to have to do this," she told him,
bracing herself in case her words did succeed in provoking a
response. "But you're not giving me much choice in the
matter." His implacable march didn't falter by so much as a
step.
     When Sylia had first designed the hardsuits, she'd
taken certain precautions to make sure that, should it
become necessary, she could stop somebody from taking their
suit on a revenge rampage before they went too far.  At the
time she'd designed that particular safety feature, she'd
thought she might have to use it on Priss at least once, but
that hadn't been necessary.  Instead, years later, she was
going to have to use it on someone who had a perfect right
to be angry, but couldn't be allowed to run loose.
     Circuits hummed as Sylia's comm system transmitted the
proper access protocols to SkyKnight's suit.  The remote
access link was accepted by his computer  systems without
question; her access codes guaranteed that much.  Sylia
looked one more time at SkyKnight, hoping he'd come to his
senses, but such was not to be.  He was mere steps away from
his jet cycle, and in a few more seconds, he'd be on it and
taking off.
     "I'm sorry, but I can't allow it,"  Sylia said quietly.
The silver-blue hardsuit suddenly stiffened as the Knight
Sabers' leader shut him down, locking out his access to the
suit controls at the same time.   There was a resounding
clang as SkyKnight toppled over like a lightning-struck
tree, smashing faceplate-first into the ground.