MEGATOKYO, JAPAN - MAY 2033

     "Here's the specs on the Knight Sabers hardsuits, at least all we could
get."  Annie handed Kowalski several printouts.  "They obviously have a
skilled hacker among them."
     "Is that any excuse for lousy intelligence, _Annie_?"
     "Perhaps it isn't to you, but it's extremely _hard_ to do a proper job
with someone jamming your signals."
     "Pathetic."
     Annie grabbed Kowalski by the scruff of the neck.  "Do _you_ want to
try doing my job?"
     Kowalski signaled to one of the boomers who walked over and grabbed
Annie's arm and gently but forcibly removed her hand from Kowalski's shirt.
"Please, Miss Madigan."
     Kowalski was laughing.  "I find it truly pathetic that the most
complete specs of a Knight Saber hardsuit are of the _old_ blue suit.  And
that was only because she had invaded the Tower during the Largo incident
last month.  You have to go to your enemies, _Annie_, not the other way around."
     Annie backed off.  "Tell you what, Kowalski, I'll make a deal with you.
Why don't _you_ do my job for tonight and _I'll_ take care of the Knight
Sabers and O'Brien for you.  That is, _if_ you're such an expert at security."
     "I'm truly tempted, but no.  This is too much fun.  Although perhaps
when O'Brien and Asagiri are both dead, the Chairman will promote me to head
of security.  After all, your job is only secure for life."  Kowalski turned
towards the van, laughing.
     Methos peeked out of the shadows, amused.  Things were going exactly
according to plan.
     "What the devil are _you_ doing here, Pierson?"
     Startled, he spun around and was face-to-face with Annie.  "Me?
Looking for you.  I found this in my office.  What is it?"  He handed her a
small box with a lens attached to one end.
     Annie took it and studied it.  "It seems we have an information leak."
     "A leak?"
     Annie nodded.  "This is a wireless coded surveillance camera, designed
to record remotely.  It piggybacks its signals over our own intercom system
to a master unit located somewhere in this building.  Undetectable and
mostly untraceable.  How did you find it?"
     "I noticed a shadow in my light fixture, so I got up on my chair and
opened it up.  This fell out.  I apologize that my fingerprints are all over
it now, and I probably erased any of the original perpetrator's."
     "Well there's nothing we can do about that now," Annie said.  "The
receiver’s got to be somewhere.  I wonder how much has been recorded, and
from how many locations?  Pierson, I want you to put this back _exactly_ how
you found it.  The longer you're 'off the air' as it were, the more
suspicious our mole is going to get.  But now that we know what we're
dealing with, we can trace it to its source."
     Methos nodded.  "And the Chairman?  Should he be informed?"
     "He'll be angry if we don't tell him immediately."
     "Shall I?"
     Annie nodded.  "If you like."

     "A leak?" Quincy said.
     "Yes sir.  Madigan is confident that she can trace it to its source." 
     "Good.  Pierson, I don't think I have to tell you or Madigan what to do
with the culprit once he or she is located."
     "No sir, I understand."  Methos bowed and turned to leave.  Then he
turned back.
     "What is it, Pierson."
     "Sir, I wanted to ask you...  You said you'd spare Asagiri."
     "That was when O'Brien had turned her loose.  Now that she's studying
under him again, she is a threat once more.  Do you have any objections?
Would you like to join her?"
     "No, sir, I would not."
     "Good.  Our continuing survival depends on the fruition of this plan.
If you object, you oppose me.  If you oppose me..."
     "I understand, sir."  Methos bowed again and walked out.

     Patrick sat in the passenger seat of the Knight Sabers' ground carrier
with Mackie at the wheel.  The challenge had come that night to Patrick's
cell-phone.  Kowalski informed him that he would be somewhere in the
Kawasaki dump after midnight, and if either O'Brien or Asagiri wanted his
head, they'd have to find him.  The problem was, his four boomers were also
wandering around the dump.  He'd gotten another to replace the one Asagiri
had so rudely destroyed.
     Simple military tactics.  Divide and conquer.
     Seeing no other alternative, Sylia ordered each Knight Saber out of the
ground carrier at different locations.  Patrick and Mackie would be more
valuable searching for Kowalski than actually participating in the fight,
which suited Patrick just fine, but slightly annoyed Mackie, something he
voiced to Patrick after Sylia had been dropped off. 
     "Look Mackie," Patrick said sitting back, "I'm not trained in hardsuit
operation.  I don't even know how to operate an Armored Trooper.  My
military combat days have been over for nearly a century.  But I can sense
another Immortal's presence.  And like it or not, I can cover more ground in
the truck than on foot, and that's where you come in." 
     "I know, but I can't help feeling kinda useless."
     "You're not.  We're playing an important support role."
     "_Support_.  All I ever seem to do."
     "Without support, the troops are vulnerable."
     "I guess you're right."  Mackie glanced at Patrick and noticed his eyes
had that distant look he had seen before in Priss when Patrick arrived at
Sylia's the previous evening.  Patrick felt someone.
     "Go right."
     Mackie complied.
     "Now... this left."
     Mackie turned.
     "Straight... RIGHT!"
     Mackie slammed the truck to the right.
     And saw a blue hardsuited figure pointing her railgun at the cab.
     "Damn it, it's just Priss," Mackie said.
     Patrick picked up the microphone of the coded radio.  "It's just us."
     "Sorry.  You find anything?" came Priss' voice.
     "Only you so far."
     "Brilliant."
     Patrick put the mic down and turned to his companion.  "Mackie, go
straight and put some distance between us and Priss."
     "Roger."

     Priss watched the ground carrier pull away, thankful that Patrick's
presence wouldn't interfere with her own search for Kowalski.  She began to
turn when she heard something behind her.  She wound up and spun, scoring a
power-kick right in a boomer's stomach.
     "That hurt, bitch," it said to her.
     "Not even bothering to look human are you?"
     "What's the point?"  It opened its mouth, revealing its blaster, and fired.

     "Mackie, Patrick, I've engaged a boomer.  Repeat, I've engaged a boomer
at the coordinates you last saw me at.  Inform the others."
     "Roger," Patrick said.  They now had one boomer's location, from there
Nene could locate the others and begin jamming their coordination signals,
using the ground carrier as a relay.  He switched to her channel.  "Nene?
Priss has engaged a boomer at coordinates 0, 4, 5, 7."
     "Roger.  Gimme a sec.  Yeeks!"

     Linna heard the transmission and immediately perked up.  Nene and Priss
had now both engaged.  She was torn between assisting Nene or continuing to
search for her own target.   
     She didn't have the chance to ponder the question.  A boomer emerged
from the shadows and threw a massive punch.  Linna jetted out of the way to
a safe distance, then turned on her transmitter.
     "I've engaged a boomer at coordinates 1, 3, 2, 9."

     Sylia stood on a pile of garbage overlooking the dump.  The flickers of
the ongoing battles were spread out beneath her.  She searched for the
fourth and final boomer, since Nene wouldn't be able to fight and scan.
Still, Patrick's words came back to haunt her.  _Was_ she afraid of what
came into her life after GENOM?  She had never read any classic Batman
comics, and had only seen the first movie at Mackie's insistence.  But that
one brief exposure had shown her parallels that were rather astounding.
Bruce Wayne, crying out against the injustice he suffered at not only his
parent's murder, but an ineffectual police department, donned body armor and
went out to fight those injustices his way, above and beyond the reach of a
police department that, dispite many honest and decent men working within
it, was far too controlled by the criminal bosses.  And when the movie
ended, with Batman finally getting his revenge on the murderer of his
parents, he had made it clear that it was far from over.  That a war on
injustice went far beyond personal satisfaction.
     And yet...
     In that movie, Bruce Wayne was mentally unstable, only able to work his
demons out of his system by donning that body armor.  It was the result of
witnessing his parents' death.  
     And far too much of that could be said about Sylia Stingray.  If Bruce
Wayne was a real human being, she knew that they would be able to relate to
one another extremely well, perhaps too well.  Was Sylia mentally unstable?
     Perhaps.
     But was it a mental imbalance, "rage" at her father's death and the
subsequent perversion of his technology, or simply a wish to protect the
innocent from injustice that drove her to create the Knight Sabers?
     Perhaps it was all three.  She didn't have time to ponder these
questions, however.  She saw the fourth boomer below her.  Activating her
jets, she leapt off of the pile of garbage and onto the boomer's shoulders,
turning her communicator on at the same time.
     "I have engaged the final boomer."

     "We've gotta help Nene!"
     "Calm down, Mackie.  Why?"
     "She's no kind of fighter, and the others will need her help."
     "All right, what've we got here?"
     "Missiles, a rail gun, some bombs..."
     "Missiles are overkill.  The rail gun should work.  All right, Kowalski
can wait.  Let's go."

     Priss wound up and punched.  The boomer dodged.  "You're good, but not
good enough."  It opened its mouth again and fired.  Priss dodged, executing
a back flip that would have made Linna proud.  She searched with her
scanners for the boomer, but it had disappeared.  Beneath the hardsuit, she
could feel hands on her legs, but it was too late to dodge.  The boomer
grabbed her by the ankles and tossed her against the wall of an abandoned
warehouse.  Priss felt at least one, maybe even two, ribs crack.
     "Seems I've been here before."

     The boomer saw Sylia a split second too late.  She came down on its
shoulders, knocking it off balance.  She jumped and landed on her feet,
aiming her gun at its head.  The boomer got up and ran towards her.  Sylia
fired, catching it in the shoulder, then jumped out of the way of its
attack.  She landed opposite it, and they sized each other up.

     Linna scored with her mono-molecular ribbons, slicing through the
boomer's left arm.  It groaned, spurting chemical fluids.  "That hurt, you
know!"  It picked up the arm and tossed it at her, which she dodged easily.
However, her attempt to jump onto its shoulders and place a knuckle-bomb on
its head failed.  The boomer leapt out of the way, and Linna wound up on the
dirt.  The boomer approached, ready to punch her, but she rolled out of the
way and jumped to her feet.

     Nene was on her back.  The boomer had tossed her aside like a rag-doll
and was moving in for the kill.  Nene squealed and blindly shot at the
boomer, luck enabling her to catch it in the eye.
     "That was a bad idea," the boomer said.  "Now you die."  It opened its
mouth to fire.

     Patrick had the boomer in his sites.  It was ready to open its blaster
up on Nene.  No time to waste.
     "FIRE!"
     He pulled the trigger, and the railgun spat at the boomer, catching it
in the head, chest, and limbs.  It collapsed into a heap of fluids and metals. 
     "Nene?" Mackie said into the radio.
     "Mackie!  Thanks."  She headed towards the ground carrier.
     "Don't thank me.  Thank Patrick."
     Nene was in the carrier now.  She took her helmet off and sat at her
console.  "Thanks so much, Patrick.  I owe you."
     "You can repay me by jamming the other boomers."
     "No problem!"  Her fingers flew across the keyboard.

     Priss noticed the subtle difference in the boomer.  Nene had somehow
taken hers out, either by blind luck or outside assistance.  That didn't
really matter, what mattered was that the boomer's sensory circuits were
jammed just enough to make a difference.  With her ribs fully healed, Priss
launched herself at the boomer, arming her vibro-blade.  She caught it in
the neck and sliced across, beheading it, and thinking of Kowalski.  The
boomer collapsed.

     Linna re-armed her knuckle-bomber.  She spun her upper body around,
swinging the ribbons to distract the boomer.  She scored on the other arm,
then jumped, placing the knuckle bomber on the head.  It exploded, and the
boomer collapsed.
     "That's mine.  And that's at least two."

     Sylia noticed the difference in the boomer's demeanor.  Nene had done
her job.  She aimed her gun just as the boomer began running towards her.
She caught it directly between the eyes and it came to a screeching halt.
Arming her vibro-blade, she advanced, stabbed it in the gut, and sliced
upwards along the seam.  Spattering fluids, it collapsed onto the dusty ground.

     "LEFT!"
     Mackie took a hard left that almost tossed Nene out of her seat.
Patrick looked about, trying to get a fix on the location of the other
Immortal, either Priss or Kowalski.  "Stop."
     Mackie complied.
     "Mackie, do me a favor.  Relay these coordinates to the others, and
keep your window open."
     "Keep my window open?  Why?"
     "You'll see."  He opened his door and exited the cab.  Then he took his
sword out and stood at the front of the truck.
     A hardsuited, helmetless, figure emerged from the shadows and stepped
into the pool of light that the ground carrier's headlights produced.  It
chuckled to itself slightly.  "O'Brien."
     "Kowalski."
     "Do you _really_ think you can beat me dressed like _that_?"
     "No, and it's not my intention to face you.  But my friend here has
five mini-missiles trained on you."  From behind, he heard Mackie open the
missile launcher and arm the missiles.  Good boy, he said to himself.  "I'd
suggest you don't move until she gets here."
     "Asagiri?"
     "You got it."
     Patrick heard two figures approach and stand beside him.  
     "Ah," Kowalski said.  "The Knight Sabers.  I have to hand it to you, I
didn't think you'd beat my friends."
     Then Patrick felt the presence of another Immortal.  Glancing beside
him, he saw Priss looking none the worse for wear.  "I am Priscilla Asagiri,
and I challenge you."  She armed her vibro blade.
     Kowalski put his helmet on and armed his own blade.  "I accept."
     Patrick turned to Linna and Sylia.  "Get back in the van.  If she
doesn’t prevail, I have to finish this."
     Sylia nodded and turned to Linna.  Linna nodded in return and
disappeared into the ground carrier.
     The two hardsuited figures stood in the center of the lighted area,
circling each other, sizing each other up.  Kowalski lunged, but Priss
jetted aside.  
     "If the suits are the same, the advantage will go to the better fighter."
     Patrick looked beside him.  "I thought you went into the van?"
     "I wanted to see this," Sylia said.
     "I understand.  But as soon as the final blow is delivered, get back
into the van and get the hell away."
     Sylia nodded.  "Priss is obviously better." 
     Kowalski attacked again, but Priss blocked with her own vibro-blade,
then thrust herself.  Kowalski blocked, jumped, then attacked.  Priss jumped
as well, parried, then thrust in mid-air, catching Kowalski in the shoulder.
She began to cut down, and Kowalski screamed in pain before he grabbed her
arm and pulled it out.  Blood began to cover his hardsuit at the wound.  He
backed away, armed his railgun, and fired.  The spikes caught Priss in the
shoulder and legs and she cried out, collapsing onto the ground. 
     Kowalski advanced.  Priss was pulling the last of the spikes out of her
body and armor when she saw the vibro-blade swing towards her neck.  She
thought this was truly the end, and was about to actually pray, when the
training took over.  When she looked up, the blades were crossed above her
head.  Slowly, keeping her blade locked with his, she stood.  Then she
enveloped his blade.  Although it was attached to his suit and she couldn't
disarm him, the motion caused him to loose his balance.
     That did it.  As he fell, she sliced at his wrist, cutting his hand
off.  He screeched, and collapsed to his knees, his helmet falling off at
the same time.
     "Sylia, get out of here," Patrick said.
     "Roger."
     Priss removed her own helmet.  "I guess this is it for you, asshole." 
     She swung the vibro-blade at Kowalski's neck, cutting through armor,
skin, muscle and bone.  Kowalski's suited body collapsed, and his head
rolled towards the helmet, hit it and stopped.  She looked at Patrick, not
sure what she saw in his face.  The truck backed away just as the Quickening
struck.
     It hit Priss full-force, exploding against the industrial trash of the
dump and the bodies of the nearby boomers, working its way beneath her
hardsuit.  She screamed in triumph, joy, pain, and sadness.  The onslaught
of Steven Kowalski's memories briefly threatened to overtake her, then
merged with the memories of Li Chin.  And then, just as suddenly as it
begun, it was over.  Priss collapsed onto the ground. 
     She awoke to Patrick's form kneeling beside her.  "Congratulations," he
said.
     "For what?"
     "For your first _real_ victory.  I noticed you didn't use any of the
weapons in your hardsuit, even though Kowalski used his." 
     "To be honest, I didn't even think of them."
     "I know."  He held his hand out.  "Come on, let's go find the others."
     "Sure thing, Teach."

(continued…)
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